Friday, March 24, 2006

March 12, 2006 Sermon Notes--Can I live a Good Life Without Christianity? Part 2

Note: posting taken from loose outline notes of the pastor. Actual live sermon may have differed in some respects. No video available. Sorry.

Scripture: Mark 8:36; Romans 7:18; Romans 3:20-8, 31; Luke 18:29-30

Last week we talked about this basic question. Next, we are going to deal with the follow up questions of: Will Christianity help me? Will it make me happy? Will I be better for it? THE SHORT ANSWER IS YES! If it is true. However, think of it like this. Before you is a door--a door with the secrets of the universe behind it. If Christianity is not true, then it is the greatest fraud ever. if if is true, then you will gain the secrets of the universe. Either way, is it not humanity's duty then to seve this cause if true or if a fraud to work to expose it?

Christianity will help you. The first thing it will do is hammer into your head that what you have called "good"--that stuff about leading a decent life, being nice, etc.--isn't quite as magnificent or all important as it used to be. It will teach you that you cannot be "good" on your own moral efforts. And even if you were "good", you still wouldn't achieve the purpose for which you were created.

Mere morality is not the end of life. We were made for something far different. People who keep on asking if they can be good without Christ don't even know what life is about. If they did, they would know a "decent life" is mere machinery compared with what we are really made for. Morality is indispensable, but it is useless without the Divine Life, the Holy Spirit. This Life, this Holy Spirit, gives itself to us and which calls us to be more than mere humans. It intends for us something in which mere morality is swallowed up. We are to be remade, groomed if you will.

Midnight, our dog, is occaisionally groomed to make her look pretty. Her old matted hair and burrs are combed out. This is not a painless process. However, it is done to help Midnight feel and look better. She feels much better when the burrs are removed. Likewise, we are to be groomed, all of us--the conscientious, the cowardly, the ethical and the sensual. And as sometimes painfully the fur is pulled and burrs are taken out, we discover something we would have never imagined--a true Child of God, radiant, wise, beautiful, and drenched in joy.

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