Can We Be Good? - Part 3 (Conclusion)

The text of my sermon on 29th March, 2020.
The Scripture this is based on is Romans 8:6-11

I have two questions to conclude with:

Did God really say? And, Is all this fair?

Did God really say? This is the doubt Satan sows. It worked splendidly with Eve, so why abandon a winning formula? Did God really say human nature is wicked? Did God really say you’re sinful? Did God really say only He is good? If I think I’m a good person who doesn’t need God, that’s the devil whispering, Did God really say? If I think Jesus didn’t need to die for me because I’m innocent, that’s the devil whispering, Did God really say? If I think Jesus isn’t the only way to God, that’s the devil whispering, Did God really say? If I think there’s a kingdom of darkness for bad people, a kingdom of Heaven for Christians, but there’s a middle ground for good non-Christians, that’s the devil whispering, Did God really say? It seems naive and nasty that nice, decent people who don’t believe in Jesus, are God’s enemies who can’t please Him. But Paul lays that on thick (and therefore I am compelled to do the same). This should lead us to preach the gospel to give those who are out the chance to get in.

The second question: Is all this fair? Is it fair that I’m condemned because my ancestors sinned? Is it fair I live in a messed up world because someone I never met ate some fruit? Is it fair that God condemns me for being human, something I can’t help? Is it fair that God gets the blame for bad things that happen in the world? Is it fair that He who gives us life and everything good is maligned, dismissed, disobeyed? Is it fair that Jesus died on a cross for our sins, though He’d done no wrong? Is it fair that I get to spend eternity with God when I don’t deserve to?

In every case, no!  A fallen world isn’t fair. We can’t make it fair. We’re wholly inadequate to do it in a just way. God has a better way than fairness. It’s called grace. Grace is better than fairness. Grace gives what isn’t deserved. For God’s grace, we must be grateful. Fair would see us condemned; grace sees us redeemed. And with the Spirit’s help, we should live a life of grace.

Can We Be Good? - Part 2 (Living By The Spirit)

The text of my sermon on 29th March, 2020.
The Scripture this is based on is Romans 8:6-11

LIVING BY THE SPIRIT

What’s this mean? Sounds vague and weird. The good news is: “To be controlled by the Spirit results in life and peace.” I suggested what being controlled by human nature means. Being controlled by the Holy Spirit is the opposite. The desire to do right, to obey God, exalt God, to put Him in the centre, follow His standard of what’s good, follow His way, to love Him. Paul expressed it in Romans 12:1-2. “Offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to his service and pleasing to him. This is the true worship that you should offer. Do not conform yourselves to the standards of this world, but let God transform you inwardly by a complete change of your mind.” Watch many tv programmes and you see the standards of the world. Social media can be toxic. Some newspapers and magazines push ungodliness. These influence people much more than the church does. Even Christians fill their heads with junk all week and in normal times we’re supposed to counteract that in one hour on a Sunday! We need to be discerning over whose agenda we let drive us. We can read Christian books, the Bible, and listen to Christian radio and podcasts as a corrective. The resources online are vast. In Galatians 5:19-26, Paul gives as practical a contrast of living by human nature and living by the Spirit as you can get: “What human nature does is quite plain. It shows itself in immoral, filthy, and indecent actions; in worship of idols and witchcraft. People become enemies and they fight; they become jealous, angry, and ambitious. They separate into parties and groups; they are envious, get drunk, have orgies, and do other things like these. I warn you now as I have before: those who do these things will not possess the Kingdom of God. But the Spirit produces love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, and self-control. There is no law against such things as these. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have put to death their human nature with all its passions and desires. The Spirit has given us life; he must also control our lives. We must not be proud or irritate one another or be jealous of one another.”

Paul was confident his Roman recipients were living by the Spirit, rather than human nature. The Spirit lives in the Christian. The evidence of that should be recognisable to everyone else. We must, however, not view people as mere dummies, controlled by inside or outside forces. We have wills. We can choose. We have no excuses. We can’t say, “It’s not my fault. I was born this way.” Our wills were bent, we were “slaves to sin”, but we’re not without guilt. But in Christ is forgiveness and hope, and if the Holy Spirit is within, we’ve been freed to do what pleases God. 

Paul encourages us to use this freed free will to cooperate with the Spirit (in Philippians 2:12-13): “Keep on working with fear and trembling to complete your salvation, because God is always at work in you to make you willing and able to obey his own purpose.” This is what we do when we obey God’s commands - and the Spirit helps us. He makes us want to. He makes us able to. We’re not trying to prettify our human nature; we’re to live out the divine nature.

Our bodies still die because of sin. We’re forgiven in Christ, but that consequence is inescapable. However, those who live in the Spirit, those in whom the Spirit lives, will rise from death as Christ did. Our dead bones will live again. We’ll be raised on the last day. (1 Corinthians 15:42-44:) “What is sown is perishable; it is raised imperishable. It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.” You will throw away that walking stick. You will rise out of that wheelchair. The cancer will be gone forever. No more sickness in the next life.

