So often, the things that the world considers to be joy giving are in very stark contrast to the message of the gospel. It is perhaps no more clearly illustrated than in our scripture reading for today.
Looking at the political world, the business world, the
financial world, the world of education, virtually anyplace one might look, it becomes very clear that the way of the world is to put stumbling blocks in the path of others in order to slow their progress and in doing so, give us the “edge” in passing them by and leaving them to watch the dust rise ahead of them as we speed past on the road of life.
But what is it that is to really give us Joy as disciples of Christ? Paul lays it out in pretty clear terminology in the book of Romans when he encourages us to pursue righteousness and in doing so find Peace and Joy. So, what does Righteousness look like?
Righteousness, can be secured by the attitude that we carry with us in life. If we are obsessed by a competitive Spirit, we will never approach it. If we are constantly trying to bring another down, we will never approach it. If we are carrying a spirit of bitterness within us, we will never achieve righteousness.
While our text for today addresses foods that were thought of to be sinful to eat by the audience of the letter, the issue isn’t really food at all. It is something entirely different that impedes our pursuits of righteousness in today’s world.
There are churches and entire denominations that are built around lists of do’s and don’ts regarding a pursuit of righteousness. And those are thought by many to be the way to achieve righteousness.
Many think that righteousness can be obtained by pursuits of the classical spiritual disciplines. Prayer, Meditation, Fasting, Worship, Study, and a host of other disciplines. While I advocate strongly for Christians to begin to live out those disciplines in their lives, I don’t believe for a minute that Righteousness will ever be obtained exclusively by the
pursuit of the spiritual disciplines. They may open the door to righteousness, but they in and of themselves are of little use if the spirit behind the disciplines is too pious.
False piety is one of the greatest errors of many in the church today. False piety can never lead to Godly
righteousness, but rather serves as SELF righteousness which is counter to our goals as disciples of Jesus Christ.
It also is counter-productive when we adopt a Pharasaical approach to the disciplines and shout our piety from the rooftops. Making sure that others know when we have undertaken a fast or using flowery language in our prayers in such a way to impress others. Doing this, we risk the pursuit of self righteousness and drift further from the Righteousness
that God is calling us to. I frequently listen to sermons on tape and to people who pray on television, radio and public meetings and I am amazed at how often the prayers that are given following those sermons seem to be directed to the people sitting in the pews rather than the true audience of prayer which is God and God alone. To quote scripture and explain matters of theology to God during a prayer, (which often happens) is merely an extension of the sermon in many
cases and is not what true prayer should really be about. My solution? If you have another point to make in your sermon go ahead and preach the extra few minutes and let your prayer be what it should be: a cry of the heart to God to help you live the life of faith you have just proclaimed.
Many think that our behaviors and activities are the key to righteousness. These folks compile lists of things that a good Christian should never do. Women, they say, should never wear slacks of a pair of jeans. They’ll tell you that a Christian woman should never wear make-up, cut her hair or do anything to improve her self-esteem or outward appearance. Some of you may remember when Mike Warnke was making the rounds as a Christian comedian, I haven’t been a fan of his since he was found to be telling a lot of falsehoods about his own biography. But, whether or
not he was totally forthcoming about his own background, there is no disputing that some of his stuff was funny and some of it was fairly sound theologically. One of the comments I remember him making when he was on tour and I saw him in Springfield quite a few years ago was when he commented on the frequent question that people would ask him. That being, “How much make-up should a Christian woman wear”? Mike’s response was humorous, but also not far off from a balanced perspective when he said, “That sort of depends on her face”! (On a side note, have you ever noticed how many of the rules on appearance that some of our more fundamentalist brothers and sisters seem to revolve around what a woman can do and seldom address how men are to dress or behave?) I suppose if we were to live by all of the laws of dress and appearance that can be found in the Old Testament all of the women would wear floor length dresses and never cut their hair and the men would always wear a beard. But, none-the-less, we don’t hold to all of the code. So why do some insist on picking and choosing bits and pieces of it and assume that through it we can obtain righteousness? Taking one verse of Scripture out of context and placing our entire pursuit of righteousness on that single verse will never get us there.
