Bible Text:

“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord’ and do not do what I tell you?”               (Luke 6:46)                                      

Someone once said that birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live. I had another birthday this week. And, I have the great good fortune to have a granddaughter who shares my birth date with me. This past Friday we went out of town to celebrate my mother’s 90^th birthday. I can tell you this morning that I’m somewhere in between my mother and my granddaughter!

 I was reminded of my age when eight days ago I officiated at the wedding of a couple where I had baptized the bride as an infant, right here in this sanctuary. I begin to feel a little bit like the man who was toasted on his birthday as someone who was “born in the year of our Lord only knows.”

 But I feel good. And I’m grateful to be right here.

 Some years ago I had a serious theological difference with a man. He asked me a bold, in-your-face question: “What is Christianity for you, anyway?” I gave him my best response: “Christianity is a way of walking through life.” “No, no,” he jeered. “Christianity is a person. Christianity is Jesus Christ.”

 I suppose the debate could go on. But after all these years, I still think I was right.

 Jesus put the matter several different ways. At one point he said, “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in Heaven.” (Matthew 7:21) In another place he said, “For whoever does the will of my Father in Heaven is my brother, my sister, and my mother.” (Matthew 12:50; Mark 5:35) The text puts the matter in the form of a question. Jesus asks, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord’ and do not do what I tell you to do?”

 Clearly, the way you walk through life matters. You and I journey through life in the will of God. 

But then comes the next question. What is the will of God? What does God really expect from you and me?

 Is it right doctrine? There are those who would say “yes” to that question. I get literature and one magazine regularly from that group. They maintain we must get our doctrinal standards straight, we must get them correct, they must always be accurate.

 Or is it a particular brand of theology—something called “classical orthodoxy”? I came through seminary when the social gospel and the so-called liberalism of the early part of the 20^th century were on the wane. Neo-orthodoxy was emerging as the right theology. Each school was suspicious of the other. One school was the Boston School of Theology in Massachusetts. The other was Drew Theological Seminary in New Jersey. Most of the people of the Board of Ordained Ministry were made up of people who had graduated from Boston some years earlier. The story going around the conference was that when you were ordained, you were asked three questions: “Are you married?” “Do you have a car?” and “Why did you have to go to Drew?”

 After Neo-orthodoxy—or alongside it—came such expressions as Existential Theology, Liberation Theology, Feminist Theology, and Process Theology. Is one more right than the other? As our children used to say, is one more better? I doubt it.

 Is the will of God—the right walk—to hold the right doctrine? Is it a particular brand of theology? I believe that walking the path of life in a journey of formation is the answer. We are being formed into the way of God’s intent.

 Charlie Brown and Lucy are sitting on a sofa watching TV. Lucy asks, “Charlie Brown, do you think people will ever change?” Charlie Brown replies, “I feel I’ve changed a lot this past year.” Lucy retorts, “I mean for the better.”

 Walking the walk is the will of God. Walking on the path. But what does that finally mean? What is the will of God? Let me suggest two responses that for me are still in the process of formation.

JESUS IS THE WILL OF GOD 

First, Jesus is the will of God. That may sound like a strange statement, but I really believe that, and I believe it deeply. You want to know what the will of God is? Look at Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus is God’s will perfectly revealed. Jesus is a live demonstration.

 That’s why the New Testament refers to Jesus as the new Adam, or the new creation, or the new humanity. That’s why Paul says if anyone is in Christ, he or she is a new creation.

 In 1896 Charles Sheldon wrote a book which many of you have read. It has a simple title, In His Steps. In the book Sheldon maintained that if we would walk like Jesus, we would be found faithful. Forty years after the first publication of the book Sheldon wrote these words in a new foreword. He said, “I believe that in the end of human history, Jesus will be the standard of human conduct for the entire human race.”

 The book was panned by neo-orthodox theologians of my generation. How could anyone, how could you, walk like Jesus? Isn’t that presumptuous? Maybe even a bit blasphemous? But I’m now wondering if Sheldon was not right. What goes around comes around.

 Martin Luther once said, “You must be Christ to your neighbor.” What does that mean? Can you and I possibly qualify to be Christ to our neighbor? Or is that an impossible goal? But what if the will of God means to live before family and friends and community as a model of Jesus? 

