The Hope of a New Heart

Sunday, October 20, 2019

            There’s a distance so great, it’s hard for us over here to understand what they’re saying over there.  We need to!  We need what they have over there.  We are 21^st century Christians.  They were Jews exiled in Babylon in the 6^th century BC.  The word of God spoke to them through the prophet Jeremiah is also God’s word for us.  How can we receive God’s word when the context in which it was originally spoke is so utterly different than the life we live in the world as it is now?  How do we span the gap of many centuries and receive the word of God? 

            We can ask questions.

            What was exile like?  Jews forced into exile Babylon probably lived in cramped, unsanitary quarters.  Most likely, they had to work long hours in menial jobs with little pay.  They had no civil rights.  They had no civil services.  To survive, they had to depend on their captors, the ones who forced them to live like this.

            What is life like for us, Christians in America?  Many think Christians’ social influence has diminished significantly.  More and more people openly declare that they have no religion: the “nones,” so labeled because when asked their religious preference, they respond, ‘none.’  As Christians lose our public voice, we fight with we each other.  In some cases, Christians are openly hostile to one another over theological or more often political or moral differences. 

            Does any common thread tie us to the Babylonian exiles, the original recipients of Jeremiah’s prophesy?  The circumstances are clearly different, but in both communities, a couple of dynamics are in play.  The exiled Jews were powerless.  Christians today feel like our public voice has been almost silenced.  The exiled Jews feared they might not have a future.  They feared annihilation.  Some Jesus followers today, with much anxiety, wonder what the church of Jesus Christ will look like in America 100 years from now.  Will anyone proclaiming the gospel in the next century?

            Written so many years ago and so many cultures removed from us, Jeremiah still speaks to us.  Listen these promises from God found in the earlier verses of Jeremiah 31.  The exiles desperately needed God’s words to be true.  So do we.

            “The people who survived … found grace in the wilderness” (Jeremiah 31:2).

            The Lord said to Israel (and says to us, his church), “I have loved you with an everlasting love” (Jeremiah 31:3).

            Next, God promises.  “Again I will build you, O Israel.  Again you shall take your tambourines and go forth in the dance of merrymakers” (Jeremiah 31:4).

“Again you shall plant vineyards … and enjoy the fruit” (Jeremiah 31:5).

            “Sing aloud … and be radiant over the goodness of the Lord” (Jeremiah 31:12).

            God promises reversal of fortune.  “Their life shall become like a watered garden and they shall never languish again.  Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old shall be merry.  I will turn their mourning into joy.  I will comfort them and give them gladness for sorrow” (Jeremiah 31:12e-13).

            God’s heart breaks for His people.  Calling Israel ‘Ephraim,’ God asks, “Is Ephraim my dear son?  Is he the child I delight in?  As often as I speak against him, I still remember him.  Therefore I am deeply moved for him.  I will surely have mercy on him, says the Lord” (31:20). 

            What do we see in Jeremiah 31?  God delights in his child.  He is deeply moved out of love for all his children, including each of us.  The New Testament epistle First John, in chapter simply says, “God is love” (4:7, 16). 

            All of the early verses in Jeremiah 31 lead up to this promise.  “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel. … I will put my law within them, and I write it on their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be my people” (31:33).

            I was touched as I read the comments of Old Testament scholar Gerhad von Rad in his reflections on this new covenant in Jeremiah, the covenant written on our hearts.  Von Rad sees this as something so unexpected that the change God brings about is complete and irreversible.  Once God plants his word in our heart, the written word is no longer needed and sermons are no longer necessary because, with the word planted in us, we no longer sin.  Von Rad says, “What is outlined here is the picture of a new man who is able to perfectly obey because of a miraculous change of his nature” (Rad, p. 182, 183).[i]

            Can he be right?  When God inserts His law in our hearts, does it mean we are able to perfectly obey God’s will?  Read everything in the Bible that comes after Jeremiah 31.  We know that’s not right.  We know people failed as disciples yet were God-worshipers.  We know God did not stop speaking after Jeremiah 31.  There’s a Jeremiah 32!  There are other prophets.  Jesus and Paul spoke.  Gerhard von Rad was a renowned scholar.  What was he saying as he thought about the new covenant described by Jeremiah? 

            I think the point he raises that we need to come to grips with is the idea that we become completely new.  When God writes the new covenant on my heart and on yours, we are no longer who we were.  The exiles had to learn how to be the people of God while in exile.  We live after Jesus came, died, and rose.  Our meeting with God comes through faith in Jesus as Lord as we meet Jesus in the Bible and through the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is God, leading us to confess Jesus.  Just as Jeremiah promised, God writes His will on our hearts. We become new creations (2 Corinthians 5:17).  The old me, the old you, has passed away.  We are made new in Christ. 

