1 Kings 19.15-16, 19-21; Galatians 5.1,13-25; Luke 9.51-62

It was all about focus. The first two sets were extremely close, both ending in a tie-break, which he lost. Then, somehow, he turned things around and played a really good two sets. He had the momentum; he turned the match around. Until . . .

At the end of the fourth set, his opponent took what is called a comfort break. He lost his concentration during that time; waiting around for his opponent to return distracted him; the momentum he had created disappeared, and the fifth set was a walkover - not in his favour. He lost the match, and his chance of progressing further at Wimbledon.

I’m a Henman fan and over the years he has caused me some anxious moments - there have been the highs and the lows, moments of sublime tennis but also not-so-good matches - though sadly recently rather more of the latter. This year, as I’m sure you all know, his Wimbledon hopes ended on Thursday in his match against the Spaniard Feliciano Lopez.

If you want to win, you have to keep focused, and concentrate like mad on the goal, so that you continue the journey. You mustn’t allow yourself to become distracted. You must give your all.

If you want to follow Jesus, you also have to stay focused. You need to keep your eyes on him. Even going off to bury your father - something many Jews saw as the most holy and binding duty of a son - must take second place when it comes to following Christ.

Going to say goodbye to one’s family cannot be an excuse for putting off the moment when one makes the decision to follow Jesus. Not many of us plough by hand today, but however beautifully straight the furrow that you have already ploughed is, it won’t continue to be so, if you look back and admire it. If you turn your head away from where you are going, your furrow will wobble and go off track.

Perhaps a modern analogy is that of riding a bicycle. If you keep looking forward while on you’re on your bike, you’ll carry on riding in a straight line - I can tell you from experience that if you turn your head to see where you’ve come from, you start to wobble, you go off course and may even end up crashing.

The Christian life is like that too.  If we are not to wobble and fall off, we need to keep focussed on our goal. We need to keep the momentum going and not become distracted by things that turn us aside.

Today’s Gospel story reminds us that this is what Jesus did. “His face was set towards Jerusalem”. Nothing was going to shift that focus, nobody was going to turn him away from the path that he knew was set for him, a path that led to suffering and crucifixion, but a path from which he did not waver.

Paul also remind the Galatians that they need to stand firm. They mustn’t return to their old ways in which they experienced a yoke of slavery, slavery to the law. Their faith had brought them freedom in Christ, but they needed to hold on to that and keep looking forward, not submit to the old ways and the things of the past. They had to stop looking back and start living in the freedom to which they had been called.

And, here is a big tension that is at the heart of Christianity - faith and law. It’s a tension that runs right through Paul’s teaching in the letter to the Galatians, but it’s a tension that exists today.

At the heart of Christianity is God’s grace. In order to be freed from the death and devastation that sin brings about, we only have to believe. How much better that is than having to keep hundreds of rules and regulations! And yet, we also know that the New Testament is full of teaching about how to behave, which easily turns into rules and regulations, if we’re not careful.

So how do we hold these two things together? How do we allow our focus to remain on Jesus without our faith becoming nothing more than a list of dos and don’ts.

Paul has the answer - there are two important things about the freedom that grace brings. One is that it is not about self-indulgence but about love. Love is our guiding principle. Love is what Jesus expects from his followers - a love of God and a love of our neighbour.

And the second thing about the freedom that Christ brings is that through the Holy Spirit, we are enabled to love. Through the Spirit, we can grow and develop certain fruit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

And there are two ways in which these things can grow in us and transform us - the first is not successful; the second is. The first is to say to ourselves “I must be more patient or loving or joyful or whatever it is we are struggling with.” We will fail because in our own strength we will struggle to develop these qualities.

The second way is to submit our lives to the Holy Spirit, to open our lives to the work of the Spirit and to allow the Spirit to grow these qualities within us. An apple can only grow successfully on an apple tree, a tree that is through and through an apple tree. The Spirit’s fruit can only grow successfully in someone who is rooted in the Spirit, who has the Spirit dwelling within.

Living by the Spirit is not about developing a list of rules and regulations to live by - that is change from the outside in. Living by the Spirit is about being transformed from the inside out.

Trying to change outwardly will only be superficial because what is inside will catch up with us at some point. Allowing ourselves to be transformed inwardly will lead to a change outwardly.

To receive the Holy Spirit does not involve us in doing anything - we cannot reach out and grab the Spirit as it goes by. We cannot pass an exam or build up enough loyalty points for us to be given the Spirit. What it involves, rather than us doing anything, is our surrender, our surrender to God, our submission to Christ, and our opening our lives to the Spirit.

Surrender is difficult because it means shifting the focus of our world. To surrender means handing control of our lives to someone other than ourselves. We come right back to where we started - Jesus’s response to the man who wanted to bury his father and the one who wanted to say goodbye.

To surrender ourselves to the Holy Spirit will allow us to be transformed and will allow the fruits of the Spirit to grow in us - the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

As we are transformed inwardly, outward signs of this will become evident. As the Spirit meets us and changes us, we will display behaviour that is more loving and more generous.

As we surrender ourselves to control by the spirit, we will be transformed.

There is a hymn that sums up so well what this surrender is about, a life offered to God.

Take my life, and let it be
consecrated, Lord, to thee.
Take my moments and my days;
let them flow in ceaseless praise.

Take my hands, and let them move
at the impulse of thy love.
Take my feet, and let them be
swift and beautiful for thee.

Take my voice, and let me sing
always, only, for my King.
Take my lips, and let them be
filled with messages from thee.

Take my silver and my gold;
not a mite would I withhold.
Take my intellect, and use
every power as thou shalt choose.

Take my will, and make it thine;
it shall be no longer mine.
Take my heart, it is thine own;
it shall be thy royal throne.

Take my love, my Lord, I pour
at thy feet its treasure store.
Take myself, and I will be
ever, only, all for thee.

Amen.