John 15:15-17

Its impossible not to know about the Atkins Diet. Basically, stop eating rice, bread, potatoes, and anything with sugar and eat all the steak, butter, and pork that you possibly can. If you get bored with those choices, add pork and fish.

 Now I am not endorsing the diet. For one thing, Mayor Bloomberg doesn’t like it. You probably saw his comments that were picked up by mistake that the diet didn’t work for the doctor himself. I was very surprised to read that Atkins was still 258 pounds when he died.

 But his passion to remove all carbohydrates has been studied by major medical groups and now Subway includes the Atkins Diet. Now I don’t want to get technical, but his claim is that rice and bread triggers more insulin in the body and sets off a chain reaction where we eat more to absorb the chemicals that the body makes and then the body makes more chemicals for the new food. So our body systems start to fight each other and the result is weight and illness.

 The problem is that the Atkins Diet requires some passion. I have been worried about gaining weight as my metabolism slows. When I came out of college, I ate 6 doughnuts a week with obvious enjoyment and no other effect. I can’t do that now. I can a pound if I look at 6 doughnuts a week. So I decided to drift towards the Atkins Diet. I couldn’t bear to cut out the doughnuts, but I was willing to add the steak and eggs. My doctor told me this week that the modified Atkins is not working. His actual words were, ‘Mr. Tompkins, your cholesterol has spiked upwards mysteriously.’

 Well, the game was up. He’s no fan of the Atkins Diet and you can imagine what he thought of the modified Atkins.  Basically, I have until June to change and then he’s going to do a medical intervention.

 As I started to work on this sermon series ‘Fit for Life’ I realized that a lot of people are unhappy because they follow a spiritual modified Atkins Diet. I meet many people during the week who use this building or approach me online who have spiritual needs. Their search is 100% genuine and yet they don’t appear to get anywhere. I think that a lot of people search spiritually, but never really get anywhere. A year later, their spiritual burdens are a little heavier and they feel a little sicker. If you feel this way, is it because you aren’t really sincere? One person said to me, ‘I’m just a loser. Don’t even worry about it.’

 God fortunately doesn’t give up on you even when you give up on yourself. And the Bible has some thoughts on why good people can make a genuine search for greater spiritual strength and still come up short of the peace they desire. Its all about following what God wants with passion and many of us were hoping to use the modified plan. We’re going to look at some Scripture this morning that will help you use this Easter season to really make spiritual gain this time around.

 In these few words, John tells us that the modified spiritual Atkins plan will not succeed in spiritual health. I want to look with you at why we try to modify our spiritual plan, and ways that we need to call ourselves and or world back to God’s real plan for spiritual health.

 Why did we ever want a modified spiritual plan? Jesus says here, You are my friends if you do what I command you. That’s not how people search for God. People search for experience, not the Lord of lords and king of kings. +I don’t want to suggest that we can measure all Bible ideas based on how much space they take up. But the word Lord is used 7403 times in the Bible, It sort of gives you the idea that God has a definite feeling about this.

 But we are not looking for directions, we are looking for experience. It is the sad truth that we get most of our directions from our political parties and our friends. The reason that church worship is changing so quickly is that our hunger for God is almost completely a hunger for experience.

 We’re still measuring the impact of the Passion by Mel Gibson. But I have now seen two reactions that fit this message. One person is a practicing Christian who saw the movie, was devastated emotionally, and an hour later went to Denny’s with friends and cheered up. The second guy is younger, not a Christian, felt guilty during the movie and got high on cough syrup afterwards. These are people with sincere hopes for a spiritual life. But they are looking for powerful experiences with an occasional push to be kinder at work and don’t smoke. They are scarcely ready for a God who says, you are my friends if I do what I command you.

 I hope you are so caught up in the worship today that you feel like you are in heaven. Authentic worship in the Bible gathers up our feelings and makes us feel like we had been in an exhausting, exhilarating, comforting wonderful event. But what will bring you to spiritual fitness is a passion born in this hour to do what the Lord commands you. The true measure of spirituality is the question from Luke [Luke 6:46] "Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I tell you?

 We live in a national hour that has forgotten God. The President spoke at a rally of Evangelicals this week. Leaders assured him that evangelicals would come to the polls for an amendment against same sex marriage. There was no apparent mention of the war in Iraq. Friends, whether you agree with the government or not, the clear Christian imperative is prayers for peace. I think it starts in the 10 commandments [Exo 20:13] You shall not murder. You and I have lived in a historic time. We just finished the bloodiest century in the history of the human race. 160 million people were killed and nations filled with Christians and churches started many of these wars.

 Someone did not follow the 10 commandments. Isaiah prophecies about Jesus coming [Isa 16:5] then a throne shall be established in steadfast love in the tent of David, and on it shall sit in faithfulness a ruler who seeks justice and is swift to do what is right. I believe that our own prayers every day ought to include our mourning and grief for the war in Iraq. Jesus has come in steadfast love to seek justice and we are caught up in our own lives and needs and don’t feel we have the energy to look into these other matters. The political parties get us fired up on taxes and how the other guy is getting ahead and we are no longer in step with Jesus’ passion to bring steadfast love and justice. [Luke 6:46] "Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I tell you?

 Our nation needs to go to war reluctantly with every public sign that we tried all alternatives and continue to try. And we must not profit from these wars. This week the United States apparently backed a coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea after oil was discovered there. And Iraq has oil. It reminds us of another of the commandments. [Exo 20:15] You shall not steal . How can Christians want these carved into courthouses and in public buildings without consideration for how they will affect public life? It is because we see even the words of Scripture as part of the experience, not something that we actually change our lives to follow. [Luke 6:46] "Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I tell you?

 What does it mean for you and me? Cs Lewis writes, I think that many of us, when Christ has enabled us to overcome one or two sins that were an obvious nuisance, are inclined to feel (though we do not put it into words) that we are now good enough. He has done all we wanted him to do, and we should be obliged if he would leave us alone. But the question is not what we intended ourselves to be, but what he intended us to be when he made us...

Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what he is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on. You knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised.

But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is he up to? The explanation is that he is building quite a different house from the one you thought of—throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards.

You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage, but he is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it himself. -

 The point is, for spiritual health, don’t modify the plan. The Christian life is more than an experience. The Christian life is more than worship this morning. The other activities encourage us to act on what God tells us. It is hopeless to add the steak and eggs to the pie and rice. We have to follow the true plan that God directs.

Pray today, Christ, what must I do to call you Lord? The spirit of God is moving among us now and the message will be different to each heart. There is someone here who needs to reconcile a relationship and take the first step. There is someone here who needs to stop cheating. There is someone here who needs to write to their Senator about war. There is someone here who needs to tithe.

If the Lord has hit your conscience, don’t leave this place until you have prayed through about it. There is nothing more important in life than to do what God speaks to your heart about. [Luke 6:46] "Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I tell you?