July 23, 2000 - LESSON: Ephesians 4.25-5.2, NRSV

SERMON TITLE: Family Values

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INTRODUCTION:

  1. Mohandas Gandhi, one of the most influential figures in modern social and political activism, considered these seven social sins to be the most spiritually perilous to humanity.
    1. Politics without Principles
    2. Wealth without Work
    3. Commerce without Morality
    4. Education without Character
    5. Pleasure without Conscience
    6. Science without Humanity
    7. Worship without Sacrifice
  2. William J. Bennett, The Book of Virtues, (New York, Simon and Schuster, 1993) looked at the social and political scene from a religious perspective and recognized that we needed virtue. In his book he lists ten virtues.
    1. Self-discipline
    2. Compassion
    3. Responsibility
    4. Friendship
    5. Work
    6. Courage
    7. Perseverance
    8. Honesty
    9. Loyalty
    10. Faith.

    (Are you still with me)

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  1. The Seven Deadly Sins are those transgressions fatal to spiritual progress. This is your source for info on the Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Heavenly Virtues. 6/7/2000 http://www.deadlysins.com/ What follows is from this web site:
    1. The Cardinal Virtues:
      1. prudence, temperance, courage, justice
      2. Classical Greek philosophers considered the foremost virtues to be prudence, temperance, courage, and justice.
      3. Early Christian Church theologians adopted these virtues and considered them to be equally important to all people, whether they were Christian or not.
    2. The Theological Virtues:
      1. love, hope, faith
      2. St. Paul defined the three chief virtues as love, which was the essential nature of God, hope, and faith.
      3. Christian Church authorities called them the three theological virtues because they believed the virtues were not natural to man in his fallen state, but were conferred at Baptism.
    3. The Seven Contrary Virtues:
      1. humility, kindness, abstinence, chastity, patience, liberality, diligence
      2. The Contrary Virtues were derived from the Psychomachia ("Battle for the Soul"), an epic poem written by Prudentius (c. 410).
      3. Practicing these virtues is alleged to protect one against temptation toward the Seven Deadly Sins:
        1. humility against pride,
        2. kindness against envy,
        3. abstinence against gluttony,
        4. chastity against lust,
        5. patience against anger,
        6. liberality against covetousness, and
        7. diligence against sloth.

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    1. The Seven Heavenly Virtues:
      1. faith, hope, charity, fortitude, justice, temperance, prudence
      2. The Heavenly Virtues combine the four Cardinal Virtues: prudence, temperance, fortitude __ or courage, and justice, with a variation of the theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity. I'm still researching the origins and popular usage of this formulation.
    2. The Seven Corporal Works of Mercy
      1. Continuing the numerological mysticism of Seven, the Christian Church assembled a list of seven good works that was included in medieval catechisms.
      2. They are:
        1. feed the hungry,
        2. give drink to the thirsty,
        3. give shelter to strangers,
        4. clothe the naked,
        5. visit the sick,
        6. minister to prisoners,
        7. and bury the dead.

    (Are you still with me?)

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  1. Are virtues values or are they derived from values.
    1. Values are the ideals, customs, institutions, etc. of a society towards which the people in a group have affective regard.
      1. These values may be positive:
        1. Cleanliness
        2. Freedom
        3. Education
      2. These values may be negative:
        1. Cruelty
        2. Crime
        3. Blasphemy
    2. Virtues may defined as the conformity of one's life and conduct to moral and ethical principles i.e., VALUES?
  2. It is necessary to have values before you can have virtues.
    1. Where are you going to find values.
      1. We are not talking about bargains here.
      2. This is not Filene’s basement.
      3. This is hard work.
        1. It takes a lot of the "little gray cells," as Agatha Cristie’s Hercule Perot often said, to think through, to struggle with the information.
        2. Then it takes the hard work of application to one's own personal life to achieve some level of acquirement.
        3. The level is limited only by our imagination, and personal resources empowered by the Holy Spirit.

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    1. Whether it is known or not, the average person is in a life and death struggle to establish some basis for building a life.
      1. What is created brings a sense of satisfaction and purpose
      2. What is created give live meaning and value.
  1. The lesson for this morning provides instruction, inspiration and direction towards the creating of individual and family values.
    1. It is only as we develop personal values that we have the capacity to share those positive attributes of character with the family.
    2. It is only as the family acquires and exhibits the attributes of character that it acquires values.
    3. It is only as the family shares these attributes of character, know as values, within the Christian family that the Church establishes the values that will govern it life and relationships.
    4. So what does this lesson from Ephesians 4:25_32 provide?
      1. So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another.
      2. [26] Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, [27] and do not make room for the devil.
      3. [28] Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy.
      4. [29] Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.
      5. [30] And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption.
      6. [31] Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, [32] and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.

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    1. The conclusion is:
      1. 5.1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children,
        1. Wow!
        2. Imitators of God
          1. What God?
          2. This is not a dumb or silly question.
          3. There is only one God
          4. God is the God of Jesus Christ.
          5. This cannot be said enough.
      2. [2] and live in love,
        1. as Christ loved us and
        2. gave himself up for us,
          1. a fragrant offering and
          2. sacrifice to God.
  1. Now we have a list of virtues, of values.
    1. We not only know what they are we know how they may be acquired
    2. We receive the gracious gifts of divine wisdom, Spirit power and willingness and put them to work.
  2. The question will always be, "Do we want change?"
    1. How will change be achieved?
    2. Gandhi also made an extremely significant observation about change.
      1. "We must be the change, we wish to see." Gandhi
      2. We must be — the change —we wish — to see.
  3. Let us go and change ourselves and then come back and, if it is at all possible, change the church (it is possible), and then we can change the world.

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