When you are preparing a sermon, you end up with a lot more information than you can actually use. That is the case for me, again, this week. My sermon for tomorrow is about “Taking Sin Seriously”. Sin is such a huge topic; I have accumulated three hundred times more information than I could use in a lifetime of sermons on sin.
However, in my studies, I returned this week to a cherished book on the topic: Cornelius Plantinga, Jr.’s “Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin”. I was introduced to this book in seminary. My recent re-reading stirred up myriad thoughts and ideas, which is often more helpful to a sermon than the best illustrations or quotes. There is one part of the book, in particular, that has always struck me as inordinately beautiful; I know, you wouldn’t expect beauty to surface in a book about sin, but it does! It really doesn’t fit anything that I am talking about tomorrow, but I want to share it, nonetheless.
This excerpt is taken from the chapter entitled “Spiritual Hygiene and Corruption”. These few paragraphs (below) are the author’s definition of “spiritual hygiene”, or personal wholeness. It is what a Christian can and should be…not perfect, but whole and focused on God and goodness, truly alive and involved with God and others. Read it. I promise you won’t be disappointed!
(Platinga(Jr.), Cornelius. Not the Way It's Supposed to Be. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995, pp.34-35.)
“As Christians see her, a spiritually whole person longs in certain classical ways. She longs for God and the beauty of God, for Christ and Christlikeness, for the dynamite of the Holy Spirit and spiritual maturity. She longs for spiritual hygiene itself—and not just as a consolation prize when she cannot be rich and envied instead. She longs for other human beings: she wants to love them and to be loved by them. She hungers for social justice. She longs for nature, for its beauties and graces, for the sheer particularity of the way of a squirrel with a nut. As we might expect, her longings dim from season to season. When they do, she longs to long again.
She is a person of character consistency, a person who rings true wherever you tap her. She keeps promises. She weeps with those who weep and, perhaps more impressively, rejoices with those who rejoice. She does all these things in ways that express her own personality and culture but also a general “mind of Christ” that is cross-culturally unmistakable.
Her motives include faith—a quiet confidence in God and in the mercies of God that radiate from the self-giving work of Jesus Christ. She knows God is good; she also feels assured that God is good to her. Her faith secures her against the ceaseless oscillations of pride and despair familiar to every human being who has taken refuge in the cave of her own being and tried there to bury all her insecurities under a mound of achievements. When her faith slips, she retains faith enough to believe that the Spirit of God, whose presence is her renewable resource, will one day secure her faith again.”
However, in my studies, I returned this week to a cherished book on the topic: Cornelius Plantinga, Jr.’s “Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin”. I was introduced to this book in seminary. My recent re-reading stirred up myriad thoughts and ideas, which is often more helpful to a sermon than the best illustrations or quotes. There is one part of the book, in particular, that has always struck me as inordinately beautiful; I know, you wouldn’t expect beauty to surface in a book about sin, but it does! It really doesn’t fit anything that I am talking about tomorrow, but I want to share it, nonetheless.
This excerpt is taken from the chapter entitled “Spiritual Hygiene and Corruption”. These few paragraphs (below) are the author’s definition of “spiritual hygiene”, or personal wholeness. It is what a Christian can and should be…not perfect, but whole and focused on God and goodness, truly alive and involved with God and others. Read it. I promise you won’t be disappointed!
(Platinga(Jr.), Cornelius. Not the Way It's Supposed to Be. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995, pp.34-35.)
“As Christians see her, a spiritually whole person longs in certain classical ways. She longs for God and the beauty of God, for Christ and Christlikeness, for the dynamite of the Holy Spirit and spiritual maturity. She longs for spiritual hygiene itself—and not just as a consolation prize when she cannot be rich and envied instead. She longs for other human beings: she wants to love them and to be loved by them. She hungers for social justice. She longs for nature, for its beauties and graces, for the sheer particularity of the way of a squirrel with a nut. As we might expect, her longings dim from season to season. When they do, she longs to long again.
She is a person of character consistency, a person who rings true wherever you tap her. She keeps promises. She weeps with those who weep and, perhaps more impressively, rejoices with those who rejoice. She does all these things in ways that express her own personality and culture but also a general “mind of Christ” that is cross-culturally unmistakable.
Her motives include faith—a quiet confidence in God and in the mercies of God that radiate from the self-giving work of Jesus Christ. She knows God is good; she also feels assured that God is good to her. Her faith secures her against the ceaseless oscillations of pride and despair familiar to every human being who has taken refuge in the cave of her own being and tried there to bury all her insecurities under a mound of achievements. When her faith slips, she retains faith enough to believe that the Spirit of God, whose presence is her renewable resource, will one day secure her faith again.”
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