The Diet That Transforms Lives

Credit is due to LC-MS President Gerald Kieschnick, who wrote the suggested sermon for LWML Sunday. Today’s sermon is largely based upon his writing.



Let’s see a show of hands for all those who’ve tried dieting. Did you use a particular diet plan? Which one did you use? Atkins? South Beach? Weight Watchers?
. . . Did it work?
Okay, well how about those people who have been talking about dieting for years but never have . . . let’s see your hands! I belong to that group myself. For years I’ve thought about losing a bit of weight, getting in better shape. I saw friends who really took off the pounds using the Atkins diet, and for a while Stephanie and I talked about doing Atkins together. You know how it works, you see the ads with the before and after pictures, and these obese people suddenly seem to have their bodies transformed into beautiful models. And I thought that the end result looked pretty good . . . but then I thought of all the things I’d have to give up. Grains . . . sweets . . . bread (I love bread) . . . and I didn’t go any further than talking. I wanted the end result, but simply wasn’t willing to pay the price!
I didn’t think I’d be able to actually stick it out—I’d have too many food temptations that would lure me off my diet, and I realized that I’d become just another statistic. CNN reported on a study done earlier this year by Dr. Michael Dansinger of Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston. And in study they looked closely at four popular diets: Atkins, Ornish, The Zone, and Weight Watchers. What they found was that three out of every four dieters quit their diet before a year is out. Three out of four!
And so, for those people who truly desire long-term weight loss, it was Dr. Dansinger’s recommendation that they try dating different diets. The idea was to try a diet for as long as you like, sampling the different diets here and there until you found one that you could stick with for life. Once you found that diet you could live with, stand by it and stick to the plan.
Now, the interesting part about this isn’t some sort of implied comparison between dieting and a Lutheran Women’s Missionary League meeting, but the really interesting part is when we compare dieting to religion. When a person diets they are seeking to transform their bodies. But when a person is involved in religion they are seeking to transform their spirits.
See, I think it’s pretty clear that people instinctively realize that there is something missing in their lives. People realize that something is wrong. They might not know enough to call it “sin”, but they still realize that something in their lives needs fixing. And when something needs fixing, you go out shopping, right? So they go out shopping for spiritual answers, trying out different religions, reading different books, now trying meditation, now trying positive thinking, now trying herbal therapy, now making a spiritual pilgrimage. Does it work? No. Like dieters that quit diets early and hop around from one to another, the spiritual “diet-shopper” never finds any true, long-lasting answers to their spiritual problems. They will never be transformed.
This is where Jesus Christ comes in. There is one—and only one—spiritual path that truly transforms. It is the way of Jesus Christ. Now, I’ll admit that many people find some temporary spiritual solutions in other places; they may find some other answers that seem to work—for now. But for the long haul, to have absolute peace for all eternity, there is no other answer than Jesus Christ.
That is what the Lutheran Women’s Missionary League is all about! Their mission statement reads, “The mission of the LWML is to assist each woman of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod in affirming her relationship with the Triune God so that she is enabled to use her gifts in ministry to the people of the world.” Since 1942 the LWML has been in the business of bringing Jesus Christ to those poor souls who are desperately longing for a spiritual transformation. They take these little things—called “mite boxes”—they take these things and throw some money in them and are able to raise—are you ready?—they are able to raise over ONE MILLION dollars every two years. Tens of millions of dollars, given by the LWML, have funded mission grants for over 60 years now! The activities of the LWML have helped bring the transforming message of Jesus Christ to countries literally all over the world. The activities of the LWML have even helped bring you your pastor—vicar—ummm . . me. Yes, I received a scholarship from the LWML that helped us get through seminary. Even gave me a hat!
How can they do this? I mean, honestly now, what compels a bunch of women to get together, to sacrifice their time, their money, and give it away? Simply this: they have been transformed by Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul says in today’s reading from Philippians, “Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you. For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.”
The Apostle Paul is speaking of the ultimate transformation that will come at the resurrection, but what is good for then is also good for right now. Right now we are receiving Christ’s transforming power, turning our lives from a purposeless existence into a life that truly lives and breathes, a life that worships Christ, a life that gathers together with other believers for strength and encouragement, a life that is involved in active discipleship, a life that has a mission and a ministry.
And how does Christ do this? How does He transform our lives? . . . By dying our death. You owe God one death—yours. And you incurred that debt through sin. Through your actions you have condemned yourself; you have invited judgment upon yourself as a sinner. There’s no getting around it, it’s true of every person in this room, including me.
But that debt of death that you owe—that was paid by Jesus Christ. Paul says in Galatians 4:4-5, “God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law.” This simply means that God sent His Son to buy us back, to pay our debt.
