Campville and Gibson Corners UMC Sermons

“Living our Baptism”

2012-01-15T16:15:00.000-05:00

Scripture: Acts 19:1-7

There is a United Methodist document in print with the name “By Water and the Spirit”. It was published in 1996 by the United Methodist General Board of Discipleship as a means to address the debate over the United Methodist understanding of baptism. Over the centuries, the issue of baptism - what is correct and valid, and what is not - has been considered, explained, debated, revised, denounced, and revised again, time after time after time. Denominational splits have occurred, at least in part, over this very issue, and still there is no universal agreement on its proper administration, and even on its significance.
People still come to the church to have their babies baptized, without having even a basic appreciation for what it’s all about, but they insist that it be “done” just the same. And the tragedy is that many pastors continue to accede to their wishes instead of taking the time to educate them in the ways of the Church.

And the struggle is nothing new - it began in the earliest days of the church and continues to today, and it will continue into the future. And so I’ve decided to use this time today to discuss some of the particulars of baptism in the context of our scripture for the day, and to try to dispel some of the myths.

Read Acts 19:1-3

The most basic tenants of faith – believing in Jesus Christ and receiving the Holy Spirit – didn’t seem to be all that important to some. The statement “Come and join the church – that’s all you need to do!” has apparently been around since Paul’s time, and is still popping up in some of our congregations. If there is no belief in the Spirit, how could a person possibly be a follower of Jesus Christ? Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35), and John told us that Christ will baptize with the Spirit (Mark 1:7-8). The Holy Spirit was one of his great gifts to us – that we would never be left alone, that when he left this world, he would send the Spirit – the Counselor – to convict us of sin and to lead us in righteousness (John 16:5-11).
And yet, these early disciples didn’t know that there even was a Holy Spirit. It makes you wonder just what they did believe!

And if that wasn’t enough, they felt that they had received John’s baptism, not that of God. Today, there is still a confusion over who and what is involved. In “By Water and the Spirit”, we read of the difference between a dedication and a baptism – it says, in part, that “in a dedication we make a gift of a life to God for God to accept, while in a sacrament [i.e. baptism]God offers the gift of God’s unfailing grace for us to accept.” Baptism isn’t our gift to God, and it isn’t one person’s gift [i.e. the pastor!] to another. Baptism isn’t from me any more than it was from John. Baptism is a gift from God.

But we still say “Rev. ‘X’ baptized me.” Think about it, though – isn’t a gift from God so much better than one from a human? Shouldn’t we vastly prefer that a gift of this magnitude and of this importance be one that is permanent? Remember that human gifts never last, but God’s always does. Which brings us to another issue – the nonrepeatability of baptism. Some denominations allow multiple baptisms, but United Methodism allows only one. We believe that since baptism is a gift from God, that one will always be sufficient. To believe otherwise is to imply that God didn’t get it right the first time. However, we will, from time to time, fail in living out our baptismal vows and we may wish to reaffirm our covenant, and that is permissible. But in that type of service, water is used in other ways than in the baptismal means.

Read Acts 19:4-7

Paul reaffirms the covenant that these men received, but he doesn’t place water on them again. He lays hands on them, and they discover, in a rather distinct way, just what the Holy Spirit is all about! They had received the significance of the water originally, but not that of the Holy Spirit.

So what is the significance of baptism, and what is it not? From “By Water and the Spirit” –“Baptism involves dying to sin, it is the newness of life, a union with Christ, the receiving of the Holy Spirit, and incorporation into Christ’s Church.” The water represents a cleansing, a rebirth, a renewing, but it isn’t the same as salvation. John Wesley said that “while baptism was neither essential to nor sufficient for salvation, it was the ‘ordinary means’ that God designated for applying the benefits of the work of Christ in human lives. … Without personal decision and commitment to Christ, the baptismal gift is rendered ineffective.” [from “By Water and the Spirit”] In other words, Wesley is warning us that going through the motions of baptism without taking the vows and obligations of it seriously, will result in our receiving the water, but not the Spirit. This is what had happened, I believe, to those 12 men in our text for this morning.

“By Water and the Spirit” tells us that “Baptism is a covenant, as well as a sacrament. A covenant involves promises and responsibilities of both parties; it is instituted through a special ceremony and expressed by a distinguishing sign.”
Do you remember the vows that are taken at both baptism and entry into membership in the United Methodist church? Just in case, here they are: [From “The United Methodist Book of Worship” and “The United Methodist Hymnal” (1989 ver.)]
1. “Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil power of this world, and repent of your sin?”
2. “Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?”
3. “Do you confess Jesus Christ as your Savior, put your whole trust in his grace, and promise to serve him as your Lord, in union with the church which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations, and races?”
In essence, we are covenanting with God to turn away from the evils of the world and the sins that are in our lives, while admitting that we can only do so through the power that God brings to us. And in that, we also claim Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and that we trust solely in him for our eternal life. It’s interesting to note that we are also claiming our part in the Church Universal. In baptism, we are no longer a solitary individual, with our own means and agendas. We are to become part of the greater body – the Body of Christ – and promise to serve in the name of Jesus Christ with the entire Church.
And this last point is affirmed by the congregation when they confirm that they will love and encourage and mentor the individual, and will pray that he or she will become a true and full disciple of Jesus Christ.

Baptism is not something to take lightly, but I suspect that if people do, it is because they have not had the opportunity to understand the full significance of the sacrament. The 12 men in our text for today had gone for years under the mistaken understanding that they were fully baptized, but it was only when Paul took the time to minister to them that the reality of baptism finally came to them. As a congregation, and as a pastor, we all have the obligation to ensure that others are able to come to Christ through both baptism and personal decision.
Baptism can no longer be seen as existing in a moment in time, it can no longer be understood as a solitary and standalone act, it can no longer be “done and over with”. Our baptism must become a way of life for us, a new beginning.

In Matthew 28:19-20, Jesus offers the Great Commission to his followers. “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”
Make disciples of all nations – invite others to come and see who this marvelous Lord is and what he is about, without any screening or mandates or admission criteria.
Baptize them – not in the name of John the Baptist, and definitely not in the name of Bill Prentice, but in the name of our Triune God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
And then teach them to live in a Godly way, in the way that Jesus taught us to live.

We don’t come to our baptism in perfection and righteousness, but rather in need of Jesus’ perfecting act on Calvary and in the righteous life that he alone can offer.

We must live our Baptism, we must and claim our baptism, and we must share our baptism with others in the name of Jesus Christ.

“The Glory of the Lord for All!”

2012-01-08T14:50:00.000-05:00

Scripture: Isaiah 59:21-60:6

The word glory has almost become a “throw away” word – one that is used so often and in so common a way that it nearly loses its significance and almost becomes meaningless. The word should mean magnificence, grandeur, exaltation. But for many people, it no longer speaks of any true splendor.
At a worship service during a Kairos weekend at Waymart SCI, a couple of men began to shout out “Glory! Glory!” Their eyes were closed, their hands were in the air, and you could feel the prickling of the Holy Spirit all over your body. They knew what glory is, and they gave great honor to the name.

But what is glory for, what is it all about? What does scripture say about glory

We see it at creation on the first day, God proclaimed that there would be light. There was no sun or stars or moon yet, only darkness and chaos – our physical lights wouldn’t come into being until the 4th day. That first glory that pushed the darkness away was the Spirit of God, the glory of God was in creation.
We see it in Egypt at the beginning of the Exodus. The people have begun their journey to the Promised Land, but Pharaoh has changed his mind. He pursues them, and while the people are terrified at the prospect of being caught in the desert, God tells them “But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am God.” (Exodus 14:4b) And he did.
We see the Lord’s glory revealed again when the Almighty begins to feed the people with quail and manna. In Exodus 16:7, we are told “in the morning, you will see the glory of the Lord, for he has heard your grumbling against him.”
Whenever God appears to the people, it is described as “the glory of the Lord” (Exodus 16:10). When God joins Moses on Mt. Sinai to hand down his law, the cloud that envelopes the mountain is said to be the Glory of the Lord. (Exodus 24). Later, Moses would ask to see the glory, and God places him in a cleft of the rock, and covers him so that he only sees the Glory’s back. (Exodus 33:12-33)
The Psalms speak of the glory over and over again.

The light that bathed the shepherds on Christmas is said to be God’s glory. (Luke 2:8-12)
At the transfiguration, Christ was in glory. (Luke 9:28-36)
In John 8:54, Jesus tells the people that he doesn’t glorify himself, but that it is the Father, and him alone, who brings glory to the Son.
We read that when Christ returns, he will be enveloped in a cloud of glory. (Matthew 25:31-33)

And the examples appear over and over throughout scripture. Glory is something that should astound and amaze us, not something that we take lightly.

Rev. James Harnish, in his book “Glory!” writes
Tom Farmer is the pastor at St. Paul's Church in Largo, FL. Tom is a Southern boy, whose favorite expression is, “Glory!” He says it all the time. Sitting on the windowsill in his office is a cast copy of the word – Glory! It looked as if it had been cut out of Styrofoam, but if you are ever invited to pick it up, it will take both hands to lift it because it is molded in solid lead.

It’s uncertain if the guy who made that for Tom knew his Hebrew, but he got it right. The glory of God, revealed in Jesus Christ, is not some light, simplistic, easy triumph over life's problems. It is not some kind of syrupy spiritual goo we pour over ourselves to hide what is really going on inside us. Glory is not some golden glow in the western sky which wraps itself around us on a sunset evening. Glory is heavy. It is full of God's love in human experience. It is as heavy as the cross.
--Rev. James A. Harnish, Glory! (Hyde Park United Methodist Church, Tampa, Fla., 26 February 1995), 2-3.

Glory – existing at the moment of creation; Glory - at the miracle of the crossing of the Red Sea; Glory - in the Lord’s appearing in human form; Glory - in Christ’s salvation journey that took him through the cross. The declaration that “Glory is heavy!” is, at best, an understatement!

Read Isaiah 59:21 – 60:3

So what does this passage tell us about the purpose of God’s Glory? We read that darkness, by default, covers the earth and all the people. And it is only by grace that God brings his light into our lives.
“The Lord rises upon you!” What a wonderful expression. Think about the sunrise. Have you ever watched the sun come up? At first, there is just a hint of light that if you aren’t really observant, can be missed. Then some color comes into the sky, and gradually, brilliance begins to bath the landscape. The entire process takes about 20 to 30 minutes, but it is incredible! And if you are truly blessed, the sky will put on a display that will blow you away.
On morning when we had a Kairos weekend at Waymart, we arrived at the prison, which is on a hill overlooking the town, just as the sun broke through the morning fog. The sky lit up in the most amazing reds that we had ever seen. 20 grown men just stood there in the parking lot, gawking, jaws resting on our chests, unable to speak, except to proclaim that the glory of God had become perfectly evident to us in that very moment. We took it as a sign that the Lord would be with us through that entire weekend, and he was.

That’s what it means when we read “the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you.” Israel saw it in the desert; Peter, James, and John saw it on Mount Horeb; the disciples saw it at Christ’s ascension; the Church has been encouraged by it and lead by it for 2 thousand years. When the glory of the Lord appears and rises upon us, it cannot be missed.

Read Isaiah 60:4-6

And all we have to do is wake up, open up our blurry eyes, and look up to what is right there before us. “Lift up your eyes and look about you;” (v.4)!
Many, though, prefer the darkness because they see it as a means to hide from the truth of God's reality. But think about what they are missing! Radiance, a heart that throbs and swells with joy, riches beyond all measure! But we aren’t to take these riches in an earthly way - the blessings of Almighty God have little to do with earthly wealth. And quite honestly, earthly glory pales in comparison to that which comes from heaven!

