This sermon was delivered to Holy Trinity in Ayr, Ayrshire, Scotland on the 7th February 2016; Holy Trinity is a Scottish Episcopal Church in the Dioceses of Glasgow and Dumfries.
Jeremiah 1:4-10 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 Luke 4:21-30 Psalm 71:1-6 ???
“Please be seated, and join me in a short prayer.” Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord. Amen. (Psalms. 19:14).
Introduction
Now and again I enjoy the Natural History documentaries, you the kingdom of the animals, and in there, there is a process called metamorphosis, where some young animals or creatures are dramatically transformed from a junior state into a completely different adult state.
The most dramatic, and the one we are most familiar with, is the change from the creepy crawly caterpillar into the magnificent butterfly which graces our gardens in the summer. The before and after states are almost opposites, hardly believing it is the same creature: one being glutinous and undignified, while crawling on the ground; the other being colourful but delicate, a creature of the air.
And yet this dramatic change, the transformation itself, is rather dull and boring, and to the observer, uneventful. All we see is the caterpillar constantly gorging itself for months, then slowly wrapping a cocoon of silk around itself, and then it going to sleep; … for months in a shabby coat kind of thing. … Then as the summer draw near, … it awakens into this beautiful brightly coloured butterfly. What we don’t see is the process that is going on within the cocoon, the transformation of one creature into another.
Now I am referring to the animal kingdom of course, but there is a great transformation happening on the inside of ever Christian, and like the transformation from caterpillar to butterfly, our transformation is equally impressive, and also to the outside world, it is equally unimpressive. … Because in a similar manner, our outside manifestations don’t change all that much, but inside, … a completely new person is being made; … and this transformation is brought about by … the Holy Spirit working us within, … least we know it.
In today’s reading, we see a different transformation, where Jesus went up the Mountain, … then was quickly transformed, from a normal looking human being, … into a completely different God like creature, … something awesome, … where his face shone like the sun. … Did you notice that even his clothes shone, … they became white as snow. … … It was as if he took off some kind of outer garment or suit or force field of some kind, to reveal a beauty within, … a completely different type of being, … but a being that the disciples recognised as Jesus.
Now I know you all know the story, and you all know about caterpillars, but this is only an introduction to the transformation of the Christian which is my topic for this evening.
Christianity in Peters time.
But before we begin, I would like you to think about being a Christian away back in Peter’s time, as this must have been rather difficult, … and different to what we understand today, because back then, Christianity was a completely new religion, and probably treated by the Jews as one of those weird new sects that will soon self destruct into oblivion, … but for those first Christians, it must have been a difficult time, because they were turning their backs, and rebelling against everything they had been brought up to believe, … you know, the whole of the Jewish system, … and they where now on a journey to where, … they did not know.
So basically, we now have two sects of Jews, or should we say, one sect of traditional Jews, and one sect of Christians who were once Jews, … with a few gentiles thrown in which we will ignore for now, … but these two groups claim the same traditional heritage, … they both used the same bible, (the Old Testament, as the New had not been written), … and both worshiped in a very similar way, … within a very similar temple.
So you would think with so much in common these two groups could come together and complement each other, or at least manage to live with each other. … Yet these two groups were completely and utterly divided. The Scribes and the Pharisees and the Religious leaders or teachers of the Law absolutely hated the Christians, and worse, … they wanted to eradicate them.
The Christians too had their own strong feelings, … and despite their commonalities, they knew the traditional Jewish system lacked power, so they too wanted no compromise, … however they were not driven by hated, but by love, … in fact the Christians did their best to convert these Old Testament Jews into this new modern Christian religion.
Now, the apostle Paul, a traditional Jew called Saul, (that was before his transformation on the road to Damascus), was one such person who persecuted the Christian church for these differences; he was the one who killed Steven, … but after his transformation, Paul spoke about what made the Christian religion different from the Jewish religion, … and the main difference was that the Jews were trying to gain favour from God by keeping the Law, whereas the Christians believed that their salvation had already been earned by Jesus dying on the cross, and that the Law was only there for reference to keep them on the straight and narrow.
And this is where we get into so much trouble today. … The Jews had the 10 commandment, the 10 major commandments, which they were required to keep, and which they mostly did, … but there were also over 600 hundred other minor laws that they needed to keep as well. So to earn salvation, and favour from God, all the Jews had to do, “all they had to do”, was keep these laws and God would favour them, or bless them or something.
But as we know, as Christians, it is completely impossible to keep these laws, in fact one of the reasons God gave us these laws, was to break us, and force us into admitting that we cannot earn salvation ourselves, and that we need a saviour. Come on think about, how hard have we tried to live a good life, and how many times have we failed, and how many times have we had to call out to God for help? Now think, that if we could keep all these laws ourselves, all the time, would we need a God in heaven? You see the law highlights our weaknesses, and our dependance on God.
The Jews on the other hand don’t accept this at all, so what they do is modify these laws into something more manageable. They make an allowance for the times they get it wrong, … they did not ask for forgives and receive that forgiveness as we do, no, … they have a system or believe where the more laws they keep, or the fewer laws they break, … God will bless them accordingly or proportionately; … and we do know, … the Jews make best Lawyers, … because there very essence, their very being is living according to the law, … bending and compromising the rules in order to make it manageable and livable.
So how does that get so many Christians into trouble? Well many Christian’s do not accept or understand fully the principles of grace, and so they do their best to keep these laws, just like the Jews, but not because God already loves them, but in order to get God to love them or favour them as wee bit more. Can you see the difference?
