Have you ever stopped and wondered at some of the things people eat? Can you imagine the first person who held something in their hand and said, “I’m going to eat this”? I can just picture a group of boys standing around on the beach and one of them says, “Look what I found!” You know – you know it happened this way – one of the older boys said, “I dare you to eat it.”
I remember watching a guy trying to
muster the courage to eat raw oysters.
He’d pick up the plate, swirl it around, lift it to his mouth, then
chicken out. Don’t blame him. I won’t even eat cooked oysters! Yes, it’s true. I was quite the disappointment to my
family. At reunions, aunts and uncles
would stand around in hushed tones saying “Did you hear about Lois and Barney’s
boy? They say he doesn’t even like oysters
or shrimp!”
I’ll never forget the first time I
noticed the smell of sauerkraut (“noticed” is a bit too kind of a description,
I think. “Assaulted” is probably more accurate). I thought we were stripping the varnish off
the floors or something. No. The smell was coming from a pot out in the
kitchen. And as I watched – you’re not
going to believe this – as God as my witness, my mother dumped a whole skillet
of pork into that disgusting mixture of fermented cabbage. “Sauerkraut,” she said. I imagine it tastes just as bad as it smells.
Every New Year of my childhood was the
same. I sat at the table looking for
something more tolerable to eat… and, just for the record, I’ve seen the look some
of you are giving me. I’ve seen it
before. And I’ll tell you what I told my
family. Read Leviticus 11:10. “But you must never eat animals from the sea or from rivers
that do not have both fins and scales. They are detestable to you. This applies
both to little creatures that live in shallow water and to all creatures that
live in deep water.” Hey,
don’t judge me; I’m just being obedient to the Law.
Never understood why we couldn’t start
the New Year with stromboli.
My family and I were divided over what
foods were acceptable and which ones were not… just like many in the
first-century church.
Take out your Bibles and turn with me
to Colossians 2:16. While you’re turning there let me point out that God’s
chosen people – the descendants of Jacob; Israel – were to set themselves apart
from the rest of the world. Before Jesus
came along, it was following a lot of “dos and don’ts” that distinguished a
person of God from a person of the world.
When a Jewish person acted too much like the rest of the world, Jewish
teachers and Rabbi’s would instruct a person according to the Law. And there were about 613 of them; 248 of them
commanded “do this” and 365 that said, “don’t do that.” The idea was that by following these Laws a
person would restore their broken relationship with God. Well, what was happening in Colossae is that
some people were teaching that to really be a Christian, a person needed to
keep following those Laws. And Paul’s
point is that adherence to those Laws is no longer necessary.
Paul writes, “Therefore do not let anyone
judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a
New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that
were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. Don’t let anyone condemn you by
insisting on pious self-denial or the worship of angels, saying they have had
visions about these things. Their sinful minds have made them proud, and they
are not connected to Christ, the head of the body. For he holds the whole body
together with its joints and ligaments, and it grows as God nourishes it. You
have died with Christ, and he has set you free from the spiritual powers of
this world. So why do you keep on following the rules of the world, such as,
“Don’t handle! Don’t taste! Don’t touch!”? Such rules are mere human teachings
about things that deteriorate as we use them. These rules may seem wise because
they require strong devotion, pious self-denial, and severe bodily discipline.
But they provide no help in conquering a person’s evil desires“(Colossians
2:16-23).
Conquering evil desires.
That’s the point to all of this.
What does it take to overcome our sinful human nature? Some people claimed it was found in obeying a
list of dos and don’ts; a person wasn’t truly a Christian until they started
observing certain customs or rituals or holy days. But these Old Testament commands were merely
a shadow, says Paul; they hinted at a future means to holiness (not to be
confused as a means to Salvation. Jewish
teachers merely begin to assume they were). It’s true.
God didn’t give those Old Testament food laws and festival instructions
so that a person might be saved through their observance. Rather, those Laws of clean and unclean foods
and whatnot were given so that through a person's obedience, they might
set themselves apart from the rest of the world; that’s what holiness means – to
set apart. In other words, the pagans
might eat pork mixed with fermented cabbage, but not those who worshipped God.
Paul points us to Christ and reminds
his readers that a person is set apart from the world because of their
submission to Jesus, not laws. We are
saved through faith in the work of Jesus on the cross, not by what we eat or
what we do. As the author of Hebrews
points out, following all those laws and offering a lifetime of sacrifices
could never remove the feelings of guilt. (Hebrews 10:2). Only Christ can help us conquer our evil
desires, not following a list of laws.
The real battle men and women have
been facing almost since the beginning is an attempt to overcome the evil
desires in their heart. Oh, I know; some
people don’t really seem to be trying – it looks like they are feeding the evil
desires of their heart, but for most people there is this battle that takes
place within them to get control of their life.
A lot of people know deep in their heart that they are not living the
kind of life that is pleasing to God. To
overcome this feeling of guilt – these evil desires – most people figure that
if they can stop doing this or stop doing that, they might just get themselves
on God’s good side. Does that describe
you?
Have you found yourself thinking that in
order to earn God’s favor there are certain things you need to stop doing and
things you need to start doing? Tell me;
how’s that working out for you? Have you
been successful in getting your life cleaned up? Have you been able to overcome the evil
desires in your heart? I’m not sure who
told you that you must not... or you need to... if you want to complete your
salvation. Those words are not found in
the Bible. In fact, Paul assures us that
Jesus has already done this. It’s
true. When you trust Jesus as your
Savior – believing that His death on the cross covered EVERYTHING – then He has
set you free from this nonsense that says you need to follow a long set of
rules to be saved.
I wasn’t saved because of the food I
ate or what I didn’t eat. I wasn’t saved
because I stopped doing this thing or stopped using those words. I was saved because of what Jesus did. And what sets me apart from the world is my
submission to Him, not a bunch of laws and customs.
Here’s the main point: following rules
does not remove our guilty feeling. I
mean, how much must you remove from your life until your guilt goes away? It’s unfortunate but a person can spend a
lifetime trying to chase away something that Jesus will freely remove.
Sadly, humanity seems drawn to rules
and regulations; they become checkmarks that measure our devotion to God. Rules and regulations also allow us to
measure our spirituality against others.
And in our self-righteousness, laws and regulations enable us to
determine just how much more spiritual we are than those around us. To that, Paul writes, “So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay
free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law” (Galatians
5:1). It’s not a refusal to eat raw
oysters that proves we are children of God, it’s our acceptance of Jesus that
sets us free from a life of sin and death.
I’ll confess that it took me a while
to understand this concept.
In my early years of being a follower
of Jesus, I naively believed obedience to a long list of rules would draw me
closer to God. I was convinced the
feeling of guilt – those evil desires within me – would go away if I removed
certain things from my life (a list of dos and don’ts). So, I burnt a big stack of albums that were
part of the dark culture that held me captive.
Burning those records failed to remove the evil desires within me. In fact, nothing I tried gave me the
assurance I was looking for. I made
sacrifice after sacrifice in my life and still felt separated from the Father. In truth, I didn’t feel accepted by God until
I realized Jesus died for me BEFORE my trip to the burn barrel, not
after I completed a list of dos and don’ts.
What Jesus did on the cross for you
was enough – more than enough. It is
your acceptance of this that sets you apart from the rest of the world.
As Pastor Keven mentioned the other
week, these evil desires – this “sinful nature” – is removed from us when we
understand and accept what Jesus did for us when He willingly died in our
place.
Not because we refused to eat sauerkraut.
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