OT Reading: Isaiah 58: 1-9a
NT Reading: 1 Corinthian 2:1-16
How would you convince someone to be a Christian? Or can we? Should we try
to reason with them to show them the logic of why they ought to believe, or argue
with them when they tell us we are foolish and criticize us throwing in our
face old OT quotations about slavery or stoning someone to death for blasphemy?
Should we take our Bible and read some of our favorite passages to them to show
them they are wrong?
I will hazard a guess that anyone who has tried one of these strategies
on an unwilling subject likely ended up frustrated or arguing with them throwing
Bible quotations back and forth. Both will probably end up saying something
spiteful or dismissive causing us to lose our temper and a friend. In the end we
only gain an enemy of someone we want to win over and love. What is a
responsible Christian to do in the face of challenge or rejection?
Paul, as we heard last week, says don’t try to use rational logic to
convince someone of Christian faith. Our salvation rests on an act of God that
rational logic says is a ridiculous folly. Do you remember I observed that a
Jew can only scoff at the idea that the Messiah will be crucified on a tree
like an infidel or slave; and the Roman or Gentile can only shake the head that
a powerful God would let his son die on the cross. It is insanity and folly to both
of them.
Paul says you have faith when you believe you are saved and have the
humility to boast it comes only by God's grace. The Lord redeemed us by
bringing the Kingdom of God into the world through Christ’s birth, crucifixion
and resurrection. That was the judgment and death of the old world of the Jews
and their Law. They had distorted it into a Law of works rather than a sign or
consequence of faith. It was also the judgment and death of the old world of the
Gentiles whose logic still seeks to use the theology of power to gain
salvation.
Paul explained to us that the symbolic meaning of the death of the
Messiah in weakness, by crucifixion, and His resurrection is the declaration of
death to all the old ways of the world.
This is purely distilled Pauline theology: The only way our salvation
can be explained is to believe it. And the only way you can believe it is to be
captivated by the Holy Spirit.
This is what Luke said in Acts 16:6-16, of the work of the Holy Spirit
in bringing about faith “6 (Paul. Luke and his helpers) went through the region of
Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word
in Asia...9 During the night Paul had a vision (that had convinced him) that
God had called us to proclaim the good news to them…(so) We set sail … to
Philippi, …(and) remained (there) for some days. 13 On the Sabbath day … we sat down
and spoke to the women who had gathered there. 14 A certain woman named
Lydia, a worshiper of God, was listening to us…(and) The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said
by Paul. 15 When she and her
household were baptized, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be
faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home.”
The best, but not the only way to be captivated by the Holy Spirit is in
prayer and worship like Lydia’s experience, but God is not to be denied. He may
well do what he did to Paul, grab the person by the shoulders and figuratively
shake him saying "I command you to wake-up to the Holy Spirit!" The
Holy Spirit causes us to believe, not our persuasive Greek logic. Our answer is
appearing! God’s action is essential.
But if only God’s action is essential for faith and salvation then our
initial question, “What is our Christian role in convincing someone?” doesn’t
make sense. I think the answer rests in a better question, “What is the
consequence of our believing the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, the
consequence of having faith?”
We one foot in this old world of death, it is yelling pretty loudly and
rather painfully and we have the other foot in this new world of eternal life
calling us home. I ask again, “What is the consequence of our having faith?” You
remember the prayer Jesus taught us that we just prayed, "May thy will be
done on earth as it is in heaven.” To say it another way, “Lord, may your kingdom
of heaven be completed on earth.” This instruction on prayer is the answer: We
should be living in the kingdom of heaven on earth not in this old world that
is being pushed aside.
The question still remains, “How do we live in the kingdom of Heaven, what
is our duty?” In Matthew Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount to the Jews in
the countryside. In it he first listed all the character traits of a Christian:
being meek, being poor in spirit, mourning for the lost, hungering for
righteousness, being a peacemaker, living humbly according to his word
regardless of the criticism or persecution of others. Then he tells the crowd
of believers, “You are the salt of the earth,” and poses these questions, "What
good is salt when it has lost its flavor?" "Do you hide your light
under a basket?"
NO! Jesus says absolutely, NO! “If you have my life in you, if you have
faith that you know me, you will work with that faith so that your light shines”
and lets other people see what it means to be a Christian.
We often get far too preoccupied by the demand of "faith alone"
in our work to separate ourselves from our Catholic friends, and from any idea
that we can work our way into salvation. “Faith alone” is an attractive
argument because it can convince us to forget the admonition of Jesus about the
hard work of being a Christian with that spotlight always shining on us so the
people can see our good works as a mirror of Christ and our testimony to the glory
of our Father. It is easier to hear Jesus say he hasn't come to abolish the law
or the prophets but fulfill it to mean we need to make people shape up, rather
than to remember that he and the prophets said the Law is to be written on our
hearts.
