Sermon from June 24, 2007
How will Christ be formed in Brandywine Valley Baptist Church in this first decade of the third millennium? The answer plunges us back into the theology of the Cross. The shadow of the Cross falls across the “the ‘habits of the heart’ and ‘habits of the mind’ that dominate American culture.”

Those habits and that culture pose to the Church the decisive question of our generation. Can Christians lead lives that are worthy of Christ in an American culture that invites and encourages us to use our unparalleled personal freedom for an unprincipled pursuit of pleasure and power? Doing anything we can get away with appeals to us, because we think doing it will make us happy.

The crucifixion of Jesus Christ tells a different story. If using unparalleled personal freedom for an unprincipled pursuit of pleasure and power could save us from our sins, then Christ died for nothing. But it doesn’t save us from our sins. It doesn’t even make us happy for long. It is profoundly selfish and chains us to our sins. The message of the cross proclaims that self-sacrifice is the way of God in this world.

So, let’s learn to ask of every person we meet, “How can I put the legitimate needs of this person ahead of my own?” That is how the Church can be worthy of Jesus Christ in this American culture that invites and encourages us to do anything we can get away with. That is how we allow the shadow of the cross to fall across the habits of the heart and habits of the mind that dominate American culture.

I heard a good story last week of how that works. When I pastored in Portland, it was, to put it mildly, the hardest five years of my life. A small contingent of people became my nemesis. We have long since made our peace with each other. Last week, I heard a part of the story I had never heard before.

A man, who served on staff with me, wrote a letter to each person in that contingent. He brought the letter to his wife and said, “I’m going to send this. You don’t have to sign it, but I do.” His wife read the letter and also signed it.

In the letter they said, “We just want you to know that we have been angry at you for a long time for the way you treated Pastor Bo. It’s over. It’s not right to live with that kind of anger. We are writing to ask you to forgive us for our anger.”

Our task today is to meditate on alternative habits like that. We need to answer two questions. First, what are these alternative habits, and second, how does the Church embody them? At the risk of changing your life, please turn with me to Galatians 5:13.

 
Liberty Is Not License
Let me review briefly the essential historical background of Galatians. The Jerusalem apostles in a formal Church council had given Paul and Barnabas their blessing to establish Gentile churches that did not observe time-honored Jewish rituals.

Their decision also created a crisis for the Apostle Paul. A vocal and determined segment of the Jerusalem Church disagreed with the apostles’ decision. They disagreed so sharply that some of them became missionaries. But they did not go out to start new churches; they went to churches Paul and Barnabas had started and tried to persuade them to observe Jewish law about circumcision and other distinctive Jewish acts of obedience like Sabbath observance and keeping a kosher table.

Among the Galatian churches it looked like they might succeed. Someone told Paul what was happening. He may have done more to prevent his work from being undermined. We don’t know. We do know that he wrote a very strong, well-reasoned letter to the Galatian churches, urging them not to place themselves under Jewish law.

We have read Paul’s effort to persuade the Galatian churches to stay true to what they learned from him. In chapter five, as his letter moves towards its conclusion, he urged them not to go to the other extreme. Verse 13: You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature.

Are you aware that people accused Paul of encouraging Christians to indulge their sinful nature? They said something like this: “Paul doesn’t teach new converts to keep the law of God. He says the law just shows us what sinners we are. The worse our sin, the greater God’s love for us! So, live it up! Let us do evil that good may come – Romans 3:8.” I don’t think many people said that to his face; but it’s not the sort of innuendo the apostle wanted in circulation.

No one has accused me of teaching that, but I know that BVBC makes some people nervous. For example, you may have heard me say the following: “Every sport has a rule book, but the rules are not the game. No athlete prepares to play by thinking, “I’m going to keep all the rules today.” Without the rules the game would be impossible, but the game is greater than the rules.

“Living the Christian life by rules makes no more sense than going to a football game to see how many rules each team kept and broke. One way to experience God is to focus on such rules. It is an impoverished experience.”

That makes people nervous, because people, who have experienced a harsh background of religious rules that seemed to take all the joy out of life, could hear that and say, “Rules don’t matter. I’ll just follow my instincts and live free.” To them I would say what Paul said to the Galatians in verse 13: You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature.

I would also tell them to keep reading verses 13-14: rather, serve one another in love.  The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” That brings us back to the second discipline that helps us get in shape spiritually: Without regard for anything in return, put someone else’s legitimate personal interests ahead of your own for the sake of Christ.

That doesn’t indulge our sinful nature! Even more exciting, that’s how we actually fulfill the law of God. It’s a better idea of how to be free and how to be fully human. Yes, it’s risky; people can abuse the freedom. Paul warned the Church away from the abuse in verse 15: If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.

 
Keeping in Step with the Spirit
Paul didn’t spend much time on that. He moved immediately to the answer to our two questions: what are the alternative habits of the heart and habits of the mind, which the Church is to embody, and how does the Church embody them?

