Hot Faith1
04-20-08
I want you to consider a few real life stories this morning. The first takes us the high desert town of Adelanto, Calif. A former mayor and his wife have been sentenced to 6 months in jail for the theft of more than $20,000 from Little League coffers. Jim Nehmens, and Kelly Nehmens, pleaded guilty to grand theft by embezzlement and perjury Thursday.
Or you might remember Mary Winkler of Selmer Tennessee. A pastor’s spouse, she shot her pastor husband Matthew Winkler, with a shot gun in their bedroom, took their three children and went to the Alabama coast, for some family time together.
Or Lisa Nowak, the married NASA astronaut who made a 900 mile drive from Houston to Orlando to confront her romantic rival Colleen Shipman at the Orlando International airport. Police said Nowak drove from her home in Houston to the Orlando International Airport to confront Colleen Shipman. Nowak believed Shipman was romantically involved with Navy Cmdr. William Oefelein, a pilot during space shuttle Discovery’s trip to the space station last December, police said. Nowak told police that her relationship with Oefelein was "more than a working relationship but less than a romantic relationship," according to an arrest affidavit. Police officers recovered a love letter to Oefelein in her car.
What were these people thinking? Were they out of their minds? Well, actually, they probably were temporarily insane. They went weren’t thinking properly, because they were hot emotionally.
According to The Washington Post (August 6, 2007), a huge mental chasm separates "cold" emotional states from "hot" emotional states. When we’re in cold emotional states, cool, calm and collected, we find it difficult to empathize or understand people who make rash decisions based on hot emotional states. "Those people are nuts," we say to ourselves. "I’d never go crazy like that." But watch out, when our emotions get hot, we all have the potential of going a little loco.
Let me give you an example from my personal experience. I’m guessing, I’m not alone in this example. Most health resolutions are made when people are in a determined and cold emotional state. Avoiding junk food and shedding a few pounds seem like reasonable and responsible things to do. But then, you know what happens, you get stressed or hungry, and suddenly a pint of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream becomes completely irresistible. You go temporarily insane and eat the whole thing. Many diets have been blown by people in a hot emotional state. The hot emotional state can be dangerous.
The Jewish leaders on the council in Jerusalem are pretty darn hot in today’s Scripture lesson from Acts. I undoubtedly would be too if I was a part of them listening. A Christian named Stephen has been brought before them on a charge of blasphemy, and he proceeds to lay out for them the history of God and his chosen people. emphasizing, in particular, the sad and sordid story of human disobedience. Stephen concludes by accusing the council of being "stiff-necked people" who are "forever opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do" (Acts 7:51). To rub it in a little more, Stephen stays cool; he’s calm and he’s coherent. He’s confident in his words. The council, on the other hand is getting hotter and hotter throughout his speech. Have you been there? In the courtroom or maybe at the community forum? Perhaps, at the school board meeting or the political speech? The speaker presenting his or her case is cool, but the rest of the room reaches a boiling point? Acts tells us that, "When they (the Jewish Council) heard these things, they became enraged and ground their teeth at Stephen" (v. 54). Then Stephen gazes into heaven and sees the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. "Look," he says, "I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!" (vv. 55-56). Suddenly the pot boils over the members of the council cover their ears and with a loud shout all rush together against him. They drag him out of the city and begin to stone him (vv. 57-58). The story doesn’t turn out so well for Stephen, he dies. But first, he prays calmly, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit," and kneeling down he cries out, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them" (vv. 59-60). He shows the cool faith of someone who can see God face to face, and then he prays that the Lord will show mercy toward the people who are killing him. The members of the council are hot. The witnesses are hot, and the result is the brutal murder of a cool Christian named Stephen, "a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit" (6:5).
Hot faith. You often hear people praising it, saying that it is good to be passionate about what you believe in. In one sense it’s true. You may very well have heard a message like this from the pulpit. Or have been on a spiritual high and thought or said, "I’m on fire for God." "I’m passionate about sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ." You have probably even heard that it isn’t very good to be lukewarm about your faith, and it wouldn’t be a compliment to say, "That guy is ice-cold for Jesus!"
