"Doctrine Matters: Christian Living"
December 23, 2007
Pastor Phil Stevenson
Date: Dec. 23, 2007
Sermon Title: Doctrine Matters: Christian Living
Text: Selected Texts
WEFC
Introduction:
What are your favorite words of Christmas? There are certain words that capture the spirit of the Christmas season. What are those words that come to your mind and are especially significant to you?
Joy, Love, Peace, Good News, Hope, Savior, humility, Incarnation, Glory, Newborn King
What great words these are that express the reason and the spirit of the season that we are celebrating this week. We live in a world today that needs to experience the realities of these words.
We have a lot of “happy” people in our world today but not nearly enough joyful people. There will be plenty of expressions of “I love you” through gift-giving but where is the unconditional sacrificial love. And what about hope? Hope today is merely wishful desires but these desires are still rooted in a degree of doubt. This runs almost antithetical to the Bible’s use of the word hope. In the Bible hope is a certain, future, experience of transformation that is anticipated in faith. There’s no doubt involved. It’s simply not yet realized or experienced. Jesus’ birth has made available for all mankind the hope of future transformation, not a wishful desire but a certain future reality for all who embrace it in faith. Unfortunately, in our culture today, these words are tossed about superficially and without true understanding. They are used more to contribute to the ambience and atmosphere than to impact the way we live.
We must realize that the true emphasis of Christmas is about God’s desire to bring to each person the love, the hope, the joy of a transformed life.
I hope you have been taking advantage of the verses that
we’ve been encouraging you to memorize this
month. I think Galatians 4:4-7 combines the intent
of what we have been trying to preach through and prepare
for during this month of December and this season of
advent. Doctrine Matters. Truth
transforms. Our lives can change because of what
God has done through Jesus Christ his son.
“But when the time had fully come, God sent His Son,
born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under
law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.
Because you are sons God sent His Spirit into our hearts,
the Spirit who calls out “Abba Father”.
So you are no longer slaves, but a son; and since you are
a son, God has made you also an heir.”
There is so much in these verses. Doctrines that we’ve already talked about. You can see the character of God displayed, his omniscience and sovereignty (when the time had fully come). You see the Trinity displayed, Father sending Son, Father and Son sending Holy Spirit. You see the condition of humanity-needing to be redeemed as those under the law and here we see the person and the work of Jesus-God’s Son (there’s His deity expressed) coming born of a woman (there’s his humanity expressed) coming to redeem in order for us to be adopted into God’s family. (This is the work of Jesus). But we also see the work of the Spirit being sent into our hearts to seal us and secure for us an inheritance. I was so excited when the Lord prompted me to choose them for our memory verses this month. These 4 verses are filled with the doctrines that we have been focusing on for the past several weeks and at the same time fit wonderfully with our season of advent.
It’s the phrase in the last verse, the statement, “you are no longer a slave, but a son” that I want to zero in on this morning. This declaration of all who have been redeemed by Jesus is to me an expression of great hope. It speaks to the reality that because of God’s sending His Son to redeem and because of God’s sending His Spirit to live in our hearts we have the hope of transformation. We are able to move from being a slave to being a son. We move from being mastered by sin to being the master over sin. It’s the doctrine of sanctification and it’s critical for us to understand and embrace.
In this doctrine is found the true message of hope. Sanctification is the process by which a person can experience and can initiate true and lasting change. Our denomination’s doctrinal statement uses the heading Christian Living to describe what every person should experience as they move from predicament of slave to privileged position of son.
Here’s how it reads:
We believe that God's justifying grace must not be separated from His sanctifying power and purpose. God commands us to love Him supremely and others sacrificially and to live out our faith with care for one another, compassion toward the poor and justice for the oppressed. With God’s Word, the Spirit’s power, and fervent prayer in Christ’s name, we are to combat the spiritual forces of evil. In obedience to Christ’s commission, we are to make disciples among all people, always bearing witness to the gospel in word and deed.
What this statement is saying and what the doctrine of sanctification means for all who claim the name of Jesus as their Savior and Lord is that through His redeeming work and through the presence of the Holy Spirit we have at our disposal the divine power to experience and initiate true and lasting change in ourselves and in our world. These are the 2 reasons that I want you to understand why doctrine matters this morning. Doctrine matters this morning because it is in this truth about sanctification that we discover that
- Divine power exists for us to experience change in ourselves
- Divine power exists for us to initiate change in our world.