And what is our part in all of this? Glory isn’t ours to have and hold, and yet it is given for us to experience. Glory isn’t Christ’s, and yet, through him, glory is given to the Father, and it will then come back from the Father. In John 15:7-8, we read “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”

The context of the “asking”, of course, is not for personal glory or gifts. The requests that are answered are always for the purposes of ministry and mission. It must be for the opportunity to service, and not to be served. God’s response to our requests comes from “remaining in Christ and his words remaining in us.” – not for our glory, but for the Father’s.

Are we bearing much fruit? Are we bearing any fruit? Are we bringing glory to God through our discipleship in Jesus Christ?

Johann Sebastian Bach was not the first composer/artist/author to write on a finished work, above or below his own name, the initials AMDG. The initials were Latin shorthand for the phrase Ad Majorem Dei Gloria which, when translated, means “For the Greater Glory of God Alone”.

Are these letters being written above the signature of your life? Forget the turbocharged Majorem. Are you inscribing the simple letters ADG (For the Glory of God) above everything you do, above everything you buy, above everything you say, above everywhere you go?
- Homiletics Online –

Today we celebrate Epiphany – the day when Glory was revealed to the foreign wise men. They saw the glory of God in the heavens, and followed it all the way to Bethlehem. It was a long and difficult journey for them, but it was never about them – it was only about discovering the greatest gift that had ever been given to earth – a gift that was no longer exclusive to Israel, but one that has come for the entire world. And that is our call, too – to discover the glory of God that is ours in Christ Jesus and then to share that gift with others, that they, too, might come into the “brightness of the dawn” (v.3).

All for the Glory of God, so that all in this world might see and be blessed by his glory. Not our glory, his. Not the world’s glory, his. Not that we might see, but that others might.

Everything that we do, everything we have, everything we enjoy, everything we say, everywhere we go, everyone we serve, every time we show the love of Christ, every moment we witness to the glory that rises upon us and appears over us, every step in our life with Christ – Glory!

Sign your life with the letters ADG – for the Glory of God, that his glory might rise upon you.

“The Spirit of Newness”

2012-01-01T18:03:00.004-05:00

Scripture: Galatians 4:4-12a

For centuries, the church has struggled with our understanding of just what our relationship with God in Christ is all about. Are we servants? Slaves? Freed Men and Women? Adopted Children? The redeemed? Disciples? Who are we really? What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus Christ?

Dallas Willard, author of the book “The Spirit of the Disciplines” writes:
“The word disciple is used 269 times in the New Testament. The word Christian is found only three times. [I couldn’t find that many, through!] The New Testament is a book about disciples, by disciples and for disciples of Jesus Christ.”

“For at least several decades the churches of the Western world have not made discipleship a condition of being a Christian. One is not required to be, or to intend to be, a disciple in order to become a Christian, and one may remain a Christian without any signs of progress toward or in discipleship. Contemporary American churches in particular do not require following Christ in his example, spirit and teachings as a condition of membership ...discipleship clearly [has become] optional.”

Given this premise, the conclusion is predictable, though no less startling: Most problems in churches [of today] can be explained by the fact that members have not yet decided to follow Christ. No one yet knows what changes would be wrought if the way of Christ were truly tried in human affairs.
- Dallas Willard - The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988).

Or to quote Karl Marx, “There’s nothing wrong with Christianity – it’s just that no one has ever tried it!”

Read Galatians 4:4-7

“Born under law, to redeem those under law”. And not just to redeem a servant, not to free a slave, but to restore a legitimate and precious child of God. Paul uses the word “heir”. An heir is one who benefits from the possessions of the one who comes before, and the person’s will spells out the limitations placed on the inheritance. But since God is eternal, our inheritance must come to us in a different way, and not through a document that limits – it comes to us in the will of divine grace and mercy. An heir of God inherits the most precious of possessions – life and glory and eternal relationship with the King of Heaven.

But if Jesus was born under law, why did he spend so much time in conflict with the keepers of the law, the learned scribes and Pharisees? The only explanation must be that those “keepers” were mistaken in what the law was all about. In Matthew’s Gospel, we get a glimpse of the truth in this matter. Jesus is confronted by the Pharisees over his teaching on divorce (Matthew 19:3-12). They quote the “law” to the Lord, but he tells them, in essence, that this was Moses’ idea, and not God’s. It seems that we have to be careful in discerning which commandments are of Moses and the Law Keepers, and which ones are from the Almighty. Jesus was under the law of God, not of Moses, and he tried over and over again to get the learned men of Israel to see the difference. And they seldom did.

In verse 6, we read that God has sent the Spirit of Christ into the hearts of all believers, of all followers, of all disciples.
Of course, it isn’t the presence of the Spirit that redeems us – that is the work of Jesus Christ. The Spirit is God’s gift for those who claim the redemptive act of Christ. In our reading from Dallas Willard’s writing, it would seem that church attendance, or even membership for that matter, does not ensure that we will receive the Spirit. So what is required to be so blessed? We must become true followers of the Lord Jesus Christ – following his path, walking his way, claiming his teaching, living in his life. Nothing more and nothing less can be sufficient. It is only by surrendering our dependence on the benefits of this life that we can even begin to realize the glories of a life in Christ.
But it will cost us – nothing of value is ever cheap! It will cost us friendships and family relationships. It will cost the endurance of ridicule, disbelief, and humiliation at the hands of the world around us. It will require faith in the unseen promises of God and trust in the word that has been laid out for us. It will cost us popularity in our social surroundings, it will not receive the accolades of humanity, and it will not be seen as credible in this life.
It cost Jesus all of these things and more, and our life in him will be the same. To believe any different is to cheapen the grace that God has offered us in the Lord.

We would do well to adopt the motto of David: “I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God which cost me nothing.” (2 Sam.24:24).
- Homiletics Online
Following Jesus Christ is always a costly proposition!

Read Galatians 4:8-12a

Paul had a major concern for the church in Galatia – some, if not a majority of the people were beginning to revert back to their old ways and to their old gods. He reminds them that in Christ, they have been freed from their slavery to these sinful ways, but that now they are starting to surrender themselves to sin all over again. We aren’t told what they are actually doing, but Paul mentions their observation of “special days” and so on – a reference, probably to adherence to pagan holidays, or possibly even Jewish observances. His fear is that once they return to the old celebrations, one thing will lead to the next, and the newness that came in Christ may very well fall away.

The church of 2012 must also be constantly on the alert for this pitfall. How much of the old life do we try to hang on to? Do we still surround ourselves with the trappings of Halloween, with the commercialism of Christmas, with the secularization of other Christian holidays? Do we still prefer the company of our old friends over fellowship with those in the Church? Are we still trying to serve “two masters”? When we tell others about the church, do we offer them the image and way of Christ, or do we describe the fellowship in terms that are warm and soft and uncomplicated – even undemanding?

From Homiletics:
There are some churches that attempt to shine a faint and fractured penlight of brightness out into the darkness by proclaiming “We Want to Be Your Friend” or “We Make Friends” or “This Is a Warm, Friendly Fellowship”. These congregations are often surprised when this faded message fails to attract others in out of the dark.

But it's that very message that is the problem. Friendship is not what people are looking for in a church; they're not looking for friendliness; they're not looking for friends. This culture would have the church adopt as its mission “We Make You Happy”. But the mission of the church is not to make people happy, or to help people feel good about themselves. It is to glorify God and be an earnest of eternity.
- Homeletics OnLine

This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be warm and welcoming and friendly. We certainly should be, but that can’t be our mission. The church isn’t a “feel-good club”! It is the Body of Christ, carrying the message of redemption and glory that comes from Jesus Christ and is extended to all who seek a new relationship with God.
Are we doing that? Please don’t think that I’m suggesting that we aren’t, but the question still remains – are we truly being Christ to the world?

Today is a new year. Many are making New Year’s resolutions, which, quite honestly, will be completely forgotten and discarded within a day or two. But we have been given a covenant in Christ that is unbreakable and eternal. The problem, though, is that we can still relinquish our responsibilities as disciples. In this new year, consider what and where your focus has been, whether it has been on life in the here and now, or in life in eternity. Consider whether you have been celebrating in Jesus Christ, or in the “special days and months and seasons and years” that Paul was so concerned about.

In this new year of 2012, claim the Spirit of Newness that only comes from the heart of Christ, and live as his disciple, and not just as one who is along for the ride.

“At Long Last!”

2011-12-25T15:41:00.000-05:00

Scripture: Hebrews 1:1-12

Did you know that the Lord goes to great lengths to get his people to listen to him? Last week, we considered the various ways that he got Moses, Jonah, Esther and others to listen to the word that he had for their lives. For others, He has used the prophets to bring his word to life – many of them, spread over hundreds of years – and for the most part, the people discounted their every word, they refused to believe. God must get very frustrated with us, don’t you think? But frustrated or not, he never gives up!

Pastor John Stendahl writes:
This Word, then, is not simply a message you can put into words. It comes as a person, a life enfleshed and enacted. It has to do with compassion and vision, but there is also something frightening about it, a kind of desperate insistence. “IF YOU WON'T LISTEN TO THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS, MAYBE NOW YOU'LL SEE.”
God, so vulnerable, casting this unphilosophical proposition into our world, this baby, is dependent on our response. Now even the cross that lies ahead takes on a seemingly strange and eerie reality: “THEN maybe their hearts will be moved, THEN they'll know how I love them.”
The messenger and the message are thus joined. Even in those tellings of the gospel in which Jesus struggles against this identification, it proves finally to be so. The Word is enfleshed, and born to die.
--John Stendahl, The message and the messenger, Christian Century, December 17, 1997, 1187.

And God said “Do you think they’ll listen to my Son?”

Read Hebrews 1:1-4

Jesus – heir of all things - present, past and future; jointly involved in creation of the entire universe; the radiance of heavenly glory; the exact representation of the Father; the source of purification for our sins.
What an incredible statement of faith! If we truly believe all of this, why wouldn’t we listen? I would think that every follower of Jesus would want to hang on every single word that he has to say to us. Think about some of these attributes: heir of all things – there is nothing that isn’t his; a co-creator with the Father – he pre-existed creation, he has always been and always will be, and his signature is on the created order; radiance of glory – he isn’t just filled with heavenly glory – he is the glory; the exact representation of God – whoever God is, whatever God gives, whatever God says, it’s also true of Jesus. There is no difference. They are not copies. They are exactly the same; purification for our sin – he doesn’t just redeem, he doesn’t just forgive – he is the redemption and the forgiveness for our lives.
This is what God wants us to know, this is what he has been trying to tell us for two millennium!

Read Hebrews 1:5-9

Some folks tend to get hung up on the significance of the angels, and some even believe that we should worship these heavenly beings. The writer of Hebrews, though, wants us to see them differently. Angels are not divine – they are simply the ones who carry out the desires and the message of God – they are not God themselves.
The text tells us that angels are not sons of God - but who is? First, Jesus is the one and only begotten Son, and through him, we also can become children of God. Not angels. Believers! Jesus is the first-born of God, and by being born again in Christ, we then can also come to the Father as his children.
In verse 7, we are given something else that we need to think about – our relationship with the angels. Angels, scripture tells us, are the winds, and we are the flame. Have you ever watched the fire department fight a grass or brush fire? If there is no wind, the fire moves very slowly, and sometimes, it even burns itself out. Those are the easy ones. But if even a little wind stirs up, the flames jump and you will be hard pressed to catch them. It’s a real race trying to get to the head of the fire, because that is the only place you can stop its spread.
Imagine – God’s messengers are the winds that fan the flames of our faith! And rightly so. Consider the effect that the angel had on Mary and Joseph! The fire of their spirit was fanned into a full blown blaze, to the point that nothing could interfere with their faithful completion of the task God had given them. How about the angels that visited the shepherds on that first Christmas? Were they on fire or what? You’d better believe that they were! How about the disciples on Pentecost? Paul on the Road to Damascus? You and me when we discovered how personal and loving and close Jesus actually is to us?
The angels carry a message that comes directly from God’s heart, and how could his servants not burst into a roaring inferno?

