Sermon of the Month - January 2009
Who am I? 2: Forgiven and Freed from Condemnation
Introduction: Voyage in Imagination
If like me you’re a fan of science fiction you’ll be familiar with the idea of time travel. The Star Trek film, The Voyage Home with its tale of the crew spinning back in time to the late twentieth century to save the whale and the human race at the same time. And with Doctor Who of courseevery other story takes you backwards or forwards in time. And we imagine ourselves for example back in the days of ancient Rome, or the second world war. Even if you can’t stand science fiction, you may like TV or film adaptations of great novels like Pride and Prejudice, or historical fiction. And we can imagine ourselves back in the Middle Ages for example, with the medieval detective/monk Cadfael, or with Ivanhoe or Robin Hood.
And this exercise in historical imagination is part of what makes trips to the Holy Land so popular: stand by the shores of the Sea of Galilee, or – in more peaceful times at least – visit Bethlehem or Jerusalem. And perhaps with the surrounding sounds, sights and smells so striking, we can imagine Jesus more easily.
Indeed as we think and imagine back 2,000 years, we might feel that the Christian life would be a whole lot easier is only we had the advantages of the disciples, in hearing Jesus and seeing him face to face.
1. A Biblical Surprise
But there’s a surprise in the Bible. The New Testament tells us that the disciples for all their supposed advantage in being with Jesus close-up, face to face, and able to ask all their questions in person didn’t really get going properly until after Jesus had gone! After he died, after he rose from the dead, after he ascended into heaven and was no longer with them in person! While Jesus was still with them in person, his followers seemed weak, confused or at best only occasionally dynamic. Amazingly, it is after Jesus has left them in person that they change out of all recognition, and become a people dubbed those who have turned the world upside down. Indeed this is so surprising that once we take notice of it, we might want to ask questions, questions that seem impious, impertinent, outrageous even: but weren’t the first Christians actually better without Jesus than with him?!
Even more amazingly, this is exactly what Jesus told his followers to expect, if we follow what John’s gospel tells us. With Jesus’ arrest, trial and execution looming, his disciples are worried. But Jesus tells them it is better that he will go – and explains why: Unless I go away, the Counsellor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. Who is this Counsellor? He is the Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit.
So then, what the gospels show us is that while Jesus was with them in person, the disciples made slow, faltering progress. But when the Holy Spirit was given to them, poured out on them and in them on the Day of Pentecost, they moved out in power. During the days after Easter, but before Pentecost, Acts 1 tells us that the believers numbered about 120. But once the Holy Spirit came, on the day of Pentecost alone 3,000 were converted. And Acts tells us that the church continued to grow rapidly. The Holy Spirit made all the difference – and makes all the difference today.
2. ‘the Spirit of life sets me free’
Paul tells the same story of this amazing change through the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives in Romans 8. We read the end of chapter 7 to see how this follows the questions Paul has been raising about what it means to be a Christian. Sin is a great power in our lives. But thanks be to God who sets us free by his Holy Spirit! The key is at the start of Romans 8: Therefore there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Romans 8 tells us the difference the Holy Spirit makes – a life-changing big difference:
We are free from condemnation (v.1)
We are free from the law of sin and death (v.2)
We have our minds set on what the Spirit desires (v.5)
We belong to Christ (v.9)
We have new life (vv.10-11)
We are God’s heirs, his sons, his children with full inheritance rights (v.14)
We can know God with the true, close, personal intimacy shown by the word Abba we can know God as our spiritual ‘Dad’ (v.15)
We have the firstfruits of the Spirit, and that’s a guarantee we will know the full harvest, the resurrection body, eternal life (v.23)
We know the Spirit’s help in our prayers, intercessions and deepest longings (v.26-27)
Part two
3. No condemnation
I want to go back to that opening verse in Romans 8. To me that is an absolutely fantastic, fabulous, amazing verse, a power-packed promise from Scripture with revolutionary effect – the power to change lives. And too often, I see defeated Christians going around as if this verse didn’t exist. I believe every Christian ought to learn this verse – not as a terrible rule, burden or duty, but as a fantastic liberation – a cracking good reminder of the most terrific good news!
You see, I don’t know about you, but I see a lot of Christians going around defeated. And one of the most crippling things that defeats Christians is guilt. But the Bible says, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. This is one of the reasons that Paul emphasises that our relationship with God is not based on external factors like laws, rules and rituals, but on the work of God in our lives through grace, faith, the Holy Spirit.
It’s just as well it’s like that – but so many people can’t see it. It’s what makes Christianity so controversial for so many people. Lots of people in other religions and with no organised religion want to live a different way. They say, ‘Let’s try and sort out life – make a set of rules, laws rituals, spiritual practices’, and so many other things. And there are two massive dangers with this.
