His name was Mickey Cohen. And he was a crook. And not just a little crook either, Mickey Cohen was the top man in the Los Angeles underworld during the forties and fifties. He had his finger into everything: gambling, extortion and prostitution. At his word heads were cracked, bones were broken and people were killed.
Cohen had risen up through the ranks, born dirt poor in New York he became a punk and strong arm man in the New Jersey Crime scene. Later he moved to the west coast and became a gangster in the style of his hero, Al Capone. He was the number one bad boy of L.A., his life became a commodity and he survived several attempts on his life including having his home bombed and his car machine gunned.
Mickey was a menace to society. He could be charming one minute and as mean as a snake the next. If he had of been a dog society would have shot him. He counted among his friends Jimmy Durante, Sammy Davis Jr., Humphrey Bogart and then mayor of L.A. Fletcher Brown. He loved to be seen with famous people and he jumped at the chance to meet the young preacher everyone was talking about, Billy Graham. Billy shared the claims of the gospel with Mickey and gave him a Bible; it gave Mickey something to think about during the five years he spent in a federal prison for income tax evasion.
In 1955 Mickey Cohen was introduced to Jesus Christ, Bill Jones a leading lay man in L.A. shared the gospel with Mickey and led the gangster through the sinner’s prayer. Jones was convinced that Mickey Cohen had made a genuine commitment and news spread through the evangelical church, after all it was quite a coup. As a follow up to his decision Mickey flew to New York and met with Billy Graham on several occasions as Graham sought to explain the significance of the decision that Mickey had made.
After his trip to New York Cohen returned to L.A. where he dropped his contacts with Bill Jones and started hanging around with his old underworld contacts again. Jones called him up on it and told Mickey that he needed to be putting some distance between his old life and his new.
“Jones” Mickey replied, “You never told me that I had to give up my career, you never told me that I had to give up my friends. There are Christian movie stars, Christian athletes, and Christian business men. So what’s the matter with being a Christian gangster? If I have to give up all of that if that’s Christianity, then count me out”
I remember when I read that story for the first time in an autobiography of Billy Graham. I thought that is the dumbest thing that I’ve ever heard. How could Mickey Cohen possibly think that Christianity could not make a difference in His life? But you know if it’s dumb then there must be a whack of dumb people out there, because there are a pile of people in the world who would use Jesus Christ as a fire escape from hell and never think of it as a life changing commitment.
They ask Christ to forgive them, get their ticket to get them through the pearly gates and then its life as usual. But the question remains, “Is that the way Jesus wants us to live?” I don’t think so.
Last week we looked at building the foundation of our lives and we looked at Hebrews 6:1-2 So let us stop going over the basics of Christianity again and again. Let us go on instead and become mature in our understanding. Surely we don’t need to start all over again with the importance of turning away from evil deeds and placing our faith in God. You don’t need further instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.
In those two verses Paul discusses the components of a successful foundation. But it is those very things that Paul tells us to leave. Once we have laid the foundation we have to get on with the building. Once we have come to Jesus and repent of our sins, and have faith in God, and get baptised there is more to do. We can’t be like Mickey Cohen and say “Well that’s out of the way, now I can get on with life.” You don’t see it as often now but do you remember when some young couples would put in a basement, finish it, put a roof on it and live there for a while until they could afford to build the rest of the house. Nothing wrong with that, but have you ever come on one of those places that just never seemed to get beyond the basement stage, that aint the way it’s supposed to be and we aren’t always supposed to be new Christians.
Earlier in the service Helen read from the book of James. This is the twentieth book of the New Testament and it was written by James. Which James? We’re not a hundred percent sure but most scholars believe it was written by the brother of Jesus. This may have been the first New Testament book to be written, somewhere between AD 40 and 50. And the reason it was written was to warn believers about some of the habits they had fallen into. This is one of the most practical books in the bible and one of my personal favourites, but not everyone shares my sentiments. Martin Luther, the father of the reformation didn’t like the emphasis that James put on works and good deeds and the lack of theology and referred to the book as “An epistle of straw”.