Rather, what I think will get us closer to righteousness is to ruthlessly scrutinize our own lives and eliminate anything that would keep us from growing into the righteousness that God desires for us.
What is it that we should give up instead of food or dress? What is it that causes, as our scripture puts it, “A weaker brother or sister to stumble”? What is it that alienates many people in our world and causes people to be skeptical of the Christian faith and want to avoid the church and the people who carry the name of Christ?
Plain and simple, it is attitude! The attitudes that we carry in our hearts and the image that we portray to the world as a result are perhaps the single greatest enemy of the Christian faith! In talking to people and seeing what it is that has kept them from coming to church and investigating the Christian faith, I often hear that it is Christians and the attitudes that they carry that people are turned off by. I used to think that it was nothing more than a cop-out when people say those things, and it may be for some small part. Of course, we aren’t perfect, of course, we don’t always live up to the high calling that Christ has placed on our lives, but that does not
excuse us from at least putting forth an effort to eliminate those things from our lives that would run people away from rather than into the embrace of Christ.
A negative spirit, a judgmental attitude, a legalistic approach to the faith, pointing fingers at the weaknesses and frailties of others... all of these do absolutely nothing to attract people to the faith and in the end result run people away from us in such a way that we will never be able to share the love of Christ with them.
This is the paradox of the faith: of course there are things that people (including Christians) do that are contrary to Christ’s desire for us. And the Genuine Goal of any devoted follower of Christ should be to eliminate those behaviors and attitudes from our lives. However, if we take it upon ourselves to point out the faults of others, if we take it upon ourselves to serve as Judge, Jury, and Executioner, we’ll never get the chance to draw them to Christ at all because they will never give the gospel a fair hearing.
I tell you today that the best approach is not to shame people into the faith, but to love them into the faith. To draw near to them in their frail and sin scarred condition and let them see how much Christ loves them. Let them fall in love with Christ and let the holy spirit do the convicting. That’s the way it
works with Christ. That’s the way it works with love in just about any situation. Once you fall in love with someone (as we desire that all people would do with Christ) you don’t want to continue to do those things that cause pain to the person who is the object of your love. It works that way in human relationships and it works that way in a relationship with Christ. Once you see that the way you live your life is not his desire for your life... If you are truly wanting to please him, you will seek to change your ways to please him more... the more you love someone, the more you care about their desires and you want to meet those desires.
It is Christ’s desire that we would love him and would
demonstrate that love by ridding our lives of sin and of brokenness. It is also his desire that we as followers of Christ would lead others to come to him as well.
We can find no greater example of the love that we seek to share than in the model set for us by Christ himself. He never once insisted that a person live a holy and blameless life before he healed them. He never once insisted that a person change their evil ways before he loved them and cared for them. He never once passed judgment on anyone for their status or position in life. Instead, Jesus met people where they were and gave them his love unconditionally and as a result he drew them to himself.
A Samaritan woman at the well found that kind of
unconditional love...
A group of inept fisherman on the shores of Galilee found that kind of love...
A tax collector named Levi found that kind of love...
Another tax collector named Zaccheus found that kind of
love...
I have found that kind of love... Many of you have found that kind of love...
It is that kind of love that we should show the world. We do it so that our weaker brothers and sisters wouldn’t stumble, but that they would walk soundly and safely into the arms of a waiting and loving Savior.
That is God’s desire for each of us:
First that we know that love.
Then, that we share that love,
with a world which needs to know that love...
My entire goal in my life and in my ministry can be summed up by one little phrase that has sort of become my motto... “To give some empty lives a little meaning”. Meaning that can only come from a relationship with Jesus Christ that is driven by a loving response to the fact that he first loved us.
You want to know true joy? Pursue righteousness! Where does our righteousness come from? From a loving response to Christ who will give us all things. We cannot do it on our own, we can only obtain it as a gift from God and a willing spirit of our own to be molded into the image and the likeness of Christ.
May he have his way with each of us today and always!
