To Be Like Christ

I almost wore my cap out here.

Who do I think I am?

Justin Beshearse?

No, I'm not Justin.

I'm not that cool.

But for an old guy, I'm pretty cool.

I walked up today, and the guys who were greeting out front said,

you look like you got a beach thing going on.

I said, I do from here to here.

It's in between.

Would you stand with me?

I want to get right into this because I got some stuff I want to say today.

We're going to read two verses, but read them meaningfully.

Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

And this, therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved,

clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.

Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone.

Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

Father, I thank you for your word.

I thank you that there's life in your word.

But Lord, none of us are able to receive that life without the presence of the Holy Spirit.

So I ask for the Holy Spirit to come, inhabit us today, and help us receive life.

In Jesus' name, amen.

You may be seated.

I'm sure it doesn't come as any surprise, would not come as any surprise to any of you,

for me to state that we live in a divisive age.

Yeah.

And in fact, we live in a divisive world.

I really don't know if this age is necessarily any more divisive.

In fact, I'm pretty sure there have been some even more divisive ages in the past.

But for my lifetime, I guess, this is the most divisive I can remember things being.

Of course, my lifetime is just a flash of a blink.

And it should not be shocking because this is a fallen world.

It's a divisive world.

But what I find troubling is living in the age of a divisive church.

Expected from the world, but not from the church.

Division runs counter to God's plan.

Over in Mark, Jesus was accused of driving out demons by Beelzebub, by the prince of demons.

And he made a statement that actually applies broader than just that.

He said, if a kingdom is divided against itself, it cannot stand.

It didn't say if the kingdom of Satan is divided against itself, it can't stand.

It said a kingdom, any kingdom.

And guess what?

the kingdom is what it's about we're in the kingdom of god the church is not the kingdom of god

but it is supposed to be a representative to the world of the kingdom of god

and live in a divisive age for churches uh proverbs chapter six says there's uh six things that god

hates. And it goes on to mention them. The last one that it kicks in with is a person who stirs

up conflict in a community. Some translation says someone who sows division among brothers.

And in that list, it's also in that list with lying and murdering. So it kind of, you know,

that's some pretty heavy duty company that it's keeping there to be divisive. Now don't

don't run ahead of me here. Don't get down the track and go, oh, there must be some stuff going

on at Springhouse. It's a church. Has people in it. There's always stuff going on. I pastored here

for 33 years. And even with me here, there was stuff going on. There is, but I will tell you this,

And I've been around churches my whole life.

I mean, I think I probably attended my first service at like three days old.

Four.

I was born on a Wednesday.

I don't think we went that night.

But we may have.

I'm not sure.

My grandfather was a preacher.

My dad was a preacher.

I've been preacher, preacher, preacher stuff all my life.

And Springhouse is one of the most peaceful and unified churches that there is.

Just to be honest.

But that doesn't mean stuff doesn't come up.

It does.

But don't think that's where I'm going because the trains come in and that's not where I'm going.

And it may bump you off the track.

On the other side of the coin about divisiveness, we have Psalm 133.

how good and pleasant it is for God's people to dwell together in unity.

It's like the precious anointing oil flowing down over Aaron's head and beard

and down upon the collar of his robes.

It's like the dew of Mount Hermon falling on Zion.

There the Lord commands a blessing to reside, life forevermore.

And half of that psalm is in parenthesis.

Now, I don't think the Hebrew language has parentheses,

but the English language does.

And if you take the parentheses out

and just get to the meat of what it's saying is

how wonderful and pleasant it is

when God's people dwells together in unity

because there the Lord commands a blessing to reside.

Life forevermore.

So division runs counter to God's purpose, God's plan.

But church division is not a new thing by any means.

Now, it's been a problem for centuries.

In fact, the first big division took place in 1054.

That was almost 1,000 years ago when the Eastern church and the Western church

decided to divide the Orthodox and the Roman church.

And they had their reasons.

They'd been brewing for a little while.

A lot of their reasons were political.

Nothing new under the sun.

A lot of their reasons were cultural.

Nothing new under the sun.

Some of their reasons were theological

and those would kind of matter, you would think.

I mean, the political and the cultural, I'm sorry,

But those are world things.

Jesus said, my kingdom is not of this world.

That's not what it's about.

Oh, well, maybe the theology, well, listen, these are some heavy-duty things,

so let me lay them on you.

A couple of them.

They divided over whether or not it was okay to use unleavened bread and communion.

Can you believe that?

Don't you know which one you're supposed to do?

And then they also divided over a conflict concerning whether or not the Holy Spirit emanated from the Father and the Son or the Father only.

To which I have to say, whatever.

