Genesis 29:15-28

Genesis 29:15-28
Dare To Be Different
July 28, 2014
The Trickster Is Tricked
So might the headline read if this were a story in our local paper. Jacob – the one who had tricked his older brother Esau out of his birthright and blessing – Jacob – the one who had deceived his dying father Isaac into blessing him instead of Esau – Jacob – the ultimate trickster – is now tricked.
We smile when we read the passage – don’t we? 7 years of labor to marry his love –
then a dark night, a veiled bride, a shared bed, then in the light of morning – surprise!
Surprise, indeed! The trickster is tricked. The tables are turned. We may think: “Turn a bout is fair play!” It may be hard for us to feel sorry for Jacob. We may feel he is only getting what he deserves. We may feel he is only reaping what he has sown.
Maybe you think that’s the message of this passage. You Reap What You sow. Maybe you think that God may forgive, but that we still have to pay for past actions. We,, this is much too easy to be lesson in this passage. Something else is going on here. Something below the surface. Something that is more important than the first conclusions we easily jump to.
The answers to what else is going on here may be in the character of Jacob in this lesson. Look at Jacob. How is he acting? Is he acting in the same old self-seeking, self-centered, self-serving – I’m going to get my way even if I have to cheat you to get it – way he has acted in previous passages? No. Something is different about Jacob here. What is it? He’s letting himself be tricked. He’s letting himself be taken advantage of. He’s not just taking what he wants – he’s working for what he wants, and even working double the agreed upon deal. The Jacob we have known from previous lessons may have just taken Rachel without even consulting Laban or maybe tricked Laban into giving him Rachel without doing any work, especially after the way Laban tricked him. But this time he doesn’t! The time he complies with Laban’s rules, even when Laban changed the rules in mid-stream.
This is not the Jacob we have seen in the past! This is different! This is new! Jacob is different! He’s not the “same old Jacob” we’ve seen before! He’s different!
What has made the difference in Jacob’s life? Is it love? Well, yes. So he’s different because of his love for Rachel. We’ve seen love for a woman change many a man. But – Jacob’s love for Rachel is only part of the difference. The difference is love, but to understand that love we have to go back to its source. We have to go back to last week’s lesson. We have to go back to God, who made himself known to the desperate fugitive Jacob. We have to go back to God, who made his love known to Jacob. God, who changed Jacob’s life! His encounter with the love of God changed Jacob. The encounter with God at Beth – El changed Jacob and made him a different man. He travels on to Haran and his encounter with God but it is a changed man who arrives there. He’s a man who is no longer pre-occupied with himself, with what he wants, with what’s good for him and serving himself. He is now concerned with others, with doing for others, and serving others. He is a completely different person with a completely different attitude. He has been changed by God!
Instead of behaving in old, selfish ways, he dares to be different. He dares to be loving and to be caring, even if it means others may take advantage of him. He dares to be different.

Jacob loves! He sacrifices! He cares! He dares to be different.
So – there is much more going on here than just the trickster being tricked. Much more. This is not just a story of having to pay for past actions, but it is a story of the life-changing, difference-making love of God. This is a story of the love of God that can change us and make us different people. This is a story of God’s love that can change our lives and give us a new way to live. This is a story of how God can change us and how we can dare to be different.
We don’t need to laugh too much at Jacob, the old trickster getting his due from Laban. No, we need to look at the change, look at the difference in Jacob’s life, and see how we can have such a change in ours. God’s will was for Jacob to be a different person. God’s will was for Jacob to be a person that was not self-centered but God-centered, or centered upon God’s will and the good of others. God’s will was for Jacob to be a person who was willing to do for others, even if it made very little sense, and even when it may have meant being taken advantage of. God’s will was for Jacob to be loving, even if it meant risking looking like a fool. God’s will was for Jacob to dare to be loving, dare to be caring dare to be different. And this is God’s will for us, too!
It’s God’s will for us to be loving and caring. It’s God’s will for us to be different. We can not do God’s will if we worry only about ourselves, or what’s good for us, or what we want. God’s will for us is for us to be different from all of this. God’s will is for us to make a difference in the world as we use our gifts and abilities to show God’s love to all people. Sometimes others will take advantage of us, much as Laban did Jacob, but that’s OK – God’s will is for us to be loving, to be caring, to be different! God’s will is for us to dare to be different!
Jacob dared to be different.
