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Last week we began the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Church of the Nazarene with a multicongregational service. We continue this week in this theme as a time to reflect and commit to our mission here at the Church of the Nazarene in Mid-City. We are a pilgrim people, called to care for a pilgrimage way-station, vowed to the works of mercy. This mission is not an end in itself. We can “follow all the rules” and “do everything that we say we will” and still miss the real importance of our participation in the congregation’s mission: through engaging in this mission and practices together, the real end of our work is to let the Holy Spirit cleanse us from inward sin and fill our lives with the fullness of love that comes from the experience of the depth of forgiveness of our sins in Jesus Christ. Reading the Scriptures, preaching the Gospel, participating in the Sacraments, and ministry with and among the poor are simply a means of God’s grace for this cleansing – our sanctification. I am convinced that this cleansing cannot take place without our active participation in these external acts; but the external acts are for the transformation of our character so that our affections might take on the fullness of the fruits of the Spirit dwelling in our lives: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. The virtues only arise in our lives as a gift, arising from faith in Jesus Christ and having God’s love, as John Wesley said, being “shed abroad in our hearts.”

We in the Church of the Nazarene, and the English-speaking Church of the Nazarene in particular, do not stand alone in understanding this end for the Christian life. This understanding of sanctification – holiness -- as the goal of the Christian life lies at the center of the Scripture and the Christian tradition through the ages. Yet the history of the church teaches us that such an end often gets lost in the pressures of the church to be formed, not by the Scriptures and the communion of saints through the ages, but by the present context of our surrounding environment. Rather then surrounded by the cloud of witnesses in Hebrews 11 we our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, we look for influence or prestige within the surrounding culture. In our day these pressures come in either looking to assimilate into a consumerist culture by emphasizing individualistic therapeutic expression and/or social activism to push the society to a political agenda outside the church. Either one of those are not in themselves bad things. The fruits of the Spirit are profoundly therapeutic for individuals in the truest sense of the term and the church’s witness and activities should be seen and witnessed and make an impact in the world. But these are not the end, the goal, of the church. They arise as the consequences of participating in the true end of the Christian life: the cleansing of inward sin by the work of the Holy Spirit to bring forth in our lives the fullness of love of God and neighbor as the deepest habit of our lives through faith in Jesus Christ. The proper product of a congregation’s existence is saints: those caught up in the love of God Father though Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit to be re-formed into the image of God in which and for which we were created.

With this in mind, we can turn to read this week’s Scriptures. To read them from the Isaiah reading to the Gospel reading, to the Epistle may help us see the necessity of the depth of the work of God in our lives:

Posted by johnwright at October 9, 2008 3:44 PM