His Burden is Light (Sermon 11-7-10)

I wish this was the version of the sermon I preached this morning. 
Unfortunately, whereas this is the finished product, this morning's 
version was the rough draft, a rough draft which, sadly, probably 
sounded too much like law, though my expressed intent was to go 
in another direction... 
God willing I will do better at Chapel on Wednesday.
----------------------
1 John 5:1-5
In addition to keeping a blog, I check a lot of blogs. Blogs are a quick, easy way to access informative opinions from a broad scope of perspectives. Sometimes it seems like everyone has a blog anymore, and while that can be tiresome, it also means that, in addition to the “isn’t it so great, my baby said ‘poop’ for the first time” type blogs out there, there’s also a load of good theologically oriented blogs out there as well.

A number of the blogs I check are from theological streams outside of my own. I try to keep tabs on just about everybody, whether Methodist, Lutheran, Anglican, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, pretty much everyone aside from the Baptist, because who cares what’s going on with the Baptists? Only kidding of course.
I find, however, that the blogs I check back on most frequently are the ones kept by former professors of mine. I’m five, almost five and half, years out of college, and I still look to many of these men for guidance on some of the tougher issues of the faith. Many of the teachers which I sat under were very intelligent, and very wonderful examples of the faith.

So, after last Sunday, having preached on my own experience at Indiana Wesleyan with regards to the teaching of holiness and sanctification, highlighting how that experience pushed me in the direction of Lutheranism, I found it interesting that one of my former professors posted that same day a note with this heading: “Why Holiness is such a hard sell.”

Holiness, as I mentioned last week, is the call to the believer to live a holy life, to live a life defined by our love for God and our love for our neighbor. Last week we spent some time talking about how holiness is a product, not a prerequisite, of our relationship with God, how God has to love us first.
We also talked about how that love is unfailing in it’s determination to love sinners where we are at, in spite of ourselves.

And yet, it’s not difficult to see why someone might be concerned that the pursuit of holiness has fallen on hard times. With the rampant pluralism in American Christianity, it’s difficult enough to convince people that Jesus is the only way to the way to the Father, the peace of Paradise, and future resurrection, much less that He actually intends to do something in your life between now and then.

Bonhoeffer, the famous Lutheran martyr/political casualty of the Second World War, lamented in his day the preaching of “cheap grace.” Cheap grace, as Bonhoeffer defined it, was grace which “is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline. Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.” Essentially, cheap grace is grace which gives all the promises of Heaven and a Resurrection, but doesn’t have any impact on the actual life of the believer. And in response to this message, Bonhoeffer wrote one of his most famous books, “The Cost of Discipleship.”

Now, as I mentioned, when I was in college I drifted in the Lutheran direction, and Bonhoeffer was one of the first Lutheran authors I read; and at the time, though every other protestant I knew praised it, I absolutely hated “The Cost of Discipleship.” In retrospect I realize that this is because, while for everyone of my relatives and friends who had read it and loved it, this book represented a fine defense of what they already believed, for me, at the time, it was a truth I didn’t want to hear.

That sin, which I had mentioned last week, had stood over me for so long. When I said last week that the Wesleyan pastor’s message, that God couldn’t use you unless you were clean, pure, had struck a chord too deep for me, that was because it hit at some concerns which had already been growing in my mind. You see, according to the way most Wesleyan pastors tend to preach, as opposed to the more moderate approach of the United Methodist Church, entire sanctification, the complete eradication of intentional sin from your life, is in fact the fundamental experience of Christianity. Thus, if you have not experienced it already, by implication you are still a “baby Christian,” though I doubt most Wesleyans in the pews would put it that way.

During that time, not only the fact of the sin being there, laden with guilt, crushed me, but the implications crushed me as well. Thus, when that word of forgiveness, the ability to “know God as a pardoning God” as Wesley himself put it, sank in, the relief was immense. However, this relief, this new-found truth, as much of a divine blessing as it was, carried with it it’s own unique set of dangers which I would have to face.

As with most people who “discover” Luther in the same way that he “discovered” the Gospel, people who “discover” a truth which had been outside their frame of reference but always been around, I went through what they call an “antinomian phase.” Antinomianism is a fancy Latin word meaning “against the law.”

You see, most people who, having been believers for a while, discover that they were not embracing the full weight of the Gospel, the full truth that, as we read last week, “this is love, not that we loved God but that He loved us,” have a tendency to all the sudden veer slightly off-track for a little while. Once a person recognizes that there is nothing they can do which can earn them salvation, they typically decide that they’re going to stop doing anything at all. “I don’t need to earn my salvation, so why bother?” They ask. They often, or at least this was my experience, begin occasionally doing things which they know their fellow believers wouldn’t approve of, just to show how “great” their faith is.

