Emmanuel Church, Bungay, Suffolk

The Minister's Sermons

"I'm not religious, but I lead a Christian life" by Revd Bruce Waldron - 29th May 2005
I want to ask you to think for a moment, about how important it is to you, that your life is OK in God's eyes. If that is important to you, I want to ask you to think about why it's important.
Is it because you understand that God is the final judge and one day, well, actually, when days cease to be a time scale for you, you will have to answer to God, for eternity.
Or perhaps it has more to do with a sense that God is around and has given you the gift of life, so how you use it is important, and God is a part of that process, a part of your existence.
The reason I ask the question is because both of our passages today are about how we are justified in God's eyes. How can we have some confidence that in God's eyes, we are OK.
I think that many people put themselves through a really rough time on this question. They've made mistakes and found themselves in places where they don't think they should have gone. How do I face up to God on this, and I can't get away from God. God knows, and I'm guilty.
Other people find that they haven't done what they know they should have and it weighs like a stone in the shoe, on their mind, all the time. A sense of "Oh Dear! I should not have and I can't undo it."
For some people, there is just a constant feeling of being unworthy, and it plagues them, day and night. Others are quite sure that they are really good people and there is no problem. They are the lucky ones.
Developmental Psychologists like Erikson and Adler tell us that these feelings are very closely tied into our upbringing, whether or not we felt approved of when we were forming our image of ourselves in childhood. Another school of thought runs along the lines that we all internalise our parents so that we have an inner parent who is constantly judging us. The more moral our parents, the harder this inner parent who judges us. Years ago it was called a conscience.
What I want to look at today is how the Christian faith understands this business of our relationship with God and whether it's good or bad.
You've heard the phrase "Stop trying to justify yourself." Its used when a person is trying to say that something they know you think was the wrong thing to do, was actually not anywhere near as wrong as you think because there were other circumstances that meant they were justified in doing what they did, even though they know that you know they shouldn't have.
They want it to be OK in your eyes. They want to feel that they were justified in doing what they did, that they are OK in your estimation.
To be justified in God's eyes is the same thing. It's knowing that you are OK in God's eyes.
How can we find a way to know we are OK in God's eyes. In today's readings, Matthew and Paul tell us in different ways, how we can be justified, in God's eyes. But because it was written a long time ago and for people who had to deal with different issues to us, it sounds complicated and confusing.
I want to try and unconfuse the issue. In his letter to the Christians in Rome, Paul writes that a person is justified in God's sight by faith apart from works. We get the idea that all you have to do is have faith. That is how we are justified in God's eyes, not by works but by faith. Have faith, and the rest will look after itself.
Then we read Matthew Chapter 7, Matthew writing how Jesus once said that unless we actually "do" what Jesus says, when "that day" comes, we won't get into the "kingdom of heaven". It sounds like Paul is batting on a different wicket to Matthew.
Just last week at the Christian Aid service, we heard a reading from James, that says that faith without works is dead. "By my works, I will show my faith," says James. So is James agreeing with Matthew but disagreeing with Paul?
Some people have suggested that the James and Paul represent two sides of an argument going on in the early Christian church about whether people were accepted by God because they had faith in Jesus or because they lived like Jesus said to live. You still hear that argument today sometimes.
How often have you heard someone say "I don't believe in all that Christian religious stuff but I lead a good Christian life." By this they usually mean that they are honest, good to other people and faithful to their family and generally decent people. And sometimes Christian people sound surprised when they tell you that a person who isn't a Christian is a really honest and kind person. "More Christian than I am!" I've heard some really great Christian people say that about their neighbours, their spouse, their children. But what does it mean to be more Christian?
I think it means to be Christlike. When someone says they lead a Christian life, people usually don't mean that they go up on mountain tops to spend nights in prayer. They don't mean that they focus their whole life on "doing the Father's will", that they are prepared to die for the sake of their relationship to God and what it demands of them, or that they are prepared to take on structures that slander God, even if it kills them. They don't usually mean that they walk on water in stormy seas at night or heal lepers.
So, that old statement "I'm not religious but I lead a Christian life," is very selective about what Christian means.
But then, I don't know many people who are able to be Christ like in all respects. I know I'm not. I try to be but I'm not. We mostly make it on some score but fail on another, and sometimes we can be quite blind about the areas we fail in. Because we value certain aspects of being Christian more than others, we tend to concentrate on those things we see as important. By our standards we might even think we live more of a Christian life than another person. But that other person, focusing on what she thinks is important, might have a very different perspective.
Everyone does what is right in their own eyes. In other words, the things that we think are important are the things we probably do. What we miss out on, are the things that other people wish we could see were important.
What is it that Jesus saw as important before he said those difficult words about rejecting some people who think they are good, but God won't know them?
He tells us not to judge people because that's God's business. 7:1 Do not judge so that you won't be judged. He tells us to have faith in God to guide us and to rely on God. 6:32 Do not worry about what to eat or what to wear. Your Father knows you need all these things. Strive first for the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. He tells us to have a pure heart as well as pure actions. He calls us to store up treasures for ourselves in heaven, not on earth. He calls us to love our enemies. Pray for those who use us badly. He calls us to reflect God's love, like he did.
Then finally, Jesus calls this faith. Everything Jesus asks of his followers to do, is based on faith. When Paul talks about works that are useless, he's not talking about this kind of thing at all. He's talking about doing all kinds of ritualistic things that people had to do, supposedly to get God to accept them. He's talking about the absolutely ludicrous idea that unless we are perfect, do everything that Law requires, we are doomed. Paul says, "That won't save you!"
Like Jesus, he knew that what God wants from us is our love and our allegiance. He wants to know us.
We are not going to make it in all aspects. No matter how much we love God, no matter how much we want to be like Jesus, we won't be perfect. We can't. We are finite, developing, learning, with limited knowledge and limited brain. We won't always live out what we believe because we are complex psyches that have all kinds of imperfections built in, that bubble up to the surface sometimes when we least want them to, especially when we're stressed.
God knows this. Paul, as a faithful Christian knew it too, but still we are loved by God, and he knew that God's grace saves us, not our works. And if God doesn't judge us, how much more humble ought we to be with each other.
What point in boasting about any goodness I have. No matter how much I improve, I'm still saved by grace, through my faith, just like everyone else.
Faith in Jesus is faith in God. That's where we put our trust. That's where we store up our treasure. That's what a Christian life is about.
If you read the gospels, you will find that everything Jesus said about how we treat each other, is entirely based on the way God is, and the relationship with God that we are given, by grace through faith.
Any moral or social behaviour that Jesus recommends, comes from that basis. A Christian life, isn't about our works. It's about our relationship with God.
Of course, if you have a relationship with someone you can damage that relationship, no matter how loving a person is. If you love someone, or even if you care about them, a best friend, a child, a sweetheart, you will work very hard to do what is needed to keep that relationship intact.
That is the basis of a Christian morality. Not fear of some father figure in the hidden depths of our psyche, or obedience to a set of rules, but our care about that relationship with God. That's really the only basis for what can be called a Christian lifestyle. This is the genesis of the way a Christian lives. This is the spring of life that Jesus says wells up inside of the person of faith. This is the genesis and outworking of Christian life: Love, grace and faith. This is the source of salvation, the same word in Greek that means healing, healing between people, healing between us and God, healing in our mind, God's salvation for all people.
And God, in love for you and me, understands that we aren't perfect, understands that we need grace, and gives it freely, because of the love.
God, help us to know your love for us. God, help us to love you. God, help us to live out that love for all of your loved creation, and may your spirit ever help us to grow closer to you, so on that day you will say to us, "I know you. Welcome in."
Amen