Steps to Successful Living

Rev. Dr. Christopher Carlson

In the mid-1990s when US News & World Report asked a large group of Americans whom they thought was worthy of going to heaven, Mother Teresa of Calcutta topped the list receiving the support of 84 percent of those polled.  Oprah Winfrey received a thumbs-up from sixty-six percent, Bill and Hillary Clinton merited fifty-two and fifty-five percent respectively, and O. J. Simpson brought up the rear at sixteen percent.  What was the most revealing was the answer to the final question in the poll:  Do you think you, personally, are going to heaven?  Eighty-six percent of the respondents felt confident about their chances.  That’s two percent more than Mother Teresa.  That’s hard to imagine and more outlandish spiritual self-assurance than is embraced by the typical American.  This result has consistently shown up in research that neither church attendees nor unchurched in our country are particularly concerned about what will happen when they face God in the end.

According to the bible, there is a Day of Reckoning for all of us.  Actually, in some senses we might actually say there are two.  One is a determination of heaven or hell or you might say salvation or being lost and then all of us, even as Christians, stand before the “judgment seat of Christ.”  A sort of courtroom atmosphere in which the accumulative data of our lives – everything we have ever said or done or thought -- will be presented as evidence for or against us.

Today we continue a series of sermons started next week – excuse me, last week, I’m already ahead of myself – last week on the five purposes of the church on the back of our wall.  Last week we talked about evangelism, and we talked about it as we will talk about our message today in terms of stewardship.  Remember what a steward is – this has more than having to do with money, it is the idea that we are responsible for what God has given us.  The idea of a steward is you take care of someone else’s property or someone else’s stuff.  You manage it well.  And last week, I said we are responsible for the message of the Gospel.  Not only the telling the world about what God has done for us, but how we tell it.  I will talk a little more about that in a minute again, but this week the broad term is “discipleship” or what we do with our lives and how we grow and how we bear fruit in them.

I have chosen two Scriptures for you this morning.  One is I think about stewardship.  It is the famous parable of the seeds, and it is in Mark 4:1-20.

¹ Again Jesus began to teach by the lake.  The crowd that gathered around him was so large that he got into a boat and sat in it out on the lake, while all the people were along the shore at the water’s edge.  ² He taught them many things by parables, and in his teaching said:  ³ “Listen!  A farmer went out to sow his seed.  ⁴ As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up.  ⁵ Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil.  It sprang up quickly because the soil was shallow.  ⁶ But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root.  ⁷ Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain.  ⁸ Still other seed fell on good soil.  It came up, grew and produced a crop, multiplying thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times.”

⁹ Then Jesus said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

¹⁰ When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables.  ¹¹ He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you.  But to those on the outside everything is said in parables ¹² so that,“’they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!’”

¹³ Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t you understand this parable?  How then will you understand any parable?  ¹⁴ The farmer sows the word.  ¹⁵ Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown.  As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them.  ¹⁶ Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy.  ¹⁷ But since they have no root, they last only a short time.  When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.  ¹⁸ Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; ¹⁹ but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.  ²⁰ Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it and produce a crop – thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown.”

The next Scripture comes from Romans 8 and expresses what God’s purpose for us – the purpose of what our lives are in Jesus Christ.

God knew (and this is from Eugene Peterson’s “The Message”) – God knew what he was doing from the very beginning.  He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him according to the same lines as the life of his Son.  The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored.  We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him, in Jesus.  After God made the decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name.  After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself.  And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.

This is the Word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Will you pray with me.

God in Heaven, we come before you and ask you be with us as we hear your Word preached.  As always, Lord, we ask that you would say something in particular to each one of us.  Tell us about your love.  Tell us about you, what you would have us be and do in Jesus’ name, Amen.

I have entitled my sermon this morning, “Steps to Successful Living” though I would add a phrase after that, “Steps to Successful Living With God.”  How are we successful in this life?  What are the criteria for them?  How are we to know what to do and be and where to go?  I think the answer to this question begins with some big thoughts and broad thoughts about what life is about.  I think first, and foremost, that all of us must accept that we are responsible to God for our lives.  That is, we must give an account.

