Skip to main content

Following Jesus: We Live From the Inside Out

(A sermon based on Luke 11:37-44 for Sunday, August 26, 2012)

Trying to be a real Christian while living a real life in the real world is tricky business. I mean, just think of some of the tensions with which we live.

For one thing, we know on the one hand that being Christian is not a matter of doing all the right things but we know on the other hand that we should and could do better at doing the right things.

For another thing, we know that we are limited because we are human but we know on the other hand that we can be more than we can imagine because of the presence of the Spirit of God in our lives.

For yet another thing, we know that our behavior is often of a higher quality than the state of our hearts but we know on the other hand that the state of our hearts is sometimes of a higher quality than the quality of our behavior.

One of the challenges we confront is to face who we are in all our complicatedness, who we can by grace-infused effort become, and the gap that lies between them.

I agree with Robert Corin Morris who said, “I’ve come to believe God wants us to develop awareness of the state of our spirit, for our own sake and for the sake of others” [Wrestling with Grace: a Spirituality for the Rough Edges of Daily Life (Nashville: Upper Room, 2003), p. 11].

I’ve come to believe that, too. I’ve come to believe that we need to learn to become aware of the state of our spirit so that we can by the grace of God and through the Spirit of God grow and develop that spirit that it might become more and more as God intends for it to be.

What does God intend? God intends for us to grow in the image of Christ; God intends for us to grow in the love and grace of Christ; God intends for us to grow into the best version of ourselves that we can be.

But what do we intend? Do we intend to tend to our spirits so that we can grow in the grace of knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ? Do we intend to tend to our hearts so that our way of living will be characterized by ever-increasing integrity?

The observation that William Law made many years ago is a valid one for us: “If you will stop here and ask yourself why you are not so devoted as the primitive Christians, your own heart will tell you that it is neither through ignorance nor inability but purely because you never thoroughly intended it.” [William Law, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1955), p. 22].

Will we intend it? Will we commit together to tending to our spirits? Will we take steps to develop our spirits so that we will live our lives out of a solid center and bear good witness to Christ with our lives?

Sure, God still loves you and you can still be a Christian even if you settle for far less than you could be. But why would you settle? Why would you not want to be all that you can be by the grace and Spirit of God?

This story about Jesus having dinner with a Pharisee leads us to think about such matters.

One day Jesus was invited to dinner at a Pharisee’s home and Jesus went, which just goes to show you that Jesus would fellowship with any sinner, even a religious one (and those can be the hardest ones to abide). The Pharisees, you see, were very well-respected and very serious religious folks; nobody did religion any better than they did. They did all the right things in all the right ways. So the Pharisee could not believe that Jesus did not wash his hands before eating his dinner. Now, this was not a hygiene issue. It was a religious purity issue and by not washing Jesus broke the rules.

Jesus said to the amazed Pharisee, “Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You fools! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? So give for alms those things that are within; and see, everything will be clean for you” (vv. 39-41).

Jesus said, in other words, that it is what is on the inside that counts. We can look mighty fine and holy on the outside but on the inside be an unholy mess. Jesus also said, in other words, that the best living and the best giving come from within us—but we must have something positive and good on the inside out of which to give! The truth is that we’ll still be a mess, but better a holy mess than an unholy one!

Do we have the problem that afflicted the Pharisees? Jesus said that they were full of “greed and wickedness” on the inside. He later said that they “neglected justice and the love of God.” Yes, they lived good and right-looking lives. Yes, they did right and good-looking things. But they had no inner storehouse from which to draw to help them to live truly good lives.

They did not understand that it really did all boil down to loving God with all their being (they neglected “the love of God”) and loving their neighbor as they loved themselves (they neglected “justice”).

We give out of what we have. If we have greed and selfishness, those are the store houses from which we’ll give. If we have love and justice, those are the storehouses from which we’ll give.

We can move every day toward tearing down the useless store houses and toward building up the useful ones.

Working together, the grace of God and the living of life will form us. Let’s live life in a way that will help us learn who we are so that we can submit it to God for correction and discipline. It’s not going to just happen; we have to want it to happen.

That means paying attention to what is going on in our hearts.

That means paying attention to what is going on in our prayers.

That means paying attention to what is going on in our relationships.

And it means not letting our religion stunt our growth or stand in the way of our progress…

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Amazing Belief (Mark 6:1-6)

(Preached at Rocky Creek Baptist Church, Forsyth GA, on July 8, 2018) I wonder how much we really believe in Jesus. That may sound like a strange thing to ask people who have come to church, but it’s something we should give some serious thought to. We may have more in common with the people of Jesus’ hometown than we care to admit. When Jesus encountered the people in Nazareth, “he was amazed at their unbelief” (v. 6a). We may be amazed at it too. After all, they knew him. They had probably heard about his teachings and healings, and now he was coming home. We might expect them to welcome him as the hometown boy made good. But they didn’t. They instead “took offense” at him. Given the questions they asked, we might express their attitude as something like, “Who does he think he is, anyway? After all, he’s one of us, and he’s no better than we are.” They even seem to put him down a little bit: “How can a man who works in construction also work miracles?” The bottom li

An Experiment in Preaching

A friend who in his late fifties took a new pastorate said that he had written the last sermon he ever intended to write, meaning that he planned to use the vast collection of sermons that he had built up over his career and produce nothing new. I have in my paper and electronic files every sermon I have ever written; I even have the outlines, some of which were lifted straight out of the back of my trusty Thompson Chain Reference Bible, from my first halting efforts, which were quite different than my later halting efforts. I have at times “re-preached” some of my “greatest hits”; in so doing I heeded the wise words of my wise father who once told me, “If it was worth preaching once it’s worth preaching twice.” And if it’s worth preaching twice maybe it’s worth preaching thrice or more! Over the last twenty-five years I have written full manuscripts for 99% of the sermons that I’ve preached and 90% of the time I’ve taken that manuscript into the pulpit with me. Last Sunday I began an

What I’ve Been Trying to Say: Practice Love!

(A sermon based on Philippians 2:1-18 for Sunday, April 26th, 2015--my last sermon as Pastor of the First Baptist Church of Fitzgerald, GA) When all is said and done, it all comes down to love. So “love” is the word and the reality with which I want to leave you. Well, actually it all comes down to worshipping God. But God is love—that is, God is most defined by God’s love and so to worship God is to worship the One who is perfect love. And actually it all comes down to following Jesus. But Jesus showed us what kind of love God’s love is so to follow Jesus is to practice God’s kind of love. To worship God is to worship the One who is love. To follow Jesus is to follow the One who showed us what love is. So it all comes down to love. I decided long ago that I would in living my life always try to come down on the side of love. I decided long ago that I would in carrying out my ministry always try to come down on the side of love. I decided long ago that I would in lead