I have very poor soil in my yard. It consists primarily of red clay and white rocks. If I could market white rocks I would be a millionaire. After several years of attempting to grow grass, I just decided to let nature run its course. When anything green came up, whether it was grass or not, I let it grow. I figured that was better than no ground covering at all. After a while I did not have much grass, but I had a pretty good standing of clover, moss and various other weeds that I mow regularly.
After several years of mowing the weeds I decided I would try my luck at growing grass again. I bought myself a nice rotor-tiller. I ploughed up the ground a good seven inches deep. (The man from the cablevision company who had to come over and replace the cable that I uprooted with the rotor-tiller assured me that I was among good company with many others who did this same type thing on a regular basis every spring. He mumbled something about job security.) As I was tilling up the yard I thought to myself that I could surely get a good sermon illustration out of all this. (Preachers are always coming up with ways to turn the mundane things of life into illustrations!) I have one preacher friend who turned a story about his mother’s apple pie going bad in his refrigerator into a sermon. Another time, he used the story of how he had washed his underwear with a load of red cloths as an illustration. I thought to myself, as the rotor-tiller wrenched my back in positions that would cause a good chiropractor to have dollar bills flash in his eyes, “If he can turn the apple pie and underwear thing into an illustration, surely I can get some mileage out of this ordeal.” Sin makes life’s work so much more difficult than it should be.
Genesis 3:17-19
To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, `You must not eat of it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”
The Curse has not only affected mankind, it has affected the earth as well as the rest of the cosmos. It has thrown things out of balance. As the Apostle Paul states:
“The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” (Romans 8:19-22)
Back to my lawn care woes: After tilling the ground up, I spread the fertilizer, the lime, and the grass seed. I put a light layer of straw to keep the seed from washing off, and then I diligently watered the lawn for weeks. My water bill was the highest it had been in years that Spring.
Guess what? The grass seed never sprouted! No grass! Notta! Three weeks later I went and bought more grass seed. (For those of you who have never been much for yard work, I want you to know that grass seed is not cheap!) Again, I watered and watched. Again, nothing. No grass came up. Now I knew I had a sermon illustration!
That year my yard looked worse than it ever had. My yard had just enough scattered patches of grass (leftover from the tilling, not new grass mind you) to cause me to have to mow once every couple of weeks. When I mowed, the older residence in the neighborhood began to have flashbacks of the great Dust Bowl. That summer there was a bad storm that damaged a lot of my trees. About seven large oak trees had to be cut down they were damaged so bad. Then that winter there was the biggest snow storm in the area in almost a hundred years. This caused my boxwoods to collapse, making many of them crooked and ugly when the snow finally melted. (I know that as you read this you are seeing visions of violins playing their songs of sympathy for me!)
Perhaps, I thought, I could go to Matthew 13 and use the illustration of the farmer who sowed the seed. Some fell along the path where it was quickly eaten by the birds, some fell on rocky soil, some fell among thorns, and some fell among good soil. I could turn this whole chapter into a series that would last for weeks.
But despite amy grass growing woes, and the ample sermon material that it could produce, for the present time I have decided to turn my attention to another troubling area of my lawn; Dandelions. My Juniper beds are filled with dandelions.
Read: Matthew 5:29-30;
“If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.
And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.”
Have you ever attempted to remove dandelions from a lawn or flower bed? They have a root that goes deep into the ground and holds on for dear life. I think that I was having a tug of war with a man in China on the last one I tried to pull up.
Sin is a lot like dandelions. Dandelions are easy to grow. You do not have to try to grow dandelions, they just grow. The wind carries the dandelion spores and they just start growing wherever they land.
It is not hard to allow sin to grow in your life. We are born with a bend toward sin because of the Fall. Our first, real, created nature (the way God created man, in HIS image) has become corrupted and because of this, all the offspring of Adam and Eve, (meaning, in fact the whole human race) are born with a bend or inclination within our natures to go the wrong way.
The original Methodist doctrine, (upon which many of the modern holiness movements sprang) reads like this:
“Original sin standeth not in the FOLLOWING of Adam (as the Pelagians do vainly talk) but in the corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam, whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and of his own nature inclined to evil, and that continually. ”
The Pelagians were those who taught that man’s nature is basically good, and that he becomes either good or bad by following either good examples or bad examples. Thus, according to the Pelagians, we become sinners like Adam, by following his bad example, not by anything in our inherent nature that has become corrupted.
The same idea is predominant in much of the philosophy and political thought of our times. The idea is that if you provide people with the right information and the right examples, they will naturally choose what is right and good. We know from practical life experience that this is not true.
