This is Toxic to Your Faith and Relationships

Galatians 6:11-18, The Message - Now, in these last sentences, I want to emphasize in the bold scrawls of my personal handwriting the immense importance of what I have written to you. These people who are attempting to force the ways of circumcision on you have only one motive: They want an easy way to look good before others, lacking the courage to live by a faith that shares Christ’s suffering and death. All their talk about the law is gas. They themselves don’t keep the law! And they are highly selective in the laws they do observe. They only want you to be circumcised so they can boast of their success in recruiting you to their side. That is contemptible!

For my part, I am going to boast about nothing but the Cross of our Master, Jesus Christ. Because of that Cross, I have been crucified in relation to the world, set free from the stifling atmosphere of pleasing others and fitting into the little patterns that they dictate. Can’t you see the central issue in all this? It is not what you and I do—submit to circumcision, reject circumcision. It is what God is doing, and he is creating something totally new, a free life! All who walk by this standard are the true Israel of God—his chosen people. Peace and mercy on them!

Quite frankly, I don’t want to be bothered anymore by these disputes. I have far more important things to do—the serious living of this faith. I bear in my body scars from my service to Jesus.

May what our Master Jesus Christ gives freely be deeply and personally yours, my friends. Oh, yes!

 

Today, we finish Galatians with Paul’s final words to these churches.  He re-emphasizes that there is no need to require non-Jews to comply with Torah law concerning circumcision.  Where Jews used circumcision and other laws to separate themselves from others as God’s chosen people, there is now no more need for that.  Christ has made us all God’s chosen people.

 

In support of this central point of Paul’s letter, he leaves us another gem:

 

For my part, I am going to boast about nothing but the Cross of our Master, Jesus Christ. Because of that Cross, I have been crucified in relation to the world, set free from the stifling atmosphere of pleasing others and fitting into the little patterns that they dictate. (vs. 14-15)

 

Instead of finding ways to play the one upmanship game that seems to come naturally to us humans, Paul encourages us to focus on what Christ has done.  The more we do that, the less tendency we will have to puff ourselves up.  We are set free from all that crap.  It reminds me of one of the great hymns of the church by Isaac Watts:

 

When I survey the wondrous cross

On which the Prince of glory died

My richest gain I count but loss

And pour contempt on all my pride

 

Comparing ourselves, finding reasons to look down on others, or putting others on a pedestal above us are all toxic to our relationships.  Paul bids us to let all that be crucified with Christ and be free to be who God made you to be – no more and no less.  When we all do that together, we become something truly divine – the Body of Christ.  This is what Paul meant earlier in the letter when he says, “I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you.”  He longs for this.  I have to say that I long for it too – for you, for me. . . for us!

 

Questions:  Are there people you look down on?  What forms the basis of that “looking down?”  When you hold that justification up to the Cross, what happens?  What about the other way around – are there people you consider to be “better than” you.  How does the basis for that judgement hold up to the Cross?

 

Prayer:  God, purge toxic comparisons from our heart and mind.  We want the life you designed for us to live together – no more and no less.  Make us the true Body of Christ! Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for people who are struggling to find employment right now. 

 

Song:  The Wonderful Cross – Matt Redman & Chris Tomlin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylihJUH0gP4  

Faithing Together

 

Hebrews 10:19-25 - Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus,  by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh),  and since we have a great priest over the house of God,  let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.  Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful.  And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds,  not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

 

Continuing to talk about fostering our faith, I call your attention to v. 25 (in bold and underlined) above.  If you have listened to me for any length of time, you have heard me say in different ways that our faith is not primarily an individual faith.  We need to do our faithing with other people.  One of the reasons for this is that we have a really hard time sustaining our faith by ourselves.  But if I practice my faith and talk about my faith and serve with my faith all with other people, all of sudden, it becomes easier.  You all know my favorite thing about being a pastor is teaching.  One of the many reasons I love it so much is that having to teach has done more to grow my faith than anything else I do.  Knowing that I have to teach faith and preach faith with others “makes” me grow my faith.  If you want to grow your faith, make yourself responsible to others for living your faith out loud. 

“Not neglecting to meet together.”  This phrase has definitely taken on new meaning in the wake of a pandemic.  Meeting together right now has been a habit that has been broken for many.  Hugs, handshakes, holding hands, and the like are still a bit awkward.  Singing and hearing others sing around you has never sounded better to me.  Noticing the lady in the row in front of you on her phone and the kid crawling under the pew.  Teenagers whispering a little too loud (By the way, I was that teenager many moons ago).  People giving me a hard time about not wearing a robe or for wearing a robe.  Hearing a “Hmmm” when I say something during the message that makes someone think.  Hearing people laugh.  Watching people’s faces during prayer (I admit it . . .I do that sometimes).  I cherish it all more now.   Meeting together is essential.

I’m going to be honest here.  We gotta fight for this one right now.  We took for granted the built-in gatherings each week that helped us practice our faith together.  In order to do it now, we gotta work for it.  We might have to call someone when you hate talking on the phone.  We might have to learn a technology that we swore we’d never learn so that we can see other Christian faces.  We might even have to handwrite a letter to someone to connect in a deeper way.  But let’s not fool ourselves.  There ARE ways for us to “meet together” even when we can’t meeting together is strained.  But we have to really work for it. 