He's here.

He's here.

You're talking about stuff that I don't know anything about.

No, what?

You don't either.

But that's why they divided them.

And then 500 years later, the Reformation came, brought about wars that displaced and destroyed people's lives.

And Christians killing Christians.

And we really don't do that killing part anymore.

Except with our words.

What to do?

How do you fix this?

I mean, it's apparently part of our DNA.

Well, it's the DNA of humanity, not necessarily the church,

but since the church is made up of humanity, it's our DNA.

How do you fix this?

Maybe we could try.

Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other,

Just as Christ, in Christ, God forgave you.

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned my father-in-law, Jack Haley.

He's gone on to be with the Lord now.

And I mentioned it because I learned from him that a Presbyterian could be saved.

Because he was a Presbyterian.

And he was a godly man.

and it really kind of blew me away.

But it started early.

Papa, that's what we call him.

Papa was the youngest of four children.

He had two older brothers and a sister.

And according to family legend,

whenever they would fight,

little Jack would come in

and he would say,

be ye kind one to another,

forgiving each other,

Just as in Christ, God forgave you.

How many of you have three or more children?

When they get into a fight with each other,

have you ever had your youngest child come in

and quote Ephesians 4.32 to calm down the fight?

No.

He was an extraordinary man.

He really was.

So maybe we could try, or maybe we could try this.

Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, we're God's chosen people.

Well, if you are, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.

bear with each other and forgive one another

if any of you has a grievance against someone.

Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

You think that'd fix it?

If this is how we acted,

you think that might take care of the issues that we have?

I grew up in a holiness tradition.

Now, holiness actually is a continuum.

It's not just a monolith over here.

You know, you got this end of the spectrum that would kind of go, you know, dear, you might want to cover up those arms because men are looking.

And then you have over here on the other end of the spectrum, you got, you hussy, you get those arms covered up.

Get that nakedness covered up right now.

You're going to hell.

You know, so it's a continuum.

And we were kind of on the liberal side of the continuum, but here's a picture of the church I grew up in.

And this, I didn't, yeah, there are a lot of our, we were liberal.

We were on the liberal side of holiness, but we were still holiness.

Okay.

And none of those women are wearing pants.

no i'll take it even a step further oh by the way that's my dad over there holding that box

i don't know what's in it i don't know why i have this picture but but i do

and uh let me just ask you a question can you identify the woman in that picture who is in

danger of hellfire oh well then you weren't holiness brought up if you don't know what it

And obviously it's the hussy with the big earrings hanging off of her ears.

And there's like, you probably can't see the detail well enough,

but there's like five of them who are just teetering on the brink.

They're wearing necklaces.

You see, our women didn't wear no jewelry.

You know, that's...

And they didn't wear makeup.

I don't know how they got husbands.

Yeah, I do.

Some lovely people.

But anyway, I think we may have placed too much emphasis

on the outward trappings of being holy.

I think that might have been an issue that went on with us.

now many of the people in our camp many of the people in our church were the sweetest most loving

humble uh truly sincerely they showed the nature of christ

however we also had quite a few who were meanest snakes

and see being certain that you're right about everything can kind of bring out the meanness

sometimes. You know, if you know I have it together, I've got this figured out.

First Corinthians was our favorite chapter in the Bible. I mean, our first favorite book in the

Bible. Favorite chapter of our favorite book was First Corinthians 12. It talked about the gifts

of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. In my adult years, I actually paid attention to First Corinthians

1 Corinthians 8 · chapter mention

chapter 8. And there's 1 Corinthians chapter 8 starts out with a verse that when I finally read

1 Corinthians 8 · chapter mention

it and really looked at it, kind of just caused a volcanic eruption in my thinking. And it says this,

Knowledge puffs up while love builds up.

What?

I thought knowledge was what it was about.

Knowledge puffs up.

It makes you.

Love builds up.

Now, the holiness camp is not the only divisive faction.

There are political camps.

Does that sound familiar?

Anybody remember 1054?

You don't remember it, but maybe you remember what I said about it.

You know, political camps, the politically righteous, both on the right and on the left.

And the cultural issues, the cultural divisions.

You got the culturally righteous and the culturally righteous over here.

And the theological righteous, man, we got it.

We know the right words to say when we baptize you.

It'll actually work.

When we do it, you know, or, you know, we, you know, there are people, I grew up in a church

that believed in speaking in tongues. Okay. And I thought, well, that's cool. You speak in tongues.

That means you're filled with the Holy Spirit. I'll later, I think, revise my thinking into

you project the fruits of the Spirit, you're filled with the Holy Spirit. Yeah. Anybody can

Shondilii, but the, but theologically, you know, we clutch onto these things and go, well, this is it.

