Paint or stain
Paint or stain.
Is Christiainity easy or hard.
178 in the joyful Christian
By C.S. Lewis…
Intro..
There is a difference between Paint and stain.. although it looks a lot alike.
I think that is the confusion with our culture as they look at “Christians that surround them” They see a lot of paint in the chiristain community so they form their options and conclusions.. when they meet painted their not very impressed….. Then all of a sudden.. people meet Christians who have not gone the Paint routhe… approach to their faith.. but have gone the stain approach… and when a pre-christian meets a believer that has opptied out of the paint approach for the route of stain the pre-christain is blow away…with wow. That’s impressive…
God wants you to do your Christian life with Stain not Paint.
Paint or stain We will get back to that in a minitue
Right now let.. I want show you from the word who you where started in life where can be and where you are going..
In forum all over the world and all though history.. these three questions have been a the fore front of humankinds thoughts and conversations…
Where did I come from.. why am I here and where am I going.
(I remember Ross Pouutes V.P. stated his debate with those questions everyone laughted him off the stage)
These three Big questions are answered in 2 Cor. 5.. by the Aposlte Paul.
Getting them settled is vital to building your world
Emanatio
1.Where do you start?
2 Cor 5:16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.
Col 1: 16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Your Master Plan.
Who you are and where you are going.
Parreellle passages..
Two passages of scripture that say much of the same thing. But put together clearly tell us where we started why we are here and where we are going.
2 Cor. 5:17
- We start in the flesh.
We start off in the flesh… of what non bible readers would understand with
The “ordinary self” The ordinaty.. unsaved self.. have a vairity of desires and interests..
In the ordinary self realm although we can not tell you where good come from we know that there is something called “Morality” or “decent” or that that “good for socieity” (people without Christ have this) this decentness or mystical morality makes claims even on the not chirstian.. we feel like we own it to the world our family our soicity to be moral.. decent….. in other words when we give into these things we are “being good”
There calms to be good in the (Ordinary self) interferes with many other desiers in us..
We desire to be bad. In the ordinay self that are some things we have to give us that we know is wrong.. There are some things that we do not want to do … to be in the right catagoy….
So the pre christain… lives with all this stuff pulling at him… good and bad. Right and wrong.. moral and immoral.. pushing and shoaveing… all the time the ordinary person is hoping at the end of the day when all the demans have been met that whatever is left of the ordinay man is enouhgt to get on with life and do what he likes…
Like paying taxes.. you pay taxes all the time hoping there is some money left over for enjoying alife himself..
The ordinay man… there fore ends up … in one of two Places.
1. You finalily end up trying to be good.
2. You end up very unhappy.
Why if you make all the demands to be a “good person” you will have nothing left over to live on… the tax to be a good person on you own .. means there is nothing money left for you enjoy life on..
The more you obey your consice the more your consecee will demand of you..
The more you give to the poor the more you have to give..
You ordnay self will get more and more frustrated and angrier and angrer… until you get to the point you “give up trying to be good” or you become someone who keeps trying to do good in our own self and quote live for others but in realility you are always discontened, grumbling and make a martyr of yourself.. (I have nothing for myself because it takes everything I am to be Good).
When you become this martyr … you are more miseble to be around then if you remained selfish..
Thousands of couples in the community.
(couples that have lost their love… are they better off being selfish.. or misible self- sacrivince letting everyone know about it… neither choice is much of an option…)
This path is the only road… the ordinaly self can follow..
that’s why the majoy reliions of the world.. preach and promote what they do..
- isalmae work for goodness… (this incluse all works basic religions)
2. buddism.. move into to nothingess - Most fustrainte Judiasm.. be a good person..
- Athesims be a good moral person
Movie stars in Hollowood… disconned from christ trying to do good.. well they have a lot of money and can do a lot of good but who good are you movie star.. are you going to do any good that changes your life style…
So we have this (ordinay self) route. Try to be good until you give up on it. Or try to be a good person when in reality you know you are really lousy at being good.
2 Cor 5:16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer
So we have ordary self that is pulling with good and bad… what do we do with ordanrty self… we try to subue the bad guy in the ordeary self..
2. What you can be?
2 Cor. 5: 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
he the ordeany self faces Christ
C.S. lewis asks the question is the Christain life harder or easyer then the ordeanry self life..!!!!!!
