Saturday, November 24, 2012

The Path to Peace

Colossians 3 M3 (Col. 3:1-3, 15) 06 10 12 Speaker: Ken Shigematsu with Vanessa Roth Title: The Path to Peace Text: Colossians 3:1-3, 15 BIG IDEA: If we have been raised to new life with Christ, we will begin to experience the reality of heaven on earth. When someone dies, particularly if they have led a long and hard life, sometimes people will say, “She’s finally at peace,” or he’s “now at rest.” When people who believe in God say this they often do so with the conviction that their loved one really is in a place of literally greater peace and inward rest – in the presence of God, in heaven. And I have observed that as people draw close to death there are times when they have a literal realization that heaven is breaking into their world. There is a man named Willard who worked an administrator at the school in Portland, Oregon that I have a connection with. Willard had an aging, physically failing mother and, so every day when he could, Willard during his lunch break went over to his mother’s house with some soup or sandwiches, spent a little time with her, then after lunch went for a swim and then headed back to his office to work. One day when Willard went to his mother’s house she was all dressed up as if she was going to some place very important. Willard asked, “Mother, why are you so dressed up?” She said, “I am about to go on a very important trip today.” Willard quietly thought to himself, “Now my mother has finally lost it. She has really gone crazy.” So Willard decided to test her a little bit. “Mother, exactly where are you planning to go?” His mother said, “I am going to heaven today.” Inside, Willard just shook his head and said, “Yeah, she has completely lost all rationality.” Willard said, “Why don’t you have some soup and sandwiches?” The mother insisted, “I don’t need any soup and sandwiches today, Willard. I told you I am going to go to heaven.” Willard said, “Well, why don’t you have some soup and sandwiches for the road.” His mother said, “No, I think I’ll have some when I get there.” So, Willard left for a swim and later that afternoon he received news that his mother had died. She seemed to have an intuition that she was going to heaven and would be meeting Jesus face to face that day. Let me share another, brief similar story. Billy Graham is one of his generation's best-known preachers. When Billy’s mother died a number of family members gathered around her bed. She had been failing for some time, but Mrs. Graham and sat up in a moment of rare clarity and said, “I see Jesus,” and then she died. But the Apostle Paul is saying here in Colossians 3, the text that we have been focusing on in this series that we don’t have to wait until death to experience the realities of heaven. Paul says, “Since you have been already raised with Christ, you have been joined to him. Set your hearts on the realities of heaven now.” The Apostle Paul says that if our lives have been joined to Jesus Christ then as is best pictured in our baptism as we go under the water signifying our death to an old way of life, and we come out of the water symbolizing we are raised to a new way of life. Then as people who have been raised to a new way of life we are to set our sights on the realities of heaven. We have seen in this series how heaven isn’t just a place over the rainbow, out there, but it is a place that we can begin to experience here. It's not just the place we experience in the future, but right now. Heaven isn't just a there and then, it can be a here and now. But, one of the best ways that we can envision what heaven here and now can look like is by getting a vision of heaven in the there and then. We know that in the world to come one of the things that we will experience is this remarkable peace that transcends all understanding. The sermon will focus on how we can experience the peace of heaven now through purity, praying with thanksgiving, and surrendering to the providence of God, Part of the reason that we will experience this peace in the world to cmoe is because we are no longer experiencing temptation to sin. The great African bishop, St. Augustine, in the 4th century concludes his great work, The City of God, by imagining what our lives will be like in the new age to come. Augustine anticipates that we will experience the grace of God as the removal of our sin. We will no longer be tossed to and fro by every wave of impulse and as a result we will be in a state of perfect peace. We will have a perfect peace which is in part the result of no longer having any temptation to sin. But the Apostle Paul exhorts us to begin to experience the peace of the world to come, he peace of heaven now. He says in verse 1, “Since you have been raised with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven,” and in verse 15, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.” How do we become people who experience the peace of God now, not just in the there and then of heaven, but in the here and now of heaven? Today were going to look at how we experience the peace of Christ as we pursue purity, and pray with thanksgiving, surrender ourselves to the providence of God.2X Purity (please leave purity up over the blue section). One of the ways that we do this, according to the Apostle Paul in Colossians 3, to borrow another one of Augustine’s phrase, is to choose to live with purity in the “city of God” now. Last Sunday I talked about how the Apostle Paul here in Colossians 3 is basically saying we have the choice to live in one of two cities. We can live in City 