Waiting in Expectation, Luke 2:25-38

Good Shepherd Lutheran Church

First Sunday in Christmas, 2014

In the early 1980's, Anne and I worked with Operation Mobilization, on the ship Logos. We joined the ship in Sri Lanka, then traveled up the west coast of India, then to Pakistan and Dubai, and then into the Red Sea, visiting Sudan and Jordan. In each port, we sold books (both Christian and secular) and had conferences for local Christians on various subjects. In some of these countries our programs were restricted, but we were at least able to minister to local churches, and in most places we had evangelistic programs as well.

The Middle East was difficult, because of all the political tensions, and because of the restrictions we had in some Muslim countries. We were in Dubai and Sudan during Ramadan, and the local people were grouchy and impatient because they couldn’t eat during the day. In Jordan, we had a large book exhibition in the capital city of Amman and sold lots of books, but it was a tense, difficult time. We always had the sense of being watched, and one of the political officials was determined to coerce us into giving him as many free books as possible. By the time we left Jordan, many of us were exhausted and fed up with the Middle East.

From Jordan, we sailed through the Suez Canal and into Alexandria, Egypt, to begin our scheduled program there. But as soon as we lowered the gangway, armed guards boarded the ship and wouldn’t let anyone leave. The next day, we were sent out to anchor while the line-up team talked to officials, trying to find out what was happening. All the necessary permissions had been obtained well in advance, and local churches were looking forward to the visit. We sat at anchor for a week, within sight of the city but unable to reenter the port. We finally learned that the Islamic Brotherhood had made terroristic threats against the ship, and that the Egyptian government was unwilling to take the risk of letting us carry on in the light of these threats.

During that week while we sat at anchor, we had days of prayer and fasting, asking God to reopen this door that had closed. Some of the ship people were really enthusiastic, rebuking Satan and claiming victory, perfectly assured that God would reverse the Egyptian government’s position so that we could carry on our program there. But some of us were so fed up with the Middle East that we didn’t want to go back into port. We didn’t really care that the program in Alexandria had been canceled. We were happy to go somewhere else and found it impossible to pray fervently for the doors to reopen. We were emotionally and spiritually drained. But none of us–those who were claiming victory or we who were cynically pleased for a temporary reprieve from the tensions of ministry in the Islamic world–had any idea what God was going to do. Our ministry–carefully planned and prepared in advance–had come to a stop, and it soon became apparent that God had something else in mind.

After a week, we sailed to Cyprus, and then to Lebanon, just north of Beirut, where God had miraculously opened a door. A week before our arrival in Lebanon, a ship had been sunk at the very place where Logos sat at anchor, and it wouldn’t have been safe for us to be there. A week after we left, the president had been assassinated and conditions in the country deteriorated. This was probably the only week during that decade when we could have visited. But God provided, in a surprising way, this brief period, during which we were able to openly and boldly proclaim the gospel.

Christianity is not just a system of ideas or a code of morality. We have to do with the Living God, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. The Christian life is not primarily about what we do for God. It’s about what God is doing. This is exciting, but it can also be unsettling, because He will often lay aside our plans and programs because He has something better in mind. We usually have very definite ideas about what He should be doing, but He doesn’t consult with us. He doesn’t submit to our careful planning. Following Him is unsettling, because we are not in control.

When we arrived in Lebanon, we were startled by the people’s outlook on life. They had no sense of hope for the future. They had been living constantly in the presence of violence and death, and they had come to expect the worst. They were amazed, they told us, that someone had been willing to come from the outside world to minister to them, and they spent money like people who had no thought of the future. They were intent on grasping any joy they could find in the present, because they had no assurance that they would still be alive the next week.

The lives of the people in Jerusalem when Jesus was born were similar, in many ways, to the lives of these people in Lebanon. They lived under foreign occupation, ruled by people who didn’t understand or sympathize with their religious practices. There had been repeated attempts to seize power from the Romans, but these had been crushed mercilessly. The Roman governors maintained order, so things didn’t become chaotic like they were in Lebanon. But the people of Israel hated being ruled by an idolatrous nation, and violence and death were a regular part of their lives, especially the lives of the poorer people (which those in Luke 2 seem to have been).

The thing that stands out when we read this passage in Luke 2, is that these people were full of hope. They were waiting in anticipation of this One who would come to deliver them. Many things had happened over the past centuries to crush their hope. There had been a brief time, under the Maccabeans, when it looked like they had won their independence as a nation again. But it didn’t last long, and soon they had once again been conquered. From time to time their conquerors had committed atrocities in Jerusalem. Some had intentionally desecrated the Temple. During this period, Roman rule was very strong and rebellion was crushed immediately.

But the people in Luke 2 are full of hope. Their experience of violence and death and poverty, and the failures of the nation to achieve independence, have not crushed their hopes for the future. They stand out from the people we met in Lebanon, who were intent on grasping whatever joy they could in the present. But they also stand out from some other groups who lived in Palestine during this time. There was a group called the Zealots, who opposed paying taxes to a pagan emperor, and who placed their hopes for the future in armed revolt. The Zealots believed God would enable them to overthrow the idolatrous people who were ruling them, and they actively looked for ways to carry out their mission.

Simeon and Anna, and the others at the Temple on that day, didn’t put their hopes in armed rebellion against the Romans. William Barclay describes them as the “Quiet in the Land.” “They had no dreams of violence and of power and of armies with banners; they believed in a life of constant prayer and quiet watchfulness until God should come. All their lives they waited quietly and patiently upon God” (Gospel of Luke, p. 21). They were full of hope, not because of their own abilities and plans. They were full of hope because they knew God and they trusted Him to intervene and come to their rescue. They weren’t just religiously going through the motions of worship; they weren’t just following a system of theology or morality. They knew that they were dealing with the living God, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. Because they knew God, their lives were marked by a sense of expectation and anticipation.

Listen to these words from Hebrews 11: “What is faith? It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see” (Hebrews 11:1, NLT). The life of faith is a life of looking forward to what God is going to do in the future. It’s a life of joyful anticipation and expectation based on the certainty that God will fulfill His promises.

Look, first of all, at Luke’s description of Simeon in these verses. He “was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.” He was seeking to live in a right relationship with God, submitting himself to God’s lordship. That’s the general idea behind the words “righteous and devout.” J.B. Phillips translates: “He was an upright man, devoted to the service of God.” He made it his aim to live in obedience to God’s Word. But the Pharisees also sought to do this. Their aim in life was to be obedient to the Law, but there was something lacking in their spirituality. They were proud of their obedience, and they looked down on everyone else. They were so obsessed with themselves and their accomplishments that they weren’t attentive to God.

Simeon was obedient, but he didn’t celebrate his obedience. His focus was on God, not on himself. He was “a man who lived in the prayerful expectancy of help for Israel” (The Message). He didn’t spend his life looking at himself, saying “Lord, I thank you that I’m not like other people.” He lived in anticipation of God’s faithfulness to His promises. He was attentive to God. The Holy Spirit was upon him, and he’d been given this special revelation that he would not die until he had seen the Lord’s Christ. Why would God give him a promise like that? He doesn’t seem to have been a religious leader. This is the only time we encounter him in Scripture. We know nothing about his accomplishments. But he was a man who walked with God for a lifetime, “righteous and devout.... waiting for the consolation of Israel.” As he walked with God, praying for the good of the nation, God spoke to him and gave him this special promise. Because he was walking with God, he was attentive to God’s leading and went into the Temple at just the right time; because the Holy Spirit was upon him, he recognized the child for who he was, when all the leaders of the nation were oblivious. The most important event in the history of the Temple was taking place, and all those who spent their lives ministering in the Temple missed it completely. But Simeon recognized what was happening, because he walked with God and lived in anticipation of His promises.

When Simeon saw the baby, he took him in his arms and praised God. In verse 29, he says that he is now ready to die: “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace.” The fulfillment of God’s promise means that his life here on earth is nearly over. But this doesn’t seem to bother him. He’s ready to die. His whole life is caught up in what God is doing for His people. He’s engrossed in something much bigger than himself, and his life–even in the face of death–overflows with praise and wonder.

In verses 30 & 31, he elaborates: “For my eyes have seen your salvation.” We don’t know much about Simeon, whether or not he had family members still living, what sorts of things he enjoyed doing, whether he had any unfinished projects. There may have been things he still wanted to accomplish, or people he wanted to spend more time with. But at this point in his life the central thing, the thing that mattered more than anything else, was God and His purposes. Having seen God’s salvation, he was ready to let go of everything else. Simeon’s emphasis here is not on the great things he’s been able to accomplish for God’s glory. He’s lived a long life and has been faithful; he has a vibrant, lively relationship with God. It seems safe to assume that he’s been a blessing to many people over the years. But that’s not the thing in focus here. The thing that stands out is his realization of what God is doing. And God is doing something greater than anyone ever could have anticipated. This little child before them is: “a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.” He’s the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies that the people have been hearing in worship every week.

