Messages from the Body

Here is a sampling of some of the messages that have made a special impact at CCiPH, and that have been transcribed or written in manuscript.

Most weeks in our equipping assembly, at least one man has been asked to prepare a message that will build up believers. Often, the message is taken from the liturgical Gospel reading of the day, or it is a life message that God has been working into the fabric of that man. It is included here to build you up.

Free to Belong

Message from Rob Fleenor on October 5, 2003

Romans 8

I asked Ken what I should speak about this morning. He said I should just speak what was on my heart. And if I got stuck there, he pointed out today's lectionary text was in Mark 10. So I had a choice of talking with you about what was on my heart or perfectly answering all your questions about the Bible and divorce in 20 minutes. I'm really relieved there was something on my heart.

I want to look at two truths with you this morning, and then we'll end up in our text in Romans chapter 8.

Truth Number One: People want freedom. We want freedom.

That lesson was taught to me by my best friend Eric when I was still a young boy. Eric showed me a very specific kind of magazine that his father kept lying around the house. I didn't know it when I was that young, but what was then so compelling to my naïve curiosity, promised me a pot of gold - a perverse kind of freedom if I would just follow.

Since then I've wrestled my own monsters, and I've been involved in the lives of others who've wrestled with theirs. And let's not kid anyone. You've got your monsters too. Sin, habit, addiction - it all seems to get pretty blurred. It doesn't matter what you call it. The simple truth is, we easily feel trapped, and we want to be free.

Freedom is pretty important to us as a nation. We as a society are pretty sure that life just isn't as good without our freedom. So we go out of our way to protect our freedoms with those things we call rights. The right to bear arms. The right to education. The right to choose. The right to equal pay for equal work. The right to die. The right to equal opportunity. The right to free speech. If we can just have our rights, we'll be free! But you don't have to look very far to see what's been done with the very rights that promise us freedom. The right to bear arms at Columbine. The right to choose at the abortion clinic. The right to die in the hands of Jack Kevorkian. The right to free speech in the hands of a child pornographer. We trust our rights fro freedom, but the chaos we live with doesn’t make everyone feel free; it makes a lot of people feel afraid.

We want something or someone to make us free.

I recently heard that the lottery was up to $129 million. And if I just fork over a dollar or two, I'll have a chance at what? Financial freedom! Here’s a quick question: What’s the first thing you would do with $129 million? For me, $129 million would just about pay off my credit cards. Somebody asked me recently what I'd do with if I won the lottery. I won, so I'm free, right? Here's the first thing I would do – it’s what most large lottery winners do before ever going public: I’d hire a lawyer. Then I’d hire an accountant. Then, whether I moved and bought a new house or stayed where I live now, I’d probably be paying for a high fence and an expensive security system. And I’d probably have to add a couple of bodyguards. And then I’d have to change my phone number or hire a secretary to deal with all the friends and distant relatives who call to remind me just how special I am to them, and oh, can I help out with a new car or Susie’s tuition? Then there’s the charities. And the guy who waits outside my house and dives onto the hood of my car, claims I hit him, and sues me. And without me even knowing it, the money that promised me freedom has trapped me.

We want freedom to be all that we can be as people. And I'm convinced that the freedom people want is from a life dominated by the flesh. That's why store bookshelves are filled with self-help books, and the TV infomercials are flooded diet plans and exercise programs, and addiction-recovery groups are so common - It's because the world instinctively wants to be free from a mind and body controlled by fleshly desires. But they're trapped. I had a good friend back in Missouri whose father was dying from lung cancer. I caught up with her on break to ask her how she was doing. With tears in her eyes, she said her father’s situation was terminal. And as she sat and talked to me, she smoked. The odd thing is, my friend said she knew that the cigarette she held in her hand was going to kill her just like it was killing her father. Since her father’s death, without his presence in her life, my friend has returned to alcohol and meth. She just doesn’t see any way to be free.

So many people who are trapped want freedom. I don’t think anyone starts out trapped. We want to be free from our pain, and our fear, and our self-centeredness, or our loneliness. And here’s where our enemy is so clever. Our enemy puts within easy reach the promise of freedom. And in our unbelief, we reach out for the promised key to freedom, put it in the lock, and turn the key. But instead of opening the cell door and walking out free, what we’ve really done is fastened the ball and chain of slavery to our own lives. And the heartbreaking thing - it must be heartbreaking to God - is that not only do we learn to be comfortable dragging around the weight, we enjoy it, pretending all the time we're free.

What good is a life of slavery? We as human beings reach our best potential when we're free. So here's the question: What kind of lottery are you gambling on for freedom in your life?

We want freedom. But there's something else we want, maybe even more than freedom - something our hearts absolutely ache for. We want to belong. We want to belong.

