Christ Memorial Lutheran Church - Houston TX
CMLC 2024-08-11 Sermon (Traditional)
One of the things that I always find interesting whenever thinking about churches and the way that their sanctuaries and many of their hallways are set up is when you see much of the artwork that you end up beholding in the church. And a lot of art throughout the ages had been originally inspired and based on scriptural passages and the views and the beliefs about God. But you see, whenever you're trying to see all that artwork, you're trying to figure out who it is exactly that may have painted each particular painting. But I found out that apparently there are little cheats to try to figure out what type of artwork it might have been. For example, if you see a painting with a bunch of beautiful babies, then it's probably a baroque painting. But if you see a painting with a bunch of ugly babies, it's medieval. If you end up seeing a painting where it looks like you opened up your tuckwear drawer and you see all the weird boxes and everything inside of it, that's probably cubism. If you figure out that when you're looking at it and you're trying to figure out if your prescription glasses are incorrect, then it's impressionism. If you're looking at something and everybody has huge muscles including all the women, then it's probably Michelangelo. If you're looking at it and you're saying, wait a minute, that painting doesn't look like it's finished, it's Leonardo da Vinci. And if it's a painting of Rembrandt, then it's by Rembrandt. All of these different tips that might be there to help the art critic try to share how they know what, who it is that painted a certain painting. But you see as a pastor, whenever I'm looking in the church pews, I'm oftentimes looking to see our own future artists. And I look over and I might see someone's recent attempted expression in themselves. And I assume it to be three, four, five year olds. So if the rest of you who are adults and retired are drawing on the paper in front of you, and I think that it's a three, four or five year old, just forgive me in advance. But with it, though, is that when you look at a child's painting or a child's drawing, the expression is not meant to show reality clearly. The thing is that when a child draws something, we don't know exactly what it is that they're drawing right off the bat. You look and you see this little figure that's there and you see arms that are coming out of their ears and somehow their faces where their belly button would be and they have like five legs and you're kind of like, is that a foot? Is that a potato? I have no idea. And you're like, you know what? That's okay. At least I have an idea of if it's a person or not. But then otherwise, you might look and say, oh, that's a really cute potato that I see. And they're like, that's a doggy. And you're like, that is no dog that I have ever seen in my life. But the thing with it is that you're not looking at a child's artwork, thinking to yourself, this is exactly what reality is. We don't look at the drawing and I'll say, okay, from now on, all people need to have their arms coming out of their ears from now on. And we need to make sure that all of our dogs look like potatoes from now on. We don't end up changing our reality based on the way that a child would express it. Now we appreciate the artwork that we see. If you were to have received a drawing from a child, are you going to look at it and say, oof, that's not perfect. I'm sorry. You need to stop. And, oof, I need you to take that back and fix it a bit. No, absolutely not. Why? Because you're just so glad to see them drawing, painting, having fun. And enjoying life, getting a chance to express themselves. And plus, you get to see how over time they improve a little bit at a time, at a time. And over the course of their life, you get to see as they are growing and changing. But it's not that we've changed reality to fit the expression, but rather that our expression is meant to continue to pursue reality. That is the idea that I want in our minds as we hear and see from the Gentiles in Ephesians 4. You see, it says in our passage that you are no longer meant to walk as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking. What it's trying to get across is that the people who did not know who God was, they did not realize how God wanted them to live. That's what it gets at when it says the futility. People were trying their best to do what it was that they thought was good and right. But when we don't have an idea of what God is saying, then how futile does it become when we're not able to live our life the way that God has asked us to. See, the thing is that it talks about how the people had a hardened heart. But you see, when a person has a hardened heart, in other words, when they're not listening, whenever they're just doing whatever they think is best, and they're saying, "You know what? This is what I'm going to do, and I'm not going to listen anymore." They're not thinking to themselves, "I have a hardened heart." They're not saying, "I want to ignore what is good and right and true." The thing is that they don't know more because they have not been transformed by Christ Jesus. The truth is that we can't see anything beyond ourselves without God's Spirit changing us. And the reality is that there are many things in our lives that God does not want, and he does not want to see. But you see, we see some of these passages like today, and we get a little bit scared when it talks about not living according to the sensuality and the desires of this world. In many ways, it's because we oftentimes don't know how to talk about it. See, the thing is, is that if we're being completely honest, is that we still believe the same things that we did decades and centuries past. What we do with our lives, including our physical bodies, matters to God. And there are many things that we see in the world that God is not happy with. God is not happy with how it is that many people decide that they're going to take their relationships and make them open. The idea that somehow it is okay to be in physical relations with multiple people at the same time, and that it's okay as long as you tell them. Or that oftentimes when the world is saying that it is not one man and one woman together, but whoever it is that you want to be with at any point in time. And the truth is that it hasn't changed what it is that God wants because of his word. God hasn't changed that he wants physical intimacy to be within marriage. And yet how many times is it that we see that people have decided to go and live together? Because you know what? Well, we're going to try this out for a little while, and if it doesn't work out, well at least we didn't get married. And then often whenever we worry and we see how many of our young people, not just when they've gone off to college, but even when they are in high school and even sometimes even younger. And we sometimes wonder how many ways in which they've been influenced by what's on the social media about what it is to live for the moment, and to be physically with whoever it is that makes you feel good at that moment. And that if you feel safe and that, well, you've gone out a few times and it's probably about time, that it's okay to pursue that. See, the difficulty is