8/3/22

I have a friend of mine who loves to go “junking.” His car automatically drives to every thrift store in Huntsville. He knows when new items are put out, what days the silent auctions end and what days they give senior discounts. For him, it’s a quest; for me, a nightmare! The few times he’s dragged me with him, all I see in those stores are acres of cast-offs, aisles of detritus, piles of, well, junk. HE can look at that same stuff and spot treasures.

For example, I needed a pedestal in my living room, and he found this. . . ugly, black pedestal-shaped thing. It was functional (and cheap), so I didn’t really care. But then, he went to work on it, stripping away first, the top-layer of black paint and then the years-old discolored varnish underneath. When he was done, I discovered I had bought a beautiful tigerwood antique pedestal worth FAR more than I gave for it - and it’s one of my favorite objects in my house!

The last couple of weeks I’ve been writing about the image of God. Like that tigerwood pedestal, we have been so encrusted with sin that the idea of being created in the image of God almost seems ridiculous. But as hideous as humanity can be, we were (and are) created in the image of God in two ways, natural and moral. In the natural (some call it “functional”) image of God we have the ability to Reason, Communicate, Create and Rule. Also, when we were first created, we were created to be morally like God; we were Holy, Righteous, Loving and Wise. You might find it helpful to think about a car; the natural image was like the vehicle, and the moral image was like the driver. If a car’s driver is impaired or completely missing, the car will veer recklessly out of control.

And that’s what happened to all of humanity. Once we chose to disobey God, we found ourselves unholy, unrighteous, unloving and unwise. Without the moral image of God guiding our lives, we became conformed to the image on the coin and not the image of our Creator. Our communication became abusive; our creativity became perverse and destructive; our reasoning became evil; and our ability to rule became controlling, exploitative and enslaving. We ended up, as Genesis 6:5 described us, “The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually.”

How far humanity had fallen from Genesis 1:31, “and God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good”!

But God was not content to leave us there.

The old hymn says, “Be of sin the double-cure: save from wrath and make me pure.” As Weslyans, we believe the Bible teaches a two-fold answer to the problem of human disobedience. First, we believe Jesus died so that our sins can be forgiven. We come to Christ, repent, and God forgives us, and our lives are “just as if we’d never sinned.” However . . . there remains that inner problem, that life that Paul describes in Romans 7 as “I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” There has to be an inward work to restore the car’s driver. We believe the work of the Holy Spirit is to renew that fallen image. Paul ways it like this:

II Corinthians 3:18 “And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.”

Colossians 3:9-10 “Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator.”

Ephesians 4:22-24 “You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”

This work of the Holy Spirit, which we call sanctification, is the restoration of the moral image of God. The word, sanctification, means “to become holy,” and is the progressive transformation into the likeness of the Lord.

Paul writes of it in Romans 12:1-2, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

You’ll notice in all these scriptures that this transformation is made possible through God’s working and our yielding. Paul calls on believers to “put away your former way of life. . . and clothe yourselves,” to “present your bodies” to “be transformed by the renewing of your minds.” There’s an intentional work on our part to become like God. There’s a consecration, a giving of ourselves, a yielding to the work of the Holy Spirit.

So, what are the nuts and bolts of transformation? We’re talking about them this month on Sunday mornings: Worship and Prayer, Study, Serving, Giving and Sharing our Faith (that was last Sunday). Through Worship and Prayer, we spend time with the Creator. Through Study, we discover God’s plans for humanity (past, present and future) and how we fit into them. Through Service, we become the hands and feet of Christ. Through Giving, our priorities are challenged and transformed. And as we experience this transformation, we’ll be certain to Share our experience with others!

So join us this month as we explore the five essential Christian practices and see how they move us onward in our transformation.

Blessings,
Pastor Terry