Take, for example, the medical doctor. (I am just using doctors as an illustration, the same thing could apply to many professions.) A medical doctor probably spends more time in school and learns more about the human anatomy than anyone else. A medical doctor should have more knowledge than the average person about what is healthy for the human body. If simply having all the right facts is enough, why do some doctors smoke cigarettes and overeat?
Contrary to Pelagian thought, orthodox Christian doctrine teaches that man’s very nature was corrupted through the fall, and that it is in our nature to sin from the moment we are born. We do not become corrupt by following bad examples, and making bad choices, or through a lack of knowledge. We are already corrupt. We might not understand the idea, because everything in this world’s system of thought screams out the opposite to us. But it is what the Scripture reveals. And once a person understands this, everything else starts to make a lot more sense.
Some will argue that it is not possible for a baby to be born guilty of sin. I agree with that. No one is guilty of any sin until they voluntarily transgress God’s moral law. However, because of the fall and the corruption in man’s nature, all men are born with an inclination to sin and go astray very quickly. It does not take long for any of us to start sinning.
Have you ever noticed that if you take a young child out to play in the spring that the first thing they notice on the ground is the dandelions? The young toddlers grab the tiny yellow flowers and squeal with delight. Or they grab the ones that have bloomed and blow on them, causing the spores to blow away in the wind.
In the same way, we seem to be so easily drawn to sin. It pulls us like a magnet. As the Apostle John states:
For everything in the world–the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does–comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.
Then, in Ephesians 2:1-5:
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions–it is by grace you have been saved.
There is much about dandelions that seems pretty at first. There is also much about sin that appeals to our carnal nature. It seems fun for a while. Anyone who has ever used alcohol or drugs knows that they can make you feel great “at first.” That is why some drugs like cocaine and heroin are so addictive. They give you a physical sense of euphoria unlike anything you have ever felt in the natural sense “at first.” Like Alice, chasing the illusive rabbit, they send you off on a wild chase that promises to take you into new and exciting places that you have never been before. But then, after a while they begin to make your body sick and weak. And the more you use them, the more it takes to get the initial sensation. Soon you are no longer getting the euphoric sensation from them that you got at first. Once you get hooked, you just need them to stay functional. Like Alice, the trip is not fun anymore, it is just confusing and frightening.
Dandelions are pretty for a while, but then the wind blows the fluff away, and all you have left is a big ugly stem with a root anchored deep into the ground.
Sin is the same way. Once all the fluff is blown away, you are left with nasty habits, bad attitudes, and the root of death planted deep in your soul. All the world can see on the surface of your life is that big ugly stem.
Do you know what I tend to do when I am weeding my Juniper bed and I run into dandelions? I pull the tops off, and often leave the root in the ground because it is so hard to get up. The Juniper bed looks good “for a while.” You don’t see any more weeds. All seems well, “for a while.”
In the same way, it is easy for us to try to patch up our lives. We don’t like to deal with the deep issues that have caused us problems for so long. We want a quick fix. We want to get the problem solved and get back to “business as usual.” We make things look good on the surface. We put up a front, and maybe fool ourselves at times. But deep down inside there is that nasty root that we have not taken care of.
There is a term that I have heard used a lot lately, especially coming from Hollywood. The big thing for celebrities to do now is what they refer to as “reinventing themselves.” Bruce Willis has a new hair transplant, and suddenly he has “reinvented himself.” I saw an article in a magazine a while back titled “26 Ways to Reinvent Yourself.” I saw another article about how Madonna had constantly “reinvented herself” throughout her career. Now days people can even reinvent their gender, or not have a gender at all.
What do they mean when they talk about people “reinventing themselves?” Basically this: they incorporate the “Power of Positive Thinking” to change their attitudes about themselves, and then change the image of themselves that they portray to the world. In other words, they repackage the image. Another way of putting it is that they change masks.
If you think about the term “reinventing yourself,” it really does not make a lot of sense anyway. How can you “RE” invent something that you did not invent in the first place? None of us “invented” ourselves, God did. When you were born you had no choice about whether you would be born into a poor, disease infested third world country, or in an affluent society. You had no choice about what kind of family that you would be born into, whether a family riddled with drug addiction, hate, and abuse, or a loving home where your parents loved you and cherished you as a special gift from God. You had no choice about your race, your family’s religions and cultural background, or even how you would turn out physically. All of this was determined by God, your Creator, your “Inventor.”
To invent something means that you make or design something that did not previously exist. In that sense, you cannot “RE” invent anything, but you can redesign something that has already been invented. And none of us can redesign ourselves either.
Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:29-30 seem harsh to us. They used to scare me to death! I thought that if I did not straighten up I would be going to heaven with a lot less body parts. If we really took these words literally we would have to special order orthopedic robes for the choir!
But just as I do not think Jesus really wants us going around mutilating our bodies, I do not think He wants us to take these words lightly either. This is a very serious matter. That is why Jesus put it in the terms that He did. This is hyperbole.
Jesus is showing us in this discourse from Matthew the nature and character of those who will inherit eternity with God. He exposes the misconceptions we have about what real righteousness is all about.
First, the character of those who will inherit eternity:
- They will be poor in spirit; This means that they do not depend on their own works. They know that without God they are lost and undone. There is no sinful pride in them.
- They mourn, both over their own sins, and the sins of the world. We should not take sin lightly. It should break our hearts to see others in bondage to sin and death. If you are not concerned about the sin around you, maybe it is time for you to check your spiritual pulse!
- They are meek; They don’t have to get their own way. They humbly submit to God’s work in their lives and desire for God to use them to accomplish His purposes, even if they never get any recognition for it in this world.
- They hunger and thirst for righteousness. They desire it with a passion. As the Psalm writer cries out:
” As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long; “Where is your God?” These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God, with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng.
Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon– from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me. By day the Lord directs His love, at night His song is with me– a prayer to the God of my life. I say to God my Rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?” My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior, and my God.” - They are merciful; There is no need to get even with those who have wronged them. They are more than willing to forgive and let go of hurts and disappointments.
- They are pure in heart; They have no hidden motives or agendas. Their words and actions agree with each other. There is no hypocrisy.
- They are peacemakers. They want to see all men living in love and harmony with each other.
This must be the character of those who inherit eternity. Anything less contains the element of sin, which leads to death. The principle of death cannot coexist with eternal life. The two are diametrically opposed to each other. That is why sin must be purged out of our very being.
Just like that ugly dandelion, the root must be removed. If it is not removed, even though things may look pretty for a while, it is just a matter of time before all that old junk starts springing up again.
That is what Jesus is getting at here in these words that we have read. It is not enough to just abstain from doing things that are blatantly wrong, we must actively pursue what is right! The sin nature can’t just be suppressed, it must be eradicated! This can only happen as we come to the world’s Savior, the author of life, Jesus Christ.
“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, “Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to the judgment.”
Okay, so far, so good. I have never killed anyone. I am not a low life murderer like those crazy people that you read about in the paper, or those people in the jails and prisons. I must be doing pretty good!
Now wait a minute! What is that you are saying now Jesus? Now it sounds like you are meddling:
“But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, “Raca” is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, “You fool!” will be in danger of the fire of hell.”
(The word “Raca” means literally “empty headed.”)
Paul expresses the same thought as Jesus in Ephesians 4:31:
“Let all bitterness and wrath, and anger and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice.”
The words “evil speaking” used here is actually the same word that is used for “blaspheme” in the original language. To blaspheme means to speak against God, or to speak against the dignity of God. Since man is made to reflect the dignity of God, when one human being attacks the dignity of another human being, he is, essentially attacking the dignity of God. So, in a sense, calling your brother a fool is a form of blaspheme.
I have been very angry with my brothers at times, both my brothers in the flesh, and my brothers in Christ. I have spoken unkind words. Does anyone feel like it is getting hot right now?
“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother, then come and offer your gift. Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still with him on the way, or he may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. I tell you the truth, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.”
Do you mean to tell me that being reconciled to someone that you are at odds with is more important than going to church? If you go to church you can sing a lot of nice songs, have some fellowship, and get to feeling pretty good about yourself, right? You mean that my relationship with my brother is more important than that? Well, it seems that it is……
“You have heard that it was said, “Do not commit adultery”…
Hey, I am still looking pretty good! I have never been to bed with anyone but my wife! Good for me! What did you say Jesus? Those glances at the scantily clad women on the covers of the magazines at the grocery store check-out counter? I was just looking for good articles.
“But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
OUCH! Well Jesus, there you go meddling again. I repeat, it is not enough to just avoid blatantly bad behavior. It is not enough to just not do bad things. God is not so much concerned about what we do or do not do. He is concerned about who we are.
The old sin nature must be pulled out by the root! That is what many of the holiness denominations refer to as “Entire Sanctification.” When I used to hear that expression “Entire Sanctification” it conjured up images in my mind of kind of a “country club of saints” that only the spiritually elite could join. If you were “Entirely Sanctified” you were up there with the spiritual cream of the crop, so to speak.
