5/25/08 So Why Does It Matter?

I hit a major roadblock in our study this past week,

one so large that for most of the week

I found it impossible to write anything.

Toward the end of the week

I had two conversations that helped,

one with Sandee and the other with a good friend.

And maybe the best way for me to handle this

is to begin by trying to put into words

the problem I feel like I’m facing.

As we’ve been involved in our study of spiritual growth during the past several months

for most of the time I’ve felt as though the value of the things we were looking at was obvious.

By that I mean that Peter’s words and concepts

connected easily with us -

with our own lives and our own goals.

As we’ve walked through the first few verses of Peter’s second letter

we’ve seen three things so far.

First, we’ve seen that true spiritual growth

is simply growing in our own personal awareness of and friendship with Jesus Christ.

Second, we’ve heard Peter tell us

that everything we long for most in life

is inseparably linked to that friendship.

Through Him

and our growing friendship with Him

everything else in life can be correctly understood

and placed into proper relationship to us -

our work, our school, our money, our family, our friendships, our short-term and long-term goals.

Our relationship with Him

is the lense through which we can then bring everything else into focus.

Peter says simply that everything we need for life and godliness comes to us ...(2PE 1:3) through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.

He’s certainly not telling us that we should all become preachers,

but he is telling us that the only One who can help us make sense of this life

is the One who created both it and us in the first place,

the One who knows us as no one else ever has.

From there Peter then tells us

that this friendship between us and our God

grows as a result of our sharing with Him

the life-long project of “becoming a partaker of the divine nature”.

In other words,

as we share with our God

the ongoing project of becoming more and more like Him

we grow in our friendship with Him in the process.

Now, all of that, I think, made sense to us.

Human friendships don’t just happen,

they grow as the result of doing things together.

Want to build a friendship with a person?

Then go to lunch together,

work together,

share a common hobby together or fight a common enemy.

Do you think this need to work at building a friendship stops when you get married?

Do you think that just “being married”

somehow guarantees a growing friendship?

If so, then I hurt for your marriage.

Nearly 25 years ago, one Saturday morning I walked through the kitchen

and I saw Sandee watching a gardening program on TV as she worked.

Folks, I don’t garden.

To this day one of my chronic fears when Sandee is gone for a week visiting Matt, Joni, Matty, and Anabelle,

is that I will somehow kill all of the plants when she’s gone.

Twenty-five years ago

a TV program on gardening

was just one step above “Suzie’s Sewing Corner” in my interest level.

But it was clearly something that interested my life partner.

So, several weeks later, when I saw her watching it again,

and decided to watch it with her.

It wasn’t long before I started recording the program

and Sandee started making special Saturday morning breakfasts for us

as we watched the program together.

Twenty-five years later I still can’t grow anything,

but I’ve learned how to make concrete planters,

and nifty little water features,

and how to make the grass grow better.

And most of all I’ve learned to see a whole world of beauty through the eyes of my wife,

beauty I never even knew was there before.

When Sandee and I went on vacation last month

do you know what we did?

We went to Butchart Gardens in Victoria, B.C.,

and then we toured the tulip fields in northwest Washington together,

and more than that, much more than that, our friendship and love continued to grow because of what we shared together.

Friendships never grow in a vacuum,

they grow through sharing life together.

And our friendship with God grows the same way -

by sharing life together - our life with Him.

It has nothing whatsoever to do with learning religious systems.

It has everything to do with discovering who He really is

as He shares with us the project of our becoming conformed more and more into the image of His Son.

But then Peter went on to explain to us

what this “divine nature” looks like.

And it’s right here that I think we began to run into problems.

The way Peter says it is this:

2PE 1:5 Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge;

2PE 1:6 and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness;

2PE 1:7 and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love.

He presents to us

a seven-step progressive growth process,

a process in which, beginning with our basic saving faith in Christ,

we then accept the calling of allowing Him to develop in us first moral excellence,

then knowledge,

then self-control and so forth,

right on up until we reach the highest expression of the character of God -

the ability to truly love the people He places around us.

But this is where I ran into a problem I didn’t really expect.

As we’ve begun studying this first foundation layer - that of moral excellence,

I’ve come to realize that,

because of the dramatic changes that have taken place in our culture during the past 30 years,

some of you have mentally dropped out of our study

because our culture has handed you a very different concept of “morality”

than what Peter is talking about.

And in order for Peter’s words to be of any value to you

we need to back up a step

and talk about what moral excellence is

and why our God is so determined to build it into our lives.

You see, the truth is that for those of you who have been nurtured by the society in which we live,

the whole concept of “morality”

very likely seems like archaic, insignificant religious babble

out of a world that no longer exists and no longer matters.

