Christianity’s Dirty Words – “Heaven”

Welcome to a new week, everyone! I hope yours is off to a good start, despite the snow. I like it when the snow is powdery and easy to shovel! Here’s this week’s sermon, the last in the sermon series on “Christianity’s Dirty Words.” I hope it is a blessing to you.

SCRIPTURE – Rev. 21:1-4

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”  

 SERMON

Christianity’s Dirty Words
#6 – “Heaven”
Feb. 11, 2007

“Sesame Street” has a game where they show four pictures and then ask you to figure out which one doesn’t fit. They’ll show an apple, a banana, an orange, and a platypus, then sing, “One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn’t belong…” By the way, it’s the platypus.

You may think that song applies to our dirty word today. We finish up our sermon series called “Christianity’s Dirty Words,” in which we’ve been looking at words from our vocabulary of faith whose biblical meanings have been corrupted by the world. Sin, suffering, obedience…Heaven?

I’ll buy the fact that “Heaven” may not be a dirty word, but is easily the most misused and misunderstood. That’s not for lack for trying. It’s been the subject of movies like “What Dreams May Come,” countless TV shows, like the recent 2-hour Barbara Walters special, and it’s even become a mild expletive, like when the cartoon cat Snagglepuss would exclaim, “Heavens to Mergatroid!”

Before we can begin to understand the biblical idea of Heaven, we must agree to this disclaimer: we’re embarking on a dead-end journey. There’s simply no way we can understand what Heaven is truly like. Imagine trying to describe to an unborn baby, who has only known the inside of its mother’s womb, what life on the outside is like. How do you do it? Where do you start? That’s what it’s like for us to try and describe Heaven. Paul tells the Corinthians, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.” It’s simply beyond our comprehension.

So what do we do when we can’t understand something? We try to put it in human terms. We do this with God all the time. It’s called anthropomorphizing. We give God eyes and ears, we talk about God being a He or a She, we speak of God holding us close or reaching out to us. We use our human terms to try and describe the indescribable. It’s not necessarily a wrong thing to do, but we run the risk of trivializing that which we are trying to understand.

Heaven is a perfect example of this. I think there are three ways in which we have misrepresented the biblical understanding of Heaven, and which we must be willing to discard if we’re going to come close to comprehending it. The first faulty description of Heaven is geographical. We talk about Heaven as a place “up there somewhere,” a physical destination where people with wings sit on clouds. This understanding was contested by Yuri Gagarin, the Russian cosmonaut and first man in space who said, “I flew into space, but I did not see God there.” Our increasingly sophisticated technology has helped us understand the scope of our universe in such a way that a Heaven “up there” doesn’t hold water anymore. It may be helpful for us to think of it that way – after all, the “up there” concept of Heaven also provides a welcoming contrast to what’s in the other direction – but the Bible simply doesn’t give us a physical location.

A second way we’ve misrepresented Heaven is that we think of it chronologically. We understand eternal life only from the dimension of time. It’s a question I hear a lot: “Eternity: what am I going to do with all that time?” This was captured by Gary Larson in one of his Far Side cartoons. It shows a guy with angel wings and a bored expression sitting on cloud, thinking, “I wish I’d brought a magazine.”

That probably describes the predominant worldview of Heaven. Streets of gold, angels with wings and harps, people sitting on clouds, forever…and ever…and ever. Pastor Dan Schaeffer made this very honest comment about his view of Heaven. He said, “I was more grateful about not going to Hell than I was thrilled by the hope of Heaven. It was like finding out you didn’t have to get your gums scraped after all; instead, you got to watch paint dry. It seemed a choice between eternal punishment and eternal boredom.”

So we try to describe Heaven geographically and chronologically. The final way we’ve misrepresented Heaven is that we’ve come to understand it selfishly. We’ve come to think that Heaven exists purely for our own pleasure, a reward for being good here on Earth. Heaven is like the ultimate retirement village; it’s an eternal weekend in Palm Springs. When we get to Heaven, St. Peter stamps our hand and we’re turned loose in this divine amusement park where we can eat Krispy Kremes and Reese’s Cups all day and still maintain our svelte physique. Our mistake is thinking that Heaven is about us.

The writers of the Bible, while still human, had divine inspiration in describing Heaven, which may mean their representation has more truth to it than our modern ones. In the book of Revelation, John writes about getting taken up into Heaven, where he sees God on his throne, surrounded by four living creatures. John says, “Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under his wings. Day and night they never stop saying: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.’”

If Heaven is a place, then John says it is a place of worship. Revelation says that Heaven is basically an eternal worship service. Now, before you roll your eyes, remember this: in Heaven, everything that we know on earth to be imperfect will be perfected. On earth we can only know imperfect joy, imperfect health, even imperfect love. But in Heaven, everything will be perfect, and our worship will be perfect worship, which could mean that everyone sings on key, the sound system always works, and no one ever drops a communion tray. Whatever our heavenly worship is like, we do know this: we were created for God, and we fulfill our highest purpose when we are worshipping our Creator. In Heaven, we will do what we were created to do.

The Bible also addresses the issue of the chronology of Heaven. We can only think in terms of time, but we have to remember that God is timeless. In the very beginning of Genesis, when God creates light and separates the light from the darkness, God is in essence creating a way for humans to mark time – days and nights. But God existed before time was made. A good friend once described it this way: We watch a movie from beginning to end, but God can see the whole movie at once. Heaven isn’t necessarily a place, or a length of time, but a way of being, a way of existing eternally in perfect relationship with God.

Finally, we are told that Heaven is not about our wants and needs. That doesn’t mean that we won’t enjoy it; after all, it is the closest we will ever get to God. But Heaven is about what God wants, and what God wants more than anything, is for us to be with Him.

