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Holy Trinity Anglican Orthodox Church
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The Motive for Christian Living |
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Galatians
3:24-4:7 Eight
Sunday after Trinity August
2, 2009 We have been talking about the biblical doctrine of salvation. In essence we have been talking about how to become a Christian, how to know you are a Christian, and what it means to be “saved” or to be Christian. To be saved is to be restored to God and to be restored to God gives meaning and purpose in life and an inner peace the people of the world cannot create in themselves. To be restored to God means to have a guide to life, called the Bible, and to have an inner power from God that changes our inner person and enables us to begin to do the good things we have always known we should do but have been unable to actually perform. To be restored to God is to have a home in God’s home; that house full of mansions where pain and sickness and sorrow and death cannot touch us anymore, forever. We can summarize all of this as our Prayer Book does, by saying we have in this world, “knowledge of [God’s] truth, and in the world to come, life everlasting.” In other words, we have God. We have God in this life, and God in the next life. He is our inheritance. He is our portion forever, and all the things only God can give are ours to enjoy here, now, and in Heaven forever. That is the essence of what I have been talking about for the past couple of months. Regeneration, justification, sanctification, the Bible alone, grace alone, and faith alone are the way God works in our lives to affect our salvation. Most churches don’t hear sermons about these things anymore. Most preachers don’t preach them, because most people don’t want to hear them. For that reason today’s “Christians” are weak and silly, seeking emotional experiences and exciting entertainments instead of worshiping God and seeking Him above all things. One has only to look around to see that most churches are “a mile wide but an inch deep.” So it is very important to understand the things I have been talking about. Understanding them helps build depth and strength in your faith and in your life. But now we have to move on and I want to start looking at the Christian life, how to live like a Christian. I want to begin by asking the question, why live the Christian life? And I want to start by talking about things that are not reasons to live the Christian life. We do not live the Christian life to earn God’s favour. When I talk to people who do not know Christ I often hear them say they try to be good so God will love them. I hope by now you realize there is nothing we can do to make God love us, because He already does. He loves us not because we are lovable, for we are sinners who have rejected and spurned Him. He loves us because He is love. He loves us because it is His nature to love. God is complete perfection; love is the highest perfection; therefore, God is perfect love. That is the only reason He loves us. So we don’t have to earn God’s love by our works. We have only to accept God’s love as it is offered to us as His free gift in Jesus Christ. We do not live the Christian life to get things from God. This is the second most popular answer I get when I talk to people about the Christian life. “I have to be good so God will bless me,” they say. The idea is that if they’re “good” God will reward them with the things of this world. That was the foundation of the religion of the Pharisees in the New Testament. But there are two problems with their religion. First, we can’t be good enough. That is one of the major points of the New Testament. We can’t be good enough because God’s absolute and unchanging standard is perfection, and none of us are perfect. In fact, we all fall very far short of that mark. Second, the Pharisees, both those of the New Testament era, and those who hold their religion of works today but go by different names, become proud of their own goodness, and pride is a grievous sin. Any person who thinks of himself as having achieved by his own power a higher level of moral goodness than that of the common herd is proud of his own achievement. That person plans to stand before the Great God of all Perfections, who is completely without flaw or even the ability to have a flaw, and tell God about all his good deeds in life and boast that because of those good deeds he is worthy to spend eternity with God. I have almost no skills in carpentry. If you see me with a saw or hammer, run, I’m dangerous. So, years ago when my children wanted chickens, I built a shabby, rickety chicken house for them. It was so bad and so ugly they called it “the coffin.” I knew enough to build a frame first, but I didn’t know how to build a good frame. The corners were not square. The framing boards were not all set in the same direction, so that on one side the wide side of the two-by-four was more or less perpendicular to the ground, and on the other one the narrow side was. When I covered it with plywood there were big gaps where I cut the boards too short. I put hinges on part of the roof so the children could just lift it to gather the eggs, but I made the legs too tall, so they couldn’t reach it. In addition, I made it from scrap wood, much of which was warped. Its appearance was hideous. Now, to be so proud of your own good works that you plan to earn your way into Heaven by them