Certainly our world today

offers us a strong, clear message of what good and evil is,

but it is radically different from anything Peter is talking about.

In our world today a truly “good” man

is one who fiercely defends the absolute freedom of the individual

to choose any lifestyle he or she wants,

so long as they doesn’t openly attack or harm someone else.

And our concept of evil

is anyone who tries to impose his or her preferred value system or moral code on anyone else.

The idea of an absolute and truly universal set of moral values is ridiculous.

The only accurate measure of “morality”

is the degree to which we openly, aggressively embrace all beliefs, all value systems, all lifestyles, all forms of sexual expression,

while at the same time warring against all those who attempt to impose their values on others.

This is the world in which we live,

a world in which, at first glance

Peter’s call to “moral excellence” as defined by God Himself

seems utterly out of touch with the world in which we live.

And I’ve come to realize

that before we can talk about how God builds moral excellence into our lives,

there is a far more important question that must be answered first -

the question, “Why does it matter at all?”

What possible relevance does it have to us or the world in which we now live?

So before we go any farther in this study

I’d like to try to answer that question.

And to do that

I’d first like to remind us of the three distinctly different purposes

that God has for His moral law in our lives.

And let me just say here

that His law serves these purposes in our lives

no matter what culture we’re in

or what we as a society may choose to accept or reject.

Even in our culture today

in which we have worked so very hard to destroy the idea of moral absolutes,

it still doesn’t change the way things really are,

nor does it allow us to escape from the moral laws of God

because God has etched them into our hearts through the conscience.

No matter how much we as a society may try to deny their existence,

they are woven into the very fabric of our existence by our Creator.

The problem, of course,

is not the laws themselves,

the problem is our initial relationship with the One who gave the laws - God Himself.

We hate the laws

and try to free ourselves from them

because when we enter this world

our spirits are in defiant resistance against God Himself.

And what I’m about to share with you,

as remarkable as it is,

will only make sense if we first understand

God’s ultimate purpose for us as His creation.

And I can give it to you in five words, “For God so loved the world...”.

Hopefully you know by now

that it has never been about God trying to get us to be good.

From the very beginning

it has been about just one thing -

God seeking a way in which at least some of us

could gain just a tiny glimpse of the true nature of His love for each of us.

You think such a thing would be easy?

You think maybe if God just gave us everything we wanted,

everything we needed in endless abundance we would get it?

Think again.

That’s exactly what He did with Adam and Eve.

He created a world of absolute perfection,

a world in which every appetite,

every hunger,

every desire,

every need was met in endless abundance,

a world in which man and God literally met, and walked, and talked face-to-face.

And even in such a world

man could not see the heart of God

or know the amazing depth of His love for us.

He knew that, of course.

He knew that there was only one way in which at least a few of His creation

would be able to come to a knowledge of the truth.

It would involve our being able to see His response to us

when we chose open, willful rebellion against Him.

Then, and only then would some of us be able to see into the very heart of God.

Which brings us to the first great purpose for the moral commandments of God.

This is where we all start.

This is the beginning of our discovery of the one truth

that has the power to transform our lives forever - the truth about God’s love for us.

For, you see,

God’s first great purpose for the moral law

was to drive us into sin,

into willful rebellion against Him.

Why do you think God placed that one tree in the Garden of Eden,

that one tree from which He told Adam and Eve they must not eat?

Don’t you realize that, if He had not placed that tree there,

sin would never have entered the human race?

What a set-up!

GEN 2:16-17 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die. "

And because they did not know the heart of God,

they could not see it,

they rebelled against Him,

just as He knew they would,

just as He wanted them to

because He knew it was the only pathway the human race would ever have

into the discovery of His love.

And from there,

God expanded the list of Commandments.

You shall have no other gods before Me.

You shall not take My name in vain.

Honor your father and your mother...

You shall not murder.

You shall not commit adultery.

You shall not steal.

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

You shall not covet ...

And why did He do it?

Why did He give these nonnegotiable demands,

these edicts?

The Apostle Paul says it with simple clarity.

ROM 5:20 And the Law came in that the transgression might increase...

The first great reason for His giving us moral laws

was to drive us into sin,

to cause us to rebel,

to make us sin MORE.

The great lie of Satan, of course,

is that it’s all about God trying to make us be good.

He wants us to believe it’s all about

God demanding from us

performance levels we could never achieve.

The more Satan can perpetuate the image of wretched sinners in the hands of an angry God

the more his purposes are served

because it keeps us forever blinded to truth.