The great missionary Albert Schweitzer was once asked in his very early days in Lamborene about cannibals. “Aren’t you afraid that you might end up in a cannibal’s pot?” he was asked. “If I do,” he laughingly replied, “I hope they will say, ‘Doctor Schweitzer was good to the end.’” The will of God means to be good like Jesus to the end.

 Mark Twain once quipped, “You shouldn’t expect too much from human beings because we were made at the end of the week when God was tired and looking forward to a day off.” I think God expects a great deal of us. I think God made us to live as Jesus showed us how. We are to be open, hospitable to all, servant-styled, deeply caring, generous, forward focused, hope-filled.

LIVING ON A HIGHER PLANE

 Secondly, living the will of God means living on a higher plane. Again Paul writes, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed.” (Romans 12) Christianity is not a long list of rules, of do’s and don’ts. A lot of people want to reduce Christianity to a list of rules. But what is asked of us is to live on a higher plane, to live a higher righteousness.

 The Ten Commandments are a basic beginning point for walking the walk, but they are not the sum and substance of the Christian faith. The Golden Rule is a basic beginning point, but again, not the sum and substance of the faith. For far too many people, Christianity is living the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule.

 John Wesley had a little quotation that I love. He said, “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, in all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.” 

Former President Jimmy Carter said something very similar when he said this, “I have one life, and one chance to make it count for something. My faith requires considerable work and effort. My faith demands—this is not optional—that I do whatever I can, wherever I can, whenever I can, for as long as I can, with whatever I have, to try to make a difference.” 

Neither of these is very specific. But they are closer to the will of God than anything else I have ever found. They call us to walk on a higher plane. 

I have been reading a new book recently by an author I have never read before. His name is Brian McLaren. The title of the book is A New Kind of Christian. Let me read to you a few interesting sentences from the book. The book is a form of dialogue between two men, one of whom is writing autobiographically. 

“I don’t think that most Christians have any idea what the Gospel really is. For example, how would you define the Gospel?” I said something about accepting Christ as your personal savior, and justification by grace through faith, not by works, based on the finished work of Christ on the cross. And he said “Yes, that’s exactly what most modern Christians would say.” I protested, and he said, “Does it bother you that Jesus never defined the Gospel in this way? Does it bother you that no Christian in history ever used the phrase, “accept Christ as your personal savior” until a few decades ago? Does it bother you that our little Gospel presentations are really just modern sales pitches that reduce the Gospel to modern dimensions—laws, steps, simple diagrams—complete with a sales close?”

 A little later on, the author asks these very penetrating questions.

How will our way of being Christians change in 10 years? What will a new kind of Christian look like?[i]  

God’s people simply live on a higher plane. God’s people are more courageous. Here is an interesting statement from a recent issue of the Wall Street Journal: “If the American expression of faith is going to provide solace and strength, it must reclaim its robust roots that address how one may be able to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, and yet fear no evil.”[ii] 

We live on a higher plane by being more generous; incredible, even secretly generous. We are more self-giving. We are more joyous. It’s very important to recognize that Christians are not called to be stodgy. We are not to be without laughter.

ONE FINAL POINT 

Let me make one final point. Being faithful to the will of God—walking the walk—is not automatic. It’s a learned way. It is not born into us automatically. We are formed—slowly, gracefully—into the will of God. Here is a wonderful quotation from the writings of Martin Marty. 

There is nothing natural or innate about being a Christian…being a Christian is an identity that one acquires from others—a set of dispositions, affections, and practices that are learned from persons already formed by the narratives, songs, and traditions of the faith. Becoming a Christian is like learning a trade or a foreign language—it requires disciplined apprenticeship under the guidance of others who have internalized the competencies, nuances, and satisfactions attendant to a trade done well or a language rendered eloquently…the process of forming Christians has never been automatic, easy, or flawless.[iii]

I rejoice that some level of faithfulness has been formed in me through the church. Much of it has been formed here at Christ Church. And I am still being formed—still being shaped.

So what makes you and me a Christian? What moves us toward walking the walk? It is lived life from the heart. We are modeled after Jesus, the new Adam, the new creation. We are being formed from within as a people who live in the world, who live in a higher dimension of reality, who are growing Kingdom-centered lives. 

Living God’s will means living a response to incredible divine love—always seeking to walk as Jesus walked. We are laughing, loving, and leaning into the Spirit at every step.