Worshipping the Real Thing

Psalm 1; Luke 6:17-26; 1st Corinthians 15:12-20

Central Baptist Church, Lowesville, VA

11 February 2007

Our food is filled with artificial colors, sweeteners, and flavorings. Technology advances fill our lives with artificial lighting, artificial climate, artificial organs, and artificial reality TV shows. Media portrays artificial conversation, love, and life as though the artificial were reality. Have we lost touch with real living in all this artificiality? Do we remember what life was created to be? Is the Jesus we call Lord and less artificial than all these projections of fake reality?

It is easy to take the psalmist’s words as comforting, obvious, and lacking much sense of challenge. It is quite another thing altogether to take these words as directed at our daily living. As the Psalmist calls us to evaluate our lives, where do we find direction for our daily decisions, dreams, and ambitions?

We stand at a different place than the Hebrews of old. We come to issues of religion, theology, doctrine, and salvation from an assumption that there is a distinction to be made between the secular and the sacred. We hold to God’s word, seeking guidance from God on issues that pertain to the sacred. We use the Bible for discussion doctrine, salvation, and issues of eternity. When it comes to education, career decisions, business practices, and entertainment, we look elsewhere for guidance, turning to God to bless the decisions we make elsewhere. Is this how the psalmist would have us live? Can we call Jesus Lord without living the whole of our lives as he calls us to live?

Seventeen years ago this weekend, I asked Karen to marry me. As we talked about marriage, we did not relegate it to a subset of our lives. We thought of marriage as essential and integral to all our living. Not that we always lived up to it, but the proposal was that we share each other’s lives wholly and completely. We pledged to care for one another in sickness, encourage one another in ministry, and rely on one another through the uncertainties of life. We did not consider marriage a definition of chore division, sleeping arrangements, and economics. We discussed sharing our lives with one another. It is a far cry, however, from talking of such and accomplishing the same. Karen accepted my proposal with the understanding that neither of us should shut the other out of any part of our lives. So Christ calls us to make his Lordship in our lives complete. Are we comfortable with Jesus on Jesus’ terms as Lord?

Paul writes of things which we easily accept as abstract expressions of fact. It is little stretch for us to recognize the gospel message of Jesus’ death on the cross, burial, and resurrection to life. We have heard the story time and time again, such that it loses any impact it should have upon our daily routines. For the Corinthians, the resurrection was a live issue that still needed to be settled. It was the hinge pin of the gospel, as far as Paul was concerned. The resurrection was God’s final proof that Jesus was indeed God and his message was worthy of complete acceptance. The resurrection mattered so much more than as a question of historical fact. The resurrection gave purpose and meaning to the gospel. It changed lives such as Paul’s.

Paul had gone from persecutor of believers to ambassador for the gospel of grace through Christ Jesus. In his new role, making Christ Jesus lord was a matter of course. He understood there might be jailings and beatings in store for him. He understood that the message of the gospel and Jesus’ claim on his life came at a cost. The resurrection was not an abstract concept, but a reality of God’s intervention in the lives of believers. It was the hope on which he built his new life of trusting God’s grace. Paul understood what redemption had cost God. Do our lives evidence the value God placed on our redemption?

We are comfortable speaking of the sacrifices that our armed forces make in the name of freedom. We are quick to applaud their courage, investment, and risk to engender freedom. Our youth find encouragement as they look to our servicemen as heroes and models after which to patter their lives. We are less comfortable speaking of those who sacrifice to advance the cause of Christ Jesus. Sure, we raise offerings for the cause of missions around the globe. The sacrifice of believers to advance God’s reign, however, does not take hold of our imagination in the same way. We somehow do not see a personal connection to sacrifice for advancing the gospel. Rather than consider the benefit to others, we focus our attention on benefit to ourselves and protecting our way of life. Jesus preached and lived an ethic of living for the benefit of others. Is that too much for us?

Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount has attracted the imagination of people all over the world and across the centuries. Many interpretations of his words have been offered as Jesus’ teaching has been repeated around the world. Each interpretation would call us to a higher ethic of living than we might otherwise choose for ourselves. Even so, most interpretations of Jesus’ words fail to embrace the way Jesus applied his words to his own life.

We live with concern for what others will think of us, rather than living for an audience of One. We live for material prosperity, friendship, advancement, and all the other priorities of our society. Jesus’ words do not find much connection among such priorities. He taught us to live according to the principles of heaven alone. What is worse, he actually lived according to the dictates of his teaching.

While the disciples attempted to distract Jesus from the purpose of the gospel, he held steadfast to the course that God had charted for our redemption. Jesus preached mercy, then displayed mercy at every opportunity. Jesus exalted the poor and needy in word, then attended to their needs in his actions. Jesus spoke blessing for the hungry, then he fed crowds gathered to hear his words. Jesus spoke of comfort, then intervened in lives devoid of comfort. Jesus called for rejoicing over persecution because of righteousness, then accepted persecution as a matter of course in following God’s will. He spoke of loving one’s enemies, then demonstrated love by giving his life that we might fellowship with God forever. Are we willing to take Jesus at his word and in the character of deeds?

It is tempting to reinterpret Jesus to propose some artificial gospel of our own creation. It is tempting to relegate the kind of sacrifice Jesus mentioned to a more violent past—a context we have moved beyond. Yet even our artificial accounts of reality recognize that our comfortable world grows increasingly more violent and like those lesser humane societies of our past. Should we interpret Jesus’ words differently from the way he lived them?

We live with the option of creating our own realities. We live with the supposed possibilities of transforming the world through technology, ambition, education, and progress. Among the opportunities to create new realities in our present and future, will we accept serving Christ Jesus as the ultimate reality of our lives? Will we serve the real Jesus, or Jesus as we wish him to be? If we settle for some artificial version of Christ, what do we do with the One who died and rose again? Will an artificial Jesus fulfill our need for an eternal redemption?

—©2007 Christopher B. Harbin