That is not what it means at all. John Wesley understood sanctification to mean, the cleansing of our nature to the degree that sin is no longer the controlling principle. John Wesley also referred to this as “Christian Perfection.” That word “perfection” is another word that scares us, isn’t it? But the truest definition for perfection is that something, or someone serves the purpose for which it, or he was made. A hammer is made to drive nails, not turn screws. A hammer is not less than perfect because it cannot make a phillips head screw turn. It was never meant to do that. It was meant to drive nails, and when it is used to drive nails, it is perfect. (Except, or course when it misses and smashes your index finger! That just indicates that the person using the hammer is less than a perfect nail banger.)
Man’s chief end is to glorify God. When we glorify God, and allow His love to flow through us, we become perfect! We are accomplishing the purpose for which we were made!
Does that mean that those who are sanctified never commit acts of sin? No,it does not. It means that the sin nature does not control them. Sin has lost its power. This is not taught enough in the church today. We are being taught a doctrine of cheap grace that says all you must do is believe. The Bible says “You must be Born Again.” That means that God’s life infuses your life, and your very life nature is supernaturally changed.
“If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.”
So just how does that happen? How does the root of sin get removed? Do we just decide one day that “Today is the day?” NO! Jesus said, “You must be born again.” So how do you get born again? Do you know of anyone who just woke up on a certain day and decided to get “Born Again”?
Have you ever heard someone say “I think that today I will get baptized in the Holy Spirit? Yes that is my decision. Today I have decided to get baptized in the Holy Spirit. I have made up my mind, so God had better cooperate with me.”
Of course, you have never heard anyone talk like that! It is ridiculous. It doesn’t work that way. The reason that it doesn’t is because we must come to the end of ourselves before God can change us and fill us with His own life. If we think we have a measure of control, we are shutting Him out. That is what is wrong with all our self-help, and self-improvement ideas. That is what is wrong with the whole idea of “reinventing” yourself. We don’t just up and decide to make ourselves better. Being born again comes out of a process that God puts a man through. That process begins with the Spirit of God putting a man (or woman) under conviction for sin. That is why Proverbs says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom.” When does that process begin? Well, for each of us individually, only God knows. For some people it comes soon, and for others, later.
I tend to believe that God has a special time or season in every person’s life when He orchestrates the events of each person’s life to make us ripe for that change to take place. (I admit that this is speculation based on my own observations, and I cannot prove this, so I would not teach this as theology, but it is not an unreasonable theory.)The circumstances are different for all of us. But God knows when the time is right. There is an internal struggle that every person must go through when God causes each of us to ask the deep questions of life:
Who am I really? Why am I here on this earth? Why do I even exist at all? Why does the world and everything in it even exist? What is the ultimate meaning and purpose of life? Does life even really have a meaning? What happens in the end?
Then the questions center around the fact that there is something dreadfully wrong with us. Why is man so bent on evil, when it is so unnecessary?
Then more specifically, there is something dreadfully wrong with me. Why do I have such a hard time doing what is right? Why is it that when I try to do good I fail so miserably? If life really has no meaning, as the evolutionists would have us believe, what difference does it make if I do right or not? Why do I even care?
The truth is that Life does have a meaning and a purpose, and life the way God intends is full of beauty and joy. He is bringing each of us to the point of knowing that, during this season of awakening.
There is a bitter side to this. There are many people who go through this season of struggle and come to the wrong conclusions. They refuse to submit themselves to God and surrender their own will. They come out on the other side of the struggle more confused and bitter. They may do well at hiding the hurt and confusion. They camouflage it with a blur of activity and stuff. They may do this for the rest of their lives. But inside they are empty and fear death more than anything.
On the other hand, there are those who ultimately realize that the answers lie in God’s truth. They realize that there is no hope within themselves and surrender it all to God in meekness and humility. They hear God’s Word and believe it. They surrender themselves to God’s grace and love that is provided through Jesus Christ. God honors their faith, and the surrendering of themselves to Him by filling them with His power through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. THAT is what it means to be BORN AGAIN!
Does that mean that a person who is born again never sins? No it does not, as I have stated earlier But sin is no longer in control. We still need grace. That is why God had the Apostle John write these words:
“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make Him out to be a liar, and His Word has no place in our lives.”
Let me ask you right now, as you read this: Has that root of sin been purged from your own heart? Have you just been pulling the tops off the dandelions in your life to make things look pretty on the surface? Only you can answer that question. God knows the truth about you. Why not pray and seek HIS face on this matter, and allow Him to pluck that big ugly root out of your heart, give you a fresh start, and fill you with His grace and power today?
Danny's Stump 