Becoming An Authentic Christian
“Growing together towards Christian maturity…”
Matthew 3: 1-12
1 In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea,
2 And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
3 For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.
4 And the same John had his raiment of camel’s hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey.
5 Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the region round about Jordan,
6 And were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins.
He reprimands the Pharisees, and baptizes Jesus in Jordan
7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
8 Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance:
9 And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.
10 And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
11 I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:
12 Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.
Matt 3:1-12 (KJV)
1 While they were living in Nazareth, John the Baptist began preaching out in the Judean wilderness. His constant theme was,
2 "Turn from your sins . . . turn to God . . . for the Kingdom of Heaven is coming soon."
3 Isaiah the prophet had told about John’s ministry centuries before! He had written, "I hear a shout from the wilderness, ’Prepare a road for the Lord--straighten out the path where he will walk.’ "
4 John’s clothing was woven from camel’s hair and he wore a leather belt; his food was locusts and wild honey.
5 People from Jerusalem and from all over the Jordan Valley, and, in fact, from every section of Judea went out to the wilderness to hear him preach,
6 and when they confessed their sins, he baptized them in the Jordan River.
7 But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming to be baptized, he denounced them. "You sons of snakes!" he warned. "Who said that you could escape the coming wrath of God?
8 Before being baptized, prove that you have turned from sin by doing worthy deeds.
9 Don’t try to get by as you are, thinking, ’We are safe for we are Jews--descendants of Abraham.’ That proves nothing. God can change these stones here into Jews!
10 "And even now the ax of God’s judgment is poised to chop down every unproductive tree. They will be chopped and burned.
11 "With water I baptize those who repent of their sins; but someone else is coming, far greater than I am, so great that I am not worthy to carry his shoes! He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
12 He will separate the chaff from the grain, burning the chaff with never-ending fire and storing away the grain."
Matt 3:1-12 (Living)
As I stand before you offering to you a vision given by God for our Church. Growing together towards Christian maturity is a vision of steadfastness, and rock solid faith. I admit that I sometimes become perplexed that when we think about vision it is often couched in the material and not the spiritual. We think about fine buildings and large numbers in particular to Church goals and plans for the future. We do that because we are conditioned to think first in the flesh and not so much in the spiritual. After all we were first born in the physical. However, God would have us to understand that the material things of this world will pass away. He would rather that we look to the riches of the spiritual. What I see is a need for us, Shiloh, God’s people, is to become, authentic, real for Him. Growing together towards Christian maturity is not just a good play on words but an expression of what ought to be important in the Church. The implication is for us to become authentic, real, true to life, everything that God wants for us. For as surely as I stand before you a message was sent to us and the whole Christian community on September11. The message was that material things mean absolutely nothing. Those towers represented the world’s riches and the Pentagon represented military might and they both crumbled in a matter of minutes. A real relationship with God in the spirit is the true gold of life here and in the life to come. That’s what John the Baptist preached in the wilderness. Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
We ought to be the Church faithful to the Lord just because He is who He is.
Illustration:
One author in his writings on the subject of becoming authentic noted that William Faulkner, the novelist, toiled for years as an unknown, disrespected writer in rural Mississippi before he finally gained recognition. When he won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1950, his acclaim grew. When approached later about the literary people and authors he associated with, Faulkner shrugged his shoulders and said, and “I don’t know any literary people The people I know are other farmers and horse people and hunters and we talk about dogs and guns and what to do about the hay crop or this cotton crop, not about literature.”
You see Faulkner befriended real people, unpretentious people. He befriended people honest about their lives and about living. He chose to surround himself with those who populated his stories and actually lived his intensely human fiction, rather than those who simply talked about the South, or wrote about the South. Authenticity!!
On this first Sunday, Communion Sunday of the month of October, in the Lord’s year 2001, a little less than a month post World Trade Center / Pentagon terrorist attack, in this Church where God has led us to invest ourselves in “ Growing together towards Christian maturity, God is calling everyone of us to become authentic. God is not pleased with us just talking about Christianity, or singing about Christianity, or preaching about Christianity. God is calling us to be authentic. He is calling us to be real.
William Faulkner could have surrounded himself with other authors and pretended at intellect, fame and power but to seek out the real and unpretentious was the better way.
I once served as Youth Minister in a Church and in one of our meetings my committee and I talked in great detail about the needs of our Church’s youth. We tossed about a lot of ideas regarding weaving our youth into the fabric of our Church. We wanted to see the active and visible in worship. We wanted to allow them expression as they worshiped in their own way. In that dialogue I believe that God showed us the precious missing nugget missing in the formula of becoming authentic. We began to realize that Christ would only become real in the lives of our young only if they could see Him real in our lives, the grown ups.
Church that truth shakes us to the very core of our foundation. It shakes us individually and it shakes us collectively as a body of Christ at the Shiloh Baptist Church.
Example:
In that Youth Ministry meeting that I referred to we talked about the problem of our young people being any place in the building but in the sanctuary during worship time and pretentious parents singing songs and saying prayers having no earthly idea where their sons or daughters were. Might we consider also the example we set when everything else comes before our Lord?
