Word of Salvation – Vol.53 No.48 – December 2008

 

Flower Power

 A Sermon by Rev Sjirk Bajema

on Heidelberg Catechism, LD 41

Scripture Reading: 1 Corinthians 5

 

Congregation…

In our studies of the Catechism, we have recently been looking at the second table of the Ten Commandments using a picture of a fountain in a garden. We have used the fountain we are imagining to symbolise the family. What comes out of the family can be compared to the water which comes out of a fountain. The family is God’s way of controlling the quality of the water, of what comes out. So the Fifth Commandment with its focus on family life very much sets the direction for our relations with other people.

The water which springs out of the fountain can symbolise the goodness of life flowing from God’s Son. We used this image to reflect the importance of the Sixth Commandment in preserving human life, which is made in God’s image. We saw a garden beginning to bloom. The nutrients were divine. The resources are eternal. What a picturesque scene this would be!

God’s flower

Now let’s peek at this picture again. We’re seeing now exactly what this garden is producing. So, dear believer, let’s see… GOD’S FLOWER!

Congregation, GOD’S FLOWER is chastity. That beautiful plant-form from the Lord’s own creation, the flower, pictures the pure simplicity of a life in love with the Maker.

Jesus said of a flower in Matthew 6:28-29, “See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these.”  When we confess that God’s will for us in the Seventh Commandment is to thoroughly detest whatever is not pure and simple, but to live decent and chaste lives — whether married or single — then we’re showing something that has a most wondrous quality! An excellence that can well be compared to a flower.

Life in our modern age is pretty hectic. There are many pressures on our time, many decisions to make (and straightaway!) and all kinds of unhappiness. Yet for all the modern sophistication of 2008, despite all these modern appliances, our lives are often a mess, and we find it so difficult to acknowledge the mess we have made.

No longer are there clear standards in society for us all to live by. “Do what you feel like — and no one can judge me!”  “You’re not the boss of me now! You’re not the boss of me now!”  

All kinds of perversions are being openly displayed and promoted as legitimate lifestyles! But they’re weeds! They’re totally unlike a flower! There’s no beauty in them whatsoever — only ugliness. And so, even by the standards of civilisation, Western society is definitely on the down slide. But congregation, how different is GOD’S FLOWER!

We need to take a closer look at God’s flower — chastity. That’s the positive side to the unchastity’ mentioned on Answer 108 of Lord’s Day 41. Chastity is about sexual purity. Briefly, we’d say that it’s about preserving our sexual cleanliness both before and after marriage. Even though some may provokingly ask exactly where and how the Bible condemns sex before marriage, the direction of the Bible is absolutely clear . In the words of Hebrews 13:4, “The marriage bed must be kept pure.”  

The apostle Paul even says in his first letter to Timothy that we should regard older men and women as fathers and mothers and younger men as brothers and women as sisters. He wants them, and us, to have “absolute purity” .

Think about that. “Sisters!”  “Brothers!”  I can almost hear the sigh and groans of boys and girls. They don’t always find their brothers and sisters easy to get on with. With the way we’ve often got on with our siblings in the past, shouldn’t we treat a woman much better than we’ve treated a sister? And shouldn’t men be quite different than with their brothers?

But the comparison with sibling relationships is very helpful. It’s a very real relationship. There’s often a healthy respect. Your arguments and differences often show that in fact you respect each other enough to want to be right in each others’ eyes! And you don’t regard your sister or brother as a sexual object! You know them too well! You know they’re something more.

We are looking at GOD’S FLOWER. Not just from a distance. Right into its actual parts. That gives us a greater appreciation. Quite different than from a distance, but even better!

There is a saying about the difference between looking from afar and seeing things more close up. It goes, “Nice from far — but far from nice!”  Even weeds can look attractive from a distance. Especially when they’re all together. And obviously that has an effect because of the way people become captivated by those noxious plants. There you have the result of the “actions, looks, talk, thoughts and desires,”  which incite unchastity. Weeds spread quickly, and soon there’s no room anymore for flowers.

As someone explained to me, the reason why weeds take over a lawn is because the grass isn’t being fed properly. So you have the wrong conditions there. That’s why once you know what a flower is, and you truly appreciate its different parts, you want to keep it blooming. Because what is the effect of all those different parts making up a flower? How does it all come together, when it’s able to grow out there? Beautifully!