Simeon’s hope for the future is firmly rooted in the past, and it’s strongly tied to the community of God’s people. It’s important for us to take note of this, because our culture is highly individualistic and thinks the past is irrelevant. Christopher Lasch, in The Culture of Narcissism, said: “A denial of the past, superficially progressive and optimistic, proves on closer analysis to embody the despair of a society that cannot face the future” (p. 26). An autonomous individual, with no strong ties to community, and also cut off from the past, can only live for the present. What Lasch observes about our society is also true for individuals. “A denial of the past... proves... to embody the despair of a [person who] cannot face the future.” I believe part of the explanation for the superficiality in much of American Christianity is that we’ve been infected by the excessive individualism of our culture. Too much of our focus is on “Jesus and me,” with no sense of being involved in a community that includes all those who call on the name of Jesus Christ, both on earth and in heaven. We’ve also accepted our culture’s opinion about the past and have lost the sense of our great heritage as part of a body that stretches back to the beginning of time. Our picture of the Church is too small, and our worship and prayer are impoverished. Simeon had a strong hope for the future. He’d spent his life “waiting for the consolation of Israel.” But his hope was tied to the community of God’s people–it was “the consolation of Israel” that he was looking for–and his hope was firmly rooted in God’s promises, given hundreds of years before. It wasn’t just “what God is doing for me.” It was “God is fulfilling His promise to His people, and He’s graciously included me.”

While all this is going on, Anna approaches them, and she also immediately recognizes what is happening. These aren’t the only other people in the Temple. There would have been priests there, carrying on their regular ministry. Joseph and Mary would have dealt with the priests in making offerings to fulfill the requirements of the Law. These were people whose whole life revolved around the Temple and the Law, but we don’t hear anything about them. The One who is the fulfillment of the whole Old Testament sacrificial system is present. And the priests–all of them–miss the whole thing. And what is even more remarkable, given the status of women at that time–one of the two people who recognizes what is happening at that moment is a woman.

Anna was a widow whose life revolved around worship and prayer. She may have been 84-years-old, as most translations render verse 37, or she may have been a widow for 84 years, making her over 100. In any case, she had been widowed while she was still a young woman. Life for widows was difficult in that culture. But she hadn’t grown bitter over the years. Suffering can affect us in two different ways. It can make us bitter and resentful, closed in upon ourselves. Or it can open us up to God with a strong sense of need. The difficulties that Anna had faced early in her life drew her closer to God. Rather than diminishing over the years (as happens when we become bitter), she was known to others as a prophetess, a woman who knew God and spoke in His name. And when this great moment took place, she was attentive to the Spirit and recognized what was happening, even though all the leaders of the nation and Temple were oblivious.

Anna did two things when she came up to them. She gave thanks to God. She was like Simeon. She recognized that the most important thing going on at that moment was not all the great schemes of the political and religious leaders. The most important thing going on was God’s work of redemption. She expected Him to fulfil His promises, and she was waiting with anticipation. So the first thing she did was to give thanks to Him for the great things He was doing. The other thing she did was speak about what she saw: she “spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.” Notice how these people are described. They’re not just people who believe and do the right things. They’re people who are waiting expectantly for God’s intervention in the lives of His people. Remember what we observed early in the sermon: The life of faith is a life of looking forward to what God is going to do in the future. It’s a life of joyful anticipation and expectation based on the certainty that God will fulfill His promises. All the people who gave God glory for the things He was doing that day were people who were attentive to Him, who were waiting expectantly on His deliverance.

All this happened a long time ago in a completely different culture. What difference does it make for us? Simeon stresses, in his words to Mary in verses 34 & 35, the importance of our response to this child who was being presented in the Temple on that day: “This child will be rejected by many in Israel, and it will be their undoing. But he will be the greatest joy to many others. Thus, the deepest thoughts of many hearts will be revealed” (NLT). Those who reject Him do so to their own undoing. Our eternal well-being is tied to the question of how we respond to Jesus Christ. So where are you in relation to Him? Are you submitting to His lordship? Have you given up all hope of saving yourself, of pleasing God through your own efforts? Have you committed your life to Him and cried out to Him for mercy, and are you seeking each day to live in ways that are pleasing to Him? Does the thought of seeing Jesus face to face fill you with joy, or dread? Where are you in relation to Him?

As we observe this brief Christmas season and prepare to begin a new calendar year, let’s set our hearts to be attentive to what God is doing. He may be doing things that lie outside our comfort zone, things that we don’t expect. If that happens, may He enable us to be like Simeon and Anna rather than the religious leaders who were going about their business and missed the most important event in the history of the Temple. Set aside time to spend in His presence, and cultivate an expectant attitude in worship. We’re not just going through the motions when we worship Him. We have to do with the Living God, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. Be attentive to what He is doing. We never know when He is going to intervene in an extraordinary way. When that happens, may He find us waiting expectantly.

The Church of God in Corinth, 1 Corinthians 1:1-3

Shiloh Lutheran Church, State College PA
First Sunday in Advent, 2014

In 2002, Jack Whittaker won $315 million in the lottery, the largest undivided jackpot in U.S. history up to that point. This is just the sort of thing many people dream of, a solution to all the job hassles and financial pressures that can make life miserable. It’s this hope of becoming suddenly rich that drives a person who’s already struggling financially to spend $20.00 or more on lottery tickets (I’m familiar with this because many of the people I work with spend substantial amounts of money on lottery tickets even though they’re living on disability with very limited income). Jack Whittaker’s story sounds like a dream-come-true. But I read a quote from Jewel Whittaker, his wife. She said, “I wish I would have torn the ticket up.” In the two years after winning, her husband was arrested twice for drunk driving and once for assault; he was then ordered to enter into rehab. It doesn’t sound like winning the lottery was such a good thing in his life. Advent, at its most basic level, is about looking forward, anticipating a better future. But often our hopes for the future become distorted and we end up hoping for the wrong things.

We’re not very good at discerning our true needs. William Willimon, a Methodist pastor, tells of an advertisement he saw for a local church: “We’ve got just what you are looking for, come and get it.” He responds: “Perhaps it’s because I work with young adults, but I thought to myself, ‘I know what these people are looking for – some of it is both immoral and illegal! Is that church giving them that?’” (“It’s Hard to be Seeker-Sensitive When You Work for Jesus” in Circuit Rider, September/October 2003, p. 4). One of the problems with catering, as a church, to people’s “felt needs” is that we’re usually wrong about what our needs are. Very often getting what we want is the absolute worst thing that can happen to us.

Willimon goes on a little later: “Jesus is not simply about meeting my felt needs; he is also about rearranging my needs, not only about fulfilling my desires; he is also about transforming my desires. Jesus is wonderfully nonchalant about so many of my heart-felt desires. It’s amazing how many of my needs (material affluence, sexual fulfillment, happiness, etc.) appear not in the least to interest Jesus. Many of you can testify that Jesus, the better you got to know him, did not fulfil all your needs but sometimes gave you needs you did not have before you met Jesus!” (p. 5). In our market-driven culture, it’s become increasingly fashionable for churches to appeal to felt needs as a way of winning people to Christ. Many churches grow very large doing this, and it’s difficult to resist the temptation to imitate their methods. But the danger is that in catering to felt needs in this way our message becomes distorted. Willimon asks, “When... do we pull out the cross? When, as we’re touting all the benefits of choosing Jesus, do we also say to them, ‘By the way, Jesus said that anyone who bought into his message would also suffer and die’” (p. 5).

The thing that is clear in these opening verses of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, is that the Church is primarily about God and His purposes. The purpose of the Church is not to minister to our felt needs. In the Church, we’re not at the center. Our desires are disordered by sin; we don’t clearly know what is best for us, and getting our own way is often the worst thing that could happen. The Church is about God and His purposes. But a surprising thing happens when we bow our stiff, proud necks, and accept this: we find that in laying aside our desires and putting Him first, our needs are rearranged and transformed. God gives us better things than what we were hoping for. But it begins by accepting the fact that we are not the ones in charge. The Church is not here to give us what we want, or even what we think we need. The Church is primarily about God (which is why our worship is structured, not to make everyone feel good, but to direct our hearts to God).

Notice, first of all, what Paul says about himself. He says he is “called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.” Paul’s vocation, the thing that consumes his life, wasn’t his idea at all. He was going about his business, being a good Pharisee, thinking he was doing God’s will in seeking to destroy the Church. And he was good at it. He tells the Galatians: “I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors” (1:14). He had a good career; he’d invested years in training. He was gifted and committed. But then something happened: “God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me” (vv. 15-16a). God intervened in his life and said, “I have other plans for you.” Not plans that Paul would have found appealing; God’s plans were just the opposite of what Paul had in mind. God told Ananias, a believer in Damascus, “he is an instrument who I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (Acts 9:15-16).

That’s what Paul is saying here at the beginning of this letter. He wasn’t a Seeker; God was the one doing the seeking, and He intervened in Paul’s life at the most unexpected time. Everything Paul says in verse one puts God at the center. God was the one who did the calling. The word “apostle” means “one who is sent.” Paul was sent to deliver a message that didn’t belong to him. And, to make sure that there is no misunderstanding, he adds “by the will of God.” It wasn’t his idea. The whole thing came about because of God’s plan. This fits with another observation Willimon makes: “the Bible hardly ever, almost never depicts anybody seeking Jesus. Rather, the story is about God’s relentless seeking of us in Christ” (p. 5). Paul was “called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.”

