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Holy Trinity Anglican Orthodox Church
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Twenty-third Sunday after Trinity |
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November 11, 2007 Philippians 3:17 Samples of Godliness Most of us would be very hesitant to tell someone to become a follower of us. We much prefer to say, “Follow Jesus. Don’t put your trust in me, or in preachers, or in institutions. Put your trust in Christ alone, and follow Him.” There is good reason for this. First we realize our own fallenness. Yes, we who are Christ’s have made Him our King and God. We have pledged our lives to Him, turned from our sins, and dedicated ourselves to lives of holiness, self discipline, and even self-sacrifice. And outwardly we are very respectable people. We are church members, maybe vestrymen, Sunday School teachers, good parents and spouses, saying our prayers everyday and doing good works. But we know our weaknesses. We know our faults. We know our secret sins. We know how easily we are turned aside by the lusts of the flesh and the pride of the mind. We know the strength of our own passions, and how easily we can be turned aside to them. So we do not want people to follow us. Second, there is the biblical teaching that all people are equal before God, and all people have access to God directly. They don’t need a human mediator to stand between them and God. Christ is our only Mediator. They need no other, and they especially don’t need us to become mediators. Based on this we are reluctant to call people to follow us. Yet Paul boldly said, “Be followers together of me.” And this is found not only in our Epistle Lesson for this morning, but in several places. “Follow us,” he wrote in 2 Thes. 3:7. “I beseech you, be followers of me,” he wrote in 1 Cor. 4:16. And here is the scary thing, like it or not, people are following you. You are a leader. The question is not, “Are people following you?” but, “Where are you leading your followers?” Especially you are a Christian leader. You may not hold an official position in the Church, but you are an ambassador for Christ. You are a missionary. You are a witness. You are these things by the mere fact that you have professed Christ. From the moment you did so, people began to look at your life and to judge Christianity and Christ by what they see in you. And your life, your actions, your words, your habits, your attitudes led them toward Christ, or away from Him. It is, therefore, essential that you lead in the right direction. That direction is the Way of the Cross. It is the Way of the Lord. We are not making disciples for our own selves. We are not allowed to lead others in our own ways, or according to our own desires and whims. Nor are we allowed to lead people into the whims and vagaries of pop culture, or the politically correct, but, bankrupt values in morality and religion. There is too much of that already. The most cursory look at much of the contemporary church reveals a culture of accommodation within it. Its worship is more akin to a rock concert or a football game than a humbling itself before God, and honoring Him. Its morals and values are those of the world, baptized and dressed in Christening gowns, but ungodly and worldly nevertheless. We dare not lead people in that way. We have only one Word to proclaim to the world, the Word of God, which is the Holy Bible. We have only one Way into which we call people, the Way of Christ. Our words to others must always be, not, “Follow me,” but, as Paul wrote in 1 Cor. 11:1, “Be followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.” Always lead toward Christ. Now the question becomes, “How can I lead others?” I’m not a pastor, I haven’t been to seminary. I don’t know how to teach the Bible or lead people into the way of Christ. How can I be an effective leader for those who are following me?” Your most effective leadership will be done as you live your faith daily. In other words, you will be most effective as a leader as you become more effective as a follower. Others will follow you as you follow Christ. Our Epistle Lesson brings this out well when Paul tells us to, “mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample.” The Greek word here is, tupos (typos), and its meaning is perfectly expressed in our English word, “ensample.” We are to be ensamples of the life changing presence of Christ in our lives. Or, if we remove the prefix, “en” we are “samples” of godliness. Salesmen have always known that the best sales technique is not the reasoned argument, but the sample. When you go to the warehouse stores today they feature samples. The smell of cooking food and the taste of it in your mouth will sell it far better than a chemical analysis of its nutrition or a medical analysis of the health benefits of the food. Who of us would stop to hear a scientist saying, “Independent laboratory studies using carefully selected control groups in four clinical settings and overseen by two teams of physicians, scientists, technicians and statisticians have concluded that the healthful benefits of sausage from hogs raised in this way is one one hundredth part per million higher than the same sausage made with hogs grown under the same conditions but without our special balance of porcine nutrition and health; and the same studies show that increased levels of health benefits at this level increase human circulatory health by one tenth ofone percent, resulting a statistical life-span increase by a similar level, assuming all other contributing factors equal and stable and if used according to directions over an extended period of time to be calculated at not less than 10 years and combined with a medically approved balanced diet and healthful exercise program.” Who would listen to that in a grocery store? Now I don’t know if sausage has that much to do with human circulatory health or not. I don’t even care. I made all that up to show that we just wouldn’t listen to that kind of sales pitch. But, put a fresh sausage on a hot grill, let it sizzle and cook, let it perfume the area with the smell of sage and pork, and put it on a plate and give me a taste of it, and you might sell me a sausage. The sample is better than words. So it is
with Christian leadership. A
sample is better than a lecture. A
sample is better than a class. A sample is better than a study.
Now, I didn’t say, “don’t study,” or “don’t teach.”
We need to study the Bible, and we need to know the doctrinal
content of the faith. If we
don’t we will be easy targets for the cults and errors that seek to lead
us astray. And we need to
teach these things to our children and our families and our churches and
our people. Christianity is
an intellectual faith. It
requires the diligent use of our mental faculties.
And Christian thinking is taught and learned by intellectual study.
But Christian living is taught and learned more by example, as we
observe good samples of godliness. Thus,
Peter wrote that elders are to be “ensamples
to the flock,” (1 Pet. 5:3). Thus,
Paul told the Philippians to follow good ensamples, and to be good samples
of Christianity. It is why he
told the Corinthians to follow him as he follows Christ, (1 Cor. 11:1).
The hard fact is that you are a sample of what you really believe
and value. God help us all to
be good sample of godliness. Amen. The Rev. Dr. R. Dennis Campbell, Vicar, Holy Trinity Anglican Church,
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