Title: The Housecleaning Choice
Text: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” Matthew 5:6
Thesis: The real interior work begins when I openly examine ourselves and determine to cooperate with God’s work of transforming us into the image of Jesus Christ.
Lenten Series: Life’s Healing Choices (Saddleback Resources)
Introduction
Before Bonnie and I can leave on vacation or go away for a few days, we have a ritual. It’s called: Clean the house in case something happens and we die and relatives and friends have to go into our house and go through our stuff. It’s a little like your mother’s warning, “Don’t leave the house wearing dirty underwear because you just never know…” You don’t want anyone to see that you live in filth or wear dirty underwear.
House cleaning can take all manner of forms from dusting and straightening up so the place looks passable. Or it can mean rooting out all manner of uncleanness and clutter where ever it may lurk. The dishes are washed. The dishwasher is emptied and the cupboards are full of sparkling clean dishes. Nothing remains in the “frig” that will likely go south for some time. The bathrooms sparkle. A new shower curtain is hung and a new shower mat is placed in the tub. Freshly laundered towels hang on the rods. Clothes are laundered, anything ratty is tossed from dresser drawers, garments are carefully folded and put away, and behind the closet doors everything is neatly hung and shoes are on their rack. The bed is made up with the fancy quilt and those big pillows that are generally stacked in the corner until people visit or we go away. All evidence of my newspaper reading and crossword puzzle doing is recycled. The pile of books stacked by my chair are toted to the basement When we near the end, it usually means several trips to the dumpster and concludes with running the vacuum leaving perfect little vacuum “V’s” so that when you back out the door there is no human track to be seen.
Generally it is an attempt at making sure that nothing remains that could be embarrassing should someone have to come in and clean house in the unlikely event of our untimely demise. (And on the upside, it is always nice to come home to a clean house.)
This is the fourth Sunday of our Series on Life’s Healing Choices.
• Week One: We faced our spiritual poverty and concluded, “I can’t.” That is the Reality Choice.
• Week Two: We were reminded that despite our utter helplessness, “God can.” That is the Hope Choice.
• Week Three: We then are humbled before God and decide to, “Let God…” That is the commitment Choice.
As we come to week four we ask ourselves, “What is the next step?”
• Week Four: We call it the Housecleaning Choice.
The bible teaches us that God demonstrated his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8
The bible teaches us that if we confess our sins God is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all our unrighteousness. I John 1:9
The bible teaches us that those who believe in and receive Christ as our Savior we will not perish but have eternal life.
The bible teaches us that if anyone is in Christ, is a new creation; old things have passed away and all things have become new. II Corinthians 5:17
However, the moment we are born again does not mean we are all grown up and Christ-like in every way. We are not finished products. We may have turned from darkness to light, i.e., we may have turned from our old way of life to Christ and a new way of life. We may have begun the journey but have not arrived yet.
It is imperative that we remember we are works in process.
I. We are works in process.
The bible teaches us that God, having begun this new work in us is faithful and he will complete the work that he started. Philippians 1:6
Michelangelo worked on his sculpture of David in Florence, Italy from 1501 – 1507. It was hewn from a block of marble from a quarry in northern Tuscany. When completed Michelangelo’s David was a marvelous work of art standing 17 feet tall with eyes in a warning glare turned toward Rome. It is said that when asked how he did such a magnificent work of art Michelangelo would say, “I just cut away everything that was not David.”
That is something like the process of spiritual formation that is taking place in our lives as God cuts away, so to speak, all that is not who we will eventually be. Neither are we any longer who we were; nor are we who we will become…
However, the bible also teaches that we are not mere marble slabs who stand idly by as God chisels away.
II. We are to cooperate with the work that God is doing in our lives.
“Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear. For God is working in you giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.” Philippians 2:12-13
I am reading a fascinating book by Robert Macfarlane titled The Wild Places. The author wondered if there were any wild places left in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales… so he set out to see. One of the wild places he discovered was what he called the Holloways. Holloway is from the Anglo-Saxon “hola weg” which means “harrowed path” or “sunken road.” The Holloways of southern England are roads that have been eroded over the centuries by use until they are were recessed well below the level of the surrounding landscape. They date back to the Iron Age and none of these Holloways is younger than 300 years. Some are now more ravine than road, too narrow and too slow for modern travel. And they are too deep to be filled and farmed over. All that was left to do was abandon them and start a new road. (Robert Macfarlane, The Wild Places, Penguin, PP. 216-218)
What Macfarlane says of abandoning an old way in favor of beginning a new way is akin to what we mean by the term repentance. Once we are aware that the way we are going is hindering our relationship with God, we need to change directions so that we are walking a new path with God.