I have had some really good conversations over the last tow years with people I could not physically be with.  I have connected deeply with people who have emailed or texted me back and forth.  I felt the Holy Spirit connecting us across distance and time while I was leading online communion this past week.    I have connected with friends and family on Zoom when I would have never done that before.  I like to say it’s all been good.  It hasn’t. At times, it is really frustrating.  I find myself crying more often than I did before.  It’s hard work.  But you know what.  I can’t find any scripture that tells me, “faith is easy.”  (Just in case you’re thinking about quoting Matthew 11:28-30 to me, that’s not what Jesus was trying to say 😉).  Let’s take what we learned over the last two years and do it in addition to our coming back together. 

One of my Facebook friends said a while back “I’ve said this a thousand times and will say it a thousand more. If you don’t have a tribe you need one.”  It is so true!  You will always need a tribe – a group that you share life with, get support from, lean on from time to time, AND, practice your faith with. If you’re reading this and you don’t have a tribe, join us.  You can find us at hernandoumcfl.com  every Sunday at 10:00am in person or streaming on Youtube.    If not us, find another tribe. You need one.

 

Prayer:  God, we at HUMC are blessed with a wonderful, loving, crazy and quirky tribe.  Help us to stay connected to our tribe and see our faith grow in the process.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for your tribe or tribes today.

 

Song:  Come Together (Third Day) If you don’t like screaming guitars, at least read the lyrics to this one. I’ve listed them below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv6UMX-yA5U

You can all call me crazy

For the things that I might say

You can laugh all you want to

I know there will come a day

When we all will come together

And learn to set aside our hate

If we could learn to love our neighbors

Just like we would love ourselves

We've got to come together

'Cause in the end we can make it - alright

We've got to brave the weather

Through all of the storms

We've got to come together

'Cause in the end we can make it - alright

We've got to learn to love

You can call me a dreamer

But these dreams will come true

Yes, I am a firm believer

In the things that we can do

If we would all just come together

And let the Lord lead our way

There is nothing that we can't do

There is nothing we can't face

I know that there will come a day

When the Lord will call His own away

To a place that He has made for all of us

But until the day of His return

There's a lesson that we've got to learn

We are brothers and we're sisters

We are one

Forgiving is Good for You. . .Really (Part 2)

Matthew 6:12-15, NASB - And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.  And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.’ For if you forgive other people for their offenses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive other people, then your Father will not forgive your offenses.

 

                We pick up today where we left off yesterday with the discussion of self-serving reasons that learning to forgive is good for you.  Yesterday we touched on the physical, relational, emotional, and mental benefits of the practice of forgiving. Today, we add the spiritual dimension.  Forgiving others is good for your relationship with God and refusing to forgive hinders your relationship with God.  However, the correlation doesn’t work the way many people think.  Many read the scripture above and take from that God withholds God’s forgiveness if we don’t forgive others.  In other words, God’s forgiveness is conditional.  That is NOT what this passage is saying.  Just to be clear – God’s forgiveness is NOT conditional.  Let’s take a closer look. 

There is a principle that has been demonstrated over and over and which all of us should recognize and begin to live into.  What you focus on, you get more of.  This extends to spiritual disciplines as well.  If you are angry much of the time, you will receive anger most of the time.  If you act in judgmental ways, you will find yourself being judged.  If you are free with your condemnation of others, you will find yourself being condemned.    The apostle Paul said it this way:

 

“Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life.”                      Galatians 6:7-8

 

So, for a moment today, I encourage you to focus on your experience of being forgiven.  The reason for that is you need that experience as a basis to practice forgiving others.  In a surprising way that I hope you all have or will experience, the opposite is true as well.  As you practice forgiving others, your own experience of being forgiven deepens and expands.  That’s why Jesus, Paul, and forgiveness teachers in every tradition teach about the profound connection between forgiving and being forgiven.  One does not exist without the other. 

God forgives us first (Eph 4:32), then we begin to forgive others and ourselves. This leads to a deeper experience of God’s forgiveness. This empowers us to better be able to forgive others and ourselves.  The cycle repeats. The cycle repeats again.  Forgiveness grows in us and in the world.  That’s how it supposed to work.  Forgiveness is a conspiracy of God’s scandalous love.  It turns the Old Testament notion of “eye for an eye” upside down.  That’s why I call it a revolution – a forgiveness revolution.

However, the revolution goes nowhere without our participation, without our practice.  That’s why I consider forgiveness a spiritual discipline.  One aspect of a discipline is that you do it even when you don’t feel like it because, somewhere way deeper than your feelings, you know it’s good for you.  This conviction that it’s good for you grows as you do it – you begin to actually feel the benefits after you been doing it while.  This feeling reinforces and inspires you to move even deeper into the discipline – thus someone who couldn’t even run a mile at one time completes a marathon.  The practice of forgiveness is like that too.

But at first, if you’re like me, you really don’t want to do it and furthermore, it doesn’t seem like it would be good for you.   Even with the experience of BEING forgiven under your belt, turning around and forgiving others doesn’t seem attractive.  God can forgive because God is, well. . . God.  Ah, but let me plant a thought in your mind before I sign off until tomorrow. 

 

Question:  Remember a time when you knew that either God or someone else had forgiven you.  Connect with how that affected you physically, emotionally and spiritually.  To the extent you were able to make that connection, how are you now more ready to forgive others?

 

Prayer:  God, thank you for your forgiveness.  Help us begin to understand why you forgive so that we may begin to forgive as well. Amen

 

Song:  I’m Not Who I Was – Brandon Heath

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rqj9ACL5fNQ