Serenity and wholeness in life with God Steps 6 and 7

Pentecost 17 year B Sermon Mt 21:28-31  

In the powerful parable you just heard…Jesus becomes the ultimate prophet…speaking truth to the powerful…

telling them off without fear or favour…
shining the harsh light of truth…into the very heart of religious authority…and exposing the emptiness there.

What they say they believe…just doesn’t match what they do.

They collude with the Romans…they extort money from the poor…they exclude the sick and the unclean and the sinner from their tables and the Temple…so when Jesus popularity grows …they’re defensive and suspicious and full of self-justification

Like the second son in Jesus’ parable…the priests say they’re prepared… to play their part in bringing about the reign of God…but somehow they just don’t get around to it…

…something is missing… a condition of the heart and mind and spirit…is missing. And Jesus the storyteller… wants us to see it’s obvious the priests lack something…but what? [pause]

In their heart of hearts…they lack the willingness…
to change…to turn…to repent…

Against this background listen again to Jesus’ parable

blank slide
“What do you think? Jesus says. There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son I need you to go to work in the vineyard today…

Nah…I don’t really feel like it…
the first son replies from under the blankets and pulls his pillow over his head…but later he changes his mind and goes out to work.

And then the father goes to the other son to ask the same thing. Sure Dad…says the other son…all smiles…
but he doesn’t go to work.

Which of the two did what his Dad wanted? Jesus asks the priests

And gritting their teeth the priest answer…snarkily…
… ‘The first son’.

Well if you’re right Jesus says… the truth is tax collectors and the prostitutes… are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.  

Remember when my cousin John came… to you to show you the way of righteousness? You didn’t believe him…
but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did.

And even after you saw this, you didn’t repent and believe him. You had no change of heart…you weren’t willing to change. [pause]

And that’s the key to today’s message on the sixth step…
a change of heart…a transformation…a conversion of will…
a willing heart…

sunset slide 12 Steps

For the past five weeks, we’ve explored steps toward serenity and wholeness...in life with God.

So far…we’ve learned five out of twelve spiritual tools
which come from the life and teachings of Jesus…

slide words wisdom

In the first…we gain the wisdom to discern …
what we can and can’t control.

slide words restoration next we seek the
restoration and wholeness …only God can bring

slide words surrender

in step three we surrender our will and our lives over to the care of God… praying in every situation …
to be open to God’s guidance…

And then with the faith and courage we’ve gained…

Slide words reflection

we began to reflect honestly… and fearlessly… on our own motives and actions…past and present…good and bad.

Word slide

And last week exploring the fifth step…we brought the whole unvarnished truth about ourselves into the light… in the act of Holy Confession. Admitting to ourselves…to God…and at least one person we could trust…the exact nature of our wrongs

Five out of twelve so far… each new step of faith…
building on the spiritual foundation of the one before…

Slide step six

And so today we arrive at step six…willingness to change…

And become entirely ready… to submit to every change
God wants to make in our character.

As Jesus said on the mountain top…

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.

Blank slide

we looked fearlessly in the mirror…we placed our entire lives under scrutiny…and we’ve fallen to our knees before God …confessing where we’ve missed the mark… [pause]

And now the rubber hits the road… on the path to serenity and wholeness in life with God…

Now we must be willing to let God change us…to allow God to remove every defect in our character that gets in the road of God’s kingdom…now we must be ready… entirely ready…
for God to re-shape in us whatever is necessary…
for God’s will to be done…

Oh dear…where do we start…

Well of course we already have a great blueprint of our character… having taken the fourth step… the inventory we made of our lives… past and our present…good and bad.