He wants you to experience the radical changes that His divine power can accomplish in you and through you. First, let’s think more about the statement that divine power exists for us to experience change in ourselves.
1. Divine power exists for us to Experience change in Ourselves.
God’s intention is to move you from being a slave to a son. Galatians 4:8-9 goes on to say “Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slave you want to be once more?”
He expresses basically the same truth in Romans 6. “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. … For sin will have no dominion over you (Rom. 6:11, 14). Pauls says that Christians have been “set free from sin” (Rom. 6:18). In this context, to be dead to sin or to be set free from sin involves the power to overcome acts or patterns of sinful behavior in our lives.” (Grudem, p. 747)
[Peter makes an incredible statement about this divine power that is available to empower us to change in his second letter, chapter 1:3-10. Read 2 Peter 1:3-10.]
Why is this so relevant for today? Because so many of us, and I include myself in this as well, live in a state of practical fatalism. I think that if we were to ask most people around us if any of them believed if there were any way that they could change who they are at the very core of their inner being, if they and I think we could include ourselves in this, if we were all truly honest, many of us would say no. There are certain parts of our personalities, certain parts of our character, certain elements of our inner nature that we believe will never change. I have heard it from others and at times have said it myself. “There’s no way this is going to change in me.” Perhaps it’s a bad temper or an addictive behavior, or a bad habit that you just can’t seem to break. Or maybe it’s the other side of the coin and it’s an act of obedience that you know you should do but because of fear or doubt or bitterness there’s no way you’ll ever extend forgiveness to that person, or give generously to a ministry or share your faith with an unbelieving friend or family member. I would venture to say that everyone of us has areas in our lives that we just think won’t change. The doctrine of sanctification smashes that lie of the enemy to bits.
There is a power that exists. It’s the sanctifying power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. God intends for all who put their faith in Jesus Christ to be changed in their inner being. He who began the good work in you will complete it even unto the day of Christ Jesus. (Phil. 1:6) God will not stop addressing the changes that need to occur in your inner being. The great hope that Christian doctrine provides for every one of you who embraces the cross of Jesus Christ and accepts what Jesus has done for you is that God will put within you His very Spirit to empower you to change. Everyday will be a day that God is completing the work that He has begun. “We all…are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another.”
I am finding that it is important for my own encouragement and growth in faith to read about great Christians in the past who have experienced great demonstrations of God’s power in their lives. Lately I’ve been reading the autobiography of John G. Paton, a pioneer missionary to the New Hebrides Islands in the 1800’s, that God used profoundly in establishing many Christians and many churches on the islands of the S. Pacific. As one of the first missionaries to the island of Tana, he endured incredible hardships, even threatened to be killed and eaten by cannibals multiple times. Some from Scotland where he came from scoffed at his work and thought it useless to work among such heathen savages. But God miraculously delivered him and even gave him great examples of the power of God to transform a life.
One such example is of a cannibal chief named Kowia. Paton writes about this man with great affection. The account that Paton records about this man is a time when both are sick with the measles, a disease that was killing many on the islands at that time. Here’s what he writes about Kowia. Notice the heart of this man who once was a violent warrior-chief and cannibal.
Read selection from John G. Paton, Missionary to the New Hebrides, p. 159-160.
A testimony like that encourages me to believe in the power of God to change me and my fleshly desires. God wants us no longer to be slaves but sons and daughters. God wants us to experience the divine power that is able to change us at our very core.
But it is not only so that we might experience this personally. It is so that we might be able to initiate change in the world around us. We believe that God's justifying grace must not be separated from His sanctifying power and purpose. God commands us to love Him supremely and others sacrificially and to live out our faith with care for one another, compassion toward the poor and justice for the oppressed.
