STOP
PLAYING AND LIVE A LIFE WORTH OF YOUR CALLING
Mount Hope
UMC
Sunday,
April 4, 2019
Colossians 3:1-17 The
Message (MSG)
He Is Your Life
3 1-2 So if you’re serious about living this new
resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over
which Christ presides. Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with
the things right in front of you. Look up and be alert to what is going on
around Christ—that’s where the action is. See things from his perspective.
3-4 Your old life is dead. Your
new life, which is your real life—even though invisible to
spectators—is with Christ in God. He is your life. When Christ
(your real life, remember) shows up again on this earth, you’ll show up,
too—the real you, the glorious you. Meanwhile, be content with obscurity, like
Christ.
5-8 And that means killing off
everything connected with that way of death: sexual promiscuity, impurity,
lust, doing whatever you feel like whenever you feel like it, and grabbing
whatever attracts your fancy. That’s a life shaped by things and feelings
instead of by God. It’s because of this kind of thing that God is about to
explode in anger. It wasn’t long ago that you were doing all that stuff and not
knowing any better. But you know better now, so make sure it’s all gone for
good: bad temper, irritability, meanness, profanity, dirty talk.
9-11 Don’t lie to one another.
You’re done with that old life. It’s like a filthy set of ill-fitting clothes
you’ve stripped off and put in the fire. Now you’re dressed in a new wardrobe.
Every item of your new way of life is custom-made by the Creator, with his
label on it. All the old fashions are now obsolete. Words like Jewish and
non-Jewish, religious and irreligious, insider and outsider, uncivilized and
uncouth, slave and free, mean nothing. From now on everyone is defined by
Christ, everyone is included in Christ.
Last week we heard how God instructed Hosea to marry and
have children with the Canaanite harlot Gomer because of Israel’s continued
disobedience. Hosea and Gomer produced
three children – two boys (Jehu, whose name in Hebrew symbolized the punishment
of the house of Jehu for blood shed in Jezreel and LoAmmi, which means “not my
people” in Hebrew, and a girl named Lo Ruhamah, which means “no mercy” in
Hebrew).
I talked
about our study in Judges and how, just like the Israelites who did what was
right in their own eyes, we do too, and because we do, we stand at a
crossroads. We can choose to do what we
think is right in our own eyes, or we can choose to do what we know is right
according to God’s Word. We can choose
to walk in our own strength, or we can walk in the strength of God’s Word. We can choose to listen to every wind of
doctrine whether Republican, Democratic or Independent, or we can choose to
listen to the voice of God. We can
choose to follow the leaders of this world, or we can choose to follow the one
who will lead us to life everlasting,
It’s our choice.
The difference between us
the Israelites of the time of the Judges and Hosea is we have Jesus and that
should be enough for us. We now walk in
the newness of life that is in Christ Jesus; our slate has been wiped clean at
our Baptism.
Our scriptures today come from Eugene Peterson’s version
of The Message Bible because, again, the language is down to earth and easily
relatable. And there is a connection
between the two scriptures.
Hosea’s poem starts out with God declaring his love for
Israel saying that when Israel was young, a child, he loved Israel and
protected his people by calling them out of Egypt. Yet Israel was unfaithful and kept running to
other gods, worshipping other gods and playing at religion with toy gods – gods
that could do nothing for them. Yet, God
said he remained faithful, rescuing Ephraim from bondage. Yet, Ephraim never thanked God or admitted it
was God who rescued him. Now he wants to
go back to his cities that are racked with violence and unsafe. Here, Eugene Peterson uses language that
sounds a lot like the man who occupies the White House, doesn’t it? God says that the people are intent on
leaving his protection for that of the world system. He says they pray to a false god who does not
lift a finger to help. Hosea ends this section
of the poem with God saying he is not going to continue to be angry and destroy
Ephraim because he is a God who sits high and looks low and is a very present
help in the time of trouble.
Remember when we first got saved? We were all aglow and giddy with excitement
because we had found this new love and we knew that there was nothing more
wonderful than the new love we found in Jesus.
But after a while, many of us became comfortable with this new feeling
and we began to take Jesus’s love for us for granted. After all, we thought, he has forgiven our
sins past, present and future, so we can go back to living our life in this
world. Like many children who get bored
with a new toy, we looked for something else to give us that same feeling of
euphoria we thought we had found in Christ.
But the reality was, we weren’t really in love with Christ; we loved the
fact that Jesus was in love with us. It
was a one way relationship. We equated
what we felt when we first got saved with the love we had for a human
being. If we were sincere, we eventually
graduated to the realization that Jesus had a personal relationship with each
of us and we matured into a personal relationship with him – got to know him as
our personal Lord and Savior. The one
who sticks closer than any brother; who will be with us until the end; and will
be waiting to take us home when our time has come to go home.
But just
like a toy, as Eugene Peterson says, some of us play with God. I have said that some of us have one foot in
the church and a foot, leg, hip and waist in the world. Some of us are ankle deep Christians, some of
us are knee deep Christians, some of us are waist deep Christians, some of us
are neck deep, and a precious few are head over heels underwater Christians.