The first is that you fail. I set myself a goal a set of aims and rules, and I fail. I mess up. I understand that one very well. I’m affected by that – and I bet many people here are too. And if I fail my rules and aims and so on, I increasingly sink into guilt, failure – and if I sink far enough – into despair. That’s partly what Paul’s touching on in the end of Romans 7 – especially verse 15: I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. So there’s a destructive danger in building life on rules: we fail.
But there’s something even worse than this. A person makes a set of rules, religious, moral or whatever his or her aim, and they don’t fail; they succeed! I’ve made a load of rules my benchmark, and I think I’ve passed the test, I’ve succeeded, I’ve fulfilled all the rules that life sets me! And that’s even worse, because then I become self-satisfied, and I become critical of others who have not achieved what I have achieved. In short, I become a ‘Christian Pharisee’.
But the way of Jesus is not the way of the rule-book; it is the way of love, the way of salvation, the way of the Spirit. You can see that in so many of Jesus’ parables, especially in Luke 15: the sheep that has wandered far and wide perhaps into danger is not condemned but eagerly sought and welcomed back. The lost coin is not written off as an insurance risk – but far too many, far too easily, write off far too many people. Instead the lost coin is searched for, high and low, and its discovery is of course a cause for rejoicing. And above all, the Prodigal Son is not rejected despite his monstruous behaviour in demanding his inheritance before his father’s death, and wantonly spending it to enable him to live a dissolute life. But he is not condemned. Instead he is freed of all condemnation and welcomed back. He has genuinely repented; truly returned to his father. And his father welcomes him back without recrimination. And when we turn to God in Christ, we too are welcomed back: there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ.
Let me tell a story. Like many of you, I’m enjoying reading Lindy’s latest book, the story of Ruth Shakeshaft, the missionary to Uganda in East Africa. But I’m going to tell a story of an earlier missionary to Uganda, Florence Allshorn, who was sent out as a missionary there to teach the locals about Jesus. But when she arrived she found the mission station was not at all as she would have expected, still less hoped: it was broken by bad relationships, and there was an older woman in charge, who had grown ill and nervy, and with dreadful fits of temper. This is how Florence described those days.
I was young, and I was the eighth youngster who had been sent, none of whom had lasted more than two years. I went down to seven stone and my spirit and soul wilted to the same degree. Then one day an old African matron came to me when I was sitting on the verandah crying my eyes out. She sat at my feet and after a time she said, “I have been on this station for fifteen years and I have seen you come out, all of you saying you have brought to us a Saviour, but I have never seen this situation saved yet.” It brought me to my senses with a bang. I was the problem for myself. I knew enough of Jesus Christ to know that the enemy was the one to be loved...and I prayed...that this same love might be in me, and I prayed as I have never prayed in my life for that one thing. Slowly things rightened. Whereas before she had been going about upsetting everybody with long deep dreadful moods, and I had been going into my school depressed and lifeless, both of us found our way to lighten each other. She had a great generosity and I must have been a cruel burden to her, worn out as she was. But I did see that as we two drew together in a new relation the whole character of the work on the station altered...Gradually the whole atmosphere of the place altered. The children felt it and began to share in it and to do little brave unselfish things they had never done before.
That was tough. Love is tough. God’s love is tough, tough enough to change lives. But I’ve told Florence Allshorn’s story, because I think we would not be surprised if like the seven before her, she had given up on the difficult older woman and quit. But through the work of the Spirit, the way of love triumphed over the way of despair. The shepherd does not give up on the difficult sheep, the woman on the difficult coin, or the father on his difficult son. And Jesus shows us: God does not give up on any of us, however difficult we are.
4. Receiving forgiveness
So what do we do about this? We need to be open to the Holy Spirit, because this is what Jesus wants for us and intends for us all: that the God-given power for our lives to change is not some ‘theory’, but God’s plan for us all.
The challenge is to receive your forgiveness, receive your inheritance in Christ, receive love we don’t deserve, and be changed forever.
Does this sound like some new language? If you say you’ve never given the Lord all those awkward feelings you have about life and your place in it, well now is an opportunity for you to begin to receive this inheritance in Christ. Perhaps you are aware of those things that make you feel guilty. But you’ve treated that as something you’ve just had to live with, or something to try to ignore. Well now you can offer it all to Jesus, as the one – the only – person who can receive it all and transform it all, and transform you, and me, through the power of his death on the cross for you and me.
So when we sing the next song, let it be a prayer, a preparation for us to give Jesus our guilts and failures, like the Prodigal Son, and receive his love, joy and peace, through his Holy Spirit
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