Maybe not. All of these camps are problematic because their fellowship is misplaced.

They are a fellowship of ideas.

They are a fellowship of opinions.

They are a fellowship of certain practices.

Our real, they might as well be golf fellowships

or fantasy football fellowships,

of which I belong to a couple.

But our real fellowship is Christ.

It's in Christ.

That's it.

That's what counts.

And I've learned a couple of things since then.

I've learned that there are Christ-like people in virtually every branch and camp of the faith.

There really are.

There are also unscrupulous, mean bullies in virtually every camp and branch of the faith.

You start by understanding that in the end, the thing that really matters is not some man-defined holiness.

It's not a matter of who is right or who wins or even who makes the most sense.

What really matters is being like Christ.

He often didn't look like the winner.

In fact, for most of his ministry, he didn't look like the winner.

You know, he fed 5,000 people, and then they show up again and go,

hey, we really like you.

We want to hear another sermon and maybe get some food too.

Okay, well, he preaches another sermon, and they all leave.

That doesn't look like a winner.

He was a homeless, itinerant preacher going throughout Judah

And Judea.

And when I say homeless, I mean homeless.

He had no place to lay his head.

He didn't really know where the next meal was coming from.

He knew about the daily bread thing,

but he didn't know exactly where it was gonna come from.

He didn't look like a winner.

And he certainly didn't look like a winner

hanging naked on a cross,

being condemned to death as a criminal.

he himself said i'm i am humble and i'm gentle so come to me my yoke is easy my burden is light

when people come to christ they often start to ask what is my calling what what is my purpose

What am I supposed to do now?

And Pastor Kevin last week was talking about,

we did the abide section of this series.

And that's coming to Christ, learning to abide in Christ.

And then we wanna skip over to advance.

What do we do now?

What do we go do now?

There's this arise section.

You see, what do we do now has to do with,

what do we do?

Arise has to do with

what is he doing

in us?

The only correct answer

to what do I do now

is to be like Christ.

Be like Christ.

How do I do that?

I don't know if you've seen

this scripture or not.

Be kind and compassionate

to one another.

forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave you or maybe you've heard this one

therefore as God's chosen people holy and dearly loved clothe yourselves with compassion

kindness humility gentleness and and patience bear with each other and and forgive one another

if you have any grievance against someone forgive them that's what you're supposed to do

as the Lord forgave you.

There are three words that,

three concepts that appear

in both of these passages of Scripture.

And I wanna look at those three

for just a moment here.

And they are this,

kindness, compassion, forgiveness.

Forgiveness.

Kind.

We admire the fire-breathing leader, the one who can lead us.

I do.

I think most of us do.

You know, usually that's a very charismatic person.

Charge.

Come on, I'm going to lead the charge, and I'm going to go first,

and all this stuff.

And we admire that.

But that was not Jesus MO.

That wasn't really, I'm not saying that if someone is a fire-breathing,

what am I thinking of here?

Charismatic person that they're wrong.

That's what God put in them.

But that wasn't how Jesus did it.

He was kind.

Jesus was kind.

Has he been kind to you?

Earlier, the question went, has God been good to you?

And we hear that all the time.

But let's break it down even a little more.

Has he been kind to you?

The way that he's dealt with you in things?

Well, he did cleanse the temple and pronounce woes on the religious leaders,

the Pharisees and the teachers of the law.

Yeah, tell me he's not a fire breather right there.

But even that was done with a kindness motive, and it presented a kindness.

He was showing people, explaining to people where they were messing up.

When he cleansed the temple.

You know, I grew up in church, and then after I came here and started pastoring,

you know, there was a hot theological debate as to whether or not it was okay to have a bake sale at church.

Because Jesus cleansed the temple.

He turned over the...

And that may be a little shallow interpretation.

I think it's okay to have a bake sale.

What was going on there was a scam.

And Jesus did it because of the compassion that he had for the poor and the people being exploited.

But also there was actually a kindness.

He clearly explained what's going on here.

He said, this is supposed to be a house of prayer for all nations.

You've turned it into a den of robbers.

Let me open your eyes to what's going on here.

because they were checking off all the boxes and doing it right in terms of the law and how it

should be done, but they had also undermined that by turning it into a den of robbers. Let's say

you bring your sheep, your goat, or whatever, and you finally come to town, and you're kind of going,

I want to offer this to the Lord. It's the best I got. And the priest family could look at that and

go, yeah, that's not good enough. However, we do have over here some sheep and goats for sale that

have been pre-approved. Okay, well, all right, no way. You go over to buy it and go, oh, okay, well,

here, I've got my money. And they go, oh, no, no, no, no, no. We can't use that money. We have to use

the temple currency. So you're going to have to go over there and get your money exchanged.