This week I wrote an introduction to a devotion I shared
on Facebook. The devotion was by a
gentleman named Arie Leder who was writing about how the Bible writes honestly
about human beings and that we are all unwilling to yield to God’s direction
for good, righteous, and just living. He
said that when the Bible describes the history of God’s people, we find that no
one is without fault. Even later in the
days of Israel’s kings, those who were not described as doing “evil in the eyes
of the Lord” – such as David, Hezekiah, and Josiah – were flawed. He said that even in this New Testament age
we read of lying to the Holy Spirit, moral immorality, being unneighborly and
idolatry. Then, he said, there are
abuses against women and men, murders, and wars throughout church history. Even through all of this, Jesus and the power
of the Holy Spirit still keeps us alive.
The devotion reminded me that the group The Eagles had a
song on their iconic “Hotel California” album back in the 70’s entitled, “Lyin’
Eyes”, about a girl living a double, unfulfilled life. The chorus of the song proclaims, “You can’t
hide your lying eyes. And your smile is
a thin disguise. I thought by now you’d
realize, there ain’t no way to hide your lyinn’ eyes.”
Like the girl in The Eales song, there are those who live
a double life as Christians. Ooooooo –
did she really say that? Yes, I
did! And, we know it’s true. There are those who are straddling the fence
of living a fulfilled life in Christ, playing religion with toys and idols that
cannot do satisfy and do nothing for them.
They are still of the world in some respects because the world is more
tangible for them than a life in Christ.
We are sensory people.
That means we can only affirm those pheromones (chemical signals that we
emit when we’re in a state of excitement) that appeal and make our senses of
seeing, tasting, smelling, hearing and feeling respond. But Paul is saying, if you are serious about
living in the resurrection life of Jesus Christ, then stop playing and start
living a life worthy of your calling.
Instead of pursuing those things that make our senses
feel good, pursue those things that make our spirit soar. He says don’t get absorbed with the things
the world offers and dangles in front of us.
Don’t be dazzled, as I said last week, but the world. Be dazzled by Jesus Christ and look at the
world from his perspective.
We were born into new life in Jesus Christ when we
accepted him as our Lord and Savior. Our
old life is dead. Stop trying to hold on
to something that can no longer give us satisfaction, peace, happiness or
joy. Jesus is now our life. We don’t need to be the most important person
on the totem pole of life. A lot of
times the joy in serving is in being invisible, behind the scenes.
You might be called to be a leader; be the best leader
you know how to be. You may be called to
be a teacher; be passionate about your calling and be the best teacher. You may be called to be a garbage collector;
be the best garbage collector you can be.
You may be called to serve others as doctors, nurses, in the military,
wherever – be the best. You may be
called to pastor; be the best pastor you can be. My mother used to say this and it has always
stuck with me - “Good, better best.
Never let it rest, until you good is your better and your better is your
best.”
We have to get control of and learn to deny the desires
of the flesh that keep pulling us backwards to death; those things that we do
thinking no one sees us or we excuse by saying, “God knows my heart”. God does know our hearts and He knows he sent
Jesus to save us from the temptations the world puts on our heart. He sent is only begotten Son – Mary’s Baby,
the Lily of the Valley, the Bright and Morning Star, Wonderful Counselor, Lord
of Lord and King of Kings, the Name above all names, Emmanuel, Jesus - and we
professed him as our Lord and Savior and yet we are doing everything that you
feel is right in our own eyes rather than what Jesus has commanded – Love the
Lord your God with your whole mind, your whole soul and your whole heart and
love your neighbor as yourself.
Stop those lyin’ eyes.
We have to stop lying to ourselves and to others. Paul reminds us that there was a time when we
didn’t know any better. But we know
better now and we will be judged, not on falling short of God’s glory in
innocence, but in falling short of God’s glory in the full knowledge of what we
are doing or have done is wrong.
Our old life has passed away and we are now new creatures
in Jesus Christ who loves us. Paul said we
should treat our old life like old, filthy rags; they should be stripped off
and thrown in the fire. We now have a
new walk and a new talk.
None of us are perfect.
We are all striving toward perfection.
We won’t all get it by osmosis.
Striving mean that we are working toward perfection day-by-day. Paul confessed in Philippians 3:12-14, “I
don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have
already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which
Christ Jesus first possessed me. 13 No, dear brothers and
sisters, I have not achieved it,[a] but I focus on this one thing:
Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, 14 I
press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which
God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.”
Beloved of Christ, we all
sin and fall short of God’s glory, but God is faithful to forgive if we ask
him. He looks beyond our faults. As the song says, “Lord keep me day by day.. In a pure and perfect way.” We daily strive for perfection in Jesus Christ. That is our purpose, that is our goal.
“Jesus is all the world to me! My life, my joy, my all. He is my strength from day to day. Without him I would fall. When I am sad, to Him I go; No other one can
cheer me so. When I am sad, he makes me
glad. He’s my friend.”
“Jesus is all the world to me, my friend in
trials sore. I go to Him for blessings,
and he gives them o-er and o’er. He
sends the sunshine ad the rain; he sends the harvest’s golden grain; Sunshine
and rain, harvest of grain. He’s my
friend.”
“Jesus is all the world to me, and true to Him
I’ll be. Oh, how could I this friend
deny when he’s so true to me? Following
Him I know I’m right; he watches o’er me day and night. Following Him by day and night. He’s my friend.”
“Jesus is all the world to me, I want no better
friend. I trust Him now, I’ll trust Him
when life’s fleeting days shall end.
Beautiful life with such a friend; beautiful life that has no end? Eternal life, eternal joy. He’s my Friend.”
And I pray Jesus is all the world to you.
No comments:
Post a Comment