Theme: Living by faith
Pillar: Discipleship
Grant S. Sisson, MSCP, CI
Preached @ Countryside Christian Church 3/08/2009
A few weeks ago I brought to your attention the six pillars of church health: 1) worship, 2) evangelism, 3) ministry, 4) fellowship, 5) prayer, and 6) discipleship, as discussed in Acts 2. I hope you have been listening to each sermon since looking for which pillar I am directing your attention to, for it is upon these “pillars” Countryside will continue to grow. She is strong now, but God has in mind for us much greater things than even what we have seen so far. And when I say “growth,” I mean growth in the Holy Spirit as individuals and as a church family. It would not mean anything at all if we grew to a thousand based upon something other than Jesus; but based upon the teachings of Jesus we will grow to a thousand and beyond, because God will bless His people, and His Word will not come back to Him void.
So each Sunday we work on building Countryside up by strengthening our work within one of these pillars. Look in Gal 2:20: “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” Remember John 11, “Those who believe on [the Son of Man] even though they die, they shall live, and everyone who lives and believes in him shall never die”? Perhaps the Apostle Paul was thinking of those very words as he penned his letter to the Galatians. Christianity’s view of human life is distinctly different – in fact, unintelligible by any other philosophy. Our life is to live in Christ, to be his disciples, to behave only as he would have us to, and to love others as Christ has loved us.
World’s view of the good life
Nothing “bad” ever happens – all is fun and good times, success in everything I set my hands to do.
Everything goes my way – I “grab for the gusto” and get it in everything.
But the more I grab the gusto, the more I intrude into and interfere with others who are also grabbing the gusto, and the less time I have to supply my partner’s needs and the needs of my family. When my value is “Grabbing gusto” my own wants became paramount, and this interferes with my own ability to live life. I trip over my own feet.
This philosophy leads to, and has no answers for, life’s down times, and thus leads to despair. It leads us to a place it can’t lead us through.
But you know what? We humans have created that philosophy (with a little help from the Father of Lies himself.) We live in a world of our own making.
We humans do “create our own realities”
That is the fundamental tenet of Moral Relativism – the scourge of our times. Well, preacher, are you agreeing with it or disagreeing?
Most of the world’s philosophies are based upon some truth, some correct idea that within its context is right. If not, no one would believe them.
For instance – people get together in cultural groups and determine what their world is going to be like; that is, we “construct our own realities.” In one context, this is true. We as a nation have gotten together and decided that we will drive on the right side of the road. Woah be to the errant soul who violates our reality – we look at him and say, “You must be crazy! Are you nuts??”! So it has become a socially constructed reality that one must drive on the right side of the road, and he that violates this “truth” is going either to jail or to a hospital.
But it is unwise to insist that our “reality” is the only one, because if an American goes to England and lives according to American “reality” by driving on the right side of the road, he will wind up either in jail or in the hospital, and all the Brits would look at him and say, “Are you crazy?” Well, who’s crazy here? The Brits or the Americans? Neither, it just means that the two cultures have come up with a different answer to the same problem – that of getting to work in some kind of orderly fashion. So to insist that our way is “right” and theirs is “wrong” is absurd. It is not a matter of values; it is a matter of expedient behavior.
But moral relativism takes this idea out of context and says that values are the same way. The idea is that each culture can decide what it wants to morally as well; that values can be chosen, and can be whatever that society chooses. Let me explain.
We toss around the term “values” all the time without really knowing what it means. When we think “Christian Values,” we think the basic political hot-button issues like the pro-life stance or anti-homosexuality. But stances taken on abortion or homosexuality are not values, they are endorsements of behaviors; and values and behaviors are not the same. If I take a stand for or against abortion, I have said that I have chosen a specific behavior to deal with that life issue. But why did I choose that? I will only choose behavior that is based on what I think is important in my life – what I value. Values are things like dominance on the one hand, or love, on the other; behaviors are things like forcing others to do what you want (because you value dominance,) or like Jesus washing the disciples’ feet (because he loved them.) The point here is that what we do is the result of what we think is important, and “what we think is important” is what we value - behaviors result from values. Tom Moore, my counselor supervisor, would say that values inform behaviors.
For instance, we worry about orderly driving (a behavior) because we are concerned with human life and dignity (a value.) The value is love, and the reality we enforce behaviorally is driving on the same side of the road as everyone else. The behavior (which side of the road to drive on) is different among the various nations, but the value is the same (love expressed as "Let’s cooperate to get all our needs met safely.") But significant differences in law (that is, approved behavior) exist where the fundamental values are different. I met a young woman from the Middle East who came to work for a time at The Center for Families. She had come to America with her family, and after they had been here only a couple of years her father was killed by a mugger right here in Shreveport. The thought of such a thing horrified and outraged me, but as she continued with the story what was even more incredible was that she was surprised that our justice system hunted down and punished the killer – in her country, there are no laws against murder. she said, "No one cares, at least not enough to do anytning about it." So as Paul said, “You will reap what you sow.” You sow a value other than love, you reap rewards other than peace.
