Cornerstone Mission Church, Sunday Sermon August 16, 2008
I read a book by Henri Nouwen titled, In the Name of Jesus. The author reflects on Christian leadership. In the introduction he asks this question to himself, “What decisions have you been making lately and how are they a reflection of the way you sense the future?” If you want to know the kind of future you might have tomorrow, try to evaluate your own recent decisions you’ve been making. This is a great self-reflective question.
I wish I could say that I make my decisions decisively and make no wrong turns. If life is like following today’s navigation system, all you got to do is punch in your starting point and the destination point, temporary life now to eternal life and just like that you get a detail turn by turn direction to the destination. All you got to do is just drive and wait for that voice prompt that tells you to get ready for your next turn; it gives you live update on distance before your turn. Hey, if get distracted and forget your turn, no sweat. Within a split second, the GPS navigation prompts you with a new direction. Well, it works until your GPS navigation start telling you to make u-turn and drive back.
Still, even the cheapest navigation system will be better than what I got going in my brain. Seriously, I think I really have a messed up sense of direction. When I first moved to the parsonage six years ago right here at the church property, I couldn’t figure out if I had to make a right turn or left turn on Camp McDonald Road to go towards Milwaukee or towards Rand. Five minutes into driving having made the right turn from the parking lot, I would realize that I was heading towards Milwaukee when really I needed to drive towards Rand. If this just happened once or twice, well it would just prove that I am a human after all. But, the fact is I struggled for many months to make the right decisions. The sad thing is I still make wrong turns. You should see me on our drive way confidently start making my left turn out into Camp McDonald to go to Kohl’s Children’s Museum, only to be informed by my lovely human GPS sitting next to me, again I’ve made the wrong turn. I am getting better though. I often find myself slowing down in the driveway before making my turn just to make sure I am heading the right direction.
Perhaps, God gave me this faulty sense of direction to illustrate the reality of our lives that is nothing like following the detailed turn by turn GPS navigation direction. Perhaps, it is an illustration to point out how I need to depend on God for his leading.
Revisiting Henri Nouwen’s question, “What decisions have you been making lately and how are they a reflection of the way you sense the future?” I could add my own questions.
How can I be sure about the way I sense the future? Can I be certain about where I need to be tomorrow? Even if I know where I am going, how can I be sure that the decisions I make today will get me where I need to be tomorrow? These questions reveal the feeling of indecisiveness about our future and the decisions we need to make today. But, more than just feeling indecisive, it reveals deeper trouble for our souls; indecisiveness is just the tip of the ice burg. Beneath it lie deep anxiety, insecurity, and fear that keep many of us wake late into night. It reveals deep insecurity we have about ourselves, our surroundings, and our times.
The world says that the key to making good decision for tomorrow is to feel good about it. If your decision makes you feel good right now, then really that’s all that really matters. Whatever adds more pleasure, more comfort, more ease in life appears to be what is right. I am so glad God didn’t make his past decision on how he felt at the moment. When his Son was being falsely accused, wrongfully beaten, stripped, and whipped, pierced and crucified, if God were to make his decision sorely on eliminating his pain, feeling good at the moment, to allow his Son to experience so much suffering and death for the rebels who hold up their fists against him wouldn’t make any logical or emotional sense.
The word of God today tells us that the key to making right decisions in life begins at the cross. It begins with Jesus Christ.
- Set your spiritual navigation on the single point of interest at the cross.
You may ask, “What does the cross, Jesus Christ has anything to do with making decisions in life?” My answer would be, “Everything.”
Here is the passage some of us studied this Friday. Philippians 1:9 says, “And, this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight.” This is Paul’s personal prayer for the Philippians to whom he was writing his letter. Here was Paul who first preached the gospel to them at the cost of imprisonment, flogging, and humiliation. Here was Paul later in time who loved them so much so that he would write a personal letter from his prison cell to tell them how he remembered them and prayed for them.