Jesus dared to be different.
The Gospel, or the Good News of Jesus Christ, is that we can dare to be different people. We can dare to let God make a difference in our lives, just as Jacob let God make a difference in his life, then, like Jacob began to make a difference in the lives of others because God had make a difference in his life, we can dare to be people who are committed to make a difference in the lives of others and a difference in our community and the world because of the difference God has made in our lives. We can dare to be people who make a difference in our world, in our families, in our community, and in our church because God has make a difference in our lives.
In other words, we can dare to let God make a difference in our lives, then we can dare to be different people because of the difference God has made in our lives.
The poet Ann Weems wrote a poem entitled “Our Lord Is Called Hope.” She writes:
Our Lord was a Lord who turned
things upside down and inside out
a man who dined with sinners
a man who befriended prostitutes and tax collectors
a man who was called heretic
a man who broke the Sabbath rules
a man who changed water into wine.

And he bids us o follow Him
to turn things upside down and inside out
to go where the hurting is
to change water into wine
to change who we are into the Kingdom of God.

Yes, my friends. Go into the world. Follow Christ. Turn things upside down and inside out. Go where the hurting is. Change who we are into the people of God.
Jacob experienced God’s love and he dared to be different. Our calling is to experience God’s love – then dare to be loving, dare to be caring, and dare to be different.
Dare to follow Christ and make a difference with His difference making love in the world.
Dare to be different. Amen.

Genesis 28:10-19(a)

Genesis 28:10-19(A)
You Can Run – But You Can’t Hide
July 20, 2014
Have you ever had one of those times when it seemed that everything is going against you, that no one cares for you, that you are desperate and alone – but suddenly in the midst of that desperation and loneliness something happens and somehow you experience God in a new way, in such a way that it becomes clear to you that God is with you and suddenly you no longer feel so alone but feel a part of a community that includes none other than God, God’s self?
Ever had an experience like that?
Many of us can tell stories of times God has come to us and shown us His presence and His love, His care, just when it may have seemed to us that no one cared.
If Jacob could be here he would certainly have a story to tell
He could tell us a story of loneliness. A story desperation. A story of feeling that no one cared. But in the midst of the loneliness and desperation his would be a story of how God came to him. His would be a story of God’s love, God’s care and God’s promise, just when he needed it the most.
In our passage for today Jacob is a fugitive. He is a loner. He has just cheated Esau out of his birthright by tricking his father Isaac into blessing him instead of Esau and now Esau is wanting to kill him. He is running for his life. I’m sure he feels alone and scared. He must feel desperate. He may have felt that there was no one to care for him, and that especially God didn’t care for him.
How could God care for a person such as he had turned out to be? Sure, he had received the blessing from Isaac, but – was it true? Would God really bless him? After all that he has done? Indeed, as he traveled toward Haran, we can imagine that he felt alone, uncared for, guilty and desperate.
But he couldn’t run 24 hours a day, could he? Ne, he must stop and rest at night. One night he stopped at a place and rested his head upon one of the rocks, but his sleep was interrupted. In his loneliness, his desperation, his running away from Esau and all he knows, there was God. God came to him. He dreamed of a ladder connecting heaven and earth. He was not alone. His world was not simply a place of loneliness and despair, but it was also a place of God, a place of God’s presence, a place of God’s promises. God made God’s self known to him. God renewed the promises he had made to Abraham. Jacob may have been able to run from Esau, but he was not able to hide from God’s love, God’s care, God’s promises, and God’s presence .He awakened from his dream and realized that God was there all along, he just had not realized it.
In his despair, his loneliness, He discovered that he was not alone at all. He discovered that he was not uncared for at all. He discovered that God had been with him all along, and he had not realized it. So now he moved on in his life with a new perspective, the perspective that God was with him caring for him, loving him, renewing promises with him – at all times of his life.
He realized that he could run, but he couldn’t hide from God.
He learned a truth that night – when it comes to God –
you can run – but you can’t hide.
How about you?

How have you experienced God’s love and grace, God’s presence in the midst of loneliness and despair? How have you experienced God’s presence, especially at the very time you did not realize it?