But, of course, we’re likely to say that because Paul was an apostle his situation was exceptional. So it’s important to pay attention to what he says about the Corinthians. Remember that this church is in trouble; Paul is writing because there are serious problems and the church is in danger of splitting into several factions. So he’s not just writing to the leaders; he’s writing to the whole church: “To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be saints, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ – their Lord and ours.” His description of the church is meant to remind them of who they are; he’s trying to put their priorities back in order.

First, he calls them “the church of God.” He wants to remind the Corinthians that the Church doesn’t belong to them. I’ve heard people say sometimes in business meetings of churches, “We don’t want to be that kind of church.” The proper response to that is, “the church doesn’t belong to you, so it’s not up to you to make that decision.” The place to begin is by reminding ourselves that the church is “of God.” It belongs to Him. Gordon Fee says this in his commentary on 1 Corinthians: “The church belongs to God..., not to them or to Paul (or Apollos).... Paul disallows at the outset one of their tendencies – to think too highly of themselves” (p. 31).

This is true, not only of our individual preferences, but also of our denominational tendencies. All our denominations have something of the truth, but they all have inherent weaknesses as well. The Church of Jesus Christ is larger than any of our denominations. The temptation, when we’re confronted in the church with something new that we don’t like, or something that makes us uncomfortable, is to say, “that really isn’t consistent with our identity.” Our denominational concerns, much of the time, are variations on what Paul says about the Corinthians: “one says, ‘I belong to Paul,’ and another, ‘I belong to Apollos’” (1 Corinthians 3:4). Klaas Runia, writing on the need for reform in the Church today, said: “Our only or main motive must never be the desire to retain our own denominational identity at all costs. Such a motive is not scriptural at all. We must never forget that our denominations are not really important at all” (Reformation Today, pp. 127-28). The important thing is not that we are Lutheran or Methodist or anything else; the important thing is that we are part of the “church of God.”

Paul then goes on to describe them as those who are “sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be saints.” “Sanctified” means “set apart for God and His purposes.” What Paul says about himself – that God had set him apart before he was born and called him through grace – is also true of them. Here’s Gordon Fee again: “Believers are set apart for God, just as were the utensils in the Temple. But precisely because they are ‘set apart’ for God, they must also bear the character of the God who has thus set them apart” (p. 32). They’re “sanctified,” set apart, and they are also “called to be saints,” called to be holy. They’re called to live out the reality of their identity as God’s people. “I send this letter to you in God’s church at Corinth, Christians cleaned up by Jesus and set apart for a God-filled life” (The Message). But they don’t do that alone, isolated from other churches. Paul reminds them that they are united with “all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” God is preparing the Church as a bride for His Son, and He has graciously included them. It’s not just “the church of God in Corinth,” but “the church of God in Corinth... together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

So then, having reminded them of who they are and what their calling is, Paul pronounces this blessing in verse 3: “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” All God’s gifts come to us by sheer grace, not because there is any worthiness in us, but because God is gracious and merciful. And what God graciously gives us is “peace,” which is a translation of the Old Testament word “shalom.” It means “well-being, wholeness, welfare” (Fee, p. 35). Here’s how verse three reads in The Message: “May all the gifts and benefits that come from God our Father, and the Master, Jesus Christ, be yours.”

When Paul says “grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,” he’s saying “may the deepest longings of your hearts be fulfilled.” What people are seeking when they buy lottery tickets, hoping to become instant millionaires, is peace, or “well-being, wholeness, and welfare.” They have an aching, a longing in their hearts for something more than what they have, but then they go seeking in all the wrong places. God doesn’t address us as consumers; He doesn’t say: “I’ve got just what you are looking for, come and get it.” We feel the need, but we’re looking for the wrong things. Jesus says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:24-25).

But then, when we bow before Him in repentance and follow Him in the way of the cross, we find that, while He hasn’t given us all the things we wanted, He has given us something better. He has given us Himself. Remember these words from St. Augustine: “You awake us to delight in Your praise; for You made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You” (The Confessions of St. Augustine; a modern English version by Hal M. Helms, p. 7). Our hearts are restless until they find rest in God; everything else will disappoint us, because we were made to find rest in God.

This is true in our personal lives, and it’s also true in the life of the Church. When we come as consumers, demanding to have our needs met, expecting the church to cater to our personal preferences, we not only harm the church, we diminish ourselves. We’re putting ourselves at the center, the very thing that is destroying the church at Corinth. The Church is not here to meet our felt needs; the Church is here to worship God and to teach us to live under His lordship. The place to begin is by putting things back in their proper perspective. When we come together in corporate worship, we’re doing something completely different from all the other things we’ve been doing throughout the week. We’re coming together as “the church of God” in State College, “those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” And then, as we bow before His sovereign Lordship, remembering that the Church belongs to Him, we receive “grace and peace... from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

As we begin this Advent season, let’s remind ourselves that what we’re looking forward to, what we’re waiting for, is God Himself, who appeared in the flesh more than 2,000 years ago and who has promised to come again at the end of this age. Advent is a time to realign our dreams and expectations in the light of the great future we look forward to in Christ.

The Joy of God's Provision, Psalm 30:1-5, 11-12

Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
State College, PA

A German friend of mine was travelling through Italy on a Sunday with a team of young people. They were members of a short-term mission group and had a long way to go that day, but they were low on gas, and every station they passed was closed. Things were looking pretty grim as the day went on; they had prayed for an opportunity to fill the tank, but nothing had turned up. They were close to giving up hope, looking for a place to camp for the night, when a Porsche pulled up alongside and waved them over. Bernd stopped and got out of the van to see what the other driver wanted, but before he could say anything the guy pulled a gas can out of his car and started pouring gas into the van. They didn’t exchange any words, and when he was finished emptying the can, he jumped back into his Porsche and drove off (ignoring Bernd’s offer of money to pay for the gas).

Bernd, who told me the story, is as unlikely as anyone I’ve ever known to exaggerate this kind of thing, so I have no doubt that what he told me is true. They cried out to God and He provided in a surprising and startling way. They had no idea who had given them the gas or why he had done it. But God had provided for them in this strange way. When we think about God as our provider, we usually have this sort of thing in mind, that God provides us with the things we need materially to get through our lives. And He does provide for us in this way, as Jesus says in Matthew 6:33: “But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” God provides all the things we need to get through our lives in this world, but these things are not at the center; it’s as we seek first God’s kingdom and His righteousness that He promises to provide everything else.

The passages we read this morning are focused on God’s provision for our spiritual well-being. The reading from Ezra tells about God’s people worshiping Him to celebrate their return from exile to the land of promise (6:19-22); in John 6, Jesus proclaims Himself as the bread of life who nourishes His people with his own body and blood (6:35-51); and in Acts we see Philip proclaiming the gospel, which leads those to receive it to be filled with joy, because they’ve been reconciled to God. In Psalm 30, which is the main focus of this sermon, we see that God provides what we most need to become the kind of people He’s called us to be and that at the very center of this is the joy that is rooted in an encounter with God Himself.

The first thing God provides is mercy (vv. 1-3). Notice the words “you spared me” (v. 3). God had kept him from experiencing what he deserved, protected him from the natural consequences of things he had done. This is what mercy is about, receiving something better than what we deserve.

The background of these words at the beginning of the psalm are in the middle section, vv. 6-9 (which we didn’t read together earlier in the service). “As for me, I said in my prosperity, ‘I shall never be moved.’” Everything was going well and he became presumptuous. He forgot that his security had come from God and God let him see the reality of his situation: “By your favor, O Lord, you had established me as a strong mountain; you hid your face; I was dismayed.” God withdrew from him, let him experience something of what life is like without His provision and he says he was dismayed. This led him to cry out to God for help: “To you, O Lord, I cried, and to the Lord I made supplication…. Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me! O Lord, be my helper!’”

Things were going well in his life, but rather than giving thanks to God he started congratulating himself. “I’ve done pretty well. I’m not like some of the losers I know; I have a good job, I work hard, and I have a stable life.” What he forgot was that his ability to have a stable life was a gift from God, so God let him experience instability. Everything started going wrong, which reminded him of the truth and led him to come to his senses and cry out to God for mercy. The thing we so easily forget is that we are dependent on God’s mercy every day, every moment, of our lives. But when the psalmist remembers and cries out to God he finds that God is not anxious to punish him for his foolishness and presumption; what he experiences is a fresh realization of God’s mercy: “O Lord my God, I called to you for help and you healed me. O Lord, you brought me up from the grave; you spared me from going down into the pit.”

Of course, in our morally lax culture it’s easy to get the wrong idea about God’s mercy. We too easily think, “It’s not really such a big deal; God knows our weaknesses and forgives us anyway.” We sometimes picture God as an indulgent, grandfatherly figure sitting in heaven wringing his hands over our wrongdoing, wishing we’d straighten up but knowing it’s not going to happen. God, from this perspective, just decides to overlook our sins.

