Being Good

So last week Dave talked about being set free from sin. He read through Romans 6 and talked about our old nature, our sinful self being crucified and buried with Christ and how we are now new creations, resurrected with the living Christ, the old has gone and the new way has come.

And yet sometimes I dont feel so new. Sometimes I have to strain to see progress in my life and I'm left wondering, Is this it? Is this the abundant life I was promised? Where are the streams of living water? And then Jen shared about places in her own life where she had given herself up to a sinful life and how she had been set free from that. And it was amazing to see how that resonated in a lot of you guys hearts, how the spirit was moving to encourage you and me with the grace and peace and forgiveness of God. Some of us found forgiveness in the person of Christ for the first time that night and asked for God to start us down the journey through life with Him. Others of us had lost our way and found ourselves rededicating our lives, climbing back on to the trail. And others of us were allowed to drop our heavy load, our burdens that were robbing the joy out of our Christian life, which was quickly becoming back breaking and heart breaking work.

And so most of us who made decisions last week probably went home and back to school. And whatever promise, whatever commitments we made. We probably fell short of. I did there were things that I wanted to do and didnt, and there were things that I wanted to stay away from but didnt. I dont know if your felt the same. I mean for the first couple of days maybe we tried real hard. We knew what needed to do. I gotta change this relationship, or get into the bible more, or pray. I gotta not get angry or gossip or be prideful or lustful. And it took for a day or two. And then ever so slowly the old ways started creeping up and creeping in. Our momentary experience seems to have done no conversion of this soul.

I mean, Ive got a general idea what Im supposed to do. I take the Ten Commandments you know, dont kill people, dont take their stuff or their wives, dont make gods out of earthly things. Add to that the great commandment out of Mathew 19 you know love God and love people, and the great commission of Mathew 28 teach people to follow Jesus. Throw in a pinch of all sorts of other commands in the bible. Pray with out ceasing; give money joyfully to the church. Take care of widows and the poor. Fast to train your self and go witnessing and encourage people. And yet, sometimes that whole concoction is like eating a spoonful of flour, like the dry stale dust you find in the attic. I get to the end of my week tired, tired and worn out from all the struggle with sin and the stirring onward towards the good. I find myself shouting out to God in my exhaustion.

God I just cant take it any more. I just dont want to do it anymore. It all seems like a bunch of works and trying to be good.
And so this person (point to self) is the kind of person that I think Pauls has in mind in this next chapter of Romans, so if you have your bibles turn to chapter 7 of Romans. If you dont have your bible you can borrow one of ours, and if you dont even own a bible I would love to get one into you hands. Yes I really wrote this. Any ways. Lets read.

Now, dear brothers and sisters*-you who are familiar with the law-don't you know that the law applies only to a person who is still living? 2 Let me illustrate. When a woman marries, the law binds her to her husband as long as he is alive. But if he dies, the laws of marriage no longer apply to her. 3 So while her husband is alive, she would be committing adultery if she married another man. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law and does not commit adultery when she remarries.

So this is the point:

I love when Paul does this, he spells it out cause I'm a dunderbrain sometimes.

So this is the point: The law no longer holds you in its power, because you died to its power when you died with Christ on the cross. And now you are united with the one who was raised from the dead. As a result, you can produce good fruit, that is, good deeds for God.

Did you guys catch that little phrase- As a result?

You see the Christian life is not primarily about being good moral people and doing good things. Hear me on this. The Christian life is not primarily about being moral. All the great thinkers of the ages have said we ought to be moral people. Plato, Aristotle, Confucius. All of them have said the key to a good life is to choose to do the good moral things and not the bad things. It doesnt matter what it takes or what it costs you personally- choose to do the good.

You see, morality through the power of the self is exactly what the unbelieving world believes in. Our society as a whole leads us to believe that as long as you are pretty good and mostly moral then you will be okay. I cant tell you the number of people that I talk to who see themselves as a basically good person. They dont steal or sleep around or kill people so they must be okay. If a conversation with a stranger goes on long enough the subject of Christianity will come up. I cant help it its what I do. Its in my blood. Or I guess its in His blood. Whatever. And when it comes up they hold up their hands and with a little shake they say, Whoa there, I believe that theres a God but this religion stuff just seems all out of whack. I just try to be as good a person as I can be and I think God will sort it out in the end.

Realize this- this is precisely what we have been saved from.

