SPECIAL DAYS: Boy Scout Sunday

February 3, 2002 - LESSON: Matthew 5.1-2, 8

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Aluminum chloride
Azocarbonamide
Benzoyl peroxide
Calcium propionate
Calcium sulfate
Chlorine
Chlorine dioxide
Nitrogen dioxide
Potassium bromate
Potassium iodate

What are we talking about?

These are the chemicals used to produce the white flour that is made into your average loaf of soft white bread.

This is according to Ross Hume. ⁽²⁾ Who writes:

"Chemical treatment of the flour, a boon to millers, brings all batches of flour up to a pre-set standard. Millers and bakers use several other chemicals, all with the same goal of leveling inconsistencies in the organic nature of the flour, producing a chalk-white product.

"You won't find any of these chemicals in the home kitchen. Only trained personnel, wearing protective gear can use them. Does all this bleaching, maturing and adding a list of toxic chemicals to flour and white bread add to nutritional value? Not one wit. Then, are they that harmful? The chemical residues in baked products may be small and not immediately threatening to health. But such highly aggressive chemicals leave other sorts of residues.

"They react with components of the flour creating a variety of byproducts. The byproducts remain in the flour and thus in the products baked from the flour. The toxic effects on human consumers of the chemically treated baked goods have never been investigated. The manufacturers seem to have the attitude, "if there are any problems with these residues, we don't want to know."

1. What this describes is a method to develop a product by which millions of loaves of bread are made each day.
2. What it also tells us is that the process moves from the pure grain to a chemically altered product.

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MAIN BODY:

1. There is nothing in this world that we can claim is pure.
1. The air we breathe
2. The food we eat
3. The water we drink
4. The mass-produced products that we use.

When I was a child my mother used a lot of Ivory Soap. Do you remember the commercial. Ivory soap 99 44/100 percent pure. It floats.

It didn't taste good either.

4. Even our bodies.
1. I remember reading that each of us contains the potential for the development of cancer
1. It only takes the right set of circumstances and the cancer will develop.
5. And Jesus said, ⁸"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
6. This is the 6^th of the Beatitudes.
1. ³"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
2. ⁴"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
3. ⁵"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
4. ⁶"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
5. ⁷"Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
6. ⁸"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
7. Looking at the first 5, we have a small window of success in achieving the objective that is set before us.
8. Given our circumstances, this one appears so unobtainable that we ought to, at this moment, give up and go on to something else.
9. However there is a question that arises: "How may I be a sinner and still be pure in heart?"
2. We can be sinners and still be pure if:
1. First, we acknowledge and accept the totality of the human condition.
1. We recognize and accept the conclusion that only God is pure.
1. That Jesus is God's representative to us.
2. He is also pure.
3. This is the conclusion of the writer of Hebrews:

¹⁵For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Hebrews 4:15 (KJV)

2. The second part is that we are contaminated by sin and impure.
1. As Jeremiah wrote:

⁹The heart is devious (desperately wicked) above all else; it is perverse--who can understand it? Jeremiah 17:9 (NRSVA)

2. We cannot fully know even our own hearts.
3. This is because we are ignorant, blind, or too proud to admit our need.

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3. We acknowledge that a relationship with Christ establishes purity.
1. We can be pure because of our eternal union with the infinitely pure Christ.
1. When we become his children, we are declared "not guilty," and thus righteous, because of what Christ, God's beloved Son, has done for us.
2. This purity is absolute and unchangeable, and it is this relationship that guarantees that we will one day be "completely pure"
3. Paul puts this relationship in clear context.

⁸See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ. ⁹For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, ¹⁰and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority. Colossians 2:-10 (NRSVA)

⁸When he said above, "You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings" (these are offered according to the law), ⁹then he added, "See, I have come to do your will." He abolishes the first in order to establish the second. ¹⁰And it is by God's will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. ¹¹And every priest stands day after day at his service, offering again and again the same sacrifices that can never take away sins. ¹²But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, "he sat down at the right hand of God," ¹³and since then has been waiting "until his enemies would be made a footstool for his feet." ¹⁴For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. Hebrews 10:8-14 (NRSVA)

4. Relationship with Christ creates the opportunity of progressing towards the objective.
1. We can grow and mature spiritually as we continue to trust Christ, learn more about him draw closer to him, and obey him.
2. Our progress is changeable (in contrast to our relationship, above) because it depends on our daily walk--at times in life we mature more than at other times.
3. But we are growing toward perfection if we "press on".
4. These good deeds do not perfect us; rather, as God perfects us, we do good deeds for him.
5. Listen to what Paul writes in Philippians 3:

¹Finally, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is not troublesome to me, and for you it is a safeguard. ²Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of those who mutilate the flesh! ³For it is we who are the circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and boast in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh--⁴even though I, too, have reason for confidence in the flesh.