Whoever believes in Jesus never dies. The body dies, but the person doesn’t. We’re more than bodies. And the body will be raised to pain free, sin free life on the last day!

Can We Be Good? - Part 1 (What's so bad about human nature?)

The text of my sermon on 29th March, 2020.
The Scripture this is based on is Romans 8:6-11

Introduction

Who thinks they’re a good person? Most people? I expect that’s a reasonable assumption. I found a website with tips on being good. (I’m listing the main points here.) Determine what being a good person means to you personally. Choose a role model. Stop comparing yourself to others. Love yourself. Be yourself. Pray and/or meditate. Make small changes. Review your goals every day. This is part 1 of 3.  There are 16 more tips, but that would be tedious. There are good and bad pieces of advice here from a Christian perspective. Well, mostly bad, if I’m honest. What if I decide a good person kills infidels and my role model is Osama bin Laden?

I’m focusing on our reading from Romans 8, a superficial reading of which suggests Paul wouldn’t be so hopeful about becoming good, because human nature stinks. But why does it stink?

WHAT’S SO BAD ABOUT HUMAN NATURE?

From our reading alone:

To be controlled by it results in death

To be controlled by it makes you an enemy of God

If you obey it, you can’t please God

That’s a bit of a blow. Can human nature be improved by a few tweaks? In Jeremiah 17:9, the Lord states: “Who can understand the human heart? There is nothing else so deceitful; it is too sick to be healed.” In Genesis 6:5-6 we’re told: “When the Lord saw how wicked everyone on earth was and how evil their thoughts were all the time, he was sorry that he had ever made them and put them on the earth.” Isaiah 53: “All of us were like sheep that were lost, each of us going his own way.” Isaiah 64:6: “All of us have been sinful; even our best actions are filthy through and through.” Depressing stuff.

And yet, it didn’t start out this way. Human nature began good! God gave mankind everything to enjoy except the fruit from one tree, on pain of death. You’d think man would‘ve got on enjoying everything else but no, Satan’s little helper spoiled the party. Did God REALLY say you mustn’t eat the fruit from that tree? Nasty, selfish, spiteful God! He doesn’t want you to be like Him! Of course, snakyboy didn’t address Adam, to whom God had actually given that command. He approached Eve, who only had Adam’s word for it. She chose to ignore Adam and disobey God. When Adam saw Eve had disobeyed God, he didn’t say, “Eve, you silly moo, what have you gone and done?” He said; “Pah! Eve’s not dead! I’m having me some of that fruit!” He trusted Eve instead of God. He walked by sight and not by faith. God confronted them. What did they do? Adam blamed God for creating Eve in the first place. Eve said, “the devil made me do it!”

Thus human nature went bad. Disobeying God. Not trusting that God had humanity’s best interests at heart. Blaming God and others for the wrong we’ve done. Blaming the devil when we sin. From this flows all manner of evil through the millennia. The logic of “how to be a good person” is flawed. Jesus said, “There is no one good but God.” 

Barack Obama once said, “You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.” A more attractive pig, perhaps, but nonetheless a pig. In the same way, putting lipstick on human nature won’t stop it being faulty. It’s better for society if people are “good”. The current apparent upsurge in volunteering and neighbourliness should demonstrate that. But it doesn’t put us right with God.

What’s it mean to be “controlled” by human nature? It’s the compulsion to do wrong, to disobey God, to blame everyone else, to put yourself in the centre, to set up your own standard of what’s good, to go your own way, love your bad self, set your heart on being bad. It’s a question of “where’s your head at?” The body follows the mind’s lead. Fill the mind with trash and the body will jump into the dustbin and wallow in it.

“And so people become enemies of God when they are controlled by their human nature; for they do not obey God's law, and in fact they cannot obey it.” We can’t serve two masters. We will love one and hate the other. We can’t deliberately, continually choose to disobey God, and at the same time love God. That’s the kind of self-deception of the man who has multiple affairs but claims “I love my wife”. 

Christians face a battle within. We don’t, I say with confidence, set out to disobey God or do wrong with no qualms at all. We seek to do the right things but sometimes fail. Paul felt this. “I am a mortal, sold as a slave to sin.” “I know that good does not live in me—that is, in my human nature.” “My inner being delights in the law of God. But I see a different law at work in my body—a law that fights against the law which my mind approves of. It makes me a prisoner to the law of sin which is at work in my body. What an unhappy man I am!” The solution to this? “Who will rescue me from this body that is taking me to death? Thanks be to God, who does this through our Lord Jesus Christ!” Even if we agree that what God wants us to do is right, and we don’t deliberately set out to be bad, we may still fail. But in such a case, Jesus pleads our cause.

Human nature says with Pharaoh, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey him?” The Christian says, “I want to obey God but I’m battling this broken human nature and I don’t always win. Lord, have mercy on me!” If I want to obey God, but don’t always do it, it’s not me, it’s sin in me. Sounds like a cop out, but this is Paul’s teaching. This should be a comfort when we sin, not an excuse to do wrong. 

Image by Chetan Dhongade from Pixabay
https://pixabay.com/illustrations/good-vs-bad-evil-vs-good-2389058/