But that’s not how God shows us mercy. He shows us mercy by providing redemption, by providing a way for our sins to be forgiven (vv. 4-5). The psalmist doesn’t deny the reality of God’s anger over his sin. He says “his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping [as a consequence of God’s anger] may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.” The background of God’s redemption is His anger over our sin and rebellion. If you’re ever in doubt about this, spend some time thinking about Jesus on the cross; when He took our sins upon Himself, the Father turned away from Him, leading Him to cry out “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me!” God doesn’t wipe away our sins as if they didn’t matter; He wipes away our sins by calling His only Son to bear the penalty in our place.

God is displeased with our sins, but the wonderful truth announced in the gospel is that He has provided a way for us to escape the consequences of His displeasure. And the psalmist tells us that He comes to us as Redeemer without delay: “For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.” God, when He confronts us with our sinfulness, doesn’t expect us to wallow in self-reproach. He doesn’t call us to spend time engaging in the wrong sort of penance, going around condemning ourselves and trying to be miserable. Penance, by the way, as I’ve read in Catholic spiritual writers, is not about trying to earn God’s forgiveness (because this has already been freely given); it’s about correcting our bad habits, training ourselves to act differently than we’ve been doing. Penance is about training ourselves to bear the fruit of repentance, which we all should be doing whether we are Protestant or Roman Catholic. But in any case, God doesn’t want us to wallow in misery and self-pity when we come to a new realization of our sinfulness. He has provided for our redemption and His forgiveness comes to us immediately: “His anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.”

This leads to the final point, in vv. 11-12: God provides us with joy. Redemption is not the end of the story. It’s not like a “get out of jail free” pass, where we receive Christ as our Redeemer, which gets us a ticket to heaven, and then get on with living our lives the way we want to. God is not just providing a way for us to get to heaven; He is providing what we most need to become the kind of people He has created us to be, and at the very center of this is joy that grows out of an encounter with God Himself.

But this joy is rooted in our poverty and need for mercy. This isn’t where the psalmist started out. He got into trouble because he forgot about his own spiritual poverty, so his happiness was superficial; it was based on his presumption that he would never be shaken. But then he got into trouble, which is what we, as sinful human beings, do best. So he cried out to God and was able to say “you turned my mourning into dancing.” When he turned to God in repentance, God didn’t say, “I’ll forgive you, but you need to be miserable for a while so you can learn to properly appreciate what you’ve received.” He’s already been miserable. He’s experienced his poverty of spirit, so at the moment when he cries out for help, God grants him the privilege of rejoicing. When he turns to God for help, he is then able to say “You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing to you and not be silent.”

But we often get the wrong idea about joy. It’s something more, something different, from circumstantial happiness. We tend to feel happy when everything is going well; this is perfectly natural and is part of the way we were created. There’s nothing wrong with feeling happy when we experience good things in our lives. But joy is more than this.

I love the hymns of the 18th century English hymn writer Isaac Watts. One of his most-famous hymns is “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.” He had a strong grasp of Scripture and a deep experience of Jesus Christ. He has a hymn that starts out, “Alas! and did my Savior bleed And did my Sov’reign die? Would He devote that sacred head for such a worm as I?” The verses go on in wonder over what Christ did in laying down His life to redeem us. Unfortunately, someone in the late 19th century thought the hymn needed a more positive element and added this refrain: “At the cross, at the cross, where I first saw the light, and the burden of my heart rolled away; it was there by faith I received my sight and now I am happy all the day.” Is this true for you? Are you now “happy all the day” since you encountered Jesus Christ? The Old Testament book that is most-often quoted in the New Testament is the book of Psalms, and the lament is the largest category in the Psalter. Why is this so? Because we, as people living in a fallen world, often find ourselves in trouble, and the Psalter, as the prayer book of the Bible, reflects this reality. We often find ourselves in trouble and cry out to God for help. We’re not “happy all the day.” It’s more truthful to say that “You turned my wailing into dancing [but in the meantime, the wailing was real and heartfelt]; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy.” Things go wrong; we get off track and lose sight of who we are and who God is. But then we turn to God and He shows us His mercy.

Frederick Buechner has a good description of the difference between happiness and joy: “We need to be reminded… that joy is not the same as happiness. Happiness is man-made—a happy home, a happy marriage, a happy relationship with our friends and within our jobs. We work for these things, and if we are careful and wise and lucky, we can usually achieve them. Happiness is one of the highest achievements of which we are capable, and when it is ours, we take credit for it, and properly so. But we never take credit for our moments of joy because we know that they are not man-made and that we are never really responsible for them. They come when they come…. Joy is a mystery because it can happen anywhere, anytime, even under the most unpromising circumstance, even in the midst of suffering, with tears in its eyes. Even nailed to a tree” (Listening to Your Life, p. 287).

William Cowper was a poet and hymn writer in 18th century. He was also a member of John Newton’s church (the former slave trader who wrote “Amazing Grace”). Cowper struggled with mental illness for much of his adult life and more than once tried to commit suicide. There were periods when he was fairly stable, but even during those times he was highly sensitive and anxious. During his periods of acute depression he became psychotic and had to be institutionalized. But he experienced God’s help and faithfulness again and again. He couldn’t sing “and now I am happy all the day.” From time to time he became overwhelmed by darkness and depression, but even then the Lord brought him through, and joy at times took him by surprise. (There’s a very good overview of his life in the book Genius, Grief and Grace, by Dr. Gaius Davies). Here’s a well-known stanza from one of Cowper’s poems:

Sometimes a light surprises
The Christian while he sings;
It is the Lord who rises
With healing in His wings;
When comforts are declining,
He grants the soul again
A season of clear shining,
To cheer it after rain.

That’s the kind of joy Buechner is talking about; it’s not something we bring about by our efforts to find a happy life. God comes to us “with healing in his wings” and takes us by surprise. He provides us with joy we didn’t expect, maybe even at a time when it doesn’t make sense to feel joyful.

God our Provider provides the things we need to get through our lives in this world. Most of the time He does this in ways that seem ordinary, in ways that might lead us to take credit for it ourselves. But sometimes, when we find ourselves in situations where we’re in over our heads and nothing we try is working, He provides in more extraordinary ways. But more fundamentally, He provides what we need to become the kind of people He’s created us to be. He provides mercy, because we are sinners who violate His law. He provides redemption, because our rebellion has inescapable consequences and can’t just be ignored as if nothing has happened. And He provides us with joy, because this is at the very center of who He has called us to be as people created in His image.

Sowing and Reaping, Galatians 6:1-10

One of the things that puzzled me when I was a young Christian was the number of people I met who’d been believers for many years but had never grown to spiritual maturity. I don’t doubt that some of them were nominal Christians, people who were Christian in name only and never really understood the gospel of grace; they were only Christian in a cultural sense, and had never truly been reconciled to God. But many of these people were genuine believers who’d spent years floundering and had finally given up. They were bothered by their spiritual condition, but they didn’t know what to do about it. They’d followed too many dead ends in the past, things that were supposed to lift them to a higher level of spirituality; in the end, all these promises had proven to be empty. One of the ways to tell the difference between these people and a nominal Christian is that these true believers tend to be unhappy with their spiritual condition. If you’re not growing in Christ and are content with your situation, you have every reason to be concerned.

I’ve spoken to people who’ve tried various things along the way, hoping for an experience that will push them over the edge into a life of more vibrant spirituality. They’ve been told that they need to pray for the Holy Spirit and simply “take it by faith” that God has answered (since He’s promised to give the Spirit and we know He’s faithful to His word). So they’ve prayed for the Holy Spirit and given thanks for the gift in faith. But what are they supposed to do next? After awhile they start thinking that maybe something has gone wrong. Maybe their faith was deficient in some way, or maybe there had been too much doubt mixed in. So they’d try again and take it all by faith. But nothing ever happened. These prayers made no difference at all in their spiritual life. Some have heard that what they need is to receive the baptism with the Holy Spirit. So they’ve prayed and had others lay hands on them. Many of them have had uplifting experiences in this way, but they’ve continued to struggle with living out their Christian lives. Many of them have gone from one spiritual high to another, but there seems to be no connection between these spiritual highs and their relationships with others at home and in the workplace.

J.I. Packer tells about experiencing a period of intense frustration in his early Christian life. He desperately wanted to grow; he wanted to be closer to God, and he kept hearing teachers who promised that if he had the right experience it would all happen more-or-less automatically. So he sought these experiences and prayed intensely for them. But nothing happened, no matter how much he prayed and believed. Here’s what he says: “At that time I did not know that Harry Ironside, sometime pastor of Moody Memorial Church, Chicago, once drove himself into a full-scale mental breakdown through trying to get into the higher life as I was trying to get into it.... All I knew was that the expected experience was not coming. The technique was not working. Why not? Well, since the teaching declared that everything depends on consecration being total, the fault had to lie in me.... I became fairly frantic” (Introduction to The Mortification of Sin, by John Owen, pp. 10-11).

All these promises and techniques don’t tell people what they need to know. They need to know how to order their lives to grow into the likeness of Jesus Christ, and all the advice they receive tells them that if they find the right experience, they will begin to live the Christian life more-or-less automatically. All the formulas are saying pretty-much the same thing, that the key to a deeper Christian life is entering into the right experience. And it’s true that we do need to experience more of God. But our experiences of God take place within the context of discipleship, as we walk with God in the mundane realities that confront us each day. There is no experience that is going to produce the sort of automatic discipleship that so many promise. It’s not going to happen. Packer rightly concludes that “this higher life as described is a will-o’-the-wisp, an unreality that no one has ever laid hold of at all, and that those who testify to their experience in these terms really, if unwittingly, distort what has happened to them” (p. 10).