How do you feel when you return from a long trip and walk in the door of your house? Those familiar sights, that favorite scent, those same clothes still piled on the stairway. Is there a truer axiom than, “It’s always good to come home”? When we die, through our faith in Jesus Christ, we don’t leave home; we go home, to be with our loved ones who have gone before us, and with our Creator. In John’s gospel Jesus says, “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” That doesn’t mean when we die we’ll get a Victorian with a two-car garage or a Tudor with a nice deck on the back. Jesus isn’t saying we’ll get our dream house; he’s saying we’ll be home.

As comfortable as we may get here on earth, we must remember that this is not our home. We are only travelers passing through, as Paul reminds us in Philippians when he says, “Our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.”

When we go home, we will be made perfect. Did you hear what Paul said? Our lowly bodies will be transformed so they are like Christ’s glorious body.” Do you know what that means? Adios, Alka Seltzer. Take a hike, Tylenol. So long, Zoloft. Later, Lipitor. We can even bid good riddance to Rogaine!

One of the most awesome promises Heaven holds for us is the perfection of our bodies. Alzheimer’s won’t have the last word. Cancer won’t have the last word. Heart disease and birth defects and brain tumors won’t have the last word. God will have the last word. “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” I doubt any of us want to die, but what the Bible promises is that we need not fear death, because it is not the end of our lives, only the end of everything that has made life hard to live.

Paul reminds us to “fix our eyes on what is unseen, because what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” In other words, we are called to live with the promise of Heaven always on our minds, and letting those promises guide how we live each day. C.S. Lewis said, “If you read history you will find that the Christians who did the most for the present world were precisely those who thought most about the next one.” As we look forward to the day when we will go home, may we do our part to live out the prayer: “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth, as it is in Heaven.”

QUESTIONS

1 – Can you describe a moment when or a place where you experience “Heaven on earth”?

2 – How would describe Heaven to someone not familiar with the concept?

3 – What, if anything, has God said to you through this sermon series?

Christianity’s Dirty Words – “Salvation”

Greetings everyone! I would appreciate prayers for my poor computer, which decided to stop working last week. Maybe it got too cold! I also want you to know I’m available to all Bears fans for counseling. Here is this week’s sermon; as always, I look forward to hearing what you think!

SCRIPTURE – Ephesians 2:1-10

1As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature^[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 4But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

SERMON

Today’s sermon is a bookend to last week’s sermon on sin. To understand the word “salvation” and its meaning in the context of faith, we first have to understand the concept of sin. Salvation only makes sense if we understand what we’re being saved from.

But that understanding doesn’t always come easily, because the word “salvation,” or more accurately, the idea of “being saved,” have taken on a life of their own in our culture. “Being saved” has become something like a check of your spiritual I.D. to make sure you’re worthy of being allowed in the club.

When I was young, I remember visiting a church in my hometown that had a “holy roller” reputation. I was playing on the playground before church started when a boy came up to me asked said, “Have you been saved?” Now, I had never heard this question before, so I assumed he was referring to some form of danger that lurked on the playground, maybe a pit of quicksand or a charge rhino or something. So I looked around and said, “Saved from what?” And he paused for a second, and said, “Hmm. I don’t know. I just know it’s important.” Yes it is important to be saved, but it’s just as important to know what we’re being saved from.

I would guess the understanding of the word “salvation” in our culture is not great, but the concept is very popular. I believe one of the greatest hungers of our society is a desire to be saved from the empty promises of this world. People look for salvation in therapists’ offices and self-help books and TV talk shows. Webster’s defines salvation as “the act of saving or protecting from harm, risk, loss, destruction, etc.” People are looking for anything that will protect them from the risks of living life, so they seek salvation.

But that’s not the word that gets used. In fact, the word “salvation” isn’t spoken much outside church at all. Like the word “sin,” “salvation” is a word mostly used by insiders. We Disciples of Christ tend to shy away from salvation language; we don’t talk about “being saved.” But we believe in it nonetheless. Do we know what we mean when we talk about salvation? What does it mean to be saved? What does it look like?

Like the boy who approached me on the playground, many people talk about being saved as if it is a one-time event. You’re unsaved, and then – boom! – you’re saved. It’s like the metal detectors at airports. We need salvation detectors at our church doors. When someone steps through and the alarm goes off, we hand them a Bible and say, “Sir, would you please step back and read the Gospel of Luke?”

There is an example in the Bible that supports this view of a one-time salvation event. Paul is converted in an instant on the road to Damascus. The problem is that Paul’s experience has been lifted up as the norm for conversions. Unsaved – boom! – saved. But that is only one example of salvation in the Bible, and we need to look at the whole body of God’s work before defining what salvation means.

The Bible talks about salvation in three ways. The first way is in the past tense. Paul says in Romans 8, “For this hope we were saved.” Through Christ’s death on the cross, all those we believe in him were saved. The danger of this viewpoint, of course, is that we view salvation only in the past tense, we may think that everything’s already done and we therefore can live our lives however we want. “I’m already saved, what does it matter if I beat up a Colts fan?” Salvation in the past tense doesn’t mean we don’t have some present responsibilities as believers. Paul tells the Corinthians, “If you think you are standing firm, be careful you don’t fall!” In other words, just because you’re saved doesn’t mean you’re free to check your common sense and good judgment at the door. A person whose heart has been changed by salvation will always reflect that salvation in the way they live their lives and the choices they make. They will reflect the spirit of God that now dwells within them by virtue of their salvation.

The Bible also talks about salvation in the future tense, pointing toward that time when Christ will come again. Paul says until that moment, we wait eagerly for our adoption as children of God. Salvation has occurred through Jesus Christ, and will be fully realized when God’s kingdom comes here on earth. The problem with this view is that if people believe their ultimate salvation is yet to come, they begin to wonder what they need to do to ensure that. I call it the “Jesus is coming – look busy!” syndrome. There was a man in the Bible who fell prey to this way of thinking. He was a rich man who felt he had done everything Jesus wanted him to do. He was a good man, upstanding citizen, solid believer. To ensure his eternal salvation, he asks Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life? The downfall of this man was his emphasis is on the word “do.” As soon as we start believing there’s something we can do to earn salvation – the technical term is works-righteousness – we’ve lost sight of the Christ’s work on the cross. Salvation is abandoning the misconception that you are rejected because of your bad behavior or accepted because of your goodness.

