A sermon delivered to All Saints Anglican Church on July 20, 20087, based on
Romans 8: 18-25:
"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience."
The Legend of Leelawala
This past week, when we were at Niagra Falls, I saw a movie about the history of the area. It seems that a Native American tribe lived close by and the chief thought it would be a good idea to give his daughter, Leelawala, in marriage to the oldest man of the tribe. Leelawala submitted to the marriage, but was very distressed by it and after the ceremony she ran away from the camp. The legend tells that she heard the spirit of the Thundering Waters calling to her and she ran towards it. When she came to the river, she got in a canoe and paddled to the falls. Over she went and as she fell into the chaos below, her spirit became one with the Spirit of the Falls, and now she lives forever in eternal unity with that Spirit.
Now that may sound like a primitive legend, but we as Christians can sometimes adopt a similar way of thinking about our lives and our future prospects. Life can be very distressing and it sometimes seems as if we are being swept along, like Leelalwala in her canoe, towards the great cataclysm up ahead. Things get rockier and rockier in our lives, events speed up and we are hurled along, helpless, until at last we plunge over the falls and are dashed to bits on the rocks below. Dying, we ascend to heaven as disembodied spirits – like Leelawala – and live forever in paradise with God.
Our Destiny
Now there’s only one problem with that story – it’s not our Destiny. Yes, we will go to Heaven when we die – or as Jesus said to the dying thief, “today you will be with me in Paradise”. But living forever in a blissful, disembodied existence is not the final state for the believer. Heaven as we normally conceive of it is a sort of way station where we wait for the final summation of all things, the recreation of the physical universe. Our destiny is to be like Jesus in every way- and that includes physically. This is what Paul is talking about when he says we groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved.
We were saved in hope that our bodies would be redeemed - not that we would that we would sit on misty clouds playing harps for all eternity!
Think of the body Jesus had after his resurrection. It was recognizable as a physical body. Mary thought the risen Christ was a gardener. And the two disciples on the road to Emmaus did not recognize Jesus until he was revealed in the breaking of the bread. He was able to touch this bread and eat. He cooked breakfast for Peter and the disciples on the beach. Thomas touched the wounds of Christ’s physical body.
But this body was special. It could pass through walls, and disappear and ascend into the clouds. It was a Resurrection body – a Body that had passed through death and been transformed by the power of God, the same kind of body we will have in our own resurrection.
The apostle John describes the renewal of all things in his Revelation: “Behold I saw a new Heaven and a new earth coming down out of heaven. (Rev. 21:1) …for behold, God is making all things new (v. 5).
The physical universe was subjected to decay, suffering and death through the sin of the one man Adam. But through the righteous sacrifice of the man Jesus, God will make all things new – both human beings and physical matter will get a second chance – the opportunity to be cleansed of sin and to live free of death and suffering. This is the promise held out to all of us in Christ and even extended to the physical creation.
So What?!
So - sounds great, can’t wait. What does that mean to me right now?! …. It means, friends, that we should be people of Eager Expectation, in a word - Hope. The Greek word used to convey ‘Eager expectation’ has the sense of one who scans the horizon with his head thrust forward in order to spot the first signs of the dawn. This person is not discouraged by the darkness around, but focuses on the return of the light. His is not a ‘hope-so’ faith, but a Hope based on the sure knowledge that dawn follows night.
Personally, Expectant Hope means that even though we face challenges, sickness, strife and trouble, that this present reality is not the whole picture, but that a Restoration is on the way. Help is coming; in fact it’s already here - because
We have a Down Payment or ‘earnest money’ for our Hope. That deposit is the Holy Spirit, who resides within Christians, enlightening us, giving assurance that the Great Light will return and that we will have a part in it. It’s like the line from the hymn “Great is Thy Faithfulness”, we have “help for today and bright hope for tomorrow…Great is Thy Faithfulness, Lord unto me. Our Hope does not disappoint because of the Holy Spirit poured out within our hearts ( Romans 5:5).
Our eager expectation should be like the woman who expects an important guest, and cleans up the house in order to have a beautiful place to offer the guest - remembering, of course, that the guest is interested in us first. There is a sense of urgency: The guest is coming, we must be busy preparing for Him.
Extending this metaphor to the world around us, we believe that the watchword for all our outreach and ministry activity is “Redemption”.
