“No Longer…”

A sermon based upon Ephesians 4: 17-25

By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

Transfiguration Sunday, March 3rd,  2019 

(8-14) Sermon Series: Growing Up In Christ (Eph. 4:15)

"Hoke, you are my best friend."

It took Daisy Werthan almost twenty years to make that statement; it wasn't easy. The relationship between Daisy and Hoke was not mutual or cordial at the outset. Daisy had driven her beautiful new 1948 Packard into her neighbor's backyard. Boolie Werthan, Daisy's son, thought that such an incident was sufficient evidence to warrant that his mother stop driving; she needed a driver, a chauffeur. Hoke Coleburn, a middle-aged black man, was Boolie's choice for the job. Daisy, however, would not accept this restriction, this change for her life.

Boolie may have hired Hoke, but that did not mean that Miss Daisy had to use him. As Hoke stood idle, Miss Daisy took the street car wherever she went, to the hairdresser or the grocery store. Hoke Coleburn was being paid for doing nothing. That is exactly how Miss Daisy wanted things.

As stubborn as she could be, Miss Daisy ultimately did change her attitude. One day she needed a few things from the store. She left the house and began to walk toward the streetcar. Hoke decided that Miss Daisy's refusal to use his services needed to end. As she walked down the sidewalk, Hoke slowly drove alongside in the new 1948 Hudson Boolie had purchased for his mother. "Where are you going," scowled Daisy. Hoke replied, "I'm fixin' to take you to the store!" Although still not content with the arrangement, Daisy agreed to get into the car; her conversion had begun.

Daisy did not approve, but Hoke had become her chauffeur. Whether it was to the temple, you see Miss Daisy was Jewish, the store, or a trip to Mobile to visit relatives, Daisy and Hoke went together. As the years passed, their relationship as driver and passenger grew; they bonded together. Then one day Miss Daisy's conversion became complete. The process had been long and sometimes difficult, but now it was finished. She could finally say, "Hoke, you are my best friend."

Alfred Uhry's 1988 Pulitzer Prize winning play, Driving Miss Daisy, tells more than a story of the relationship between a black chauffeur and an elderly, rich, Jewish widow. It is a story of the challenge to be transformed in mind and heart.

I INSIST… (17) 

Do you still think and believe that people can change or transformed?  The apostle Paul does.  He even insists on it.  In our text Paul writes: “So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord…”(17).

When Paul says he ‘insists on it IN THE LORD, Paul acknowledges that this change or conversion is not something that he could do, or that you can do all alone; all by yourself.  No, this is a transformation that can only take place ‘in the Lord’.  This is what Paul has been writing about all along in this passage.

 “In the Lord” you can ‘make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace’ (v. 3).

“In the Lord”‘grace has been given as Christ apportioned it’ (v.7).

“In the Lord”  Christ ‘gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers’ to prepare God’s people for works of service’ (v. 11-12).

“In the Lord” we can ‘reach maturity’ and ‘attain the whole measure of the fulness of Christ’ (v. 13).

And finally, only ‘in the Lord’ will we ‘be no longer infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by ever wind of teaching…. (v. 14).

Do you get the picture here, this ‘transformation’, this ‘change of heart and mind’ and this conversion is only made possible ‘in the Lord’?

Interestingly, when the NIV has Paul saying “I tell you this and I insist on it in the Lord’ (v.17), the original word here is more as the KJV says, “I testify in the Lord”.  You see, in the ancient world, a person’s word or testimony was how you insisted on something.  People did not ‘insist’ or trust in their own opinions or in their own ideas alone, but they ‘testified’ to their experiences in city squares and public places.  In other words, if you had ‘experienced’ it, then you testified that it was true.  Life wasn’t merely defined by only what you felt, thought, or imagined, but the truth was what had happened to you and could, and perhaps should also be experienced by others. 

According to Acts 9, Paul’s testimony was his own experience of ‘conversion’ or transformation on the Damascus Road.  It was a transformation ‘in the Lord’ because Paul, then named Saul, was on his way to Damascus to imprison Christians.  But then we read how ‘suddenly a light from heaven flashed’ and Saul ‘fell to the ground’ hearing Jesus’ voice saying ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? (Acts 9:4). 