But does Jesus need to be fanned into flame? Of course not. He is God, and he is already full of the holy fire. “therefore, God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.” The angels are the constant companions of the Lord. They are available to provide for any of Jesus’ human needs, such as after his 40 day fast in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11), but he has no need of spiritual encouragement. He is the encouragement for our lives.

Read Hebrews 1:10-12

This is the Lord God Almighty. Eternal, imperishable, unchanging, and yet, humble, gentle, loving, forgiving. An enigma, a puzzle, if you will. The heavenly home of our Eternal God, the place that has been promised to us, is going to perish and then be remade in a whole new way. Don’t try to figure that out, just claim it. God can never perish, but everything else will either completely disappear or will be radically changed. And that includes you and me. 1 Corinthians 15:53, a passage that is used quite often in our funeral liturgy, tells us that the perishable must put on imperishability, and the mortal must put on immortality. Nothing that is created is eternal – it all is perishable, and that includes you and me.
But for those who are in Christ, for those who “are clothed with Christ” (Galatians 3:26-28), they are embraced in eternity, and are changed forever. Jesus told the parable of a wedding banquet (Matthew 22:1-14). The parable ends with the words “Many are invited, but few are chosen.” In the story, everyone was expected to be wearing wedding clothes, and those who were not were escorted out of the hall, to their eternal dismay.

“They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment.” (v.11) On that first Christmas day, everything began to change. The Newborn of Bethlehem, even though he came in a perishable human form, was the eternal and imperishable God who is both before and beyond creation. The Child who would be nourished by a human mother’s milk would, himself, bring spiritual nourishment – eternal sustenance – for the entire world. That helpless Infant who had to be held and fed and carried wherever he went, would be the One who would redeem humanity from their self-destructive existence, the One who would carry the entire burden of worldly sin all the way to Calvary.

Christmas is our beginning. It is the first ray of hope in an otherwise dark and forbidding life; it is the dawn of a new day; it is the offer to be clothed in the Immortal and Incarnate Christ; it is the gift of imperishability and the hope for eternity.
But as with any gift, it has to be accepted. In the wedding banquet parable that was mentioned before, many had been invited to come to the celebration, but many were just too busy to attend. And they soon found themselves “on the outs” with the King.

Parable after parable is offered to show us the necessity for Christ in our lives (eg. Rich man and Lazarus; The Tenants; and others). Without the Baby Jesus, the perishable world would just continue on their merry way, believing that doing “good things” is good enough.
Without Jesus of Bethlehem, mortality and finality would be our sentence. But in Christ, we will never “wear out like a garment and be rolled up like a used up robe.” His garment is forever. Hallelujah! At Last!

“Sorry, No Room!”

2011-12-24T14:56:00.011-05:00

Scripture: Luke 2:1-20 (Christmas Eve)

Sixty-odd years before the birth of Christ, in an aristocratic community of Rome, a very important child was born. As soon as he arrived, a messenger raced into the Roman Senate and announced, “The next ruler of the world is born.” His name was Octavius, and he was destined to become the adopted son of Julius Caesar.
He grew up in the palace. He was educated by the finest teachers of literature, philosophy and government. And at the age of 33 he was the uncontested ruler of the entire Roman Empire. He only had to give the word and armies would march and ships would sail. He only had to give the word and the world would move for him. The Senate gave him the name Emperor Augustus, meaning the exalted, or revered one, and he would reign over the golden age of the empire.
- M. Craig Barnes, Becoming God’s child, National Presbyterian Church Web Site, December 13, 1998, Natpresch.org.

Augustus would greatly expand Roman influence through conquest and subjugation, but within the core of the empire, peace would become the watchword of the day – Pax Romana – or Roman Peace would be the normal day’s expectation for his subjects. He would establish a network of roads, he would create an early form of the mail system, he would create a standing police and fire fighting force in the city of Rome, he would create the Praetorian Guard (the Roman version of our Secret Service), and the eighth month on the calendar – August – would be named after him. And upon his death, the Roman senate would declare him to be a god, worthy of worship by all of the known world.

And this is the person who is mentioned in the first 5 words of our text for this night:

Read Luke 2:1-7

For just a moment, compare the life that Augustus would lead, to that of Jesus. They were born into the opposite ends of the social spectrum – Augustus into power and superiority, and Jesus into humility. Augustus would be educated in the ways of the elite, while Jesus would be trained to be a carpenter. Augustus would live in the finest of homes, but Jesus would never have any home that he could truly call his own. Augustus would be surrounded by the most influential and powerful people of his day, while Jesus would choose to be in the midst of the poorest and rejected of earth. And even though they would both be declared to be divine at their death (Augustus by the Roman senate and Jesus by Thomas), Augustus would stay dead, while Jesus would continue to live.
And if the truth were known, Augustus would probably fit Israel’s vision of Messiah far better than Jesus ever would. He would be powerful, he would be a warrior, he would be a conqueror, he would be respected by his friends and feared by his enemies; and he brought a sense of peace and honor to those who would follow him.
Jesus would never do these things, but then, was he supposed to? He would be meek and humble so that everyone might be welcome at his side, he would offer forgiveness so that good and bad alike could come to his table, he would offer a new way to glory, but never demanded allegiance, he would be misunderstood by his friends, and hated by his opponents, and peace and respect in this life would never come to either him or those who chose to follow.
Augustus would force his way into the lives of countless people in many nations, but Jesus would never force his way into anyone’s life. Augustus would demand that others make room for him, but even at his birth, there was no room whatsoever for Jesus.

But as different as their lives were, they would intersect at Bethlehem, and even though Augustus didn’t know it, he was to become the instrument that would fulfill Divine prophesy.

Read Luke 2:8-14

Just a little difference in the birth announcements, too! Augustus’ birth was announced to the highest and most powerful government officials in the greatest empire on earth, - they were told that “The next ruler of the world is born.”
Jesus birth, on the other hand, was proclaimed to the lowest of Jewish society, the unclean, the uneducated, ones with no power whatsoever – and they were told “A Savior has been born to you: he is Christ the Lord … Glory to God in the Highest, and on earth peace.” Augustus may have been the next ruler of Rome, but Jesus would be humanity’s Ruler for eternity!
No matter where Augustus went, there was plenty of room and nearly unlimited glory for him. But Jesus? There was no room and no glory at all for him.

Why would his heavenly Father allow such an inordinate discrepancy to occur? Who really deserves the honor and praise and glory of earth – the Savior of the world, or the “next ruler of Rome”? But before we get too judgmental of the people of the 1st century, let’s consider who we elevate to the status of “god” in our lives – who we give honor and glory to! Our jobs? Our social position? Drugged up and over paid sports figures? Shallow, conceited, immoral movie and recording stars? Elected officials who put their own agendas ahead of the needs of the nation? People who try to use the church to implement their own form of what is right, their own personal agenda, instead of letting the Holy Spirit reform and re-make them?
We make lots of room for the “Caesars” of the 21st century, but how much room do we really make for Jesus? The fact there was no room in the inn for the Anointed One of God seems more and more appropriate. The King of kings, the Prince of Peace, the Glory of the Heavens, relegated to an out of the way stable. It was prophesy, plain and simple!

Is it any wonder that it was shepherds who were the first to hear of Christ’s birth? They had no agendas, no position, no possessions, no wealth to distract them. They could make all kinds of room for Messiah!

Read Luke 2:15-20

When was the last time that we truly spent time seeking Jesus for our lives?
Shepherds left everything behind – their supper, their blankets, even their worldly responsibilities – and headed out to discover Jesus for themselves. Shepherds, who were considered unworthy because they were covered with blood and other filth that came from caring for their sheep, were the only ones who heard the heavenly messengers that evening, and were the only ones who left earth behind to find heavenly glory. They made room for God.
Mary, an unwed teenager, and her fiancé Joseph, committed themselves solely and completely to God’s purpose, and they set their fear of the world’s condemnation aside. And burdened with condemnation, they would be. And yet, they made room for God.

Pastor and author James Harnish writes:
I've begun to think that in one sense, the manger is a very small place. There isn't room in there for all the baggage we carry around with us. There's no room at the manger for our pious pride and self-righteousness. There's no room in the manger for our human power and prestige. There's no room at the manger for the baggage of past failure and unforgiven sin. There's no room at the manger for our prejudice, bigotry and hostile national pride. There's no room for bitterness and personal greed.

There is no room at the manger for anything other than the absolute reality of who and what we really are: very human, very real, very fragile, very vulnerable human beings who desperately need the gift of love and grace which God so powerfully desires to give.
--James A. Harnish, Do You Believe the Angels? Tampa, Fla., 24 December 1994.

On this night, we all must make room for him, like Mary and Joseph did, and like the shepherds did, and as countless millions have done over the centuries. Reach out to receive the grace and mercy that he holds out to you. Will you do that, or will you be saying to Jesus “Sorry, Lord. My life is just too busy and too hectic, and there is no room for you right now. Maybe one day I can carve out some room, but not now!”

Jesus spent his entire ministry with the masses. He sought no glory, no honor, no earthly position – his only and greatest desire was to bring those gifts to the world. Will you receive them tonight as his birthday gift to you?

“You’ve Gotta Be Kidding!”

2011-12-18T15:09:00.000-05:00

Scripture: Luke 1:26-38

For most folks, when they begin their new life with the Lord, it’s an exciting time. They begin to realize a new purpose for this existence, and a new way to walk through it. They come to know that they now have a new partner – one who cares both about and for them. And then a strange thing happens. They begin to sense that the Lord has plans for them that had never entered their mind before – plans that, at first, don’t seem to make much sense.

Consider Moses – In Exodus 3, we find him on Mount Horeb, watching a bush, engulfed in flame without being consumed, and hearing the voice of the Lord telling him that he was to go back to Egypt to bring the people out of slavery and into a new land. Moses wasn’t all that happy about going, and offered every excuse possible. But God had a response for every one of his objections.
Consider Jonah – In Jonah 1, the prophet is called by the Lord to go to the city of Nineveh to preach against their evil life styles. Down deep, he knows that God isn’t sending him to condemn the city, but rather to change the lives of the people, and he isn’t about to go quietly. He runs as far and as fast as he can, but to paraphrase the old saying - “You can’t out run God!”
Consider Esther – a young Jewish woman who has become the chosen queen of King Xerxes, ruler of the Medo-Persian empire. She is told of a plot by a man named Haman that would destroy the lives of every Jew in the empire, and she is the only one who is in position to reveal the truth to the King. She knows that to do so would violate the law and would result in certain death for her, but her cousin Mordecai reminds her that she had come to her royal position “for such a time as this.”
Consider the Gibson Corners United Methodist Church – called to go to Ecuador on a mission trip, thinking that they knew what it was all about, but in all actuality, could never have even imagined that the call would last 10 years, and that there is still more to do even today!
Consider Bill Prentice – still a relatively new man in Christ 15 years ago, who was invited to join a prison ministry. It was an effort that would reach out to drug and alcohol and sex offenders. He didn’t want to seem reluctant to serve the Lord, but he would shortly ask the same question that had to have been on the hearts and lips of Moses, and Jonah, and Esther, and some folks at Gibson Corners, as well as countless millions of the faithful over the past three thousand years - “Who? Me? You want me to do what? Lord, you’ve gotta’ be kidding!”

