A Recipe for a Life Well Lived
2 Peter 1:5-8
A funny thing happens at funerals. Nearly always, good things are said about the deceased. People who are doing the remembering seem either to only be able to remember the good things about the person, or they feel it is only proper to talk about the good things about the deceased.
I’ve been to a lot of funerals and that’s something I’ve observed. It seems when we come to the end of life, what matters is the good that we do. The bad that we may do doesn’t count for much, or at least people don’t want to spend too much time remembering it.
I saw a bumper sticker once that said: “Live so that the preacher doesn’t have to lie at your funeral”. As a preacher, I can appreciate that sentiment.
We’re going to be looking at three passages today that focus on goodness as we start to wrap up our series on the fruit of the Spirit. We have been reading the passage from Galatians 5 each week that talks about the Fruit of the Spirit, so we won’t re-read that passage which includes, of course, the fruit of goodness.
Instead let’s start with a reading from 2 Peter 1:5-8. [Reader reads passage]
Here we have a recipe for a life well-lived. A combination of traits that, we are told, keep us from wasting our lives…being ineffective and unproductive in life…and that help to turn our knowledge of God into a truly transformed life.
Any knowledge we gain and do not use is useless knowledge. Most of the things there are to learn about life, about ourselves and others and about God become meaningful as we share our lives with others.
And knowledge of the mind is not somehow unspiritual while knowledge of the heart or of the spirit somehow is spiritual. To quote Rob Bell, everything is spiritual.
We’re told also that we need to possess these qualities that were read to us in increasing measure. And since we’re focussing on the idea of the fruit of the Spirit, we can understand that fruit that doesn’t keeping growing from its seed-form to maturity really does have no purpose.
If you notice, the first thing we’re encouraged to add to our faith is goodness. What does faith without goodness look like? Is it possible to possess faith without goodness?
I think the chief complaint about religious people, in fact, is that it’s observed by critics that Christians are no different in their behaviours than non-Christians.
When I was in college I had a very cocky teacher who challenged the class, and specifically a 20 year-old woman who had been to a Catholic high school, with this question: “What difference does it make in your conduct that you went to religious school”?
He was quite aggressive and even told us that he could take anyone of us who claimed a faith and could, with a friend of his, convert them to atheism in two days.
The young woman was intimidated and said that it made no difference. Most of the class was thrown by the question and did not respond, other than to shift in their seats. I was no different.
There are words we might connect to the idea of faith without goodness. Hypocrisy. Religiosity. For some, bigotry.
What’s been the effect in your own life of people who claimed a faith or claimed to be religious or claimed to be Christians, and yet who were dour or humourless, selfish or hypocritical? It’s a big turn-off, isn’t it? It repels rather than attracts. It give fuel to the critics of faith. It can seem to validate the argument that some try to make that faith is pointless.
But you and I also know and have known people who’s faith was contagious, who’s take on life and on God was very attractive and appealing. And it probably was not faith accompanied by miracles of the usual sort.
More likely, it was a quiet and gentle faith, part of the evidence of a life well-lived. A thoughtful and humble faith that didn’t assert itself or its own rightness. It was PROBABLY a life bracketed and filled with some measure of goodness.
So what does it mean to add goodness to our lives, to our faith. There’s an odd passage in the gospel of Mark. It reads like this: As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him.
"Good teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" "Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good--except God alone. Mark 10:17-18 I’ve heard people use that passage in an effort to try and prove that Jesus is not God. That’s a weak understanding of this passage.
Jesus is speaking here from a place of tremendous…and I mean tremendous humility. Phillipians 2 says “Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. Phil 2:6-7
Humility is a key part of what it means to be good. To be humble means to focus on the will of God, not our own. Jesus’ focus is away from himself, not on himself.
Even though His message of the Kingdom of God is embodied in who He is, His focus is on serving, not being served.
