Play Ball (Sermon)

It was a warm April day that I walked in. I was late picking up my baseball gear for the team that I would be coaching. I was late because until the night before, this team had no coach and I seem to have a problem with the word, “no”. I don’t like to hear it, and some would swear I don’t even know how to say it. My gear for the team included 9 shirts, hats and socks, 3 balls, 3 helmets, 1 catcher’s helmet and chest pad, and 1 book titled, “US Little League handbook”. That is a misleading title if ever one was made. 

First, the size was about the same as our pew bibles. The pages were as many and the print size was a bit smaller. It is a condensed version of the NBL’s rulebook, which is the size of my concordance. One rule I remember reading was a violation of any rule could result in forfeiture of the game upon league review. The best news, opening day was in 5 days, and my team hadn’t met. We were the only ones who hadn’t, and finding a field to use was impossible. We practiced during the game. Oh the fun that was!!

Yet that does have me thinking about rules. We tend to be odd ducks that way. It seems that we love our rules. We love them because they define what we can and cannot do. They become a boundary that as long as we stay within, we will be ok.  If you will, rules become a cage that we willingly enter, closing the doors often ourselves. If we don’t see the rules immediately, we might become creative and make up the rules where none exist. Music can only be made with the voice since there is no mention of instruments in the New Testament.

For others, these same rules are not about what I can or cannot do, but in what I can have you do or not do. It becomes a source of control over another person. “You must do what I say or you will be committing the unpardonable sin: blaspheming the Holy Spirit.”  Now that sounds pretty serious. Most would bow under such a command.

But here are the problems with rules. Because they limit us, put us in the cage, our mentality changes. We cease being what God wants for us, cease striving for the blessings that God has. It affects the attitude. It affects the desire. For example, have you ever had an opportunity to see whales in the wild or at someplace like Sea World? They are beautiful creatures. My favorite isn’t really a whale, but a porpoise called an ‘orca’, or whale killer, thus killer whales. In the wild, their dorsal fin is straight, strong and tall. But at Sea World, look at the orcas there. Their dorsal fins are bent in half, curling in. There is a tremendous difference that all porpoises or dolphins tend to display. Captivity breaks the spirit. Rules, today, break ours. Because our spirits are broken then we tend to feel guilt, especially when we break a rule again, and again. Broken people tend to be easy to control, by the way.

And maybe that is why these false teachers went to Antioch. They wanted to break people. These new teachings were so contrary to what the church had been taught by Paul that they had to ask for clarity. So the elders and Apostles came to discuss this matter. Peter concluded that life in Christ is not about following a check list, but living by grace. It is grace that saves, but if one must have rules, then here are 3 simple rules. (Read the Text)

Did you catch those rules? Stay away from idolatry, or worshiping anyone or thing than God. Stay away from blood, and food with its blood still present. Stay sexually pure. Paul and the Apostles of course through their other writings have expanded on these three rules, mainly the first and last.

Where rules confine, grace in Christ liberates, frees us. Life in Christ is not about following a bunch of rules that limit, but living abundantly, freely. But unlike rules that are easy to read with clear boundaries, grace allows each to soar for Christ. How do we love our God? One of the ways that shows is by how we love our brother. Matthew 6, Jesus says another tell of our love for God is by where or what our treasures are. James would say that our love is shown through our works of faith; taking care of those needs we have the ability to meet, not to ignore genuine distress. Notice, these are not lists of must dos, but examples of what may do.

And yet, I wonder. Though we have no boundaries to worry, save three, how serious do we take these three? Some say that we keep away from blood foods. Well mostly. Some do not realize that by not consuming the blood of what is hunted, and then we are showing more respect than those who do the opposite. But let’s move further away from the obvious and look to the ramifications. Do we stay away from blood when we are as a nation ok with abortion? MMR vaccinations are incubated in human embryonic tissue. Do we respect the blood, or life, when we have such practices?

We surely do not eat at feasts dedicated to Buddha or Allah? Do we accept, however, Hanukah dinner invitations? That’s the obvious, so let’s go deeper here. When we say we believe we worship God alone, can we still claim this belief as long as we see church as something we do once in a while, rather than seeing that worships isn’t going to church but part of our lives, that church is our dearest family, that we are a faith community?

OK there’s the last one, to stay sexually pure. Sex is a wonderful event given to us by God to be enjoyed in the confines of a marriage. This seems to be the easiest to keep, maybe, maybe not. Jesus tells us that sexual purity begins with the mind. “I tell you if you if you lust after a woman, you’ve already committed [sexual impurity] with her.” Sure, it can be said that sex has been kept between a husband and his wife. But do we? 

How many Christians live with their boyfriend/girlfriend? How are we about the issue of redefining? Here is a shocker: I believe God defined marriage between one man and one woman, Adam and Eve. But even the Bible is full of examples of man redefining marriage. Abraham and Jacob each had more than one wife. David had 7 at one time and a divorce. Not to be outdone by his dad, Solomon had 700. We can see the mess this type of redefining brought. This doesn’t begin to touch the problems that come from divorce and all other issues.

Now for all of these, sure, we have kept these three rules, even to the extensions that I’ve taken them. Let me ask you though. In Corinth, the church celebrated a man who had a relationship with his hopefully step mom. Paul tells us further in that letter that we need to be aware that bad company corrupts good character. That is why we are told to be careful in how we deal with people and their sins, lest we be found guilty of them ourselves. Rather, when we are told that there are unrepentant brothers, such as Matthew 18, then we are to have nothing to do with them. I have friends like that. I have family like that. And I haven’t shunned them. Maybe that’s why they are still where they are. What about yourselves? Do you?

3 rules. The Law of Moses offered a cage. The grace of Christ gives us freedom. Just to help, we had received 3 simple rules. But here’s the good news. When we get a proper perspective of living for Christ, living a life of grace, the brothers, it records, were gladdened by the Word. They sent the delegation with a blessing of peace. This is why we come here together, to encourage one another. Yes we meet around the Lord’s Table and worship God, but that worship is secondary, since worship is a reflection of our own personal, daily worship of God. Primary is that we meet to encourage one another with the Word, with songs and spiritual hymns and psalms.

This is the message that we need to share. We have a wonderful freedom, full of grace for when we blow it, which we do more than any of us care to admit it. Let’s get out of the cage and play some ball.