Maybe it was in the midst of grief over a friend or loved one who died. Maybe it was in the midst of despair and guilt over something you did or something you felt should have done but didn’t. Maybe it was in the midst of a debilitating illness, whether yours or someone you love. Or maybe it was one of those times when it seems everyone is against you. But – in the midst of that grief – or that despair, or that guilt, or that illness, or that loneliness, God in some way made Himself known to you and let you know that you are loved and cared for, that there is no place or no condition that is separated from His love, letting you know that you can run but you can’t hide -from His love.
When it comes to God and God’s love for you, you can run, but you can’t hide.
It doesn’t matter how deep your pain is. It doesn’t matter how desperate or how alone you feel. You are not removed from God’s love and care.
There seemed to be no way God would care for Jacob. He was a lonely, guilty fugitive. God doesn’t love folk like Him, does He?
Yes He does!
God still loved him, still called him, still cared for him, and still made promises to him. God was still with him.
Wherever he went, whatever he did, whatever happened, God was with him.
Indeed – he could run but he couldn’t hide from God’s love, and neither can you – and neither can I. You can’t hide from God’s love, God’s care, and God’s presence. God is always there loving you and caring for you.
It’s important to remember just how guilty Jacob was. He had done wrong. He had cheated his brother and lied to his dying father. And yet – God was still with him. We may be able to understand God’s love and care when things happen to us that we are not responsible for such as death or illness. At the times we have done nothing to deserve the desperate feelings and loneliness it may be easy for us to understand and experience God. But what about those times when we deserve to feel desperate and guilty? What about those times when our actions have brought us to our lonely and desperate place?
Does God still care then? Does God still love us? Yes. Regardless of how far away we may have wandered from being God’s people, God cares. Regardless of what we may have done, how guilty we may feel, how much we may want to run and hide from God, regardless of how far down that road we may have gone, we can run, but we can’t hide from the love of God.
God is there. God still loves you. God still cares for you. God still saves you.
A friend once gave me a wise saying they got a great deal of peace and reassurance from. They suggested to me that I look at it every time I feel alone and unloved — regardless of why. The saying is anonymous, but wise and true. The slip of paper I was given with the saying on it is now tattered. I have pulled it out and looked at it, and taken comfort from it, more times than I can count. Here’s the saying;
“These feelings — strong as they may be, are not telling me the truth about myself.
The truth, even though I cannot feel it right now, is that I am a chosen child of God — precious in God’s eyes, called the Beloved from all eternity, and held safe in an everlasting embrace.”
Regardless of how Jacob felt, the truth was that he was still loved by God. Regardless of how you may feel at times, the truth is that you are still loved by God. When you feel alone, desperate, that no one cares, I may not know why you feel that way, — but God knows, and God wants you to know that He is with you!
If it is because of the death of a friend or loved one, God is with you! If it is because of guilt over things you have done or things you feel you should have done but didn’t, God is with you! If it is because of illness, whether yours or someone you love, God is with you! If you feel that everyone is against you, God is with you! God is with you, loving you, calling you, and is ready to make promises and keep promises to you. If the feelings of despair and loneliness are brought on by things you had nothing to do with, God is with you. If, like Jacob, the feelings are brought on by your actions, God is with you.
Jacob’s life was changed by his experience of God. He still made mistakes, but began trying to live in God’s ways. He experienced God’s loving presence in the midst of his despair, it made a difference in his life, and he quit trying to run from God but began living in God’s love and God’s ways. He saw that he could run, but he could not hide from God’s love.
Yea – you can run, but you can’t hide from the love of God.
Amen.

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
“A Dirty Church”
July 13 2014

Not many people like dirt. It’s usually something you try to get rid of. Things that are dirty are usually considered bad. Most people like things clean instead of dirty. When your house is dirty, you clean it. When your car is dirty, you want to wash it so it can be clean. When your clothes are dirty, you wash them so they can be clean. When you are dirty, you take a bath or a shower so you can be clean.
Most of us like things clean instead of dirty.
Unless, of course, you are a kid.
Most of you know that I was the Pastor In Residence at Camp Monroe this past week. They had an over abundance of Day Campers, kids ranging in age from 6 to 9 at Camp this past week, There were 24 little ones from 8am to 5pm every day, although it seemed like there were thousands of them! My only real duties at Camp were helping lead the opening of the day worship in the morning and the closing of the day worship at night. The rest of the day I was supposed to be free to rest, work on sermons, or whatever else I wanted to do. Well, I did what I wanted to do. My heart went out for the counselors and the Day Campers, and by Tuesday morning I was helping herd the 24 little ones to their activities and taking part in the activities with them. I did everything from playing soccer – both regular soccer and crab — swimming, which I must admit felt pretty good at 2 in the afternoon, to helping with the horses to crafts – those of you who know me realise that I had a wonderful time! But I was reminded last week that kids don’t mind getting dirty! In fact when I came to be meal time or time to get in the pool we would almost have to hose them down t get them clean! No – kids don’t mind being dirty! I bet you know what the first thing I did was when I got home Friday afternoon – I dumped my clothes in the washing machine and myself in the shower!