But some people think of salvation as a trophy rather than a gift, something to be earned once they have enough gold stars on their spiritual chore chart. Others equate joining the church with salvation; if we put ourselves around other believers, salvation will rub off on us. I heard a very disturbing statistic last week at a conference: 60% of church attenders have unconverted hearts. Sixty percent of people in church have not done the one thing needed to be saved. That one thing is stated by Peter in his great sermon on the day of Pentecost. He says simply, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How can 60% of churchgoers, people who presumably listen to the gospel every week, not accept this free gift God offers? What is keeping them from accepted Christ as their Savior?

So the Bible talks about salvation in the past tense and in the future tense. The third and most intriguing way the Bible talks about salvation is in the present tense. Paul, who obviously talked a lot about salvation, says this to the church in Corinth: “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” “Are being saved,” he says. In another passage he tells the Corinthians not to lose heart, because “though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.”

This present tense understanding of salvation is most powerful, because it helps us better understand what is being saved. The primary way we interpret salvation is that, because of Christ’s death on the cross, we are saved from the penalty of our sins. John Stott said that the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man. By dying on the cross, Jesus saved us from the paying the price for our sinfulness and cleared the way for us to go to Heaven.

But if we put a period at the end our definition there, we miss the point. As Phillip Gulley and James Mulholland note in their book, “If Grace Is True,” “Salvation is more than a ticket to Heaven. It is more than a Get Out of Hell Free card. It is more than just eternal life. Salvation is being freed of every obstacle to intimacy with God.” That’s the present tense of salvation. It’s not just the one-and-done deal of forgiving our sins; it’s not just the future hope of getting into Heaven. We are being saved day by day so that we can be in relationship with God. And that requires us every day to die to our sinful self and rise as a child of God.

We tend to focus so much on what we are saved from that we forget what we are saved for. Although our culture doesn’t use the word “salvation” much, it uses another word with the same root: “Salvage.” Webster’s defines “salvage” as “to save for further use.” There’s a show on the Discovery Channel called “Dirty Jobs.” Have you seen this? The host, Mike Rowe, goes around doing the some of the most disgusting jobs imaginable, like, and I quote, “salmon carcass counter, owl vomit collector, and volcanic mud bath mixer.” On one show, Mike joined a couple of guys whose job it was to suit up in scuba gear and go to local golf courses. They would dive into all the ponds and retrieve the golf balls. I noticed a few of them had the initials “KW” written on them. They would then clean off the golf balls and resell them.

In working with us, God has a dirty job. Do you agree? God’s work is salvage work. God has to dip his hand into the mess and muck of our lives to salvage our souls. God dipped his son into this world so he could do salvage work on the cross. If we only think we are saved from something, we’re missing the salvage work of Christ.

We are also saved for something. We are saved to be God’s children on this earth. We are saved to continue God’s salvage work in the lives of others. We are saved to be God’s witnesses, to be the embodiment of God’s love to others. Being saved from sin is wonderful, but being saved for God’s work is even better. I get asked occasionally, “How can I know that I’m saved?” I believe that this is the evidence of salvation: because you have received this free gift from God, your life no longer revolves around yourself, but around God’s presence and work in your life, and your gratitude is expressed in giving your life to God for God’s use.

We have been saved. We will be saved. And every day we are being saved, saved from the destructiveness of sin and saved for God’s salvage work. I’ll ask you the question I was once asked: Are you saved? Have you said, “Jesus, I accept you as my Savior, and in return I give you my life”? If you are, the God bless you. If not, if you are one of the 60%, come see me, I’d love to hear your story. I believe I have a wonderful gift to offer you, a gift that fills the hunger you feel deep down inside. It’s an amazing gift, actually. And the best part? It’s free.

QUESTIONS

1 – Have you ever had a negative experience with the word “salvation” or the concept of “being saved?”

2 – Do you resonate more with the past, present, or future tense of “salvation?”

3 – What is one kind of work that you believe God has “salvaged’ you to do?

Christianity’s Dirty Words – “Sin”

Here’s this past Sunday’s sermon as we try to reclaim the biblical meaning of “sin.” I look forward to your comments!

SCRIPTURE – Romans 3:21-24
But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

I John 1:8-2:2
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives. My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

SERMON
Christianity’s Dirty Words
#4 – Sin
Jan. 28, 2007

The whole impetus for this sermon series on “Christianity’s Dirty Words” was a conversation I had with a congregation member about the word “sin.” I had just preached a sermon on the concept of sin and salvation, going into great detail to explain the biblical understanding of sin and our need to be saved from it. It wasn’t quite fire and brimstone, but I thought it got the job done with a minimal amount of squirming.

So imagine my surprise when, during Coffee Hour, I was accosted by this church member who said, “I just want you to know that I didn’t even listen to your sermon.” Now, I hear that often enough to not be too shocked, but the vitriol with which she shared her statement startled me.

She said, “As soon as you said the word ‘sin,’ I just stopped listening. I was beaten over the head with that word so much growing up that I just can’t hear it anymore. When I hear it I get very angry, and you said that word 67 times.” At which point she kicked me in the shin and stole my Bible.

Her perspective got me thinking about how biblical words had been co-opted and redefined by the culture – or even by other Christians! – and how we need to reclaim the original meanings so they can inform our faith instead of send us running. And that’s what led to this sermon series. So to the woman who tuned me out last time, please give me another chance.