We’ve all hear this story, but we’ve also sometimes misinterpreted it.  We shouldn’t read Saul’s transformation as something that happened all ‘in a flash’ because his conversion was much slower, and more complete, than that.  Yes, Christ spoke to his heart in that moment, but the actual change and conversion took longer.  If you read on in the story, Saul was blinded by the light until Ananias came and laid hands on him.  Also, Saul ‘spent several days with the disciples in Damascus’ (v. 19).  Yes, he soon thereafter ‘began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus in the Son of God’ (v. 20), but later, according to Galatians, ‘after three years’ (Gal. 1:18, about as long as it takes to complete a theological education), we are told how Saul ‘came to Jerusalem’ (Acts 9:27), where the disciples there were still afraid of him, until Barnabas ‘brought him to the apostles’ (v. 27).  Then, Saul spent more time in Jerusalem, until much later, we find him in Antioch, where he was working with other disciples, who then sent Saul and Barnabas ‘off’ to begin their mission work.

When we read closely how the transformation of Saul, into Paul (Acts 13:9), took place, it was not instantaneous or immediate.  Yes, Jesus spoke to him, and yes, ‘immediately’ something like scales fell off his eyes, but his transformation from Saul the Hebrew, to become Paul the Apostle to the Gentile took several years of prayer, fasting, mentoring and discipleship.  We need to get over this misunderstanding that becoming a Christian happens in an instant.  The Lord may speak to you, and perhaps even ‘save you’ from sin and evil in an instant, but you aren’t a Christian until you come to follow Jesus Christ as you learn how to follow in the way and work of Jesus Christ.  True transformation in Christ is a process, a ‘method’ (as the Methodist say), or a way of discipleship, not a instantaneous event where everything happens in one single moment of time.

This is why Paul begins his practical part of his letter to the Romans: ‘Therefore, I urge, you, brothers (and sisters)… Do no conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  THEN YOU WILL BE ABLE to test and approve what God’s will is….his pleasing and perfect will (Romans 12: 2).  In the play, Driving Miss Daisy, Daisy Werthan needed to be converted, that is to be transformed in her mind.  Her attitude toward the loss of her independence needed to be changed. But this did not happen overnight.  It took some time.  But after some time passed she finally realized having a chauffeur was ‘right’ and necessary for her, and through a process of transformation she was eventually able be to say, "Hoke, you are my best friend."  What Miss Daisy learned is that transformation takes time. Trying shortcuts leads only to more problems and more disappointments.

The need to stay the course in our discipleship in Jesus toward our transformation into become a follower of Jesus Christ can be illustrated in the world of science. One day, a student found a cocoon in the wild and brought it to the biology lab at school. The teacher placed the cocoon in an unused aquarium with a lamp shining on it to keep it warm. After one week a small opening was seen on the underside of the cocoon. The students in the class watched as the cocoon shook and suddenly small antennae emerged, followed by a head and some tiny feet. The students were impatient and wanted to see more.

As time went by the insect's listless wings were uncovered, revealing beautiful colors that told all that this was a monarch butterfly. The insect wiggled and shook but could not free itself completely from the cocoon; it appeared to be stuck. Finally, one rather impulsive student decided to help the butterfly out of its difficulty. He took some scissors and snipped the cocoon's rather restrictive opening, allowing the insect to free itself. The top half looked like a butterfly with droopy wings, but the bottom half which just emerged from the cocoon was malformed. The butterfly could not fly, but only managed to crawl around the bottom of the aquarium, dragging its wings and swollen body. Sadly, within a short time the butterfly died.

The next day the biology teacher explained that the butterfly's struggle to free itself from the cocoon was absolutely necessary in order to force the fluid from the lower body into the wings. Without the struggle the wings never developed and the insect could not fly. The action, the method, and the struggle of the whole process was necessary for the full transformation from cocoon to Butterfly.

After insisting that transformation is necessary, and takes time, Paul also gives one of the most detailed discussions of what needed to be transformed in his world, and still needs transformation.   He goes right to the heart of the human problem, speaking of the Gentile need to have ‘darkened’ thinking, ignorance, and human sensitivity and sensuality challenged and changed (see v.18-19).  Without getting to the ‘heart’ of the problem, addressing the root of the human problem, there can be no real, lasting, human transformation, no matter how sincere and willing we are to change.

In his commentary on Ephesians, N.T. Wright tells of having problems with an agency who advertised an apartment his family wanted to rent.  The agency was so unhelpful.  Every time they telephoned, they had to speak to a different person, who never understood their situation.  They gave different answers when questions were asked.  They always quoted different rates.  The worst thing, Wright says, was that they didn’t seem to care whether the place was rented or not.