We might say, "I like Paul, didn't he say the resurrection of Jesus
condemned the Jewish world of the Law to death?” How can we balance what Jesus
said about good works and what Paul said about faith and the Law?” What about
John 3:16?
The solution to this contradiction recognizes that we are in the trap of
using the very same logic to argue for faith that Paul condemned. Much like the
Pharisees, we can slip into the mindset of reading and using the Law as a club,
or a yardstick to measure others and tell them how to behave. If the Law says
don’t do this, or do that, then we are going to be sure you follow the Law’s
do’s and don’t as the case may be. Jesus said the Pharisees forgot the guidance
of the Lord through Moses in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, and through Isaiah and
Jeremiah, that the law should be written in our heart; that the law should be our
way of life guiding our every action, not what others do. Jesus made the point
of emphasizing the two greatest commandments have to do with our personal
action to capture completely every letter of the law, “Love the Lord your God
with all your heart and all yourself and all your mind; and love your neighbor
as you love yourself.”
The heart of the message of Jesus and Paul is if we desire to live under
the law alone as the Pharisees did we will be judged by the law. And, every
person who has been judged by the Law has been convicted with a sentence of
death by the crucifixion and resurrection. Jewish history says living under the
Law is an impossibility.
Yet Jesus said not one letter or stroke of a letter will pass away until
everything in the Law is accomplished. But, what is “everything?” Everything is
the kingdom of Heaven. When the Kingdom of Heaven is fully accomplished so to the
Law is accomplished. Jesus said that whoever lives by the commandments so their
life teaches others will be great in the kingdom of heaven.
This is all confusing until we realize Jesus is talking about the
Kingdom of Heaven and his teaching about living under the law so our faith
shines and others can see our good works is a consequence of believing, having
faith in that Kingdom. It looks like we
cannot escape the demand of the good work of Christian behavior to further the
Kingdom of Heaven. Maybe there is a glimmer of truth in that Catholic idea.
This is the bottom line. When God has us by the shoulders and has lit a
fire under our faith with the Holy Spirit, we are a fresh bag of salt and a
bright beacon of salvation. Faith is like a fish trap, once it gets you, there
is only one way in and you can only go forward. Christians have hard work to do because
whether we like it or not, that spotlight is shining on us all the time.
So we have to rewrite the original question, How do we live in the
kingdom of Heaven, what is our duty? We know how easy it is to get into a
conversation or argument and fall back on logic "How could anybody think
that," or “How can anybody be so dense not to read the Bible that way,” or
get into a political or religious argument and toss a few insults like hand
grenade as if the other person was our enemy. It doesn’t matter if they are a Republican
or a Democrat, a Catholic or a Presbyterian, or a person without faith or with
faith. We may have the power to force a person to agree with us but it is
pretty clear we cannot change a person’s mind by force. Our arguments hardly
ever change minds. In fact what they do almost all the time is harden the mind against
the Christian belief we represent. We need always to be mindful of this; it is
a human weakness we need to give up to live in the Kingdom of Heaven.
What about the congregation of First Presbyterian Church? I hope you
know that people notice the faith that shines within this congregation. Some
times it happens in unusual ways we do not even know about. I was talking to
one of the homeless and unemployed people that I work with in Chattanooga. He
has a really hard time and has lost almost all his self-confidence. He knows
that I preach here at First Presbyterian Church, and last week, out of the blue
he tells me that he used to live in Soddy Daisy. He had never told me this
before because there was another person from Soddy Daisy in our group and he didn’t
want that guy to know it.
This man attended our congregation on and off in the past when he was a
young man in public school. He mentioned the name of a few people who are still
members here today but I’ll not mention who they were because you all deserve
the credit. He said, “Henry, you know they were really nice and kind people.
They helped me when I was in school and spoke to me when they saw me.” You all made
a big impression. If he can get his feet back under him, he may well find his
way back to a constructive role in a congregation in part because some of you
here in this congregation let your light shine years ago.
This experience of this man ought to always be our wakeup call. The
spotlight is always turned on and we are up there up on the billboard just
going about our business. Someone is watching us, even though we are not mindful
of it. That's why the people of faith have an obligation to do the good work. Our
actions and circumstances create place where the Holy Spirit can work on the
person who does not believe. That person may hear the Holy Spirit because we
did not argue them but simply sought to win them as our friend. That is our
part in convincing someone to be a Christian; give them space and love so the
Holy Spirit can us the salt that seasons the bread and letting Christ’s life within
us shine on them.
I wonder sometimes in our worry and stress about what
First Presbyterian Church in Soddy Daisy ought to do that we miss the fact we
have some room for a brief rest for the weary. We might be overlooking the critical
point that we just need to look Christ’s light shine in every thing we do. That light will bring the person to us that
the Holy Spirit seeks.
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