            In Romans 2:29, Paul likens this change to circumcision – the physical marker that indicates a man is truly of the people of God.  He writes, “Real circumcision is a matter of the heart – it is spiritual and not literal.”  That opens the way for non-Jews, uncircumcised people to be accepted as Jesus followers.  It also allows for women who don’t get circumcised to be marked as God’s people: marked by the Holy Spirit. 

But spiritualizing circumcision must not neuter the power of the image.  Circumcision is surgery, the most intimate form of surgery.  When God writes his law on our hearts, it is as invasive and bloody as when someone goes through surgery: open heart surgery. 

Does the change mean we don’t sin anymore?  Is that where spiritual growth leads?  This process used to be called sanctification.  Through our growth in Christ, we become so like him we become near perfect.  Is God able and willing to do that?  If the answer is ‘yes’ and God in Christ renders us perfect as the Father in heaven is perfect, can we still be said to have free will?  Or do we become spiritual automatons who don’t sin because we don’t have the choice to sin?

I don’t know.  I want to believe God’s promises, spoken by the prophet Jeremiah.  I go back to all those words hope in the early verses of chapter 31.  Finding grace in the wilderness; seeing mourning turned into joy; exchanging our sorrow for God’s gladness; I think about the most difficult experiences in life and I want this all to be true.  I want God’s law planted in me.  I want God to give me a new heart and to help me see the world that way He sees it. 

More than wanting it, I believe God does this!  Based on my experiences with God in worship, in meeting God in the Bible, in seeing God in my own private prayer time, and in encountering God as God is at work in the world, I know these promises can be trusted.  God does a new thing in each of us. 

I still believe in free will.  Jesus walked on earth.  People could touch God -in-the-flesh, yet they had the choice to reject him and many did.  He chose twelve disciples to walk with him and spend all their time with him.  No one knew him better.  They were Jesus’ inner circle, but they still had freedom, and they used it.  One denied him, one betrayed him, and they all abandoned him.  We can be ‘in Christ’ and still make mistakes.  The exiles had to choose.  Would they wallow in exile-misery or choose to be faithful God even in their circumstances?  Christians today, must choose to live as new creations with eyes fixed on God or to join the world around us and reject God. 

What is the path forward?

The exiles had to learn to worship God and live as the people of God in Babylon.  Another group of Jews was in Egypt.  The diaspora became the context for living faithfully. 

Christians in a world uninterested in God, in a world that glorifies the self must declare that Jesus Christ is Lord; Lord in our homes, Lord in our church, and Lord of the world.  So many signs point to a world that’s turned its back on God.  Violence run rampant; decreasing faith and declining morality in our culture; in the face of these and other signs of societal decay, we stand certain of this.  Jesus is Lord. 

That means we are always people of hope.  As Hillside Church, we follow Jesus, love others, and share hope.  Yes, Jesus died on the cross, but he also rose from the grave and promises to come again.  As we tell the good news about him, the Holy Spirit empowers us.  We are born-again, Spirit-filled people. 

Hope is God’s future for Hillside Church.  The reason we are in this neighborhood, in this town, at this time, ready to leap into the future with our new name and new calling is God placed us here with a mission and God calls us to fulfill that mission. 

Hope is trust that God’s goodness is without limit for those who choose to follow Jesus.  Through his prophet Jeremiah, God promised to write his word on our hearts.  We come before the Lord open, ready to be filled and sent out in his name.  It doesn’t matter how many people in our culture are believers.  We are sent to love all, believers and unbelievers alike.  We have the hope of a new heart and we are to share that hope.  The world needs it.

AMEN

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[i] Rad, Gerhard von (1962).  The Message of the Prophets, HarperCollins (San Francisco).

3rd Sunday of Advent, December 16, 2018 - Luke 3:7-18

            Waiting ... for Christmas break; students get time away from class and some have jobs that allow time off from December 25th to New Year’s Day; .  

            Waiting ... for Christmas morning, gathering round the lighted tree as presents are excitedly opened and a special meal is shared with the family.

            Waiting ... for the stroke of midnight when we get to shout “Happy New Year.”  

So much of this season is built around waiting.

 This is unlike any other time of the year.  We stretch out our celebration of Christmas.  Some grumble that decorations go up too early, or complain that the holiday has become too commercialized.  In truth though, a lot of people feel a unique kind of specialness.  We hope that during the holiday season, people will act a little bit nicer.  People in financial distress call churches and charities hoping the generosity will be greater because it’s Christmas.