You know, in my career as a preacher, I have heard many people say they left churches because in some cases the preacher was a “hell, fire and damnation” preacher, and it didn’t make them feel good and so they left.  In some cases those guys, that’s all they talk about, and I don’t blame you.  But in some cases, we don’t talk about it enough that there is going to be an account given.  Paul says we must all stand before the Judgment seat of Christ and give an account of what we have done or not done in the body.  We see it again and again that God is going to judge humanity according to the man, Jesus Christ.  Now, in some cases we might be tempted to say, “Oh, that’s just all Paul talking again,” but we want to talk about the words of Jesus.  Well, if you read it very carefully, Jesus talks about judgment more than anyone.  And Jesus portrayed the reality in somewhat stark terms, he said that a day will come when some will remain like good seed and others will be thrown out like weeds.  He said, “Every hair on your head is counted and every word will be taken into account.”  Every word spoken, every thought, everything we’ve done, everything we’ve left undone taken into account.  Everything hidden will be revealed Jesus says again and again.  

You know, I often somewhat jokingly say to people, but it’s kind of a serious joke, that when we stand before God and see God for the first time, it’s going to be the ultimate “Oh, my!” moment.  We see examples of this when Isaiah stood before the Lord and when John sees the Lord in the Book of Revelations, similar things happen:  they both fell prostrate.  Isaiah who was considered one of the most righteous men of his time said, “I am a man of unclean lips.”  He saw himself as he was.  That is something we have a hard time doing, seeing ourselves as we are, but, yeah, I don’t know about you, but the picture especially of accounting for every word I’ve said sends a thrill up my spine, and it’s not the thrill of victory, I have to admit.  The whole idea is that we must accept that we are responsible to God for our lives.  And, that is where the problem is, you see, most of us live as though we are the lord of our lives to do exactly as we please, when we want and how we want to do it.  When we think of God, so often we think of God as the person who helps us live the way we want to, not according to what God wants us to do.

And that leads to the second point.  You and I must realize our desperate need of forgiveness, and I use the word desperate quite on purpose.  I have discovered two things about people (about myself included) almost everyone realizes they are not perfect.  We would accept the Scripture that says, “There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  We realize we are sinners.  We know that.  But almost everyone, because we tend to rationalize everything we do, cuts themselves a lot of slack.  In other words, we would admit we are sinners, but we don’t go as far as the Scriptures do.  As Paul says, “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins. . .”  He says later, “. . .we were by nature objects of wrath. . .”  Objects of wrath?  I want to be clear here.  There are some sins that are worse than others -- we tend to do that, we are always comparing ourselves with others, and certainly God is going to take into account some horrible things people have done versus folks who have tried to live a better life.  There is no doubt about that, we all will stand before God and it will all be very clear; but, I want to put it on another level. 

Again, what is our purpose?   Again, you and I are here for God’s purposes.  We had nothing to do with being here.  We were born, and it isn’t just because of some evolutionary process we’re here – yes, we’re born because of the wonderful acts of our parents, we don’t have to go into details, but we know what that act was, we’re here because they loved each other and we were born, but that is a process God has been the Lord of.  David says in the Psalms, “You knit me together in my mother’s womb.”  We are who we are because of God, and we are here for God’s purpose, not for ours.

I have to admit that I have had a little bit of an advantage in learning this a little bit more than some because I am in the army.  I remember in my early days in the army that I really chafed at being told what to do.  My very first annual training, somebody kind of messed up, they didn’t know what to do with us and so we sat there on the ground for eight hours wondering what was next, and I was sitting there chafing what are they doing to me, you know, that kind of stuff, and many times in my career in the army, the same kind of thing.  I remember going to airborne school.  The airborne sergeants had us sit out – not sit, stand in formation for six hours.  Why?  Because they could.  They did it because they could.  I learned something it took me a long time, that being in the army means that someone else owns your life.  Someone can call me up tomorrow or send me a letter and say, “thou shall go out to Timbuktu” and I have to go.  In other words, the army owns me and I’ve accepted that; otherwise, I wouldn’t stay in.  One day, that will end, but someone else owns us even bigger than that and that is God.  We are not here for our own purposes just to fulfill our lives, just to say, “gosh, what have I accomplished?”  God will ask us what we have done with our lives.  So, do we look at God as being one who tells us how we ought to live or do we see him as someone who helps us to live our lives the way we want, and that, my friends, is the problem.