In the scripture that Helen read this morning we read about one of the great heroes of the faith, not just our faith but also the Jewish and Islamic faiths. This man was a giant of faith and yet James said James 2:22 “You see, he was trusting in God so much that he was willing to do whatever God told him to do. His faith was made complete by what he did – by his actions.” And while we are saved by faith, let us never doubt that if the faith is genuine then it will result in a changed life. Abraham believed God and because he believed he was obedient.
Paul has told us that not only do we need to lay the foundation, not only do we need to “get saved”, but we need to leave that and go on to maturity. We need to grow in our faith. And how do we do that? Well one of the ways is To Look Ahead to where we are going and take our eyes off where we have been. Jesus tell us in Luke 9:62 But Jesus told him, “Anyone who puts a hand to the plow and then looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God.” Yesterday is done, it’s gone, salvation is called a new birth, and a new life in the Bible and that signifies starting over.
2 Corinthians 5:17 What this means is that those who become Christians become new persons. They are not the same anymore, for the old life is gone. A new life has begun! Is that a description of your Christian walk? When you made a commitment to serve Jesus Christ did the old go? Did the New Come, it’s not enough to simply make a commitment, there’s a life change as well. Jesus tells us in Matthew 9:17 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. The old skins would burst from the pressure, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine must be stored in new wineskins. That way both the wine and the wineskins are preserved.”
You can’t take your new life style and pour it into your old life, it will ruin them both. On one hand the commandments of the Bible will make you feel guilty if you continue to live the way you had before salvation. And your actions will separate you from God and keep you from having the fellowship with Him that you need as a Christian. The end result then is that you ruin both lives. You are a miserable pagan and a miserable Christian. Instead Jesus said you have to put the new wine, or your new life into a new wine skin, that is a new life style. You can’t be a Christian gangster. You can’t be a Christian thief. You can’t be a Christian adulterer, or a Christian drunkard, or a Christian tax cheat, or a Christian murderer. Instead when you become a Christian part of that repentance is putting the past behind you.
There are other people that make that step but don’t go any further. They’ve been converted, they’ve made that step but they don’t go any further. They’ve been converted; they’ve left their old life behind but really haven’t gotten any further. They’ve built a foundation and they’ve put the floor down but there isn’t anything else to their building.
Brother Jones used to stand up and testify every Sunday in church and he would say, “I’m not making much progress but praise God I’m firmly established.” Well old brother Jones was a farmer and one day he got his tractor good and stuck in the mud. Two of the teens from the church happened to be walking by and spied him and one yelled out, “Hey brother Jones, you’re not making much progress but praise God you are firmly established.” The old man had been stuck in the mud for years and didn’t know it.
Paul tells us to go on to maturity. That basically means, Grow Up. Those of us who are parents know that the older our kids get the more we expect from them, right? In other words you wouldn’t expect them to exhibit the same behaviour at six as they did at three or at ten as they did at six. In the first year of their birth you have to do virtually everything for them, and you don’t mind because you know that a three month old isn’t really capable of much more than looking cute and crying. By the way I have discovered a long time ago why kids cry at that age. It’s either too much moisture at one end, not enough moisture at the other end or gas in between. So you gotta pour it in, wipe it up or burp it out and things are usually cool again.
And God knows that when a person first gets saved that they are like a newborn, pretty helpless in their faith, but in the same way that we expect an infant to mature into a toddler and then a preschooler, a primary aged child, an adolescent and finally an adult God expects that you will mature in your Christian faith. But you know on occasion I have met believers who have been on the way and in the way for twenty years but are no further along the path then when they started.
I heard a story once about a teacher who applied for a job as a principle and didn’t get the position and so he was lamenting to a friend and said, “I don’t understand it, after all I have twenty years experience.” To which his friend replied, “Do you, or do you have one year of experience twenty times?” Strike a chord? Sometimes I think that some peoples Christian experience has gotten stuck at salvation. That they have never gone on to experience Christian maturity, they have just stayed where they were. They think that they have twenty years experience, but what they really have is one year of experience twenty times.