But, to me it feels weird to say we are awaiting the arrival of Jesus because he came already - 2000 years ago.  Thus our Advent scripture readings are infused with double meaning.  Our ancestors in faith awaited the Messiah; we await the Second Coming of the Messiah.  

As we do, we listen to the sermon of John the Baptist preached on the bank of the Jordan River in 30 AD.  What does the arrival of Jesus - his first coming - mean for us now  - in the living of our lives today?  Why is it important that Jesus was born?

“The word of God came to John, son of Zechariah, in the wilderness.  He went into all the region around the Jordan proclaiming a baptism of the forgiveness of sins” (Luke 3:2b-3).  John preached to everyone who came - the wealthy, the poor, the sophisticated urbanites and rough-around-the-edges shepherds and fishermen; his word was for Jews and gentiles.  To all he said, “Bear fruit worthy of repentance.” 

The Bearing of fruit metaphor was used both by John the Baptist and by Jesus as a way of describing what is produced in the life of a believer.  Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Beware of false prophets.  ... You will know them by their fruits. ... Every good tree bears good fruit and every bad tree bears bad fruit” (Matthew 7:15-18).  Jesus later says, “God removes every branch in me that bears no fruit” (John 15:1).

Fruit is a sign of growth.  When we lead others, those outside the faith, to meet Jesus, we are bearing fruit.  When we help new believers grow in their understanding of God, we bear fruit.  When we guide believers into new opportunities for mission and good works, bear fruit. When we meet people in great need and help them out of our own abundance, we bear fruit.  When, through study and prayer, we deepen our relationship with God, we bear fruit.  When we encourage people who are hurting, and when we walk with them through their trials, we bear fruit and grow as disciples.

Jesus’ very drastic statement is that when we do not bear fruit, our connection with him is severed.  God removes every branch that bears no fruit.  There’s no such thing as casual faith.  We grow as disciples or our faith is dead.  “Bear fruit worthy of repentance,” John preached.  Repentance, of course, is making that full turn away from the temptations and cultural trappings of the world around us and turning fully to God.  Repentance is the most radical change one can experience.   “Every tree that does not bear good fruit,” John preaches, “is cut down and thrown into the fire” (3:9).

Anyone who takes the word of God seriously would, at this point in the story, come to two conclusions.  First, being thrown into the fire is judgment.  It is the state of being cut-off from God.  Failure to bear fruit, failure to live an active faith, is equal to calling judgment down on ourselves, and we do not want that.  We do not want to face life without God, much less face eternity after death without God.  The second conclusion is, we have to ask how do we avoid this judgment?  That’s what the crowds hearing John wanted to know. 

In 3:4, Luke describes who John is and what John is doing, Luke quotes the prophet Isaiah, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.”  John is the one preparing the way and Jesus is the Lord.  Because Jesus has come, everything has changed.  That’s why John issues the call for repentance, and that call involves changing is what our lives are about.  

What must we do?  The crowds asked that question and John offered a ready, practical response.  “Whoever has two coats, share with any who has none.  Whoever has food, share with anyone who is hungry” (3:11).   Judgment does not have to come for us.  It’s coming, and will be harsher than we can imagine and will be final.  God’s judgment is to be feared because God is holy and will not tolerate sin and every one of sins.  But, John offers a lifeline.  Share with each other so that no one is freezing or starving or crippled by poverty.

“What should we do?”  Tax collectors asked.  They collected taxes imposed by the Roman empire.  Roman soldiers would force peasants to pay whatever the tax collectors demanded.  Most tax collectors demanded higher amounts than Rome required, and got rich pocketing the difference.  They were thieves. 

What should we do?  John doesn’t tell them to quit the tax collecting business.  He says, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed.” In other words, work ethically.  What does that look like in your job?  Where you work, away from the church, in the world - that’s where your discipleship is on display.  It doesn’t mean you’re always talking about Jesus.  Sometimes we do.  At other times, you do your secular work to the very best of your ability and you do it honestly.  When we live in integrity, we bear fruit.  When we treat people around us with kindness, we bear fruit worthy of repentance.

“What should we do?”  Soldiers asked John.  The soldiers were charged with maintaining order.  They possessed unchecked power.  They could bully the people and take what they wanted, and they did.  What should we do asked these soldiers who felt convicted by John’s words.  

