Oops! I Did it Again...and Don't Want to Do it Anymore

 

Heart to Heart from the Housewrights

As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly - Proverbs 26:11

These people are as useless as dried-up springs or as mist blown away by the wind. They are doomed to blackest darkness. They brag about themselves with empty, foolish boasting. With an appeal to twisted sexual desires, they lure back into sin those who have barely escaped from a lifestyle of deception. They promise freedom, but they themselves are slaves of sin and corruption. For you are a slave to whatever controls you. And when people escape from the wickedness of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and then get tangled up and enslaved by sin again, they are worse off than before. It would be better if they had never known the way to righteousness than to know it and then reject the command they were given to live a holy life. They prove the truth of this proverb: “A dog returns to its vomit.” And another says, “A washed pig returns to the mud.” 2 Peter 2:17-22

“Well, those are not very uplifting verses,” you are probably saying to yourself right now.

And, you are right.

They are hideous. And, they remind us of who we are and what we are capable of.

So often, we love to brag on ourselves, proclaim our goodness to others, and put selfies on social media that yell, “Hey, look at me!” But, is that what we really want? Do we want people to know us - the “real” us?

In both Proverbs and Peter’s first letter, we find the truth of what we are really like. We have the proclivity, nay, the downright desire to often go back to that which traps us. That which troubles us. That which keeps us down. 

Like a dog returning to it vomit.

Every single one of us has a sin (sins) that perpetually haunt us. We miss the aim and don’t hit our target. We allow distractions. We do not stay focused. We trip and we fall.

But, thanks be unto God, we can get back up. “If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts,” I John 1:8-10.

So, you’re struggling with sin. You keep messing up. You want to change but “old habits die hard” as they say.

Thank God for grace.

Thank God for mercy.

Thank God for forgiveness.

Thank God for hope.

Thank God for being a new creation.

Thank God this is a new day and you can start over…

Look. It’s not ok to sin. It’s not ok to shrug it off. It’s not ok to say, “It’s who I am. God made me this way.”

Those are not words which should ever come out of a follower of Jesus’ mouth. Sin is the very reason Jesus obeyed the Father - even to death on a Roman cross. Willingling he died - so we might die to self and sin. It’s why Paul wrote to the followers of Jesus in Galatia: Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there, Galatians 5:24.

We all have today. Today, let’s keep sin at bay. Give it not an inch in our lives. Let’s put the flesh in its place. After all, the very next verse in Galatians 5 has Paul declaring: Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives.

For the next 24 hours let us agree to say no to the flesh and yes to the spirit. Hour by hour, minute by minute, second by second…let us walk in the Spirit and be led by the Spirit and then - and only then - we will not fall into sin. 

“Go, and sin no more…”

Walking Away

 Heart to Heart with the Housewrights

On the other side of the sea, they arrived in the region of the Gerasenes. As soon as Jesus got out of the boat, He was met by a man with an unclean spirit, who was coming from the tombs. This man had been living in the tombs and could no longer be restrained, even with chains. Though he was often bound with chains and shackles, he had broken the chains and shattered the shackles. Now there was no one with the strength to subdue him. Night and day in the tombs and in the mountains he kept crying out and cutting himself with stones. When the man saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees before Him. And he shouted in a loud voice, “What do You want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg You before God not to torture me!” For Jesus had already declared, “Come out of this man, you unclean spirit!” “What is your name?” Jesus asked. “My name is Legion,” he replied, “for we are many.” And he begged Jesus repeatedly not to send them out of that region. There on the nearby hillside a large herd of pigs was feeding. So the demons begged Jesus, “Send us to the pigs, so that we may enter them.”He gave them permission, and the unclean spirits came out and went into the pigs, and the herd of about two thousand rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the water. Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened. When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons sitting there, clothed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. Those who had seen it described what had happened to the demon-possessed man and also to the pigs. And the people began to beg Jesus to leave their region. (Mark 5:1-17 NLT)

A rather lengthy portion of scripture this morning. But, it is the last verse that may be the most unsettling verse in the New Testament. “And the people began to beg Jesus to leave their region.” Ouch.

Imagine it - someone shows up to where you live and takes care of the impossible. Shows supernatural power and authority. Delivers a dear friend from years of torment, humiliation, ridicule and pain. Even sends the problem away so it will never be a problem again. And, then, you ask the person who did this miracle to leave. You actually beg them: “Go away! Leave!”

What a terrible moment in the Bible. What a terrible moment for the coastal region of the Gadarenes. One cannot help but imagine that this would not be the only miracle he desired to perform in the area. Surely, there were others that needed a touch of the “Master’s hand.”

But, no. After healing the greatest of human maladies - demonic possession - they begged him to depart. To walk away. To leave.

The question is why?

Simple - the very means of their existence, their way of life - had just been threatened. That which had afforded them a decent lifestyle - one that surely had been in their families and community for a great while - had just been crushed and done away with.

There are people today who react as the Gadarenes did. Jesus interrupts their lives. He does a great work in their midst. BUT…they refuse to place their faith in Christ, they refuse to surrender their lives to him. All because Jesus always demands that we leave the old life and embrace the new.

God works grace into their lives but that grace is costly - it demands that we “deny ourselves, take up his cross, and follow him.”

People do not like to be told that what they are doing is wrong. We do not like to be pulled to the side and warned that we are headed for destruction. “There is a way which seems right to a person but the end thereof is death.”

People are often against Christ and Christianity - because it is against them. “I have come to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother.” Christianity is, perhaps, the hardest “thing to do” in all the world. Why? It calls us to put ourselves to death. Our wants, our needs, our desires, everything about us is to be laid down as we rise to go and follow Jesus.

Old Blue Eyes said it best for those who walk away from Christ: “ I did it my way.”

Likewise, when Jesus approaches us - and then we must do something: deny him and walk away or deny ourselves and follow.

And with the region of the Gadarenes, when they told him to leave…he did. Jesus will not stay where he is not welcomed. And, sadly, the ones who are possessed, sick, crippled, hurting, lonely, lost, bitter, hateful…they all stay in their present state with no hope of deliverance. They pass away and die in their sins. “I did it my way.” Yeah, you did…

But, let us ask you this: have you walked away from Jesus? Have you asked him to walk away from you? Repent. Now.

The word repent, μετανοέω in Greek, simply means to change one's mind or purpose. It’s used with the following ideas: I repent, change my mind, change the inner person (particularly with reference to acceptance of the will of God). Can you imagine what would have happened if the people of Gadarene had welcomed Jesus and the changes he brought? Then imagine what he can do for you.

Don’t ask Jesus to walk away from you. Don’t walk away from him. Turn and walk to him. You’ll be surprised to find out that he has been walking toward you all the time.