Developing Character
Deuteronomy 6:4-7; Galatians 5:16-25
Gettysburg Presbyterian Church
Harry G. Winsheimer
Septemeber 21, 2008

I enjoy the kids coming up for Children’s Message and going off to Children’s Church.  Their body language runs from half-asleep to squirming with excitement.  And, Phyllis has such a warm and graceful way with them. 

What do you want for them?  I want them to live free from pain, but I know that will not happen.  They will go through their Hurricane Ike and plummets of the stock market. 

This week was like that.  Hurricane Ike left some people with nothing with which to rebuild; fifty dead.  Yet, here we had beautiful skies, low humidity and cool nights – delightful weather.  Pain and joy.  Life.

So, I ask again: What do you want for the children?  What do we want for ourselves?  I want them, I want you, to have Christian character.  The word, character, is out of style, but I don’t know what else to use.  By character I mean spiritual muscle, the core, the spiritual infrastructure, that empowers Christians to handle with grace both the Hurricane Ikes and the beautiful days.

Teach them.  Learn.

After communicating God's laws to the people, including the Ten Commandments, the author of Deuteronomy wrote:
Israel, remember this!  The Lord--and the Lord alone--is our God.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.  Never forget these commands that I am giving you today.  Teach them to your children.  Repeat them when you are at home and when you are away, when you are resting and when you are working. 6:4-7

How is Jane to develop character? 

I read of a principal who often brought up the Golden Rule when disciplining students.  But he finally decided to drop the reference when the students started to respond with blank stares.  "They didn't know what I was talking about," he said.  How may the Golden Rule influence your playground behavior if you do not know the Golden Rule? 

How can we have Christian character if we are ignorant of the facts, truths and emotions of the faith?  How can we love the Lord with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our strength, if we do not know anything about God? We may no longer assume that our children, or that we, will learn God's revelations just by living.  Those times have disappeared with the de-christianization of American culture.  Now, we have to be deliberate in teaching Jane.  We have to be intentional learners ourselves.

The Apostle Paul stated it so clearly in his letter to the Romans: How are they to believe in one of whom they have not heard?  And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim [Christ]? Romans 10:14

People of the church, it is our job!  Parents, grandparents, it is our job!  Who else will do it?

And, character also is caught. 

Every couple of years, I return to my home church for Sunday worship.  It feels good. There I learned about the Exodus, my salvation through Jesus' suffering on the cross, the resurrection hope, the church as the on-going body of Christ, Christian love, commitment, missions, and the identity of sin.  I learned facts.  I learned truths.  That was the formal curriculum.  I have warm feelings about that sanctuary and the saints who worshipped there.  Mother was a better Bible student than am I and taught Bible classes for decades.  Father served as an elder until he could no longer hear the discussion during Session meetings.  I learned at activities like church picnics and youth fellowship and from taking up an offering for flood victims.  I caught the emotion of the faith from church school teachers, youth advisors and my parents.  I learned just by living with Christians. 

It was their job! 

I am convinced that the emotional life of a family and church are supremely important to faith development.  Emotions are powerful!  Emotions move us!  Facts about Jesus may bring us to faith in Jesus.  But, the love of people who believe in Jesus, the care of people claiming to be Jesus’ disciples, the enthusiasm of Jesus’ church, those are caught.  They break through to the heart.  We never forget emotions!

We have the opportunity to teach both knowledge and communicate the emotional life of the faith.

It is our job!

But, we teachers learn as we teach.  You have seen the sign: "Be patient.  God is not finished with me yet!"  Life brings adjustments, new challenges, new temptations, new stressors, new delights, new stages, and a fresh need to tend to the inner self.  We never outgrow the need to attend the University of the Holy Spirit. 

What do you want Jane to learn?  What do you want to learn in the University of the Holy Spirit?  

I want Jane to feel the deep joy of knowing that God loves her.  I want you to feel the profound joy of being loved by God.  I am interested in the soul, more than the surface.