“Do not extort money by threats,” he answered.  “Be satisfied by your wages.”  He didn’t tell them to quit the military.  John did not impose pacifism as a rule for God-worshipers.  In fact, his answer implies they would go right on being soldiers, work that is by nature violent. But, if we take the bullying, the threats, and the intimidation of common folk out of their work, then soldiers are responsible protectors who can be respected and even admired.  When we use whatever power we possess for good, to help people, to contribute to people’s flourishing, we bear fruit.  Sharing, acting ethically and honestly, and protecting and helping are all ways we can, in our lives, bear fruit worthy of repentance.  We choose to live this way because Jesus has come. 

His coming, His Advent, is a sign that God’s judgment is coming.  We take that seriously and know that on Judgment Day, if we have to stand on our own merit, we’ll be found lacking.  So, we repent.  We live to worship God and help others.  We acknowledge God as Lord throughout our lives, not allowing any aspect of life to be secular, apart from God’s rule.  And then, we trust God.

John knew that Jesus, and not he, was the Savior and Lord.  “I am not worthy to untie his sandals” he says (3:16).  He baptizes with the Holy Spirit.  He will judge, collecting the good fruit and bringing it into God’s house, and casting the bad out to be burned, cut off from God.  We can’t control that harvest.  We can’t determine if we will be saved or judged.  God judges and we are at God’s mercy.

So John, offers something we can all do in our lives, right now as we wait.  Because Jesus has come, we can share, be honest, be ethical, be kind, and be compassionate.  With the help of the Holy Spirit, we can live as people of the Kingdom of God even while we live in the world, fallen as it is.  And John promises the help of the Holy Spirit because Jesus baptizes us in the Spirit and Jesus has come.

As we wait for His second coming, we live in the reality of His first coming.  Our lives are different than the lives of non-believers because the Spirit is in us.  The world needs us to be different just as the world needed things to be different when Jesus was born.  

So, find someone with whom you can share.  Find a hurting person in need of encouragement, or a lonely friend in need of compassion.  When your peers cut corners on the job, express your repentance by working ethically.  And the when the opportunity is there, tell someone about why Jesus is your Lord.  Invite someone to come to worship with you.  This is the Advent fruit we have to share.  And people are hungry for it.

AMEN

The New You (Colossians 2:11-15)

Sunday, June 1, 2014

            Often while reading articles online the advertisements in the side bar will be for weight-loss programs.  Whether it is a diet, a miracle pill, an exercise plan, or a combination of all three, the ad is the way for you to shed 10lbs in a short time.  Photos always accompany the ad.  Before, the woman was pushing 300lbs.  After, she, who is over 4, struts down the beach in a bikini looking like she could be on the cover a magazine. 

            It is effective.  I saw a headline this week that reports obesity as a serious problem is on the rise in every country.   The simple answer to the problem is to eat healthier foods, eat less processed and fat-filled food, and exercise.  Just walking for 30 minutes a day can make a difference.  But the point in the ad photos, the “before” and “after” is the change.  We want to be healthy.  We want to look good.  For a lot of people this means changes need to happen.

            Colossians 2:11: “in him also you were circumcised with a spiritual circumcision, by putting off the body of the flesh.”  Circumcision is painful.  We who have gone through it are quite happy that it happened so long ago, we don’t remember.  That’s bloody, visceral imagery.  Jesus tapped into this in John 15 where he says, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. ² He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.”

            Circumcising, pruning; does there need to be so much snipping and slicing and cutting for us to grow close to God?  Yes.  If we could photograph the totality of a person – the mind, the body, the spirit, the soul – there would be a “before,” and an “after.”  Like the 200 pounder trying to get down to 170, the one who wants to be in Christ has to get rid of something.  The allegiance to the world, the sin nature, the corruption that has infested God’s good creation – humanity – that all has to go.  Paul calls this the circumcision of the heart in Romans 2:29, and in Colossians 3:12 he talks about clothing one’s self with the stuff of the Kingdom as opposed to that which comprises our sinful nature.  It is taking off the sin as one takes off a tattered garment.  It is circumcising the heart so that the will is freed of the evils of sin.  It is pruning, cutting off the unfruitful, wasteful bits of life.

            Thus Colossians 2:11 - “in him also you were circumcised with a spiritual circumcision, by putting off the body of the flesh.”  N.T. Wright in the Tyndale New Testament Commentary says this phrase is quite tricky for scholars translating from the Greek (p.110).[i]  I found three potential ways of understanding what the apostle is saying.  I share each this morning because this idea of circumcising the heart is a matter of turning one’s self to God.  We turn away from all the sinfulness, death, and destruction around us and we turn ourselves to God.  That involves more than just one aspect of our lives and I think the three different pathways of understanding I read this week all fit.  