Mission Tri State 4 Corners Blessing
Recently, a group of us from All Saints participated in a Mission Tri-State event where we blessed the four geographic corners of the City of Huntington. We had prayers of confession, prayers of blessing the city, prophecies and Communion. At the end of our worship, we poured the consecrated elements out on the ground, asking God to bless the ground itself. You’ll remember that we also did this at Hope House during our first memorial service, pouring out the elements of the very spot where each teen had fallen.
This action was based on the notion that the creation itself groans and eagerly anticipates its own redemption. It’s a little like saying, “Hang on, be patient, your time is coming – and in the meantime be blessed as we pray the Lord of the Harvest to save souls and to bring redemption to you, Ground”. We were proclaiming our belief that the blessings of salvation extend even to the physical universe.
Watchword: Redemption
In our work here on Earth, an important distinction needs to be made. There’s a difference between working for the Redemption of the world in view of the Resurrection, and trying to make this world Heaven.
When you don’t believe in resurrection and recreation, when you don’t believe that the sufferings of this world are not to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed, then this world is all there is. You take a look around you and you see that, just as Jesus said, there is good and bad in the world; the wheat and the tares grow up together. There is suffering in the world. People are selfish. They pursue their own good to the exclusion of others’ goods. They don’t love their neighbors as themselves. What do we think about this? What do we do about it?
The great temptation of our age has been to make the State the instrument of Salvation – to take away freedom from individuals and put it into the hands of powerful elites under the pretext of gaining safety and security or the salvation of the world order. These elites then profit personally and oppress everybody else. In order to coax people to give up their freedom, they have to be scared to death by various kinds of crises. Since we’re talking about the physical world today, we can mention the Environment as an issue that various false prophets use to terrify the masses into giving up control of their lives.
Folks, the world will not be destroyed by SUV emissions and cow Flatulence! God has a renewal plan for the universe and it doesn’t include humans leaving a barren earth and depending upon some stupid robot to clean up the mess we left behind. We are stewards of a magnificent, but fallen world that needs redemption, not mere recycling! …
Then finally, if we eagerly expect Resurrection, we should be eager to share this hope with others around us who do not have hope. This is the greatest news of all time; how can we keep it to ourselves?!
God has given us a Great Commission – to go into all the world and make disciples – to rescue those who are perishing, and to redeem them from sin and death; to be poured out as an offering and given as bread ‘for the life of the world”, just like Jesus says in John 6:51: I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
What we have is Life, the Life of the world. In all of our outreach work, we are offering Life to the world. We offer Life through introducing people to Jesus as Savior and Lord. We offer Life through ministering to people’s grief and sorrow. We offer Life when we reach out to alleviate poverty and hunger. We offer Life through teaching people how to live stable, productive and healed lives. And we do it all as collaborators with our wonderful God, knowing that our labor is not in vain, that all we do for the Kingdom of God will bear fruit in its time, and that one day, all we see around us will cease to groan and rejoice instead.
We are not like Leelawala. We don’t have to throw ourselves over the falls in order to escape our despair. The King is coming, bringing glorious redemption with Him. Let us eagerly expect His coming and live In Expectant Hope! Amen.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Sunday, July 13, 2008
An Unexpected Retreat
Chapter Talk
# 187,
written to the
Company of Jesus.
July 13, 2008
Niagra Falls, Ontario
Dear Company,
Greetings to all from the banks of the Thundering Waters of Niagra Falls.
When my wife, Cindy, informed me several months ago that she was flying to a Music for Young Children conference in Niagra Falls, I responded “That’s nice. Have a good time…” She quickly added, however, that she wanted me to go with her. With plane fares and the vagaries of flying what they are, I resisted her request but countered that we could drive the trip together in about 8 hours and save many hundreds of dollars. She quickly agreed, and I became the official chauffeur for her trip.
I really did not expect to do much other than hang out, read, and do some sightseeing in between Cindy’s conference sessions. However, I was pleasantly surprised upon arriving here that right next door to the Sheraton hotel, overlooking the Falls, is Mount Carmel Spiritual Centre (http://www.carmelniagara.com/).
