The following sermon was delivered by the Reverend John W. Howe in Truro Episcopal Church, Fairfax, Virginia, on June 29, 1980. The sermon is entitled, I Did It My Way, and the scripture reference is Luke 9, verses 51 to 62. 

Would you take out the Bibles that are there in the pew backs and turn with me to 2 Samuel, chapter 6. that's in the Old Testament 2 Samuel chapter 6 while you're turning to that I want to ask a question question is what is the greatest cause of failure in the Christian life I wonder what you'd say I want to suggest to you that for the most part it is not deliberate, willful disobedience. There is some of that certainly in every one of our lives.

But I want to suggest to you that the principal cause for failure in the Christian life is not a matter of willfully determining to do other than God wants. Because if we're at all serious in our desire to follow Christ, that's a self-contradiction. All of us wrestle with that self-contradiction from time to time.

But I want to suggest to you that instead of willful disobedience, the principal cause of failure in the Christian life is a matter of my trying to do God's work my way. Can you identify with that? That I determine how God's work is best to be accomplished.

I see a situation, I see a need, I think about it, and I make my decision. Out of my own human wisdom, out of my own best insight, out of my own resources, whatever they might be, I attempt to do the work of God in my flesh. In my own humanity.

And when you try to do the work of God in your own strength, it will inevitably lead to failure. It will end up being other than the work of God. And I think if you trace that through, you'll find in almost every instance of failure in faith, that that's exactly the problem.

2 Samuel chapter 6 gives us the story of David bringing the Ark of the Covenant into the city of Jerusalem. And it's riding on a cart being pulled by oxen. And look at verse 6.

It says, When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah, and God smote him there, because he put forth his hand to the ark, and he died there beside the ark of God. Now, I don't know about you, but if I had been there, I think I would have identified with Yuzah.

This is the most holy thing in the worship life of Israel. The Ark of the Covenant, that sacred box. We talked about it some weeks ago.

Housing the Ten Commandments, the rod of Aaron, the jar of manna, the symbol of God's very presence with His people. It is unspeakably holy. Here it is riding into the city of Jerusalem, and the oxen stumble.

And the cart begins to tip and good heavens the ark is about to fall. And what does Yuzah do? What any good man would do?

He reaches out his hand to prevent a tragedy. And God kills him. Smites him dead.

Why? Because that was the height of presumption on Yuzah's part. Under normal circumstances, nobody but the high priest, and he only once a year, would even look upon the ark.

That's how holy it was. And for him, not a Levite, not a priest, to touch it, to presume to touch it, you see, was to trespass on holiness. And it shocks us to see how God dealt with that.

But you see, what's betrayed here is Yuzah is really saying, I have no confidence that God is able to protect his own ark. I've got to help him out it's about to fall if I don't rescue it it's going to crash and splinter into smithereens and Yusa is not only presumptuous he's betraying a complete a total lack of confidence in God and I don't know if you have ever had that experience but I have it all the time I see something wrong in the church what do I want to do? I want to lay my hand on it make it right and sometimes God is saying to me I didn't tell you to do that.

I'm perfectly well able to take care of my own project. Thank you very much. And it's presumption, do you see?

It's presumption for us to lay our hand on the ark of God to steady the work of God unless he tells us to. Do you see the point? Yusa did the perfectly logical thing, the perfectly natural thing.

He operated out of the strength of his own wisdom, his own insight, his own best response, and it was wrong. And he paid with his life. Because you can't live the Christian life, or in his case, the life of faith under the old covenant, out of your human resources.

But it has to be by the Spirit of God directing you. Look at Numbers chapter 20. that's to the left they're out in the middle of the wilderness Moses is leading 600,000 people you might just meditate on that for a moment 600,000 people and they're complaining as they usually did this time about the fact that they've got no water to drink.

God has repeatedly proven himself faithful in providing manna, in providing quails, in providing water to drink in the midst of the desert. That's not a problem to God. He can provide water.

And his command to Moses was, whenever you need water, you simply speak to the rock in my name and out of the rock will flow forth a stream of water and people will be able to drink. Well, they're complaining. And for one terrible moment, Moses presumes.

And in verse 10, it says, Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, Here now, you rebels, shall we... You catch that? Shall we bring forth water for you out of this rock?

And Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his rod twice. And two things immediately followed. One, God provided the water anyway, even though Moses did it all together in the wrong way.

God met the need of the people. God blessed them. He refreshed them.

He provided water out of the rock. And you can visit that very place today in Jordan, at least by tradition where it is. You can see the water flowing out of that rock.

But he turned right around and he said, Moses, you are not going to go into the promised land. Can you imagine? 80 years Moses has been moving toward the promised land.