Stephen Covey wrote a Number 1 bestseller, "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People."  Perhaps you have read it.  He studied success in depth.  Going back over 200 years of books, articles, and essays, he culled what Americans considered to be the keys to successful living.
Because of our own pain, and because of similar pain I had seen in the lives and relationships of many people I had worked with through the years, I began to feel more and more that much of the success literature of the past 50 years was superficial.  It was filled with social image consciousness, techniques and quick fixes….

In stark contrast, almost all the literature in the first 150 years or so focused on what could be called the Character Ethic as the foundation of success -- things like integrity, humility, fidelity, temperance, courage, justice, patience, industry, simplicity, modesty, and the Golden Rule.

The Character Ethic taught that there are basic principles of effective living, and that people can only experience true success and enduring happiness as they learn and integrate these principles into their basic character.

The contemporary personality ethic is seen in political campaigns.  What the candidate is and believes are adjustable.   The candidate's image is customized to match a pollster's assessment -- like a chameleon.  That is the Personality Ethic.  It is not character but image.  We see it when a company is caught polluting a stream and responds with an ad campaign about all the charities the company supports in the communities where its plants are located.  Create a diverting Image; dodge truth.  The high values are influence techniques, power strategies, communication skills, positive attitudes, dressing for success, making money, popularity, social adjustment, skill at the politics of the playground, top dog in sports, winning by any means.  Is that what God wants us to teach Jane?  Is that what we believe to be most important for ourselves?

We, the church of Jesus Christ, are not in the personality ethic business!  We are in the character development business!  One of our purposes is the growth of Christian soul in our children and in ourselves. 

Christian character comes from God’s love and is expressed in emotional strength and joy.

God loves Jane!  God loves you!  That is the solid rock upon which all is built. 

Jesus told about the man who built a house.  The climate was very different than what we know, more like parts of our west.  There was a rainy season and a dry season.  In late October, the land was dry.  Not a drop of rain fell since May.  You know how hard our lawns become after only three weeks without rain; we drive over them without leaving a dent.  Imagine how hard they would be after five months!  You could build a house on them.  Jesus told of the man who did just that.  The ground was hard and easy to build on and so he did.  Then Jesus said, The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell---and great was its fall!  Jesus called the builder foolish.

Jesus calls us to be like a wise man who built his house on rock.  The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. Matthew 7:26-27 

The rock upon which to build is God’s love in Jesus Christ! 

In the list of the fruits produced by the Holy Spirit love is listed first.  Do you remember what came next?  Joy.  That is right, joy!  The Apostle makes joy one of the main traits of Christian character.

I am going to highlight joy, because it is needed right now.  The last ten days have not been happy ones.  Hurricane Ike struck, leaving massive damage and at least fifty dead.  And, the stock market plunged, sending workers onto the street and investors for Tums. 

Thankfully, saints have been free to experience joy even in stress.  I am amazed!  Joy during loss.  What an oxymoron!  Yet, true!  People with Christian character have a joy in good times and in bad, because they have Christian character built on God’s love.

Paul and Silas were telling the story of Jesus in Philippi.  They were arrested and thrown into prison, into the innermost cell and their feet fastened in stocks.  It is reported that about midnight they were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.  Acts 16:24-25 Not swearing.  Not feeling sorry for themselves.  Praying and singing.  How could they?  They knew the love of Christ and the Holy Spirit was in their lives!  That mattered!  Prison just happened.   Their lives were built on solid rock.  No fluffy lives built on temporary stuff.  Lives of character built on God’s love in Jesus! 

The Apostle’s words to the Romans summarize his theology and Christian character:
Who can separate us from the love of Christ?  Can trouble, pain or persecution?  Can lack of clothes and food, danger to life and limb, the treat of force arms?  No, in all these things we win an overwhelming victory through him who has proved his love for us.  I have become absolutely convinced that neither death nor life, neither messenger of Heaven nor monarch of earth, neither what happens today nor what may happen tomorrow, neither a power from on high nor a power from below, nor anything else in God’s whole world has any power to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord!  (Phillips)

That is the character that I want for Jane!  That is the character that I wish for you!

. Stephen R. Covey, "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People," A Fireside Book Published by Simon & Schuster, New York, 1990, p. 18 and 19.

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