According to Paul, Christian discipleship is about sowing the right kinds of seeds. If we want to grow as Christians, our primary need is not a particular experience. What we need is direction in learning to develop godly habits which over time will bear fruit. Paul compares this to a farmer sowing a field. If a farmer neglects to sow anything at all, he will reap a harvest of weeds. If he sows wheat, he can’t expect to reap a harvest of corn (and if he does he will be sadly disappointed). Growing in godliness is very much like this: we will reap what we sow, and if we neglect to sow or if we sow the wrong sorts of things, we will be disappointed with the results.

Notice how he introduces this idea in verse 6: "Do not be deceived; God cannot be mocked." He is not content to simply state his idea; he arrests our attention first with this strong warning. "Do not be deceived." He's concerned that this is an area where we are likely to be deceived, so he begins by warning us. And many are deceived about this. Our natural tendency is to be careless and to give little thought to the kinds of seeds we're sowing. Or we consistently sow one kind of seed and expect to harvest something better. It is easy to begin thinking that because God is merciful and forgiving, as Paul has been stressing throughout this letter, we don't have to worry about the consequences of our actions. We are saved by grace, so it's really not such a big deal if we indulge in little sins. It's easy to begin thinking that God's forgiveness frees us from concern about the natural consequences of our actions. It's tempting to develop the mentality that we can "get away with it," because God is merciful and forgiving. Paul reminds us that we are deceiving ourselves, and that we will, inevitably, reap what we sow.

Then he adds to this: "God cannot be mocked." Mocking God here is not ridiculing or making light of Him, but seeking to outwit Him by evading His laws. We try to mock God when we show reverence for Him in our words, but live in total disregard for Him, when our way of life is an implicit rejection of the Lordship of the Spirit. We seek to mock God when our conduct in private contradicts our public profession of allegiance to Christ. Some of the translations read: "God is not mocked." This is a more literal translation, but it means the same thing. Paul's point is that we will not be successful in our attempts to mock God. Ananias and Sapphira, in Acts 5, tried to mock God. They sold some land, and pretended to be giving the whole sum to the church when, in fact, they had kept back part of it for themselves. They were free to keep all or part of the money; the problem was that they tried to "fake it." They pretended to be something they were not. In most cases, the consequences are not so immediate. It may even seem, for a while, that we are succeeding. But in the end we will reap what we have been sowing. If we’re trying to mock God, Paul tells us, we cannot possibly succeed.

So, if we want to grow in godliness, we need to be concerned with the kind of seeds we're sowing. Paul applies this principle in two areas in the following verses. In verse 8, he applies it to our personal growth in holiness, and in verses 9-10 he applies it in the area of good works (we’ll also consider verses 1-5 in connection with these verses).

Paul points to two possibilities in the area of personal holiness: either we are sowing to the flesh or to the Spirit. Remember what we saw in the last passage: The flesh, or sinful nature, as it reads in the NIV, refers to the whole person in rebellion against God. Living in the flesh is living within the limited perspective of a world that is alienated from the life of God. “The man whose horizon is limited by the flesh is by that very fact opposed to God.... The flesh in this sense denotes the whole personality of man as organized in the wrong direction, as directed to earthly pursuits rather than the service of God” (New Bible Dictionary, p. 371). When we’re living according to the flesh, we are at the center, and everything revolves around our own desires. Living by the Spirit is living under God’s lordship, with Him at the center of our lives, and living by the flesh is living for ourselves.

John Stott was the pastor of a large Anglican church in London for many years and has had a very wide impact through his books. Martyn Lloyd-Jones also had a long pastorate in London, and the two men were personal friends. But they had major disagreements about how evangelical Christians should relate to their denominations, and because they were both very influential leaders their disagreement was widely known. And, of course, people tended to assume that these men saw each other as rivals. Lloyd-Jones died in 1981, and Stott tells about visiting him near the end of his life: “On arrival, he could not have been more affable and welcoming.... I told him that I had 2 main reasons for asking to call on him. First, because I had a strong admiration and affection for him... and was sorry we saw so little of one another. Secondly, in my travels people ask me how he is, and I have to say that I have not seen him lately. Worse, people say they have heard we are not on speaking terms with one another. ‘Oh I know, it is absurd. People are very mischievous. They can’t distinguish between principles and personalities” (David Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The Fight of Faith 1939-1981, by Iain H Murray, p. 768). They had major disagreements, but they were able to recognize and love one another as brethren in the Lord. The normal thing would have been to treat one another as rivals. But both men had spent many years sowing to the Spirit, and they didn’t respond to each other according to the world’s pattern. They weren’t at odds with each other.

Here’s what Stott says about this passage: "This is a vitally important and much neglected principle of holiness. We are not the helpless victims of our nature, temperament and environment. On the contrary, what we become depends largely on how we behave; our character is shaped by our conduct.... To `sow to the flesh' is to pander to it, to cosset, cuddle and stroke it, instead of crucifying it. The seeds we sow are largely thoughts and deeds. Every time we allow our mind to harbour a grudge, nurse a grievance, entertain an impure fantasy, or wallow in self-pity, we are sowing to the flesh. Every time we linger in bad company whose insidious influence we know we cannot resist, every time we lie in bed when we ought to be up and praying, every time we read pornographic literature, every time we take a risk which strains our self-control, we are sowing, sowing, sowing to the flesh. Some Christians sow to the flesh every day and wonder why they do not reap holiness. Holiness is a harvest; whether we reap it or not depends almost entirely on what and where we sow" (Only One Way: The Message of Galatians, pp. 169-70).

I think we often go wrong in this area by simply asking the wrong sorts of questions. We want to know just what is permissible for a Christian; how much can we get away with? We approach it as a legal question. "Am I breaking any law, or will I come under God's judgment for doing this?" Instead, we need to ask, "what sorts of seeds am I sowing?" "If I continue regularly in this activity for the next 10 or 20 years, what sort of person will I become?" "Am I sowing to the flesh or to the Spirit?" "Is this activity moving me in the direction I want my life to go?" If we are sowing to the flesh, we will reap corruption, that is, we will experience a process of increasing moral and spiritual decay. If we are sowing to the Spirit, we will reap eternal life, that is, we will experience a growing fellowship with God. “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3).

But Christian discipleship is not only a matter of personal holiness. Paul turns next to our work of serving others in the name of Christ, and urges us to not grow weary in well-doing. It’s easy to become discouraged; we’re often tempted to give up. “What’s the point of it all?” we sometimes wonder. Paul was aware of this danger. He had seen it happen to others. John Mark, for example, the author of the Gospel of Mark, worked on Paul's missionary team for a while, but then, according to Acts 13:13 he "left them to return to Jerusalem." We live and work in a fallen world; faithfulness to God exposes us to the attacks of Satan. We seek to bring people a message that they desperately need, but they usually don't appreciate what we are doing. Sometimes they hate us for it; and some of those who do turn to the Lord turn back after a short time. Results don't come as quickly as we had hoped, and the results that we do see are often less dramatic than we anticipated. It's easy to begin asking whether it's really worth it all.

In this area also, Paul uses the image of a farmer sowing his field. Farming is hard work, but if a farmer becomes weary and gives up, he will not have anything to reap. He tells us not to become weary in doing good, "for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." When we begin to lose heart, when we become weary with doing good, we need to remind ourselves of two things: 1) the harvest will come at the proper time. That time is in God's hands, and it is not up to us. If I want to have potatoes for dinner tomorrow, it won't do me much good to plant potatoes in my garden today. The harvest will come at the proper time, the time that God has ordained for such things. It is the same in the spiritual realm; God has set the time for the harvest, and we must await His time. 2) We will only reap a harvest if we do not give up. If we become weary and disgruntled with the whole thing and throw in the towel, we will not reap a harvest.

Because we are certain of the harvest, Paul urges us to do good. And he qualifies this in three ways. First, he says we are to do good "as we have opportunity." Rather than waiting for a special calling or dreaming of some dramatic way of serving God, we are to seize those opportunities that present themselves to us each day. There are plenty of opportunities to serve God and our neighbor if only we pay attention and seek to meet those needs that present themselves to us. The second thing he says is that we are to be indiscriminate in doing good to others. We are to do good to all people. But, thirdly, we are especially to do good to those of the household of faith.

Why does Paul add this last phrase, that we are especially to do good to those of the household of faith? I think there are two reasons for this. For one thing, we have a special commitment to those closest to us. Paul describes the church as the household of faith, comparing the church to a family. Our families have a special claim on us, and if we are not doing good to those who are closest to us, whose needs we are most aware of, we are being negligent. Caring for those in the body of Christ is in the same category; we have a special obligation to those in the body, and they have a special claim on our good works.