Jesus does not say..
Lets work on the old you.. or the ordeary self.. let just do some adjusting to it.
He not does say… you have a rotten tooth lets fill it or crown it..
lets tape you mouth.. and sequre you arms… break of a branch.
Lets restrict the bad part of you until the good part of you can flourish.
God does not say.. give me some of your time.. some of your money some of your work.. until you scale is tipped toward you being a good person.
God says this is why I want to do to you ordonaly self.. I want to (boom boom boom kill the whole thing.. twisted thing.
I don’t want a part of your time, part of your money part of your work … I want you…
Jesus did not come to make your to make you natural self misbley .. I come here to kill it.
Do not worry about this these factional attempt at being good. Do not worry about breaking this bad branch off.. we are going to kill the whole tree a give you a brand new self in it sted..
In his new creature self it will be my very life taking up resences in you.. and you will not have to battle good wining over bad… I am all good. I am righities I am holy and you will be in me and I in you there for you are good to the core…
So being good as Christian is easyer then being good without Christ..
But make no mistade there is a hard side of being a christen also….
When Jesus is in you… he has a tency to take up a cross.
IF any man will come after me let him take up his cross and follow me..
About the time it looks hard.. take up your cross
It gets easy Jesus will speak and say..”My yoke is easy and my burdern is light…
Following Jesus is both harder and easyer then being good without him…
Being a follow of Jesus.. is much like the comment “Master teachers” tell their stuendes…I wish I would have had this statement in school as a child…
Great teachers tell their sutuent…
“The Lazy boy works harder in the End” …
If you are lazy you work harder in the ened.
You can learn answers to a weekly test.. just to pass the test.. or you can work harder and learn the comseph.. and not just past the test that week but .. do the geomey in life and you are working hard in thre present. But the power of geiomeny will take load off you in the future….
You can go moutons climping and not do the work of drivingin the hooks and buculdse and cut the work.. because it is to hard… but in the end you head hitting the bolder below is really much harder then driing in the safy support…
Blucing your seat bealth is work but craswing out of a ditch 50 feet away from the wreak with a broken leg is harder….
Is beining a christian easyer or harder…then just a ordainy self life…
Yes its hard to die. sel
Yes it is hard to be a Jeus person.
Yes it is hard to stand in faith.
Yes it is hard to way away from the party life.
Yes it is hard to read your bible
Yes it is hard to follow an Invibile Lord instead of a very vocal crowd.
But if being a Christian is harder in one sence.. it is easyer in another.
It is easy to be good thorugh the rightousn of Christ
It is easier to know what to do when you believer the Bilbe is you guide for life.
It is easier to love your self when God so loved you he gave you his only begotten son
It is easier to belong with you are member of body of chirst.
It is easer to forgive you self with the Blood really is you cleaning agent of the past.
It is eaiser to come to the 48 years old and still have your health because you didn’t take the easy route in you teens
It is easier to walk into to heaven.. when you die and are asked the queition.
why should you enter in these gates.. and you don’t have to say .. be cause I desever it.. but you can say because to the compete and toal redeemins sacruaer of Jesus for my sins.
There is a cross and there is a easy yoke…
What is hard is to hand your self over to Christ.. whole heartly.
We want to guard our “Personal happiness”
What we want to do is go another way besides Jesus and retain ourselves and be good.. and that is what Jesus said is going to frustiarat you..
A throne bush cannot produce figs.
Oh I am going to a field full of weeds but I am going to keep them mowed down real short.. you weed field will never produce wheat. If you are going to produce wheat.. you have to get plowed up. And retiled..
3. Where you will end Up.
2 Cor. 5:18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. [1]
That gets us back to .the orinal question.
are you Paint or Stain.
Paint covers the sufface.. Stain pentitates the core cell.s
When Jesus said …be perfect as your father is perfect.. we write it off. And say
He did not mean that..
Or maybe enough coats of paoint will cover my imperfects.. but what Jeus ment is give me your all and life me satin satoue you being to the point it is my perfection resident with in you..
Football on suday at hoover high.. do many christian put on theier Sunday paint instead of choosing 24|7 stain.
When you meet a chirstain has gone the stain route instead of settle for the paint.. you can’t shake it…
Christins is not about the Paint.. it is about the sain..