The word “sin” has truly become a bad word, hasn’t it? The word is pervasive in the Bible appearing over 400 times. In the book of Romans alone, Paul uses the word 77 times. Understanding the concept of sin is fundamental to understanding what it means to be a Christian. If that’s the case, why did this woman, and many, many other people like her, get so turned off by this word? When I told someone about this sermon series, she looked at me and said, “You’re going to preach on SIN?” Why do people react so strongly to this word that’s so fundamental to our vocabulary of faith?

That’s a simple question with a very complex answer. To get to the bottom of it, we need to first see how our culture at large uses the word “sin.” That’s easy enough: it doesn’t. The word “sin” isn’t a part of our larger vocabulary. How often do you hear, “I went to the grocery, stop by the post office, sinned for awhile, then cooked dinner”? In fact, the only time I see it anymore is on the dessert menu: “Sinfully Rich Chocolate Cake.” It’s used to described a guilty pleasure, something you know you shouldn’t have, but you really want. For the most part, the word “sin” is still spoken only in the realm of faith.

But the way it is there spoken is problematic. “Sin” is a word that doesn’t need to be rescued from the culture, but from the church itself. As the woman in the earlier story pointed out to me, some churches and pastors have used to word as a weapon to beat people down into submission. Because the word “sin” has been used in such extreme ways, we’ve come to associate “sin” with only the worst of behaviors like murder and sexual perversion. Webster’s defines “sin” as “any reprehensible or regrettable action or behavior; great fault or offense.” We’d never do anything like that, would we?

Of course not, at least not that we’d admit, so we’ve trivialized the word “sin” and found more palatable alternatives to it. I was once told by a minister who was reading over one of my sermons that I shouldn’t use the word “sinfulness” because it was too negative. She suggested I used “brokenness” or “shortcomings.” That’s like the doctor who told me he didn’t like to tell family members that a loved one had died; instead, he told them they had “transitioned.” But Paul doesn’t say that all suffer from brokenness and have fallen short of the glory of God; he says all have sinned.

The reality that Paul puts forth is that everyone sins, but because that word has come to mean something depraved and grossly immoral, we do our best to distance ourselves from the word. We’ll go to great lengths to deny the presence of sin in our lives. We call our sins mistakes or imperfections; we will rationalize them by saying, “I’m only human” or “The devil made me do it.” These are ways of avoiding facing the reality of the issue and speaking that dirty “s” word. It’s too frightening to think about. It’s too embarrassing. No one wants to be lumped into the same category as real sinners.

If that happened, if we admitted our sinful nature, people might find out that we’re not the good person everyone thinks we are. Our reputation would be ruined. We’d be kicked out of church, our picture would go up in the post office, people would talk about us in hushed tones: “Remember Kory? Oh, yeah, can you believe it? I thought he was such a nice guy! Who would have guessed that he was really a sinner!”

That’s sounds terrible to say, doesn’t it? Would you ever think of calling someone a sinner? It sounds so judgmental, doesn’t it? That’s where the accepted cultural definition of the word “sin” begins to break down. It’s been given a negative connotation when, in the Bible, it’s spoken of in much different terms.

In the Bible, to be called a sinner was not a judgment; it was simply a factual statement, and assertion about the reality of our human nature and our broken relationship with God. To be a sinner does not necessarily mean you are hypocritical, disgusting or evil. Some of the nicest people I know are sinners, and most of them are sitting in this room right now!

What we need to do is to stop seeing sin as only the most egregious and repulsive acts, and redefine it so that we can all see our culpability. Yes, we are all sinners. I don’t say that to make you feel bad or beat you down; I simply say it because it’s true, and if we are to understand God’s grace and the power of what Christ did for us on the cross, we first have to acknowledge our separation from God and our need for a Savior.

But we are reluctant to do that because we don’t want to think of ourselves as anything other than good people doing our best to live a faithful life. We are hesitant to accept the fact that, no matter how good we are, we still sin. We’re like Charlie Brown when Lucy says to him, “You know what the trouble with you is?” Charlie Brown responds, “No, and I don’t want to know! Leave me alone!” and he storms off. Lucy pauses and says, “The whole trouble with you is you won’t listen about what the whole trouble with you is!”

Part of the reason we resist seeing our sinful nature is that we’ve let sin be defined too narrowly. We think of sinning as doing something terribly wrong, and for the most part we haven’t done anything terribly wrong. But there is more than one type of sin. There are sins of commission, which are doing things we shouldn’t do. But there are also sins of omission, which means not doing something we should do.

To many people misrepresent Christianity as a religion full of “thou shalt nots,” and the belief is if you do good and treat people well and say “Please” and “Thank you” and come to church every once in awhile, you’ll go to Heaven. But as I read the Bible, there are a lot more “Thou shalts” than “Thou shalt nots.” James says in his letter, “Anyone who knows the good he ought to do, and doesn’t do it, sins.” Part of accepting our sinfulness is not only admitting what we’ve done, but what we’ve left undone.

So when we redefine “sin,” we have to do so in a way that encompasses all the different forms of sin, because the Bible doesn’t make a distinction between types of sin. That’s hard for some of us to accept. There’s no list in the Bible that says murder is a really big sin but telling a lie is only a little sin. In God’s eyes, they are all sins, and no sin is more or less sinful than any others. Our human laws make these kinds of distinctions, which is good and necessary, but God doesn’t. The Bible doesn’t focus on how we’ve sinned, but that we have sinned, and that we cannot escape our sinful nature by ourselves. We need God’s help.

So, how do we redefine “sin”? I came across numerous definitions this week. But as I read and prayed and talked to people, the definition I heard that I believe fits the biblical understanding of sin most closely is this: Sin is a waste. Sin is when we take what God has given us and we fail to use it to bring glory to God. We waste it. We waste our talents, we waste our bodies, we waste our resources. God has given us all these things to use for His glory and His kingdom, and when we choose to use them selfishly, to fulfill our own desires, we waste them. We sin against God.