Besides being a kid, there are other times when dirt is not that bad.
Being a potter, Sally likes nothing better than to have her hands in the mud making pottery. Back when she was pottery she comes home covered with dirt – clay – and mud from head to toe. But before she would leave the studio you know what she does? She would clean her wheel and her work area. And when she got home she would put her clothes in the dirty clothes basket so they can be washed. and took a shower to get the mud – clay – dirt off of her.
I know the joke about being made to take a bath every Saturday night whether you needed it or not – but the truth is most of us like to be clean instead of dirty. And we like things around us to be clean. We take great pride in things being clean, and spend a lot of effort getting things clean. Most of us do not like dirt.
Unless, of course, we enjoy planting flowers or growing vegetable.
When I was growing up we had a man that would help Mom and Dad with yard work on occasion named Nick White. Nick was an elderly gentleman who could tell people where to plant plants. He would dig around in the yard – getting “soil samples” as it were – then would announce:

“You can plant here. It’s good dirt.”
Sometimes you just need good dirt. What makes for good dirt? A proper balance of nutrients to start with, some fertilizer can’t hurt, maybe a little Miracle Grow, then some water and sunlight. These things can help plants grow. But frist you have to have good soil – or as Nick would say – good dirt. To have healthy plants you have to start with good dirt. And you have to be willing to get dirty.
The Parable before us today is a story Jesus told about a farmer who sowed seeds, the different types of dirt the seeds fell into, and what happened in each type of dirt. Now most of you know I am by no means a person of great horticultural skills, which is say I am no farmer. But even I wondered at the farming practices of the man Jesus told about in His story. But these were normal practices for the farmers of the first century. First century farmers usually broadcast the seed by hand as they walked through their field. The fields were small by today’s standards, and the sowing very imprecise. It was natural that some seed would land in unproductive areas. Many times pathways interlaced the fields, and were packed hard by many feet. Much land had a shallow layer of soil over a stone base. The rock would absorb heat during the day, releasing heat to the seed during the night, causing the seed to spring up quickly – as happened in verse 5 of our text. Then there was the problem of borders of the fields that would be infested with thorns, and the seeds would blow onto this soil instead of the freshly plowed ground. The farmer would not be able to see them, but in time they would sprout and choke out the good seeds the farmer was sowing.
The hard ground, the rocky soil, the weed infested soil. Problems every farmer in the first century had to deal with. Problems all of Jesus’ listeners could relate to. But then there was the good soil. The good dirt. But Jesus had more in mind when He told this story than telling a tale of a farmer and what happened to his seed.
Why do you think Jesus told this story? I believe that Jesus knew that, as His disciples and others were doing His work , not all “soil” or not all “dirt” would be “good soil” or “good dirt”. Not everyone would believe in Christ. Things would interfere with the growth of God’s Spirit in their lives. Some wouldn’t even listen. Others would, but not let it “take root”. Still others would listen but let the world choke it out God’s Spirit out of them. And there would be other “seeds” that others would spread that at times would seem to take root quicker and be more productive than the “Gospel seeds”. But sometimes there would be seeds that would land in the “good soil”, the “good dirt”, and these would take root and bear fruit, and God’s work would be done.
We know that still holds true today. We can do everything we can, We can be as faithful as we can be, but there are still those who don’t listen as we try to spread the Good News of God. There are still those who don’t let the Good News of God’s love make a difference in their lives. There are still those who let the concerns of world choke out the message we try to give them about God and God’s love for them. There are still others spreading other seeds that are not the love of God and sometimes these seeds seem to take root and be more productive than the “Gospel seeds.” But then there are still those who let God’s love make a difference in their lives and change their lives! We live in a world where a lot of different “seeds” are being sown. Some are seeds of hatred and violence. We see evidence of these seeds being sown every day. Some are seeds of addictions. We see the results of the sowing of those sees also. Some are seeds of poverty, hunger, homelessness, loss of jobs and despair. But there are others who are sowing seeds of hope, of love, of God’s love – as a response to these other seeds that are being sown. Even though these do not always bear fruit, we can sometimes see what happens in people’s lives when they do and can work to continue spreading those seeds of God’s hope and love in the world.