would be like me thinking I could get into the architectural hall of fame with my chicken coop. To brag about my chicken coop in the presence of people who have built the great architectural achievements of the world would be folly. Likewise our good works are no foundation for pride before God. They won’t get us into Heaven. So, why do we live the Christian life? Let me say here that the Christian life is the most difficult thing any person can ever do. The Christian life always demands us to choose against ourselves, and against our desires and comforts. This can be a matter as small as going to the Lord in prayer after a long hard day when you feel exhausted and only want to fall into bed to rest. Or it could be something as big as remaining true to Jesus at the risk of bodily harm or death. Living the Christian life always requires us to choose for God and against ourselves, that is why Jesus describes it as taking up your cross and following Him. Why would anyone want to do that? Why would anyone want to live the Christian life? Let me say that one motivation for living the Christian life is that the Christian life is right. We do not live it because it is the easiest life. We do not do it because we think it is the most comfortable, or because it offers the best social connections, or the best chance to make money and friends. We do not live it because we think God will grant us health and wealth if we do. We live the Christian life because it is right. It is right that we love God with all our heart, strength and mind. It is right that we love our neighbors as ourselves. It is right that that we refrain from idols and taking God’s name in vain, and that we remember the Sabbath to keep it holy. It is right that we honour our fathers and mothers, and refrain from murder and adultery and theft. It is right that we join ourselves to a biblical church and that we forsake not its assemblies. It is right that we think and act and live biblically. It is not always convenient. It is, in fact, often very costly. But it is right. That is why we do it. Let me say also that our primary motivation is love. In fact, living the Christian life means living the life of love. Love in the Bible means self-giving. It is not primarily feeling; it is primarily action. There is some feeling in it. We see in the Bible that Jesus was moved with compassion. We see that He felt empathy with us. He identified with us in our helplessness and need. He felt compassion for us because we were lost in the wilderness of life like sheep without a shepherd. He felt sympathy for us because we were on the highway to hell. He wanted to save us. He felt for us. But He didn’t just have these feelings for us, He also acted. Now, just as faith without works is dead, love without action is also dead. Christ acted. He came from Heaven to live like we do, but without sin. He experienced humanity with all its sorrows and temptations and unfulfilled hopes and unanswered questions. But He overcame them through faith. And He went to the cross, knowingly, willingly, and He died there in our places bearing our sins and suffering our penalty. Why did He do that? Love. Likewise, we who have received these benefits from Him cannot help but be moved. Our feelings are touched by His selfless sacrifice. Our hearts are moved by His love and we feel an attraction to Him, a desire for Him. In short, we have feelings of love for Him. But feelings alone are not sufficient. Feelings in themselves are not love. Real love requires action. Jesus himself said if we love him we will keep His commandments. He said we are to love God above all things, even our own lives. He said that if we love anyone or anything more than we love Him we are not worthy of Him. Now that’s a tall order. But love is the only thing that can really lead us to live the Christian life. So I say to you, consider what Christ has done for you. Consider the cross, the suffering, the grave. Consider that this One who was completely without sin suffered the wrath of God for your sins. Consider that He loved you with an everlasting love that was willing to endure these things for you, and He did it, not because you asked Him to but because that was the only way to save you from hell. And then, I say to you, love Him back. And as His love moved Him to action for your sake, let your love move you to action for His. This is brought out well in this morning’s reading from Galatians, which contrasts the obedience of a slave to that of a son. A slave obeys his master because he is forced to. A “slave” obeys God out of fear or manipulation, or even hate. He attempts to do what God wants because he fears punishment or because he wants to manipulate God. Little does the “slave’ know that such obedience is an abomination to God. God hates it. A son obeys his father out of love. The son knows what his father has given to him, sacrificed for him, done for him, and he loves his father in response to his father’s love for him. Because he loves his father, he obeys his father. We are “sons” of God. That is not a sexist statement. In ancient cultures the eldest son inherited the bulk of the family estate. It was he who carried on the family name and the family honor. As sons, we have inherited the Heavenly Father’s Kingdom. He has given to us everything. Therefore, we love Him; therefore we live the Christian life. The Rev. Dr. R. Dennis Campbell, Vicar, Holy Trinity Anglican Church,
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