On Saturday morning, I walked the half block to the Centre and wandered the grounds in silence and reflection. Then, indulging my bibliophilia, I perused the extensive book offerings and came away with the following titles:
“Grace is everywhere: reflections of an aspiring monk”, by James Stephen Behrens, a Trappist of the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers Georgia (the site of our CoJ retreat two years ago).
“Merton’s Palace of Nowhere” by James Finley.
“One Foot in Eden: a celtic view of the stages of life” by J. Philip Newell.
“Inside the Psalms: reflections for novices” by Maureen McCabe, OSCO.
And, picking between five or six books about the famous Carmelite,
“The Spiritual Genius of St. Therese of Lisieux” by Jean Guitton.
Finally, “The Carmelite Rule”, with a brief preface by Bruce Baker, O.Carm. of the Mt. Carmel Spiritual Center and Gregory Klien, O.Carm. from Grand Island, NY.
I was also pleased to learn that Saturday was the Feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, and there was to be a Mass at 3pm. Coming back later to the Mass, I encountered four large tour buses that had brought in a group from Toronto. The church was full of people, who seemed to be largely Hispanic, but there also seemed to be folks from every imaginable ethnic group as well: Africans, Koreans, Eastern Europeans, Chinese, Indians and even White Anglo-Saxons. It really did seem like a foretaste of the Marriage Feast of the Lamb. I was doubly pleased when the Celebrant pointedly invited everyone to come up for Communion. So, without the slightest qualms about not being Roman Catholic, I made eucharist with my Roman Catholic brothers and sisters from around the globe.
This morning, my retreat schedule continued with a 7:15 am Sunrise service on an outdoor plaza overlooking the Falls, led by local pastor Martin Goode, from Grace Gospel Church in Niagra Falls. He had very appropriately chosen Psalm 29 for unison reading. Verses 3 and 10 were especially meaningful in this context:
3) The voice of the LORD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the LORD thunders over the mighty waters.
10) The LORD sits enthroned over the flood (‘Niagra’ means ‘flood’); the LORD is enthroned as King forever.
What an awesome reminder of God’s sovereign majesty over nature and our lives!
Returning to Carmel, here are some further thoughts:
The Carmelite Rule
The very short Rule of Carmel was written by Patriarch Albert of Jerusalem between 1206 and 1214 in response to a request from a group of hermits who had gathered on Mt. Carmel to serve the Lord in His own land. These monks had their own cells and came together for common worship in a central oratory. According to the Rule, a Prior was to be chosen, and his cell was to be located near the entrance of the property, ‘so that he may be the first to meet those who approach, and whatever has to be done in consequence may all be carried out as he may decide and order” (Ch. 9) – very similar to the role of the porter and the reception of guests in the Rule of Benedict.
The Caremlite hermits were to eschew private property, to fast continually, abstaining from meat, but they were allowed to have as much livestock as needed. They were admonished to put on the full armor of God (Eph. 6) in order to guard them spiritually, and to do manual work to protect them from the dangers of idleness (ch. 19,20). Silence was enjoined on the brethren to ward off the dangers of the tongue’s offences (ch. 21). Finally in chapter 24, Albert concludes with these words:
“Here then are a few points I have written down to provide you with a standard of conduct to live up to, but our Lord, at his second coming, will reward anyone who does more than he is obliged to do. See that the bounds of common sense are not exceeded, however, for common sense is the guide of the virtues.”
May God give us all the grace not to exceed common sense, and to excel in all the virtues.
Andrew+
July 13, 2008
Niagra Falls, Ontario
Dear Company,
Greetings to all from the banks of the Thundering Waters of Niagra Falls.
When my wife, Cindy, informed me several months ago that she was flying to a Music for Young Children conference in Niagra Falls, I responded “That’s nice. Have a good time…” She quickly added, however, that she wanted me to go with her. With plane fares and the vagaries of flying what they are, I resisted her request but countered that we could drive the trip together in about 8 hours and save many hundreds of dollars. She quickly agreed, and I became the official chauffeur for her trip.
I really did not expect to do much other than hang out, read, and do some sightseeing in between Cindy’s conference sessions. However, I was pleasantly surprised upon arriving here that right next door to the Sheraton hotel, overlooking the Falls, is Mount Carmel Spiritual Centre (http://www.carmelniagara.com/).