Hand in hand with this, they begin to reject any call to holy behavior as a return to “the law” and “salvation by works,” and feel very pious in showing how boldly they can sin while yet believing in Christ more boldly still. In essence, while their spiritual nature heard and found consolation in the forgiveness of their sins, their carnal nature heard and latched onto what sounds like a free pass.

This is the very sort of behavior, of course, that Paul begins to address in Romans 6. The line of reasoning flows like this: when we were in sin, grace abounded, we were captured by that love of God for us in His forgiveness. He showed great grace, great power, by forgiving us, even though we were sinners. Shouldn’t we go on sinning that such grace may continue to show forth? To which Paul responds, in modern parlance, “Are you an idiot?”

You see, eventually it dawns on such people, myself included, that something’s not working here. Something isn’t meshing right. You may perceive yourself to be living in freedom, but that freedom doesn’t seem to be at all like the type of life which the Bible describes the Christian as having, and furthermore, it doesn’t seem to be the sort of life you actually want to live if given the chance.

All of a sudden, certain new sins have crept in which have made your life more miserable rather than more fun. You realize that you don’t want to just be freed from the guilt of your sins, but from your sins themselves.
And here, John, along with Paul, would want to step in and say, “that is exactly what God intends to do.” John already told us in chapter one that as we continue to confess our sins Jesus will continue to 1.) forgive us, and 2.) purify us.

But to such a person, in such a defeated mode, when they hear the word from John that to love God is to obey His commandments, to love each other, they can’t help but hear with it the echoes of their former view, their old attempts eradicate their sin by strength of will. And when John tells him that God’s commandments are not burdensome, they might be inclined to backtalk John a bit. “Have you seen that hurdle, John? Do you know what you’re saying?” They might ask. “Of course it’s burdensome, in fact it’s so burdensome, that it’s downright impossible.”

To such a person John might say “whoa, hold on a minute, let’s look at what we’re working with before you just hang it up. First,” as he tells us in the first verse, “you have been born of God.” No two ways about it here either. It’s not “If you believe that Jesus is the Christ you may have been born of God,” or “If you believe that Jesus is the Christ there’s a chance that it means you’ve been born of God.” No, “If you believe that Jesus is the Christ, you HAVE BEEN BORN OF GOD” period.

Second, if you have been born of God, you are conquering, overcoming, this world, this system of sin and death. “For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world,” verse 4. No clauses, no ifs, ands, or buts. Difficult as it may be to believe, if we have been born of God, we can overcome anything the world throws at us.

And for that soul that may at this point want to cry out “Works! Works!” John says, third, that this is how it is done: by faith. As he says “And this is the victory that has overcome the world— our faith.” Do you see the implication there? How are we saved, justified, pardoned, and freed from guilt? By faith. How do we overcome the world, sins, addictions, weaknesses, and troubles? By faith. Neither is something gained by works, both are the gifts of grace which can only be received by faith.

It all happens because of God’s love which loves us first, and because of that love we love in return. Love does funny things to people. It motivates you in strange ways. When I was growing up, my parents did their best to instill in me good values, good morals. But try as they might, one thing which they could never get to stick was a good work ethic. I hated work. In school, if it didn’t interest me, I didn’t bother. At work, if I could do without the money, I’d call in sick.

And, of course, after I got out of college, there were minor improvements. Once I had a job that I cared about and enjoyed, I was less likely to call in as often. But, deep down, there wasn’t any fundamental change in me as a person. I still didn’t care much if I was there or not. Then, one day, Erin and I received some very wonderful, and yet very scary news. We were going to be parents. In the blink of an eye, now, instead of being responsible for ourselves and knowing that if we didn’t get a bill paid on time or had to eat more ramen for a couple of weeks it wasn’t the end of the world, now we were going to be responsible for someone else; we had been given the duty of loving and taking care of someone completely dependent upon us and our ability to provide for them.

Within a couple weeks I had a new job, one which was tougher and a little scarier, but also had better pay, better benefits, and was more stable. And in the twinkling of an eye, something changed in me. It didn’t matter anymore if I loved what I did for work, what mattered was that, in my mind work equaled love. Working was now one of the chief ways that I was going to love this new baby.

 In the same way, when God's love takes hold of us, we find that we begin, if slowly, to be able to do things we couldn't before; and not only that, but we begin to want to do things that we didn't want to do before.