1 which is marked, according to verses 5-9, by sexual immorality, evil desires, greed, idolatry, anger, rage, slander and lying. Or, we can live in City 2, a place where people live with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, and love as we saw last week. Many people of course want people to live in City 1. If we were to call City 1 to borrow the nickname of Las Vegas “sin city,” even the term has a certain allure to it. This may be why Las Vegas which the reality is, as I understand from a friend who lives there, in some ways it is quite a family friendly place, but it has been branded “sin city,” because it makes it sound enticing and exciting. But we know that when people really live in an actual experience of sin city (by this I don't mean Las Vegas per se, but choosing to live the lifestyle of sin) while it may be enticing and exciting for a little while, it ultimately leads to brokenness and bitterness. Dorothy Sayers once said we never really break the law of God, we just break our self over it. We never really break the law fire. If we put our hand in fire trying to break the law fire, find that we don't break the law fire, we just break ourselves. We never really break the law of God, we just break our self over it. Living in the actual experience of sin city ultimately leads to brokenness and bitterness, Whereas living in the “city of God,” that is the path of God leads not only to peace in the world to come, but to the peace of heaven in this life. Robert Murray McCheyne once said that God isn’t so much interested in your holiness as he is interested in your happiness, but he knows that you will only be happy long term if you pursue holiness. Holiness in a contemporary context might be simply translated “wholeness”—to be Holiness means Wholeness (leave up for through the blue) whole and set apart for God’s purposes. The way we begin to experience the city of peace in heaven now is by choosing the city of God or the way of God now. Choosing to live with compassion, kindness, forgiveness, and love now. Choosing to live a life of holiness and wholenesss now. As we live this way, the peace of God, the peace of heaven will fill our hearts. One of the ways that we experience the peace of heaven on earth is by never consciously choosing to sin, never knowingly transgressing the boundary that has been established by God, with God's help pursuing the path of inner purity. There are times of course when we have two choices before us, but they're not necessarily choices is between sinning AND not sinning, doing evil vs. doing good. When we are not certain exactly what the will of God is, we can prayerfully discern what God's will might be for us in a particular circumstance and surrender ourselves to the providence (or the plan) of God. One of my favorite examples of this comes from the life of Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits. Loyola, himself, prior to committing his life to God had been a Spanish soldier – dreaming of becoming a hero on the battlefield. During a battle against the French in Pamplona, Spain, Loyola and the Spaniards though vastly outnumbered by the French charged toward the French line and as Loyola was running leading the charge, he was shot in the knee by a cannon ball (BTW, the great Saints always seem to have leg injuries – mine from a game of quasi-basketball on the grass :-). Loyola was convalescing from a cannon ball wound to his leg in the early part of the sixteenth century. While lying in bed bored, he wanted to read romance novels and fantasized about a life of gallantly pursuing courtly women. He also read biographies of Jesus and the saints and envisioned walking in the footsteps of Christ. In both scenarios he experienced an immediate sense of excitement, but as he envisioned chasing a noble woman of the court, though he had an initial sense of pleasure, he was left feeling restless and unsatisfied. But as he pondered pursuing a pilgrimage with Christ, he felt a sense of enduring joy and peace. Part of the way that we can choose the path of God when it doesn't involve an obvious moral choice between evil and good, is to prayerfully ask which path is accompanied by a greater sense of the peace of God? And not just a momentary peace, but which path seems to offer the enduring peace of God? When we are in the will of God we will feel this sense of peace and energy, joy and aliveness…being drawn closer to God. It is not say, however, in the short term we may experience a sense of loss. Perhaps you've had an opportunity to pursue a relationship with someone who on one level was extremely attractive to you, but the person didn't share your values and you didn't feel peace about moving forward. Or perhaps you had an opportunity to pursue work that would bring you great pay or prestige, but would mean that you would forfeit the opportunity to spend conscious time with God and should be so busy that you could not be with your loved ones. When we follow a less glamorous path in our love life or work life because we feel that God has something that is truly better for us, our false self may rebel against this, our opportunistic self will mourn. But when we walk in God’s way, even if it requires sacrifice, we will feel a more enduring peace rise up over time and live with a deeper sense of alignment with God and our true selves. One of the ways we experience the peace of Christ and life of heaven on earth here and now, not just there and then, is to always follow what we understand to be the will of God, either as we choose to not consciously sin and to live