And then there was that young unmarried woman of Israel who was called by God to do something that was even more incredible than these.

Read Luke 1:26-29

“Greatly troubled”? I would certainly think so! Anyone who isn’t at least a little nervous when the Lord comes to offer them an opportunity to serve, probably doesn’t know just how strange God’s call can be! Mary had to have been a truly faithful woman, and when the angel called her “highly favored”, that would be equivalent to a friend of ours saying to us – “Hey – you’re really smart – I’ve got a job for you!” She knew instantly that the conversation was going to become pretty weird!
“Who? Me?”

Moses and Jonah and Esther and Gibson Corners and Bill all gave God every reason as to why his plan wouldn’t work, but in every case, God let them (us!) know that they wouldn’t be going and working alone – that he would be there with them (us!). The truth is that God doesn’t give calls to just anyone! They go to those who he knows will do it in his way and in his time. He gives them to those who know that it is the good Lord Himself who will be doing all the “heavy lifting”, and that our part of the job is to be faithful. But we all still suffer from the “Peter Syndrome”, and tend to keep at least a glimpse of the storm within our range of vision.

Read Luke 1:30-34

“You want me to what? But that’s impossible! I may be young, and I may not be married, but I know how this works, and I haven’t done that yet!” But God isn’t in the “normalcy” mode of doing things! He is in the “miraculous” mode! If his will could be accomplished in a human way, we wouldn’t need him. The calls would simply be “assignments”, and they could be completed with a conscientious attitude, a focused work ethic, and a great, personal effort.
But God calls us to do, through him, the impossible.

Consider Moses – 10 plagues that he couldn’t even have begun to put together, 2 water crossings that were miraculous in many ways, sustenance that came to them out of nowhere, visible signs that would lead them through the entire journey, and if that wasn’t enough, God’s own blessed word that was given by his own mighty hand! And after 40 years of trial, the people would receive the gift that had been promised to Abraham 600 years before.
Jonah – he would be stopped in his head long flight by a violent storm, the crew would cast lots that would fall immediately on Jonah, he would be thrown overboard and would promptly be swallowed up by a great fish, only to be vomited out 3 days later on the very shore that he had just left. He would surrender to the Lord’s desire, and as a result, 120,000 people and their herds and flocks would be saved.
Esther – she works up her courage, asks for 3 days of fasting, and then goes and does what she has been prepared to do. “If I perish, I perish” is her watch word, and not only are the Jews of the empire saved, and not only doesn’t Esther perish, but the scoundrel Haman and his henchmen are duly punished.
Gibson Corners – through their faithful struggle and loving service to the people of Ecuador, a school is now in operation, serving over 150 children with not only the 3 R’s, but is bringing the word of God to their hearts and souls.
Bill – he was scared stiff when he entered through the sally port of that Pennsylvania State Prison the first morning, wondering just what he could possibly have to say to “those despicable criminals”. But over the years, he would be blessed beyond all measure over and over again, and on one weekend a few years later, in the chapel at Waymart SCI, he would accept the Lord’s call to pastoral ministry.
And Mary, too, would accept the Lord’s impossible call on her life.

Read Luke 1:35-38

“For nothing is impossible with God.” Please note this – do NOT miss this very important point! The angel told Mary, and he tells each of us, that the impossible is accomplished “with” God, not “for” God or “through” God or "by" God! With God!

A businessman was asked to tell what his personal faith meant to him. He reached back to his boyhood experience and recalled walking with his father one day, having to reach up to hold on to his hand. After a while he said, “I can't hold on any longer, and you'll have to hold on to me for a while.” And he remembered the moment when he felt his father's hand take over. That, he said, was the way it felt to him to have faith in God. And that it was precisely an act of grace.

It is important that Christians not let grace become a universal principle or ideology. It is the grace of God of which the Bible speaks. Not the grace of some abstract principle of justice or love or acceptance. As God's grace, and not some principle of grace, God is the one who determines what it will be and where it will go. God ... called us with a holy calling, not according to our work, but according to his own purpose and grace (2 Tim. 1:9). But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ's gift (Eph.4:7).
- Homiletics On Line

The Lord’s call to us is not just an assignment that we are expected to carry out. It is a measure of his grace that is given freely to each of us. It was to Moses, it was to Jonah, it was to Esther, it was to Gibson Corners, it was to Bill Prentice, and it was to Mary.
Grace is unexplainable, it is irrational, it is impossible, it is irresistible, and, quite honestly, it has to be just a little bit crazy.
After all, who but God Himself would ever think that the perfect way to enter this world would be through the womb of a young, unmarried virgin? Who but God Himself would ever decide that the perfect place to make this entrance would be in a dirty, drafty, smelly stable? Who but the Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omniscient God would decide to come into this world as a helpless human infant who can’t speak or reason or even understand what is happening. Who else but a Loving and Almighty God would consent to be attended by humble adopted parents, by a group of unclean shepherds who were considered outcasts by their society, and by a few foreign astrologers? And by you? And by me?

God never “kids us” when he calls us to ministry and mission – he is always perfectly serious in his call - and yet, his ways are so unlike ours that they are hard to comprehend, and even harder to accept. And yet, as the angel told the woman who would soon bear the Son of God, “Nothing is impossible with God.”

Do you trust him enough to believe that? Do you trust him enough to accept the call that he is placing on your life in this very moment? Do you trust him enough to know that our God is always in the “let’s-do-the-impossible-together” business? “Nothing is impossible with God!”

That’s what Christmas is about. The impossible act being made real, the unworthy sinner being loved beyond all reason, the grace of God shared throughout the physical world, the glory of Jesus Christ coming down for you and me and all who will say yes to the impossible.
That is the message of Christmas. Proclaim it, live it, share it.

“A New Way In The New Life”

2011-12-11T16:41:00.000-05:00

Scripture: Isaiah 61:1-11

When we consider the relationship that we have with God, and that God has with humanity, we usually speak of it as a “covenant”. A covenant is more than just an agreement; it is much stronger than a contract; it isn’t a pact that can be modified or broken. A Covenant is about a new relationship, an entirely new approach to life - it is mutually beneficial, and it is eternal.
In Isaiah 59:21, we read a few thoughts on the covenant that God has made for us. The words are generally seen as a promise to Israel, but the truth is that they are for all who come to the Lord, whether as the Chosen People of God, or as redeemed Gentiles who come to God through Jesus Christ. He has placed his Spirit upon us, and his word is on our lips, and it will not depart for generations to come. This fits with God’s word in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:6), “.. showing love to a thousand generations, of those who love me and keep my commandments.”
God’s covenant – his offer of relationship – his newness - is unlike anything created by humanity, and it never ends.

Read Isaiah 61:1-3

God’s covenant is unique in yet another way, in that it always seems to be oriented toward those who are not powerful, who are anything but worthy. And while his covenant is certainly mutual in it’s make up, the benefits are heavily weighted in our favor. These first 3 verses from our text today describe what God is and will be doing for our world, but we also must note that he does it through us. “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor, ..”, and the prophet continues to list those things that the Spirit will do through those who claim God’s Holy Spirit. His people are anointed, commissioned, if you will, to carry God’s good news, his gospel message, to the masses. This preaching isn’t just scripture, but it is, in the fullest sense of the word, about being God’s representative to the world in every way possible. Let’s look at these words again to see what they are trying to tell us:
First, we are to “preach good news to the poor” – not necessarily with words, although we need to be ready to do that, but the most important way is in the way we live our lives. We are to be the reflection of God to everyone we come in contact with, and to be the good news for those who have yet to hear it. There are no exceptions as to who we share the message with, but, again, our emphasis will be on the “poor” – those who have been rejected by worldly standards.
Next, we are to “bind up the brokenhearted, proclaim freedom for the captive, and release from darkness for the prisoner.”
I put these 3 together because each one is about being the means of comfort and restoration and release for those who are severely burdened with life. These folks come with many faces – they are the deserted and abandoned, the abused, the shut in, the infirm, the challenged. They are our family and they are our neighbors, they live next door and they live far away, some have no place to live and others are shut away from the world. They have lost all of their family and friends, and they have no one left to love them. And we are the ones who Christ calls to bring them a sense of freedom and joy and hope.
We are to share the “year of the Lord’s favor and the day of his vengeance.” We are to be sure that others understand that both are coming, and that even though vengeance is for a day, it doesn’t mean that it will end in 24 hours. But we are to also proclaim that the year of favor will be far greater than anything we can imagine – it will be glory to eternity! And the choice is up to each and every person – it isn’t God who decides which we will receive, but it certainly is the Lord who will respond in whatever decision we make.
We are to be part of the lives of those who are distressed. And not just to make them comfortable, but to show them the joy that awaits them in Jesus Christ. We aren’t expected to take them out of their situation, we aren’t called to make everything better, but Jesus does expect that we will walk with them through their trials. We are to help them to see that the struggles of today will, one day, end, but that the glory of Christ can be theirs forever. Isaiah writes about the “crown of beauty” and the “oil of gladness” and the “garment of praise”. These are the alternatives to the dejection and the mourning and the despair that this life can bring to us; they are the better ways of life, and we are to help others to discover them. It isn’t that the trials are to change drastically – it is simply that our vision and our response to them is to change.

The next section of our text describes our lives when we do follow and carry the good news into the darkness of the world.

Read Isaiah 61:4-7

These verses speak of the glory that comes to those who put the old ways behind and begin to live in the Spirit of the Sovereign Lord. But don’t take them too literally – I believe that the references to rebuilding are intended to indicate what will become of our lives, not necessarily our cities. It is about the rebuilding of our hope, the gift of salvation, that new place in eternity that Christ has won for us. It’s about the discovery that we are working with others who we may have never thought much about before – we may have even despised “those people” in the past, and now we find ourselves walking together and serving together in Jesus name, moving in the same direction and in the same Light.
And we will be seen as priests and ministers of the One High God. Now I know that those words scare a few of you, but ministry is simply doing all of those things in the first 3 verses, and giving the Lord all the glory and credit for what they accomplish.

A number of years ago, several ministers were invited to visit the Ringling Brothers Circus at its winter quarters in Venice, FL. Coming in via the performers' entrance, they passed by the elephant area. Someone noticed that the ropes around the elephants' feet were not tied to anything.
This oversight was pointed out to the handler. “Oh”, he said, “don't worry. We never tie them up. We just tie a rope around their leg and drop it, and they think they are tied up.”

How many of us imagine ourselves tied up to something from which we cannot get away, when in truth the ropes are in our head and heart, not on our hands and feet?
--Thanks to J. Walter Cross, Bradenton, Florida, for this illustration.

Think about it – God wants us to represent him in so many ways that it boggles our minds! He wants us to experience grace instead of disgrace, mercy instead of condemnation, glory instead of rejection, joy instead of fear. And as richly as we may be blessed, it is never for our edification – it is for the benefit of others. It isn’t about dragging others kicking and screaming into the kingdom of God – it is about revealing the choices that they have before them, and showing them what the choice that we have made have brought to us. But we hesitate to take that step, because our head and heart is tied to both the failures of our yesterdays and the fears of our tomorrows.
The truth is, though, that these “ropes” that hold us back aren’t tied to anything except our own sense of limitation.