When he and his wife finally visited the office, it became clear what the problem was.  The secretaries and assistants they spoke to on the telephone were not the main problem.  They seemed to want to be helpful.  But the manager of the office, whom they had not talked to before, was impossible.  He was inefficient, haphazard, and probably had a drinking problem.  He covered all this up by being a bully.  He shouted at this employees and gave them different instructions every day.  “No wonder they weren’t able to help.”  Wright said.  “It was only by confronting the manager directly and making him face the issues could we begin to sort everything out” (From N.T. Wright, The Prison Letters, pg. 50). 

In the same way, it is only when we come to grips with what is the wrong way to live, do we ever begin to discover the right way to live a human life.  And finding out the ‘wrong ways’ takes a slow, intentional, deliberate process of gaining new knowledge, of learning, of understanding, and seeing life from a different perspective than our own.  If we don’t want to live like ‘pagans’ (which is what Gentile means), then we have to come to understand what being ‘pagan’ means, as much as, we have to understand what being ‘Christian’ means.  If we are so used to living in the dark, it will take a while for our eyes to get used to the light, and then, we have to take time to look around in our lives, and come to figure out what doesn’t belong and what is destructive to us, and to others.  

We also have to go beyond the ‘surface’ issues of what is wrong, we have to go to the ‘source’ of why we have chosen to live as we have, and we have to re-evaluate and re-order our lives ‘in light’ of the love that has been revealed in Jesus Christ.  Jesus clearly said that the ‘source’ of how we should live and how we shouldn’t live, is found within the human heart.  In Mark’s gospel, Jesus exposed how the religion of his day was caught up in all kinds of ceremonial traditions, about which foods should or should not be eaten, but Jesus challenged this ‘tradition’ by explaining: “It’s not what goes into a person that defiles them, but it’s what comes out of the heart” (see v.18).  Jesus explained, what goes into a person’s mouth, just goes out into the sewage, but it’s what comes out of people’s mouths, coming directly out of their hearts, that makes people ‘unclean’, dirty, and spoiled.  Jesus went on: “From within, out of people’s hearts comes evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.”  These ‘evils that come from the inside make people ‘unclean’. (Mark 7:17-23)

Thus, if you want to know what’s gone wrong in a culture, in a society, or even gone wrong in a family, Jesus, like a good psychologist would also say, don’t just look at their actions but take a look deeper into their souls, their minds, and into their hearts.  Here’s where the problem is, says Jesus.  Their ‘hearts’ are deceitfully wicked, and corrupted.  This is why their lives have deliberately gone wrong.

Can we still handle Paul and Jesus’ perspective of why and where we need to be transformed?   A society, a culture, and a people, true Christianity still says, can’t be transformed simply by new music, new traditions, new ways, habits or traditions, but somehow the ‘truth’ has to get into their ‘minds’ and their ‘hearts’, so that their own hearts and minds will be confronted, challenged, changed, and transformed.  But what kind of ‘truth’ is it that should challenge us?  What kind of ‘truth’ should we be ‘changed’ into?

THE TRUTH THAT IS IN JESUS (21)  

Paul says, in verse 21, that it is ‘the truth that is in Jesus Christ’ that we must ‘learn’ and ‘be taught’ in order to be ‘transformed’.  But what is  this truth in Jesus Christ?  It’s not just to believe that Jesus existed, or to believe that Jesus saves.  “Even the demons believe and tremble”, the Scripture says.  What kind of ‘truth’ in Jesus confronts, challenges, and changes us into becoming followers of Jesus Christ?  

According to Paul in this passage, the truth about Jesus is an ‘understanding’ of ‘life’ and ‘love’ that overcomes ignorance, insensitivity, and hardening.  This ‘understanding’ restores our ‘sensitivity’ to what is good and right, and it helps us overcome the kind of fleshly, and earthly ‘sensuality’ that only leads us to ‘the continual lust for learning, having, and getting more, and more’ but never leads us ‘to the knowledge of truth’ that renews, restores, and transforms our hearts with meaning, purpose and hope.  What kind of truth ‘in Jesus’ can do this.

Markus Barth, the great N.T. Bible scholar, said that when Paul and the early church spoke about ‘the way’ of Jesus, or they spoke about being ‘taught’ the ‘truth that is in Jesus’, they were referring to a very ‘school’ of teaching that had come directly from Jesus, which was being taught by the apostles and the earliest disciples  (See Ephesians 4-6, Markus Barth, The Anchor Bible, p. 526ff).  Now, wouldn’t it be great if we had such a collection of ‘teachings’ and ‘truths’ directly from Jesus so we could confront the ‘darkness’, the ‘hardness’ and the ‘insensitivities’ of our own culture?  Well, the truth is that we do.  We call it the 4 Gospels.  These Four gospels, especially in how the gospel of Matthew is compiled and written, gives us the details of the ‘truth that is in Jesus Christ’ for the transformation of our souls, hearts, and minds.