But I think there is something more. It is often easier to do good to people from a distance. Eugene Peterson calls this "Afghanistanitus, the idea that the real opportunities for significant acts of giving are in faraway places or extreme situations. Most of us want to be generous with our lives, but we are waiting for a worthily dramatic occasion" (Traveling Light, p. 181). Listen to what he says about this passage. "Paul doesn't direct our attention to those who are close to home because they are more deserving but because they are there, and he knows that the biggest deterrent to the drudgery of caring for an everyday friend is the dreaming of helping an exotic stranger. Giving from a distance requires less of us -- less involvement, less compassion. It is easier to write out a check for a starving child halfway around the world than to share the burden of our next-door neighbor who talks too much" (pp. 181-82). He goes on to tell this story: a U.S. Embassy official was murdered attempting to deliver a load of American junk food to the drought-ridden African land of Kush. The man's wife later reflects: "I've forgotten a lot about Don... actually I didn't see that much of him. He was always trying to help people. But he only liked to help people he didn't know" (p. 182). This story is from a novel, but I've heard real-life stories that were worse. Paul has exhorted us to do good as we have opportunity, and we have opportunities every day to do good to those who are closest to us. If our experience of God's grace doesn't enable us to do good to those who are closest to us, there is something dreadfully wrong.

At the beginning of the chapter, Paul calls us to “carry each others’ burdens,” because many of the burdens people are given in this life are too heavy to bear alone. God calls us, as part of the same body, to help one another in tangible ways. When we do that, when we seek to restore those who’ve fallen into sin (rather than gossiping about them), and when we seek to carry one another’s burdens, we’re sowing to the Spirit. Just a brief comment about the tension between verses 2 & 5. Notice that the NIV uses a different word in each verse: “Carry each others’ burdens” (v. 2) and “for each one should carry his own load” (v. 5). The translators have done this because there are two different words in the Greek. Here’s a good description of the difference: “There is a kind of burden which falls on a man which comes to him from outside: some crisis, some emergency, some sorrow may descend upon him. It is fulfilling the law of Christ to help everyone who is up against it. But there is a burden which a man must bear himself. The word which Paul uses is the word for a soldier’s pack. There is a duty which none can do for us and a task for which we are personally responsible. There are things which no one, however kind, can do for us, and which, however much we want to, we cannot push off on to someone else” (William Barclay, The Letters to the Galatians and Ephesians, pp. 58-59). God has given each of us our own particular load to carry, and He calls us, as part of the body, to bear one another’s burdens. As we serve one another, we’re sowing to the Spirit. When we refuse, and when we engage in gossip rather than seeking to restore those who’ve fallen into sin, we’re sowing to the flesh.

A passage like this calls us to examine ourselves. "What kinds of seeds have I been sowing this week?" "What kind of harvest am I going to reap if I continue sowing these seeds for the next 20 or 30 years?" "Am I sowing to the flesh or sowing to the Spirit?" “Am I going to reap a harvest of holiness, or of corruption?”

These are strong words: "Do not be deceived; God cannot be mocked. People reap what they sow." These are sobering words, because very often we are sowing to the flesh and hoping to reap someday a harvest of holiness. Does that describe your life? If so, don't despair. Listen to the message of Hebrews, a letter written to Christians who were floundering: "Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are -- yet without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need" (4:14-16). At the throne of grace we receive mercy -- forgiveness for our failures, forgiveness for sowing to the flesh, forgiveness for squandered opportunities for doing good. And we also receive grace -- grace and strength to begin over again, grace to begin ordering our lives around godly habits. If you find yourself convicted and condemned by this passage in Galatians, come boldly to the throne of grace, and be confident that our Great High Priest is delighted to give both grace and mercy.

Redeemed to Become Worshipers, John 4:1-42

Shiloh Lutheran Church, State College

12th Sunday After Pentecost, 2014

When I was here last, earlier in the summer, we looked at 1 John 1, focusing on confession and forgiveness. Today I’d like to follow up on that by considering what God is doing when He calls us to Himself and offers us forgiveness. What is God’s purpose in redeeming us from our sins?

I brought along today a print of Rembrandt’s painting, “The Return of the Prodigal Son” (if you’re reading this sermon and aren’t familiar with the painting, this link will lead to a picture of it: http://www.rembrandtpainting.net/rembrandt's_prodigal_son.html). In this painting, the prodigal son is kneeling before his aged father. His clothes are ragged and his shoes are worn out. A few years earlier he had left home in great confidence, with abundant resources to live the kind of life he wanted to live. But then things had fallen apart. His money had run out and he had ended up feeding pigs, barely making enough money to survive. And then he had decided to return. In that faraway place, in the depths of despair, he had remembered his father. Henri Nouwen says “The younger son’s return takes place in the very moment that he reclaims his sonship, even though he has lost all the dignity that belongs to it.... Once he had come again in touch with the truth of his sonship, he could hear – although faintly – the voice calling him the Beloved and feel – although distantly – the touch of blessing. This awareness of and confidence in his father’s love, misty as it may have been, gave him the strength to claim for himself his sonship, even though that claim could not be based on any merit” (The Return of the Prodigal Son, p. 49). He has nothing to offer; there’s no reason why his father should be proud of him. He doesn’t even claim any rights as a son; he returns with a prepared speech, asking to be treated as a hired hand.

He’s wasted his life and all his resources, but he has come to his senses and returned, with empty hands, to his father. When I look at that painting, I see a man who has come to the end of himself. He’s like the tax collector in the temple who won’t even lift his eyes to heaven but beats his breast and cries out, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” But the wonderful thing is that his father is leaning over, embracing him. His father is welcoming him home in love. He ignores the son’s request, “treat me as one of your hired servants,” and restores him as one of the family. It’s a powerful painting; I often look at it and think of the wonder of being welcomed by God the Father into His presence.

In chapter 4 of John’s gospel, we see God welcoming a prodigal daughter and turning her into a worshiper. He is seeking true worshipers. His purpose in restoring us and giving us new life is to turn us into people who worship Him in spirit and in truth. There’s an especially strong connection between evangelism and worship in this passage; in fact, Jesus’ conversation with the woman at the well is often used as a model for evangelism. It’s one of the best examples we have for making connections, in conversation, between physical and spiritual realities. And, central to this whole discussion is Jesus’ statement that the Father is seeking worshipers. God’s purpose in giving us new life is not just to give us a ticket to heaven, but to turn us into people who worship Him in spirit and in truth. That’s what we were created for originally. God, in calling us to Himself, wants to restore us as worshipers; He wants to enable us to do what we were created to do.

The first thing to observe in this passage is that to be worshipers our lives need to be going in the right direction. Notice how often the Samaritan woman misunderstands what Jesus is saying. He offers her living water, and she thinks He’s offering her running water and wonders where on earth He’s going to get it. He goes a step further and says: “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” How does she respond to that? She says, “give me some of that water, so I won’t have to walk all the way to this well every day.” She thinks He’s talking about magical water that will keep her from having to drink any more. It will save her the trouble of walking to the well, so she wants it. Then Jesus confronts her with the truth about her life, because she’s not going to see anything clearly as long as she continues in the direction she’s going. Sin blinds us to spiritual realities. So Jesus brings her face to face with her sin.

Her life is a mess. She’s had five husbands and is now living with a man who is not her husband. The reason she comes to the well alone, during the middle of the day, is probably related to her lifestyle. The other women of the town would have come out to the well in a group, in the early evening. But they wouldn’t want her to be with them. She’s an outcaste, the kind of person no one wants to associate with. Her own people don’t want anything to do with her.

There’s a story about a similar woman in John 8. In that story, the Pharisees and teachers of the law bring to Jesus a woman caught in adultery. Their purpose is to trap Him, to force Him into a position where He either undermines the authority of the Law, by showing compassion, or contradicts His own teaching, by ordering them to deal with her harshly. But He doesn’t do either. He begins writing in the dirt, and as they continue to press Him He responds: “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” And one by one, they all drift away. Then He speaks to the woman: “Has no one condemned you?” She answers, “no, no one has.” And He responds: “Then neither do I condemn you.... Go now and leave your life of sin.” He doesn’t condemn her, but neither does He say “everything is fine, be forgiven and if at some point you want me to be the Lord of your life, you can repent of your sin.” He calls her to repentance: “go now and leave your life of sin” is a call to repentance, a call to turn around and go in the other direction. He grants her forgiveness, and He tells her to leave her life of sin. But He doesn’t berate her or rub her nose in it. She’s already been humiliated; she already knows her guilt. It’s the same with the Samaritan woman. He confronts her with the truth, but He doesn’t berate her. She needs to see the truth or she’ll never become a true worshiper. But, having seen the truth, she can repent and begin a new life. She doesn’t need to wallow in it. She’s received mercy and grace and is now headed in the right direction.

The second thing to observe in this passage is that to be worshipers we need to know the truth about who God is. What we believe about God will affect our worship of Him. The Samaritans were a mixed race. When the Assyrians deported the ten northern tribes of Israel, they brought other people in to care for the land. These people mixed with the Israelites who had been left behind, and they also mixed the worship of Israel with their own religious practices. They worshiped the God of Israel and they also worshiped idols. I’ve heard that Christianity in Haiti is often mixed with voodoo. In North American Evangelicalism, the Christian gospel is often mixed with the worship of self, the idea that God’s highest priority is to make me feel good. The Samaritans were doing something similar. They claimed to worship the God of Israel, but their understanding of Him was corrupt and distorted. That’s why Jesus says: “You Samaritans worship what you do not know,” or, as it reads in The Message: “You worship guessing in the dark.”

