Galatians 5:16-26
Matthew 13:31-33
“Intentional Faith Development”
My freshman year of college, I made the decision to give my life to Jesus Christ.
I remember the moment so well.
I was walking down the sidewalk in the evening and in my mind and heart I was wrestling with God.
I knew, that at that time in my life, I was not intentional about following Jesus Christ and giving everything over to Him.
But God had been working in my life for as long as I could remember.
My family brought me up in church, and I was always in Sunday school.
My parents spent their leisure time frolicking with Christian believers, and I knew and was known by some very awesome people.
I had seen the way people lived as a result of following Christ.
It was very much a different lifestyle and way of looking at the world than the way I had lived and the way most of my close friends lived.
Now at 18 years of age, walking home on the first week of November, 1986 was I willing or did I even want to make the fateful decision to give my entire life to Jesus Christ as well?
There was a kind of a war going on inside me.
I would call it a battle between the desires of my flesh and the desires of my spirit.
Finally, by the grace of God, my spirit…or shall I say…the Holy Spirit of God won and my decision was “Yes. I will give my entire life to following Christ!”
And suddenly, I felt a great wave of joy and relief flood over my soul!!!
I felt as if a light had been switched on, and for the first time in my life I felt a sense of joy and peace I had never even known existed.
I suppose you could say it was my “heart-warming experience.”
As soon as I made the decision to give my entire self to Jesus Christ I called up all my friends and relatives to tell them what I had done.
A number of them worried that I had joined a cult.
I wrote letters to old friends and to family members telling them about the “way of salvation.”
I felt as if I had finally learned the truth of the universe, and if I would just tell others about this truth—they too would give their lives immediately to Christ—of course…who wouldn’t?
Anyhow, it was an exciting time and it was just the beginning of the most amazing of journeys.
Little did I know what paths this newfound faith would lead me on.
What I did discover rather quickly was that everyone else in the world was not—to my amazement—just as excited about my incredible find as I, and so I found myself quite alone.
So I went looking…looking for other people who had had a similar experience and had similar interests.
A few days into my search, I passed a billboard on campus which had a number of scraps of paper either stapled or tacked into the cork.
One particular advertisement caught my eye.
All it said was: “Bible Study, Wednesday Evenings in the Commons at six o’clock.”
And I was there!
That’s where I made new friends—new Christian friends and learned a lot about what it meant to live the faith I had just given my life to living.
I could not have lasted long in the faith if it had not been for the community…for the relationships…for the friendships of other Christians!
And I definitely couldn’t have grown in my faith without the help of others who were either at the same stage in development as myself or quite a ways farther along.
When I began to attend and become a part of that Christian group on my college campus, I was unconsciously involving myself in what Christians have been doing from the beginning…
…surrounding myself with a community of faith!
From the first generation of Christians to the earliest Methodists to the youngest generations of faithful members today, as followers of Jesus we mature in the faith by learning together in community!
Two weeks ago we discussed how Christ’s gracious invitation through Radical Hospitality invites and welcomes us.
Last Sunday we focused on God’s transforming presence in Passionate Worship, and how that transforming presence opens our hearts to Christ’s forgiveness, love and grace, creating in us a desire to follow.
Growing in Christ takes more than a weekly worship service, though.
It is through Intentional Faith Development that God’s Spirit works in us, perfecting us in the practice of love as we grow in the knowledge and love of God.
Yes, we need to be “intentional” in our faith development.
No one can do it for us…
…and no one can force it upon us.
It only comes as we intentionally strive to develop our faith and grow in our Christ-likeness through communal study and learning.
That means we come to Sunday school and Bible study.
We may even want to form small groups where we hold each other up in prayer, study Scripture together in one another’s homes and hold one another accountable.
This is where God is best able to form disciples…
…when we do this together…
…and not by ourselves only.
Learning in community follows the pattern that Jesus set as He deliberately taught His disciples.
Jesus’ first disciples grew in their understanding of God and matured in their awareness of God’s will for their lives as they listened to Jesus’ stories, instructions, and lessons while gathering around dinner tables, on hillsides, and at the Temple.
This is how Jesus taught us to learn our faith, and nothing has changed!
After the Christian Church was first formed by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the earliest communities of Christians thrived as “they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to breaking of bread and to prayer.”
Notice how learning and community always walk hand in hand!
Having a two year old daughter, I have really come to appreciate the old saying: “Monkey see; monkey do.”
We learn from what we see in others.
Dietrich Bonheoffer reminds us that an incomparable joy comes from the physical presence of other Christians.
According to Bonheoffer, we see “in the companionship of a fellow Christian a physical sign of the gracious presence of Christ.”
Every Christian needs another Christian when he or she becomes uncertain and discouraged.
The Christ in one’s own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of a brother or sister.
So it only makes sense that we learn how to be better Christians by surrounding ourselves with other Christians.
Many of us can probably attest to the fact that many of the mistakes, sins and backsliding that have occurred throughout our Christian journeys have been a direct result of our taking ourselves out of the Christian Community.
The Bible teaches us, as followers of Jesus Christ, to learn, grow, teach, and mature, love one another and serve one another.
The Christian faith is not something that is to be static, but rather it is something we grow into and strive toward.
It’s a continual putting away of our “former way of life, [the] old self” in order to clothe ourselves “with the new self.”
