+In the Name…
“Then they said to him, ‘What must we do, to be doing the works of God?’ Jesus answered, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent’” (St. John 6:28-29).
I very much hope that within the wonderful diversity of personalities, backgrounds, and involvements here at Good Shepherd, there is a common denominator beyond that of which St. Paul stated last Sunday to the Christians in Ephesus – “…one Lord, one faith, one baptism, on God and Father of us all..” – and that common denominator being, that we all desire to be doing the works of God.
The people who had followed Jesus across the Sea of Galilee after He had fed the 5000 by way of the miraculous multiplication of five loaves and two fish, after He and the disciples had arrived on the opposite shore of the Sea, after the disciples had rowed through the night making “headway painfully” with Jesus on board, after He had stepped into their boat from his walk on the water to calm their fears – these people now asked Jesus, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” And His answer was, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”
Is it really that simple? That for us to know we are doing the works of God to simply believe in Jesus – the one whom the Father sent? Well, yes and no.
Faith is certainly the beginning. Jesus Himself said in an earlier chapter in the the Gospel of St. John something every one of us is familiar with: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (3:16).
But from such belief must come action and a heartfelt desire to conform one’s life to the way Christ lived.
Jesus did come as the Savior of the world. Through His sacrificial death on the Cross for the sins of man (past, present, and future), man was ransomed from captivity to death and destruction, and given the gift of eternal life. But He came also as an example of how men and women were to live lives under the authority of God, as Jesus did.
We learn how to live lives under the authority of God as Jesus did by imitating Jesus and in obedience to His teachings. Simple as that, but hard as that.
In the epistle this morning, St. Paul challenges the Christians in Ephesus to not slip back into their former way of life, the way they lived before they knew Christ and professed belief in Him. He saw that some of them were backsliding, so he says to them, “Put off your old nature which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore, putting away falsehood, let every one speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.”
St. Paul said something very similar to this to the Church in Rome: “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (12:1).
I like the way the New English Translation states this: “Adapt yourselves no longer to the pattern of this present world, but let your minds be remade and your whole nature thus transformed. Then you will be able to discern the will of God, and to know that is good, acceptable, and perfect.”
You see - the implication here is that we will know the will of God in and for our lives when we do not adapt ourselves to the pattern of this world, i.e. to what is marketed as being crucial and necessary, as to how we are to think and act,, and what will make things comfortable. With freedom from the present secular world’s agenda, we are in the place to discern what God’s will is – what is good, acceptable, and perfect.
And this is why we are here this morning, and why this church stands here, and why people throughout the world have chosen Christ, because we and they believe in what he said, “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father, but by me” (St. John 14:6).
You and I are on a life-long pilgrimage to come to (what St. Paul names as) “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” We will make progress on this pilgrimage. We will stumble and fall. We will have shining moments of being in sync. We will have frustrating and disappointing times when we really mess things up.
And with and in all things, and because we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses (who struggled as we do), we are to lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and run with hope and perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to and following Jesus, who extends the comforting and renewing invitation, “Come to me, all whom labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (St. Matthew 11:28-29).
+In the Name… |
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