A little old lady ran into a police station yelling, “He kissed me, he kissed me. I was just standing on the corner minding my own business and he ran right up and kissed me on the lips.” The desk sergeant said “That’s terrible ma’am when did it happen?” “Twenty years ago” she replied “But it’s was so exciting that I just love to talk about it.”
I know that the salvation experience is exciting. The fact that you were a sinner and Jesus saved you and washed you and made you new. But after that He expects you to get on with life. That is why Paul said in Hebrews 6:1 So let us stop going over the basics of Christianity again and again. Let us go on instead and become mature in our understanding. Did you catch it? Leave one and go to the other. Leave the basics and go on to maturity. They are two different places. If you are going to Saint John from here then you have to leave Halifax. If you are going to move on to maturity then first you have to leave immaturity.
I’ve spoken before of 1 John 1:7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. And when we mentioned it we talked about the verb, walking. There is an expectation that we will be moving in our Christian faith because Jesus is moving. Remember the will of God is a beam of light which we are in the centre of. It begins with our repentance and at that point when we’ve come to the place that we’ve asked forgiveness and accepted that forgiveness then we are smack dab in the middle of the will of God. And then the light begins to move and as it moves it reveals areas around us that need our attention, perhaps a habit here or a fault there. And we have the option of moving with the light and deal with those areas of our life or ignoring them. And if we stand still and ignore them then eventually the light will move so that we are no longer in the centre of it’s beam, and pretty soon we ill be on the fringe and if continue to ignore the light eventually we will be in darkness again. And that simply means you gotta Be Obedient.
A number of years ago back I developed the Guptill principle of spiritual growth, and it’s based on the Peter Principle a principle first expounded in 1969 by Canadian-born University of Southern California education professor Laurence J. Peter, in a book of the same name, Peter stated: “In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence” Right? So the part time sales man is good at his job and so he is given a full time sales position. And he does an excellent job in sales so he is made a store manager and he excels there and he’s made an area manager and he is really terrible at that job, he just can’t seem to get the hang of it, and so there he stays. He doesn’t get promoted, but because of his seniority they can’t fire him. He hates his job, it gives him ulcers and grey hairs but he has a family to support and so he can’t really quit and if he asked to be demoted to his previous position he’d lose face, and so there he stays, miserable, unhappy, discontent and stuck.
Under the Guptill Principal of spiritual growth each of us grows in our spiritual walk to our own personal level of disobedience. So we get saved, we are obedient to the spirit of God in our life, and we begin to grow and God shows us this and we deal with this and he shows us that and we deal with that, and we continue to grow. And then one day God says, “Hey sport what about this area,” and it might be anger, or our language or habits, or immoral behaviour or attitudes and we say “Uh-huh, you leave that alone.” And our spiritual growth stops dead in it’s tracks. And because we know that we are disobedient we are grumpy and miserable and unhappy. And at that point we have three options, one is that we just stay there, miserable and stuck. God won’t take us any further in our Christian walk then that point of disobedience. Or we say “forget this” and we backslide, we just walk away from God.” or we surrender to His will in our life and become obedient and move on in our Christian life and continue to grow.
What is your point of personal disobedience? where are you stuck? Or maybe you’ve come to the place where you have sold out to God and you continue to grow and he continues to show you areas in your life that need to be dealt with and you deal with them, no ifs ands or buts.
Obedience is the bottom line of Christianity, it really is and that is why Jesus said things like John 14:15 “If you love me, obey my commandments.
John 14:23-24 Jesus replied, “All those who love me will do what I say. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and live with them. Anyone who doesn’t love me will not do what I say. And remember, my words are not my own. This message is from the Father who sent me.
John 15:10 When you obey me, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father and remain in his love.