2. Divine power exists for us to Initiate change in our World.
This doctrine of sanctification matters because it is what empowers not only personal change but societal change. Jesus made it very clear that His mission was to proclaim good news to the poor. In Luke 4, at the outset of his public ministry he testified that what the prophet Isaiah wrote was fulfilled through him. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” All throughout His ministry Jesus modeled the unconditional love of God toward every individual, whether the person was a leper or lawyer, a prostitute or a priest, tax collector or a zealot, Jesus willingly embraced all who were willing to be minister to by Him. When he sent out his disciples, in Luke 9, He empowered and instructed them to confront the evils and the needs of society with the power of the gospel. “And he called the 12 together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.” The great commission in Mt. 28 has become the great statement of missions for every church and every Christian. Every disciple of Jesus Christ is commanded to make disciples of all nations, going and baptizing and teaching with the authority and power that comes from Jesus presence.
Again, I must express my appreciation for how our statement of faith expresses the extent to which our Christian lives should be lived. The Divine power and presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives is there for us to experience personal change in our individual lives but it also exists for the purpose of us being God’s instruments to initiate change in the world around us. What is so powerful about this truth is that implicit in it is the reality that change can happen. Unfortunately, just as many individuals feel stuck in their personal experiences of change so we often struggle with the possibility that a society can change. Is it possible to reform corrupt governments? Is it possible to overcome the oppression of poverty? Is it possible to work out peace in the Middle East? Is it possible to find solutions in the debate over the environment? Can the killing of innocent babies through legalized abortion be stopped? What about immigration and drugs and prison overpopulation and AIDS? These are difficult ethical and moral questions of our day. What the doctrine of sanctification says is that the Holy Spirit is present in power and design to make right what is wrong in this world. No it will never be a perfect world until Christ returns but yes we are given the mandate and the power to do our part to exercise Biblical truths that can transform societies through the transformation of individuals’ hearts.
Again let me turn to history for such an example. This time I point to the missionary William Carey. It was his profound commitment to this doctrine that guided him to has such a powerful effect on a very oppressive Hindu culture in India in the early 1800’s. Vishal Mangalwadi, in his book, The Legacy of William Carey, A Model for the Transformation of a Culture, describes William Carey this way. “He was a pioneer of the modern Western Christian missionary movement, reaching out to all parts of the world; a pioneer of the Protestant church in India; and the translator and/or publisher of the Bible in forty different Indian languages. Carey was an evangelist who used every available medium to illumine every dark facet of Indian life with the light of truth.” (p. 25)
Later in the book Mangalwadi asks a very important and pertinent question: “What made Carey so confident that the oppressive social and political structures of this world could be reformed?” This included such things as confronting the culturally acceptable practices of infanticide-if a baby became sick, it was assumed that they were under the influence of an evil spirit and so were left out to die. Only if they had survived after 3 days were means used to save their lives. Carey’s first exposure to this came when he discovered the corpse of a devoured by white ants after having been sacrificed. From then on he struggled to save the lives of infants for whom the savior died. (p. 33) Carey confronted the practice of widow-burning. Sati was the practice that required a widow to be burned with the body of her deceased husband. Religiously sanctioned, the practice was more because of the economic liability. It was illegal for a widow to remarry all the way up until 1854. Either the woman committed Sati or lived a life of indignity and hardship. (p. 34) Once again when Carey witnessed this practice it drove him to fight against it not just by agitation and complaint by through education and writing, proclaiming truth and declaring right doctrines about human worth and the true nature of God. (p. 37)
What made Carey so confident that the oppressive social and political structures of this world could be reformed? Quote from p. 121.
Conclusion:
This is why doctrine matters. Change in our lives is possible and change in the evils and the needs of our world all around us is possible. This is why we should be exploring every opportunity we have to make a difference in this community on Whidbey Island and around the world, like Zambia. But it will only happen if you take the doctrine that you believe and live it out in your day to day lives.
It means submitting to the work of God’s Spirit in your own heart to overcome anything that stands in the way of your growth in faith and transformation. It means submitting to the work of God’s Spirit in your own heart to overcome anything that stands in the way of your making a difference in confronting the needs and evils that exist in the world around you.
The expression of these changes will come through as many ways as there are days and as many opportunities as there are people. Let me close with one final illustration that I think demonstrates the simplicity of what I’m talking about and yet the significance.