Let me give you an example of 2 people who spread God’s seeds – “Gospel seeds” in the world – in a place where it was dangerous to do so – but continued spreading the seeds. In 2002 Dayna Curry and Heather Mercer were workers in Afghanistan trying to bring Christ into that war torn country. One of the families they showed the Jesus film to betrayed them to the authorities. They were arrested by the Taliban, but freed when our forces drove the Taliban out of their area. They still hope to return to Afghanistan to continue their work there. When asked if they would do anything differently next time, Dayna Curry said: “I know particularly that we did not have that many people praying for us the day we were arrested. Normally we did, but on that one day we didn’t. If you are going to do something like show the Jesus film, make sure there’s a whole lot of prayer coverage” Dayna and Heather are examples of faith, and knowing that sometimes it may seem your work for God is unproductive, but you can’t give up because that productive time, that good soil, that good dirt, is out there, you just have to make sure the seed gets to it.
Every day we have to spread the seeds and share God’s love with the world. Certainly some will take root and produce fruit and some won’t. But we still have to spread the seed.
How do we spread the seeds of God’s love to the community around us? We can do this every day as we work to help those around us. We can spread seeds of God’s hope and God’s love as we reach out to those in need. We can do this through volunteering for organizations that help others or donating to organizations that help others or visiting someone who is sick. We can spread seeds of God’s hope and God’s love as we share a smile or a friendly word with a stranger. We can spread seeds of God’s hope and God’s love by working for legislation that helps those in need. We can spread seeds of God’s hope and God’s love by praying for those who are in need, those who need to experience God’s hope and love in their lives and for those who are working to bring God’s hope and love to others.
There are so many ways that we can spread God’s seeds of hope and love in our community and the world. The Lee County Presbyterian Youth Group is going to be doing this all over our community this week. The Mission Week to our community may not sound as exciting as going to Atlanta or Washington DC, but every day we will be touching the lives of folks in our own community and making a difference as we serve at the Br ead Basket or help out at CUOC. Every day we are going to be spreading the seeds of God’s love and hope to those whelement o deperate need it, right here in our community. Some of us are going to help the youth and their leaders by proving lunch on Tuesday.
Everyone is going to have an opportunity next Saturday to help distribute the Bags of Love to the homeless people here in town. What a on hands ministry that will be!
Sure, there will be those who don’t let the Good News of God’s love make a difference in their lives as we reach out to them. here will still be those who let the concerns of world choke out the message we try to give them about God and God’s love for them. There will be others who will be spreading other seeds that are not the love of God and sometimes these seeds will seem to take root and be more productive than the “Gospel seeds.” But I promise you that there will be those who will let the “Gospel seed” we sow take root in their lives and in whom the Gospel will take root and bear fruit. We just have to sow the seeds.
But there is another angle to this story we also need to consider. We do not only have to sow the seeds, but we also need to see what kind of dirt we have here! Do we, here in this Church, have an environment in which God’s seeds of love and hope that we plant can grow and be nurtured? Do we have an environment where the seeds God has sown in each of us can grow and flourish? Is our Church “good soil” – is it “good dirt”?
We need to have a “Dirty Church”! My apologies to all of you who work so hard to keep our Church clean but there are some respects in which our Church needs to be dirty! We need to be “dirty” in that we need to create an environment in which the seeds God sows in us can grow and flourish so we can go out and sow more seeds. What kind of “dirt” – what kind of “soil” do we have here? Is it the kind of soil that is like the path Jesus spoke of? Is it well worn and omfortable, traditional but not exciting and refusing to try new things God may be wanting us to try? A Church that is like the well worn path is a Church that does not give the seeds God plants within us a chance to take root. Or is our Church like rocky ground where the seeds God plants within us can quickly grow but not have any opportunity for nurture and no opportunity to take root and grow? Or is our Church like the thorny ground, choking out the excitement and enthusiasm God plants within us before they can begin to produce fruit? Or is our Church good soil, good dirt that promotes the growth of the seeds God plants within each of us?