People who serve others joyfully are seen, I’ve observed, as being really, really good people. Do you want to add goodness to your faith? Do you want to see the fruit of goodness grow in your life? Focus on the will of God. Focus on serving others. And practice it.
What does that mean? Well, one great way to practice it is to get on a bus or a streetcar or a subway and start to pray blessing on everyone you see. Look at people and see who is sad, who looks lonely, who looks troubled, who seems kind of blank.
And pray…I mean really, really pray for them. Do that enough, and you’ll begin to experience more of God…and you’ll likely find it more natural to start serving others. Everything good starts with prayer.
So the recipe for a life well-lived begins with faith in Christ. And we’re told to add to our faith goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness and love. Our second passage gives us a warning.
[Reader]
Gal. 6:9-10 “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.”
This passage suggests that it’s possible to get tired of being good or tired of doing good; that we might actually give up doing good.
One of the things you made have heard me say once or twice is that it’s always ok to say “No!” if I ask you to do something.
One of the problems that churches face is that there can be an awful lot to get done, and people feel obligated or pressured to do things that they would really rather not do, and then people get stuck for months or years doing what they don’t want to do.
In that kind of scene, it can be very, very easy to grow weary in well-doing, in doing good. A big part of our focus here at CATM is helping people identify their spiritual gifts and passions for ministry and then to train and activate people in those areas of ministry…of service to God and to the community.
That’s part of the way we can avoid setting ourselves up for growing weary. We do what we’re called to do. And my main job as your pastor is to equip you to do the ministry of the church.
[PPT] Ephesians 4:12 says that my job is to prepare you, “God’s people, for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up”. Verse 13 plants a huge vision for us and gives us the big reason for doing this: So that “…We all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ”. Think of a tiny mustard seed attaining it’s full potential. It’s not so tiny any more.
Wow! That’s the best reason ever for not giving up doing good; for doing good to all people. Now you may have noticed that the passage that was read from Galatians said : “Let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers”.
I’ll be honest with you…sometimes I really wrestle with what the Holy Scriptures say, and his “Especially to those who belong to the family of believers” idea always bugged me. It seems kind of in-sy. Kind of “just take care of our own”, which is really not the gist of the rest of the Bible.
God’s Word always calls us out of ourselves toward a greater generosity, a greater unselfishness, a greater embracing and enfolding of humanity into the love of God in Christ. So what’s with this “Especially the family of believers!” ???
You know, there are too many people in the world whose faith has been marred by their experience of church. There are too many people who have NOT seen the fruit of goodness in the lives of other believers at church. Instead they’ve seen division and self-interest and pride and arrogance and intolerance. And it’s sullied their experience not only of church, but also of faith.
Church…we NEED to practice this stuff…this Fruit of the Spirit…here, among ourselves. We NEED to practice what we preach and what we believe here…in the context of church before we go out into the community. A muscle grows with use. That tiny seed becomes ripe fruit by being watered and carefully tended to.
We need to get it right here with each other. We need to learn how to love one another before we go out into the community. Now since we ARE here for the community and not for ourselves, as we hear again and again. So we have a strong, strong reason…good solid motivation for getting our act together here.
I love this church. Wow do I love this church and the people who are part of it. But you know, sometimes I see people using harsh words in order to ‘speak the truth’ to each other, as if ‘speaking the truth in love’ [Eph 4:15] was never a command of Scripture.
You and I are called to be [2 Cor 2:15] the fragrance of Jesus to a hurting, dying world. But we need to practice that here.
And that’s what’s so cool about being part of a church family where everybody knows that they’re not perfect. [By the way…if you are perfect…you really don’t belong here. Maybe try the church up the street].
You and I know we’re far, far away from being what we are called to be…but hopefully we know that Jesus Christ is equipping us to become, as a church, what we are called to be. And Jesus always completes what He starts.
So yes, in order of priority, first we see these qualities growing among us in increasing ways, and then we reach out to the community with the love of God in Christ. Can we do both at the same time? Of course! That’s what the real world is all about!
