Sermon from July 26, 2009
"Created for Good Works: Old Ways, New Ways"
Ephesians 4:17-32

You Comedy Central and HBO television watchers will be familiar with Bill Maher. He has a biting wit, and he is quick to use his sharp tongue to harpoon anything religious. He’s not an atheist, but he is hostile to organized religion of any kind. He once said to a Scientologist, “You, like all religious people, have a neurological disorder. And the only reason why people think it’s sane is because so many other people believe the same thing. It’s sanity by consensus.” (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Maher#Views_on_religion> accessed on July 11, 2009)

Does that strike you as inconsistent? I mean, why do so many HBO viewers think Bill Maher’s ideas are sane? Isn’t it because so many of them believe the same thing? Isn’t that also sanity by consensus?

Bill Maher’s hostility to religion is nothing new in American life. 130 years ago, Ambrose Bierce was the Bill Maher of his day. He wrote a book called The Cynic’s Word Book. In the book he said that a Christian is “one who follows the teachings of Christ so long as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.” (quoted in John Micklethwaite and Adrain Wooldridge, God Is Back, 87) People who didn’t like it called his book The Devil’s Dictionary.

Mr. Bierce’s and Bill Maher’s satire has a lot of truth in it. The practices of religious people really are often “mired in hypocrisy.” So, while I will be quick to point out Maher’s inconsistency, I will be just as quick to accept his criticism, if he tells the truth. I know that if you stay around this or any other church for long, Christians will disappoint you by their hypocrisy.

I don’t know how to stop that. And when it’s my own hypocrisy or the hypocrisy of someone I trust, I have one of those moments when I say, “What’s wrong with us? What’s wrong with me? Why do I do that?” A compelling answer to my question comes from the Bible. Let me show you.

The Problem
Look at Ephesians 4:17-19. So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you (Christians) must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.

Here are the words that tell me what’s wrong with us, with me. Verse 18 says they are . . . separated from the life of God. How does that happen? Verse 18 explains that human beings are separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them.

Ignorance! I can fix that with more learning, can’t I? Not really. We have to go deeper. Verse 18 traces our ignorance to something learning won’t fix.  It says that human beings are separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.

Have you ever had have a callous that you could stick with a pin and not feel anything? Something like that has happened to human nature, and it causes you to lose sensitivity to God. It’s like a callous on your soul. God can’t get through to you.

That affects the way we live. Verse 19 is restrained but blunt: Having lost all sensitivity (to God), they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more. G. K. Chesterton said one time that when people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing; they’ll believe anything. Yes, and they’ll do anything, because whether they know it or not, they are looking for something to fill the hole they made when they lost God.

So, what do we do about that? Not much, but the gospel says that God did something about that. Here in a nutshell is what He did. While we were separated from the life of God, Christ died for us. Let me say it more personally. While you were separated from the life of God, Christ loved you and gave Himself up for you.

Christ is the great Interventionist. He chose to enter our world and accept the terms on which life in this world is lived. By doing so He says, “I came to show you the way back to God. You trust me, you stay close to me, and I’ll make your heart sensitive to God again and reconnect you with His life and a whole lot more.”

Don’t miss the crucial action! “Trust me. Stay close to me.” Trusting Christ to show you the way back to God reconnects you with the life of God. Are you trusting Him to show you the way back to God? Your trust in Christ is the human side of the relationship between God and man.

There is an important way for you to show publicly that you are trusting Christ to show you the way back to God. It is baptism. The ring on my finger doesn’t constitute marriage, but it makes my marriage vows public. The baptism doesn’t constitute faith in Christ, but it makes your faith public. If you are trusting Christ to show you the way back to God and have not been baptized, why don’t you plan to be baptized when we are in our new sanctuary? You’ll hear more about that this fall.

Put Off Your Old Self
“Okay,” you say, “I am trusting Christ to show me the way back to God. I have been baptized. But how am I supposed to stay close to Him? What do I do?” The Bible gives its answer in the next five verses.

Go back first to verse 19. Having lost all sensitivity (to God), they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more. That’s just the way of the world, isn’t it? Now, verse 20 says, and I say to you: You, however, did not come to know Christ that way. The way of the world is not the way back to God. Verses 22-24 outline a new pattern of life for you. If you stay close to Christ on your way back to God, here’s how to do it. I call these verses the Grand Pattern of Spiritual Restoration.

First, the grand pattern involves renunciations. Verse 22 says, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires. Stop living the way you once lived, with all your hell-raising and self-indulgence, lying, cheating, and bullying.

Do you have a bad habit you’d like to get rid of? Getting rid of bad habits is what I am calling renunciations. It’s what the apostle called putting off your old self.

I heard Christian psychologist, Henry Brandt, tell the story of a young married couple who came to him for counsel. She apparently had a bad habit of slamming doors, not in anger, but without awareness that she was doing it. One day, she slammed a door as she left the room, and her husband yelled after her, “Why do you slam doors?”