But watch out: Hot faith can be, and has become in many cases, a violent and deadly force in the world. Look around: Sunnis are fighting with Shiites in Iraq. Hindus are battling Muslims in India. Christians are killing each other in Ireland and Africa, and just about any country you can name. And here in the United States, we have people like pastor Fred Phelps and his followers, who picket high-profile political events with signs saying, "God hates fags," and "Thank God for 9/11." Call them extremists, or call them crazy, but one thing is certain, their faith is hot.
So what is the alternative to hot faith? It is not ice-cold, apathetic faith that merely allows hot faith to rule the day, the culture, the media. Nor is it no faith at all. The alternative to hot faith is cool faith. Yes, faith that is way cool, man. So what does this kind of faith feel like? Cool faith is trust in God. It’s trust in a God who "does not dwell in houses made with human hands" (v. 48). "So often we worship a god of our own making, instead of the Lord God Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. If we’re Sunnis in Iraq, we assume that God despises the Shiites. If we’re Hindus in India, we believe that God opposes the Muslims. If we’re Fred Phelps, we are convinced that God hates homosexuals.2 "But God is above all and in all, working through all that God has made. We will likely never fully grasp that, as we view the world and make judgments through our very human eyes. Stephen is right to say that "the Most High does not dwell in houses made with human hands." God does not live in the moral-theological-social houses and/or boxes that we’ve built for ourselves. A cool faith realizes that nothing in our finite world can contain an infinite Lord, not our nations, not our political parties, not our religions, not even our churches, and certainly not our personal agendas. God’s a perfect God, and we never will be. This, my friends, creates quite a challenge for us.
Cool faith is also a sacrificial faith. Stephen’s determined to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, so he doesn’t fight back when the crowd attacks him. Choosing to protect ourselves is human. It is an individual choice, for individual situations. For Stephen it was his right choice. As the rocks begin to fly, Stephen simply prays, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit" (v. 59). "Sacrifice is a tough one for us, because we’re taught to fight for what we want. But to be a good parent, you have to sacrifice time at work to be with your children; to be a good spouse, you have to give up some of your own desires to satisfy the needs of your partner; to be a good Christian at school or at work, you have to sacrifice some of your popularity to live the life that God desires for you; to be a good church member, you have to offer time and talent and money to advance the mission of the congregation." None of this is easy, and some of it can be downright painful, but it is part of what it means to be a follower of a God that stays above the hotness. The benefit of sacrifice is that it leads to significant and surprising outcomes. Acts tells us that the witnesses to Stephen’s trial and stoning "laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul … and Saul approved of their killing him" (7:58; 8:1). This is the very same Saul would become the Apostle Paul and spread the gospel for miles around. The sacrifice of Stephen made a powerful impression on him, one that stayed with him throughout his ministry (Acts 22:20).
Finally, cool faith is a forgiving faith. It has to be in order to avoid being hot. Stephen’s very last words are, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them" (v. 60). These words mirror Christ’s words on the cross when he says, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they do" (Luke 23:34). Jesus and Stephen knew that their killers were hot with rage and passion, and self-righteousness. Forgiveness is likely the biggest challenge of cool faith, but it’s at the heart of being a follower of Christ. As Christians, we’re forgiven people, so our job is to forgive. We are to forgive our friends, our family members, our boyfriends and girlfriends, our brothers and sisters. Our job is to forgive our bosses, our coworkers, our opponents, our enemies … and, yes, even ourselves. When we offer true forgiveness, we let go of the anger that we feel toward those who have hurt us so badly. We also ask for God to show these mercy, for in so many cases, when we wound we do not fully comprehend what we are doing.In a world being ripped apart by anger and violence, it’s hard to believe that a hotter faith is going to bring us all closer together. Don’t go ice-cold and apathetic. Instead stay cool friends and work from a place of trust, sacrifice, and forgiveness. I guarantee that a cool faith will change lives for the better. Thanks be to God. Amen
Blessings,
Melissa
1 Thanks to the Homiletics sermon entitled ,
"Hot Faith, Cool Faith," for this sermon concept.
2 Ibid.- can be found in the March/April 2008 edition.