As I think back over my life, it's odd that some of the most painful memories are not significant things, but are memories of times that I felt out of place - like I didn't belong. It was Debbie Fenton in the fourth grade who taught me that lesson. I was walking down the hall during recess and Debbie Fenton came up to me and I remember what she said just like it were yesterday: "Robert Fleenor, you don't know how to dress!"  I don't know why Debbie said that. I was only wearing a bright orange and white diagonally checkered shirt. With purple bell-bottom jeans. What I wanted to say was "I don't know how to dress! That's funny coming from a girl with hair on her lip!" But I didn't say it. But those words Debbie planted in my heart stuck. And until that day, I had never thought about my clothes making me not fit in.  But after that, I began to realize that I was wearing corduroy my mom bought at Goodwill while everyone else was wearing denim. I was wearing home-made T-shirts while everyone else was wearing fashion polo shirts.  Listen to what I'm saying. It's funny now, but it sure wasn't funny then. And that one afternoon - when I was playing kickball, and one kick made my pants rip open clear up the seam in the back, that didn't make me feel less conspicuous. You try sometime to ride three miles home on a bike with a giant hole in your pants and your underwear flapping in the wind. My backpack hung really low that day.

Yeah, OK, so I was just a kid. We all get over that. Or do we? That desire to fit in - to belong - I won't compromise the truth or my morals to fit in, but the desire is still there. I'm wanting to be honest about me because I think you can relate. There are still times when I feel like a fish out of water. A guy from a small town in a big city. A guy without a lot of emotions surrounded by feeling people. There are people who are genuine with me and accepting, but they don’t know the real truth – that I really just want to feel like I belong.

I’m betting you can relate.

Wishing someone you looked up to would value your opinion

Wanting to be in on the joke – maybe even the one who make everyone else laugh by telling the joke

Wanting to be accepted for who you are – even though you’ve got all those quirks and negative characteristics that you can’t shake – those things that are just a part of who you are

A deep need to be admired – So you flaunt your appearance, to your talent, or find a subtle way to say something that lets others know how intelligent you are.

If you're anything at all like me, when you take deep look in the mirror of your soul, it's a little intimidating. You know the secret things in your heart - those dark motives and fears. A longing to be accepted that's so strong, that you'll even settle for slavery. How many people linger in destructive relationships rather than be alone? Every 10-year old has had a lesson about peer pressure. "Just because everyone else is doing it, doesn't mean you should." Easy for you to say. I just want this aching loneliness to go away.

What you and I want is for someone to accept us - to embrace us - in spite of those dark things about us that we hate most.

You know what you want. Freedom and belonging. And you know where we're going, don't you?

Let’s read the first 17 verses of Romans chapter 8.

Paul reminds us on the front end of this text that as believers we're obligated not to try harder at being better, but to be led by the Spirit. How do you be led by the Spirit? In all honesty, I'm not sure I know. Paul's answer sure isn't much help. He says in verse 9 that you're led by the Spirit if the Spirit of God lives in you. Thanks a lot. It's right about now I wish I had picked that divorce passage over in Mark 10. It'd be nice to give you three easy steps to be led by the Spirit, but there aren't any. The truth about being led by the Spirit of God is a little more mysterious. Are you ready? Here it is: You already are. There's nothing for you to try. There's not much for you to do. Just remember that you already are led by the Spirit. And all the freedom that you want, and that belonging that you hunger for, you already have.

Here’s the reminder in verse 15: The Spirit we have received is not about slavery. If there’s two things a slave is, a slave is trapped, and slave is an outsider. A slave has no freedom to choose, life is chosen for her. When she gets up, where she goes, what she does. And a slave has no right to eat at the table with the family. He’s told to get out. And when the master dies, a slave is inherited along with the rest of the property.

But our relationship with God is different. Paul says it’s a spirit of adoption. And not only one of adoption, but one of intimacy. He says that intimacy makes us cry out – out of the depths of our heart – Abba – father. I always enjoy the way Shawnee refers to her parents. I tend to be very proper. Dad. Mom. But Shawnee uses tenderly childlike names for her parents, Daddy, Mama. It’s the same for us. All the freedom and belonging as we’re held tight in Daddy’s arms.

If you get bored this Sunday afternoon, you might double-check me, but in the Old Testament, God is referred to as father about two dozen times. Before Jesus came to give us the Spirit, that intimacy, that closeness with God as a father just wasn’t the normal way you thought and talked about God. But Jesus changed the way we thought about God. That’s why when Jesus’ disciples asked him to teach them to pray, he started with the words “Our father.” That’s why the New testament uses the word “father” to describe God more than 250 times! And that intimacy – that closeness with God – that feeling of belonging – being an orphaned slave adopted by God and invited to sit at his table as a daughter or son – that belonging comes through the Holy Spirit who’s already living in you, giving you belonging, and leading you to freedom.

Here’s what freedom and belonging look like when it’s lived out: Us. That’s what this community – this body – is all about. The Spirit of God living in and through me interacting with the Spirit of God living in and through you creating a sense of belonging and family far beyond anything the world has to offer. And the Spirit of God living in and through me interacting with the Spirit of God living in and through you as we confess our sins to one another, and pray for one another, resulting in the healing that gives true freedom.

You’ve been freed and embraced as family through God’s Spirit. Don’t seek freedom, and don’t look for belonging, anywhere else.