On Saturday morning, I walked the half block to the Centre and wandered the grounds in silence and reflection. Then, indulging my bibliophilia, I perused the extensive book offerings and came away with the following titles:
“Grace is everywhere: reflections of an aspiring monk”, by James Stephen Behrens, a Trappist of the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers Georgia (the site of our CoJ retreat two years ago).
“Merton’s Palace of Nowhere” by James Finley.
“One Foot in Eden: a celtic view of the stages of life” by J. Philip Newell.
“Inside the Psalms: reflections for novices” by Maureen McCabe, OSCO.
And, picking between five or six books about the famous Carmelite,
“The Spiritual Genius of St. Therese of Lisieux” by Jean Guitton.
Finally, “The Carmelite Rule”, with a brief preface by Bruce Baker, O.Carm. of the Mt. Carmel Spiritual Center and Gregory Klien, O.Carm. from Grand Island, NY.
I was also pleased to learn that Saturday was the Feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, and there was to be a Mass at 3pm. Coming back later to the Mass, I encountered four large tour buses that had brought in a group from Toronto. The church was full of people, who seemed to be largely Hispanic, but there also seemed to be folks from every imaginable ethnic group as well: Africans, Koreans, Eastern Europeans, Chinese, Indians and even White Anglo-Saxons. It really did seem like a foretaste of the Marriage Feast of the Lamb. I was doubly pleased when the Celebrant pointedly invited everyone to come up for Communion. So, without the slightest qualms about not being Roman Catholic, I made eucharist with my Roman Catholic brothers and sisters from around the globe.
This morning, my retreat schedule continued with a 7:15 am Sunrise service on an outdoor plaza overlooking the Falls, led by local pastor Martin Goode, from Grace Gospel Church in Niagra Falls. He had very appropriately chosen Psalm 29 for unison reading. Verses 3 and 10 were especially meaningful in this context:
3) The voice of the LORD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the LORD thunders over the mighty waters.
10) The LORD sits enthroned over the flood (‘Niagra’ means ‘flood’); the LORD is enthroned as King forever.
What an awesome reminder of God’s sovereign majesty over nature and our lives!
Returning to Carmel, here are some further thoughts:
The Carmelite Rule
The very short Rule of Carmel was written by Patriarch Albert of Jerusalem between 1206 and 1214 in response to a request from a group of hermits who had gathered on Mt. Carmel to serve the Lord in His own land. These monks had their own cells and came together for common worship in a central oratory. According to the Rule, a Prior was to be chosen, and his cell was to be located near the entrance of the property, ‘so that he may be the first to meet those who approach, and whatever has to be done in consequence may all be carried out as he may decide and order” (Ch. 9) – very similar to the role of the porter and the reception of guests in the Rule of Benedict.
The Caremlite hermits were to eschew private property, to fast continually, abstaining from meat, but they were allowed to have as much livestock as needed. They were admonished to put on the full armor of God (Eph. 6) in order to guard them spiritually, and to do manual work to protect them from the dangers of idleness (ch. 19,20). Silence was enjoined on the brethren to ward off the dangers of the tongue’s offences (ch. 21). Finally in chapter 24, Albert concludes with these words:
“Here then are a few points I have written down to provide you with a standard of conduct to live up to, but our Lord, at his second coming, will reward anyone who does more than he is obliged to do. See that the bounds of common sense are not exceeded, however, for common sense is the guide of the virtues.”
May God give us all the grace not to exceed common sense, and to excel in all the virtues.
Andrew+
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Okey Dokey
A Sermon delivered to All Saints Anglican Church on July 6, 2008 at St. Mary's Medical Center Convent Chapel, based on Romans 7:21-8:6
My father in law, Paul Arbogast tells a story about an elderly woman who went to the same Pilgrim Holiness Church that he attended as a boy. As you may know, the Holiness tradition is very much about what you may and may not do. This church expected the women to wear their hair long and to avoid makeup. All their members were to wear long sleeves, to be teetotalers, and to be tobacco free. But this particular woman picked up the habit of rubbing snuff along the way, and was very dedicated to her habit.
One day, her pastor confronted her about her habit. In response, she assured him that she would make it a matter of earnest prayer. Several days later, when the pastor saw the woman again, he asked her, “So what did the Lord tell you about your snuff habit?”