We have been saved from bondage to sin- halleluiah this is what we talking about last week

But we have also been saved from bondage to the law. We just read in Romans the Christian life is primarily about being united with Christ, about the life that is connected to God, grafted into the vine.

Its out of that connection and condition that our good fruit will start to grow. And when trees produce fruit, its not because of straining or striving but because with all the right ingredients a tree produces fruit naturally.

Let me give you an example from my own life and walk with Christ. When I first became a Christian and unfortunately for some time afterward I struggled heavily with anger. I was angry at all sorts of things, but ultimately I think it was a selfish anger born out of any thing that didnt go precisely the way that I thought that it should. But I was told, Christians dont get angry. We dont get mad. Love your enemies Mind you there are times when a righteous anger is okay when it empowers you to take a stand and make a difference. This wasnt that. This was just me getting pissed at people. But knowing I wasnt supposed to be angry, I took those feelings and stuffed them back inside. I just kept tucking it all back into my heart to where there was this ball of angry that sat just below the surface; seething, churning, boiling until the dam would break and some unsuspecting person would become the object of my wrath.

Slhjdogaiphspguhapodkhgpaohsdghaowuhpahsoghaoprghaohgolsg!

And the other person would stand there with wide eyes going Oh crap I never dealt with this before I was a Christian. I would just get mad at somebody, make disparaging remarks about their matronaige, and then proceed to some fisticuffs action. And at the end of it we usually wouldnt be mad at each other. Yeah wed be bleeding and bruised but that would be the end of it. And I only got angry like that every so often, going days or weeks or even months (okay so rarely ever months, this is before I became a Christian.) I wouldnt hardly ever think about it once it happened. Ah but once I tried to control my anger, theres where the battle was. Because my struggle was one of days and hours and sometimes minutes then. I was constantly trying to keep shoving the monster back in the box, to keep it from leaking out. Knowledge of the law brought death to my heart.

Where is my peace oh God?

Where is my abundant life that You promised?

Where are the streams of living water?

And then a peculiar thing most peculiar thing happened. A man in a white pickup truck ran a red light, cut me off, leaned out his window, and flipped me off while shouting obsinities as if his running a red light were somehow my fault. And I thought to my self boy that was odd. How true those words were, but not about that mans driving ability, but rather about my response to them. A bland and simple that was odd. Its probably not the first person that I didnt respond to in anger that quite justifiably I could have. Its just the first that I remember. I know exactly where it was the time of day and even the date it stood out to me so much. You see in my connection with God, He had begun to heal the anger that was in my heart and I wasnt even aware of it. He was shaping me even then to love people, this community and ultimately to serve this community and to make my service a joy because of the love that He had given me. And it didnt come from my own efforts to push back anger, but rather from the prayer, Lord God, help!
And God met that need by filling my heart wit love through my connection to Him.

I remember coming across this verse in John 14 through all of this. I am the vine, you are the branches. Apart from me you can do nothing.

What!?!?! Are you joking me? Apart from you I do a whole bunch of things here. And by the way where are those streams of living water? And the easy yoke and the rest you promised.

My yoke is easy, my burden is light. He would say.

But i'm an expert at twisting peoples words around. If any of you have younger siblings you know what I mean.
Gimmie my dollar back
Thats right it my dollar
No its not your dollar
Thats right its not your dollar.

Well I do the same things sometimes with God. He says my yoke is easy and by burden is light. Then how come my burden isnt easy and my yoke isnt light.
You see how this goes.

And so. I get to Romans eight which says

There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of the sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering And so we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies, for this hope we are saved, but hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have we with for it patiently. In the same way, the spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express/ And he who searches our heats knows the mind of the Spirit, because the spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with Gods will.

And so tonight I pray that we would begin to open our hearts to God, opening up all our struggles with sin and our strivings for good and asking the Lord simply to be God over all of it. God be my God. Jesus be my sin sacrifice and Lord. Spirit come and make your home inside me.

139:1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
You discern my thoughts from afar.
3 You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.

7 Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
11 If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.

13 For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. [1]
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there were none of them.

17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
I awake, and I am still with you.

19 Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God!
O men of blood, depart from me!
20 They speak against you with malicious intent;
your enemies take your name in vain! [2]
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
22 I hate them with complete hatred;
I count them my enemies.

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts! [3]
24 And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting! [4]