"Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."
2 Corinthians 3:17 (NIV)
These days we have entered into a new season: it is called spring, although it doesn’t seem like it some mornings. Parkdale’s leadership seems to be in a season of sorrow these days. As shepherds over the Lord’s flock here at Parkdale, we share in His work and we share in His sorrow. Lately there have been a number of lambs of God making decisions to turn from the Lord and live in sin. Not large numbers of people, nor specific genders, nor specific ages - all over the map actually. As the men and women who love these people watch them turn from the Lord and embrace a life of sin, the overwhelming emotion is sadness and mixed in with the sadness – perhaps even part of the reason for the sadness - is the knowledge that we are unable to change their minds. It is part of the wisdom in the parable of the soils, that the type of soil determines the fruitfulness of the seed.
So we watch people we love, who either because of an unholy familiarity with the Word (the path), or because of underlying hardness or bitterness (the rock), or because of worry, pleasure or troubles (the thorns) – we watch these people turn from the freedom they have in Christ and run into the arms of the slave master called sin. They think that living a life for Christ, in the power of His Spirit, in the light of His Word, is restrictive and stifling. And yet the paths they are choosing will chew them up into little pieces and spit them out.
Romans 7 lays out the struggle that each Christian faces. It is laid out logically as only Paul could, and should warn each of us of the very battle that rages within our hearts. Yet whenever I turn my mind towards these situations, while I am praying or discussing, or confronting, I start to feel helpless. Then I remember God’s conversation with Cain, recorded in Genesis 4. God was not helpless at all, and yet what He did was warn Cain – he didn’t make him do anything - He warned him. And then I think of the parable of the prodigal. God the Father let the son go. Not only did He let him go into a life of sin, Luke 15:12 teaches that God gave him the means to indulge in his sin.
We are saved by faith through grace! Faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the Word of God. Acts of faith come from a person’s heart. Friends, let us speak the Word to them, then let us pray that God would give them a heart of faith. Let us seal our prayers with tears and WAIT and WAIT and WAIT, while believing what our Lord told us in Matthew 18:14: “In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.”
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