            The first comes from The Interpreter’s Bible, author Francis Beare where he writes that spiritual circumcision involves cutting off the “corrupt personality as a whole – what [humanity] is apart from the regenerating grace of God.”[ii]  Apart from God, we die without hope.  Death is permanent and any existence beyond death is an eternity without God, without God’s love and the fellowship of God’s family.  God is God of the living.  Every moment is a moment closer to our death and a Godless eternity.

            However, we have changed – become something different, a new humanity, because of Christ.  Colossians 2:10 says we come to fullness in Him.  And then our verse, verse 11.  We put off the body of flesh – we are no longer of the humanity under the fall.  We no longer are destined for death.  The change is not seen with the eye, but the reality is unmistakable from God’s point of view.  We put off the flesh and we are raised with Christ – raised from the death (Col. 2:12).  To read and understand Colossians 2:11, especially that phrase, is to realize our basic nature has changed because of spiritual circumcision. 

Baptism depicts this.  We go under the water – buried.  We are dead in sin and dead things are buried.  However, then we rise.  In the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, by the power of God, we rise to new life.  As new creations, we have put off the body of flesh.  We rise as eternal beings.

A second way of understanding this phrase in Colossians 2:11 is described by Fuller Theological Seminary Professor Arthur Patzia.[iii] This approach was taken by the translators of the New Living Translation which renders the phrase – “Christ performed a spiritual circumcision—the cutting away of your sinful nature.” 

This way of thinking is similar to the notion of transformed human nature but is more specific.  As people born again in Christ, “put to death” fornication, impurity and whatever is of earth, of the flesh (3:5).  We are told to “get rid of” all sinful attitudes and actions (3:8); simple to say, but is it impossible to do?  As members of the new humanity which is destined for eternal life not death, we are freed from sin’s grasp.  This theme runs throughout Paul’s letters.  First Corinthians 15 is one example.

“Death has been swallowed up in victory.
⁵⁵ “Where, O death, is your victory?  Where, O death, is your sting?”

⁵⁶ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. ⁵⁷ But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Because of the power of God at work in us, we can actually stop sinning and live righteously.  Of course this does not come easily our consistently.  If it did, Paul would not have had to write letters like Corinthians and Colossians.  Even after we turn to Christ, even after Christ takes ups permanent residence in us, we still have the power to choose how we will think and act in life.  We are still vulnerable to temptation.  Choosing to sin is walking the way of death, yet we do it.  Paul urgently reminds us there is another way and the power to turn that way, the way of life, is in us because Christ is in us.  Putting off the flesh, Colossians 2:11, is us yielding to a painful but needed procedure – the work of Jesus cutting the sin out of our lives.  This requires of us that we sit still and stay focused on him.  Sitting still and staying focused comes about when we live spiritually disciplined lives, practicing prayer, confession, worship, and Bible reading.  In these and other ways, we are present for God so that the Spirit may work in us, pruning, and growing us. 

We have been discussing, this morning, three ways of understanding a phrase from Colossians 2:11 – “¹¹ in him also you were circumcised with a spiritual circumcision, by putting off the body of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ.” We have understood ‘putting off the body of the flesh’ to mean the creation of a new humanity, one destined for life in Christ.  We have understood it to mean freedom from sin – a freedom made available by Jesus’ death and resurrection.  We are alive and we are free in Christ.  Because of this, we are part of something great – the Kingdom of God

This idea that in Christ we are part of something new is a third way of seeing the spiritual circumcision described in Colossians 2. This perspective comes from N.T. Wright.[iv]

He says, “The Colossians now belong first and foremost to the family of God, and not to their human families to which they formerly belonged.  ‘Body’ [from verse 11] can easily carry the connotation of a group of people.”  Putting off the body of the flesh in spiritual circumcision, which is marked by baptism, means cutting off old solidarities.   Our primarily loyalty then is to one another and to others who are in Christ.

The first way of seeing the phrase, a sense of new humanity, describes what we are.  We are born again, born to eternal life.  The second identifies our potential.  We are free in Christ, free from sin and free to not sin.  This third path of understanding builds on the first two by showing where we belong.

Perhaps this third facet of understanding is the most challenging to accept.  Are you your family’s name?  Are you your nationality?  What is it that defines you?  To whom do you belong?

Am I a Tennant?  Am I an American? 

