There is something Right with you!
Romans 8:1-17; Galatians 5: 22-26
What drives you
Some of you might remember that a month or two ago, I wrote about an encounter with a guy named Brain on our church premises. Brain had a great attitude towards life even though he has great challenges and many problems. One of the things that struck me about Brain is how he has a way to frame tough problems in his life, very positively. For instance, he told me that there are only two things wrong with him. He has diabetes and he is bipolar. “One is a condition on the inside and one is a condition on the outside”, he added. I wondered which was which!
Today I want to speak to you about something inside of you and something on the outside. They are related to each other intimately. But they are not things that are wrong with you. They are in fact things that are very right with you. I dare say they are the best parts of you.
The thing on your inside is a driving force. It is what propels you ahead. It is what motivates you. And that is the Spirit of Christ. Those who belong to Christ, has the Spirit of Christ. Even should you not be aware of this, the Spirit will still do amazing things in and through you but getting to know the Spirit and how it works can increase its effect on you and its impact in your life. The Spirit of God is into collaboration, not into robotics. He/she invites you to work with him/her*.
When the Spirit enters into your life through the gift of faith, things happen inside of you. Paul describes some of them in Romans 8. Let us explore them a little.
You stop thinking God is mad at you
A lot of things can go wrong in life when people believe God is mad at them and against them. It might not be possible for humans to completely hate the sin whilst completely love the sinner. For God it is. What Jesus did and what the Holy Spirit convinces us of is that our identity is separated from our sins. Paul says there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Now think literally about something that is inside something else. That means it is probably difficult to distinguish between the two. It could mean that the two entities are difficult to sperate. So to say, we are in Christ, is one of the most powerful statements about you someone can ever make. I close most of my emails by saying “In Christ, Gabriel”. Every time I type those words next to each other, I remind myself that it contains more hope giving truth than anything else I might have written in that letter.
You see, there are only two modes of being, two unions available to us. We are either in sin, indistinguishable and inseparable from it. Or we are in Christ, camouflaged, hidden and protected in Him. Now, just as you are immediately open towards somebody that is close to someone you are close to. Say, for instance, your daughter’s best friend, because your daughter has a place in your heart, so God is by default open and welcoming in His stance to those that are in Christ. Isn’t it a wonderful thing to enter a room where you know you are not only known, but loved, accepted and welcomed. As you put your foot on the ground when you first wake up, with God’s Spirit in you, you can know that you are now entering a world where you are known, accepted and welcomed by the Creator of all. You were in sin (or the flesh) as Paul calls it. But Jesus entered flesh and sin to save you from it and incorporate you into Him, His body of believers. You are in Christ.
A love for the things that are precious to God
It is not only about stop sinning. The law can help you to momentarily, through much effort, stop sinning. The trick is to stop loving sin and to love what God loves and commands in its stead. Our sinful nature makes us a slave to sinful desires. The Spirit frees us to have godly desires and find joy in pursuing them. My children have different interests and passions. I share some of each’s passions and some I don’t. What is fascinating is that when I cycle with Steph, it builds our relationships whereas if I cycle with Marise it strains our relationship. When I swim with Marise, it builds our relationship, when I swim with Steph, it strains our relationship. Unless perhaps, Marise comes to love cycling and Steph swimming. See, when you love something, it is not fun to do it with someone that hates it. God doesn’t just want you to do certain things. I wants you to love those things. Sometimes you get to love something because you love the person that is doing it. When the Spirit enables us to love God, we begin to find joy and peace in doing the things God is into and passionate about.
The assurance of sonship
There is nothing more beautiful in my ears, than when my kids call me daddy. I respond to it. I cannot help to. Romans 8 says the Spirit makes us call out to God: “Daddy!”. It convinces us of who we are in Christ. Not just saved, but children, heirs and part of God’s family. This sense of belonging of security of identity empowers us in many ways. It enables you to deal with rejection. It might still be painful, but a person who knows he is accepted and loved by someone way more important, gets over rejection more easily. It reduces our anxiety because somebody who knows he has a father that truly loves him or her, is less anxious.
But what about the outside?
Thus far I have focused on the inside, on what the Spirit in us bring to our hearts and minds. But what does the Spirit bring to the outside world through us? What is the outward manifestation of those gifts? For that we will have to turn to Galatians 5. It is called the fruit of the Spirit. It’s kind off important to note that it is fruit, singular, not fruits. Just as little as you could not play Golf with only one club, you can’t just pick one on this list and say that is the one you like, not the others. Speaking of Golf, the clubs in a Golf bag is perhaps a particularly good way to get to the meaning of the fruit of the Spirit and insight into what exactly it does.
