The Process of Faith

6 Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7 because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.

8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

I’m going to start this morning with a cliche... Life is a process.  In nearly everything we do, there is “correct” process.  In our minds, we have formulated what that means to us individually.  The beauty and the difficulty of this is that we have each formed a different view of this process.  Row crop farming is a great example.  Broadly speaking, the farmer plants the seed then harvests the crop and finally takes the crop to market.  This is the oversimplified process of farming.  However, every farmer makes so many decisions in the course of that process and this allows for every farmer to handle this process slightly different from every other farmer.  Do you sell some of the crop on the futures market?  Do you cultivate the soil or no-till?  When do you spray herbicide?  Which herbicide?  When do you fertilize?  Do you apply all your fertilizer before planting or wait until it starts to grow and apply again?  Which brand of seed do you use?  Which hybrid within that brand do you use?  Fields and soil types are different which also affects the process of answering the previous questions.  Did the hybrid used last time yield well in that field or not?  If not, was it the environment (was it too dry? Did we get too much rain?) or was it the hybrid you selected?  I could spend the next 10 minutes asking more questions about all the decisions that must be made to simply plant the seed, harvest it and then sell it.  I won’t but this gives you an idea of some the decisions behind that particular process.

No matter what you do, there are so many decisions behind any sort of process.  To those whom work within the same industry as you, you can discuss the finer details of the process but for an outsider you most likely over simplify it because the details do not matter as much.  For those who ask what I do at the Fairgrounds, I say that I set-up for events held there.  I set stage pieces, tables and chairs.  Sounds pretty easy.  I oversimplified the process because no one wants to hear about all the coordination that must take place in order to get that event up and running.  It’s a much bigger process than I really ever imagined.  A little bit of an example for you... Last night, the Corn Dog Kickoff was hosted in the Varied Industries building.  This is the Blue Ribbon Foundation’s largest fundraiser which expects a crowd of over 1,000 every year.  They use a third party decorator and we set up over 1,300 chairs for the event.  Most years, this is the last event in that building before the fair.  However, this upcoming week is the National Jr. Angus Show.  The largest of its kind.  Around 1,500 head of cattle are expected on the grounds over the next week.  And they want to serve breakfast in the Varied Industries building tomorrow at 6:30am for a thousand people.  In order to pull this off, there was a crew that worked overnight to pick up our tables and chairs, the third party decorators have been there since 7am this morning and the custodial crew is coming in at noon.  Another crew and myself will be going in at 2pm this afternoon to set-up for the breakfast.  This is only one of the buildings being used by the cattle show, this is not to mention the hundreds of man hours used to bed the stalls and make temporary tie outs.  It’s quite the process.

I tell you all this, not for sympathy but to make a point.  Much of what we do is a process.  But not everyone is privy to all the details that go into the process.  This is where I want to relate to our faith.  We all know faith is a process. But not everyone is privy to all the decisions of our individual faith process.  I can look at a field and unfairly judge the farmer’s ability to grow a crop.  Why was this planted so late?  Why are there so many weeds?  They missed a spot spraying or planting.... Their rows are crooked.  But we do not know the circumstances that led to that field looking the way it did.  Maybe they had a family emergency that pulled them out of the fields during the prime planting time.  Maybe they are a little short on income or time so they are trying to spray this field in only one pass.  Maybe the hybrid they chose didn’t perform as promised.  Perhaps the environment messed up the seed as it started to emerge.  It’s much easier to make this unfair assessment without looking deeper into the process than it is to seek an understanding of where they may be in said process.  Faith is exactly the same way.  It is much easier for us to look at someone’s struggles and make a judgement call about them than it is to seek an understanding of where they may be coming from.  

In many of Paul’s writings you will find “the process” in the background.  He is always trying to explain what the process of following Christ is like.  In our scripture for this morning, he starts with the rhetorical question, “Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?”  You may remember Paul saying that faith abounds where sin is present.  However, the process should not be to sin just so others can see God’s grace.  Grace means we are dead to sin and sin is dead to us.  Grace means not sinning because of our appreciation and understanding of God’s grace.  But for those who are not to this part of the process yet, it is difficult for them to understand.  For us who are, it is easy for us to stand by and judge them who aren’t.  He goes onto to tie our baptism into the death of Christ.  Our baptism is the link to Christ’s death.  As we rise out of the baptismal fount so did Christ rise from the dead.  They are earthly equivalents with the heavenly equivalent to happen at a later date determined by God.  Paul is using our baptism and the death of our sin to tie us to the death of Christ and uses this to make a point, “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.”  

So, if we died to sin, just as Christ died, we also live with him.  The resurrected Christ walked this earth just as we do today.  Our baptism is the metaphor to Christ’s death on the cross.  We get to choose whether or not every second after our baptism is a metaphor for the resurrected Christ.  Paul writes: “Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him.  The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.”  This process and decision making is individual in nature.  Just as the farmer’s yield impacts the number of people they are able to feed, your faith process impacts the number of people who will have the opportunity to see God’s grace and love.  Someone’s “faith yield” may not be as high as others but do not simply judge them based on that... You have no idea what they have been through to get to where they stand today.  They may have worked twice as hard as you to only yield a quarter as much.  No matter which side of the coin you personally find yourself on, there is victory in the Lord, “Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”  Dead to sin, living for God.