Sermons
A Message by the Rev. Harvey G. Throop
Palisades Presbyterian Church
San Diego, California
August 30, 2009
Building Character
(Proverbs 4:10-14)
“Train children in the right way and when old, they will not stray. "
( Proverbs 22:6 )
One of the radio programs I enjoy listening to on the radio when I'm in my car is a syndicated program called “Character Counts.” I hear it on KNX radio in Los Angeles. These 3-minute commentaries feature Michael Josephson, whose website calls him “ one of our nation's foremost ethics consultants to major corporations and government officials.” Retired from his highly successful dual careers as law professor and publishing entrepreneur, Mr. Josephson works to create a world where decisions and behavior are guided by ethics. The purpose of his commentaries is to emphasize the importance of character and ethical living. I have found each of his commentaries well expressed and always thought-provoking.
Character is what you are. In the words of Mr. Josephson from his March 26th program earlier this year:
“ Becoming a person of character is a lifelong quest to be better.
A person of character values honesty and integrity and pays whatever price is needed to be worthy of trust, earning self-respect and the pride of family and friends.
A person of character plays fair even when others don't and values no achievement unless it is attained with honor.
A person of character has strong convictions, yet avoids self-righteousness.
A person of character believes in the inherent dignity of all people and treats everyone with respect, even those whose ideas and ideologies evoke strong disagreement...”
His words continued, but I think you get the essence of what he was saying.
Character. It is something we value. It is a trait we respect. It is what parents and teachers try to instill in their children.
Character is, indeed, what you are. It is not what you think you are or what others think you are. Character is your real self. A good character is one of the finest assets a person can have!
It is interesting how young people will be encouraged to spend hours training to excel in sports or music or some other discipline and yet be left pretty much on their own to submit to the disciplines of building character.
While ours is a time when there is a lot of talk about child abuse, it may well be that among the worst cases of child abuse are those parents who fail to lead their children into the paths of character-building disciplines, because they are so busy making a living instead of a life.
Character is everything that a person is. One measure of a person's character may relate to what one would do if one knew he or she would never be found out. A person's real character is what one thinks inside. The Old Testament wisdom writer was right: "As a person thinks in his or her heart, so he or she is" (Proverbs 23:7 KJV).
Everyone among us should be involved in the process of character-building. It is not reserved only for the young. The best way to build character in ourselves is by helping others build character. The public school teacher, the Sunday school or LOGOS teacher, the scoutmaster, the volunteer Little League, Bobbysox or Soccer coach -- among many others -- are doing as much to build their own character as they are helping the young to build their character.
It would seem that the developing of three particular attributes make for a good, sound Christian character: conscience, love and will power.
Someone is always debating "what is conscience?" Suffice it to say conscience is that ability to distinguish between right and wrong. Conscience has been described as "condensed character."
Scripture says, "Bring up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it" (Proverbs 22:6).
We know that a conscience is no better than its training. Adolph Hitler's conscience was mis-trained. He believed the Germans were superior and he was dedicated to keeping Germans uncontaminated by Jews or any others he believed were inferior. His mis-trained and perverted conscience led him to order all kinds of human atrocities.
But he was hardly alone! Even today, the daily news is filled with people whose lack of conscience lie behind some of the most disgusting, despicable and violent acts imaginable.
Our sense of right and wrong depends on how our conscience is trained. If our conscience is neglected and not trained and we don't know right from wrong, we may do wrong without knowing any better. However, it is still wrong -- as wrong as if we did not know better -- and we have to suffer the consequences.
What is important is to train the conscience to be in harmony with God's will and laws. One's conscience is no better than the "standard" adopted. For followers of Jesus, that “standard” is the Bible. In the Bible, we read: "All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching the faith and correcting error, for resetting the direction of a person's life and training one in good living" (2 Timothy 3:16).
No matter how old you are, it is never too late to turn to God and to God's program of righteousness. Religious education has never bought into that old proverb, "You can't teach an old dog new tricks." The Christian conviction is: "We're never too old to learn God's ways."