Often this is not in conflict.  I can bring honor to my family name as I serve Jesus by loving my neighbor and in doing so I build up my community and help my country.  The three loyalties complement each other.  Just as often, the loyalties are divided.  In Colossians there was a Judaizing presence; mystery cult religions were around, religions that identified many gods.  There were local Roman authorities.  All these groups vying for loyalty challenged Christ-followers because often group loyalty demanded actions and words that ran against the gospel and the way of Jesus.  To make a stand as a part of the community of Christ followers was to draw the ire and scorn of the surrounding people.  But, we have put off the body of flesh, the human group loyalty.  That has been pruned.  We are connected to those who are in Christ.  Paul called on the Colossians to stay true to the Gospel even if it meant banding together and enduring persecution.

I saw this many years ago.  A friend of mine went to a family funeral, which was in another town.  When she got back, I asked about it and all she would say is it was a “Chinese funeral.”  That tells me nothing.  Millions of Chinese are Uyghurs.  Their funeral would be a Muslim funeral.  Many millions more are atheist.  What happens at an atheist funeral?  The fastest growing Christian nation on earth is China.  A Christian funeral would be very different than an atheist or a Muslim one. 

My friend said her relative had a Chinese funeral.  What she did not say was it was a Buddhist funeral.  She was living a bifurcated life.  She wanted to be in our church family.  She believed what the Bible says about Jesus.  She wanted to follow Christ.  But she wanted to do so without releasing her loyalty to her mostly Buddhist family.  She was not prepared for the pruning Jesus was doing in her life.  She did not want to put off the body of flesh to which she belonged. 

It is not easy.  There will be times in every believer’s life when our allegiance is tested.  Would I forsake the Tennants if following Christ required me to do so?  I hope so.  That is what Colossians 2 calls for.  When the moment comes, would you see yourself first and foremost as in Christ?

This does not have to mean abandoning those we love.  Jesus was not calling on my friend to forever leave behind her Buddhist relatives, people she deeply loved.  If she did that, she’d never be able to show Jesus to them.  Jesus loves them more than she does.  He wants them in His family and maybe she is the key.

We are part of the new humanity when we are part of Christ.  We destined for eternal life in the Kingdom.  We live among those who die daily because they have not yet received the life Jesus gives.  Our mission is to help them see Him.

We are freed from sin.  It has no power over us.  We live in a world soaked in sin.  While we are to not participate in the sin around us, we are to love those still enchained by sin’s shackles.  And we are, through humble, patient love, to help people see the way they can be freed from sin by Jesus.

We are connected to the body of Christ.  We no longer belong to our nation or to our families but to the Kingdom of God.  We still live in the world as it is, loving our families and living in them as a witness to Jesus’ love and goodness. 

Colossians 2:12 says we are raised with him.  Verse 13 – he has made us alive.  This is the new you and the new me – the new us; we are of the new heaven and earth, destined for resurrection, freed from sin, and made to worship Jesus as we draw others to him.  The before and after won’t be seen on a banner or advertisement.  It is seen in how we live, how we relate to people around us. 

Paul says we have received the Lord Jesus Christ; now, we live our lives in him (2:6).

AMEN

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[i] Wright (1986), The Tyndale New Testament Commentaries: Colossians and Philemon, Intervarsity Press, Nottingham.

[ii] Beare (1955),”The Epistle to the Colossians” exegesis section, The Interpreter’s Bible Vol 11, Abingdon Press, Nashville, p.196-7.

[iii] Patzia (1984), New International Bible Commentary, New Testament series, vol.10, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, MA, p.54-55.

[iv] Wright, p.109-113.

Review of Miss Brenda and the Loveladies

This is one of the most inspirational books I have read this year.  It is a fast, easy read.  But that does not mean it is simplistic.  The story is complicated.  The story is heartbreaking.  The story is uplifting.  I could not put it down and read just about all of it in a little over 3 hours.

Through the first several chapters, I found myself not liking Brenda.  Many times, I thought, “is she really doing this,” or “is that type of thing seriously important to her?”  She bothered me greatly.  However, by the end of the book, I loved her.  I could not be more different than her, but I loved the transformation she went through.  And I love that she presented herself available to God as one ready to be transformed.  I don’t know if she knew she was doing that, but that is what happened. 

This book presents the beauty and ugliness of humanity.  Besides Brenda there are many other characters that made me smile, had me ready to cry, brought a frown to my face, and made me grit my teeth.  When I finally closed the last page, I felt wonderful – wonderful about God and about people who look to God. 

I recommend this book to readers of every stripe.  You don’t have to be like the characters to like them or be touched by them.  You just have to be a human who is willing to present yourself to God that God might transform you.