But God loves us so much that He did something radical to help us break the inertia of sin in our lives: He sent us His son, Jesus. We’ll talk next week about the word “salvation” and how we can redefine it. But for now, if there’s only one thing you remember about this sermon, I hope it’s this: God loves you very much. God’s not waiting for you to screw up so he can strike you with a lightning bolt. Sin is not something to be punished, but something to be healed. Paul says in Romans, “For the wages of sin is transitioning…er…death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Instead of denying our sin, we are called to acknowledge it, then turn to the only One who has the power to forgive us, to make us new, the One who came so that we would know, not death, but know life, and know it abundantly.

QUESTIONS

1 – How do you react when you hear the word “sin”?

2 – I defined “sin” as “a waste of what God has given us.” How would you define sin?

3 – Would you say you are more guilty of sins of comission or sins of omission?

 Have a great week!

This Week’s Sermon – Redefining “Obedience”

Hi everyone! We’re continuing the sermon series called “Christianity’s Dirty Words,” where we look at some of the less attractive words in the vocabulary of faith and try to recapture their biblical meaning. This week’s word is “obedience.” I look forward to your comments! 

SCRIPTURE

Deuteronomy 6:1-3

1 These are the commands, decrees and laws the LORD your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, 2 so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. 3 Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, promised you.

Matthew 5:17-20

17“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

SERMON

Christianity’s Dirty Words
Sermon #3 – Obedience
Jan. 21, 2007

I heard the story once about a professor who was leading a seminar on Christian counseling. In a room full of Christians in the pastoral care field, he wrote this on a flipchart: “I can’t do anything by myself. I can only do what my dad tells me to do.” He then asked the folks in the room to analyze the man who said this.

The professor got the expected responses: “This person obviously has no willpower.” “He needs to grow a spine and get a life.” “I bet he still lives at home.” “He needs to get out from under his dad’s shadow and become his own person.” Then the professor revealed the identity of the man: It was Jesus who said this in John 5:19: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.”

The responses to Jesus’ words is typical for how today’s society views the issues of independence and individuality. In our sermon series on “Christianity’s Dirty Words,” we’ve been looking at words from our vocabulary of faith that have been redefined in negative ways by the larger culture. Today we’ll look at the word “obedience.”

The first thing I think of when I hear that word is a dog obedience school, a place where we send a pet so they can learn to behave correctly and become socially acceptable. If that’s the justification for sending our pets there, I think a case could be made for a human obedience school, where people are sent to learn to behave correctly and become socially acceptable. In fact, we all probably know some people for whom we’d gladly pay their tuition if they would enroll.

But we balk at the idea of this concept for one very simple, very human reason: we don’t like anyone telling us what to do, and for us, obedience has come to mean “doing what someone tells us to do.” And that goes against the very essence of what it means to be an American. Our country was founded specifically because someone tried to tell us what to do. I saw a sign from the Colonial era in an antique store once, and the sign read, “We will have no King to rule over us!” In England, we were used to having a king and calling someone “Your Lordship.” When we got to America, when we got on our own turf, we bucked that oppressive trend. No one is going to tell us what to do!

That independent spirit didn’t start in the Colonies. It started a little further back, with a couple of people named Adam and Eve. God blessed the first couple with this idyllic paradise called Eden. It was full of beautiful plants and wonderful animals and all kinds of food-bearing plants and trees. And God said to them there was only one condition: They could not eat of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Eat anything else you want, but don’t eat from that tree. And Adam and Eve said, “You can’t tell us what to do!”

From that point on, disobedience and rebellion have been woven into our DNA. Anyone who has a teenager can attest to this. When I was a teenager, my mom married my stepfather. Up to that point, because my mom had been a single parent, I had a lot of freedom about what I did, how late I stayed up, and things like that. My new stepfather was a Captain in the Army, and his approach to parenting was a little different. Structure. Order. Discipline. Chores.

From that point on, I went out of my way to disobey him, simply because I didn’t like being told what to do. One of my chores was to walk our dog right after school each day. To monitor whether I did this or not, my stepfather would check the leash each day to see if it had been moved in the drawer. So when I got home from school, I would take the leash, shake it a few times, and then put it back. I didn’t care that my poor dog was walking around with his legs crossed; I was determined to show my stepfather that he couldn’t tell me what to do.

Webster’s defines “obey” as “to comply with or be submissive to authority.” There’s a definition crying to be disliked. Submission? Authority? Those words are definite turn-offs in our culture that places value on individuality and nonconformity. “Obedience” has become a word that implies weakness, oppression, subservience. There’s a reason that wedding vows no longer ask for the couple to love, honor and obey each other. Obedience is a bad thing.

That’s why we bristle when the Bible talks about obedience. Scripture calls us to submit to the ultimate authority, but because it’s out of fashion to do that in every other part of our lives, we have great difficulty doing so in our faith. If Adam and Eve, living in the Garden of Eden, can’t even toe the line, how are we supposed to be obedient in this modern day and age that encourage us to “seize the day” and question authority?

What we need to do is to recapture what the Bible means by “obedience,” especially in relationship to our faith. When you couple the word “obedience” with church, the first thing we probably think of are restrictions: no dancing, no drinking, no playing cards, no R-rated movies, no smiling, no having fun. Who wants to live a life filled with all those restrictions? So we rebel against what we perceive to be the tyrannical and joyless aspects of an obedient faith.

But a closer reading of Scripture shows us that the Bible doesn’t define “obedience” as restriction, but as freedom. That may sound peculiar since we’ve been taught to believe that obeying means giving up your freedom. But obeying God actually gives us freedom. Freedom from something is in turn freedom for something else.

