For each of us, Father’s Day brings with it different memories, feelings, and experiences of fatherhood.  I am speaking from my experience not as a father, but as a son, when I say that I know my father loves me unconditionally and with complete commitment.  That is not to say that his love came to me wrapped in lace and sprinkled with sugar.  My father drove me hard into excellence; he saw my potential and did not settle for less, even though for me settling would have been fine.  He wanted me to be a man of my word, so his biggest challenges to my comfort came whenever I wandered into deceptive behaviors. And he wanted me to do all that God had equipped me to do.  My dad’s commitment to me has been relentless, understanding of my true character, and always loving.  He still does all this, and I am thankful to have him around.

 

I say this with great sensitivity to you because I know that not everyone has this experience from their father, many of you have lost your fathers, and some never knew a loving father.  But if we pull away from the fatherhood image for a moment, I think each person has had someone in their lives who was to them as my father has been to me.  Just because someone drives us to be our best does not fall easily upon us, that does not mean that person does not love us.  Father’s Day is an appropriate day to remember all those in our lives who have pushed us to excel, seen in us what we cannot see, both the good and the bad, and then propelled us into maturity.

 

This theme is at the heart of the series of sermons I am beginning today.  Christian maturity happens when we move behind the average experience of a Christian who simply goes to church occasionally, prays when there is a need, but whose faith really has no significant effect on her or his life when it comes to business decisions, lifestyle choices, financial matters, or choices of friends.  Christian maturity, though, does not come easily and it will leave you with the sense that you are never quite there.  The carrot is forever dangled in front of you and the only way you will taste it finally is when you go home to be with the Lord.  But, as difficult as Christian maturity is, it is akin to the pleasure of receiving a long awaited promotion, finding the love of our lives, fishing or golfing on the first day of retirement, and... you get the idea.

 

When I was a teenager I enjoyed going out with friends and of course I thought I knew best about who made good company and who did not.  I remember that my mom’s curfew was always earlier than I thought it should be and these words still echo in my mind as if it were yesterday: “Why can’t I come home later?  Everyone else gets to!”  Isn’t it interesting how each of us has the only deprived teenager in the universe?  I do not know why I kept asking the question because her answer was practically imprinted on the back of my eyelids.  “It’s not that we don’t trust you; we just don’t know them.”  My mother knew what I have learned by rearing my daughter: no matter how impervious to influences someone thinks she or he is, each of us will find our values, beliefs, and commitments tested, manipulated, or confirmed by the influences we allow into our lives.

 

In this limited sense, I agree with the observations of behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner.  He observed that people tend to commit themselves to those people from whom they receive the most positive reinforcement and to favor those influences that most help people cope with their fears.  This is a significant reason that, on the negative side, people turn to any number of addictions like gambling, sex, alcohol, and drugs.  Addictions replace fear with the illusion of ecstasy and they help us feel good about ourselves even if for just a moment.

 

I will illustrate the positive side of influences with a garden image.  I was in someone’s garden a few days ago.  The most prominent features in the garden were some robust rose bushes.  Isn’t it amazing what can happen to a rose bush that in the winter looks like a dead stump, but when fed the right way, given the right soil, and nurtured by the right climate turns into a beautiful bush with dozens of beautiful flowers?  That is a suitable parable about us.  We can be steered either away from or toward the Lord depending upon the influences we allow into our lives.

 

At the heart of Christian formation stands the commandment to love God and others as ourselves.  Because it is a commandment, it is not optional.  Because it is not optional we have to commit ourselves to it heart, soul, mind, and strength.  Because it is a commitment, we need to support our decision with holy influences or else our commitment will flounder.

 

I had a discussion with a man once about faith that came to my mind as I was preparing for today’s sermon.  We were in a boat fishing.  Actually, he was the only one fishing because all I was doing was casting and never reeled in a single fish.  I made some sort of comment about it and all he did was chuckle and say, “Good thing you’re supposed to be a fisher OF men and not a fisherMAN.”