** "Blogging for Books provided this book to me for free in exchange for an honest review."

The Transforming Church

Church: Where God does More than We can Imagine (Ephesians 3:20-21)

Sunday, March 20, 2011

2^nd Sunday of Lent, 2^nd Sunday of Church-wide emphasis

Indeed, in the present climate of mistrust of institutions, many people who yearn for a more meaningful and fulfilling life would regard the church as an unlikely place to go for guidance.
Hugh Mackay (Australian psychologist, social researcher)

My mind is my own church.
Thomas Paine (18^th century author, intellectual)

I don't have to go to church. The church is within me and the experience is my own. It's my life experience.
Mariel Hemingway

Anyone who is to find Christ must first find the church. How could anyone know where Christ is and what faith is in him unless he knew where his believers are?
Martin Luther

What do we say about church? What do we think? What do we believe?

Church is a place, an address, 201 Culbreth Road. Church is an institution, and mostly when people in the world reference the Church, they mean the Catholic Church. But, that’s not the case for people deeply embedded in the American Evangelical Church culture.

In that world, life revolves around the church, and the church is the building where a particular congregation carries on its life as a body of people who worship Jesus. “I just dropped kids off at the church.” “Honey, could you swing by the church and turn in our reservation forms for Wednesday night supper?” “Hey, are you going to Pancake breakfast up at the church.”

What do we mean when we say the church? More importantly, what does the Bible say about the church? The Bible says a lot, but this morning we will focus in on one letter, Ephesians. The message there shows just what is possible when a church is not an institution or a location or a building, but rather a gathering of people who are united in their belief and brotherhood in Jesus Christ. When Jesus is who binds us together and we together live in His name, God does among us more than we can ask or imagine.

We read in Ephesians, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ … he destined us for adoption as his children” (1:3, 5).

⁸For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— ⁹not the result of works, so that no one may boast.¹⁰For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life” (2:8-10).

“The gifts [Christ] gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, ¹²to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, ¹³until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.” (4:11-13).

In Ephesians, we see God in action. He destined us. We are created in Christ Jesus. Christ gave spiritual gifts. God has put all things under Christ (1:22). God is in all places at once – here as we worship, walking through painful recovery in Haiti, standing with the hurting in Japan.

Furthermore, this very present, omnipresent God is especially interested in people who gather in Jesus’ name. It says in Ephesians 1:23 that the church is the body of Christ and the fullness of Christ even as he fills all people. When we talk about church and specifically about church as it is described in Ephesians, we see God at work. What does Church assume about the world? Church assumes God is at work in the world, working with people and within people. God is at work here, among us, His church.

The church assumes God is at work among Christ followers. What does the church assume about the way the world should be? From Ephesians 2:

¹³But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

¹⁴For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. ¹⁵He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, ¹⁶and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it.¹⁷So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; ¹⁸for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. ¹⁹So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, ²⁰built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.

The church assumes people should be united. In first century Christianity, the most significant division Jew-Gentile. The earliest Christians were Jewish and they wondered could someone truly worship God if they were uncircumcised and were Gentile? The answer in Ephesians is yes, they can. Because of Jesus, that divide over circumcision was bridged.

Jesus bridges schisms between people today too. The most painful split in our country’s history has been between black and white, people of African descent and people of European descent. We are involved in two projects that are attempting to, in the power of Jesus Christ, overcome that historic split just as the first century church overcame the Jewish-Gentile split.

One project is local – Restoration Carrboro-Chapel Hill. The basic mission is to do home repair for lower income people, primarily widows, in the Historic North side neighborhood located behind Mama Dipps Restaurant on Rosemary Street. We are intentional about reaching out to historically black churches and historically white churches. Both traditions are represented on the steering committee. Both have sent volunteers who have given a lot time to the project. Both have contributed money. You can participate in this effort that does good works in Jesus’ name and intentionally joins believers across denomination and racial lines. Pray that God would bring in more and more churches, including Asian and Hispanic churches. And pray that God would expand our financial base and volunteer base. We did one project in 2010 and hope to do 2 or 3 in 2011. Ultimately we’d like to do 5-6 projects a year. Give. You can give directly to this work; just put your contribution in an envelope and write Restoration Carrboro-Chapel Hill on it. And volunteer. We need painters, handy men, and willing labor. See me or call the church office during the week to express your interest.