I read a paragraph someone wrote.  It goes like this:

“Needless to say, this is a profoundly uncomfortable picture (in other words, the Judgment).  It’s no wonder that the marketplace spirituality of our times – the ideas about God that we might pick up on talk shows or discover in the New York Times best-selling paperbacks – rarely, if ever, mention the possibility of giving an account of our lives to a higher power.  We would much prefer a God who is adjusted to our behavior.  Contemporary spirituality offers a therapeutic vision of the world.  It promises resurrection without death, joy without sorrow, Easter Sunday without the messiness of Good Friday.  The blessings and the promises that are associated with the Bible are offered at no cost and in exchange for modest commitment.  In the words of cultural critic Kenneth Myers, we all become clients in the hands of a Smiling Heavenly Therapist who is there for us.  We’re certainly not here for God.” 

We are in desperate need of forgiveness in lots of different ways with God and with one another.  I said last week that forgiveness is the main thing that people need.  It isn’t necessarily understanding or even acceptance.  People need forgiveness.

Last week I made a distinction between the idea of acceptance and God’s love.  It has become very popular to say, “Oh, God accepts everybody.”  Isn’t that what God’s purpose is to just hug and accept everybody the way we are?  I really believe that the answer is absolutely not.  That pattern has never followed in the Scriptures, and I want to tell you why again.  Acceptance is a very low word.  It’s actually just going one step in the right direction.  It’s not a bad word.  It just doesn’t go far enough – it’s not adequate.  You can accept people and still hate them.  You can accept people and have nothing to do with them and, in some cases as we live our lives in society that is what we have to do.  We may not like our neighbor, but we have to accept them and that’s okay.  God does something bigger than that – God loves you.  God so loved the world.  That’s what the whole language of the bible is about love, and love includes sacrifice for us.

You know, the idea of Judgment scares me to death, except for one thing – that I am going to have a savior there that died for me, to say, “Yes, Chris is guilty of all of that, but he’s mine because I died for him.”  And that’s why the bible says that forgiveness is found only in Christ – only in Jesus Christ.

There is an old story I tell all the time – I have told many, many times in my career about a family that moved out into the plains and built a house.  The problem with the plains            
is sometimes wildfires would come through and burn everything.  The farmer looked out and saw the fire coming toward his house, and he wondered what he was going to do to keep from being burned up alive with his family, and he quickly built a fire of his own and burned up a whole area around his house.  When the fire came through, it went around him because it had no fuel where he was.  The cross is the burned out place for us.  God is holy.  God does not look upon sin lightly, and whether we are on the scale of one to ten of being pretty righteous like Mother Teresa or we’re on ten like Hitler, all of us fall short of the kingdom of God.  God has provided himself as a sacrifice.

So what’s God’s purpose for us?  Oh, that depends on the different people that we are, you know, part of the adventure of life is finding out what God would have us do at various times of our lives.  But God’s biggest purpose, broadest purpose is to make us more and more like Jesus.  Oh, and to be sure, none of us are going to get there.  None are going to get there until we get to heaven and then we are going to be transformed.  I have to say, “Cool, can’t wait -- can’t wait.”  But that purpose has continued – or starts right now and continues through our whole lives.  God knew what he was doing from the very beginning he decided from the onset to shape the lives of those who love him according to the same lines as the life of his Son.  We see
the original and intended shape of our lives there in him.

I have an illustration I have used many, many years, and God’s purpose is to take us, and let us pretend that we are this sheet of paper and God shapes us.  He takes this blank sheet so to speak, your life or my life, and when we’re in Christ, he takes us and works with us.  Sometimes that working with us requires a little bending, so God uses bad things as well as good things in our lives to shape us.  You can imagine if this piece of paper was a human being or something alive and I was making a crease in it, it would probably being going “ow” about right now.  It would be hurting, and very often God takes the things that hurt us and uses them the most to change us.  This continues our whole lives. 