I was sent this email just this week telling of an experience that Beth Moore had in an airport in April. Some of you may have seen this also but it’s a great example of how God can use us if we’re only willing to follow His Spirit’s leading.
While waiting at the gate for her flight Beth Moore noticed a disfigured man in a wheel chair. He was gaunt and disheveled. The thing she noticed most was his long, grey, tangled hair. As time passed she found her mind moving from curiosity to concern for the man. The Lord was beginning to prompt her to feel compassion for the man. But the uniqueness of his appearance made her uncomfortable with the promptings that she was feeling from the Lord.
I immediately began to resist because I could feel God working on my spirit and I started arguing with God in my mind. "Oh, no, God, please, no,… don't make me get up here and witness to this man in front of this gawking audience . Please, Lord!" …
Then I heard it... "I don't want you to witness to him. I want you to brush his hair." The words were so clear, my heart leapt into my throat, and my thoughts spun like a top. … I looked up at God and quipped, "I don't have a hairbrush. It's in my suitcase on the plane. How am I supposed to brush his hair without a hairbrush?" God was so insistent that I almost involuntarily began to walk toward him as these thoughts came to me from God's word: "I will thoroughly furnish you unto all good works." (2 Timothy 3:17)
I stumbled over to the wheelchair … knelt down in front of the man and asked as demurely as possible, "Sir, may I have the pleasure of brushing your hair?" He looked back at me and said, "What did you say?" >
May I have the pleasure of brushing your hair?"
To which he responded in volume ten, "Little lady, if you expect me to hear you, you're going to have to talk louder than that." At this point, I took a deep breath and blurted out, "SIR, MAY I HAVE THE PLEASURE OF BRUSHING YOUR HAIR?"
At which point every eye in the place darted right at me. I was the only thing in the room looking more peculiar than old Mr. Longlocks. Face crimson and forehead breaking out in a sweat, I watched him look up at me with absolute shock on his face, and say, "If you really want to."
"Yes, sir, I would be pleased. But I have one little problem. I don't have a hairbrush."
"I have one in my bag, " he responded.
I went around to the back of that wheelchair, and I got on my hands and knees and unzipped the stranger's old carry-on, hardly believing what I was doing. I stood up and started brushing the old man's hair. It was perfectly clean, but it was tangled and matted. …
A miraculous thing happened to me as I started brushing that old man's hair. Everybody else in the room disappeared. There was no one alive for those moments except that old man and me . I brushed and I brushed and I brushed until every tangle was out of that hair. I know this sounds so strange, but I've never felt that kind of love for another soul in my entire life. I believe with all my heart, I - for that few minutes - felt a portion of the very love of God. That He had overtaken my heart for a little while like someone renting a room and was making Himself at home for a short while.
The emotions were so strong and so pure that I knew they had to be God's. His hair was finally as soft and smooth as an infant's. I slipped the brush back in the bag and went around the chair to face him. I got back down on my knees, put my hands on his knees and said, "Sir, do you know my Jesus?"
He said, "Yes, I do…. I've known Him since I married my bride. She wouldn't marry me until I got to know the Savior." He said, "You see, the problem is, I haven't seen my bride in months. I've had open-heart surgery, and she's been too ill to come see me. I was sitting here thinking to myself, what a mess I must be for my bride."
Only God knows how often He allows us to be part of a divine moment when we're completely unaware of the significance. This, on the other hand, was one of those rare encounters when I knew God had intervened in details only He could have known.
It was a God moment, and I'll never forget it. Our time came to board, and we were not on the same plane. I was deeply ashamed of how I'd acted earlier and would have been so proud to have accompanied him on that aircraft.
I still had a few minutes, and as I gathered my things to board, the airline hostess returned from the corridor, tears streaming down her cheeks. She said, "That old man's sitting on the plane, sobbing. Why did you do that? What made you do that?"
I said, "Do you know Jesus? …" And we got to share. …
I got on my own flight, sobs choking my throat, wondering how many opportunities just like that one had I missed along the way. . . all because I didn't want people to think I was strange.
( http://www.cafemessenger.com/info/info_sweetstuff2.html?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_OctWLtagline )
Close in Prayer.
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Greenbank, Washington
That is 2 miles south of Greenbank
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