Remaining Strong Throughout The Journey

Remaining Strong Throughout the Journey John 14:15-16, 25-27; James 1:2-4; Hebrews 12:7 Cascades Fellowship CRC, JX MI May 15, 2005 Pentecost Sunday Rediscovering Holiness I am somewhat fascinated by the discussion going on at the moment considering John Bolton for UN Ambassador. What an odd little soap opera this is turning out to be in our nation’s politics. If there was ever a field of endeavor that revealed the complete and utter depravity of man it is the political arena. What makes this whole discussion is not whether John Bolton is qualified or has the right temperament or has good manners or whatever story is being circulated. That really isn’t the issue. Neither is his pedigree, his credentials, his body of diplomatic work or his character – all of which are seen as a plus or a minus depending on what side of the aisle you happen to stand on. And that, dear friends, is the real issue. It isn’t about John Bolton’s ability to conduct foreign affairs, it is about power – who really holds the reigns. Now, why do I find this fascinating?

Because the arguments for and

against continue to focus on John Bolton and whether he will make a good ambassador. The reality is, as an ambassador, Bolton will be duty bound to take only prescribed actions as ambassador. The very nature of an ambassador is to represent – really to be an extension of – the president. He speaks for the nation in the domain of his ambassadorship in the absence of our duly elected leader. Which means, of course, that for all intents and purposes, when he speaks in the

course of his work, it is not his words he speaks, but those for whom he works. An effective ambassador is able to communicate his boss’ foreign policy clearly to those to whom he is sent without muddling the message with his own ideas. So in reality, his ability to work and play nice with others is secondary to his ability to faithfully transmit the message the leaders of our nation have entrusted to him. It seems to me that the job of ambassador is more about accuracy than acumen. Probably more important than his diplomatic skill is his backbone – does he have the stoutness of heart to stand up for what someone else believes is right? Now, before anyone gets nervous, I am not going to spend the morning talking about the confirmation process or ranting about who is right and who is wrong in the world of politics. But it strikes me what a difficult job being an ambassador must be – having to articulate someone else’s position faithfully whether ideologically you agree with them or not – having to have such a grip on another person’s mindset that you can, with conviction, argue, persuade, even enforce a position that may or not be in line with your own. Being an ambassador would be a tricky business, I would think. It seems to me that he only way to perfectly do the job would be to have like Vulcan mindmeld – for you non-Trekkies that means having a direct psychic link to another person’s brain so that you can literally feel what they feel and think what they think.

Otherwise, the potential for misrepresentation or miscommunication

seems too great. Without the ability to really “get inside another person’s skin,”

human will, pride, and that adolescent desire we never really outgrow to be accepted could sabotage even our most conscientious efforts to represent another well. It occurs to me that part of the problem with living a holy life is the very thing that could short-circuit an ambassador. Before Easter we started a series on rediscovering holiness. We began by asking the question, “Is holiness passé?” We wondered if holiness was simply a part of a bygone-era of Christianity or if it was still central to the Christian life – we discovered from the Scriptures that it is a necessary part of being in Christ. Then we defined holiness. Is it a list of do’s and don’ts? We said no – it is mirroring Jesus Christ in every area of our lives. We also found that holiness begins with repentance and that a life of holiness means developing a discipline of repentance – keeping short accounts with God. The Christian life is one marked by holiness. The more our lives look like Jesus’ life, the further along we are in sanctification. And holiness brings power into our lives. The power of holiness is God’s power at work in us and not some spiritual battery pack that we recharge and discharge at our discretion. It is not that we become powerful in the Spirit rather it is God’s Spirit that is powerful in us. The power of holiness is God himself in action. We have saved the final message on rediscovering holiness for Pentecost Sunday – that would be today! If holiness is mirroring Christ in our life and seeing the power of God at work in us, how do we keep up such a life? Let’s be honest – for most, if not all of us, if we compared our spiritual lives to a car, we

would have to admit that we have problems with our fuel injection. Our engines, as it were, spit and sputter, have fits and starts – lunge forward and wheeze to a standstill. Growing in holiness or witnessing the active power of God seems like a far stretch for us. We find it nigh on to impossible to live as Jesus lived, despite our bracelets there to remind us “What would Jesus do”. How do we “get into God’s skin,” so to speak, so that we can faithfully represent or mirror him? And how do we remain strong throughout the journey? Not surprisingly, the Scriptures give us wisdom in this matter. In fact, we do well to note that in the Scriptures we have the mind of God revealed to us – at least in as far as we are able to understand it. That is why we refer to the Bible as the Word of God – it is God’s thoughts simplified and cast within the limitations of our language. In the same way we lisp to a baby, God lisps to us through the Scriptures. Through the pages of the Bible we come to know the heart of God as well as our own and can shape our character, our thinking, and our actions around his heart. So what does the Word of God say about remaining strong? Well, a lot actually. But I am going to boil it down to three simple elements. The first element is found in James 1:2-4. Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.i

Let me read a paraphrase of this passage from the Chris’ Amplified Version. “Make up your minds, my brothers, that when countless and miscellaneous adversities snow you under, to receive them with contentment, confidence, and good cheer, knowing that they test the genuineness of your faith and produce resolve. That resolve must have its work completed in order that you may be complete and whole, lacking nothing.” Making up your mind to know the mind of Christ is a key element in growing in holiness.