 

I knew that he had stopped coming to church regularly, and his wife told me he was starting to pull away from his faith a bit.  There was a problem, so I went on the fishing trip caring less about catching fish, but wanting to fish this man back into faith.  Turns out that he had been keeping company with some men from work who had decided to start to fill their weekends with things like fishing and hunting at certain times of the year, and boating and golfing during other times of the year.  Church just was not doing anything for them anymore and he began to drift away along with them.

 

I share this conversation to illustrate that influences matter whether we are children, teenagers, or adults.  If you want to be someone of strong Christian character it does not just happen; you will have to commit yourself to it, and the influences you allow into your life have so much sway over your commitments.  It’s impossible to grow into a mature Christian and lack the commitment to get there.

 

That is where the passages from First Kings and Ephesians intersect with our lives.  To understand the problem with Solomon you have to go back to the words God said to Joshua a few hundred years before Solomon’s time.  At the very start of Israel’s life as its own nation, God told them through Joshua, “Be strong and courageous.”  He talked to them about commitment, that they should obey God’s word with complete devotion.  At the end of Joshua’s life he leaves the Israelites with these words, “Choose this day whom you will serve, but as for me and my house we will serve the Lord.”  You see, by the time Israel had entered Canaan, Joshua knew that strong temptations faced them to stray from God and adapt to the practices and values of people who did not know God.  So, since humans are swayed by their influences, it was going to take a radical commitment to God to face these temptations well.

 

Now, fast-forward to Solomon’s day.  The great irony of Solomon’s legacy is that even though God blessed him with wisdom far beyond his years, this was not enough to overpower the influences that were his undoing.  No matter how wise or mature we think we are, the world is a powerful threat to our commitment to God.  Solomon thought that his wisdom and status were solid, but what he discovered is that these unholy influences weakened his faith in kingdom-altering ways.  Solomon’s God-given wisdom did not prevent him from following the counsel of other gods, or adhering to customs destructive to his faith.  Solomon fell prey to the temptation that so many people of faith do, which is to think that they are doing enough with their faith when it is anything less than whole-hearted commitment.  It cost Solomon his potential legacy as the greatest and wisest King of all time.  Little changes over time about our human nature.

 

And it is because human nature changes so little that that one thousand years later the author of Ephesians wrote about commitment amidst a world filled with deceptive influences.  Christian formation depends upon the extent to which we are imitators not of the world, but of God, and the clearest picture of God was the life of Christ.  And how did Christ live his life?  There was not the slightest hint of immorality, greed, impure living, obscenity, crass language, or rude behavior.  It is not that Jesus turned his back against such types of behavior, because as we learn from the gospels he hung around the people who most certainly did all these things.

 

Commitment to purity in thought, word, and deed can be a difficult proposition for anyone in this world.  But, the battle lines of our hearts are drawn on the actions and words that show where our allegiances lie.  We can be committed either to the world or to the things of God.  But, God has no interest in sharing the territory of our hearts with the things that come ultimately from the same Evil One that long ago challenged God for the throne of the universe.

 

We would make a mistake to think that such complete devotion to the Lord is possible on this side of heaven, and no amount of moralistic sermonizing, or hellfire-and-brimstone threats from the pulpit will make it any different.  You have heard the message: commit your heart to God by letting the Spirit daily become more influential in your life.  So how do you do this?

 

I want to read a passage from a devotional I have been looking at lately called God Calling.  “You have entered now upon a mountain climb.  Steep steps lead upward, but your power to help others will be truly marvelous.  Not alone will you arise.  All toward whom you now send loving, pitying thoughts will be helped upward by you.  Looking to Me, all your thoughts are God-inspired.  Act on them and you will be led on.  They are not your own impulses but the movement of My Spirit and, obeyed, will bring the answer to your prayers.  Love and Trust.  Let no unkind thoughts of any dwell in your hearts; then I can act with all My Spirit-power, with nothing to hinder.”

 

In other words, if you want to commit yourself more to God and the ways of God there are three things you need to do.  First, stay in the Christian community, because as others will help you in faith so you will help others toward God.  Second, keep your focus on the things of God through prayer, worship, study, and scripture.  And, third, do more than think about God, act on your thoughts because action is the sure sign of commitment.  May God grant each of us the courage and strength to commit ourselves more to Him as people bought by the blood and broken body of a God who committed Himself to us.  Hallelujah.  Amen.