{"id":8224,"date":"2022-08-30T06:27:21","date_gmt":"2022-08-30T13:27:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=8224"},"modified":"2022-08-30T06:29:40","modified_gmt":"2022-08-30T13:29:40","slug":"so-glorify-god-in-your-body","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=8224","title":{"rendered":"
So glorify God in your body <\/div>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Click here for a pdf version.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Sermon for the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Philemon 1:1-21; Luke 14:25-33<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does it mean to be practical? Realistic? Use common sense in the Christian life? The example given us today is slavery. If you look it up, you find out that there are about 40 million slaves today. We tend to have a Hollywood view of slavery as something long gone. Hollywood doesn\u2019t tell us that there are more slaves today, even accounting for the increase in population, than in the early centuries. (Hollywood also doesn\u2019t tell us that more Christians have died for their faith in the past hundred years than in all the years before that.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we talk about slavery today, we\u2019re talking about people being owned by others. This includes prostitution. Basically there are about 40 million people today who are owned by somebody else and forced by them to do whatever they want. To be sure, there are degrees of this. There are some who treat their slaves nicely, who are benevolent. Yet they still own and control others. That\u2019s still slavery. And there are many who are very brutal to their slaves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You may say, 40 million? That just can\u2019t be. And yet remember that it was only in 1807 in England when slavery was abolished in the British Commonwealth. Abolishing slavery is that recent. That was because of a great Methodist preacher, Wilberforce. You may have seen the movie, Amazing Grace<\/em> (2006), about him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brazil abolished slavery in 1880, but even today in Brazil farm workers and others like them are being rescued from slavery. A recent news story reported that one group of 44 farm workers and another group of 51 had been rescued. One report noted that in 2010 5,000 were rescued from slavery in Brazil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the Muslims gave up the Siege of Vienna in 1683, as they retreated, they took over two million white Christian slaves. That was only three hundred and forty years ago. Between 1530 and 1780 there were between one million and a million and a quarter white Christian slaves in that area which we today call Libya, Algeria, and Tunisia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was only in 1948 that the United Nations issued the Declaration of Human Rights abolishing slavery. But only two-thirds of the members of the United Nations have signed on. Those who have not signed on are mostly Muslim nations. There is still a huge problem of slavery in many parts of the world today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was it like in Biblical times? Slavery was an ordinary part of life, just as much as wearing clothes during the day. In the Old Testament they tried to establish some rules so slavery was not just arbitrary. In the New Testament, in Colossians 4:1 and Ephesians 5:21-6:9 it says husbands and wives are to get along, children and parents are get along, slaves and masters are to get along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Philemon Paul does not say abolish slavery. He says treat Philemon fairly, and treat him as one of mine (Philemon 1:10). Nevertheless, he does not try to abolish slavery. In 1 Cor 7:20-40 Paul writes: \u201cEveryone should remain in the state in which he was called. Were you a slave when called? Never mind. . . .\u201d Why does he say that? Because he understood the end was near. There wasn\u2019t time to mess around with lesser things (Compare 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remember how in the famous text in Galatians 3:28: \u201cThere is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female.\u201d Paul is not trying to establish a social program. Nor is he saying that when you\u2019re a Christian, you\u2019re no longer male or female. He\u2019s saying that when we\u2019re baptized, there\u2019s a new creation in which we\u2019re taken away from sin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He doesn\u2019t have a social program. Why not? First, he doesn\u2019t because as it says in John 19:30: \u201cIt is finished.\u201d Christ has done it all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the second place, the end is near. The end is always near to us. Therefore what is your perspective on what is happening. What do you do? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Proverbs 9:10 says: \u201cThe fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.\u201d What is it to be a smart Christian? The fear of the Lord is the beginning of being smart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Luke 14 it says family doesn\u2019t come first. This is contrary to the common wisdom of today, which says that family always comes first. No, Luke 14:25 and following states family doesn\u2019t come first. After a couple of verses on that, Paul writes: \u201cOne must hate even his own life,\u201d and \u201cwhoever does not bear his own cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple.\u201d That combination of themes is found seventeen to nineteen times in the Gospels. Again and again. He who loses his life will find it. Take up your cross.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then come two famous illustrations. So count the cost. Calculate. Reckon. Think. You\u2019re going to build something and you have to figure out if you have the money to do it. Otherwise you end up with a foundation, some wood, and you\u2019re done. People will just laugh at you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or if you\u2019re in a battle and you have 10,000 soldiers but the enemy has 20,000. You quickly figure out a way to negotiate a settlement. Otherwise it\u2019s foolishness. It\u2019s a matter of thinking. Calculating. And that\u2019s why Proverbs 9:10 is appropriate. Remember the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then Paul also writes in 1 Cor 4:10, we are called upon to be fools for Christ. There are several places in the New Testament where it is said: \u201cIf you\u2019re going to be my disciple, sell all that you have, give it to the poor and follow me.\u201d It\u2019s another way of saying: \u201cTake up your cross . . . He who loses his life will find it.\u201d Then it says if someone hits you on one side of your head, let him hit you on the other side. Families don\u2019t come first. Turn the other cheek. How does this work practically?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We say: That\u2019s true but we have to live. There are all kinds of ways of rationalizing. Let\u2019s not be too religious. Let\u2019s be practical. What\u2019s realistic? And so forth. When we come down to it, if we were going to follow it, if we give all to the poor, how would we feed our families? If we turn the other cheek, what about self-defense? When you come down to it, we\u2019re against slavery, but slavery is still alive and well and nobody is really going after it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do we say? First of all, let\u2019s look at some basic examples. We know about Bonhoeffer at the time of Nazi Germany. He was very determined to be a Christian pacifist. He coined the phrase: You can\u2019t have cheap grace. And yet, when it came down to it, he took up arms to kill Hitler. That, after all, is not turning the other cheek or loving your enemy. But it is restraining evil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Look at Martin Luther. He was not a revolutionary. He did not have a social program because not only did he know that all our sins are forgiven in Jesus Christ already, but he held that the end was near. He held that it would be in his generation. It didn\u2019t mean that he wasn\u2019t concerned about people. His wife Katrina had a terrible time because he kept inviting people into the house and giving things out the back door. She had to put a stop to that. He was also concerned not to be about building a social program, building the kingdom of God on earth. There is something more coming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was for what a modern Luther scholar (Heiko Oberman) called \u201cbetterment,\u201d that is: Do what is needed to hold the chaos back so we can do what\u2019s important, which is to bring the message of the Gospel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The perspective we\u2019re called upon to have is: No, we\u2019re not called upon to build the kingdom of God. We are to keep several things in mind:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, our sins are all forgiven totally on Calvary. That\u2019s done. In the meantime the end is near whether we\u2019re talking about near for each one of us or near for the world. We don\u2019t know. We\u2019re not here to build the kingdom of God on earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, in 1 Cor 6:28b-29 Paul writes: \u201cYou are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Third and finally, we have his forgiveness \u2013 to live as his children, here and now, and to live keeping that perspective. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Sermon for the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost<\/p>\n

Philemon 1:1-21; Luke 14:25-33<\/p>\n

What does it mean to be practical? Realistic? Use common sense in the Christian life? The example given us today is slavery. If you look it up, you find out that there are about 40 million slaves today. We tend to have a Hollywood view of slavery as something long gone. Hollywood doesn\u2019t tell us that there are more slaves today, even accounting for the increase in population, than in the early centuries. (Hollywood also doesn\u2019t tell us that more Christians have died for their faith in the past hundred years than in all the years before that.)<\/p>\n

Select here<\/a> to read more or here <\/a>for a pdf document.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8224"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8233,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8224\/revisions\/8233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}