Pretty basic isn’t it, time and time again Jesus says if you obey me you love me, if you don’t obey me you don’t love me. Do you love Jesus? “Of course I do, don’t be silly.” OK, then Jesus has said that the evidence of that love is obedience to Him and to His word. The Word of God. And how do you know what is in the word of God? Hang on because the answer is really deep and you should write it down so that you don’t miss it, OK you ready? “You learn what is in the word of God by reading it.” Heavy isn’t it?
You see the word of God has all kinds of instructions for being a Christian. It tells us about things which we shouldn’t do and it tells us about things we should do. Attitudes that we shouldn’t exhibit and attitudes that we should exhibit. For example Galatians 5:19-21 When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, your lives will produce these evil results: sexual immorality, impure thoughts, eagerness for lustful pleasure, idolatry, participation in demonic activities, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, divisions, the feeling that everyone is wrong except those in your own little group, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other kinds of sin. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. So here the word of God is tell us that these particular things are not acceptable actions for his Kids.
On the other hand the rest of the passage reads Galatians 5:22-24 But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives, he will produce this kind of fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Here there is no conflict with the law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. Therefore by reading the word of God in this instance we learn of things we shouldn’t do and things that we should do.
And I know that I talk about that scripture a lot, but the reality is this. If we didn’t do what is mention in Galatians 5:19-21 and we did do what is mentioned in Galatians 5:22-24 we would be better Christians, better friends, better spouses, better parents and better children. And that’s why it’s there and that’s why I am constantly reading from it.
Philippians 4:8 And now, dear brothers and sisters, let me say one more thing as I close this letter. Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. So here the word of God give us guidance about our thought life. Neat huh? the Bible is not a book of suggestions, God doesn’t say, “Hey it would be kind of neat if you did this” or “It would be nice if you did that” Instead He says if you love me you will demonstrate it by obedience to my word.
Maturity is putting our will on the back burner and Accepting God’s Will for our lives, not Denn’s will, but God’s will. Because God has our best interest in mind. He is not a spoil sport who wants to make our lives miserable, He is a loving God who knows what is best for us because He created us. Maturity is not only saying “yes God I will do what you want me to do.” Maturity is not resenting doing God’s will.
You cannot be a Christian and be consistently disobedient to the will of God in your life. The new birth is supposed to make a difference in your life. And if it doesn’t make a difference in this life then you have to wonder if it will make a difference in your eternal life.
“Pastor you’re being judgemental.” Nope don’t think so, the Bible tells us that the way to tell if a person is a Christian is by the fruit that their life displays. Good fruit good life. Bad fruit, bad life. Don’t take my word for it, Jesus tells us the same thing in Luke 6:43-44 “A good tree can’t produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit. A tree is identified by the kind of fruit it produces. Figs never grow on thornbushes or grapes on bramble bushes. James echoed his brother’s words when he wrote in James 3:11-12 Does a spring of water bubble out with both fresh water and bitter water? Can you pick olives from a fig tree or figs from a grapevine? No, and you can’t draw fresh water from a salty pool.
When we first moved to Australia our first home had a pile of fruit trees in the back yard, we had bananas, mangos, mulberries, lemons, mandarins and peaches. You could go out back and pick fruit salad for breakfast. Now I may not be a genius but if I was to go out back and look at a tree that had mandarin oranges growing on it I would not be judging that tree if I said that is not a mango tree it is a mandarin tree. That’s not making a judgement that is simply making an observation.
When a person consistently exhibits the fruit of disobedience and we say that person isn’t a child of God we are simply making an observation, the same observation that Paul made when he wrote in Titus 1:16 Such people claim they know God, but they deny him by the way they live. They are despicable and disobedient, worthless for doing anything good. “Denn how could you make a statement like that?” I didn’t say it, Paul did but there are times I wished I did.
In the final analyse maturity means obedience. If we are to leave behind the foundation and move in the direction that God wants us to go it will entail being obedient to his commandments. How you doing? Are you obedient to God in each area of your life? Have you moved beyond the infancy stage of your Christian life and moved on, growing as God leads you. The foundation has been laid, but how are you doing on the building?
Hope this message was helpful PowerPoint may be available contact me at denn@cornerstonewesleyan.ca