Church is not about..buildings or credinals or sermons or bands or missions is is about this. Making little christs.
(i) Roman provinces were divided into two types. One was under the direct control of the senate, the other under the direct control of the Emperor. The distinction was made on this basis—provinces which were peaceful and had no troops in them were senatorial provinces; provinces which were turbulent and had troops stationed in them were imperial provinces. In the imperial provinces, the man who administered the province on behalf of the Emperor, was the legatus presbeutes. So then, the word in the first place paints a picture of a man who has a direct commission from the Emperor; and Paul regarded himself as commissioned by Jesus Christ for the work of the Church.
(ii) But presbeutes and legatus have an even more interesting meaning. When the Roman senate decided that a country should become a province they sent to it ten legati or presbeutai, that is, envoys, of their own number, who, along with the victorious general, arranged the terms of peace with the vanquished people, determined the boundaries of the new province, drew up a constitution for its new administration, and then returned to submit what they had done for ratification by the senate. They were the men responsible for bringing others into the family of the Roman Empire. So Paul thinks of himself as the man who brings to others the terms of God, whereby they can become citizens of his empire and members of his family.
There is no more responsible position than that of ambassador.
(i) An ambassador of Britain is a Briton in a foreign land. His life is spent among people who usually speak a different language, who have a different tradition and who follow a different way of life. The Christian is always like that. He lives in the world; he takes part in all the life and work of the world; but he is a citizen of heaven. To that extent he is a stranger. The man who is not willing to be different cannot be a Christian at all.
(ii) An ambassador speaks for his own country. When a British ambassador speaks, his voice is the voice of Britain. There are times when the Christian has to speak for Christ. In the decisions and the counsels of the world his must be the voice which brings the message of Christ to the human situation.
(iii) The honour of a country is in its ambassador’s hands. His country is judged by him. His words are listened to, his deeds are watched and people say, “That is the way such-and-such a country speaks and acts.” Lightfoot, the great Bishop of Durham, said in an ordination address, “The ambassador, while acting, acts not only as an agent, but as a representative of his sovereign. … The ambassador’s duty is not only to deliver a definite message, to carry out a definite policy; but he is obliged to watch opportunities, to study characters, to cast about for expedients, so that he may place it before his hearers in its most attractive form.” It is the great responsibility of the ambassador to commend his country to the men amongst whom he is set.
Here is the Christian’s proud privilege and almost terrifying responsibility. The honour of Christ and of the Church are in his hands. By his every word and action he can make men think more-or less-of his Church and of his Master.
[2]
What is means to be an ambassador
(iii)
Little chirst that are reconided to the father.
Little pets are reconsied to their owners.
Plants live or die with the care of their owner
We alive or die with the care of our creator..
John solane..young..handsome…
Mother I got born again.. he kissed the picuture of Jesus/
John why are you going into the misnsty.. I cannot see myself doing anyting else.
Paint or stain.
Somebody cares. ill
A Frenchman named Charney incurred the displeasure of Napoleon and was put into a dungeon. He seemed to be forsaken by his friend and forgotten by everyone in the outside world. In loneliness and despair he took a stone and scratched on the wall of his cell, “Nobody cares.”
One day a green shoot came through the cracks in the stones on the floor of the dungeon and began to reach up toward the light in the tiny window at the top of the cell. The prisoner kept part of the water brought to him each day by the jailer and poured it on the blade of green. It grew until at last it became a plant with a beautiful blue flower. As the petals opened in full blossom, the solitary captive crossed out the words previously written on the wall and above them scratched, “God cares.”
But God had a further blessing for this prisoner and the story ends even more happily. The man’s next-cell friend had a little daughter who was permitted to visit the prison. The little girl was pleased with Charney’s love for this plant. And the news reached the amiable Empress Josephine, who commented: “A man who so devotedly loves and tends a flower cannot be a bad man.” And so she persuaded the emperor to set him free.
Charney carried his flower home and carefully tended it the rest of his life. It had taught him to believe in God.
If you are in a dungon.. tend to your flower..
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[1]The Holy Bible : English standard version. 2001 (2 Co 5:18-20). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.
[2]The letters to the Corinthians. 2000, c1975 (W. Barclay, lecturer in the University of Glasgow, Ed.). The Daily study Bible series, Rev. ed. (209). Philadelphia: The Westminster Press.