The Transforming Life                                                                                                                                 Youth Pastor : Marty Lone

31^st January 2010                                                                                                                     St. John’s Presbyterian Church, Mt. Roskill

Readings: Psalm 147, Genesis 28:10–22, Mark 7:1-9, 1 Timothy 1:12-19a

This morning we have three accounts that point us towards the way God moves and changes our lives.   We begin with Jacob who was an ordinary man.  He left Beersheba and was heading on a journey to a place called Haran when the sun set so he stopped for the night. While Jacob was asleep he had a dream.  In it he saw a stairway that was resting on the earth with its top reaching to heaven and the angels of God ascending and descending on it.  When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought. “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” Jacob was afraid and said, “how awesome is this place, this is none other than the house of God, this is the gate of heaven”.

God had given Jacob a vision, a dream. This was God’s way of revealing how reality can be very different from how we perceive them.  There is a physical world and a spiritual world and being so aware of both was a new thing for Jacob, as indeed it is for many people.  The angels descending and ascending revealed the constant interaction between heaven and earth.

God had spoken to Jacob in the dream saying, “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac”. God identified Himself to Jacob confirming that He is God and that He was to revealing something of importance for Jacob’s life.  God had a destiny, a purpose for Jacob’s life and it was good.

The Lord promised that He would give Jacob and His descendants the land on which he was lying. This was God’s promise to Jacob, a first revealing of good things to come. “Your descendants will be like dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised”.  Because of His divine encounter with God Jacob could look forward to good things in his life. Jacob’s vision gave him a hope for the future, a time when his descendants would be so numerous they were like the dust of the earth.

But there was more than just blessing for Jacob’s clan. Jacob heard that “all peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring”. We here today in 2010 church have been blessed by God through Jacob and his offspring. How awesome is our God that He thought of us all that time ago in a dream given to Jacob.

God also promised Jacob, “I will watch over you wherever you go”.  This shows us how God confirms His love for His people by always being with us and not leaving us matter what circumstance or pressures we are under. In Jacobs’s dream the Lord stood above the staircase he recognized that the stairs led to a gate of heaven therefore Jacob seeing good things are to come. Jacob’s expectations were now forfilled after receiving this dream, this vision from God. Jacobs’s thoughts of seeing a sacred place and realizing that it was the house of God and that the gate led to heaven was for everyone.

Early the next morning, we are told, Jacob took the stone that he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. He called that place where he lay Bethel. Jacob made a vow stating that “If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I may return safely to my father’s house, then the Lord will be my God”. How many of us have made prayer like that?  Both God and Jacob were faithful to that covenant and Jacob grew to know God in a special, personal way. Jacob had confidence that God would be his provider and caretaker and Jacob became a pillar in the Lord’s house.

Church as we sit here this morning we are challenged to follow in the footsteps of Jacob and become pillars for God standing upright and remaining firm in the promises God makes to us.

Jacob’s life changed after his encounter with God.  But why does God want to change us?  The gospel account from the gospel of Mark tells us why.   

In the second reading Mark talks about the clean and the unclean. The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law gathered around Jesus.  Jesus knew there would be some testing times ahead. The Pharisees and teachers asked Jesus, “Why don’t Your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders?” The Pharisees had seen some of His disciples eating food with unclean hands; that is unwashed. The Pharisees did not eat until they gave their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the traditions of the elders.  Jesus could see that the Pharisees and the teachers of Law were missing the point to the ceremonial washing. The Pharisees were so tied up in their own little world that they went to extremes but the cleansing of the physical body would not purify the heart, in other words you can clean your dishes but that is not enough for spiritual cleansing to take place within you.  Jesus knew the Pharisees had not fully grasped the clean and unclean traditions; they had forgotten the intention of God’s commands. The main point of the quotation from Isaiah concerns the substitution of the tradition of men for the commandment of God.  These verses record a growing conflict between Christ and the Pharisees on the basic issue of the source of authority. Does tradition carry divine authority, is it equal, or superior to, the written word of God?      

             Jesus replied to the teachers saying that Isaiah was right when he prophesied about hypocrites. The term hypocrite was well chosen, for it originally referred to an actor who wore a mask and appeared to be what he really was not. Prophetically Isaiah stated, “these people honor me with lips, but their hearts are far from me”.  Jesus also knew that the Pharisees may have been honorable before Him but their hearts were in a different place. They worshiped in vain as their appearance and achievements reflected the things of men and not of God.  They had let go of the commands of God and allowed the traditions of men to supplant what was true and right.