Have you ever had your money exchanged?

The rate you get when you buy

is not what you get when you want to sell back.

You know, there's a thing going on there.

Okay, so now you got the money.

You come back over here.

Okay, I'll take that sheep.

How much is that?

What?

Because they can charge whatever they want to charge.

Jesus said, you've turned it into a den of robbers.

You think you're worshiping the Lord because you have checked off all the boxes.

Yes, the animal has to be perfect.

The animal has to be approved.

And I don't know where the temple currency thing came from.

But you think that you're worshiping the Lord.

But let me tell you what you're really doing.

You're exploiting people.

You're undermining the grace and goodness of God and defiling his name by what you're doing.

And then the teachers of the law, the woes that he pronounced.

He didn't say, you know, you're going to hell.

He said, woe to you.

Let me tell you what you're doing.

You're slamming the door in the face of people who want to come into the kingdom.

Now, how do you do that?

well now these are the things that you have to do

before you can get into the kingdom

before we'll open the door for you

you're traveling across land and sea

to make a convert

embellish your resume

and yet you come in and you make them twice

a child of the devil as you are

you know it takes a really good friend

to tell you when you got a booger

hanging out of your nose

and that's what Jesus was doing that's what he was saying go through that list of woes you'll

see I'm not gonna go through them all right now in fact in second Timothy 2 24 when I came back

to the Lord in my mid-20s I went to a church with a fire-breathing preacher he's a good preacher man

let me tell you and and you know and and a good man I don't want to dishonor his name in in in any

way. But there was just something kind of disquieting about what I was hearing. And

later, when I had left the church, that church and gone to another one, God, it was a God thing.

I'm not going to go into that. Sometimes there are good reasons to leave a church. And there's

really only one, and that's God told me to. But 2 Timothy 2.24 says this, the Lord's servant must

not be quarrelsome, but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful.

And it goes on later in that same passage to say, if you'll do this, if this is the way you

approach it, then the person that they're ministering to may very well escape the trap

of the devil and come to repentance.

That works a lot better than...

And kindness.

Jesus was compassionate.

Jesus saw the crowds and they'd been with him

for a long time and they were now faint

and he had compassion on them.

Let's feed them.

Let's give them something to eat

because he saw their condition.

Well, what is compassion?

Basically, it's empathy.

Basically, it's walk a mile in my shoes.

That's what it is.

Before you tell me what I'm doing wrong,

come and walk where I'm walking.

Don't be quick to judge.

to assume you know what's going on.

The devil has another name

that scripture has put on him,

and that name is Satan.

Does anybody know what that name means?

I know some of you do.

Does anybody know what that name means?

It means accuser.

Accuser of the brethren.

The Satan is the one who comes along

and goes, God, did you see?

Did you see what Josh did this week?

In fact, did you see what he was thinking?

Did you see what Mary Sue did?

Did you hear her doing that?

Yeah, that's the Satan who does that.

Bruce Coble was the youth pastor at the Lord's Chapel

back in the 70s, 70s, early 80s.

And I was a youth leader.

I was in my late 20s, early 30s.

I myself was not a youth.

I was a youth leader.

From my perspective now, maybe I was also a youth.

I don't know.

But Bruce was the youth pastor,

and we would meet with him fairly often, like weekly.

And then we would also have a youth meeting.

and Bruce would be the first one to tell you

that he's not a dynamic speaker.

He's not a charismatic person that kind of draws you,

draws you a man, I just gotta go hear Bruce.

But every now and then, Bruce would say something.

Well, actually, probably all the time

if you were really listening.

But certainly every now and then,

he would say something that would just go

right through you and stay there.

and I remember him, he told a story one time to the youth group that I have never forgotten and

never will forget. He said, I was driving to Nashville this week and this was, he was probably

on 65, 24 may be the worst one, 65 is not very good either and this was back in the day when it

was two lanes each way, one of this four lane stuff. So I was driving to Nashville

and I was late. I was late for an appointment, and I got behind this guy who was just going so slow.

I don't know, something like 40 or something on the interstate. I mean, really, 40 on the interstate,

please. And he said, I was behind this guy, and I couldn't get around him because you know how it

is. You'll get behind a slow car, and that big long line of traffic behind you just keeps pulling

out and coming around so that you can't get out and go around, even though it's your turn.

And, you know, so he's getting frustrated.

And he was frustrated with this guy.

What is up with this guy?

He's going so slow.

And so he finally got the opportunity to pull out and go around him.