that in the past, when we've discussed these things, we've gone in directions of anger and hatred and hurt and afraid of trying to figure out balance between being able to proclaim God's word as true, but also at the same time of showing grace and compassion and mercy. But the reality is that it's not just those people out there. The reality is that we all struggle in different ways to be like Christ. There are so many things that it is, it's easy that we can pause and stop and look at one part of Scripture and now say these are the people that we need to go after. These are the ones who are completely in the wrong. Which see, Paul includes a lot of different things that are in there. Falsehood, anger, laziness, theft, corrupt speech, wrath, bitterness, clamor, slander. How many times have we been in the middle of an argument and we realized that what the other person said was actually right, but we're going to make sure that we double down on what we were saying because, well, okay, maybe technically I'm wrong, but what I was trying to get at was okay. How many times we're willing to stand for what we actually know isn't quite true because we're afraid of the fact that someone may actually be more right than we are. Or the times whenever we may take something that is just a way of getting money for doing no work and we instead relabel it as another form of passive income. Or the times whenever people may just be loud enough and angry enough and cruel enough and yet as long as we are convinced or able to convince other people that we're right, then therefore we can win the day. We don't use the word clamor all the time, but we do it on a regular basis. The truth is that as much as we don't like to admit it, it's how often is it that in our hearts we go about day by day with bitterness towards someone or something. Even though we've justified it in our minds, but we know that by doing so it makes it harder to show the love of Christ to them. Are we all successful every single day of our lives in doing exactly what it is that God wants? Okay, nobody raised their hand, so I think we're all these being honest with ourselves. The reality is that this life in Christ is not something where it would stop and we say okay, I've got it all right, I'm good. Our entire life is a journey, its growth, its progress. There is not going to be a moment where we are done growing and learning and changing. And that's the reality about this is that all of these areas are ways in which we are trying to learn and to grow. Not just one group of people that they need to get it figured out, but the rest of us were okay. No, we're all struggling, not just to get things right, but sometimes even to want to get things right. There was a parable of this painter and his master, the painter had been going up and had been trying to make this perfect painting there, and he had spent months, many, many months working a little bit at a time, and finally he had this perfect masterpiece that was there. And he just stopped and he would stare at it day after day, week after week, until finally his master came up and slashed the whole canvas up into pieces. And the painter said, what have you done? Why did you destroy my masterpiece? And the master said, because as long as you think that this is your place of perfection, you will never continue to grow. He had gotten to a point where he no longer wanted to try, and he no longer figured out that there was anywhere further to go. How often do we get to that point? Where we think we're finally at the place that we want to be, and then we're done. And we think that there's nothing else left to learn or to grow or to strive. And I think that's also where we find ourselves in how we're meant to respond to the world around us as well, because the world is not trying to do things that they think are wrong or evil. They're trying to do things the way the best that they think to do, and could we not pause long enough to at least understand why? Because there are so many issues with the way that we have physical relationships in the world that come out of feeling alone. Because being alone, being alone is difficult. How many times is it that young people are sitting there on their phones that they've spent so long on their social media, but how little time have they been able to spend as much face to face with each other, especially after how many issues our world has faced in the recent years? Or how many times is it that people saw broken homes where they knew that family, parents, others, could not make their marriage work, and they're trying to find some way of being able to create commitment, but they're afraid. They're afraid of marriage. But even by their mid-20s, their late-20s, that they are already done with their first marriage. How many people have tried to be with someone of the opposite gender, and there's an emptiness? Are there trying to figure out why it is that they can't feel things the way that other people do, and why it is that when they're trying to look for someone of the opposite gender, that there is nothing there for them, or that for whatever reason, the opposite gender found them attractive? The reality is that looking at the things that God wants is that we also have to pause and remember that there's a reason why people go in other directions. Is that oftentimes people are struggling, and can we just slow down as the church, just long enough to empathize? Not to agree, not to change what God has said, but just long enough just to show some grace and mercy and compassion. See that's the thing about it, is that love does not change God's ways, rather Christ Jesus changes us. Because the reality, the answer for this, is to spend more time with Christ. The thing is, is that the more time that we spend with God's Word, the more it is that God's Spirit is speaking through His Word in prayer among His people, living it out in our lives. The more that we see the desire to change our lives based on who He is. It's not the answer of now I'm going to yell at you more about how it is that you have messed up time and time again. It's not I'm going to yell at you for yelling at other people. I'm going to yell at you for looking at the world around you and trying to take advantage of other people. I'm going to yell at you because your relationships don't look exactly what I think you're supposed to do. But rather is come to know the Savior, come to spend time with our God, come to spend time with the one who has given His life for you, spend time with the one who has given you everything. And in so doing, you are going to desire to follow after Him. Your heart will change. Your life will change. You will become the person that God wants. So my hope today is not whether we can discover some extra rules in the Bible about what God wants. God's law is pretty clear. But rather is how can we, when we're looking at the world, find ways to respond in compassion and mercy so that they would want to be with our God who will change us and shape us each and every day because it's the Holy Spirit that will show what is right when we bear patiently with them because the more that we can show them our loving and merciful God, the more they're going to want to change to be the way that God has told us to live. the other way around. Thanks be to God.