"Experience Ultimate Wholeness"
Sermon Transcript for April 4, 2004
Scripture Reading: Galatians 2:20
By Rev. Mike Beck
As background to what I want to share with you this morning, I want to read four versus of Scripture. They’ll be on the screen. They form the background of the message today; and I want to invite you to read them with me. First of all, Paul’s letter to the Galatians, Chapter 2, Verse 20. Read it with me: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives within me.” And then II Corinthians 5:17, join me in reading that: “If anyone is in Christ they are a new creation. The old has gone; the new has come.” And then Philippians 2:13 where Paul talks about how that takes place, read it with me: “It is God who works in you, to will and to act according to His good pleasure.” And then, finally, read with me these words of the Prophet Isaiah, Chapter 53, Verse 5: “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed.”
There are many terms in Scripture that seek to describe what we call salvation. Sometimes it is spoken of as being born again, being saved, conversion, sometimes we talk of our new life in Christ. I’m not particularly concerned about which term you choose to use. I am concerned that you know in a personal way the experience of salvation that the passion of Christ made possible for us. But there is another term for describing life in Christ that I have always appreciated. That image is simply this—that in Christ, all our life (including our broken pieces) God can make “whole”. So it’s this wholeness in Christ that we want to talk about this morning. Let me suggest some of the characteristics of what wholeness in Christ looks like.
The first two have to do with the first two messages in this sermon series, “Experiencing the Passion”. The person who is whole in Christ has a love for God that extends to loving others. The person who has found wholeness in Christ knows forgiveness. But not only the forgiveness of God, they are also willing, as we talked about last week, to forgive themselves and then to follow Jesus’ command that we forgive others. The person who is whole in Christ understands grace and then models it in their relationships with others. The person who is whole in Christ is growing each day to be more like Christ, yet at the same time, they acknowledge their imperfections.
Wholeness, I think, means that the person learns from and celebrates the past, lives in the present, but at the same time has hope for the future. Wholeness in Christ means that when life’s struggles and problems come our way, and they come our way for all of us, the person who is whole in Christ sees those as an opportunity to grow. The person of Christ who is whole is honest, they are vulnerable, they are transparent in their dealings with others. A person who is whole in Christ is a positive force for good. They don’t allow themselves to become cynical about all the bad stuff in life. But yet, at the same time, they acknowledge the reality of sin and evil. In fact, in many of these phrases, you see being born out a phrase that you have heard me say so often from the pulpit, but I think one of the most important words for the Christian, is the word balance.
The person who is whole in Christ acknowledges that God has given them strengths and gifts. They don’t seek to hide them under a bushel or pretend that they aren’t there. But they hold them with a spirit of humility. Wholeness in Christ, I think, means that we take life seriously but at the same time we practice the therapy of humor. Wholeness in Christ means that we are goal-oriented, but we at the same time know our limitations. The person who is whole in Christ invests in others, but remembers that Jesus said, “I want you to love others as you love and care for yourself.” So the whole person invests in others, but yet at the same time cares for self. The person who is whole in Christ allows the Holy Spirit to produce within them the fruits of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. And then, thinking back to our 40-Days of Purpose, I think the person who is whole in Christ realizes life is ultimately not about us. It is about God. And they understand that this life is a preparation for eternity. We’ll be talking about that next week.
I don’t know about you, but those phrases that speak of wholeness of life—that’s the kind of life that I want to have! But yet so often I find myself echoing these words of the Apostle Paul in the 7th Chapter of Romans. Let me read them for you in The Message translation. Paul says, “The power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions. I obviously need help. I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. I design to do good, but I don’t really do it. And I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway.” I want to ask for a show of hands. Do many of you feel like, “He’s talking about me?” “My decisions such as they are don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and it gets the better of me every time. It happens so regularly that it is predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it is pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me perversely rebel and just when I least expect it, they take charge. I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me?” Isn’t that the real question? But then, as Paul is so inclined to do after a long discourse, he then answers his own question. He says, “The answer, thank God is that Jesus Christ can and does!”
So that’s background. Let me quickly suggest four ways that God seeks to work within us to bring wholeness to our life.
Face Reality: The first step we need to take is to face the reality of our sin. I’m convinced that the denial of our sin and brokenness—and friends, we human beings can do that so well, to practice denial—but that denial of our sin and brokenness is perhaps the main reason so many people continue to go through life living fractured lives of hopeless despair. In his classic prayer of repentance following his sin of adultery, David cried out to God with these words in Psalm 51. He said, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your unfailing love.” And then he says, “For I know my transgressions.” And then he says, “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” And then note these words. He says, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.” Wholeness begins as we face reality of what is going on in our life.
Receive God’s Gift of Community: Secondly, to know the wholeness God wants to give us, we need to receive the gift of community. This is the one point this morning that I imagine most of us neglect. God doesn’t intend for our healing to occur in private isolation. God doesn’t want you to be a spiritual “Lone Ranger” as you journey through life. Yes, it’s imperfect, but God has created this marvelous gift called the church designed to be a community of caring believers who come along side us with grace and understanding and love. That’s why in our church’s Philosophy of Ministry are these words: “Lives are best transformed in small groups.” Why? Because in small groups there is community! Jesus modeled that. He preached and spent time with the multitudes. But he gathered around Him twelve men. And then, even in those twelve men, He had three that He especially sought out—Peter, James, and John.