Jesus Christ drank the cup of suffering. He prayed in the Garden, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” And when He prayed, he was in anguish, and His sweat was like great drops of blood falling to the ground. His “diet”, if you will, was a diet of suffering, sacrificing His body and dying our death on the cross so that we might truly live.
But that’s not the end of the story, no! This Christ has also been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. And in Christ all will be made alive! Through Jesus Christ death itself is swallowed up in victory! Through His death and resurrection, Christ takes a hold of us, He transforms us. His diet of suffering gives us a truly transforming diet of forgiveness and righteousness; it gives us life and a purpose.
A life that is transformed by Christ is a force to be reckoned with. It is a life that lives moment by moment on God’s grace, a life that never leaves the foot of the cross, a life that realizes it no longer has anything to lose because it has already gained everything.
This is why the Apostle Paul can say in Philippians 3:13, “But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” And then he says in verse sixteen and seventeen, “Only let us live up to what we have already attained. Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you.”
Paul says that there’s nothing else that matters now except living the Christian life. You’ve got successes in your past? You’ve got failures? Neither one matters, the only thing that matters is looking forward in Jesus Christ. You’ve got a good reputation? You’ve got a skeleton in the closet? Neither one matters! What matters is one thing: the enormous gift of grace we’ve received in Jesus Christ. In Christ we live out the transformed life that we have already been given.
There’s a story from the popular “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series about transformed lives that’s told about Lewis Lawes and his wife Catherine. In 1921 Lewis was made the warden of Sing Sing prison—the toughest, roughest prison of the day. But when he retired twenty years later Sing Sing had become a humanitarian institution. People gave Lewis the credit for the change, but when he was asked about the transformation, he said, “I owe it all to my wonderful wife, Catherine, who is buried outside the prison walls.”
Catherine Lawes was a young mother of three small children when Lewis became the warden. Everybody warned her that she should never set foot inside the prison walls, but that didn’t stop her. When the first prison basketball game was held, she walked into the gym with her three beautiful children and sat in the stands with the inmates. Her attitude was, “My husband and I are going to take care of these men and I believe they will take care of me! I don’t have to worry!”
She insisted on getting acquainted with the men and their prison records. She discovered one convicted murderer was blind, so she paid him a visit. Holding his hand, she said, “Do you read Braille?” “What’s ‘Braille’?” . . . So she taught him how to read. Years later he would weep in love for her.
Later, Catherine found an inmate that was both deaf and mute. So she went to school and learned sign language so she could speak with him. Many, many people said that Catherine Lawes was the example of a life transformed by Jesus Christ. She was an example for the men of Sing Sing prison.H
One day she was in the prison, and then suddenly one day she wasn’t. Warden Lawes didn’t come to work. The prisoners and the entire prison knew something was wrong. Catherine Lawes had been killed in a car crash.
The following day, her body was resting in a casket at her home, ¾ of a mile from Sing Sing prison. And as the acting warden took his early morning walk, he was surprised to see a large crowd of Sing Sing prisoners—the toughest, roughest prisoners in the country—crowded together at the main gate, tears of grief streaming down their faces.
He knew how much they had loved Catherine, he knew how she had been an example of Christ’s transforming love to them . . . so he said, “All right, men . . . you can go. . . . Just be sure and check in tonight.” The gate was opened and a parade of convicted murderers, rapists, and crooks walked, without a single guard, the distance to the home of Catherine Lawes where they would pay their final respects.
That evening, every single one of those prisoners had checked back in. Every . . . single . . . one. Catherine’s example of a life transformed by Jesus Christ, her mission of bringing the peace and joy and purpose of Jesus Christ to a group of men that society had written off . . . it had worked. Score one more for God’s team.
Friends, Jesus Christ transforms lives. He transforms the lives of those whom He loves, and He transforms the lives of those who are, in turn, loved by them. He has transformed our lives—yours and mine—so that we can feed His message of life and love to others. And yes, He transforms the lives of those women in the LWML so that they may “assist each women of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod in affirming her relationship with the Triune God so that she is enabled to use her gifts in ministry to the people of the world.”
Today we give thanks for the women of the Lutheran Women’s’ Missionary League and the significant work they have done throughout the world through the transforming power of Jesus Christ in their lives. And today I and the Apostle Paul say to the rest of you, “Join with others in following their example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you.” Support the work of the LWML. Ladies, join with them in spreading the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ to the world. Men, support these women as they continue in this most valuable work. And you all, give thanks to God for the transforming diet of Jesus Christ. In Him may we live up to what has already been attained: May we life out the transformed life that we have already been given.