How did Paul end up caring so much for the Philippians? The clue is found in verse 8. He described how he longed for all of them with the affection of Christ Jesus. King James Version translates “the affection of Christ Jesus” as “the bowels of Jesus Christ.” The Greeks saw the bowels, the intestines as “the site of the natural passions.”[1] But, in English language heart is the seat where we experience deep and passionate emotions. So, when Paul spoke of the affection of Christ Jesus or the bowels of Jesus Christ, Paul was describing how Jesus was moved in his heart or at his gut level. So, the terms like gut-wrenching, heart-rending, or heart-breaking, captures the intensity of how Jesus was moved in his heart.
When you read the gospel accounts, you come across the scenes that describe Jesus having compassion on the crowds who were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd (Matt. 9:36; Mark 6:34), who were hungry (Matt 15:32; Mark 8:2), blind (Matt 20:34), lepers (Mark 1:41); his heart went out to the widow who lost her only son (Luke 7:13). When Jesus told the parable of the Samaritan, he used the same expression to describe how this Samaritan took pity on a man who was robbed and left to die (Luke 10:33). Jesus also used the same expression to describe the father in the parable of the lost son (Luke 15:20). When the prodigal son returned completely broke and messed up having wasted his inheritance in wild living (v. 13), but while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him. When his heart was moved with compassion, the last thing in his mind was keeping his composure, his dignity, distancing from his son or rejecting him. He wasn’t passive. But, you see him running to his son, throwing his arms around him and kissing him.
Ultimately filled with compassion, moved in his guts, in his heart, Jesus gave himself for you and me at the cross; in his deep affection, he endured the suffering, scorning, humiliation and painful death. Paul wrote to Galatians in 6:14, “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and to I to the world.”
This is an expression of man who knew only one point of interest for navigating his life. He began his journey at the cross and he finished his journey at the cross. Jesus Christ remained his obsession, his all. How did he remain so single-mindedly devoted to Jesus? How was he able to reject all other points of interests? How was he able to keep returning to the same point of interest through out his life, to the cross, to Jesus Christ?
It is because Paul understood God’s profound love for him in Jesus Christ. He did everything to foster love relationship with God. Jesus defined himself as the way, the truth, and the life. He is the knowledge; he is the depth of insight. Apart from him, we know nothing of real love. For Paul, love to abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, it meant knowing and being changed by the life, the heart and the mind of Christ.
Only at the cross, the transaction can take place, forsaking our selfish, godless preoccupation with ourselves inundated with anxiety, fear and insecurity. At the cross, we are given the heart of Jesus Christ, joyful, loving and obedient heart of the Son who adores the Father. At the cross, with Jesus, in Jesus, love can grow.
Consider your spiritual navigation. What other points of interests do you have stored in your spiritual journey that compete with the cross point?
For our love to abound in knowledge and depth of insight, we must foster our love relationship with Jesus. Before we can love others, we must be saturated, satisfied, filled by love of Jesus Christ. Don’t settle with the vague sense of yesterday’s intimacy with Jesus for today. Each day requires fresh saturation in Jesus Christ. The best way is to start at the cross, meditate in his life, his suffering, his death, his mindset, his heart, his love, gut-wrenching, heart-rending, heartfelt affection, his victory.
· When you set your spiritual navigation on the cross, don’t grow weary in expressing your love to others for Christ stands between you and them.
To say that Jesus is the starting point and he is the finish line, to say my life is all about Jesus, while my love relationship with people remains stagnant and sour, makes no sense.
When Paul prayed for the Philippians’ love to grow, he certainly meant for their love in Jesus Christ to flourish. But, the spiritual reality is that when the affection of Jesus Christ fills us and we grow in love with Jesus, his love flows over us and touches the people around us.
One of the things that I learned about the Philippians is that they were generous people. They were generous in their support for Paul even though they themselves weren’t well off. He described their generosity in verse 5 as “partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.” This was the hallmark of their Christian love for Paul; it was enduring love. They didn’t give up when things got difficult, but pressed on to ensure their love abound for each other and for Paul.
We must resist the temptation to separate love of God with love for people. Love of God always translates into love for people. If we are not growing in love with people, it is sure sign that we are not growing in love with God.
What is important is that we don’t get weary in doing good to people. Paul said in Galatians 6:9-10, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.”