So, God’s first purpose for the moral law of God in our lives

is to drive us into sin,

to drive us into overt rebellion against Him.

And His second purpose

is to use that moral law

as the perfect mirror in which we can see ourselves,

confronting us with the truth about our own helpless condition before God.

Last week we saw both Paul and Isaiah at this point in their lives

and heard their responses.

ROM 7:24 Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?

ISA 6:5 Then I said, "Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts."

There is a difference between the first and second purposes of the moral law of God in our lives.

Whereas the first purpose is accomplished in the lives of all of us,

that is, we are all driven into some forms of rebellion in response to the moral law of God,

the second purpose is fulfilled only in those of us

who have the courage to reach out to our God.

Most of the world will resist that mirror at all costs.

That, of course, is the driving motivational force

behind the dramatic shifts in our society during the past 30 or 40 years.

Rather than facing honestly the massive moral issues within our culture as a whole

we have dealt with those issues

by corporately agreeing that there are no issues,

there are no moral absolutes,

there are no Divine lines we must not cross.

We’ve responded to our immorality

by agreeing that there really is no such thing as morality for us to worry about.

And in the process

we have robbed ourselves of the only doorway through which

we can ever come to know the love of our God.

You see, only when we will allow God’s Spirit

to honestly face us with our own moral guilt before Him

are we finally ready to hear the Good News of God.

GAL 3:22, 24 But the Scripture has shut up all men under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe... Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, that we may be justified by faith.

And it is then, and only then that for the first time

we begin to gain a glimpse of the heart of God.

ROM 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

So there it is - the first two purposes of the Moral Law of God -

to drive us into sin,

and then to condemn us on the basis of that law,

creating within us a desperate longing for some other answer, some other way.

And in that desperation

our God is finally able to say to us,

“Have you considered my Son?”

And then what happens to the moral law of God in our lives?

Well, once it’s served those first two purposes,

it is then forever removed

as the standard by which God measures our lives.

Of course Paul says it better.

He says,

ROM 7:4 Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, that we might bear fruit for God.

Huh?

Do you mean that once we are joined to Christ

God will never again use the law to judge us or condemn us?

Yep! That’s the deal.

Welcome to the love of God.

So then why does it matter whether or not God builds moral excellence into our lives?

Why is this moral excellence thing

the first step in everything else He wants to share with us?

If the law was given to drive us into sin

and to serve as our tutor to bring us to Christ,

then once it’s fulfilled that role in our lives

why does any of it matter?

I’m glad you asked.

Because this is where I’ve wanted to take us since I started this morning,

and this is the third great purpose for the moral law of God

and the reason why He seeks to build moral excellence into our lives.

It’s not so that we can earn His approval

or avoid His judgement.

ROM 8:1 There is ... now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

It’s not so that He will love us more.

There is no degree to the love of God,

and no performance base to it.

He doesn’t love “because”.

He just loves.

And it is because He loves

that He seeks to build this moral excellence into our lives.

For, you see, there is imbedded in the moral law of God

a purpose that we could never see when we were still fighting against Him.

For it is through His moral law

that God reveals to His people

the truth about how all true love relationships are built and maintained.

And here again let me back up one step

and place that truth into it’s proper frame.

The deepest human need we have is our need for love -

both our need for the love of God

and our need for love relationships with other people.

It is through love that we come to understand our own value

and our purpose in life.

Without it we become strange beyond measure,

driven to find some alternative voice to tell us we have value,

or to find some hiding place from the pain of our isolation.

But as much as we need love,

we do not know how to build true love relationships on our own.

And this is where the moral law of God

becomes both our foundation and our guiding light as Christians.

Listen to what Paul says about the moral law of God

once he’s gotten us past all of the rebellion and fear of condemnation.

And this right here

is by far the most amazing

and significant words ever written about the moral commandments of God.

ROM 13:8-10 Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. For this, "You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet," and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no wrong to a neighbor; love therefore is the fulfillment of the law.

Do you see what Paul does in that passage?

He brings our need for human love

and the moral law of God together in the most remarkable way,

and he tells us that the moral laws of God

are not just arbitrary lines drawn by God,

but they are, in fact, God revealing to us

how true love relationships are built.

Do you want to know how to build deep, durable love relationships?

Do you want to know how to meet your own deep needs for love?

Look to the moral law of God.

Do you know why God begins His rebuilding process in our lives with moral excellence?

Because He knows that the deepest need we possess

is our need for love.

And He knows that our need for love can never be met

until we bring our human relationships into the moral framework He offers us.

There is no other way to get there,

and He could not love us the way He does

without building into our lives

the only adequate foundation for the kind of relationships we so desperately need.