Word of Salvation – Vol. 41 No. 31 – August 1996

True Life

Sermon by Rev. M. C. De Graaf on Revelation 3:1-6

Scripture Reading: Matthew 24:45-25:13

Suggested Hymns: BoW 230; 92

Brothers and Sisters.

We use the term ALIVE in a variety of ways!

It simply refers to the opposite of "dead."  To be alive means we are still biologically functioning.  AND YET, in our culture we also use it in a broader way, usually together with another word like "TRULY."  I am truly alive – not just breathing, and eating, but TRULY ALIVE, TRULY LIVING.

The Norsca ad on TV has mountains in the background, pine forests, clear, cool water, very active people, and speaks of being TRULY ALIVE.  It seems to be saying when we are TRULY ALIVE, we are using all our senses to the full.  TRULY ALIVE is not the opposite of TRULY DEAD.  It's the opposite of just existing, simply going through the motions of life.

Mountain climbers are TRULY ALIVE; people madly in love are TRULY ALIVE; a surfer is TRULY ALIVE; exciting music makes me feel TRULY ALIVE, if only for a few minutes.

Somehow TRULY ALIVE people are living life in a deeper and a more real way.  They have a sense of wholeness that we all yearn for.

In his book "The Outsider" Albert Camus spoke about the way most of us feel as if we are just existing.  It is as if we are watching life go by without truly being involved in it.  We are biologically alive, but something within us, nevertheless, feels very dead.

Part of this YEARNING within us, I believe, is what CS Lewis and others would describe as a yearning for eternity, for that time when at last we will be truly alive.  Even if we cannot put into words, even if we are not believers, something in our genetic makeup tells us things are not right.  We still have hints of the perfection that was once ours within our spirits.  Something within knows things will one day be very different.

When Jesus speaks of giving us "LIFE" and "ALIVENESS" he usually is speaking about that ETERNITY.  He usually is making a contrast between death and the resurrection.  He is speaking about the perfect place and the fact that through Him we now have access to it when our life here comes to an end.

BUT THERE IS ALSO SOMETHING ELSE.  Even though I believe it is true that we will not, despite what the advertisers tell us, be TRULY ALIVE IN THE FULLEST SENSE OF THAT CONCEPT until the day we arrive in paradise, NEVERTHELESS, the world's quest for true ALIVENESS CAN, in some ways be met in the here and now, though it is in a radically different way than what most people might expect.

1.

Here in the fourth letter to the churches in Asia Minor, Jesus says to the Christians in Sardis, that they look like they are ALIVE, but in actual fact they are DEAD.

Jesus is saying: you can't always believe what you see.  It is the inside that determines if someone is TRULY ALIVE, not what they do on the outside.

This, of course, is the opposite of what we are told in our culture.  Its focus is on the physical, the senses, life-style, how successful someone is.  THOUGH these things are not unimportant to JESUS, His way of seeing if someone is truly alive begins on the INSIDE!

When we study Scripture we start to get an idea of what He's looking for.  For example:

1. We learn in passages like LUKE 12:23 that to be TRULY ALIVE is not something that can be determined purely by EXTERNAL THINGS – like what we eat, or wear, or where we live.
2. True Life is not something we can get by trying harder and harder. The worldly definition of being TRULY ALIVE depends on you exercising more, becoming richer, buying the right products, working harder and perfecting your techniques. The Godly definition depends on letting go and giving your life over to the True King!  It involves a giving over of self, a dying unto self, as it says in John 12.
3. As I die, Jesus comes alive within me. He is the giver of life, we are told in a whole lot of places. That HUNGER for realness, for purpose, for a reason to get up in the morning can only, in the end, be truly met in Him.
4. True Life is a gift of the Spirit. Again, as we have seen already, it is not something that comes to those who try the hardest. It is a gift.  Only those who can let go of their pride and their obsession with self, and get on their knees and make themselves available to the work of the Spirit can truly receive this gift.  The problem is not with the giver, but with us, the receivers.  Our fists are so tightly clenched with the exertion of trying to do it in our own strength, we cannot receive the gift.  To be TRULY ALIVE we need to put ourselves in a place where we can more clearly receive the Spirit.  Our worship, our reading of Scripture, our mixing with friends – IS IT LIFE GIVING or LIFE TAKING?  Does it open us to the work of the Spirit or close us?
5. To be TRULY ALIVE, in biblical teaching, is the OPPOSITE of being SPIRITUALLY DEAD. The New Testament often refers to SIN as being a bringer of death. When we first taste it, we think this is real life, but it kills you within.  It twists and kills our values, our marriages, our relationships, our ability to enjoy anything.  Our desire to do right is killed.

ONLY Jesus, who has never sinned, is the perfect example of what it means to be TRULY ALIVE!!

The New Testament sees a close relationship between Jesus and our being TRULY ALIVE.

• It is in our being IN HIM that we taste TRUE LIFE! As I am integrated into Him more and more through the power of His Spirit, I become more alive!
• As His Spirit moulds my life to more perfectly reflect His life, I feel more alive; more in step with who I am meant to be. The sin and the guilt are lifted. I can get on.  The joy and the deep experience of meaning is once again possible.
• The measure that SCRIPTURE SEEMS TO USE for HOW ALIVE I AM is HOW CLOSE I AM TO JESUS!! HE IS, AFTER ALL, THE SOURCE OF LIFE!! All else is as good as dead.
• As I grow closer to Christ, I reflect His WAYS OF SPEAKING, LIVING, even HIS THINKING in my own life. All these are signs of LIFE!

2.

According to all outward signs, Sardis was an ALIVE CHURCH.  I don't know how they measured it in those days, but today I guess we would look at things like the size of their building, how much they put in their offering, the type of worship they enjoyed.  Maybe they all had a great knowledge of the Word, or whatever.

BUT JESUS LOOKS AT THESE PEOPLE AND DOESN'T SEE LIFE AT ALL.  He looks beyond the outward.  He looks into their hearts and sees death.  There is no passion for Him, no dying unto self, no putting Him in the number one position, no opening up to the power and leading of the Spirit.  They might have gone through all the right rituals of faith, sat at the table, baptised their children, but they had no PASSION for GOD.

They had become complacent and comfortable.  Outward appearance was good enough for them.  But even here the fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control – the outward signs that really matter, would not have come to bud amongst them, and if it had been there at all, it had long since rotted and died on their branches.

Jesus speaks of them as having fallen asleep.  The light of Christ surrounds them, but they're fast asleep.

It's not true for all of them.  There are some who are still alive, still on their knees.  But in most there is NOTHING!  Hearts of ice, hardened to the work of the Spirit.

There is no question that for most of us this ought to be one of the most challenging letters.

• We who hunger for life are looking for it in all the wrong places.
• We who claim to be followers of the Christ have all too often settled simply for following the church and organised religion instead.
• We may look alive. We may go through all the right rituals, but really, what's happening deep inside? Do we have hearts that are open to whatever the Spirit might say?  Are we putting Jesus in number one?

The way to tell is in the fruit – when people see you are becoming more like Jesus?  Is His love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control evident in your life?

What about us as a church together?  Are we really alive?  Open to the leading of Christ no matter what, no matter where?  Is our faith in the structures, in the rituals, in the law?  Or in the living Christ and His Word and Spirit?

Jesus says to those who are faithful: I offer robes of white.  In the ancient world, white robes meant victory and purity.  Here it is a reminder of the relationship we can have with God when we trust only in the righteousness of Christ.  When He is number one in our lives, when at last all else fades into obscurity, when He is placed where He belongs, right at the centre of our lives.

Amen.