1Kings 19:15016,19-21; Psalm 16; Galatians 5:1, 13-15; Luke 9:51-62
Dare to Be Fully Alive!
I hope this sounds familiar to many of you.This is the New Years Resolution I proposed for New Salem at the beginning of the year.
Daring to be fully alive is daring to walk in the Spirit.During the Sunday School Season the children and I were learning the cadence :
Walk, walk, walk in the spirit with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and self control.This is taken directly from our Galatians text this morning.These are the fruit of the Spirit.Did you hear that?You heard it, Fruit!Fruit of the Spirit, singular not plural.When the Holy Spirit is present then this is the fruit that will be experienced.It has been said of New Salem when people come to visit “The Holy Spirit” is present here.It’s like in Psalm 16 verse 3 “How excellent are the Lord's faithful people! My greatest pleasure is to be with them.”
When we are walking in the Spirit people experience the fruit - it is palpable. It is that joy and love, the peace, the generosity that is present.We experience being fully ALIVE!
In Galatians Paul tells us “For freedom Christ has set us free.Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”“Fore we are called to freedom, but do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self indulgence”; but through love become slaves to one another.Paul reminds us of the single commandment that sums up every commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”Paul presents us with the Christian ethic as a response to the people who were telling one another to become enslaved to the religious laws of the past.Paul tells us to live by the Spirit, to be fully ALIVE!
He talks about the Holy Spirit being opposed to the desires of the flesh.In this Paul is talking about selfishness that brings infractions, brokenness in relationships.The list is long and obvious.When people are walking in our own humanness we are focusing on our selfish needs and bringing dissension among the community in relationships.
Paul gives a pretty comprehensive list and each one on the list is a sin against relationships.When Paul talks of sins against the flesh (fornication, impurity, idolatry, strife, jealousy, anger quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing) he is talking about turning you focus on yourself, your needs, your wants.This is not what the kingdom of God is like.When we pray Your Kingdom Come, Your Will Be Done, we certainly are not talking of a kingdom where we are all looking towards ourselves, but are enslaved to one another “Loving our neighbor as we love ourselves.” These are our new boundary lines.This is Daring to Live Fully Alive!
With this in mind let’s go to Psalm 16
6The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; I have a goodly heritage.
7 I bless the LORD who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me.
8I keep the LORD always before me;
because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
These texts weave closely together.When we walk in the Spirit, the boundary lines are drawn in pleasant places because we keep the Lord always before us our heart is instructed by God and we follow the Lord’s leading and we shall not be moved! The fruit of the Spirit is evident because we keep the Lord always before us and our heart is instructed by God.
In the Gospel Jesus has set his face to Jerusalem.This is a pivotal point in Luke’s Gospel.Jesus has recently told the disciples that “he was going to be given up and betrayed into human hands.” But the disciples did not understand this and they broke out into an argument about who was the greatest among them!Do you hear their sinning in the flesh?Their interests were selfish and causing dissension among them.Jesus, knowing their thoughts talk to them about who is truly great; those “who welcomes a child in Jesus name welcomes Jesus AND the ONE who sent Jesus.”“For the least among all of you is the greatest”
Jesus is talking about welcoming and hospitality.Then sets his face toward Jerusalem knowing what lies ahead of him is betrayal and the cross. This is what is on Jesus’ mind.
Jesus sends his disciples ahead of him where they enter a village of the Samaritans to get it ready for him.The Samaritans reject the disciples because they are different.The Samaritans and the Jews both claim to be the true heirs of Abraham.They both had different Holy Writings, Temples, practices. We have this in our world today still in Jerusalem between the Israelis and the Palestinians and other parts of the world as well.
While the Samaritans wanted to reject the disciples of Jesus; James and John wanted to do more than reject them;they wanted to burn the whole town down!Talk about being focused on the things of the flesh!
Jesus rebukes James and John, (the same guys who were arguing who was the greatest) because Jesus has a mission to accomplish that erases all these differences.Jesus will not allow the disciples to go into tit for tat!
This angers Jesus.This tit for a tat mentality, was opposite of Jesus mission of Good News that he had given his life to.The barriers that hold people apart are exactly what Jesus came to break down.
Jesus sets his face toward Jerusalem and would not let the behavior of his disciples whose eyes were set on themselves get in the way
I wonder, what is your Jerusalem?What is the mission for your life that carries evidence of the Holy Spirit?What is New Salem’s Jerusalem that we are to set our faces toward? When we are daring to live fully alive, what is it that we are called to be single minded about?
When we dare to be fully alive, our face is set on the needs of others.God raises into mind the direction we are to go and we walk in the Spirit bearing the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control.