Read Isaiah 61:8-11

If we can just throw off those self-limiting ropes and chains, if we could begin thinking in a new way and living in a new life, just think what the church could become! The text says that the Lord hates robbery and injustice. And if the truth was known, these are the very things that keep us from being all that the Lord has created us to be. When we deny the Lord’s call to serve him, aren’t we robbing the Lord of our ministry? When we claim that “we can’t go out and share the Good News with others”, aren’t we creating a bias, and injustice against those who are still walking without the Lord?
He has offered an everlasting covenant to not only us, but to all the world, and when it is claimed, in its entirety, without reservation, it is then that ministry begins to happen and grow without bounds. But we can’t continue to imagine that our lives are chained to this earthly existence. We must vigorously deny the limitations of earth, and eagerly claim that we live in the soil that God has created, and that our greatest desire is that the garden that Jesus Christ has planted in us might bear wonderful fruit day in and day out.
“For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.”

We have the opportunity to be the means of allowing healing and comfort and beauty and praise and righteousness to come into the lives of this world. But we need to let the garden of Christ’s covenant in us become a new way, to be a glorious new life that sprouts and grows and blossoms and yields so that the nations can truly see the glory of God in a fresh and new and truthful way.

The Spirit of God is on us, and the Word of God is within us. So what are we going to do with them? Hide them and keep them safe? Or take them out into the world and expose them to the light of this day? Will we keep them “high and dry”, or will we dare to let them get dirty and worn and used?
It’s up to each and every one of us, and we need to make a conscious decision about them every single day.

What will you do with them? Will you minister with them, will you share them? Will you keep the Good News of Jesus Christ poised in your heart and on your lips, ready to spring into the life of the seeker?
It’s all up to you, you know! It’s all up to you.

“A Shout for Peace”

2011-12-04T15:01:00.000-05:00

Scripture: Isaiah 40:1-11

For many people, the Old Testament is all about a wrathful God who is out to punish anyone and everyone who doesn’t do exactly as he tells them. Personally, if that is all they have gotten out of the Hebrew text, I have to think that they have missed a good portion of God’s word for their lives! Over and over again, we see Jehovah God giving Israel second and third and fourth chances that should boggle our minds. Every time that Israel is forced to endure some privation, it is always because they have brought the trial on themselves. The restoration that God always brings to them is never because they deserve it – it is only because of God’s overwhelming love for the people and his infinite desire that they should know that love.
He comforts, he blesses, he renews, he reestablishes the relationship and covenant that the people have broken, and never lets his displeasure with them last very long. Our reading today begins with the words “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, …” Hardly the words of a hateful, condemning, judgmental God! Listen to the love and comfort that fills each and every word that he gives to both Israel and the Church.

Read Isaiah 40:1-5

“And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it.” – God himself is preparing the way for the people to once again know that he is their God, their champion, their strength, their shepherd. And he does it in the humblest and gentlest way that anyone can ever imagine.

Malcolm Muggeridge was a successful literary critic when the BBC asked him to go with a film crew to India to see what was going on with some “do-gooder” named Mother Teresa. Muggeridge tells of watching her work with the very lowest of the low, and he wrote about the absurdity of bringing comfort and affection to men and women who were the derelicts of Indian society and who could have no possible influence upon history.

“Is this any way to spend one's life?” he asked.

Years later, in explaining how these five days spent in India were the most important five days of his life, literally turning his life upside down, he put it like this: “Humankind will not be changed by being taught, but they will be changed by what is caught.” This is what happened to him: the infection called Christianity. He caught it from a carrier of the infection named Mother Teresa, and from then on he has shared her disease.
- Homeletics On Line

Malcolm learned about grace through a loving “do-gooder” who was living out the glory of God in the slums of Calcutta. And as the story tells us, it was “infectious”. You see, we have no chance whatsoever in creating peace and comfort for ourselves – as a matter of fact, whenever we do try to gain that on our own, we always seem to fail in the most spectacular ways possible!

Read Isaiah 40:6-8

People are like grass – even when we try to gain a little glory for ourselves, it never lasts – we are bound to simply wither and fall away. So, since we are so inadequate, what words do you suppose God wants us to cry out? Simply this – We can’t, but God can. We aren’t, but God is. We don’t, but God does. We fail, but the word of our God stands firm forever.
Those are some pretty good words, aren’t they? But how often do we shout them out? How often do we let the world know just how incredible our God really is? Have you been sharing the Lord with folks this week? Have you invited anyone to join you in worship today? Are you afraid that you won’t say the right thing, or even worse, say the wrong thing? Every morning, read Jeremiah 33:3 – “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.”
Do you think that maybe the words we are to call out to our world aren’t supposed to be our words! Maybe we are to call out to almighty God, to seek his plan for our lives, his words for our joy, the love and peace that he wants us to share with others.

After all, isn’t that what the season is all about? To share the Christ Child with others who don’t yet know that he has come? Think ahead to Christmas eve when we read of the shepherds, who, after they had visited the manger in Bethlehem, returned home, and, as Luke 2:17 tells us, “When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who hear it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.”
Remember the Samaritan woman in John 4? After meeting Jesus as Jacob’s well, and discovering for herself who this man was, she went to all the townspeople, who, no doubt, had been ridiculing her on a daily basis, and told them (v.28) “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” A question that is also an invitation to come and decide for themselves!
Remember the man who was filled with a Legion of demons until Jesus healed him? Mark 5:20 “So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed.”
These people – the shepherds, the woman, and the man – were shouting the glory of God to the nations. Not by raising their voices, but simply by offering their witness to Christ’s presence in their lives. Raise a Shout for peace and glory in the world, by sharing your life in Christ with others.
Seems simple, yes? But I know that it isn’t all that simple when it comes to the doing. There is always the human factor to contend with.

Read Isaiah 40:9-11

“Lift up your voice with a shout, lift it up, do not be afraid; say to the [people of our towns], “Here is your God!”

Advent is about shouting out the praises of our God! And just what does he bring to our lives? It isn’t condemnation, it isn’t impossible commandments, it isn’t rejection, it isn’t suffering. The Lord brings, as described in Galatians 5:22, the fruit of the Spirit - “Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”
These are the things of Advent. Each week, we light candles representing these Godly attributes, and each week, we are encouraged to live by them.

A man is flying in a hot-air balloon and realizes that he's lost. He reduces height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts: “Excuse me - can you tell me where I am?”
The man replies: “Sure - you're in a hot-air balloon, hovering 30 feet above this field.”
“You must work in Information Technology”, the balloonist says.
“I do”, the man replies. “How did you know?”
“Well”, says the balloonist, “everything you told me is technically correct, but it's of no use to anyone.”
The man below says, “You must work in business.”
“I do”, the balloonist replies, “How did you know?”

“Well”, says the man, “you don't know where you are, or where you're going, but you expect me to be able to help. You're in the same position you were before we met, but now it's my fault.”
- Homeletics OnLine

Are we in the “same position” that we were in yesterday, or last week, or last year? Are we still searching for the evidence that Galatians 5 is an active and intimate part our lives? Or are we secure in our knowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, and that the glory of God is ours for the claiming? It’s certain that the world is still searching and struggling, and needing something new, and they may even be in a worse position now than they were before!
There is only one way for them and us to make any headway, and that is to look to the only one who has made all the plans and who knows all the directions. The balloonist and the man on the ground weren’t a bit of help to each other, and both of them did nothing but aggravate the situation even more. Christians are called to resolve the quandaries of life for each other and not to feed them! But if we just sit on our hands and keep our mouths shut tightly, everyone is going to stay right where they are.

Lift up your voice with a shout this week. Shout a word of peace, shout a word of love, shout a word of kindness, tell just one person that “their God is here”! Be a lowly shepherd, be a rejected woman, be a healed man – be a disciple of Jesus Christ, and share the good news that Jesus Christ is born with one person who hasn’t met him yet. And as scripture tells us, “don’t be afraid”. Just tell others what you know and what you have experienced. And then let the Holy Spirit bring the sense of amazement into their lives.

“The Beginning of the Beginning”

2011-11-28T15:01:00.001-05:00

Scripture: Mark 13:24-37

Today is the first Sunday in Advent. Advent, of course, is the time when we prepare our lives for the coming of the Christ Child. Truthfully, though, we should be doing that every day of our lives, but for most, we need a specific reminder and a specific season to consider the full impact that his life has had on ours.

The effect that his arrival had on this world is described by the various names that Jesus is called – Prince of Peace, King of Kings, Savior, Redeemer, the Hope of the world. An anonymous writer once wrote this about the hope of Christ:

We tend to think of hope as a winged thing, flying serenely above the storms, untouched by the mundane earth. But the value of hope lies in its presence in our everyday lives, a constant earthly promise of welcome into ultimate fellowship with God. And hope doesn't have wings - if we choose to invite it, hope walks beside us as we travel.
- Homiletics On Line

Have you ever heard a better explanation of Christ’s presence in our lives? Intimate, personal, immediate, near, never aloof.

Our reading today is Jesus’ words on our hope for his Second Coming, but I think we need to also consider it in light of our preparation for the First.

Read Mark 13:24-27

Throughout the Bible, signs and wonders are constantly being given as proof of God’s almighty power. And how often do the people see them for what they really are? There were ten miracles in Egypt, all designed to show Pharaoh just who he was up against, and he ignored them all. The children of Israel saw the same miracles, and the only thing that they did was to complain and grumble all the more.
During the 40 years in the wilderness, God lead the people with the signs of cloud and fire; he fed them with the sign of manna and quail; he satisfied their thirst with the sign of water out of solid rock; he rescued them and gave them victory after victory, simply through the sign of the raising of Moses’ staff; and they settled in a land that was gained, not by their hands, but by God’s.
And in return, they continued to be unfaithful to the God who had given them so much. The sign of a holy birth would be given, and only lowly shepherds and foreigners would pay any attention. And in our reading today, Jesus gives all the signs of his return, and the world is still going to turn a blind eye to the glorious happenings.

But in grace, Jesus gives us the word, just the same. And the best part is in verse 27 – “He will send his angels and gather his elect from ... the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.” That will be the final and greatest sign, and no one is going to be able to miss that one. But what about his First Coming? Do people focus too much on the Second, and nowhere near enough on the significance of the First? Are we still looking for signs of the Second, but missing the signs that are still coming to us from his holy birth?

Read Mark 13:28-31

We all know that Spring follows the Winter, and the Summer follows the Spring, but does anyone really know when Spring will arrive? When next Summer finally gets here? Now I don’t mean the calendar date that is designated as the first day of each season. I seem to remember some snow a few weeks ago, and the calendar date for winter is still a few weeks away!
The seasons arrive when they arrive. And so does Jesus – both the first time and the second.

And I expect that in the moment that Christ came into your life, that this was unexpected, too. At least it was for me; it was unplanned, startling, and over the years, I still describe it as “traumatic”. And every time that Jesus touches us in some new way, it becomes a new beginning – Christ is “the beginning of each beginning”, if you will. There never is an ending, except for the life that was before Jesus. Each new beginning in Christ is a new phase, a new opportunity, and life in him just keeps getting more interesting and more exciting!
But we have to accept him and welcome him if we truly want each and every new beginning. And we can’t wait until the signs indicate that time has nearly run out!