What is the point of Jesus’ words, that “true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth”? The woman had raised a question about the proper place for worship. The Samaritans said Mt. Gerazim was the right place, and the Jews said the right place was Jerusalem. Where is the proper place for worship? I don’t think she’s raising this question as a smokescreen, to avoid having to face the truth about her life. When she sees that Jesus is, at the very least, a prophet, she raises this question which has been bothering her. Jesus responds that God is Spirit. He’s not confined to one place, so we can worship Him anywhere.

If God is only to be worshiped in Jerusalem, the Samaritans are in trouble, because they wouldn’t be accepted in Jerusalem. It’s doubtful that they’d be allowed to even enter the temple area. Jesus is saying that God is not confined to one place. He’s not more available in Jerusalem than He is on Mt. Gerazim. As the psalmist says: “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast” (Psalm 139:7-10). Since God is like that, we can worship Him wherever we are. God is Spirit.

But we also need to worship Him “in truth.” The Samaritans were groping in the dark, because they didn’t know the truth about God. The woman says to Jesus, at one point in the conversation, “When the Messiah comes, he will explain everything to us.” She’s floundering in the dark, but she wants to know the truth, and Jesus responds to her: “I who speak to you am he.” Jesus is the truth. She doesn’t need, any longer, to grope in the dark, wondering what God is like. She’s met, face to face, the One who is the “radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being” (Hebrews 1:3). It doesn’t matter where we are when we turn to God in worship, but it does matter that we know who He is. If our conception of God is false, we’re not worshiping Him; we’re worshiping an idol. We need to know the truth about God, and we need to know Him. We know the truth about God by looking at Jesus, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Jesus says, later on in this gospel, “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”

The third thing to observe in this passage is that witness grows out of true worship. I often think we’ve been too influenced by American salesmanship in this area of witnessing. We don’t feel like we’ve been faithful witnesses unless we’ve closed the deal and led the person to a commitment. I’ve often heard preachers ask “how many souls have you led to Christ”? How many sales have you made for the gospel? They don’t ask “in what ways are you acting as a witness to others?” They want to know how many times you’ve succeeded in closing the deal. We become so intimidated by that kind of thing that it actually hinders us from acting as witnesses.

Notice what happens in this story. The Samaritan woman has a conversation with Jesus, and in the course of the conversation she finds herself confronted with the reality of her sin and face-to-face with the One they’ve been waiting for. The whole direction of her life is changed. She accepts His words, “I who speak to you am he,” so she runs off to the town and begins telling people what she knows: “Come see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” She’s speaking the truth, bearing witness to what she knows. It’s not her job to close the deal. The people come out to see what she’s talking about, and as a result many of them are converted and they also become worshipers, the kind of worshipers the Father is seeking. Jesus tells the disciples, later in the passage, that they are reaping the benefits of others’ labor. These others labored, acting as witnesses, but they didn’t see the fruit of their labor.

We get things backwards when we begin following the techniques of the world in this area. A few years ago I read an interview with an American pastor. One of the questions was, “what is the highest priority for the Church today?” He answered that the highest priority is evangelism; he said we’ll have plenty of time for worship and for growing in the knowledge of God once we get to heaven. Right now, we need to give ourselves primarily to winning others to Christ. I hear this sort of thing all the time, but it’s simply wrong. We don’t have the right to pick and choose in this way. These things are not in competition. Listen to A.W. Tozer: “By direct teaching, by story, by example, by psychological pressure we force our new converts to ‘go to work for the Lord.’ Ignoring the fact that God has redeemed them to make worshipers out of them, we thrust them out into ‘service,’ quite as if the Lord were recruiting laborers for a project instead of seeking to restore moral beings to a condition where they can glorify God and enjoy him forever.... What we are overlooking is that no one can be a worker who is not first a worshiper. Labor that does not spring out of worship is futile and can only be wood, hay and stubble in the day that shall try every man’s works” (Born After Midnight, p. 125).

Jesus didn’t pressure the Samaritan woman to bring people back to Him. He wasn’t recruiting her for a job. When she saw the truth about Him, she became a worshiper, and the natural result was that she began to be a witness. Her witness grew naturally out of a genuine encounter with Jesus Christ. Those who worship God in spirit and in truth become witnesses. They don’t necessarily become soul winners, because that term has taken on too many associations from the world of sales and marketing. They become people who bear witness, in both their lives and their words, to the reality of God’s redeeming and transforming presence.

We need to remind ourselves that God is seeking people who will worship Him in spirit and in truth, people who will put Him at the center of their lives and offer worship from the depths of their being. This involves, 1) repenting of our sinful, self-centered way of life and ordering our lives in ways that are pleasing to Him, because we can’t be true worshipers if our lives are going in the wrong direction; 2) cultivating a relationship with God through His Word, because we need to know the truth about God in order to worship Him, and we need to know Him in a growing relationship, and not just as an object of study. We need to be asking ourselves: “is God a priority in my life? If so, how does this show itself in my commitment to worship?” God, in calling us to Himself, is inviting us to become worshipers. If worship is a low priority, it’s because God is not at the center of our lives.

When the prodigal son returned, the father welcomed him and restored him to a position of sonship. When the Samaritan woman recognized Jesus as the Christ, she was invited into God’s family to become a worshiper in spirit and in truth. Worship is not something we do on Sunday morning as long as there’s nothing more urgent for us to do. It’s not the sort of thing we do once or twice a month, depending on how we feel. Worship is absolutely central to our lives in Christ. It’s the very thing God has redeemed us for. When we turn to God in repentance, He says to us, “You are forgiven .... Go now and leave your life of sin.” He bends over and embraces us as a loving Father, and then He calls us to act like members of His family.

The Proper Use of Freedom, Galatians 5:16-26

Americans talk a lot about freedom. We talk about living in a free society, and we react when we sense that someone is trying to take away, or restrict, our freedom. Freedom is at the very center of what America is about. But with all our talk about freedom, I’ve seldom heard much about what a truly free life looks like. For the most part, freedom is understood simply as a lack of restraint, the liberty to do whatever I want with my life. Supporters of the “right to die” often make their argument along these lines: “it’s my life, and I should be free to end it whenever I choose.” Freedom is negative, nothing more than a lack of restraint. Here are some wise words by Richard John Neuhaus: “Nothing good can be done without freedom, but freedom is not the highest value in itself. Freedom is given to man in order to make possible the free obedience to truth and free gift of oneself in love” (Doing Well and Doing Good, p. 169). Freedom is a gift of God, but it’s not an end in itself. It’s not the main thing. God has given us freedom so that we can live in loving obedience under His lordship.

Paul is concerned, in this letter, about freedom. Following Jesus Christ means being free from the Law. As we’ve seen, the Galatians were in the process of turning away from the gospel of grace and were hoping to please God by obeying the Old Testament Law. He begins the letter, after a brief introduction, with these words: “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel–which is really no gospel at all” (Galatians 1:6). Over and over again throughout this letter, Paul shows the Galatians that by turning to the Law they are defecting from Jesus Christ. Rather than bringing them closer to God, this new direction is leading them away from Him.

Having made all his theological arguments, he says this at the beginning of chapter 5: “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (5:1). The Galatians had been set free to follow Jesus Christ, and now they were bringing themselves into bondage to the Law. As we saw in the last sermon, Paul wants them to hold firmly to the freedom God has given them in Christ. But that raises a question: what does a free life in Christ look like? Is the freedom we’ve been given a simple lack of restraint, a lack of boundaries so that we can fulfill our dreams by doing whatever we feel like doing? In this passage in the last half of chapter 5, Paul gives us a picture of what the free life in Christ looks like.

Paul wants the Galatians to be living in the freedom of the Spirit. But there’s always a danger in preaching this message. Paul had been accused, over and over again, of lowering the standards of godly living by preaching the message of free grace: “It’s simply perverse to say, ‘If my lies serve to show off God’s truth all the more gloriously, why blame me? I’m doing God a favor.’ Some people are actually trying to put such words in our mouths, claiming that we go around saying, ‘The more evil we do, the more good God does, so let’s just do it!’ That’s pure slander” (Romans 3:8, The Message).

There are two opposite dangers in responding to the gospel of free grace. The first danger, and this is the one Paul is most concerned with in this letter, is legalism. We see the potential for abusing the message, so we try to guard against this danger by introducing stricter standards. Several years ago I read an article by a Mennonite scholar who was unhappy with the direction some Mennonite churches were taking. They had been influenced by the doctrine of free grace, he said, and as a result the centrality of the peace position had been weakened. In his view, a more legalistic approach to the gospel would make it easier to safeguard some of the Anabaptist distinctives which were being lost. Legalism is safer. It enables us to stay in control. The opposite danger is antinomianism, living as if our actions don’t matter, because God is going to forgive us anyway. This is what Paul is concerned about when he says: “do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature.” If we’re really worried about morality, we’ll be tempted to some form of legalism. And if we’re especially concerned about freedom, we’ll be tempted by antinomianism.