Obviously on the spot, she was quiet for a moment and then blurted out emphatically, “He said “Okey Dokey!” - and as far as she was concerned, that was the last word on the subject!
This lady manifested exactly the opposite attitude towards her behavior compared to the Apostle Paul. Paul looked at the Law of God and agreed with it. He agreed that he should Love God above all else, that he shouldn’t lie, steal, cheat or covet his neighbor’s stuff – and yet in practical application, when he tried to live it out, he found that he just could not do it in his own power.
He found that there was a force, an evil that dwelt within him that pulled him towards the wrong thing. This he identified as ‘the flesh’ or ‘Sarks’ in Greek. The flesh was what bound Paul to the law of sin and death, setting his mind (Nous) against his flesh. As a result he found himself engaged in a terrible struggle. Unlike the snuff -rubbing woman who simply put words of contrived approval in God’s mouth, Paul realized that there is no escape from his dilemma and he cried out with the most pitiful lament, “O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death!?
John Wesley Angst
Some 1700 years later, JohnWesley echoed these same sentiments when he wrote in his journal: “I see that the whole law of God is holy, just, and good. I know every thought, every temper of my soul ought to bear God’s image and superscription. But how am I fallen from the glory of God! I feel that ’I am sold under sin’. I know that I, too, deserve nothing but wrath, being full of all abominations, and having no good thing in me to atone for them or to remove the wrath of God. All my works, my righteousness, my prayers, need an atonement for themselves. So that my mouth is stopped. I have nothing to plead. God is holy; I am unholy. God is a consuming fire; I am altogether a sinner, meet to be consumed.” (John Wesley, in a letter to a friend, May 24, 1738).
Contrast this with today’s cult of self-esteem and the desire to be free of all constraints. Instead of recognizing that God is holy and unbending - that He lays claim upon our lives, modern people demand an unbending right to live out their every whim - and be congratulated for it to boot! As Jonah Greenberg points out: “The underlying…dogma of [today’s culture] is that social and gender roles are not fixed, that tradition, religion and natural law have no binding power of authority over the individual’s will to power,..” (Quoted in Liberal Fascism, pg. 361.
A Matter of Worldview
The Judeo-Christian worldview starts with God as the Creator, who speaks His Word to His creature, Man – who in turn conforms his experience to God’s Word – leading to Salvation, transformation into Christ’s likeness and even dare we say it, ‘divinization’ – partaking of the very nature of God itself.
The Humanist, on the other hand, starts with himself as the measure of all things, bringing his experience to the Word, and all Tradition. Rejecting all authority, he will brook no limits on his own freedom, and simply replaces God with himself. A variation on this would be to retain a form of religion, but to then look at God’s Word through the lens of one’s own experience, finding support for these experiences – no matter how foreign they are to traditional morality or ethics. The result is a ‘sanctified lifestyle of Choice” in which God loves me and supports me in whatever I wish to do. He always says ‘Okey Dokey’ because after all, He wants me to be happy and don’t all paths lead to God anyway?”
This is how we get to the place where a bishop of the church of God can divorce his wife of thirty years, renounce his God-ordained role as husband and father, and then remarry a male ‘partner’ in plain violation of the clear, written ordinance of God.
No one who has read Paul or John Wesley could possibly have gotten this one mixed up, except that they simply don’t want to believe the testimony of the Word of God and they don’t want to be told what to do. Bottom line: That’s not Christianity; it’s the religion of “Okey Dokey, Do Whatever”.
God does not sanctify our sin, he punishes it in Christ and then finds us Not Guilty by way of substitution. That’s the Gospel. Left to your own devices, even the good we do is worthy of condemnation, just as Wesley laments. But thanks be to God, there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus!
An Important Caveat
Here we want to give an important disclaimer: you must be focused on the Spirit, not the flesh.
John Wesley experienced this directly. He recorded these famous words in his journal:
“In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street,”… Notice he said unwillingly. His flesh did not want to go.
GK Chesterton once said, “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.” Wesley’s flesh was finding this process difficult. Nevertheless, he went to the meeting, “… where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation: and an assurance was given me, that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”
The next morning he wrote: “The moment I awaked ‘Jesus, Master’ was in my heart and in my mouth”.