He had never yelled at her like that before. She came back in the room and said, “What did you say?” He explained his frustration, she had no idea she slammed doors and was apologetic. They kissed and made up, and she walked out of the room and slammed the door. Cute story. Do you think it would still be cute after ten years?

I have a friend in another church who travels routinely. He told me of a trip to Florida, when some of his colleagues really leaned on him to go with them to a strip club. They wouldn’t take no for an answer. He finally said, “I’m sorry, guys,” and just walked away. Both examples illustrate what Jesus meant when He said to take up your cross and follow Him. Renunciations are not just for superheroes; they’re for the whole Church.

Put On the New Self
Renunciations are only one part of the Grand Pattern of Spiritual Restoration. We don’t just say no to life. We also say yes to a new life. The grand pattern involves affirmations. Verse 24 says that we are to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

Listen to a sequence of verses here in chapter four and the beginning of chapter. All but the last verses talk about behavior to renounce, and in the next breath talk about behavior to embrace. Verse 25: Each of you must put off falsehood, and speak truthfully to his neighbor.

Verse 28: He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need.

Verse 29: Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs.

Verses 31-32: Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

Chapter 5:1-2 captures the heart of our new self: Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

Joe and Sara Watson got married at the beginning of July. Each guest at their wedding reception found a card on the table that said, “A gift has been given in your name to Compassion International to help impoverished children around the world.” Their gift is an example of what the Apostle meant when He said to be imitators of God and live a life of love. It’s not just for superheroes; it’s for the whole Church.

Think a New Way
So, as we stay close to Christ we need to get rid of our bad habits and learn godly habits. Where do we get the strength to do that? That brings us to the final part of the Grand Pattern of Spiritual Restoration. Verse 23 says that you were taught . . . to be made new in the attitude of your minds. When you trust Christ to show you the way back to God, something happens to the way you think. That doesn’t mean you stuff your head with knowledge; it means that you start to see life through new eyes. You see life through new eyes, when your motives change. Godly motives go down into the depths of your soul and renew your mind. Let’s take a closer look at a powerful example.

Two emotions govern the way you think about God: fear and love. My Christian friend from another church, who refused to go to the strip club with his colleagues, made that decision, either because he feared God, or because he loved God. You could not see his action and know whether it was fear or love that made him act. In the heat of the moment he may not have known himself. If it was fear, then he feared God more than he feared what his friends thought about him. If it was love, then he loved God more than what his friends thought about him and more than sensual pleasure.

My hunch is that both fear and love influence the way we act. One time, we fear God and act a certain way. Another time, we love God and act the same way. Both motives are honorable, but they are not equal.

Fear is honorable. How could it not be? The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, says Proverbs 1:7. You could do much worse that to fear God and not sin. But fear is inferior to love. The scripture gets it right in 1 John 4:18: There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The man who fears is not made perfect in love.

So, which motive governs your relationship with God? For example, why are you here this morning? Is it because you would have a bad conscience, if you stayed home? Or is it because you wanted to be among those, who make visible for a few shining moments the dwelling place of God on earth, and to utter praise to the God from whom all blessings flow?

Pay attention to yourself. In general pay attention to what drives your life goals and your day-to-day choices. Specifically, pay attention to how much of your behavior is motivated by fear of God and how much is motivated by love of God. Achieving that kind of self-knowledge is uncomfortable. I don’t think you’ll go for it unless you want to be renewed in the attitude of your minds, unless you really want to put on a new self.

The Pastoral Center of Gravity
And that brings me back to where I began, to Bill Maher. I said at the start of this sermon that I would accept his criticism of Christians and the Church, if he told the truth. But it’s not easy to hear such criticism, and we hear it a lot. Television and blogs make sure that we hear it every time a clergyman abuses a child or has an extramarital affair or defrauds people of money or uses hate speech.

These failures embarrass us. They put us on the defensive. But worst of all they teach us with great subtlety a way of thinking that undermines everything I’ve talked about today. Here’s how it goes: I do not and I cannot measure up to the ideals of Christianity or Jesus, so what’s the use trying?

You may as well cut the Achilles tendon of an athlete as to believe that. It hobbles you; it takes you out of the game. You no longer aspire to goodness. You accept the moral status quo; you take the path of least resistance in our self-indulgent culture.

God has called us to better things. We, imperfect though we are, are the flesh in which God dwells within the human family. The Church is the dark, carnal presence through which the redemption makes its way into history. I urge you aspire to a life that is worthy of that calling. I urge you to put off your old self and put on the new self. I urge you to be made new in the attitude of your mind. Fear God until you can do better. When you are stronger, love God. Let the fear of God and the love of God become the driving motives for all you do in life. We can become that kind of Church.

Do you want to be that kind of church? If so, then other voices must join with my voice in calling us to imitate God and live a life of love. Speak up in your classes, small groups and random conversations. Movement has to come from the grassroots.