The ark was completed, the storm clouds were beginning to gather, and Noah was waiting patiently at the foot of the gang plank. Very soon, the animals began to arrive and they started boarding the ship two by two.
Pair after pair of animals passed by Noah, heading up the ramp into the ship. Finally a lone hippo waddled up and Noah asked him where his mate was. The hippo replied “Well, I was hoping to meet her on the cruise!”
--With thanks to Kirk A. Erwin, Lyons, Neb.

We can’t wait and hope to meet Jesus on the eternal cruise! We have all the signs that we need, and the time is running out. Summer is coming, even though we have a few months of cold ahead of us yet, but do we stop planning for our summer projects and get togethers? Not on your life! My brothers and I have already started talking about our weekend together in the late Spring. I am already thinking about the things that I didn’t get done this year, and what I need to do when the weather turns warm again. I already have my application in for a Course of Study class in March and April. Waiting until the last minute never works out very well for me, and in Christ, it may mean that when the “ship of eternity” sails, we will be left standing at the wrong end of the gangplank.

Advent is about getting on the ball and beginning our celebration, our reflections, our relationship with Jesus Christ now. We can’t wait for his arrival to discover the plans he has made for us – that will be too late.

Read Mark 13:32-37

Jesus told a number of parables that dealt with the topic of waiting and watching. But the bottom line in each of them was that while we must be alert and watchful for the great event, we need to be prepared for the arrival. He told of the 10 virgins who were waiting at night for the bridegroom to arrive for the wedding feast. 5 of them had their lamps ready, and 5 did not; the ones who were ready were honored to escort the groom into the feast, while the unprepared were left on the outside, wondering what had just happened. (Matt 25:1 – 13) He told 2 other parables that are seen to be similar to each other – the Talents, and the Minas. Each was about how we are to act while we wait for our Master to return. (Matt. 25: 14 – 30 & Luke 19: 12 – 27) And this story that we just read is about the servants who are told to be alert for their master’s arrival, because they don’t know when he will be returning. Not one of them tells us that we can sit back and not worry about the Lord’s return. Even though there will be signs and wonders giving us all kinds of hints, we will still be surprised and amazed when the time arrives. Each and every parable tells us to be prepared and ready throughout our time of waiting.

Advent is not the time to sit back and take it easy – it’s a time to prepare. Advent is the beginning of the new beginning, when everything will be made new (Rev. 21:1-5). It is a time when we surrender our old lives in order to receive the new. It is a time when we wait eagerly, but at the same time, preparing for the greatest moment we will ever experience.

Advent is not the time to become complacent – it’s a time to become energized and expectant! And I don’t mean for the commercialized form of Christmas – I mean for the celebration of God’s arrival in the world! It’s a time to put the past behind and to start preparing for the “beginning of our beginning”. It will be here before you know it!

“Living in the Life of Light”

2011-11-20T13:19:00.000-05:00

Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 5:12-24

Last week, we took a look at what the Light of Christ means for our lives, that it is our call to ministry, that it is the proof that God has a glorious plan for our lives, and a challenge was offered to each person to take a step in Christian faith. Was anyone able to shine the light that they carry in the world to illuminate a life? How did it go this week?
(Note: Several people at each church offered invitations, and 2 folks at one church brought guests!)

The truth is that people are drawn to the light, regardless of how bright and how consistent. When I was growing up, summer evenings always seemed to have a special significance when the fire flies were out. My brothers and I would follow their light, blinking and moving and then blinking some more, until we could catch them in a jar and proudly take the prize to show our folks. We would then sit enthralled for quite some time, watching them light up the jar, and more importantly, our lives. The smiles in the darkness of those evenings were nothing short of infectious.

The light wasn’t continuous, and it wasn’t especially brilliant, but it certainly was effective in its call to my brothers and me.

Read 1 Thessalonians 5:12-15

Walking and living in the light of Christ involves a responsibility to not only serve others well, to not only walk in the Christ Light, but to also hold each other accountable for our walk.
The first item in the list that Paul offers to us today is that we are to respect those who work hard in faith, and to show respect to those who call us to account. We don’t always understand why or even what others may be doing, but if they are working for the kingdom, then we are to encourage them in their efforts. If we are admonished for something that we have done by a church leader, we can certainly discuss the situation with them, but we are to consider their decision in a respectful and loving manner. This respect and obligation to each other is not only vital, but it is to be extreme. It is the way that we share our light with other believers.
Take the case of the current situation in our own Annual Conference. There is a great divide within our community over a significant issue of faith, and it’s growing greater every day. We should certainly be engaged in the discussions and to always present our view of the call of scripture, but it must be done in as civil a manner as possible. No name calling, no trading insults, no hateful confrontations – just honest and accurate representations of what scripture is telling us.

The second item comes out of our consideration of the first – “Live in peace with each other.” If we truly show respect for each other, peace will naturally follow. And think about it – if we are to be the united and only Body of Christ, how can we not live in peace with each other? Peace does not mean total agreement, it does not mean never questioning a motive or action, it does not mean that everyone does the same things in the same way. Peace comes from a respectful attitude toward the other members of the Body – it is the result of helping each other carry the light of Christ.

The next series of items continue in this theme of relationship.
#3 – “Warn those who are idle.” Again, not berate and not belittle. Warn! And it doesn’t mean that we have to be busy every moment of every waking hour! We need some relaxation time every day, but when we develop a tendency to routinely waste our time on frivolous matters, we desperately need the challenge to put those things aside, and to get back in the game. Our inclination, though, is to see this as a scolding, and we seldom react in a positive way to it. But if the challenge is true, why not take it as a constructive suggestion? Why not readily admit that our friend is right, and thank them that their love for us is great enough to even bring the issue up? Idleness is not about shining our light in the world – it’s about intentionally covering it up.

#4 – “Encourage the timid”. Remember Matthew 5:5 – “Blessed are the meek”? Remember Matthew 25:40 – “Whatever you did for the least of these … you did for me.” The timid will include the bashful, the shy, the fearful, the emotionally challenged, the withdrawn. Don’t ignore them. Don’t treat them in a condescending way. Don’t pass by them on the opposite side of the street! Instead, why don’t we work to inspire them! Reassure them! Reinforce their self-confidence! Help them to be all they can be, and to do all that they can do! “Whatever you did for the least of these …”? Even the timid deserve to carry the Light!

#5 – “Help the weak”. Have you ever felt weak? Unable to do those things that you would like to do – unable to do the things you need to do? When I came down with mononucleosis during my radiation treatments, there were a lot of things that I couldn’t do – like mowing the lawn, climbing a long flight of stairs, walking more than a hundred steps (give or take), and nearly anything that required any exertion whatsoever. Diane had just given birth to our second son, and Nathan kept her kind of busy, but our neighbors and friends from church came to our aid, and even though I wasn’t real comfortable with the fact that I couldn’t do the routine things that I had always done, I had no choice. And the help that the “weak” received from the “able” was greatly appreciated, and obviously memorable. They not only carried their own light, but they helped me carry mine.

#6 – “Be patient with everyone.” Not just the ones who make patience easy, but EVERYONE! This will undoubtedly be the most frustrating task any Christian is called to carry out. We can’t just be patient to those who are patient with us (not that any of us would ever need the patience of others!), but we are called to maintain control of our emotions regardless of the situation. In Galatians 5:22, we read that two aspects of the “fruit of the Spirit” are patience and self-control. And verse 25 tells us that “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.” The Holy Spirit is the ultimate Light carrier, and we are to keep up with him!

These first 6 efforts are about our relationships with others. Respect, peace, counsel, encouragement, assistance, and patience. But I think we all can agree that they aren’t easy to do – just one or two of them is hard enough, but all 6?? Without the Holy Spirit working with and through us constantly, we will surely fail, but the presence of the Spirit in believers is never in question! We always have that support and encouragement to help us in life.
If our relationships with others is a tough row to hoe, consider the next list, which is about our personal attitudes and efforts in our relationship with God.

Read 1 Thessalonians 5:16-22

#7 – Be joyful always
#8 – Pray continually
#9 – Give thanks in all circumstances
These 3 truly go together, because they are all about knowing Jesus Christ in a personal way. Without the Lord at our side, how could we possibly be joyful all of the time, or be able to live our life in a prayerful way, or be thankful regardless of our personal situation? The honest answer is that we can’t! It is Christ who gives us that everlasting joy. It is our desire to remain in constant touch with the Lord that keeps us prayerful. It is because of the bounty that comes to us in faith that makes us justly thankful.
We aren’t always happy, we aren’t always walking in perfect faith, and it is seldom that we are focused on the many blessings that come our way. Our joy and connection and thankfulness, though, will always be the most obvious and outward signs of a committed disciple of Jesus Christ, and they are the unmistakable light for both believers and nonbelievers alike.

And how do we see the leading of the Holy Spirit in our lives? The next 5 are important in this regard for our consideration this morning.
#10 – Do not put out the Spirit’s fire;
#11 – Do not treat prophecies with contempt
#12 – Test everything
#13 – Hold on to the good.
#14 – Avoid every kind of evil.
We could spend the rest of the morning discussing these in detail, but suffice it to say that these are the challenge for all Christians today. To follow the leading of the Spirit, no matter where we may have to go; to accept prophecy, or the true word of God, without question; but at the same time, to test, to ensure, that the direction of our walk and the action of our lives are being given in a faithful manner; to cling to the things of God and to totally reject those that are not. These all come back to the call to “pray continuously”, for that is the only way to know if we are on the right track. The Spirit’s fire!

Read 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24

If our heart is right, if we avoid taking advantage of both the kindness and ignorance of others, if we strive to the best of our abilities to walk in the Lord’s light and in his word, and to carry his light wherever we go –
then we’ll be headed in the right direction. Is it easy? No. Will we ever be tempted to do otherwise? Yes. Will our relationships with others be perfect? No. But should we always work to make them better? Without question!
Paul writes that “The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.” God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – will always keep his word for our lives – “I will be your God, and you will be my people.” He tells us that over and over, and we must believe that the Lord will be with us through thick and thin, in good times and in bad, in the light of day and in the darkness of the night. And the reference to our spirit, soul and body being kept blameless? That, too, can only come from a life lived in the light of Christ.

Living a life in the light – one of constant temptation and failure, but also one of glory and blessings that are never ending.

“Destined For the Day”

2011-11-13T15:07:00.000-05:00

Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

In the theology course that I just finished (Wesley Theological Seminary for Course of Study), we dealt with a lot of terms and phrases, and had great discussions as to what they mean to us and what they don’t mean. The interesting thing about words is that they can have a number of connotations, and can have even more personal implications for our lives. One of the terms that we considered and discussed at some length was “predestination”.
In a religious sense, we see the concept traditionally as meaning that God has preordained, has made a choice for our lives, and we are stuck with it. Presbyterians has taken this notion to heart, even though Calvin actually had little to say about it, and placed very little emphasis on the thought. However, it seems that the intent of New Testament writers in using the term was more in line with Wesley’s term “prevenient” – or the grace that pursues us all until we either surrender our lives to God’s grace, to his invitation, or pass from the earth. Theologically speaking, God would desire – predestine – that all of humanity be saved, but it isn’t forced upon us. We get to choose whether we accept his grace or not. The writers apparently never intended the word to mean “pre-chosen”.
Which brings us to the issue for today – who is living in the light, and who is living in darkness – who will experience destruction, and who will not.

