Sermon Notes, August 21, 2016
Rev.
Garry McGlinchy
The last sermon in Pastor Garry’s
sermon series on the fruits of the Spirit, based on Galatians 5:22-23 was
titled “The Fruits of the Spirit: Gentleness and Self-Control.” There are many different examples of
gentleness and self-control but the person who most often comes to mind is
Mary, the mother of Jesus, as she withstood the criticism and pain of her
pre-marital pregnancy—and yet God chose her to be his son’s mother. Gentleness is also evident from the woman
who, with tears of gratitude gently washed Jesus’s feet and dried them with her
own hair. When thinking about
self-control, a good example would be the story of Joseph running from Potiphar’s
house as Potiphar’s wife made sexual advances toward him. Another example would be David, who didn’t
take Saul’s life when he had the opportunity—not once, but twice—when Saul was
chasing him to kill him.
We’re going to look at two
stories involving Jesus and His gentleness and self-control. In Mark 10: 13-16 we read about Jesus and the
little children, and in John 2:13-17, we read about one of the times Jesus
clears the temple courts. Jesus is both
gentle and self-controlled in each of these stories. In the first story we see people bringing
their children to Jesus so that they can be blessed. It was a common practice in Jewish culture
for people to bring their children to a rabbi to be blessed. And then we see the disciples rebuke the
people for trying to get to Jesus, and they try to turn them away. Jesus intervenes. It’s easy to see how He was gentle in this
situation, blessing the children with wonderful words for the future, but how
was He self-controlled? Just a short
while before this happens, in the previous chapter of Mark, Jesus had taught His
disciples to receive the children in His name and to be careful not to cause
any of them to stumble. The problem is
that the disciples had already forgotten what Jesus had taught them about how
important the children were. Kind of
like how parents feel when they tell their young son or daughter not to do
something and within five minutes they are right there doing the very thing
they were told not to do! So Jesus
rebuked the disciples. He again told
them how important the little children were to the kingdom of God and that they
themselves would have to become like children in order to be part of that
kingdom. In rebuking the disciples, He
is gentle and self-controlled. Jesus wants us to remember what He has taught
us. Like the disciples, even though
our intentions are good, we sometimes turn people away from Jesus through our
lack of gentleness and self-control because we’ve forgotten the first things
Jesus taught us.
In the second story, Jesus is
honoring the law by coming to the temple at the time of the Passover feast. As He walks with His disciples, they come to
the part of the Temple that was set aside for the unbelieving foreigners,
called the Court of Gentiles. Jesus sees
that the religious leaders have made a mockery of this place of worship by
allowing money-changers and animal merchants to conduct unjust business inside
of the worship center! He wasn’t upset
because money was being changed, or because animals were being sold for the
sacrifices that had to be made. What
infuriated Jesus that day was when people who were coming to worship God were
being defrauded by religious hucksters.
People were using God to justify their selfish behavior. Remember what Jesus said when He turned over
the tables and sent the money-changers packing?
“My temple will be a place of prayer, but you have turned it into a den
of thieves.” The lesson we learn from
this story is this: Keep God’s Temple pure. Jesus responded with gentleness and
self-control. He braided a whip in order
to do what He had in mind, so we know He was not out of control! He was gentle in that He was respectful of
even those who were doing people harm.
In verse 16 we read that Jesus went over to the people who sold the
doves. He didn’t release the doves; He
told the people selling them to get out of the temple and take their doves with
them. The saddest part of this story is
not the Jews who were being taken for a ride by the money-changers and the
animal merchants for the currency and sacrifices they had to have. No, the real tragedy is that the very place
that was designated for unbelieving Gentiles to find the truth of God and
worship Him was being turned into a place where truth was clouded by
distractions and lies!
Gentleness and
self-control. Against such, there is no
law. Ever used a chainsaw? When the teeth are sharp, it cuts wood like a
knife in butter. But the duller the
blade, the harder you push. The less
time we spend sharpening our relationship with Jesus and remembering the
lessons He has taught us, the more is spent bearing down on others, and we lose
our gentleness and self-control. When we
get pushy and agitated it is because we are using a dull saw. However, the more time we spend in reading
and understanding God’s word, the more our lives will be gentle and self-controlled. These stories are important for us today
because they teach us not only the meaning of gentleness and self-control, but
they show us how these attributes, these fruit of the Spirit, are evident in
our everyday lives. We are to learn from
Him and be obedient to Him, remembering lessons previously taught, keeping His
temple pure. We are to be life-long
learners. He wants a relationship with
us! Spirit-filled people live
Spirit-filled lives.
No comments:
Post a Comment