As Christians, we seek to have in us the mind that was in Christ Jesus, as we allow God’s Spirit to shape our thoughts, attitudes, values and behaviors.
Growing in Christ-likeness is the goal and end of our life of faith!
Growing in Christ has kind of a snowball effect.
The change that God does in us through the Holy Spirit causes us to be more and more aware of God’s presence and gives us a clearer picture into God’s will which creates in us an increasing desire to serve God and our neighbors as well!
Can we relate to this?
By God’s grace, we become new persons just as Paul declares in 2 Corinthians Chapter 5: “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”
And this growth in Christ is to continue for a lifetime.
John Wesley believed in and taught us to strive toward “Christian Perfection.”
He even believed that it could be achieved in this life-time.
But Christian Perfection, according to Wesley doesn’t mean that we don’t sin anymore.
There will always be things we do that we don’t even know are sins.
That’s part of the learning process.
There will always be those sins of omission, and we are to continually strive to learn more and more about what it means to follow Christ.
Christian Perfection does not mean we are perfect and faultless or sinless.
Christian Perfection is having a habitual love for God and for our neighbors!!!
It’s keeping in step with the Spirit of God—as Paul teaches us in our Epistle Lesson for this morning.
And the more we learn to keep in step with the Spirit of God the more we exhibit the fruit of the Spirit which is: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”
And that my friends is what the world needs now!
And when the world see’s us as Christians walking in step with the Spirit, well, they come to want what we have…
…which is salvation from sin, death and hell by grace through faith in Jesus Christ…
…the King of kings and the Lord of lords.
Paul tells us in Galatians Chapter 5 to “live by the Spirit”….that is the Holy Spirit of God.
He goes on to tell us that our “sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit [of God], 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.”
Have you ever found yourself doing what do not want to do?
Have you ever felt as if your life was out of control?
Have you ever felt as if you were in bondage to things such as “sexual immorality, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, envy and the like?”
Well, as Paul reminds us in the first verse of Galatians Chapter 5: “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by the yoke of slavery.”
Hell on earth is being in slavery to sin.
But, thanks be to God! There is a Way out of this slavery, and it only comes through giving our lives entirely over to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and running the race of faith!
And of course, this must be intentional!
To be intentional about our faith development means that we give a deliberate effort and a purposeful action, and the highest priority to our Christian education, formation, Bible study and Christian witness!
We put our faith into action in community!
This is how we grow!
This is how we have life and have it to the full!
This is how we produce the fruit of the Holy Spirit!
This is the only way to win the war which wages within each one of us…
…the war between the flesh or the sinful nature and the Holy Spirit of God…
…this is the only way we truly are able to be free to do what we really want to do!!!!
Jesus said, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”
Jesus taught in community so that we would learn to discover His presence in others.
How exciting to think that other people are to see Christ and learn about Christ through coming to know us!!!
In the Gospel Lesson from Matthew Chapter 13 that Sharon read for us earlier, Jesus tells us that “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.”
Our Christian formation begins small, but it is not to stay small.
It is meant to grow.
God has never created anything that was not meant to grow.
And our faith grows and matures as we share our lives in community with other Christians—putting our faith into action.
And as we grow, we have the potential to become the “largest of all garden plants.”
We have the potential to “become a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in our branches.”
The birds of the air are other Christians who are to come into community and grow through us!
Is there anything more exciting than this?
Is there anything more worthwhile?
Is there any better thing in the whole world to give our lives to and press on toward achieving?
There is a contrast between our good intentions and our actual practices.
How many of us, each year, resolve to read the Bible, start with Genesis in January, and give up all hope of seeing our way through to the end by the time we reach Leviticus in February?
Well, faith development—which most definitely involves regular Bible study is a lot like getting one’s self on a regular exercise regiment.
Many of us can probably relate to a resolution and the enthusiasm involved with that resolution to jump out of bed at six in the morning, and be at the gym by 6:30.
The eagerness lasts a few days, and during the second week, when the alarm screams us awake at six, we tell ourselves, “There’s nothing wrong with getting to the gym at seven thirty rather than six thirty,” and so we sleep another hour.
By the third week, when the alarm rings at seven, we tell ourselves, “There’s no sense being fanatical about this; I don’t have to work out three days a week to become fit.”
And then the downward slide begins, from two times weekly to once a week, to once every two weeks to nothing at all.
That’s what happens to so many of our good intentions.
The answer to getting in shape, as well as to developing our faith is to covenant with friends who share the same interests and goals.
If we know that people are waiting for us and are expecting us at the gym at six-thirty, then we’ll roll out of bed at six even when we don’t feel like it.
In community there is a natural accountability.
That’s why Jesus sent the disciples out two by two to go “to every town and place where he himself intended to go.”
From the first generations of Christians to the earliest Methodists to the youngest generations of faithful Christians today, we mature in our faith by learning together in community.
There is a sad place in the letter to the Hebrew Christians.
It’s found in Hebrews Chapter 5.
To the Christians there, the writer writes, “though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food!
Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness.
But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.”
My friends, are we “by constant use” of the means given us…
…this church, the Bible study offered on Wednesday evening, the Sunday school classes on Sunday morning, Worship, personal devotions, Christian fellowship….are we “by constant use” of these means of grace training ourselves to distinguish good from evil, and thus living into that life that really is life?
Let us be intentional in our faith development!
There is nothing more important in all the world.
Amen.