We need to be a “Dirty Church” . We need to be a Church of good soil, good dirt that promotes the growth of the seeds of God’s love and hope that God places in us.
Earlier I mentioned some things that made for good soil – good dirt. Things like a proper balance of nutrients to start with – some fertilizer can’t hurt – maybe a little Miracle Grow – then some water and sunlight. These things can help plant seeds grow. What about God’s seeds? What about the seeds God plants within each of us? What makes for good dirt, good soil, for these seeds?
For these seeds to grow – they need things like Worship – Worship that is exciting and also inspiring. Worship that opens us up to what God may be saying to us – and the directions God may be moving us. These seeds study – study that is challenging and that opens us up to God’s word and God’s will for our lives. These seeds need service – service that helps us spread the seeds God has planted in us. these seeds need fellowship – fellowship that helps strengthen the bonds God has blessed us with – strengthen the love we have for each other and the love God has for us and helps the seeds God has planted within us grow.
These are the things that make for good dirt, good soil, where the seeds God has planted in us can grow and mature and produce fruit and from where we can go out and spread God’s seeds of love and hope in the world and the community.
Let’s be good soil. Let’s do what we can to be a Dirty Church. Let’s do what we can to be a Church that is good soil for the seeds plants in us can grow. Not a well worn path where no roots can take hold or a rocky ground that does not promote growth of God’s seeds in us or thorny ground where the seeds are choked out — let’s be good dirt – good soil. A Dirty Church that promotes growth of the seeds God plants in each of us and then let’s go out and spread more seeds for God’s glory in our community and the world. Amen.

Romans 6:12-23

Romans 6:12-23
Sini-cide = Death By Sin
June 29, 2014
Maybe it’s because I use them so much, some might say I use them too much, but I love words and what they mean and where they are derived from. The other day I discovered a new word – stravacide. It’s a word created by and being used by serious bik racers. The “cide” suffix has the same meaning as it does in words like homicide, which is death caused by a human being, or suicide, when you cause your own death, or fratricide, which means death caused by a brother. The suffix cide means “the act of killing.” So in this new word being used by avid bike racers, stravacide means “death by strava”.
That really explains a lot, doesn’t it?
Just what is strava– and how is death caused by it?
The word strava is Swedish for “strive,” and is the name of a website intended to help bike racers who don’t have a group of racers to train with. Strava offers ideas to stay motivated while training so the racers can pursue their peak performance. Racers can post their training routs on Strava, along with their times and other stats, and then other racers can try to beat those times. In effect, racers training by themselves end up competing against others, going not only for personal bests, but also for best among all those who may be using the same or similar routs for training. The competition is supposed to be friendly and provide racers with motivation similar to what actually racing against other riders does. A typical route posted to Strava might include steep hills, and riders can seek to be the “king of the mountain” (KOM) on that climb by completing it the fastest. But, of course, racing up a hill also means that one must come down the hill, and some riders have been competing on that part of the route, too. The problem comes when, in an effort to the fastest downhill racer, some highly competitive riders have pushed the limits far beyond what’s reasonable.
That’s where the stravacide, or death by strava, comes in.
On June 6, 2010, for example, Kim Flint, a fit, trim rider in his early 40s, posted on Strava his stats from his zoom down South Park Drive, a precipitous descent in San Francisco, California. The hill is 1.4 miles long, with an average grade of 9.6 percent and some pitches as steep as 20 percent. It also contains a series of blind curves. Flint’s Strava posting indicates that his average speed down the hill was 39.9 mph and his top speed was 49.3 mph, much too fast for the conditions of the road. Flint’s numbers caused another Strava user to comment online, “Sounds pretty dangerous. RIP dude.” Sure enough, on June 19, Flint was trying to beat his record but, going around a curve on the way down, lost control, rammed into an SUV, flew 40 feet through the air and crushed his chest. He died in the hospital a few days later.
Stravacide – or death by Strava. Death by being so competitive in the bike racing world that you feel you have to beat everyone else’s time posted on Strava and be the King of the Mountain – until you finally kill yourself or someone else. One examples where others have been killed by racers trying to beat times posted on Strava include the March of 2012 attempt by a racer who, while attempting to become the King Of The Mountain on the steeply downhill portion of Castro Street in San Francisco, slammed into a 71-year-old pedestrian. The pedestrian died in the hospital and the racer who hit him was charged with felony vehicular manslaughter.