We think we can be independent from God, and that this independence brings us freedom. Actually, it’s obedience that brings freedom, because it frees us up from trying to figure it all out ourselves. The opposite of obedience is selfishness. When we rebel against God, when we say to God, “You can’t tell me what to do!” we leave ourselves to our own devices. We put our desires above anyone else’s. We claim that we don’t need God because we’ve got it all figured out. And when life is going well, it probably feels that way. But the reality of life is that we will always be someone’s or something’s servant. Bob Dylan sang, “You’re gonna have to serve somebody. Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.”

God calls each of us to obedience, but not because we are being punished or because God wants to show us who’s boss. Listen again to Deuteronomy: “Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, promised you.” In other words, when deciding whether to obey God or your own selfish desires, keep in mind which one of you has a better chance of knowing what’s going on. Creation obeys the Creator, not the other way around. God gave the Israelites the law so that they would know what God wanted to them to do, and by doing so they would be blessed. Christ came as the fulfillment of the law, so by following Christ we honor God and keep his commands, commands meant to give us life in abundance. John writes, “The world and its desires pass away, but the person who does the will of God lives forever.”

It may not always feel that way to us, which is why we need a redefinition and reminder. Remember “Karate Kid”? After getting beat up a few times, Daniel tells Mr. Miagi that he wants to learn karate. Miagi reluctantly agrees to teach Daniel-son, and has Daniel come to his house for the first lesson. Do you remember what that first lesson was? “Wax the cars.” Wax on, wax off. The next lesson? Daniel had to sand Miagi’s huge deck. Then paint his fence. Then paint the house! Daniel-son finally throws a fit and is ready to quit, because while he’s given Mr. Miagi’s property an extreme makeover, he hasn’t learn how to do one good karate chop.

Just as Daniel-son is about to throw down his brush and walk away, Mr. Miagi says, “Show me wax on, wax off.” As Daniel demonstrates these motions he’s learned while painting and waxing and sanding, Miagi shows him that he’s been learning to protect himself from an attack. Had he done it his way, Daniel probably would have learned how to kick and chop his way right into a knuckle sandwich. But through his and obedience of Mr. Miagi, Daniel has learned the crucial elements of self-preservation.

God does not call us to obey his commands to punish us. God is not trying to take the fun out of living. To the contrary, God is trying to make our lives joyful by unburdening us of the responsibility of getting it right by ourselves. When we submit ourselves to God, we free ourselves to live the life God has called us to live, which is infinitely better than anything we could dream up on our own. We have a king to rule over us. May his will, not ours, be done.

QUESTIONS

1 -  Was there one chore you had growing up that you hated doing?

2 – What keeps you from obeying God’s commands?

3 - What’s one command from God you feel you obey well?

Have a great week, everyone!

This week’s sermon – “Suffering”

Hi, everyone! Here’s the second sermon in my series on “Christianity’s Dirty Words,” as we try to recapture the biblical meaning of words that have been redefined by the larger culture. This week’s word is “suffering.” Hope it is helpful!

SCRIPTURE – Romans 5:1-5

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

SERMON

Christianity’s Dirty Words
Sermon #2 – “Suffering”
Jan. 14, 2007

Well, I was really expecting a packed house today. I thought we might have to break out extra folding chairs. When you let people know that you’re preaching on as uplifting a topic as suffering, you’d expect they would beat down your door to hear it. “Get up, honey, that sermon on suffering is this morning!” I only hope that one of you doesn’t say to me on your way out, “You know, Kory, I never knew what suffering was like until I heard you preach today.”

“Suffering” has very much become a dirty word in the vocabulary of faith. It casts a negative shadow on the experience of believing. You know how, when you go to visit someone’s house for the first time, and they’re showing you around, there’s always that one room where the door stays shut and they say something like, “Oh, that’s just a guest bedroom” or “We use that for storage”? Actually, that room is where they threw all the junk from all the other rooms so the house would look clean. Do you have a room like that in your house?

That’s what the concept of suffering is for Christians; it’s that part of our faith that we don’t want to open up and show to others. Jesus says things like, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.” And we say to our guests, “Um, have you heard the verse about love your neighbor? That’s a good one. Let’s read that one instead.”

But suffering is a key part of the Bible, especially in the New Testament, where the words “suffer” or “suffering” occur 86 times. That’s mainly because the people who were reading and hearing the New Testament when it was first being shared knew what suffering was all about. They were experiencing it on a daily basis, and it was much different than our modern definition of suffering.

First of all, we use the word “suffering” today to describe any kind of inconvenience. Webster’s defines “suffer” as “to undergo or feel pain or distress.” But that definition has been fudged a bit when we read that a basketball team suffered its first loss, or when someone says, “I had to suffer through that 3-hour movie after drinking an extra-large Diet Coke.” For us “suffering” is an appropriate description for anything that even slightly threatens our comfortable state of existence.

In fact, you could argue that we’ve conditioned ourselves to believe that to suffer is an unnecessary interruption of our normal life. We’ve done our best to eliminate any form of suffering from our lives. We surround ourselves with conveniences and luxuries that minimize the amount of suffering we must endure. We buy chairs that massage and cars with heated seats and flavored coffees until “suffering” no longer has anything to do with “undergoing or feeling pain and distress.” “Suffering” becomes sitting on a cold car seat or drinking plain old black coffee or sitting in a chair that does nothing but give you a place to put your fanny. We’ve diluted the meaning of “suffering.” It no longer means “to undergo or feel pain or distress.” It now means “to do without an expected luxury or to have our sense of entitlement disrupted.”

This is a far cry from what the Bible defines as suffering. While there are many different forms suffering takes in the Bible, there’s a common thread that runs through all of them: suffering, as defined in the Bible, occurred as a result of a person’s faith. Because Christianity was an underground movement with few supporters and many detractors, believers were often persecuted for their faith in an effort to get them to renounce their faith in Christ. Suffering and persecution were the norm for believers. Peter writes, “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.”