If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: ⁵circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; ⁶as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. ⁷Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. ⁸More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ ⁹and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. ¹⁰I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, ¹¹if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. ¹²Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. ¹³Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, ¹⁴I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. ¹⁵Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind; and if you think differently about anything, this too God will reveal to you. Philippians 3:1 through Philippians 3:15 (NRSVA)

There is a T-shirt that reads, "I'm Not Over the Hill! I'm still climbing it. That's why I'm so tired all the time."

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5. Ultimately we will be completely pure
1. When Christ returns to take us into his eternal kingdom, we will be glorified and made completely pure.
2. Again Paul writes in Philippians 3:

²⁰But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. ²¹He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself. Philippians 3:20-21 (NRSVA)

2. All phases of development and achievement are grounded in faith in Christ and what he has done, not what we can do for him.
1. We cannot purify ourselves; only God can work in and through us to "carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus".
2. Again Paul writes in Philippians 1:

⁶I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. Philippians 1:6 (NRSVA)

4. Now we get to the best part.
1. We get to see God.
1. We get to see God now through the eyes of faith as opened by Jesus and the constant revelation of the Holy Spirit.
2. We get to see God in the finality of earthly life and the beginning of the heavenly one.
2. We also have this reassurance from the scriptures.
1. On what is called Ascension Day the disciples stood looking up into heaven and the angels said to them.

¹⁰While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. ¹¹They said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven." Acts 1:10 through Acts 1:11 (NRSVA)

2. John writes in his first epistle these remarkable words.

²Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. ³And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. 1 John 3:2 through 1 John 3:3 (NRSVA)

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CONCLUSION:

1. Now we know what it means to live as children of God and to pursue purity for its results and for its benefits.
2. The question that confronts us is "Do we have the will and determination to achieve what we are called to do?

"The film, Groundhog Day stars Bill Murray as Phil Connors, a cynical, sour weatherman for a Pittsburgh TV station who reluctantly goes to Punxsutawney, Pa., to cover the annual Groundhog Day festivities. ⁽³⁾

"When a blizzard (one he failed to predict in his weather forecast) traps the crew in Punxsutawney, Connors begins his nightmare in small-town America. Each time his alarm clock goes off at 6 a.m., Connors awakens to face the same day - Groundhog Day - every day.

"Murray's character goes through a variety of emotional stages as he tries to deal with his circumstances. These stages, reflect what psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross identified in her book "On Death and Dying" as the five stages people go through in dealing with a terminal illness: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

"Eventually, Connors realizes that his own life would be much more worthwhile if he was less self-centered, and he uses his secret knowledge of what will occur during the day to perform good works - trying to help an old homeless man, catching a kid falling out of a tree, fixing a flat tire for three middle-aged women, saving a choking man with the Heimlich Maneuver.

"And now that he's finally turned into a good person, good things start to happen to him - most importantly in the form of love and affection from MacDowell's character."

1. Over and over again.
2. That's where we find ourselves.
2. Here is what it means to live as children who are pursuing purity.
1. Pursue what is good and right and true.
2. Try to find out what pleases God.
3. Don't waste your time on worthless pursuits. In fact, expose them for what they are.
4. Wake up, become aware.
5. Being prepared to take as much time as is necessary through the repetitive experiences of life to achieve the goal
6. The effort is certainly worth it.
3. ⁸"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

   1. Some of the illustrations used in this sermon are taken from HOMILETICSONLINE "How to Stay Spiritually Fresh" July 30, 1995 © 2002. Used with permission.

   2. Enriched White Bread Really? Ross Hume Hall, Ph.D.© Ross Hume Hall, 2001. All rights reserved.

   3. Entertainment: VIDEO REVIEW: Relive 'Groundhog Day' again and again on DVD By BRUCE DANCIS, The Sacramento Bee Copyright © 2002 Nando Media

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