When you give but you don’t see the result, discouragement can set in your heart. This is when you must evaluate why you do good in the first place. Dietrich Bonhoeffer speaks with clarity about this in his book, Life Together. He compares the difference between self-centered love and spiritual love. He says,
“Self-centered love makes itself an end it itself. It turns to itself into an achievement, an idol it worships, to which it must subject everything. It cares for, cultivates, and loves itself and nothing else in the world.”
But, “Spiritual love however, comes from Jesus Christ; it serves him alone. It knows that it has no direct access to other persons. Christ stands between me and others… Contrary to all my own opinions and convictions, Jesus Christ will tell me what love for my brothers and sisters really looks like. Therefore, spiritual love is bound to the word of Jesus Christ alone… Because spiritual love does not desire but rather serves, it loves an enemy as a brother or sister. It originates neither in the brother or sister nor in the enemy, but in Christ and his word.”[2]
The key here is to get the picture of Jesus Christ standing between us as the mediator, the perfecter, the sanctifier. When you study the way Paul understands how people ought to relate to each other, this picture of Jesus standing between us clearly emerges. Ephesians 5 and 6 is all about this picture of living together with Christ as the mediator, perfecter, sanctifier. He says in 5:21, “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Humbly serving each other begins in love for Jesus and it ends in glory to God.
Psalm 51 is David’s reflection on what happened when the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba. He said in verse 4, “Again you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge.” Pause and think through this with me. Here he was with the blood stain of Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, in his hand and the sin of adultery, how could he say that he had sinned against God alone and done what was evil in his sight. David certainly wasn’t minimizing the murder and adultery against Uriah and Bathsheba. What he was recognizing is the picture of God standing between him and others. Any offense against others is foremost offense against God.
· When you set your navigation on the cross, in Jesus Christ alone, discernment, purity, blamelessness, righteousness are merely the fruit of that love relationship.
I bring us back to Henri Nouwen’s question, “What decisions have you been making lately and how are they a reflection of the way you sense the future?”
So often we worry ourselves to the point of loosing sleep, getting anxious, fearful about our future.
Here is the clear way out of this trap laid out for us by the way Paul prayed for the Philippians. Instead of trying really hard to figure out what decisions you need to make about your future, channel your mental energy, your time on growing your love with Jesus and with people.
The scripture is very clear on this. Psalm 37:4 says, “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Matthew 6:33, “But seek first the kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself…”
When you feel confused because you don’t know what to do, instead of worrying and fretting, do your best to mind the business of God and go about learning to delight in him. And, see what happens. God’s not going to come and magically make decisions in life for you. But, what he is going to do is as you learn to delight in him he is going to shape your heart after Jesus’ heart so that what you desire reflects the desire of Jesus Christ. And, the steps you take in your desire will reflect your delight in Jesus and his will.
When we consider living blameless, pure and righteous life we must be very clear in this; blameless, pure and righteous life isn’t about making a mental list of what we ought to do and not to do and let that be the measuring guide to whether we are living blamelessly, purely and righteously.
Your confession, when you approach holy life with the check list of to dos and don’ts, will be superficial and will not lead you to godly sorrow over sins, but only self-pity. You break the mental check list and you feel bad that you broke it. You feel good that you kept your mental check list of spending quite time with God for 10 minutes in reading his word, praying for another 10 minutes. And, you pet your back as though you are living holy life.
The Bible says our hearts are deceptive. Check lists of dos and don’ts cannot grow us into holy people. Holiness only results in growing love relationship with God and with people, period!
Of course, there are things we need and must do if we are serious about growing in love relationship with God and with people. We must study God’s word diligently, we must pray, we must share the gospel, we must do good. But, we do these to as means to grow our love.
Again, the focus must be growing in love. When love deepens in us, then whatever offenses and sins we commit, we realize that it is against God who sent his Son to die for us, to forgive our sins. The more God becomes person to us, the person of holy God who deeply loves us through his Son Jesus, the less we will want to offend him and the more we will want to please him.
[1] The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology: Volume 2. 599. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, © 1967, 1969, 1971.
[2] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together Prayer book of the Bible, Fortress Press, 1996, p.31.
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