Pastor’s Notes for 3rd Wednesday in Lent, A Date: 3/19/14
Theme: Change of Habit
Lenten Sermon Series Bible Ref’s: Galatians 5:16-25 and Luke 6:46-49.
Prayer of the Day
O God our strength, you are the foundation of our lives. Build up in us the habits of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Guide us by your Spirit and teach us your ways, that we embody your love to all the world. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
Brief Sermon Outline: “Change of Habit”
Focus Statement: It’s this living Spirit within us that actually changes our bad habits to good…
1. This past Sunday, I preached about how Nicodemus, the Pharisee and member of the Sanhedrin (the Jewish High Court), needed to change his habits to get to know who this Jesus was and what difference this man Jesus might make in his life. The same is true for us people of God nowadays.
2. To get to know Jesus and what a difference Jesus can make in our lives, we need to change our regular ways of doing things, we need to change our habits, so that we can begin to see ourselves as God sees us—as his beloved children. And so that we can begin to conform our behaviors to God’s will for all people, for all the world—to become the kind of people Christ redeemed us to be.
3. So here in the season of Lent, we’re talking re: making changes in our habits to somehow draw us closer to God, to Jesus, and to God’s loving intentions for our lives. Problem is, our habits tend to do just the opposite: they drive us away from God, away from Jesus, and away from God’s loving intentions for our lives. In a word, the problem is sin, but sin runs deeper than just bad behavior.
4. Paul struggled to explain this…this internal struggle between forces for good & forces for evil. Forces for good Paul understood to be God’s Spirit at work in us, but forces for evil Paul attributed to the flesh, something inside us that opposes the Spirit simply to gratify its own selfish desires.
5. The only real hope Paul knew for deliverance from this internal turmoil was the love of God poured into our hearts thru the H.S. given to us. (Rom. 5:5) We’ll hear more re: that this coming Sunday.
6. It’s this living Spirit within us that actually changes our bad habits to good, converts our sinful hearts of flesh to hearts overflowing with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithful-ness, gentleness and self-control. The fruit of the Spirit is not acquired, it is expressed/released.
7. Not to push an analogy too far, but I came across this book that Maddie was reading, and I think the author had the title just right, “Good Dogs, Bad Behavior.” That pretty well captures our human predicament, too. We’re created good by God & redeemed by Christ’s love poured into our hearts by the H.S. Those are facts of our existence; that’s our identity. We are, all of us, children of God.
8. Part of our calling as the church is simply to remind folks of this truth. We’re called to become who we already are, children of God—creatures deeply invested with abundant fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Every person can feed the world with this fruit of the Spirit—it’s simply a question of letting go & letting God…
9. Nicodemus had a hard time grasping this, which was probably his problem. Jesus told him, “What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (Jn 3:6-8) It’s a fact: we live by this ungraspable, unpredictable Spirit that claims us all as children of God. “If we live by the Spirit” Paul would say, “let us also be guided by the Spirit.”
Hymn of the Day: “Build us up, Lord” (ELW #670)
The Word
(Galatians 5:16-25)
Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, 21 envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
22 By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.
(Luke 6:46-49)
“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I tell you? 47 I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, hears my words, and acts on them. 48 That one is like a man building a house, who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock; when a flood arose, the river burst against that house but could not shake it, because it had been well built. 49 But the one who hears and does not act is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the river burst against it, immediately it fell, and great was the ruin of that house.”
Sermon Notes
Bad habits are hard to break. The letter to the Galatians urges us to replace them with the fruits of the Spirit. Love, patience, generosity, and self-control are just some of the good habits practiced by those whose foundation is built on Christ.