Read 1 Thessalonians 5:1-3

Confession time – I have a very limited experience with labor pains, and so I hesitate to venture too far into the topic, either to discuss the impact of them on the mother, or the rapidity of their onslaught! But in the context of our passage for today, I would guess that they come on pretty fast.
In my experience with the birth of our first child, the pains came totally unexpectedly. It was a Monday evening, we were getting ready to attend our 2nd Lamaze class, but were abruptly detoured to the delivery room to welcome our son in his 8 week early arrival. (As a matter of interest, we did get our Lamaze registration money back, though!!)
Son number 2 behaved a little better, except the pains began at about 3:00 AM – in farming terms, that’s before the rooster wakes up (!), and 2 hours later, he had arrived.
From my limited sampling of the concept of labor pains, I think it is safe to conclude 2 concepts – that 1) they can come at any time, and 2) they generally come at the most inconvenient time!
So if we carry that assumption over to the word for today, we discover that the comparison to the coming of a thief in the night isn’t too far off.
We are walking around, enjoying our solitude, basking in the beauty of our life, and suddenly, without warning, the “day of the Lord” occurs, and everything changes. We can’t go back, there are no “do overs”, and we find ourselves wherever we are in that moment.

“Predestined”? The Lord’s greatest desire is that all would find that they were on his side of the fence, but scripture is very clear that many will be on the other side. Don’t blame God for the failure to choose correctly, don’t blame God for not “fixing” everyone before his “day” comes. The only blame is for our own lack of decision today, and possibly for the Church’s failure to spread his light wide enough and far enough. God has a wonderful plan for life, and that plan extends beyond the here and now, and reaches into eternity. But each and every person has to claim it, and each and every person has to live it.

Read 1 Thessalonians 5:4-8

Just a word regarding verse 4 – the intent of the words are that if we were in darkness, we would be surprised by the events of the day, but the truth is that we are not blinded – we are people of the light. Remember that Jesus told us in John 8:12 that he is the light of the world, and whoever follows him will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. And Matthew’s gospel (5:14) tells us that we are now the light of the world. Jesus fills all believers with his glorious light, and now we are to use it to light the way for others.
As the current Fall season advances, and as it begins to bring us more and more darkness, more and more “night”, light becomes more and more precious for our lives. When I get up in the middle of the night, I never turn a light on because I don't want to bother Diane. But I tend to stumble around, stubbing my toes on the chest at the end of our bed, tripping over a cat who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I generally create a lot more disturbance than if I had turned a light on in the first place. Darkness is not a friend – even if we are in a totally familiar room, we can still be lost and disoriented and out of touch with our surroundings. But a little bit of light can do wonders.
Friday night, as I went to bed in my hotel room in Washington, I left the bathroom light on. It was dim enough not to bother my sleep, but bright enough to guide me safely through the darkness if I needed it. We are to be that very light. Matthew 5:15 admonishes us to never hide our light – that we should let it shine out into the world so that others will see it.

It is the Lord’s greatest desire that all would experience his light, and would claim it as their own, but someone needs to lead them to the source of this great light. In John 12:36, Jesus tells his disciples to put their trust in the light while they have it, so that they might become the sons of light. And one day, they would carry the light of Christ to the far reaches of the earth, for the sole purpose of passing that light on to others. And the light has been carried and shared and passed throughout the centuries, and now it is our turn to carry and share and pass it on to others. That is the gist of the Great Commission’s call to make “disciples of all nations”. It doesn’t mean that we ourselves must travel to every nation on earth – it means that we can never withhold the light from anyone, for any reason. In accepting Christ, in becoming a Jesus follower, we also take on the obligation to share our personal story of the Lord with everyone we meet. If every Christian in the world would lead just one other person into the light, and then they would lead one other, God’s desire, his “predestined” plan for the world, his deepest yearning for humanity, his longing that all would walk in his light and life, would very quickly become a reality.

We need to walk in the light of Christ, day and night, in good times and bad, in times of absolute certainty and in times of wretched uncertainty. The Lord wants us to carry our light throughout the world, without hesitation and with great expectation.
But the problem today is that even though we are people of the light, we seem to be afraid to show our light, and so we keep it covered and out of sight most of the time. And when we hide it, not only will others continue to stumble around in their spiritual darkness, we will be stumbling, too!

Read 1 Thessalonians 5:9-11

In our discussion earlier regarding the concept of “predestination”, we need to know that there is a second part to it. Not only is the concept that some are “predestined to be saved”, the other side of the thought must be that others are “predestined to be lost”. It is a “double predestination”, and this, too, is a falsehood. God desires that all would be saved, and we have been “appointed” to carry his salvation, his promise of life, his gift of light, out into the world. He doesn’t want anyone to suffer “wrath”, but if we fail to carry out the mission that we have told God that we accept, the wrath will win and the life of salvation that Jesus died and rose again in order to win for us, will simply lie dormant.

Are we really willing to let this happen?
Are we willing to abandon our God given opportunity to lead someone else into the light of Christ?
I want to challenge you to do something. For the next year (this is not a one time thing!), I want everyone to get serious about carrying their light. And during the year, I want to challenge you to a weekly project – that every week, you invite one person to come to church with you. Not to meet you here, but to ride with you, perhaps even to have lunch with you afterward, to come with you in the light that you carry, that they might begin to see in a new way. And if everyone gets just one new person to join them regularly in worship, think what that can mean for the kingdom – think what that can mean for Jesus!
Are you willing to make the effort? It can be a person who has never been in a church, it can be someone who has stopped attending worship for some reason, it can be a young person or an older person, it can be a neighbor, a co-worker, a family member, even a stranger who you may meet in the check out line at the grocery store. If you will commit to doing this, then I will commit to try to keep my messages interesting and pertinent for life. Don’t count on them getting any shorter, but we’ll work together to make this happen. And we will take a moment at the very beginning of every worship to introduce our friends and make them feel welcomed and loved.

What do you think? Can this happen? Will you give it a try? Just 1 invitation each and every week for a year? No goals for victory – we’ll leave that part up to the convicting of the Holy Spirit. But we still need to do our part.
Verse 11 – “Therefore, encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.” We will continue to encourage each other, but we’re just going to take that encouragement to a whole new level, that we might bring new folks into the light of Jesus Christ. They, too, are destined for the light of Christ’s day, you know! Who are we to decide that it’s OK to leave them behind in their darkness?

“Standing Stones”

2011-11-06T14:32:00.000-05:00

Scripture: Joshua 4:1-9

We all have those great memories of important times in our lives – a special birthday party that you’ll never forget, a family vacation that everyone enjoyed, the time we met the person who would one day become our husband or wife, graduation from school, the birth of each and every one of our children, the day we welcomed Christ into our lives. Some memories tend to come and then slowly go away, but others remain with us throughout our life.
Why would some be so fleeting, while others become a lasting part of our make up? Why are some memories so ingrained in our subconscious, while other times, that may have been equally important at the time, pass out of our awareness?
I think that the difference in them is not so much in the memory itself, but more so in the impact that it has on the rest of our life. It isn’t about the past – it’s about what it means for us today, and how that memory will prepare us and serve us as we travel into the future. That life long memory – whether it came as moment of awakening, or as one of heartache – is the very thing that defines the event to be “life changing”.

Read Joshua 4:1-7

As we read last week, the priests who carried the Ark of the Covenant were called to step into the raging waters of the Jordan as the leaders of the nation, and in their faithfulness, the waters began to pile up miles upstream and downstream, and the people were able to cross into the Promised Land on dry ground. Now we see that there was another group of leaders who would represent the nation – the 12 who had been chosen to select and carry the memorial stones from the middle of the river bed to the far shore. And what would they memorialize?
God simply told them to pick up 12 stones from the river bed, and put them down wherever they would stop for the night. There was no mention by the Almighty as to what they were to memorialize, or even that they were to be a memorial in the first place. It was Joshua who told the people that they would be a memorial to what God had done for them that day.
But personally, I think that the memorial should have had a far greater significance in the minds and hearts of Israel. They had been enslaved in Egypt with no way out until the Lord lead the fugitive Moses back to confront Pharaoh, and then miracle after miracle was brought to bear, simply to bring to fruition the promise that the people would live in the land promised to the descendents of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. 10 plagues would be brought against the people of Egypt, and when they finally left slavery, the sea that stood as a barrier to their escape would be divided, and when the army of Pharaoh pursued them, they would be confused and delayed and eventually completely destroyed. The people were given the commandments of God directly from God; they were fed on a daily basis with no interruption; water was provided out of solid rock; they defeated enemy after enemy, and for 40 years, God, in the image of a cloud and a column of fire, lead them through the wilderness.
And in spite of their corporate unfaithfulness and constant grumbling, they finally reached the Jordan and in another miraculous moment, this last water barrier was also defeated and the people would be able to enter their promised home. Did the nation have something to remember? I should say so!!!

There would be many memorials given to this journey, and hundreds of years later, the Psalmist would memorialize the journey this way.

Read Psalm 114:5-8

Remember? How could they ever forget? But the stones would still be set up as “a memorial to the people of Israel forever.”

Standing stones – not the miracle itself, but a tribute to the miracles of God. It’s been said that we can “choose to throw stones, to stumble on them, to climb over them, or to build with them.” In this case, Israel chose to build with them.

Read Joshua 4:8-9

But stones can’t talk, can they. They can’t tell the story – the significance – of how they came to be where they are. A stranger who doesn’t know how and why they have been placed in such a manner can only wonder about them. Don’t you wish the stones had a voice? That they could regale us with the entire wonderful experience?

My friends, that is why we need to take the place of those stones. Every one of us has been the recipient of God’s blessings throughout our lives. Oh, yes, we’ve grumbled, we’ve created our own disastrous detours, we’ve sinned, we’ve failed the Lord over and over again, and even in our faithlessness, our blessed Lord has remained faithful to us and has continued to work his wonders in our lives. We must be the “Standing Stones” of today. Amen?

And so, I have to ask, when was the last time you shared a witness with someone else? When was the last time that someone saw you as a memorial to the glory and majesty of our God?

I love stories about Mother Teresa, because she is one of the great witnesses, one of the great “Standing Stones” of all time. This is how one of those stories goes:

When Mother Teresa first began her work among the dying on the streets of Calcutta, she was obstructed at every turn by government officials and orthodox Hindus, who were suspicious of her motives and used their authority to harass her and to frustrate her efforts. She and her fellow sisters were insulted and threatened with physical violence. One day a shower of stones and bricks rained down on the women as they tried to bring the dying to their humble shelter. Eventually Mother Teresa dropped to her knees before the mob. “Kill me!” she cried in Bengali, her arms outstretched in a gesture of crucifixion, “And I'll be in heaven all the sooner.” The rabble withdrew but soon the harassment increased with even more irrational acts of violence and louder demands were made of officials to expel the foreign nun in her white sari, wearing a cross around the neck.

One morning, Mother Teresa noticed a gathering of people outside the nearby Kali Temple, one of the holy places for Hindus in Calcutta. As she drew closer, she saw a man stretched out on the street with turned-up eyes and a face drained of blood. A triple braid denoted that he was of the Brahmin caste, not of the temple priests. No one dared to touch him, for people recognized he was dying from cholera.

Mother Teresa went to him, bent down, took the body of the Brahmin priest in her arms and carried him to her shelter. Day and night she nursed him, and eventually he recovered. Over and over again he would say to the people, “For 30 years I have worshipped a Kali of stone. But I have met in this gentle woman a real Kali, a Kali of flesh and blood.” Never again were stones thrown at Mother Teresa and the other sisters.
--Donald J. Shelby, Weakness and Power, 22 December 1991, Santa Monica, California.