We have the luxury of the freedom of worship today. We define “suffering for our faith” as getting home late from church and missing kickoff. We here in America have no idea what it means to suffer for our faith. We may at times have felt awkward or uncomfortable because of our faith, but we’ve never been beaten because of our faith, never lost our homes because of our faith, never fed to the lions because of our faith.

Christians in first century understood that suffering was simply part of proclaiming Christ as their Savior. Because Christ suffered, they too expected to suffer. When Christ tells them to “take up your cross and follow me,” he is inviting them into a life of discipleship that will put them in harm’s way because of their faith. Like Jesus, his followers will be cursed, spit upon, and killed, simply because of what they believe. We are blessed to never have experienced the biblical meaning of suffering.

That is not to say we haven’t suffered. We all have, in one way or another. As spiritual writer Joyce Rupp says, “We are finite human beings living on an earth where natural disasters occur, where genetic conditions exist, where we sometimes make poor or sinful choices, where life does not always work as we had planned and hoped it would.” Not everyone suffers the same amount, but no one can go through this life without suffering.

One of the ways the word has been redefined by our culture is the exclusively negative connotation it has been given. Even though suffering is inevitable, no one wants to go through it and a lot of people are on the lookout for someone to blame. I can’t tell you how many books are out there that try to address one simple question: Why does God allow suffering? Wouldn’t life be more fulfilling if everything was easy and pain-free?

What’s happened is we’ve lost sight of the redeeming qualities of suffering. That may sound like an oxymoron, but listen again to Paul’s words: “We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us.” At some point, Paul says, we have to move from asking “Why?” to asking, “How?” How can God use this experience to strengthen me? How can God work through this suffering to shape my character and fill me with hope?

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands in times of challenge and controversy.” And French priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said, “Our spiritual character is formed as much by what we endure and what is taken from us as it is by our achievements and conscious choices.” In other words, we are who we are today not in spite of our suffering, but because of it.

There was a character on “Saturday Night Live” named Stuart Smalley, a self-help coach who’s motto was, “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!” But the reality of life is that we’re not always good enough, we’re not always smart enough, and doggone it, not everyone is going to like us! It is through our suffering that we recognize our weakness and our need. Our suffering often brings us to our knees, which is where we are most likely to find God.

The worldly definition of suffering leads us to believe that suffering is an end in and of itself. We suffer, we endure, we move on. But the biblical understanding of suffering sees it as a means a greater end. Let’s take the story of Lazarus, for example. Jesus gets word that his good friend Lazarus is very ill. Now, Jesus had it in his power to heal Lazarus instantly, but instead Jesus waits two days before journeying to Lazarus. IN the meantime, Lazarus dies, causing much suffering for his sisters Mary and Martha.

When Jesus finally arrives, the sisters struggle to understand why Jesus didn’t come sooner and spare them this suffering. But Jesus does something even they couldn’t have imagined: he calls Lazarus out of his tomb, resurrecting him from the dead, and Mary and Martha’s sorrow is turned into great joy.

God doesn’t cause our suffering, but I believe God can work through it to bring about resurrection. As Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” Through our suffering, God can bring about new life greater than we ever imagined. J.V. Cheney once said, “The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears.” It is our tendency to dread suffering, to run from it, to avoid it at all costs. But life is simply full of too many troubles to avoid it for very long. In the play “Shadowlands,” about the life of Christian writer C.S. Lewis, Lewis says, “We are like blocks of stone out of which the sculptor carves the forms of men. The blows of the chisel, which hurt us so much, are what make us perfect. The suffering in the world is not the failure of God’s love; it is that love in action.”

Roget’s Thesaurus offers an interesting insight into our understanding of suffering. Here are some of the synonyms it lists for “suffer”: to endure, undergo, put up with, go through. All of those imply movement forward, don’t they? All of them imply that suffering is not an end, that we won’t stay there forever, that God is in the midst of our suffering, working to bring about resurrection. Will we follow the world’s definition and keep asking “Why?” or will we ask “How?” and look for God at work?

QUESTIONS

1 – Have you ever experienced “suffering” because of your faith? 

2 – How would you define “hope”?

3 – What keeps us from being hopeful in the midst of difficult circumstances?

Have a great week!

Kory

This week’s sermon – Christianity’s Dirty Words – “religious”

This week I started my new sermon series on “Christianity’s Dirty Words,” in which we’ll be looking to reclaim someof our vocabulary of faith that’s been contaminated and redefined by the larger culture. This Sunday’s word was “religious.” I look forward to your comments!

SCRIPTURE – Matthew 7:15-23
Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

SERMON

Christianity’s Dirty Words
Sermon #1 – “Religious
Jan. 7, 2007

As you probably know I teach a public speaking class at CLC each semester, and in each class the students are required to give four speeches: a speech on something or someone they value, an informative speech that involves some research, a persuasive speech, and a speech that uses visual aids.

This last speech I used to call a deMONstrative speech, but several of my students made fun of me because they said I was pronouncing it wrong. They said it’s actually called a demonSTRATive speech, because they were demonstrating something. I assured them in a very gentle way they were wrong and would fail my class miserably. I told them their problem was they were putting the emPHAsis on the wrong sylLABle.

I think a lot of people are guilty of putting the emPHAsis on the wrong part of a lot of our vocabulary of faith. We take a word or phrase’s biblical meaning and we distort it or focus on only one small part of it, thereby changing the meaning of the word and its relevance for us.

Let me give you an example of this that comes right from the Bible. You all have heard of Peter. Peter was a disciple and one of the closest confidantes of Jesus. Although he had his shortcomings, Peter was one of the leaders of the early Christian movement. And yet even he wasn’t immune to putting the emPHAsis on the wrong sylLABle.