40 years of preparation, 40 years in the wilderness. God says you're not going to go in. Because you presumed.

You operated out of the strength of your own human resource. You tried to do the work of God out of your own strength. You thought, you put yourself in the place of God.

You presumed to say, must we bring forth water out of the rock as if you possibly could? And somebody else is going to have the privilege of bringing the people into the land of promise. Do you know why it was that Saul, King Saul, the first king of Israel, lost the kingdom?

Why God took it away from him and gave it to a little shepherd boy named David? Because not once, but twice, he did precisely the same thing. He presumed.

He put himself into the place of God. He took to himself privileges and ministries that God never told him to, and he operated out of the strength of his own human wisdom. There came a moment when they needed to offer the sacrifice.

Samuel wasn't there to offer it. And Saul said, what are we going to do? We've got to offer the sacrifice, and Samuel isn't here.

I guess I better do it. and God says who are you to do it I didn't tell you to offer the sacrifice Samuel can do it a few minutes late and it won't be late on my timetable and Saul didn't learn from that lesson a couple of chapters later you read that there came a moment when he was commanded to completely destroy the Amalekites they had risen up in rebellion against God and God said, I want you to bring my vengeance upon them and level them. Leave nothing.

Leave nothing. And Saul said, surely there's something better than that. We can be merciful.

And he presumed to spare the king of the Amalekite nation and also some of the sheep and the oxen, which he said, why sacrifice them at this point when we can save them and use them for our worship sacrifices later? Perfectly logical. merciful who wouldn't identify with Saul sacrifice needs to be performed nobody's there to do it I'll do it he says let me spare the life of the king let me spare the life of these poor sheep and oxen and God says I didn't tell you to do that do you see what I'm saying he operated out of his best wisdom his own best human insight he tried to do the work of God his way and ended up not doing it at all.

Naaman is a leper captain of the army of Syria and through a little servant girl he goes to visit the prophet Elisha because she tells him there's a prophet in Israel and when he prays for you God is going to heal you. And Naaman goes to visit this prophet. And all that Elisha says to him is, Go down and dip yourself in the river Jordan seven times.

And Naaman says, Seven times in that muddy creek? I could have dipped myself in the water back in Syria if I wanted to. Behold, I thought, he says, that surely the prophet would come out and do some mighty thing and I'd be healed.

Behold, I thought. That's when you made your first error, Naaman. When you presumed to think that you knew better than God knows how to do God's work.

Fortunately, he had a servant who told him, Surely you would have done something mighty if he had required it of you. You can do this simple thing, can't you? And he dips himself seven times and he seals.

But he almost lost it. Behold, I thought. I operate out of my best insight, and I lose it.

The book of Proverbs says, Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. Do you hear what that says? There are two things here.

One, trust in God with all of your heart. and to stop relying on your own best wisdom. Lean not unto your own understanding.

You can find this all the way through the scripture. God says to Abraham, I'm going to give you a child. In your old age, and through that child, there's going to be an innumerable multitude of descendants produced.

And eventually Messiah is going to come through that child and through his descendants. And through Messiah, all the nations of the world are going to be blessed. And Abraham says to himself, no way is my old lady ever going to produce a child at this age.

I better help God out. And he goes into Hagar, her maid. Father's a child, Ishmael, the beginning of the Arab nations, and they've been at it ever since.

Because he leaned onto his own understanding. Because he thought he could do the work of God in his own human strength. and ended up almost ruining it beyond repair.

Again, fortunately, God was merciful and gave him Isaac, the child of promise, in spite of himself. Some of you remember Bishop Stanway, who was here a number of years ago, who came and helped us start Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry. Bishop Stanway had a little saying.

He used to say it all the time. Finally drilled it into some of our minds, And we need to be reminded of it. He said, God's man doing God's work in God's way will never lack for God's resources.

But the problem is, you see, you can be God's man or God's woman and you can be committed to God's work and do it in some other way than God's way. And it ends up failure. In Luke chapter 9, we read this morning about Jesus setting off for Jerusalem, determining to go and face the fate that awaited him.

He knew perfectly well what was going to happen. He said, for this cause I came into the world. It was no last minute tragedy that somehow things messed up and Jesus gave his life.

He knew perfectly well what awaited him, and he embraced it with open eyes and open arms. He said, nobody takes my life from me. I lay it down of my own accord as an offering to God.

It says here in Luke 9 that he set his face to go to Jerusalem. He was willing to be betrayed, to be illegal. He tried to get an unjust verdict and to be crucified and killed.

And he sent his friends ahead of him. They were coming down from the north country and he wanted to stop en route in one of the villages of Samaria. But they wouldn't receive him.