Something else strange happened that day that we discovered we were going to be parents. I once again realized that the sin which had weighed me down so heavily in college, and which had continued to haunt me after having graduated and moving on into married life, was no longer acceptable. Not because it made it impossible for God to love me. I knew he loved me, and every time I strayed into that sin I asked His forgiveness and strength, trusting that His work on the cross was sufficient to cover my shame. No, it was no longer acceptable because I, as a father, could not allow that to enter into the family life of my child.

And so, initially, I recommitted myself to trying again, just as I had done before. I used accountability partners, I changed my lifestyle, I changed my routine, I did everything I could think of to get rid of this problem. And what do you think happened? If you’re hoping for me to say that I finally did it, I overcame it by just bearing down and putting my mind to it, I’m sorry to say that you’ll be disappointed.

No, rather, I failed again, and failed miserably. There was nothing I could do to overcome it. I tried and tried again to muster up the strength but it did not avail me. Rather, one night, three months into knowing that I was to become a father, I finally, and fully, came to terms with my defeat. I knew there was nothing I could do. And so, instead, that night, rather than praying the prayer which I had often prayed, “Lord I‘m sorry, I‘ll try harder,” instead I prayed honestly and from the heart. “Lord,” I said, “I cannot stop this thing, I have tried, it will not go away. If you want it to stop, you’re going to have to be the one to do it. Cut it out of my life, do through me what I cannot do, or it will never be done. Amen.”

From that night forward, until now, three years later, the Lord by His grace has kept that sin out of my life. I had prayed for strength before, but that night, in place of strength, God gave me grace. He did what I could not do for myself. In the same way that I had been a passive recipient of His love for me in forgiveness, I was a passive recipient, at least in this area, of His holiness. His commandment was no longer a burden.


 As a child, I loved the Chronicles of Narnia. And above all, my favorite book in the series was “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.” Now, in that book, there is a scene in which Eustace, cousin of the main characters, has wandered off on an island, found a cave filled with gold and jewels, and a dead dragon. He put on some of the jewels and a bracelet which he shoved up his arm, then went to sleep. He then discovers the next morning that he has been transformed into a dragon.

 In despair Eustace tries to communicate with those he had traveled with, eventually letting them know what had happened to them by writing it in the sand. Of course, being a dragon, and they being on a ship, it was unlikely that Eustace would be able to continue with them on their journey. He would be stuck as a dragon forever.
One night, Aslan, the Christ figure in the books, comes to Eustace and tells him to follow him. He leads Eustace to a pool, and Eustace latter recounts the story to his friends this way:
“The water was as clear as anything and I thought if I could get in there and bathe it would ease the pain in my leg. but the lion told me I must undress first. Mind you, I don’t know if he said any words out loud or not.

I was just going to say that I couldn’t undress because I hadn’t any clothes on when I suddenly thought that dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can cast their skins. Oh, of course, thought I, that’s what the lion means. So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and , instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after an illness, or as if I was a banana. In a minute or two I just stepped out of it. I could see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty. It was a most lovely feeling. So I started to go down into the well for my bathe.

But just as I was going to put my feet into the water I looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as they had been before. Oh, that’s all right, said I, it only means I had another smaller suit on underneath the first one, and I’ll have to get out of it too. So I scratched and tore again and this underskin peeled off beautifully and out I stepped and left it lying beside the other one and went down to the well for my bathe.

Well, exactly the same thing happened again. And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others, and stepped out of it. But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good.

Then the lion said – but I don’t know if it spoke – ‘You will have to let me undress you.’ I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.

The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know – if you’ve ever picked the scab of a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.

Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off – just as I thought I’d done it myself the other three times, only they hadn’t hurt – and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I was smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me – I didn’t like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I’d no skin on – and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I’d turned into a boy again.”
I wonder if perhaps some of you are there today; maybe you’ve got sins clinging to you that you’ve tried and tried to peel off yourselves, but you just can’t do it. Let Him take them from you. Let Him peel off the years of sins, mistakes, habits, and weaknesses.


One of the Early Church Fathers, one of the few whom everyone seems to have heard of, is St. Augustine. One of the saying which St. Augustine is famous for, which helped to spawn the Pelagian controversy, is “God grant what thou commandest and then command what thou wilt.” In other words, do all that is necessary for me to do what you ask, and then ask whatever you may. In the same way that God loves us who are often not loveable, He fixes us who are not fixable.  It is by faith that we overcome the world.

In response to my former professor, the reason so few seem to heed the call of sanctification, I think, is because so few hear in it the call of the Gospel, the call of a God who loves us first, the call of a God who is for us, the call of a loving Father. But when we do hear it, when we do recognize that it is God and God alone who works this miracle in us, it enables us to trust God not only for our salvation in the hereafter, but our salvation in the here and now.