One of the things we have to do in cooperation with what God is doing is start on a new path, so to speak. The rut we are in is not suitable for the pursuit of Christ-like character and a godly life-style. So we need to get out of our rut or out of the Holloway and make a new path suitable for walking with God. But there is more.
Our text offers an insight into how it is we can get on the right path.
III. We need to cultivate a renewed desire for right living.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” Matthew 5:6
For me the question is, “Just how deeply do you want the desire and power to do what pleases God?”
If we are to get out of the well-worn Holloways and ruts that keep us from becoming the Christ-like people God wishes for us to become, we not only need the kind of desire to get out of the ruts but to stay out of the rut. Jesus speaks of that kind of desire as hungering and thirsting.
The concepts of hungering and thirsting are probably a bit of a stretch for most, if not all of us. We have all been hungry and we have all been thirsty… but rarely if ever have we been starving or dying of thirst.
The words Jesus used would have struck a chord with his listeners who knew hand to mouth existence and who knew about life in a dry and arid part of the world. They understood desperation.
A. The desire for righteousness
When Jesus referred to hunger, he spoke of a hunger that could not be satisfied by a snack and when he spoke of thirst he spoke of a thirst that could not be slaked by a glass of iced tea. Commentator William Barclay goes so far as to suggest that it is a hunger that is so desperate for food that if it is not met, that person will die. It is a thirst
Sudan is the largest country in Africa and the Arab world. It is the tenth largest country in the world. Northern Sudan has Arabic roots and Southern Sudan has Christian roots. The country has been torn by civil war for decades. Beginning in 1983 northern Islamic militias began attacking southern villages. Killing was rampant and women and children were often carried off the north to be sold as slaves. There are stories of soldiers forcing entire families into their home and then setting fire to the hut. Often when these raids took place the boys would be in the bush tending the family herds… unable to return to their homes these boys found each other and it is said that 27,000 (mostly) boys, with little adult supervision made the trek from Sudan to a refugee camp in Ethiopia. They were eventually forced to return to Sudan but then made another 1,000 mile trek to another refugee camp in Kenya. In 2001 the United Nations, working with the United States, began relocating some of those boys to the United States where, in the beginning, 3,800 lost boys, mostly from the Dinka Tribe, were settled in 38 cities here in the U.S.. Story upon story documents how these boys ate mud and drank their own urine to survive. (http://friendsofSudanese.org/Charles.html)
That is hunger and that is thirst!
It is what the Psalmist was speaking when he expressed his desire for God in Psalm 42, “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.”
But one question remains: Just how much righteousness constitutes righteousness?
B. The desire for complete righteousness.
Sometimes I think my desire is short-sighted. The hard work of hungering and thirsting after God, is not satisfied with eating half a loaf or drinking a glass of tea. The hard work of pursuing Godliness is consuming the entire loaf and downing the entire pitcher of iced tea. That kind of hunger and thirst wants all of what God desires for us.
Over the years I have met a number of people who have aspirations to becoming poets or musicians or writers or comedians or whatever. And let’s face it, aspiring to anything is no small undertaking even for the gifted… and it is especially so for those who are not so much. Sometimes we may smile and jokingly say something like, “It is really cool that you want to become a rock star but meanwhile, don’t quit your day job!”
It is particularly impressive when a person who loves music or poetry or writing or skiing or whatever continues to work at his or her love. It is particularly impressive when the flame of desire never goes out… and despite the fact that they may never in this life ever reach their dream… they continue to work at it.
The bible does not say “blessed” are those who become righteous. It says “blessed” are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. The merit in the eyes of Jesus Christ is in the hard work of wanting and working toward that end.
Conclusion:
Pat Summerall is a well-known sports announcer who played in the NFL as a place kicker for ten years before becoming a sports color commentator. He has worked for CBS, Fox and ESPEN and is best known for his work with John Madden
Pat Summerall overcame alcoholism. He got out of the rut, became a follower of Jesus Christ and cleaned his house, so to speak. He said that when he was baptized, “I went down in the water, and when I came up it was like a 450-pound weight had been lifted from me.. I have had a happier life, a healthier life, and a more positive feeling about life than ever before.”
About bible study he comments: “It’s like an alcoholic looking for a drink. If he wants it bad enough he can find it – no matter what. I’m like that when it comes to finding time to pray and study the bible.” (Art Stricklin, Sports Spectrum, Nov/Dec 2001, P. 27)
If we are hungry enough and thirst enough we will get out of the rut or climb out of the Holloway and embark on a new path. If we are hungry enough and thirsty enough we will clean house and keep it clean.
The Fourth Life Healing Choice is the Housecleaning Choice… it is wanting to do our part in cooperation with what God wants to accomplish in our lives.
If we want it bad enough… we will do it!