You see, Wesley had gone from trying to be good in himself to being righteous ‘in Christ’ - from having his mind set on the flesh, to being focused on the Spirit. Of course, it was a work of God’s grace that set him free from the law of sin and death. He went from feeling inner turmoil to feeling ‘strangely warmed’ – not exactly the way one would describe the successful culmination of a self-directed spiritual quest!
Going back to the letter he had written his friend, Wesley pointedly asked, “Do we already feel ‘peace with God’ and ‘joy in the Holy Ghost?” Does His Spirit bear witness with our spirit that we are the children of God” Alas! Mine does not….
He did not have an assurance of Salvation. He could not definitely say he was a Christian, despite extensive tutoring in the faith as a child at his mother’s knee –and even despite being a priest in the Church of England! As Wesley and millions of others have come to know, being a Christian is not simply about endorsing the right ideas about God, it is a living relationship – one that God himself validates by giving the believer a witness, or experience of Himself. Not a human-based, flesh-focused experience, but one that conforms to the Word of God and that functions to help us conform our lives to the Lordship of Christ.
Friends, we cannot live the Christian life in our own strength, in our flesh. We must focus our minds on the Spirit. We must be like Stephen - men and women ‘full of the Spirit”. Only then can we discern God’s will for us and have the motive power we need to walk daily with God and do righteous works for God. Only then can we find true freedom.
I close with this prayer from Wesley’s letter: “O Thou Saviour of men, save us from trusting in anything but Thee! Let us be emptied of ourselves, and then fill us with all peace and joy in believing; and let nothing separate us from Thy love, in time or in eternity.”
If you are like John Wesley and have never experienced that internal witness of the Holy Spirit that assures you that you are a child of God, please speak with Fr. Mark or myself. Don’t let the appearance of difficulty stand in your way. Throw yourself on His mercy and you will find grace to help and life in the Spirit.
Amen
My father in law, Paul Arbogast tells a story about an elderly woman who went to the same Pilgrim Holiness Church that he attended as a boy. As you may know, the Holiness tradition is very much about what you may and may not do. This church expected the women to wear their hair long and to avoid makeup. All their members were to wear long sleeves, to be teetotalers, and to be tobacco free. But this particular woman picked up the habit of rubbing snuff along the way, and was very dedicated to her habit.
One day, her pastor confronted her about her habit. In response, she assured him that she would make it a matter of earnest prayer. Several days later, when the pastor saw the woman again, he asked her, “So what did the Lord tell you about your snuff habit?”
Obviously on the spot, she was quiet for a moment and then blurted out emphatically, “He said “Okey Dokey!” - and as far as she was concerned, that was the last word on the subject!
This lady manifested exactly the opposite attitude towards her behavior compared to the Apostle Paul. Paul looked at the Law of God and agreed with it. He agreed that he should Love God above all else, that he shouldn’t lie, steal, cheat or covet his neighbor’s stuff – and yet in practical application, when he tried to live it out, he found that he just could not do it in his own power.
He found that there was a force, an evil that dwelt within him that pulled him towards the wrong thing. This he identified as ‘the flesh’ or ‘Sarks’ in Greek. The flesh was what bound Paul to the law of sin and death, setting his mind (Nous) against his flesh. As a result he found himself engaged in a terrible struggle. Unlike the snuff -rubbing woman who simply put words of contrived approval in God’s mouth, Paul realized that there is no escape from his dilemma and he cried out with the most pitiful lament, “O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death!?
John Wesley Angst
Some 1700 years later, JohnWesley echoed these same sentiments when he wrote in his journal: “I see that the whole law of God is holy, just, and good. I know every thought, every temper of my soul ought to bear God’s image and superscription. But how am I fallen from the glory of God! I feel that ’I am sold under sin’. I know that I, too, deserve nothing but wrath, being full of all abominations, and having no good thing in me to atone for them or to remove the wrath of God. All my works, my righteousness, my prayers, need an atonement for themselves. So that my mouth is stopped. I have nothing to plead. God is holy; I am unholy. God is a consuming fire; I am altogether a sinner, meet to be consumed.” (John Wesley, in a letter to a friend, May 24, 1738).