A second project that involves expressing the love of Jesus across racial lines is international. Over 50 kids at the care point in Kombolcha, Ethiopia are sponsored by HillSong families. Sponsorship involves giving $37 a month, writing letters to the sponsor child, and praying for him. You can sign up to sponsor a child today. See my wife. And you can volunteer to go to Kombolcha in Ethiopia for about 10 days in Spring of 2012. The trip will be a blessing to the 300 kids cared for in Kombolcha. And it will make a tremendous impact as our people return changed having seen more of Jesus by seeing more of the world. I hope at least 12 HillSong people go on this trip.

What does the church assume about the way the world should be? We should be united in Christ. In Ephesians, the issue was uniting Jews and Gentiles. Today, the concept of unity in Jesus is the same; one of the issues is uniting us across racial lines – African, Caucasian, Asian, and all others.

What does the church make possible? It makes this unity among varied people possible. What else? What does the church that is founded on Jesus and stands on Jesus and relies on Jesus and calls others to turn from sin and come to Jesus – what does this church make possible?

Ephesians 3:10 says, “Through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.” Astounding! What God does among us here informs cosmic beings, angels and heavenly councils about God. What do you or I have to teach an angel? Ephesians 3:10 is very specific. Through the church, the wisdom of God is made known in the heavenly places. How can that be?

We turn to Ephesians 6:12. The early church was assailed by people, Judaizers, who wanted to impose religious legalism. The church was also persecuted by pagans who rejected monotheism and demanded worship of the emperor. The church cannot worship the emperor. We worship God as God is revealed in Jesus Christ. We cannot be legalistic. We are a community of grace. When Paul looked on these attacks on the church, he saw something spiritual going on. “For our struggle is not against enemies of flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places.”

Participating in projects like the ones I listed, we fight against racism and hunger and in doing that, we, the church reveal the wisdom of God in the heavenly places. God has chosen the church as his way of battling evil and bringing love to men and women. The church, where Jesus is Lord and the Spirit speaks, makes it possible for people to know the things of God.

What does the church make impossible?

¹⁴We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. ¹⁵But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, ¹⁶from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.

¹⁷Now this I affirm and insist on in the Lord: you must no longer live as the Gentiles live, in the futility of their minds.

²²You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, ²³and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, ²⁴and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. (

The church makes it impossible to remain spiritually stagnant. We must no longer be children, tossed and to fro. We must grow up in everyway into him who is our head, Jesus. There are two choices; we are either growing in Christ, or sin is growing in us.

I know there people who spend their entire lives in individual churches, and you meet them in their 70’s, and they don’t seem to have the love of Christ in them at all. They seem mean and bitter, or worldly, no different than one who has never set foot in a church. And they’ve come to worship, Sunday School classes and other church activities all their lives. This type of life appears spiritually stagnant. In actuality, I would call that life a dying life, a life in which sin and darkness have overpowered faith. Just getting into a local church and remaining there, never growing, for 70 or so years is impossible. If that church is truly following after Jesus, the participants there have to either mature in Christ, or shrink away and refuse to clothe themselves with the new self as it says in Ephesians 4:24. In spiritual life in the church, there is no straight line. One is drawing closer and closer to Jesus. Or sin, subtly, insidiously grows in that person’s heart and actions.

Church assumes God is at work.

Church assumes we should be united in Christ.

Church makes it possible to know the mysteries of God because Ephesians 3 states explicitly that God has chosen to reveal truth to the world and even to the cosmos through the church on earth.

Church makes is impossible to remain as we are.

What new culture is created by the church? The transformational community. In the transformational community, we come and meet God. In the transformation community, we die to self, we give away our time, we give away our money, we befriend others we would avoid outside that community, we put others first, we love those we previously did not care about, we love our enemies, and we see dying as gain because we know in death we enter the resurrection.

I pray today you will prayerfully consider what part you would play in the transformational community – the community where we are “created according to the likeness of God” (4:24).

Some are in the community for a long time and never grow in faith, which means they are dying in sin even as they appear as a Christian.

Others are dying to self, and being filled with Christ. These are not the same as they were a few years ago, or even 6 months. They are changed, transformed, new creations.

There are numerous ways that transformed Christ-followers in the church live and numerous things they do. I have mentioned two – a local project, Restoration Carrboro-Chapel, and an international one, child sponsorship and a mission trip to spend time with orphans in Kombolcha, Ethiopia. I hope everyone here will inquire about these two projects. If God is calling you in another direction, listen when he calls, and move.

Don’t resist the call of the God or life-changing invasion of His Spirit into your spirit. Be a part of something that is beyond what we could ask or imagine. Be a part of the church, the transformational community where human beings meet God.

AMEN