The text under consideration speaks volumes about some folk who were pretentious in their attitude, action and deed as it related to their relationship in worship to God. The scripture the john the Baptist, forerunner, herald of the true king, was preaching down by the river. He was a man of simple means. He wore camel’s hair and ate locust. He was not a man with expensive clothing or a fine home. He was a man of simple means. His message was not a long drawn out confusing one. It too was simple and should have been understood by all of those who listened. As prophesied by the prophet Isaiah, john’s voice rung out in the wilderness beckoning people to lay aside pretense, even the pomp and ceremony in preparation to receive Jesus the Messiah into their hearts. Many where being baptize by John, when he looked up and saw people representing two opposing groups walking together presenting themselves to be baptized. One could only imagine that they were recognizable by the clothing that they wore. They wore the long and flowing robes of the Pharisees and Sadducees. It was ironic that they were together but even the message of a Christ soon to appear has a way of rallying adversaries. Do you know that there are people who are like them today? People who are willing to be shrouded in the long flowing robe of choir members, sitting on the Deacons row, ushering in the ushers place, greeting people at the door. There are others disguised as preachers but their messages are not matching what is really in their hearts. Did you know that the youngest of minds is able to see through the pretense? So often I’ve heard my own children say, Dad I thought that so and so was a Christian but I saw! I heard!
Authenticity!!
John being the astute bold and serious genuine article himself pointed his crooked finger with the waters of the river dripping from it and said:
"You sons of snakes!" he warned. "Who said that you could escape the coming wrath of God?8 Before being baptized, prove that you have turned from sin by doing worthy deeds.
9 Don’t try to get by as you are, thinking, ’We are safe for we are Jews--descendants of Abraham.’ That proves nothing. God can change these stones here into Jews!
10 "And even now the ax of God’s judgment is poised to chop down every unproductive tree. They will be chopped and burned.
Matt 3:8-10 (Living)
Those words cut to the quick and found their way beneath the mask that they wore. Those words addressed the real problem in John’s day as well as the problem in the Church today. Authenticity!! I’m glad that John didn’t stop there but he went as if urged by God to finish the message. You see the rest of the message drips with the grace of a God who is the God of a second chance. John said:
11 "With water I baptize those who repent of their sins; but someone else is coming, far greater than I am, so great that I am not worthy to carry his shoes! He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
12 He will separate the chaff from the grain, burning the chaff with never-ending fire and storing away the grain."
Matt 3:11-12 (Living)
Here you have an opportunity to bear fruit befitting of a truly repentant heart. To paraphrase: don’t just sing the song “ What a friend we have in Jesus…” but believe it and submit your life to one who is a friend that sticketh closer than any brother. Don’t hide behind the works of others but be submissive to work out your soul’s salvation with fear and trembling. Do your own good deeds and live your own life in Christ. After all you will answer to God for yourself one day. Don’t be like the Pharisees and Sadducees who thought that Godly righteousness could be inherited. Mama as much as I love her can’t answer for me on that great Day of Judgment nor can Rev. So and so. The heart of the matter is this:
10 "And even now the ax of God’s judgment is poised to chop down every unproductive tree. They will be chopped and burned.
Matt 3:10 (Living)
God has a right to expect fruit from trees that He has planted and nurtured. He has a right to expect authentic praise and worship from those that He has allowed the sun to shine upon or His rain to fall upon.
Authenticity comes when an individual comes to grips with his/her own inadequacies/ sins/ transgressions/ shortcomings. After that becoming convinced that the only way to solve the sin problem is to give their lives to the one who came to wash away sin. The only answer is to give their lives to He who died on that old rugged cross and rose again with not just some but with all power of heaven and earth in His hands.
Authenticity came for me on the night of September 11, 1980 when I realized that my soul was sinful and that I was doomed for a fiery Hell. Upon realizing this I simply cried out Lord Jesus save me. The struggle toward authenticity defines my life daily. Paul said it best:
18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
20 Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
21 I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
Romans 7:18-25 (KJV)
Michael Jackson said it like this:
“ I’m looking at the man in the mirror. I asking him the change his ways…”
You too may want authenticity as it relates to your life in Christ. There is a song sung in Christian circles that’s sung something like this:
The Old Rugged Cross
On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross,
The emblem of suffering and shame.
And I love that old cross where the dearest and best
For a world of lost sinners was slain!
Oh I’ll cherish the old rugged cross, where my trophies at last I’ll lay down. I will cling to the old rugged cross an exchange it someday for a crown.
To the old rugged cross I will ever be true,
It’s shame and reproach gladly bare.
Then He’ll call me someday to my home far away,
Where His glory forever I’ll share.
Oh I’ll cherish the old rugged cross, where my trophies at last I’ll lay down. I will cling to the old rugged cross an exchange it someday for a crown.
Oh that old rugged cross so despised by the world,
Has a wondrous attraction for me.
For the dear Lamb of God left His glory above,
To bear it to dark Calvary.
Oh I’ll cherish the old rugged cross, where my trophies at last I’ll lay down. I will cling to the old rugged cross an exchange it someday for a crown.