He begins in verse 16 with this principle of Christian experience: So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. Let’s read on! The passage explains what it means to live by the Spirit. First, living by the Spirit and gratifying the desires of the sinful nature are mutually exclusive, as verse 17 explains: For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. If you do one, you can’t do the other.

In verses 19-23 Paul answers our first question: what alternative habits of the heart and habits of the mind should the Church embody? First, by way of contrast, he tells us what habits to stay away from in verses 19-21: The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

It is humbling and frightening to think that anyone of us is capable of such behavior and might enjoy and defend that behavior. It is sobering to realize that if these desires characterize us, we will not inherit the kingdom of God.

When the kingdom comes, and God’s will is done on earth, as it is in heaven, these acts of the sinful nature will be eradicated. The Church is the community whose destiny is the kingdom of God. We have already begun the eradication of these behaviors here and now. Paul talks about our commitment to their eradication in verse 24: Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. The crucifixion not only put Jesus to death, it enables us to put to death the behavior, values, habits and goals that made us what we were before we became followers of Christ. They no longer define who we are.

What do we put in their place? Verses 19-21 tell us what the Spirit desires. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. That’s what the life of God in the soul of man looks like at street level. That’s what will challenge the habits of the heart and habits of the mind that dominate American culture.

That brings us to our second question: how do we embody what the Spirit desires? Verse 25: Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. To keep in step with the Spirit is to cooperate with the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is working to produce in the Church these alternative habits of the heart and habits of the mind – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. The final words of verse 23 tell us something important about keeping in step with what the Spirit is doing in us: Against such things there is no law.

Think about that! The only limits on self-sacrifice are the ones imposed by our weakness. The only limits on joy and peace are the ones imposed by our unwillingness to challenge the anxieties, self-pity, and adversities of life that threaten to overwhelm us.

God is the ultimate Realist, and He doesn’t want His Church to put on blinders, when it comes to seeing life realistically. Living by faith, living in the Spirit requires courage and truth. Living in the Spirit sees life as it really is and then says to adversity, anxiety and self-pity, “You don’t have the last word. God’s life in us is greater and will ultimately triumph, and I will bear witness to that by rejoicing the face of great sorrow, loving in the face of great animosity and displaying gentleness amid the dog-eat-dog habits of the world around me.”

You get the idea. So, go out the door each day and knock yourself out trying to experience love, joy, gentleness, patience, and self-control. We have inside help. The Spirit is at work in the center of our being to make us to want to do these things and actually to do them.

The Pastoral Center of Gravity
Let’s talk about living this way more consistently. First, get a good start on your day each day. C. S. Lewis offers help in doing that in his classic book, Mere Christianity. He wrote:

“The real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it. It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind” (p. 168).

Wake up and say the Lord’s Prayer. Wake up and reread the passage the Sunday sermon was about. Remember something important that you took away from the sermon. Doing that kind of thing throughout the day is another matter. It may be a while before you can do it. Your agenda for the day is full. Your work requires close attention. Where you work doesn’t feel especially holy. On the other hand, you might be surprised to learn how strong the Holy Spirit has made you. You may be able to do more than you think, albeit in fits and starts.

Throughout your day, without regard for anything in return, put someone else’s legitimate personal interests ahead of your own for the sake of Christ. Become a student of their legitimate personal interests. Then, look for ways to satisfy their interests.

Here’s a second help in living this way more consistently. Keeping in step with the Spirit is not a solo performance. We have all been baptized by the Holy Spirit into one body (1 Corinthians 12:13). A living body is not a conglomeration of individual cells; they act together in a coordinated way for the health and maintenance of the whole body.

Look for example down the page at Galatians 6:2: Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. Even more pertinently, look at verse one: Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. It’s a mutual accountability to care for each other and to allow ourselves to be cared for by each other.

If you’re serious about keeping in step with the Spirit, you need a spiritual director or a small group with whom you can talk freely about your spiritual experiences and receive from them rebuke, correction and encouragement to keep in step with the Spirit. Don’t try to do this by yourself.

Finally, the mission of Brandywine Valley Baptist Church is to be followers of Christ, known by their love. What stalks my soul by day and haunts my dreams by night is that Christians in all their global diversity see themselves as the single, social embodiment of Jesus Christ in this world and keep in step with the Spirit, each person according to ability and always growing. The salvation of the world awaits that. BVBC is the only congregation we can do anything about. Let’s do it.

There’s something else I don’t want the frailty of this sermon to hide. What we are talking about today is the air without which humanity suffocates. Listen to me! If tomorrow we fixed Social Security and Medicare; if tomorrow the problem of illegal immigrants went away; if tomorrow we found a cheap and universal cure for AIDS – if all this happened, the human condition would still be desperate, if it were not also brought into alignment with spiritual life. The life of God in the soul of man is the air without which humanity suffocates. That’s God’s gift to the world through the Church.