Let me share personally with you for just a moment. The last couple of weeks have been really difficult for me. The surgery has produced good results, but yet at the same time I feel like there is some tightness coming back in the voice. The doctor prescribed medication that he thought would be helpful to me. I reacted to it violently; and then made the mistake of not calling the doctor, just going off of it cold turkey. Some of you who are nurses are saying, “That’s dumb Mike!” And, boy, I paid for it for a week. I was so scared, so anxious, so worried. But I was running around trying to pretend to everybody that things were just fine. And then the Holy Spirit prompted my heart to say, “Mike, you’ve got people there in that office and on your staff that love you. Isn’t it time you sat down with them and said, ‘You need to know I’m struggling right now to keep my head above water. I need the support and prayers of you.’” That’s community. And we so often try to be Lone Rangers. And, friends, when I leveled with those people on the staff that love me, the burdened lifted almost immediately.
We use this phrase often. We speak of the church not as a place where self-righteous people who think they’ve got it all together go on Sunday—oh, some of them are here—but Jesus said, “Those folks are farthest away from God.” But the church is a place where people who know they are struggling, they don’t have it all together and walk through these doors and find help, hope, home and what a wonderful name for our church that here they find genuine grace. That happens—wholeness happens in community.
Move Ahead Patiently: So wholeness in Christ is found as we face reality, as we accept community, and then, thirdly, as we move ahead patiently. If we had time to do a careful study of this word “salvation”, we’d discover that in the New Testament Greek, the word has three distinct aspects. We have “been saved” (past tense). That’s what the Bible speaks of as justification and we have trusted in Christ. But then there is a sense in which the word means we are “being saved” (present tense). And that is what the Bible speaks of as sanctification. And then there is a sense in which we will “be saved” (future tense). John Wesley called that glorification. That occurs at the moment of death when we pass from this life to the next. And we are saved (future tense) in that moment.
So what I’m saying is that wholeness in Christ doesn’t mean that our bad habits, our fears, our pride, our greed, or whatever it is that is your Achilles heel, automatically disappears when you trust Christ for salvation. Wholeness of heart and life is a process. Thus we need to pray often the words of this old prayer. It’s going to be up on the screen and I want you to read it with me. We’re not supposed to use the word “ain’t” but it’s a great prayer. It goes like this, “Lord, I ain’t what I ought to be and I ain’t yet what I’m going to be, but thanks to You, I ain’t what I used to be!” That’s a great prayer.
We’ve got some responsibilities in that transformation process. The Bible speaks of them; it has spiritual disciplines. But when you’ve been faithful to practice those, then you need to be as patient with yourself and with God as God is with you!
Accept Continually God’s Act of Grace: Face reality. Receive community. Move ahead patiently. And then, finally, accept continually God’s act of grace. The last Scripture I want us to look at today are those words we read from Isaiah 53 where it says, “By his stripes we are healed.” Wholeness and healing are words that are often synonymous. Now at first glance, those words might seem strange. One might think we would have heard the Prophet say, “by his word” or “by our faith” we are healed. And certainly the Word and faith are important. But he says, “By His stripes, we are healed.” If you witnessed the movie, The Passion of the Christ, what went through your mind as Jesus was being flogged? Did you find yourself thinking as the lashes continued on unmercifully, did any of you find yourself thinking, “This is wonderful. I am being healed!” I doubt it. But, friends, the witness of Scripture is clear that it was in the obedience and love of Christ to endure the physical and emotional agony of the cross, that healing in our life is accomplished and wholeness is restored! In His crucifixion on the cross, Jesus is not suffering with His people—He is suffering for them, for you and for me, doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves. And in that one dramatic and sweeping act in history, wholeness is being offered to all who in repentance and faith and obedience would receive it.
The Green Mile is a powerful film that many of you have seen. Tom Hanks plays the lead guard on death row in a prison in Louisiana in 1935. In that movie, we are introduced to a man named John Coffey, played by Michael Clarke Duncan. If you’ve seen the movie, he’s a slightly developmentally disabled, seven foot man there in a cell on death row who has been falsely accused of murder. At one point, Tom discovers that John Coffey possesses a mysterious gift. John Coffey, who is a symbolic Christ figure (And, friends, that was not by accident in this film. Name--John Coffey. Initials—J.C.) He can absorb another person’s disease and cure them. Well, later in the movie, the prison warden’s wife is diagnosed with an incurable brain tumor. Arrangements are made in the middle of the night to secretly transfer John Coffey to the warden’s home. As the guards escort John into the house, you hear the warden’s wife screaming in pain. John nears her bedside and the woman asks John his name. And John responds, and if you’ve seen the movie you’ll chuckle, “John Coffey, ma’am. Just like the drink but not spelled the same.” But then he leans over the woman and responds. He says, “I see it”.
And as the warden is watching from the side, his wife there in the bed, this huge seven foot black man places his mouth next to hers. And the inside of her mouth begins to glow. It appears as if there is a stream of bugs that are moving from her mouth to John’s mouth. The room becomes bright. The crystal shatters. The house shakes. And suddenly, the woman calms down and becomes quiet. The disease has left her body. But then, if you remember, suddenly John Coffey falls over and begins to cough violently for he has taken the woman’s sickness upon himself. The warden’s wife is made whole because John Coffey has absorbed her pain. Ironically, just a few weeks later, John Coffey walks the “green mile” to the electric chair to die for a crime he did not commit.
But, friends, from Isaiah’s vantage point, that’s precisely what Jesus did during His passion at Calvary. He took our pain upon Himself and in exchange He offers us wholeness.
Face the reality of your sin—don’t run. Accept community—don’t try to do it alone. Move ahead patiently, realizing you’ll stumble at numerous points along the way. And accept continually God’s act of grace --and don’t ever, ever stop receiving it!
There’s an old gospel hymn that’s not in our hymnal, but I think many of you know it. I grew up as a boy singing it. It’s the hymn “Saved, Saved”. I’m going to ask Sarai to play it through once so if you don’t know the tune you can familiarize. Then we’ll stand and sing it in closing.
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