These Christians, which included myself for many years, failed to accept that that God love them, … that God loves them first, and they do not know it, or if they know God loves them, then they do not believe it. But when we understand that God loves us first, we are happy to keep his laws, … and we do everything we can to keep these laws. … Yes we fail all the time, but knowing God loves us, … certainly takes away the sting when we fail, … or when we confess our failures.
This however is not a get out of jail free card, that God forgives us when we intentionally sin, … (which he still does by the way), … but there is a transformation within every Christians, that genuinely wants to keep the laws, … a transformation that makes us feel really bad if we fail, or should I say, when they fail, as we always do, … … a transformation that makes us want to be more and more like Jesus every day. … And the power driving this transformation is, … the Holy Spirit himself within us.
The Jews on the other hand, strive to keep law, they do try, and they do admit or confess when they fail, to a point, a point which suits them. And a good example of such an action is found in the book of Genesis were with Judah and his daughter in law, Tamar. … Do you remember the story where Judah refused to believe the woman, (that is the prostitute behind the veil), was really his daughter in law Tamar, and who then subsequently slept with her. … Well the Jews use a similar veil, to covered their hearts when something does not suit them, that way, … they refused to see their sin for what it truly is, … an that is an abomination before God; and I use the word abomination as the strongest word I can find.
However, true Christians see sin differently, … they know God sees directly into their hearts, and they know that manipulating the Law is futile, that it is impossible to keep the law, and therefore live by grace. … After all Mark 15 says, “the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom”; the veil that hides our sin, was well and truly torn when Jesus “gave up the ghost”.
But not all Christians understand the grace of the New Testament that was brought about by the death and resurrection of Jesus, because our society, and our schooling, and probably our upbringing contravenes this principle of grace, because we were brought up to believe that when we are good we will be rewarded, and when we are bad we shall be punished, and so the law to many Christians is how they try to cleaned up their lives.
Now this is all very logical, all very plausible, but in all reality, in the kingdom of God, this is pure nonsense because it makes Christianity a religion that constrains people, and smothers people, … and forces them to live a life of, … “you should do this and, … you should not be doing that, … and you have made a mess of it again”. … Rubbish, this is what every religion in this world tries to achieve, … every religion in the world tries to reach salvation by keeping some set of rules and laws, thinking that the more laws they keep, the more God will bless them.
This is not Christianity, Christianity is different for every other religion in the world, because where is the freedom in that? How can you expect to live and grow and remain healthy under that kind of culture? Let me make this clear, we will fail, we will mess things up, we will upset others, we will get things wrong, and we will feel bad about it, … but God knew all this all those years ago, that is why he sent his son to pay the price for our mistakes.
Romans 8:1 says, “There is therefore now, no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit”. Christianity is a completely different religion, a religion based on the fact that the son of God died a horrible death 2000 years ago in order to free us from our sin, and the consequences of our sins. Christianity is a religion were God dwells in every one of us who call Jesus Lord. … God dwells in every Christian in the form of the Holy Spirit. 2nd Corinthians 1:21 says, “he (that is God) who has established us in Christ, … has anointed us, … and who hath also sealed us, and given the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee”.
And it is by making these mistakes, (which is sin) … and it is by feeling bad about our mistakes, (which is remorse), … and by confessing our mistakes to the Lord (which is repentance), we are truly forgiven, … and on a path to counter act our failings. What a wonderful God we have, and yet many Christian fail to see it. No matter what sin is committed, all we have to do is confess it to the Lord and repent.
One of the most quoted verses in the New Testament is 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, ... he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”. What other religion says that?
Transformation in our life does not start with the likes of Moses and the Law, it starts and ends with Jesus; … and this is the very message Paul spoke about in 2 Corinthians 3:14, (which was after his transformation), “But their minds were blinded, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away”.
When we fail, we confess our failing to God. And when we do not know what to do, we hand him all our problems and we let him deal with them. We are not our own islands, and we are not here to carry the world upon our shoulders, … we are only here to simply listen and to obey the Lord. And when we get it wrong, we are to confess this wrong to him, and leave it in his loving hands.
Yes, I am aware there is a lot more to this than I could possible cover in one sermon, but what I am trying to get across is the fundamental basics of living a Christian live; which I know, many Christians do not know. Yes there are a lot of ifs and buts, but we must stop trying to earn our own salvation, or favour with the Lord; why, … because we already have it, … and because we have it, we should be living in it, and living up to his standards because we love him, and we want to please him, … and not because we are seeking something from him.
God has taken us from being a damned unbeliever, and transforms us into saints. Ok we do not feel like the perfect Saint, in fact we are a good way from it, but we are saved, and we are being transformed into the likeness of Christ if only we knew. …
We may wish, and I know I do, that this transformation from sinner to saint was instant, … and without pain, … but we have a thing called free will, and God will never interfere with our free will. … So, we need to submit our free will unto him, and let the transformation continue; as we realise who we are, and what God has already done for us in Christ Jesus, … and the more we realise these things, the more free we truly become.
Amen, and may God bless us by these word.
Please join my in a short prayer.
Father we thank you for Jesus, we thank you that he died painfully on the cross instead of us.
Father we thank you that you have forgiven us of our sin, and you are now in charge of our lives.
Father we thank you that we are free from the law of Sin and Death, and we thank you that we can now live by your grace.
Father we ask that you reveal to us, just how much you love us, and how much you want us to be free, … in you.
Father we ask in Jesus name, Amen.