Hopefully …in taking stock of our lives…
we’ve already compared our behaviour and our motives …
to the standard set by Jesus in his sermon on the mount, and in the first and second greatest commandments…not to mention the ten targets Moses brought down from Mt Sinai. Maybe we even looked for the fruits of the spirit in our lives
as we assessed the good we’ve done…

Because we’ve taken the fourth and fifth steps…we can now see ourselves clearly…and trusting in God’s grace…
we’ve confessed our sins without fear…so what’s the problem [pause]

Well if you’re anything like me…when it comes right down to it …there are some ways of relating… to other people and to God you just don’t want to stop…even if they do fall short of the mark. Let’s face it…there are some shortcomings...we don’t really want to let go…

And so we won’t let God near them…

I was thinking about this yesterday morning after breakfast when Reg and I were sharing our devotions…I was impatient to get on with it so I could start working on my sermon...

Now remember patience is a fruit of the Spirit…

and what is its opposite? [ask]

You got it…

Well most of the time when I feel impatient… my agenda becomes paramount…when this happens I want to manage other people’s time…and the people in this case is my husband.

the problem with this strategy is I spend so much time looking at the clock and hinting for Reg to hurry up…I actually slow down the process…and I annoy…yes I admit it…I annoy and frustrate my darling husband…

So yesterday morning when I was tempted…and I say tempted on purpose…when I was tempted to be impatient…
I decided to practise step six…and I prayed for the willingness to give up my impatience.

I brought my relationship with God into consciousness.
I prayed and it worked… I stopped seeing Reg as an obstacle to meeting my schedule…and began to see him clearly again as the man I love… and we finished in plenty of time.
.

Step six was good for my relationship with Reg and my relationship with God.

Another way to look at this… is when I’m focussed only
on getting where I want to go…anything that gets in the road looks like a stumbling block…Reg becomes a thing…
an object in the way…

and the entirety of Jesus teaching…is that people aren’t objects …they’re all brothers and sisters made in the image of God…

When I take step six…and willingly give God room to work
on my motives and behaviour…naming my impatience …suddenly I can see Reg clearly…as a person loved by God and by me.

When we take step six… we become willing to see others…
not as objects but as people with needs, and cares and fears as real as our own. We can’t sin against an object…

I’ll bet when you finally complete your inventory and are confessing to God just how you missed the mark

I’ll bet you’ll be able to see…amongst all the good things…of course… just how often and how easily you saw others as objects to be used…or as obstacles to getting what you want…
I certainly saw that in mine.

Whenever we view a person or a group or even a nation as an object…well we fall short of the glory of God.
What’s scary is that most of the time
we have no idea we’re doing it…

And when zoom out… from the picture of our own lives…
to view what’s happening around the world …
we discover this objectification I’m talking about

is as the heart of all war…

See how it works… a small group of misguided Christians betray the teaching of Jesus by making the prophet Mohammad an object of ridicule…

in revenge… crowds of angry Muslims attack the objects of their rage…

In relation to those made in the image of God…
objectification of any kind is diabolical.

We don’t forgive objects …do we…
we don’t show mercy to objects…

Objects aren’t interested in the truth so we don’t have to be honest with them. It doesn’t matter if we betray them or laugh at them or label them…we don’t have to care…how objects feel or what they need…. And we certainly don’t have to negotiate with them… or be reconciled to them or ask their forgiveness.

Objects can be discarded when they’re no longer useful …
or productive… or beautiful.

With a clear conscience we can trade them in for something else that will better meet our needs. If they’re in the way we can just step over them or kick them out of the road.

No matter what we do… to or with an object…
there are no relational consequences…it doesn’t matter…

Objects don’t matter…

But people do…

So Jesus comes to reveal the truth about how God sees humanity…not as playthings or possessions…or rubbish to be thrown on the fire…How God sees the nations…not as religious chess pieces but as homelands where people live and work and love

Jesus reveals the truth about us too…that we’re created for relationship…with God and with each other.

And today… now that you’re learning about step six…
and I hope considering what it might mean
for you to become entirely ready… to submit to every change God wants to make in your character…now that you’ve come this far

I’m going to give you a bonus…every time you take step six every time you become really willing…

well then it’s ok to take step seven…

Word slide Step 7.

All you have to do

is consent to God’s work in you…
and humbly ask God

to remove your shortcomings. Let us pray