And here’s the ringer: Eph. 2:10 “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Do you believe that? Can you tell yourself, “Self, you are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” ??? Can you tell the person sitting beside you that?
In his sermon: “From Major Messes to Masterpieces”, pastor Rob Willis said this, and I quote: “The profound truth is that we are living, breathing pieces of art – created by God to live productive, meaning-filled lives.
“If I could “paint a picture for you,” it is basically this: God is standing in front of the canvas of our lives, wanting to make the canvas of our lives into a work of beauty.
You and I hold the brushes. If we let him, if we give Him…if we give Him the brush, the control of our lives, He can and will take our lives and turn them into masterpieces...priceless pieces of art in the hand of the Master”.
So…what is a tube of oil paint worth? A few bucks? What is a canvas worth? 10 bucks? What’s a masterpiece worth? Well, the value just keeps going up, doesn’t it?
You are God’s workmanship. That’s worth a lot of thought and you should, really, meditate on that and wrestle with the implications of that passage. But we should also remember the rest of the text: You are “created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for you to do.
So…the reason you’re here…is to do good. Huh? I thought I was here to please myself! To get the most pleasure I can possibly squeeze out of life? I thought it was all about me!
Uh…no! The reason you’re here is to do good. Period. That’s why, when we come to the end of our lives, it’s only the good we have done that really matters. ALL the other stuff gets forgotten (unless we’ve really massively blown it like the Hitlers and George Bushes of life and then the pain just never ends). But for the most part, only the good remains.
And there is a heavy, heavy word added to this which if you think about connects the meaning of your own life with eternity.
All the good you’ve done and will do…and believe me, you are called to do a great deal of good in the time you’ve been allotted to here on planet earth…all the good you’ve done and will do is good that God has prepared in advance for you to do.
Did you offer to pay someone’s cab fare or TTC fare because they were in a pickle? That was a God-ordained moment. Did you sit and talk with that person who you knew was really hurting, even though you were plumb-tired and dying to go home?
That was in God’s mind at the beginning of all things. Did you shovel your neighbour’s snow when she would have no idea that you did it but would wonder why her walk was clear? That was God.
Did you choose to overlook that really offensive thing that so-and-so said to you because you didn’t want it to damage your friendship? God was there. Did you make the effort to NOT give up when you got really badly hurt by someone in authority, because you really, really want God to use your whole life for His glory? God was all over that one.
Goodness connects us to the very heart of God; goodness added to our faith makes our faith sing and really makes people notice that something is different.
People of God…the world doesn’t care about what we believe. That can be a hard thing to swallow, but it’s true. The world around us doesn’t give a hoot what we say we believe. They only care about how we behave.
WHEN our faith impacts how we behave in a very positive way…that’s the difference people are looking for. That’s what attracts people to Jesus.
We sing “God is good”. “God is a Good God” That’s is so true. That is such a powerfully important thing to proclaim and for people to know. But the first access point to that revelation…the revelation of God’s goodness…is our lives.
When people who do not believe see people of faith living generously, giving sacrificially to help others, caring deeply and investing deeply in people’s lives…that is a revelation in itself of the goodness of God.
When people see us loving each other as a church family…that is another powerfully magnetic thing because unconditional love just doesn’t exist anywhere else.
And if it can be seen in the church in the way we conduct ourselves and in the way we encourage and love each other; if goodness can come to characterize us as a body of believers…can you imagine how good it will feel to be here?
Can you imagine how attractive we will be to the stranger who walks in here on Sunday, wondering what kind of people worship here? Can you imagine what God might accomplish through us in this community, in this city?
Holy God, you are good. And you call your people to be good. There’s just no getting away from that truth. Strengthen us O Lord, that we might truly become the fragrance of Jesus to a lost and dying world. Let Your goodness shine through us. In Jesus matchless name we pray. Amen.