Interestingly, in this gospel, as Matthew’s gospel concludes, Jesus instructs his disciples to go out into the world, not to win all the world to Christ, but to ‘go’ and to ‘make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, TEACHING THEM TO OBEY (that is to follow) WHAT I HAVE COMMANDED… (Matt. 28: 19-20).  It is only when the church obeys what Jesus commands, by ‘making disciples’ and by ‘teaching’ and by ‘obeying’ the gospel, that Jesus releases his promise that he ‘will never leave or forsake’ us.

Years ago, when I was in language school in western Germany, we were invited to go to Cologne, a city not far from where we were living, where the English-speaking Baptist church was installing a new pastor.  During the service, after the pastor was charged with his new position, he then got up and preached, challenging his church to take the gospel out to the whole city and win the whole city, which including the surrounding area, had a population of almost 500, 000 people.  Only about 10,000 of those people could speak or understand English, and his church was only an English-speaking church.  Still, even if they could have spoken German too, winning a ‘whole city’ for Christ, was a very unrealistic, idealistic goal.

What we need to understand about the ‘truth’ of the gospel, is that Jesus never challenged us to ‘win’ the whole world, nor even to ‘change’ the ‘whole world’ with the truth of the gospel.  The world remains the world that is in rebellion, and only God can transform it, as a whole.

Instead, however, Jesus commissioned his church to ‘go’ into ‘all the world’ with the gospel and ‘to make disciples’ out of all the nations.  It was by taking the truth to the world and making disciples among those who would believe, that Jesus promised success.  Jesus goals were not idealistic, but realistic, and practical too.  Jesus wanted his church to teach and make disciples out of those who would hear and answer the call and learn the ‘truth’ of the gospel.  We were to give ourselves to this process of ‘making disciples’ which was to bring transformation and hope into the world.

As we know all-to-well, the beauty business is big business. Adorning ourselves, perfecting every perceived imperfection, curling what is straight, straightening what is curly, bleaching this/highlighting that, products that promise to make youngsters look older and oldsters look younger never lose their appeal. “Stuff” made out of low-tech squished fruit or high-tech spliced genes all promise to adorn and ultimately to transform our faces, save our skin, and sanctify our souls. If only we will buy just this ONE product.  Right?

An Arizona based cosmetics firm calling itself “Philosophy” sells a moisturizer it calls “Hope in a Jar.” The label on this jar of “hope” declares” “Where there is hope there can be faith. Where there is faith, miracles can occur.” Here the cosmetics company provides (for a hefty price) the “hope in a jar.” But the consumer must supply their own “faith” if they expect a “miracle” to occur.

Now, we all KNOW that nothing we smear on our face, or rub through our hair, or massage into our “love handles” or cheese thighs is really going to defy the space-time continuum and strip away everything wrinkled, grey, or saggy.  We all KNOW that if that super-secret skin serum being hawked on that late-night infomercial could really do what it claims, its manufacturers wouldn’t have to be advertising it on a late-night infomercial.  It would ‘sell’ without any effort whatsoever.  Everybody would want it already.

While there is certainly nothing wrong with a little ‘help’ from the cosmetic manufacturers,  the problem is that so much that is supposed to give us “hope” is nothing more than “hype.” Unlikely. Unproveable. Unrepeatable. Unreliable. Hype.  And hope that is only based on hype leads us nowhere.

An early Sandra Bullock movie was entitled “Hope Floats.” Hollywood undoubtedly thought “hope floats” was a good, encouraging image. But things “float” because they are full of air. Nothingness can easily be buoyed up with more nothingness.  So much of what this world calls ‘truth’ or ‘hope’ is nothing but ‘lies’ and ‘hype’.  And unfortunately, even some churches get caught up in all this ‘hype’ too, selling their God-given birthright of the true gospel, for a mess of pottage that is nothing but a lot of hot air religion.

So, again, I ask once more, what is this truth?  What is the ‘truth that is in Jesus’ that can transform us, and can also be passed down from one generation of believers to the next, as the truth about faith, about hope, and of course, the truth about love?

BE LIKE GOD IN TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS (23)

What was the greatest problem Jesus came to save us from?  Most people would say it was to save sinners, right?   Well, that’s certainly not wrong, but it’s only partly right.  It’s only partly right because we seldom understand the ‘worst’ kind of sin or sinner Jesus confronted in the gospels. 