And he had, well, he was going to give him one of those looks.

what's wrong with you

don't act like you don't know that look

you use that look

and some of you say stuff too

and hope they can read lips

so he's gonna give him that look

and he looked over and he said,

the guy was crying.

Wow.

Who drives down the interstate crying?

What happened to him?

Did his wife leave him?

Did he lose a child?

Did he get a bad doctor's report?

Did he get fired?

What is happening in his life?

The only things I can imagine are a whole lot more important

than whether or not I get to this meeting on time.

Compassion.

And then forgiving.

For many, this is the hardest.

We can be kind.

Or we think we're kind.

I mean, I think I'm kind,

but I think there are probably some people

who disagree with me on that.

The way that I come across sometimes.

But forgiving.

But it should be the easiest.

The trouble is,

we think we can do it in our own strength.

I was telling Michelle where I was going with the sermon this week.

And forgiveness has kind of been a hot topic with her lately.

It's kind of popped up everywhere she's gone.

She's kind of like, okay, the Lord's putting some things together here.

Forgiveness.

And she's got some pretty big deal stuff that needs forgiveness.

And so do many of you.

I grew up in a situation where, I don't know, it was just blessed.

There was grace.

And I've forgiven people, but nobody's ever really laid me low.

I was an only child.

I grew up in a household that was holiness, but liberal holiness.

It was nothing bad.

But many of you have things, especially from maybe your household or whatever.

Tell me why is Father's Day the hardest day of the year for most people?

I mean, you know, that's just how it is.

But we were talking about it, and she's been thinking about it and working on it for a while now.

And she said something that I'd never heard before.

The concept I get, I just never heard it expressed this way.

Forgiveness.

She said, it's supernatural.

Oh, wait a minute.

It's supernatural.

Yeah.

And we're not.

We aren't superheroes.

We don't have superpowers.

Supernatural powers.

Not really.

But forgiveness is a supernatural thing.

Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

There's a supernatural factor in there.

We don't forgive because of anything that has to do with this other person.

We don't forgive because of anything that has to do with us.

Except for the fact that the power comes from these words.

And I immediately thought, well, I'm going to put up, you know, forgive as the Lord forgave you.

But the Lord said, no, I want you to use these words.

Freely you have received.

Freely give.

Freely you receive.

Freely give.

you know we sometimes think that the lord forgives us when did the lord forgive you

when did he forgive you we sometimes think the lord forgives us when we come to him and ask for it

no no no no no that's when we receive it the forgiveness was already there

it's been there a long long time ago and if you've got someone in your past or present maybe

who needs forgiveness then

how can I wait for them to come and ask for it that's not my problem that's their problem

to be able to receive it.

My issue is freely.

It's been given to me.

Freely.

I'm supposed to give.

Let me ask you another question.

How many times has the Lord forgiven you?

Can you say infinitely?

Number of times?

I mean, you can certainly make a theological case for one time, brother.

Let me tell you.

He forgave me one time, but I think he's done it a few times since.

Peter came to him and said, Lord, if my brother offends me, how many times a day should I forgive him?

Seven?

And Jesus said, oh, you want a number.

Okay.

Let's go with 490 times a day.

He's forgiven me today.

Some of the stuff he's forgiven me for, I don't even know what it is.

Some of it I do know what it is.

But he's forgiven me.

And that's how it's supposed to be.

Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

Is it easy?

No.

We have work to do.

And it's an ongoing process.

Let me tell you, you don't forgive somebody and, oh, that's done.

Now I don't have to think about it anymore.

No, just wait five minutes.

They'll either do something else or the devil will bring it up in your mind some way

and it'll have to be done again.

I'm getting tired of this.

You don't get tired of being forgiven, do you?

that's pretty close to all I got you guys can come out right now

we're gonna we're gonna worship the Lord but also we're gonna provide an opportunity for

people to come and be prayed for now why in the world would anybody need to come and be prayed for

after hearing a sermon about you need to forgive.

You need to be compassionate.

You need to be kind.

It's all about that.

Like I say, I genuinely think I'm a kind person,

but I don't think I always come across that way.

So maybe I'm not.

I genuinely think that I'm a compassionate person.

But if I get behind somebody on the interstate

and I'm late

or any other number of circumstances,

that compassion doesn't always overflow.

I genuinely think I'm a forgiving person

and I believe that I am.

But I probably need prayer for that too.

Well, those who are going to pray with people, go ahead and come forward.

And if you're here and you need any of those things,

or maybe you brought a need that you need prayer for,

want someone to pray with you about, you feel free to come forward.

Let's all stand.

We're going to worship.

And there's an opportunity to come and pray with a brother or sister.

I'm here.