The test of our desire to be like Christ comes in the

difficulties of life. Quite frankly, when things are going well it rather easy to think and act like Christ. We tend to be more generous, more loving, more accepting when we feel like life is dishing out good stuff. But let life hand us a lemon – we become different people. That is why James in this passage essentially says, “Receive the tough times in life like friends!” Because like any good friend, the tough times shape our character – they add to us. Chuck Swindoll often says that he has yet to see anyone grow from good fortune, when things go our way. Conflict is what drives the growth process – without a problem to resolve or a pain to endure we would coast through life on auto-pilot, never learning how to really live. And it is only when our desire to be like Christ comes into conflict with the way of the earth that we grow in Christ likeness. In other words, pain forces us to put our money where our mouth is – to put up or shut up, as it were. As Hebrews

13:7 says, God uses affliction, trial and suffering as discipline to teach us how to walk in the steps of our Savior. Last Wednesday, on Law and Order, the legal argument that was being explored is “Can a person who committed a crime before he surrendered his life to Christ be convicted and punished after he accepts Christ and literally becomes a different person? Is justice served by punishing this person?” It was a fascinating story. And for a time it looked as if the lawyer who was arguing for the defendant would actually make the case. To be honest, I was a bit nervous that the guy who became a Christian would win. Wouldn’t that send a wonderful message to a world already skeptical about Christianity? In trouble? Try the conversion defense! Gee, judge I am a different person now – the Bible tells me so! But just as the defense was preparing to launch into a full-scale assault, the defendant finally gave way to conscience. He recognized becoming a new creature in Christ doesn’t absolve us of bearing the responsibility for the crimes we committed prior. He realized that the way to honor Christ was to walk the more difficult road – by revealing Jesus Christ through the way he dealt with adversity. The pivotal moment, you see, is the Christian making up his mind to follow Christ no matter what. Putting aside the fear of looking like a fool, putting aside the fear of how your life will be changed, putting aside fear of the pain, the suffering, the dis-ease that standing up for Christ may cause and doggedly

deciding to follow Jesus. When you make that kind of commitment to Christ – the same kind of commitment, by the way, that he made to you – you will encounter countless and miscellaneous adversities that snow you under. James tells us to receive them with good cheer, knowing that God uses them to deepen us in holiness. But we must make up our mind to follow Jesus, no matter what. The second element for remaining strong throughout the journey and growing in holiness is the person of Jesus Christ himself – really the witness of his life. If you want to know what it is to “get into God’s skin” read the Gospel accounts – slowly and carefully.

Remember, Jesus is the incarnation of the

Divine Person and Nature – God in human flesh. Take time to really sit at the feet of Jesus by reading about his life over and over again. Become so familiar with his ways and responses that they become ingrained in your character and you begin to mimic his behavior. The real challenge comes when you begin to notice that everything that Jesus did was couched in love – real love, I mean. Not the sentimental, mushy “I love you” stuff that Hollywood tries to sell us, but love that has real action behind it. The kind of love we read about in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 – Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” Real love always has others in mind first – real love

forgets about itself. That’s why the cross is the ultimate expression of love. Jesus died for us. JI Packer, in his book Rediscovering Holiness sees the development of this sort of love life – the sort of love life Jesus had and made manifest in the cross – as a necessity for true holiness. He says, “But serving the Lord by being there to seek the good of others, and to help where they have need help, will involve us in being ground up small in the mill of God’s providence for other’s sake…. True holiness, which is Christ-centered and others-oriented, accepts this without demur.”ii That’s a tall order, huh? Just taking those two elements into consideration a holy life seems a bit out of reach doesn’t it? Expecting to suffer and be happy about it. Pouring out our lives for others who may or may not grace us with a thank you – doing it simply for the joy of helping others. We may as well paint “Doormat” on our chests and expect to be miserable in this existence! But that doesn’t add up when you remember that Christ said that he came to give us life and give it abundantly. How do we “get into God’s skin” and remain content? I mean considering what is expected of us, the temptation will always be to crawl out once we get in! Well, first let me say that once in “the skin of God,” if you abide there – if you stick it out – you find that the trials really do teach us how to live by faith. We learn how to wait on God, how to be patient, how to trust him to protect his servants. We learn how to run the race with endurance. And we are shaped in

our character and responses to be more like Jesus – we grow in holiness. But how do we get passed our natural inclination for self-preservation? How do we surrender our pride – our identity, how do we die to our desires so that the desires of Christ can come alive in us? Every fiber of our being is twisted by the fall to resist the Divine will. How do we get passed that? Well, remember what I said earlier about being an ambassador. To do the job perfectly – to really get into the skin of the nation’s leader that you are representing – you would need something akin to a Vulcan mind-meld. You would need to think the leader’s thoughts after them. In 1 Corinthians 2:10-16, Paul writes, The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us…. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned …. “For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. In John chapter 14, Jesus promised to send us another Counselor, one who would remind us of the things he said and lead us into all truth. That promise came true on Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the church. Through his ministry, the Spirit of God overcomes the nature twisted by the fall, giving to us the mind of Christ – changing and shaping our desires to be like his. He enables us to think God’s thoughts after him.

People of God, in our own strength, with our own intellect and will we cannot – even more, we will not – make up our minds to follow Jesus no matter what. We will cut and run at the first sign of trouble. And we certainly won’t surrender our lives, our comfort, our desires for the good of another. If we’re not gaining something from it – even if it is just a warm fuzzy – we won’t do it. True love – and so true holiness doesn’t stand a chance. But because of Pentecost – because God poured out his Spirit upon us to indwell his people – we can get into God’s skin. We can smile in the trial and love as God has loved us. God knew we would need help following in the steps of his Son – help becoming and being holy. He has provided all we need in the presence and power of Holy Spirit. Through him we can have strength for the journey.

i

All Scripture texts taken from The New International Version, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House) 1984. ii

J.I. Packer Rediscovering Holiness Servant Publications, Ann Arbor MI 1992 p. 265.