If I were to ask you to list the worst kinds of sins, you’d probably go to one of the lists given by the apostle Paul in his letters.  Again, those lists certainly aren’t wrong.  They were the kinds of sins Paul often encountered in the Gentile world and we still encounter in our world.   Jesus and Paul both listed these kinds of sins as sins from the ‘deceitful heart’ or the ‘darkened mind’. As we’ve seen already, Jesus made a list similar to Paul’s in Mark 7, as sins “from within, out of people’s hearts; evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit,… and so on.” 

Sometimes we church folks like to put these kinds of sins on the top priority list of sins that Jesus needs to ‘redeem us from’.  But when you read and examine the sin that crucified Jesus, while it may have included some of these sins, they were all working in the background of an even greater sin.  The sin that put Jesus crucified Jesus was not the ‘sin’ of the publican, the tax-collector, or the prostitute, but according to Jesus the gospel story, the worst kind of sin, the kind of sin that we all need to continually to rid ourselves from, even after we become Christians, is the sin of the ‘hypocrite’, the sin of the ‘pretender’, or the sin of the ‘self-righteous’ Pharisee.  This was ‘greatest’ sin Jesus continually denounced (see Matthew 23) not because the ‘Scribes and Pharisees’ were the worst people around, or the meanest.  Hypocrisy was the greatest sin only because by only holding on to one’s own version of ‘righteousness’ we are being prevented from learning, understanding and becoming the ‘true righteousness’ of God.  This is a kind of righteousness or holiness only revealed to those who are open and willing to learn ‘more’ from the God who calls us to continually ‘serve (God) in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter (Rom. 7:6 KJV).

It is this ‘true righteousness’ and ‘holiness’ that calls us to continually be ‘taught’ to have faith, hope, and love through Jesus, as we constantly ‘put on Jesus Christ, each and every day, just like ‘putting off’ old clothes, and ‘putting on’ new clothes.  You never stop putting off old clothes, and putting on new ones until the day you die.  Then, and only then, will someone else will dress you.  Then, and only then, will you reach final ‘maturity’ and the absolute ‘fulness of Jesus Christ’.  Until then, we have to keep ‘putting off’ the old, and ‘putting on’ the new person, we are still becoming in Jesus Christ.  Anything less, is to fail to obtain the full potential of being transformed in the fullness of Jesus Christ.

There’s one more thing that needs to be said about spiritual transformation; especially when we start using words like ‘righteousness’ and ‘holiness’.  Some people, especially those who don’t want to be accused of being ‘hypocritical’ want to try to be something they’re not.  But this is not what Paul means when he says that Christ’s way of transformation challenges and confronts our lives.  No, the way of Jesus is not introducing the kind of ‘newness’ that is altogether new, but it is a transformation and a renewing of who we already should be and can be again.  This is why we Christians like to talk about being ‘lost’ and being ‘saved’ which really means being ‘found’.  We use language like this because what Jesus does is not create all ‘new’ people, but God’s love in Jesus can make us who we have been ‘created’ to be, and who we already are, if we were to have our hearts and minds renewed and restored.

A final example of the possibility of renewing transformation is found in the story of Dulcinea, one of the principal characters in the popular Broadway musical, Man of la Mancha. The audience learns that Don Quixote, the chief character, lives with many illusions, most especially his idea that he is a knight who battles dragons in the form of windmills. At the end of the play as he lays dying, Don Quixote has at his side a prostitute, Aldonza, whom he has called Dulcinea - Sweet One - much to the laughter of the local townsfolk. But Don Quixote has loved her in a way unlike she has ever experienced. When Quixote breathes his last breath, Aldonza begins to sing "The Impossible Dream." As the echo of the song dies away, someone shouts to her, "Aldonza!" But she pulls away proudly and responds, "My name is Dulcinea." The crazy's knight's love had transformed her into someone who is now completely made new by love.

There is no need greater in our world today, as has always been, and will always be, than to have hearts transformed by the power and hope of transforming love.  Our attitudes, words, and actions can lift people up or tear them down; Jesus has left the example and revealing of God’s love all up to us!  Before others can be touched and transformed by God’s love, we may need to have our own hearts renewed in the wonder of God’s love.

As a little poem goes:  

He drew a circle that shut me out --

Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.

But love and I had the wit to win:

We drew a circle that took him in.

Isn’t this the kind of love that threw Saul for a loop, and launch the greatest missionary of grace, the world has ever known?   And God’s love is not finished yet.  When you ‘put off your old self’ and ‘put on the new’, which starts with ‘attitude of your minds’, it’s still wonderful, how transforming true love can be.  Amen.