One day, Jesus was telling the disciples about what was going to happen to him. Jesus said that he must go to Jerusalem and suffering many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests, and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed, and on the third day be raised to life.

Now, if you were listening to Jesus’ words, what would catch your ear? I find his whole statement very troubling and compelling, but that part of about being raised to life would jump out at me. But not for Peter. He took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him, saying “Never Lord! We’ll never let them kill you.” Do you think Peter missed the point? It’s like going to the zoo and saying, “I can’t see the elephants because that blade of grass is in the way.” Peter put the emPHAsis on the wrong sylLABle.

Down through the centuries, biblical words and phrases have been co-opted by the surrounding culture and redefined until they lose their original meaning. That’s ironic, because Christians could be accused of doing the same thing. Did you know that we don’t really know on what day Jesus was born? Unfortunately, all the computer hard drives from that time period have been erased. According to Laurence Hull Stookey, when the observance of the nativity began to be kept in the fourth century, it was inserted into the calendar at a place where people celebrated what was called “the return of the invincible sun,” as the shortest day of the year passed and the days began to lengthen. Christians co-opted this time for their own celebration, and thus we have Christmas on Dec 25, four days after the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice. We took the emphasis off the sun and placed in on the Son. The irony is, of course, you could argue the culture has once again reclaimed Christmas as a secular holiday.

In this dance of sacred and profane Christianity has had with the culture around us, it’s time to make some things sacred again. Too many of our words of faith, words that are essential to our understanding of Christianity, have been given alternative meanings that not only dilute the word of its power, but have also become the prevailing definition over and above the sacred definition. The Roman philosopher Epictetus said, “What concerns me is not the way things are, but rather the way people think things are.” So in this sermon series, I hope we can look at a few of these words and reclaim them for what they are, not what people think they are.

I want to start with a word that carries a lot of baggage with it. That word is “religious” and its other forms, like “religion.” I wonder how many of us, if someone asked us if we were religious, would answer positive? “Are you religious?” “Well, I’m a Christian, and I go to church, but I don’t know if I would call myself that.”

Why not? Webster’s defines “religious” as “pious, devout; scrupulously faithful; conscientious.” I think we’d all like to be thought of in those ways, right? But when we hear the word “religious” used today, it is rarely said in such noble terms.

First of all, I believe that to be labeled as “religious” carries with it some high expectations. I’ve heard non-believers express disappoint in a “religious” person who’s cursed or smoked or cut them off in traffic. To be called “religious” implies that you are perfect, and none of us want to walk around with that kind of responsibility on our shoulders. If you’re religious, you’re not allowed to do anything that could be remotely fun, because, well, you know, “religious” people just don’t do that.

The word “religious” has gained popularity with a lot of faith-based political movements. Terms like “the religious right” and have become a part of our political vocabulary, and are used in that context to describe a group of people with a certain set of beliefs, motives, and behaviors, usually of the more conservative nature. Whether those descriptions are accurate or stereotypes is not for us to solve today, but we can say the word “religious” conjures up such images in political arenas. That may be another reason we balk at being labeled “religious.” I’m a Christian, but I’m not all religious about it.

That’s part of the issue with the word itself: “religious” can mean more than Christian devotion. Abraham Lincoln once said, “When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That’s my religion.” The word has come to mean faithfulness to anything. “I work out religiously.” “I root for my sports team religiously.” Can an atheist be religious in his unbelief? Of course. To do something religiously can have nothing to do with faith.

And that’s where we can get into trouble, because those two words – faith and religion – are often used synonymously. Let me give you an example. Last year I had a minor surgical procedure done, and during the pre-op visit the doctor asked me what I did for a living. When I told him, he hemmed and hawed a bit and said that he and his wife didn’t attend church, but they tried to do a lot of good things for people. Then he said, “That’s a kind of faith, isn’t it?” And I wanted to say, No!” but I didn’t want to contradict a man who would soon be holding a scalpel.

Religion and faith aren’t the same things. Religion, as I understand it, is the human attempt to organize around a common set of beliefs about a higher power. Religion is how we humans come together to make sense of our faith. Religion, while based on divine principles, is a human construct, and therefore will always be imperfect. What my doctor and his wife had created in their minds was the belief that doing good things was equal to having faith. But it had nothing to do with faith, which Webster defines as “confidence or trust in a person or thing,” in our case, in God as revealed through Jesus Christ.

Our religion is an extension of our faith. We try to live religiously – devoutly, piously – because of our faith. That’s the foundation of why we do everything we do as Christians: not because we think we should or because we want to make ourselves feel better, but because we are responding to what we believe about Jesus Christ and what he’s done for us.

Listen again to how James defines it: “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” To be religious is to live out our faith in Christ. As The Message translates Jesus’ words from Matthew, “Knowing the correct password – saying ‘Master, Master,’ for instance – isn’t going to get you anywhere with me. What is required is serious obedience – doing what my father wills.”

And that’s the challenge: living out our faith by doing what God wills. Someone defined a religious person as someone who is committed to Jesus Christ and then spends their whole life trying to figure out how to do that. I’ve heard trying to live a life of faith compared with trying to simultaneously build a boat and sail it. I don’t know about you, but my faith has sure sprung a few leaks over the years. And yet, despite my faith’s bobbing and listing, I’m still religious in my belief. As preacher Barbara Brown Taylor says, “I have faith. I lose faith. I find faith again, or faith finds me, but through it all I’m grasped by the possibility that it is all true: I am in good hands; love girds the universe; God will have the last word.”

Being religious from a biblical perspective is believing that God has the last word in your life, then living like you believe it. That may be a challenge, but it’s nothing to be ashamed of. May we all continue to be religious in our devotion to God as we live as Christ has called us to live.

QUESTIONS

1 – What do you think of when you hear the word “religious”? Would you feel comfortable being labeled a “religious person”?

2 – What do you find to be the hardest part of living out your faith “religiously”?