            There is a line in a poem by John Donne that says, “no man is an island entire of itself”.  We might go further and state that humanity is not an island of its own.  By letting go of God’s commands and holding on to this things of man the Pharisees effectively abandoned the things of God. As Jesus said to the Pharisees, “you have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions”.  The Pharisees viewed their own oral tradition as being more authoritative than the written law of the Old Testament.  Interestingly enough, as Colin alluded to last week, many of the modern cults and religious groups take exactly the same approach today as if God’s Word were to be happily ignored.

The message for us is that we need to hold onto all that God gives us. If we are to change from our old unclean ways and walk with the purity God wants of us we need to have a complete change putting and put on the new clean clothing.  We need to get rid of the old impure life and live, not hypocritically, so it looks good from the outside, but be changed and transformed by the Spirit, genuinely from within.  Ultimately we are looking to becoming like Christ, remade in His image. We follow not in the footsteps of men, follow God’s divine design.  Then we will experience the fullness of being transformed into the image of Christ Jesus.

            Our last bible reading shows us the practical reality of such a transformation.  Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus came to know God’s call.  Paul shared that even though he was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, the worst sinner of all, he had acted in ignorance and unbelief, even though at the time he had all the best reasons.  Or thought he did.  But the grace of the Lord was poured out on him abundantly; along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Paul’s dramatic conversion was a turning point in his life.  From that time on the Damascus road, to when he wrote, he reflected on his past life experiences contrasted with the newly and transformed man that he had become. He gave thanks to God for showing him mercy.

            Paul notes a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”, of whom he considered himself the worst.   And don’t we do that.  We can see ourselves as the most miserable people alive sometimes.  But Paul goes on to boast about his sufferings in Christ.  His new life has greater purpose.  In him Christ Jesus has displayed His unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on Him and would receive eternal life.  Paul knew that if God was able to save and redeem him, who had been a murderer and persecutor of God’s own people, then the was the hope of eternal life for others who would follow.

             God has a plan and purpose for our new life’s journey. Paul experienced full acceptance, being anointed with grace and faith and love. By God’s hand Paul experienced a full transformation.  Paul, in gratitude, proclaims that God is King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honored and given glory forever and ever.  Paul’s relationship with the Lord is one on one, close and personal, something that he wanted everyone to achieve.

            When Paul speaks to Timothy, a young helper, he exhorts him to fight the good fight, holding on to the faith with a good conscience. Paul was passing on his confidence and experience to Timothy, encouraging him with the knowledge and new life he has experienced in God.  Paul is enthusiastic about sharing his new life with others; his very own testimony validated by the Lord.  The Lord has transformed the old man to a new man who was serving God with love and faith.  And always at the back of his mind Paul is deeply thankful to Christ as he recalls his own salvation and call, contrasting his unworthiness and Christ’s mercy.

            Paul in effect says, if the Lord saved me, who was worse than the others, none need despair, and you may be assured that my Lord can enable you too.  In faith we believe Christ to be faithful to us as we act with good conscience, not allowing our conscience to be defiled by sinful practices contrary to good doctrine. 

Paul knows that Timothy may experience sin. Some people, Paul says, have shipwrecked their faith. We know that Paul experienced a shipwreck in Acts 27 verse 27 when sailing to Rome.  He could contrast the faith of so many who have lost their way and their faith as being shipwrecked and stranded as if on an Island.  If we are not obedient to true doctrine our belief becomes a dead faith.

            In Christ Jesus Paul received strength, faithfulness, mercy, love, patience and eternal life.  As Paul repented of his old life and received God’s goodness he was slowly but surely transformed into a great man serving God, sharing the good news of Christ Jesus to all ends of the earth.

            We conclude by observing that we have journeyed through three accounts of response to God. Firstly, with Jacob’s life changed after his encounter with God. He witnessed that God’s promise was for everyone, and that there was a good life far more worthy than what planet earth could ever provide. Secondly, with Jesus and the Pharisees we saw the constant struggle to give up the old, our own pride and ambition, our traditions and likes for the things of God.  This is easily achieved when your focus is centered on purely human ways of thinking, untransformed in the mind of Christ. Thirdly, Paul received and responded to the call of Christ in his life, recognizing Christ speaking to him.  He received the grace, love and empowering of Christ and was transformed by the grace of God.  He got rid of the old and put on the new with the love and faith that comes from Christ Jesus. To be transformed in Christ is life changing, are you ready for serving God? Then have that expectation that God will do something amazing this year. Amen

Let us pray: Loving Father thank You that You sent Jesus to bring transformative change into our lives.  Thank You that You forgive our sin and set us free to serve You.  Help us to give up all that is not of You that will hold us back from being truly free in You.  Father transform our lives so that we can bring You glory.  This we pray in Jesus’ name.  Amen.