with God's help in the city of God – with compassion, forgiveness, love and in holiness and wholeness, and as we prayerfully discern the will of God as we pay attention to the movements of the Holy Spirit inside us and to what over time will offer us the most enduring sense of peace. Prayer A second way we can experience the peace of God is by surrendering something to God in prayer. The fact is that even when we are doing all we can with God’s help to do the will of God, to live within the city of God and to be pursuing a path of purity, there are times when we will become anxious over some matter. Maybe we are going through a stressful experience in a relationship, or experiencing tension with a family member, or difficulty in school, conflict at work, or illness of a loved one, financial downturn. There are all kinds of things that can make us feel anxious. The Apostle Paul says, “When you experience anxiety, cry out to God in prayer, express everything that is on your heart to him, and remember to also give thanks.” As you do you that, spend time in prayer, and as the Apostle Paul talks about in Colossians 3:16, worship in song as you sing songs of the Spirit. As Lee will address more fully next week, the peace of God which transcends all understanding will begin to guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. What a great promise that is! This past weekend our staff retreat, I was sharing with some of my colleagues how I've recently been meditating on Psalm 37 where David says, “Trust in the Lord and wait patiently for him. Do not fret – it leads only to evil.” And I shared with them how there have been some things that I've been anxious about from time to time this past year. I re-shared with them how anxious Sakiko and I were during Joey's first few days at preschool. Every other child was sitting quietly at his or her table working on their crafts while Joey was running around the tables (or at least our imagination at least) and on the third day he pulled the fire alarm. We thought he would certainly be expelled. And I thought it's really too bad because the uniform was fairly expensive and we've only used for a week. Our son is going be a preschool drop-out. I also shared about my more recent anxiety as we have been in the process of making a decision around the puppy. A small thing I know in the whole scheme of things. But if you are a dog lover as we are, it feels fairly big. When I misunderstood how the puppy draft choice procedure work and that we might be out of a draft pick because I hadn't sent the deposit cheque and assumed that my phone call expressing interest would secure a draft for us, it was very anxiety provoking for me. I realize this is a “first world” problem. It is not something that we would be anxious about if we were living in a war zone or famine ravage place. As some of you know, I've been doing some graduate work on the spiritual rhythms of the monastics and I've been in conversations with a couple of publishers about publishing the book for a popular audience on the theme. Because of the fact in this day when bookstores are closing, and the profit margins for book publishers are smaller with Amazon and and Coscto selling books, publishers are much more careful these days these days to take on a book project particularly from a new author. Even more recently, I’ve sprained my ankle and praying whether I’ll participate in an Olympic distance triathlon this summer or not. So I've been pondering and praying more often Paul’s words: 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. As I have come into the presence of God in prayer and call to mind the many things I have for which to be truly thankful and express my concerns to God, God has come to me and our family in some special ways. He has given us peace and we have a clear sense of God’s providential path unfolding for us in each of these areas and more. Providence (keep word up over the blue section) As I pray for the things that when my heart, while I do have preferences, I express them, or more than anything else in the deepest part of me, I want to be in the will of God, and as I am in the will of God I feel greater peace. So I pray the Covenant prayer of John Wesley: I am no longer my own but yours. Put me to what you will; rank me with whom you will. Put me to doing; put me to suffering. Let me be employed for you, or laid aside for you; exalted for you, or brought low for you. Let me be full; let me be empty. Let me have all things; let me have nothing. I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things to your pleasure and disposal. I pray Mary the mother of Jesus’ prayer: Let it be to me, according to your will. This past week at our staff retreat, Vanessa Roth was in the small group where I was sharing what was going on in my life and she shared a story from her own life which illustrates what it means to offer things in our life to God in prayer. Vanessa’s story: As we see in Vanessa story, as we pray not only do we experience God's peace, we experience the presence and friendship of the one who says 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. (John 14:27 TNIV) So we experience the life of heaven and the life of God, not just there and then, but here and now as we pursue a path of purity and prayer and surrender to God’s providence. And as we live before the face of Christ, the Christ will make us pure and he will give us peace. Let’s pray. (Two prayers: One would be the prayer of Augustine for purity; the second prayer of concern, a possible third would be John Wesley’s prayer). 1