February 8, 2009 - "Purposeful"

1 Corinthians 9:16-23

The pastor announced: "There will be a brief meeting of the Board immediately after the service by the west door.
After the close of the service, the group gathered by the west door for the announced meeting. But there was a stranger standing with them.
A visitor who had never attended their church before.
"My friend," asked the pastor, did you understand that this is a meeting of the Board?" "Yes," said the visitor, "and after that sermon of yours, I'm about as bored as you can get!"

Well, with a little effort, dear friends, I hope we won’t be bored this morning.

What’s our task in life?

We’re apparently the only life-form on the face of the earth to ask that question.
Because we have choices … an endless array of options … variations on a theme.

Dogs and cats don’t have such options.
Neither do cows and Mallard Ducks … but for us, it’s more complicated.

In some ways, we never finish the process … life is always unfolding - a new challenge, a new chapter, a new twist in the road; a turn in the story.

This morning, here at Covenant on the Corner, gathered for worship, followers of Jesus, what’s our task in life?

The most basic level of our task is simply getting up in the morning up - to face the day that comes our way – to make the best of it, to love and be loved, to help someone along the way; to remember God and be faithful to one another.

Let’s see if we can put a little more meat on the bone … What is our task?”

The Westminster Shorter Catechism, Question One, asks, “What is the chief end of humankind?” and offers an answer that still makes a sense to me: The chief end of humankind is to glorify God and to enjoy God forever!

I like the way it’s phrased: “chief end” – not the only end, but the chief end, the central purpose, the heart of the matter, the deciding factor that flavors everything else we might ever undertake – to glorify God!

But what does that mean?

For me, it means to pay attention to God, significant and sustained attention!
I pay attention to Donna, sometimes!
I pay attention to my children, and to my friends.
The payment of attention – we recognize and celebrate the value and the importance of people in our lives.
To pay attention to God:
To acknowledge the importance of God.
Our reliance upon God.
The goodness and mercy of God.
Moment-by-moment, guided and guarded by God.
We need God to finish the deal – God, and God alone, can compliment and complete the puzzle of our life.

The Psalmist writes:

 How precious is your steadfast love, O God!
      All people may take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
      They feast on the abundance of your house,
      and you give them drink from the river of your delights.
      For with you is the fountain of life;
      in your light we see light [Psalm 36:7-9].

To live a God-attentive life … with God, for God, by God!
As we would live attentively with anyone we love … 

A God-attentive life …

And God sees to it that we have help along the way:
We have the Bible …
We have Moses and the Prophets …
We have the Apostolic witness of the early church …
We have the Holy Spirit …
We have great women and men to inspire us …
We have prayer and fellowship …
We have the gathered wisdom of the ages …
We have one another …
And we have Jesus!

We don’t have to do any of this alone!
We are not independent operators …
We are not a protoplasmic accident cast helplessly upon the lonely shore of some universe.
We are not alone …
We are children of God … children of our heavenly Father.
Brothers and sisters to one another through our elder brother, Jesus of Nazareth!

Dear friends in Christ, our first task in life is pretty basic:
To glorify God.
Pay significant and sustained attention to God, and in the light of God’s pure love, discover who we are, because in God’s light, we see the light.

We need God to hold it all together!
Now what do I mean by that?

There are two essentials forms of love:
Love of God and love of neighbor.
Twin vectors … vertical and horizontal.
Put them together; they form a cross … with Jesus at the center!

Jesus holds it all together.
Because it threatens to fly apart all the time for me …
And maybe for you, too.
How easily my love is scattered, my focus on God blurred by a thousand other interests and distractions.
My concern for the neighbor, so easily diluted, so easily diverted!

I’m not strong enough to hold it all together … I need Jesus at the center … at the intersection of love … to hold it all together for me.

And it’s not easy, even for Jesus.
He dies on that cross, ten thousand times a day to hold it all together … but his dying does something for us that we couldn’t do for ourselves … he gives to the world a purity and a passion, a purpose and a power, beyond our capacities – from beyond this world … we need Jesus at the center of the cross.

Our first task in life: to glorify God … to give sustained attention to God.
And therein we discover who we are in the light of God’s love … 

Our soul is shaped.
A way of life emerges …

The second piece of all of this: craft our life!
Consistent with the love of God!

To laugh easily and laugh deeply …
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children.
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends.
To appreciate beauty and always have time to say Thank you!
To watch the sun rise and take the time to listen to others.
To see the best in them, and help them discover their best.
To leave behind an improved social condition.
To spend a little less, save a little more, and give a lot more away!
To pay attention to God, and to love our neighbor.
[the above thoughts are inspired by Harry Emerson Fosdick and his definition of success].

Micah the Prophet [6:8] says it well:
  He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
      and what does the LORD require of you
      but to do justice, and to love kindness,
      and to walk humbly with your God?

The third piece of this is a little darker … 
To restrain the relentless impulse of self-interest.

This is the heart of Paul’s message to the Corinthian Church, a church filled with self-interest, all dressed up in religious garb … they talked the talk, but they didn’t walk the walk … they failed to do justice, they didn’t love kindness, and they couldn’t walk humbly with God!

Time and again, Paul reminds them: think often and think profoundly about your neighbor.
You have rights, says Paul, so do I.

But I’ve chosen to set aside my rights for something greater, something bigger – You!

We live in a time when everyone is scrambling for their rights … and for many, this is a matter of justice: the child in a crumbling school, the man who can’t find work, renters evicted because the landlord is in foreclosure, LAX hotel workers who are paid less than $10.00 an hour for back-breaking work – they are lots of folks who have few if any rights, and they have a right to speak up, and we’re under obligation to help!

And that’s the point of Paul’s message … for the sake of others, we restrain our own inner impulse for self-interest, for the sake of the something bigger and better.

Paul refrains from exercising his rights …
Paul refuses to throw his weight around …
Paul doesn’t try to get the upper hand …

He wants the same for the Corinthians who are very much into one-upsmanship … claiming rights over one another … trying to outdo one another in some sort of bizarre competition: I’m more spiritual than you are. I’m a graduate school Christian; you’re a kindergarten Christian.

The relentless impulse of self-centeredness, self-importance.
As some pundit put it years ago: there’s no smaller package in the all the world than a man all wrapped up in himself.
And wrapped up in ourselves is the relentless impulse of self-interest!

I know of nothing in this world that handles this impulse better then the love of God.
This relentless impulse in us – call it sin – requires grace  … divine intervention, if you will …
Jesus says well:
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. [John 14:27].

Dear friends, the world can only give so much!
And what we need is more than the world can give.
The grace we need is the grace of God …
What God gives cannot be replicated in this world … there is no generic grace that we can manufacture to replace the purity and the originality of God’s grace.
Grace alone restrains the relentless impulse of self-interest.

We need divine intervention … 

We need God … we need Jesus … we need what he does on that cross every day of our life:
To restrain the relentless impulse of self-interest.
To craft a life that leaves this a better world.
To glorify God and to enjoy God forever.

Amen and Amen!