But what does Paul mean when he talks about freedom? Clearly it’s not the freedom to do whatever we feel like. That’s the way people in our society often use the word, but Paul has something else in mind. When we do whatever we feel like doing, it destroys us, because we’re going against the grain of our nature. We’re not capable of exercising absolute freedom, and when we try it leads only to bondage. Our freedom is defined by our nature as creatures made in God’s image. When Paul says “it is for freedom that Christ has set us free,” he’s saying that we’ve been set free to live in obedience to God by the power of the Holy Spirit. We’re created to be servants. We can’t help it. We can’t escape it. When we refuse to serve God our Creator, we just end up serving something else. True freedom is found in obedience to God our Creator and Lord, not in obedience to our selfish whims.

Here’s how The Message translates vv. 19-21, describing a life seeking freedom from God’s Lordship: “It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community; I could go on.” When we try to grasp for absolute freedom, the freedom to do whatever we want, whatever we feel like doing, we dehumanize ourselves and we end up living in bondage to our impulses. We set out trying to be free, and we find ourselves enslaved.

Paul only presents us with two options in these verses. Either we are living by the flesh, with the kinds of results he lists in verses 19-21, or we are living by the Spirit. There’s no neutral position between these two. The flesh, or sinful nature, as it reads in the NIV, refers to the whole person in rebellion against God. The NIV uses the term sinful nature because it’s easy to misunderstand Paul’s use of the word flesh. He’s not talking about our bodies. Some of the works of the flesh include things that result from the misuse of our bodies: sexual immorality, impurity, drunkenness, orgies, etc. But the works of the flesh also include spiritual sins: idolatry and witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, selfish ambition, envy. So the flesh doesn’t refer to our bodies, but to the kind of life that results from the Fall, a life lived in the corruption of sin and rebellion. Living in the flesh is living within the limited perspective of a world that is alienated from the life of God. Here’s what one Bible dictionary says: “The man whose horizon is limited by the flesh is by that very fact opposed to God.... The flesh in this sense denotes the whole personality of man as organized in the wrong direction, as directed to earthly pursuits rather than the service of God” (New Bible Dictionary, p. 371). When we become swallowed up by the values of our culture and live for ourselves, grasping for everything we can, we’re living by the flesh. When we’re living according to the flesh, we are at the center, and everything revolves around our own desires. When we’re living this way, our own needs and desires seem to be the only thing that matters, and if we think about God at all it’s only because we’re hoping we can use Him to get the things we want. Living by the Spirit is living under God’s lordship, with Him at the center of our lives, and living by the flesh is living for ourselves.

It’s important to notice Paul’s terminology in verse 22. He speaks, in verse 19, of the works of the flesh. These are the things that are produced naturally from our fallen nature. When we’re living on our own, apart from God, this is the natural result. These are the kinds of things the flesh is capable of producing. He says the same thing in Romans 8: “Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires, but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God” (vv. 5-8).

In verse 22, Paul speaks about the fruit of the Spirit. These 9 qualities he lists in verses 22-23 are things that result from the Spirit’s transforming power in our lives. Here’s how it reads in The Message: “But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard.” The works of the flesh flow from us, but the fruit of the Spirit comes about through influences outside ourselves. We can’t produce the fruit of the Spirit through determined self-effort. It’s no use writing these things down in your Day-Timer and determining that you’re going to learn to live like this no matter what. We can’t do it, and when we try, we only end up with counterfeits. We can produce qualities that look like the real thing. But the similarities are only on the surface. The real thing can only appear in our lives through the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. The free life in Christ is a life that leads to the kinds of qualities Paul lists in these verses.

So how do we get the fruit of the Spirit in our lives? Do we just wait passively and say, “oh well, there’s nothing I can do about it; I guess if God wants these things to appear in my life it’s up to Him to do the work”? No. It’s true that we can’t produce these things, any more than we can make fruit grow without those things God provides, like sun, water and the right temperatures. But there are things we can do to cultivate the fruit of the Spirit.

The first thing is to ask whether the Spirit is part of our lives. Paul says in Romans 8, “if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ” (v. 19). He says, in 2 Corinthians 5:17: “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” Is this true of you? Is there evidence in your life of this new creation? The Church easily becomes just a sub-culture. We learn all the rules and say the right things, and as long as we don’t get caught up in certain behaviors, we can assume that everything is fine. But it’s possible to spend a lifetime in the Church without ever becoming a new creature. It’s possible to spend a lifetime in the Church without ever knowing anything of the transforming power of the Spirit in our lives. We can be good moral people, who fit very nicely into the Christian sub-culture, without ever being reconciled to God. We may avoid the more blatant things, like “sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft.” But what about “hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy”? Paul is also speaking about these things when he says “those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.” Do you have evidence of the presence of the Spirit in your life? Many people who’ve spent a lifetime in the church will one day hear Jesus say “Depart from me; I never knew you.”

But, having become new creatures in Christ, knowing the power of the Spirit in our lives, the fruit of the Spirit still doesn’t appear automatically. Paul says, in verse 24: “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.” It’s easy to confuse this with what he says chapter 2: “I have been crucified with Christ.” He’s talking in chapter 2 about something that has been done to him, but in chapter 5 he’s speaking about something we have done in coming to Christ. John Stott does a good job of explaining this verse: “What does it mean? Paul borrows the image of crucifixion, of course, from Christ Himself who said: ‘If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me’ (Mk. 8:34). To ‘take up the cross’ was our Lord’s vivid figure of speech for self-denial. Every follower of Christ is to behave like a condemned criminal and carry his cross to the place of execution. Now Paul takes the metaphor to its logical conclusion. We must not only take up our cross and walk with it, but actually see that the execution takes place. We are actually to take the flesh, our wilful and wayward self, and (metaphorically speaking) nail it to the cross. This is Paul’s graphic description of repentance, of turning our back on the old life of selfishness and sin, repudiating it finally and utterly” (Only One Way: The Message of Galatians, p. 150). Remember this definition I quoted earlier: “the flesh denotes the whole personality... organized in the wrong direction.” Repentance is turning around and going the other way.

What he’s describing has often been referred to as the mortification of sin, putting to death those old habits that lead us into sin. It’s what Jesus was talking about when He said: “If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell” (Matthew 5:29). When our sinful, self-centered tendencies begin to assert themselves, we refuse to submit. It may even help to visualize our old selves on the cross, having died to our old way of life. John Stott goes on to say this: “The first great secret of holiness lies in the degree and the decisiveness of our repentance. If besetting sins persistently plague us, it is either because we have never truly repented, or because, having repented, we have not maintained our repentance. It is as if, having nailed our old nature to the cross, we keep wistfully returning to the scene of its execution. We begin to fondle it, to caress it, to long for its release, even to try to take it down again from the cross. We need to learn to leave it there. When some jealous, or proud, or malicious, or impure thought invades our mind we must kick it out at once. It is fatal to begin to examine it and consider whether we are going to give in or not. We have declared war on it; we are not going to resume negotiations. We have settled the issue for good; we are not going to re-open it. We have crucified the flesh; we are never going to draw the nails” (pp. 151-52). “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.” Crucify the sinful nature, and then leave it there on the cross.

But that’s only the first step. We deny ourselves–we say “no” to our old, selfish way of life–and then we go on to walk with the Spirit: “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.” We walk in the Spirit by looking to Him, inviting Him into every area of our lives and seeking to live under His Lordship. Here’s John Stott once more: “This will be seen in our whole way of life–in the leisure occupations we pursue, the books we read, the friendships we make. Above all in what older authors called ‘a diligent use of the means of grace’, that is, in a disciplined practice of prayer and Scripture meditation, in fellowship with believers who provoke us to love and good works, in keeping the Lord’s day as the Lord’s day, and in attending public worship and the Lord’s Supper. In all these ways we occupy ourselves in spiritual things. It is not enough to yield passively to the Spirit’s control; we must also walk actively in the Spirit’s way. Only so will the fruit of the Spirit appear” (p. 154). We cultivate the fruit of the Spirit by refusing to allow the weeds of the flesh to grow in our lives and by seeking to walk daily in active obedience to God’s Word, trusting in His power to transform us into the image of His Son.

Here's a good description of what freedom means in the way Paul understands it in Galatians: “Christian spirituality forces a primary question: Is growth of the person totally open, as if we were clay to be formed? [In other words, is freedom in Christ open-ended, nothing more than a lack of restraint enabling us to do what we want?] Christianity firmly insists that the answer is no. The apt analogy is the relationship of acorn to oak. If an acorn were given ‘freedom,’ it could not become a maple. Instead, the options would be to become a healthy oak or a contorted self-contradiction. So with humans, for the ‘image of God’ is so structured within each person that the options are (1) to love God with all our hearts, souls, strength, and minds, or (2) to become twisted, tortured, and frustrated creatures” (W. Paul Jones, The Art of Spiritual Direction, p. 31). So these are the choices: “to become twisted, tortured, and frustrated creatures,” the kind of people described in the works of the flesh. Both legalism and antinomianism lead in this direction. The other choice is “to love God with all our hearts, souls, strength, and minds,” to become the kind of people God created us to be, the kind of people who increasingly bear the fruit of the Spirit. The message of free grace sets us free to be truly human.