Again, if I was this piece of paper, I would be going, what in the world are you doing to me?  You are hurting me.  Why don’t you leave me alone?  But, God doesn’t do that.  You see, God loves us.  You know I have said that God doesn’t accept us the way we are.  Well, that is true even after we have become a Christian.  God doesn’t accept you the way you are.  He is not satisfied with that.  You see, acceptance is not an adequate expression of what God does with us.  He loves us, and in his love he wants the best for us, so sometimes that means allowing things in our lives which make us look a lot different than we were a few years ago or even a few days ago – continue this process of bending and shaping us the way he wants us to be until finally – or at least along the way, we don’t look very much like what we were a few years ago. 

You know, I hope that’s the case of my life.   I have been a Christian 31 years.  I can look back at what I was 31 years ago, and I hope that I have learned to love more.  I hope I have learned how to be with people more.  As God loved me who was unlovable, I hope I have learned to love others even though they might not be so lovable.  I hope I have learned courage more.  I hope I have learned steadfastness more.  I hope I have learned how to obey more.  Sometimes, in my own life, I despair at that because I still disobey.  I still treat God as though he is my therapist instead of my God and my Lord, but he keeps working with me.  He keeps shaping me until one day – until one day when I get to heaven, I think, I am going to be someone who will be able to fly away – one day. 

In the meantime, I’m glad God does not accept me the way I am.  I don’t accept me the way I am, but what I do know is that God loves me – God loves me.  That never changes, even when I do not love myself.  Well, what are we to do with all of this when we cooperate with this purpose by seeking his will and producing fruit?  But the one who received the seed that fell on the good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it.  He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.

In a book called, “Making Life Work,” Bill Hybels, the famous Bill Hybels, cites a study that was published under an intriguing title that’s called “178 Seconds to Live.”  The study concerned twenty pilots, all seasoned veterans in the cockpits of their small planes, but none of whom had ever taken instrument training.  One by one they were placed in a flight simulator and told to do whatever they could to keep their planes level and under control.  The simulator generated the conditions of a storm, including impenetrable, dark clouds, and even though the pilots had exceptional intuition born of years of actual flying, every one of them “crashed.”  Their planes went down, on average, within 178 seconds, that is less than three minutes after they lost their visual reference points.

It may seem an odd way to put it, but it takes courage to rely on instruments more than intuition and might I say experience.  The modern world has come to the place where we have placed experience above the Word of God.  We have said, “I’ve experienced this; therefore, the Word of God must be wrong.”  I have seen this happen in relationships.  A woman meets a man and says, “Oh, I love him.  I’m going to marry him,” and yet all the evidence suggests this is not the right deal.  I have seen it happen in people trying to take a job in all kinds of different ways – all kinds of different things.  It takes courage to rely on instruments.  It takes courage and supreme good judgment to rely more on unchanging standards and measurements than on personal instincts we feel certain are telling us what to do.

For pilots, it’s a matter of life and death – and it happens to be doubly true for anyone contemplating an authentic Christian existence or spiritual existence.  One of the great dangers of moving forward with God is that our intuition may scream that it knows better than God when it comes to the most appropriate ways to respond to life’s joys and challenges.

Facing a personal crisis apart from an appreciation of the principles of Scripture (and a determination to obey them) is like flying into a storm without instrument training.  Where do you start?  You start with obedience to the Word which has been given to us.  Oh, yes, there are a lot of different interpretations of the Word, a lot of things to learn, a lot of ways – there are actually ways, proven ways, of how to interpret the bible and understand it, but without it, we fly blind.  So, I would encourage you today to see where you are stewards of your lives and you will give an account for them.  You’re stewards of your growth in Christ.  We have to cooperate with God.  Now, I believe that God is actually responsible for making us grow.  He does that, but we’re responsible to cooperate and God does not usually drive a parked car.  We have to be moving.  We have to want to obey.  We have to give our lives to him.

In the movie, “Saving Private Ryan,” the character played by Tom Hanks lies dying while Private Ryan is standing above him, and as he dies, he looks at him and says, “Earn this,” “Earn this.”  But how could such a gift that God has given us possibly be earned?  Well, it can’t, it really can’t.  But, even so, in order to do what God wants us to do and in some sense pay him back, it is life for life.  We give our lives back to him who has sacrificed for us.  As Paul says, “Make your lives a living sacrifice with the one who has redeemed you and loved you so much more than you can even stand or even know.”  Give your life to him.  Walk along the path he has given you as stewards of your discipleship.

Let us pray.