“Ah, yeah, but I’m not anything like a flower?”  The tempting thoughts I have, the language I use, even what I might be doing outside of marriage, through flirting, pornography, masturbation, and straight-out adultery — Lord, I’m a real weed! I don’t deserve to be anywhere near your garden, let alone be planted in it!”  

Is that how you’ve felt? Have you been struck by your wretched condition before the all-holy God, who is so overwhelming in His glory! Then don’t forget, it’s GOD’S FLOWER. Not John or Jane or Peter or Sue’s flower. We never deserved to be anything anyway!

It’s… GOD’S FLOWER! By faith in His Son — our Saviour — He makes us to be what He loves to see.

God’s power

How can we begin and then continue to live chaste lives? How can we truly be flowers in God’s garden? Only when, standing right behind GOD’S FLOWER, is nothing less than GOD’S POWER! Your ability to bloom, that righteousness you have in Christ, isn’t your innate ability, as if you can bloom by yourself. Your ability to continue to be GOD’S FLOWER isn’t in you inherently. Of course you try. We have to. Though how many times haven’t you had to honestly admit, “I don’t know how it turned out for the best, but thank the Lord it did!”  

Someone, however, might say at this point, “Mr Preacher, the Catechism puts all this in our court. It tells us clearly what to do.”  In Answer 108 it says that we should thoroughly detest unchastity. And rightly so! Yet, who is rightly telling us? It’s the Lord Jesus Christ — the Living Word. And who is willingly able to listen? Only those who live by faith in Jesus Christ.

The ability to bloom as God’s flower comes from God’s power. If you look back, there have been other flowers before our time; indeed, the most magnificent bloom of all was the Lord Jesus Christ. And there will be other flowers yet to come until the most beautiful bloom of them all comes again!

The whole Bible takes the same approach. The Lord even shows the importance of chastity by using marriage as an example of the relationship He has with His people. In the Old Testament, when His people left the decent and chaste way, what people had done to God in being unfaithful to him was often called or compared to adultery. The Old Testament prophecy of Hosea is very pointed about this, especially as Hosea is commanded to marry a prostitute to show how terribly broken the relationship between the Lord and His people had become. The New Testament has the same message. Our reading from 1 Corinthians 5 gives us some indication of how bad sexual relations can become, and how serious the Lord is in dealing with perversions.

Ephesians 5 is also clear when it compares the relationship of Christ and the church to a marriage relationship. As Paul writes there, in the verses 25-27, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.”  

And doesn’t Christ love the Church! She is his own Body; the very love of His soul, for which He cares so intimately and so carefully! Over thousands of years how many times haven’t we left the Lord — the one whom we are married to spiritually — to pursue instead our own selfish pleasures?

But He was faithful! Because for GOD’S FLOWER to bloom, we need GOD’S POWER! The fact that we’re called temples of the Holy Spirit is such a tremendous comfort and strength. We aren’t alone — ever! We can tackle head-on that multitude of everyday problems because we’re in love with Him! The Lord wants both our bodies and souls to be clean, and so we’re determined to keep ourselves pure.

That’s why the apostle Paul called us temples of the Holy Spirit in 1 Corinthians 6:19. We are not our own. We’re the Lord’s. We’re here to honour Him. We’re not free from something — we’re freed for Someone!

There has been a movement, originating in America, where a growing number of teenage Christians take a vow to be pure. They declare that from that point on they will remain virgins until they marry. It’s an oath of abstinence. Naturally the media berates it terribly, with their usually sick jokes and offensive article and cartoons. But it continues to find support — lots of it! And it’s fulfilling its purpose.

It’s almost as if Christians had been waiting for it to happen. Though perhaps it’s better to say that many were waiting to confess together what they believed it should have been like all along. Deep in our souls we haven’t lived happily with the so-called sexual revolution. That’s only distorted what sex was for in the first place.

It is so difficult on our own. Then we’re tempted to go on what seems to be the easy way — the path of least resistance. Yet to be joined with Jesus through His Body — that’s strength and wisdom. To live by His Word. To commune with Him in prayer. This is exactly what we were first created to do — and have now been re-created to do! What else should matter most to you?

The Lord has the power. All power ! And He’ll use every part of that power exactly so that He can look… at a flower ! You .

Amen.