Stravacide – or death by strava. Death by being so competitive in the bike racing world that you feel you have to beat everyone else’s time posted on Strava and be the King of the Mountain – until you finally kill yourself or someone else
But, you now what? The Strava website, of course, is not the real perpetrator in any of the cases of stravacide, but for those who use it and have a super competitive spirit, it seems to have become an addiction they don’t seem to be able to control.
I’m going to introduce you to another new word today – one you are very familiar with even though you may not recognize it when I say it. That word is sinicide. And sinicide, as you might guess, means death by sin.
Sinicide. Death by sin.
I am sure you are familiar with it. You might want to deny it. You might not want to talk about it. You might want to avoid the issue completely. But believe me, sinicide – death by sin – is real, and it’s more of a problem than stavacide or homicide or suicide or any of the other “cides” you can think of. Sinicide – death by sin – is a real problem – in fact the main problem – we have in our lives and in the word.
Paul certainly understood sinicide. He understood the problem that sin poses for all people. One of the many places Paul addresses the problem of sin is in our scripture passage for today from Romans 6. When Paul addresses sin here in Romans 6 he’s not talking about individual wrong acts, but the sinful attitude that is within each of us that to not obey God. He’s talking about about the disposition within each of us that does not yield to God’s will. He’s referring to a power that takes hold of us and narrows our attention to only what we want at any particular moment, even if we know it is not what God wants for us at a particular moment.
Eugene Peterson in his translation The Message translates verse Romans 6:19 “You can readily recall, can’t you, how at one time the more you did just what you felt like doing — not caring about others, not caring about God — the worse your life became and the less freedom you had.”
When you are focused on sin you give up any freedoms you have to the power of sin,
Sinicide. Death by sin.
When Paul refers to death caused by sin, he’s not referring to physical death. He’s referring to the death that comes when we focus on our own sinful point of view instead of God’s point of view. You see –God is not going to save us from physical death. It’s a given. Physical death will happen. But — God can and will save us from spiritual death. God can and will save us from being so focused on what we want and so rebellious of what He wants for us. That’s the attitude we call sin. That’s the attitude God can change us from – the attitude that leads to sinicide, or death by sin. Physical death is common to all humankind, since God has made us to be finite. God doesn’t save us from physical death, but God can and will save us from spiritual death. God can and will save us from being so self-centered, and so sin centered, that we commit sinicide and die spiritually because of our self centered-ness and sinfulness.
Friends – Paul goes beyond writing about sinicide and death by sin here in Romans 6. He also announces some good news – and the good news Paul announces is that Christ has broken the reign of sin. Christ has broken the grip that our sinful self-centeredness has on us, and the sinicide – or death by sin – it causes. In Christ, Paul writes, we are “dead to sin and alive to God” Paul says.
This does not mean you are perfect once you give your life to Christ. The power of sin is still strong. Your sinful nature pops up it’s ugly head time and time again and gives you back to doing what you want instead of what God wants. This reality of being both dead-to-sin but still having to deal with sinful desires has been called the continuing ambiguity of the Christian life. But you must remember that the same opportunity to be disobedient and sinful is also an opportunity to be obedient to God and to grow in your faith. The opportunity you have to sin is also an opportunity to choose not to sin. The same opportunity sin gives you to drift away from God also gives us an opportunity for a more mature relationship with God. Once you begin following Christ, the temptation to obey your sinful desires are also opportunities to let Christ have more control.
Friends, you are not going to grow spiritually by simply thinking about it or wishing for it. You will grow by making the right choices. You will grow by will deciding every day to be faithful to God instead of giving in to sin. Paul makes it clear that you will focus on something all the time, and that you are free to choose what you will focus on — either the desires of sin or the desires of God. Paul writes, “But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart … and that you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.”
There is no neutral ground. Paul J. Achtemeier, a professor at Union Seminary in Richmond, writes in his commentary on Romans: “ the choice is not slavery or freedom in some absolute sense. The choice is, rather, slavery to which lord, to which ruling power?”
You don’t grow as a follower of Christ just by resisting the temptations to sin. You grow in your relationship with God grow by choosing, every day, to actively live in God’s ways and live out God’s will for your life. When you pray for God to help you do this and commit yourself to this, you live in the ways of God and not the ways of sin. That’s the only way to avoid spiritual sinicide – s[piritual death by sin. Amen.