Because his face was set to go to Jerusalem. They didn't want any part of that. You know, if you know that somebody is going to face death, you might be a little bit reluctant to open your house to him.

They didn't want anything to do with him. They refused him hospitality. And James and John are incensed about this.

They're angry about it. And they say, Lord, should we call down fire from heaven to consume them? And we read that Jesus rebuked them.

And then there's a phrase that you may or may not have in your translation. It's not in all of the most ancient manuscripts. In the RSV, you find it in a footnote.

It goes on to say, Jesus said to them, You do not know what manner of spirit you are of. for the Son of Man came not to destroy men's lives but to save them. You do not know what manner of spirit you are of.

Do you understand what Jesus is saying? He's saying, James and John, there's nothing wrong with your commitment. Your commitment is right.

There's nothing wrong with your desire to see me honored. That's right. There's nothing wrong with your desire to see God's enemies eventually punished.

That's right. There's nothing wrong with the goal of your life. You're right in wanting to be part of my salvation and be on the winning side.

That's all right. What's wrong is your spirit. Because you're not operating out of the Holy Spirit.

You're operating out of your human spirit. Do you understand the point? They saw a situation.

They thought about it. They said it's obvious. God wants to send down fire.

consume those who are rejecting his son. And they had biblical warrant for that. Because not once but twice, Elijah did precisely that with people who had rejected him.

And in the immediately preceding paragraphs, we find Jesus laying claim to being one greater than Elijah. Do you see how the logic follows? If God sends down fire from heaven to those who reject Elijah, and here is his son greater than Elijah, and they're rejecting him, obviously God wants to send down fire to consume them.

only God doesn't want to do that God's spirit is not saying that and they're operating out of their wisdom their gut reaction their human emotion their fleshly response they're trying to do the work of God their way and Jesus rebukes them for it most people are more familiar with the paragraph that immediately follows that in which we have a series of people giving what are usually considered objections to why they cannot follow Christ. Remember, one says, I've got to go and bury my father. Another one says, I've got to go and say goodbye to my family.

Another one says, not just now, a little bit later. Another one says, I'm willing to go with you wherever you go. And Jesus says, yeah, but I've got no place to go.

Are you willing to go to no place? It's usually said that these people are objecting. They're giving reasons why they cannot follow Christ.

But that's not what's happening. Not one of them is saying, I cannot follow you. What they're saying is, I will follow you on my terms.

I will follow you according to my priorities. I will follow you on my timetable. I'll follow you according to my wisdom.

Can't you hear Jesus saying to them exactly what he said to James and John? You do not know what spirit you're of. You think you're following me, but you're setting the priorities.

You're not following me. You think you're doing the work of God, but you're doing it your way, and that fails to be God's work at all. it would be so nice to be able to reduce it to a formula and that's precisely the thing we cannot do if you would follow the Lord Jesus Christ it means that you enter into a living relationship with a living Lord and he needs to speak to you personally about what you need to do now which may not be the same thing that I need to do now or that you need to do yesterday or tomorrow.

Following Christ is not following a formula. It's not following a philosophy. It's following a person now and letting Him set the agenda.

And I come full circle because I believe that the greatest problem in doing that The greatest, the principal cause of failure in the Christian life is that you and I decide we're going to follow Christ and we know exactly what that means. And we begin to make our decisions out of our own best insight. Do you understand what I'm saying?

Jesus would say to us, until you are willing to abdicate the throne and allow my Holy Spirit to come and take up residence on that throne so that He is the one who sets the priorities. He's the one who determines the agenda. He's the one who determines the timetable and the schedule.

He's the one who makes the decision. Unless you're willing to do that, you're not following me. You remember in Galatians, the works of the flesh are contrasted with the fruit of the Spirit there is only one person in all the world who is able to live the Christian life and that's the Spirit of Christ and unless the Spirit of Christ is free to live the life of Christ in and through me there is no way possible that I'm going to live Christian life successfully.

But you see, that's what he wants to do. And he's just waiting for us to abdicate that throne, to say to him, Holy Spirit, come into my life and manifest yourself and you set the agenda and I'll follow it. Let's bow our heads.

Lord Jesus Christ we call you Lord so easily so glibly and yet the truth of the matter is that most of us would have to confess that most of the time we make our decisions out of our own best wisdom and we hear you calling us this morning to something infinitely higher than that and Lord it's our desire to respond we want you to be the one who is in charge of our decisions. And we would ask you again this morning to take up residence on the throne of our lives, to express yourself by your Holy Spirit living in and through us and setting the agenda that you might thereby magnify your name, glorify your name, And bring blessing to your people. So we ask it in your name.

Amen. Oh, yeah. It's not what the hell is.