Doing right has to start in the conscience -- the mind. The Apostle Paul wrote: "Let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 2:5; Romans 12:2). The author of Proverbs put it this way: "Keep your heart with all diligence; for from it flow all the issues of life" (Proverbs 4:23).
A good conscience isn't born; it is made! God has given to you and me an instinct called conscience that can always be depended upon to tell us the difference between right and wrong when it has been trained in the ways of God. So, developing a good conscience is one way of building one's character.
Second, we also build character by what we love. The things we love are the things that soon become a part of us.
The Bible tells us, first of all, to love God. It is no accident that the greatest commandment among Jews and Christians alike is "Love God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength" (see Mark 12:30). Loving God is the prime ingredient of good character.
The essential purpose of Christianity is not building character but of saving the souls of imperfect characters. The good news of the Gospel is that God accomplished our salvation through Jesus Christ. We are saved, not by our character, but by justification by faith in Jesus Christ who redeemed us when we didn't deserve it.
Recognizing that our life has been made right with God by Jesus Christ, and not by any merit of our own, we want to show some appreciation and prove some worthiness for such undeserved love. Our salvation is our motivation for developing a character worthy of the word "Christian." Indeed, Christian character is the one evidence of our faith. When we learn to love and to practice love as Christ loved, good character is made.
We love because God first loved us. By sharpening our awareness of God's love for us, we love God with all our heart and soul and strength. Loving God, we come to love the church and to become a vital part of it! The church is one school for the conscience.
Third, to be able to put this training and love to work, we must develop a strong “will power.” Our own will needs to be trained and exercised to be strong and dependable so that it works automatically -- as if by reflex action.
With all kinds of enticing temptations appealing to us all the time, we must have a strong self-control to resist. Often our negative won't power is stronger than our weak, positive will power . We must train our will power. To do that, we look to God's Spirit for self-control. The Bible reminds us: "The Spirit produces in human life … self control…” (Galatians 5:22,23). Only by staying in close touch with God, obeying God's Spirit, do we have a will power that is strong and sure. One's character will be no better than the strength of one's trained will power . Whatever you do, "don't quench God's Spirit within you."
You and I don't change our character by struggling, tugging and pulling at all kinds of self-help exercises. Instead of changing us, those exercises only exhaust us. The flower changes by looking at the sun. It heads in the right direction and the sun does the rest. The Scripture calls us to "Look to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith" (Hebrews 12:2). Head yourself in the right direction and see what God does! Character is God's effort within us.
I was interested to discover when preparing this message that character per se is discussed in the Bible only once. That is in Romans 5, where we read:
“… we … boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character , and character produces hope…” (Romans 5:3-4).
I don't believe that God wants us to suffer in order for us to “build character.” I think Paul is saying that suffering, by its very nature, makes us stronger -- it produces endurance.
Every athlete knows this: not only does practice make perfect, but in sports, literally, “no pain, no gain” – enduring suffering makes one stronger. Suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope.
Tragically, for some people, suffering only hardens their hearts – not their capacity for pain. Suffering makes them cold and callous to the misfortunes of others.
Paul wrote these words on suffering and endurance and character late in his life – after years of pain, disappointment, suffering, persecution, imprisonment and hardship. It was having gone through all of these that Paul, from the vantage point of his mature faith, was able to look back and see that his suffering had made him stronger. His suffering had given him a strength he would not have otherwise had.
So for Paul, suffering produced endurance, and endurance produced character and character produced the hope by which he lived.
Character is not built overnight. It takes time and experience to develop character. For most of us, it takes a lifetime to build a life of character.
Character is what you are. What a person does tells what he or she is. What good is there in saying we are Christian if we have no good character to prove it.
Our strength is shown in the things we stand for. Our weakness is shown in the things we fall for.
May the development of good character always be foremost in all that we do and say!