All golf clubs are…well golf clubs. But they serve different functions at different and crucial times in a golf game. In Paul’s list. Love is mentioned first. In Greek, things that are mentioned first, are usually considered the most important. Love is a biggy. It is the Driver in your golf bag. Nothing gives the ball (which in our analogy will be your life) greater power and distance than love. Paul got all carried away by this love in 1 Corinthians 13. Go read it. It is beautiful and still ever so true. Drivers are usually what golfers spend most on. It is usually the one they like to show off to you most. So, it should be with love in our lives. What made the story of Forest Gump so beautiful? Many things but those many things are captured by this one sentence: “I’m not a smart man, but I know what love is”. Indeed, we need it more than intellect, oratory skills or anything else. To love, makes life beautiful.
So, what does a 3 Wood do? Yes, it is used for a long shot. You know what is the 3 wood when it comes to the fruit of the Spirit? It is patience. It puts you into the game for the long run. It helps you even to make peace with the fact that when you are following Jesus, you work for some ideals that might only materialize after your death. There is a beautiful synonym for patience…it is called longsuffering. The best things in life came about because of people’s long suffering. Read about the early history of Surrey. Where we drive and live today was a dense forest. It took decades to clear out space. Some gave up or ran out of money. They had to go elsewhere and returned later only to find someone else has took over the patch of land they worked so hard to clear. Today you enjoy a garden that was made possible by people who lived here before and suffered much to make the place habitable. What longsuffering does God call us to do so that future generations after us can benefit from it?
A 1 Iron also gives you distance. Faithfulness is the one iron in God’s bag. It is easy to be faithful when things are going well, but will we remain faithful when things are tough? It is that faithfulness that makes all the difference, not the momentary fair-weather type.
A 3 Iron, gets you out of the woods and its confusion. To a place where you can see clearly again. The peace that God gives, does just this. It gets us to a place where we can think and see clearly. Paul once said that it surpasses, all understanding, which is significant as Paul was a man that understood much when it came to the things of God!
A 5 iron you use to hit a straight shot. Being kind is something that keeps your life aligned. Currently America has much more wealth than Canada, but I will gladly take the less wealth if it goes with greater kindness in Canada. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if even when things don’t work out, the person from which you part could still state that you were kind? Well, there is a power working in you that enables you to be kind. Ride on it!
A seven and a nine iron are the clubs you use to get height. Goodness and joy produced by the Spirit is what enables us to soar above the pettiness so prevalent in the world. If they go low, go high! It is a tried and tested Christian way of walking through life. You can go through some pretty tough times and still have this underlying joy that rises you above the depression r the tragedy or the challenge that you are facing.
How about the pitching wedge and the sand wedge? They get you out of a bad spot. Self-control gets you out of tough spot. It is easy to go into impulse mode when the pressure is on. It is easy to fall for sexual temptation when things are not going well in your marriage. But giving in to sinful desires are going to make the situation even worse. The Spirit controls your spirit.
Lastly the putter. We have seen games won or lost on the greens with putting skills or the lack of it. I guess it is possible to under-power putting shots but usually people over putt. Your putting power is gentleness. One of my favourite memories thus far was at the Death bed of Elain’s mother. Her granddaughter Carina came in ( I remember because I had to pick her up and at the station that stage didn’t know Surrey at all). All I knew of Carina at that stage was that she was a nursing student, so I was kind of curious how she would react when she came to the bedside. Would she study the monitors and inquire about the medication she was given? When she got to the bed side, she only played one card. That of gentleness. Like the rest of the family. I stood there and thought to myself, this is really the best one can hope for as you enter those final moments of your life. That you would be treated gently. When we are babies and when we get very old and frail, gentleness is really the only language that makes sense to us. And even in between those two life stages it is music to our ears. It is also contagious. Treat someone gently and often they will immediately more gentle with you. Not always but often. The Spirit lives in you. You can be gentle.
Close
If someone ask you what the pastor said today, tell them this. Tell them the message was that there is something very right with you on the inside and the outside. There is the Spirit inside you that solidifies to you who you are in Christ. There is the outward fruit of that showing on the outside. God isn’t finished with your yet, so don’t be disheartened if you don’t see or experience as much club power as you would like to. It is called rebirth for a reason. Babies are being born and they then slowly grow and mature. The flesh has been injected with a lethal dose of venom, but it is slow acting just as the baby is slow growing.
But God, who has begun this good work in you, will complete it. He never stops being kind, patient and gentle until the ball which is your life reaches the hole which is his purpose with it.
Amen
*A good friend pointed out that in my sermon I actually used the pronoun “it” for the Holy Spirit. I used it in order to communicate that the Holy Spirit is beyond gender but I grant that it might be interpreted as that I see the Holy Spirit as an impersonal power, a common heresy shared by the Jehovah witnesses. Rest assured that I see the Holy Spirit as a person, not an impersonal power. I apologise for any misunderstanding. I changed the pronoun in my text.
Gabriel J Snyman
July 12th 2020