Do you see why it is impossible to make a law that is NOT “legislating morality," or at least legislating behavior out of a beief in a moral value? I had a discussion with a friend before I left my career in the oil industry at the Waskom Gas Plant. We were driving down the road on company business discussing various political issues, and he made the comment, “You can’t legislate morality.” I countered immediately, “Woah – there’s never been a law ever put on the books that was NOT legislating morality.” He was stupefied at that, and responded with a gruff “OAAAHHH Grant!!!” So I defended my position by saying “All laws are moral in nature. Even the speed limits are there for the preservation of human life and dignity.” He sat in silence all the way back to the plant. I guess he’s still to this day trying to come up with some response.
J. P. Moreland, in his book Apologetic Reasoning and the Christian Mind, tells of an experience that illustrates that we all have values, even the most relativistic among us: “One afternoon I was sharing the gospel in a student’s dorm room at the University of Vermont. The student began to espouse ethical relativism: ‘Whatever is true for you is true for you and whatever is true for me is true for me. . . . But no one should force his or her views on other people since everything is relative.’” Moreland says, “I knew that if I allowed him to get away with ethical relativism, there could be for him no such thing as real, objective sin measured against the objective moral command of God, and thus no need of a Savior. I thanked the student for his time and began to leave his room. On the way out, I picked up his small stereo and started out the door with it. ‘Hey, what are you doing?’ he shouted. . . . ‘I am leaving your room with your stereo.’ ‘You can’t do that,’ he gushed.” But Moreland said, “I happen to think it is permissible to steal stereos if it will help a person’s religious devotions, and I myself could use a stereo to listen to Christian music in my morning devotions. Now I would never try to force you to accept my moral beliefs in this regard because, as you said, everything is relative and we shouldn’t force our ideas on others. But surely you aren’t going to force on me your belief that it is wrong to steal your stereo, are you?” [PAUSE] Moreland looked at him and continued: “You know what I think? I think that you espouse relativism in areas of your life where it’s convenient, say in sexual morality, or in areas about which you do not care, but when it comes to someone stealing your stereo or criticizing your own moral hobbyhorses, I suspect that you become a moral absolutist pretty quickly, don’t you?” The story has a happy ending, for Moreland says, “Believe it or not, the student honestly saw the inconsistency of his behavior and, a few weeks later, I was able to lead him to Jesus Christ.” [SermonCentral Illustration]
So Christianity is explicitly different than other religions. Our God is love, so Christianity values people first, people of all nationalities and tribes, people who are of any skin color, people who drive on any side of the road. If God created them, we love them, and will sacrifice because of our agape love to their best interests. That’s the foundational Christian value.
The reality that we construct when we choose to live in a world without God -
May be fun, if and while everything goes right
Truth is it won’t always go right
And in the end there is the looming specter of death, and there is no satisfaction in living when confronted with the inevitability of the end of life in atheistic humanism – “just accept it because it is just the way it is.” Bertrand Russell, a noted atheist and philosopher, when asked about his thinking about his own death near the end of his life responded, "Only absolute and unutterable despair." Who wants to live in a reality of “absolute and unutterable despair”?
It is true – you can create your own reality even in the moral sense. But there will be consequences. Galatians 6:7-8 - “7Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
8For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting."
That’s the reality of life with God
When things go wrong, as they inevitably will simply because we live in a fallen world, God is our Shepherd and will not fail us. We have a hope, sure and steadfast, that those without Christ do not have.
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Without hope, there is nothing but absolute and unutterable despair. And hope cannot exist without faith, because we don’t yet have what we hope for, that is, a place to dwell in absolute peace and tranquility. And without faith that it will happen, there is only despair (HOPE-LESS-NESS.) We know that a world built upon the moral value of love works – and that the further away from love one gets, the more violent the world becomes. This is why Jesus was called the “Prince of Peace;” He came into the world to bring peace by establishing a new way, a way built upon a value that no one had ever thought to try – agape love. In fact, God is love; the God we worship leads us through this new value system into behaviors that produce peace and tranquility. “Then Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He leadeth me beside the still waters, his rod and his staff, they comfort me. Yeah though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me. And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Absolute and unutterable elation and JOY! But the god of this world leads us to places he can’t get us through – places filled with hopelessness, meaninglessness, absolute and unutterable despair.
What kind of life are you living? What reality have you created for your life to live in? Is it a dwelling place of peace and tranquility, of unspeakable joy, or a place of violence and despair? The Good News is that if you are living in a world full of emptiness and hopelessness, there is an option. You can change the world you live in, the world you have constructed. But only through Jesus will that new world make any more sense than the one in which you currently dwell. Jesus is standing at the door, knocking, begging you to let him come in and lead you into an abundant life filled with joy and peace. If this is your need this morning, will you come forward and be baptized, and wash away your sin? Or if you are a baptized believer, will you express your commitment to work with us here at Countryside to spread the Word that unutterable, inexpressible Joy and Peace can be a part of life?
Will you come?