Contrast this with today’s cult of self-esteem and the desire to be free of all constraints. Instead of recognizing that God is holy and unbending - that He lays claim upon our lives, modern people demand an unbending right to live out their every whim - and be congratulated for it to boot! As Jonah Greenberg points out: “The underlying…dogma of [today’s culture] is that social and gender roles are not fixed, that tradition, religion and natural law have no binding power of authority over the individual’s will to power,..” (Quoted in Liberal Fascism, pg. 361.
A Matter of Worldview
The Judeo-Christian worldview starts with God as the Creator, who speaks His Word to His creature, Man – who in turn conforms his experience to God’s Word – leading to Salvation, transformation into Christ’s likeness and even dare we say it, ‘divinization’ – partaking of the very nature of God itself.
The Humanist, on the other hand, starts with himself as the measure of all things, bringing his experience to the Word, and all Tradition. Rejecting all authority, he will brook no limits on his own freedom, and simply replaces God with himself. A variation on this would be to retain a form of religion, but to then look at God’s Word through the lens of one’s own experience, finding support for these experiences – no matter how foreign they are to traditional morality or ethics. The result is a ‘sanctified lifestyle of Choice” in which God loves me and supports me in whatever I wish to do. He always says ‘Okey Dokey’ because after all, He wants me to be happy and don’t all paths lead to God anyway?”
This is how we get to the place where a bishop of the church of God can divorce his wife of thirty years, renounce his God-ordained role as husband and father, and then remarry a male ‘partner’ in plain violation of the clear, written ordinance of God.
No one who has read Paul or John Wesley could possibly have gotten this one mixed up, except that they simply don’t want to believe the testimony of the Word of God and they don’t want to be told what to do. Bottom line: That’s not Christianity; it’s the religion of “Okey Dokey, Do Whatever”.
God does not sanctify our sin, he punishes it in Christ and then finds us Not Guilty by way of substitution. That’s the Gospel. Left to your own devices, even the good we do is worthy of condemnation, just as Wesley laments. But thanks be to God, there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus!
An Important Caveat
Here we want to give an important disclaimer: you must be focused on the Spirit, not the flesh.
John Wesley experienced this directly. He recorded these famous words in his journal:
“In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street,”… Notice he said unwillingly. His flesh did not want to go.
GK Chesterton once said, “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.” Wesley’s flesh was finding this process difficult. Nevertheless, he went to the meeting, “… where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation: and an assurance was given me, that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”
The next morning he wrote: “The moment I awaked ‘Jesus, Master’ was in my heart and in my mouth”.
You see, Wesley had gone from trying to be good in himself to being righteous ‘in Christ’ - from having his mind set on the flesh, to being focused on the Spirit. Of course, it was a work of God’s grace that set him free from the law of sin and death. He went from feeling inner turmoil to feeling ‘strangely warmed’ – not exactly the way one would describe the successful culmination of a self-directed spiritual quest!
Going back to the letter he had written his friend, Wesley pointedly asked, “Do we already feel ‘peace with God’ and ‘joy in the Holy Ghost?” Does His Spirit bear witness with our spirit that we are the children of God” Alas! Mine does not….
He did not have an assurance of Salvation. He could not definitely say he was a Christian, despite extensive tutoring in the faith as a child at his mother’s knee –and even despite being a priest in the Church of England! As Wesley and millions of others have come to know, being a Christian is not simply about endorsing the right ideas about God, it is a living relationship – one that God himself validates by giving the believer a witness, or experience of Himself. Not a human-based, flesh-focused experience, but one that conforms to the Word of God and that functions to help us conform our lives to the Lordship of Christ.
Friends, we cannot live the Christian life in our own strength, in our flesh. We must focus our minds on the Spirit. We must be like Stephen - men and women ‘full of the Spirit”. Only then can we discern God’s will for us and have the motive power we need to walk daily with God and do righteous works for God. Only then can we find true freedom.
I close with this prayer from Wesley’s letter: “O Thou Saviour of men, save us from trusting in anything but Thee! Let us be emptied of ourselves, and then fill us with all peace and joy in believing; and let nothing separate us from Thy love, in time or in eternity.”
If you are like John Wesley and have never experienced that internal witness of the Holy Spirit that assures you that you are a child of God, please speak with Fr. Mark or myself. Don’t let the appearance of difficulty stand in your way. Throw yourself on His mercy and you will find grace to help and life in the Spirit.
Amen
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