Now I have to admit that there aren’t a lot of people around with the faith and fortitude of a Mother Teresa, but what an incredible witness! But even if we aren’t quite as courageous as this marvelous lady, we have to take a stand, none the less. The priests of Israel had to take that risky step into the raging waters of the Jordan. The prophets of Israel had to carry the message that the nation had to change their ways – a not very popular message at that. The disciples would be called to carry their witness to the gospel into a world that would hate them for it. The early church would grow by leaps and bounds, even as they were being persecuted to the fullest extent of worldly force. Each and every one of these would become “Standing Stones” in their own right. They are living memorials to what Almighty God can truly do.

So when will we start? When do we accept the call to be a flesh and blood, a living “Stone”? Not one that weaves and bends to the changing winds of the world, not one that hides in the middle of a gravel pit, surrounded by a lot of other anonymous stones, but one who takes a stand in plain sight for the entire world, and proclaims in no uncertain terms, that Jesus Christ is Lord, and he wants to be their Lord, too.

Will you become a new and living “Stone” for Christ today?

“Trust, and Then Pass Over”

2011-10-30T19:26:00.000-04:00

Scripture: Joshua 3:7-17

One of the greatest struggles in the church today is that of “Trust”! We are under attack by the world, and we know that Christ is our only hope for victory, but how often do we really trust the Holy Spirit enough to follow him wherever we are led?
We want the Spirit to follow us and support us in whatever efforts we may decide are worthwhile. Of course, Satan also has plans for us, and when we decide to make our own way, we get lost. And even when we are on the Lord’s path, Satan is actively attempting to thwart our efforts, and we seldom know whether we are heading in the right direction or if we are completely turned around and heading “God knows where”! It all comes back to trusting that the Lord has a plan for both our lives and his Church, and in our faithful discipleship, we need to seek his leading and guidance, and to know the difference between the Lord’s plan and the world’s.

So how do we know the difference? Usually, it is simply a matter of prayer, being as direct as possible in our inquiries, and then waiting for the perfect answer. But other times, it’s a more a matter of taking a step in faith - not waiting for the proof, not waiting for certainty – but simply going wherever the Spirit seems to be leading us.

Read Joshua 3:7-13

Now there’s a challenge! Joshua hears the message directly from God, but the people, and especially the priests, only heard the message second hand. “Just go and stand in the middle of this raging river, because I intend to show you a marvelous thing!” How many of us would have had the faith to actually do that? What certainty was there that the Jordon’s flood waters would not only stop, but actually begin to pile up? Have you ever seen, or even heard of, that sort of thing happening before? Imagine how high the pile would have gotten during the time it took for a million or so people to cross over! And no flooding! Can you even begin to imagine that!

That is what faith is all about. It isn’t about seeing, or understanding, or knowing – it is about trusting in something that is far greater than ourselves. It’s about taking a risk, regardless of what or where the call may be. It’s about knowing for certain (and this may be the only certainty!) that God is going with us, wherever “there” may be.
The instructions that God gives are seldom complete – we never seem to know what we will be doing once we get “there”, or even how we will get “there”, and sometimes we aren’t even sure of where “there” is! All we have been told is “Go”. And so, in faith, we go.

10 years ago, Gibson Corners was told to go to Ecuador. They thought that they knew what they would be doing, but as it turned out, the faithful who struck out in the name of the Lord didn’t have a clue as to what would come of their “going”! And the result has been far greater than anything that they could have imagined! Sometimes we are told to go to those bothersome next door neighbors. Sometimes we are to go into the worst part of town. Sometimes we are told to go to a specific person’s home, and that we have to go now! Sometimes we are told that someone is coming to us, and that we are to be ready to welcome them. Sometimes we are called to go and step into the raging flood waters, and watch what the Lord does then!
And the priests of Israel were called to go and do that very thing. But when we read this passage again, we discover that Joshua tells the people that the Ark of the Covenant will go ahead of them. This small group of men – the priests who had been chosen to carry the Ark – the very thing which represented the presence of God in their lives – would be leading them. God himself would be leading the nation of Israel into the Promised Land. Of course it also required that a few of the faithful join him in those first few risky steps, but the Lord was with them, and they trusted in that promise.

Read Joshua 3:14-17

There are three lessons that we need to take from this passage.
First, the priests took a risk. Common sense would tell you that by the second step, or the third at the most, those men would have been swept away by the current, and they would never be heard from again. But a walk with Almighty God has nothing to do with “common sense”! It is about faith.

Second, the priests exhibited all of the characteristics of true leaders. They didn’t decide that this was a ridiculous plan, and that they would have to find a better place to across the Jordan. They didn’t stand back and tell the people to go first so that their responsibility would be protected. These priests took the first step as an example of what faith could do. And it was only then that the people followed.

Third, the priests showed the people what trusting in God could accomplish. They stood firm in faith, and did exactly what Joshua told them the Lord wanted of them. They trusted that God would be faithful to them, and in return, they were faithful in responding to God’s need of their lives. “Step into the water, and I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of all Israel, so they may know that I am with you.”

What if they had balked at this “uncommon” sense of faith? What if they listened to their wildly beating hearts and clammy skin, and decided that the risk was just too great? What if they had said “Let’s wait for the water level to go down – that’s a lot safer!”
If they had hesitated, who would have enabled the nation of Israel to claim its God-given promise of this new and wonderful home? Who would have led them into that place of glory? The answer is – No One! Israel would still be standing on the eastern bank of the Jordan, waiting for the flood waters to recede so they could easily wade across.
But God wanted to show them what a little faith in him could do. Note that not only did the waters pile up upstream and downstream, but that the river bed was dry! No small pools of water in the depressions, no mud on the river bottom, no small rivulets that they had to step across – by faith, the river bed was dry! How powerful is our God? If this doesn’t answer the question in a mighty way, then nothing will!

By taking that risk, by being true leaders of the nation, by living a faith that grew in trust of God, the priests who had been charged with carrying the Ark of God enabled the people to safely pass through the waters and never even dampen the soles of their sandals.

There’s an old saying, that says:
We're not in this to test the waters, we are in this to make waves.
--Anonymous
And that is exactly what the priests were doing – stirring up the spirits of Israel, making waves in their otherwise flaccid lives, showing them the power and majesty that was of their God. And in faith, that is what we, too, must be about.

How strong is our faith? The truth is that we usually don’t know until we are faced with taking that next step that will place us firmly in the torrential flood, or in the depths of the lion’s den, or face to face with our greatest fear, or reaching out to help our greatest enemy.
We can never pussyfoot around in our faith – we have to take a faithful leap into the unknown and trust that the Lord will be there when we come down, to plant our feet on firm and dry ground.

Where is the Lord leading us as individuals? Where is he leading us as his church? The question for us is not does the Lord have a plan for us, but rather what does he require of us! Remember that Jeremiah 29 tells us that the Lord knows the plan that has been created for us, and that it is an incredible and wonderful design. The problem is that all too often, we try to create our own plan of action, and when it doesn’t work out, we wonder where in the world God was when we were working so hard and yet failing so miserably!

Next week, we hold our annual Charge Conference. It is a time to not only celebrate the victories that we have experienced in the past year, but to commit to our missions and ministries for the coming years. But we need to know what the Lord desires of us before we go very far in our preparations. And that requires concerted prayer – both individually and corporately. We are in a partnership with the Lord, and we can never exclude him, anymore than he will exclude us.
Pray for his guidance and the glory of his great plan for our lives and his church.

“And Back to Imitation!”

2011-10-23T12:48:00.000-04:00

Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 2:13-20

2 weeks ago, we considered the need to imitate Christ’s walk and attitude and love for the gospel of God. Last week, we considered what makes our ministry truly authentic. And today, we continue with our reflection on Paul’s first letter to the church in Thessalonica, in which he continues to encourage the church to be faithful and courageous in their witness.

So before we venture back into Paul’s thoughts, let’s take just a moment to consider those things that draw us away from the mission that the Holy Spirit leads us through. We all know what they are – we’ve all had to live with them, we’ve all been tempted by them, and I expect that we all have succumbed to the siren’s call at one time or another. The call to personal success in business, the call to “live it up” through the use of alcohol or drugs or in some other worldly pleasure, the call to exert an authoritarian attitude over the very people who love us the most, the call to take pride in our own accomplishments, the call to abusive behavior toward the rest of creation, and the list can go on and on without end.
And as long as we live our lives to the standard set by the world, we will never be bothered by them. As a matter of fact, they may even support us in ways that the church never does. The world can be our best friend at times, but the problem is that it is all based on a lie.

Read 1 Thessalonians 2:13-16

In the Course of Study class that I’m currently taking (“Theology for the Practice of Ministry”), we are looking at the things that we truly believe about God and our relationship with him. We touch on salvation and other issues of faith, but the greatest amount of time has been spent on discovering who God is, as John Wesley put it, in the “One and Three”. Discussions, presentations of various theological readings, lecture, paper preparation – it is not an easy way to discover God! There must be a better way!
As the story goes, someone has developed a “Ticket to Heaven”, to eliminate all the fuss and bother. I found this notice:

If you ever lost sleep fretting over your eternal destiny, help is at hand. “Ticket to Heaven” provides just what it says - an “admit one” invite to the afterlife. Believers can find peace of mind and atheists can hedge their bets. There are no implausible doctrines to believe, no tiresome works of charity to perform. Just a very modest - all things considered - $10 to pay. (Paradise also accepts all major credit cards.)
Then all you have to do, presumably, is work out a way of getting your certificate beyond the grave.
-Ship of Fools Online Magazine, September 1999, www.flash.net/~thedoor.

But it is never quite this easy.
Israel wanted to keep their relationship with God on an up and up basis. They were comfortable with the sacrifices and prayers and they were easy to understand. They didn’t want those Gentiles to have any footing whatsoever on what they had, seemingly, cornered the market on. God liked them, and no one else deserved any of their God! It just wasn’t right - that all those people had to do is imitate this Jesus! What about all of the righteous acts that they weren’t doing? It was just too easy!
But Paul is reminding the church that imitating Christ isn’t all that easy! The suffering church wasn’t all that unique, in that all faithful congregations were suffering right along with them. And this is one of those things that never changes. The world is not about to lay down and just let Christians be Christ-like.

Consider the situation for Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani in Iran. He renounced his Islamic faith in favor of Christianity, and now he is facing the death penalty. He has been given 3 opportunities to recant his faith, and each time he has refused. International pressure continues to be exerted on the government, and the courts may be feeling the weight of International opinion. And what about the fate of his family? That is still an unknown. And it is said that even his Islamic lawyer has been imprisoned, simply for defending Youcef and other Christians like him.
Easy!!??

Consider Christians in China! It is, for all practical purposes, an underground movement. When pastors are discovered, they are imprisoned and tortured. Their congregations are sought out and persecuted in many different ways. When a Christian is able to get out of China and travel overseas to speak about the “dissident church”, their chances of returning home unscathed is slim, at best. And their families? It isn’t good.
Easy!!??

Consider the early church! To imitate previously established churches meant that you would also be imitating their susceptibility for persecution. The people could be arrested and imprisoned with little fanfare. Torture was routine, and the Romans weren’t at all squeamish about eliminating this perceived threat against their theological polygamy. And the Jewish authorities weren’t any better. Imitation of Christ had become synonymous with blasphemy.
Easy!!??

And Paul tells the church that these people are just piling up sin upon sin, and eventually the “pile” is going to tip over and crush them. And “The wrath of God has come upon them at last.” – really? If that’s true, why is the persecution continuing? And it does.

Read 1 Thessalonians 2:17-20

So the question has to be asked – why does Christianity continue to grow? Why do people continue to turn to the true Lord of life? Why does the faithful church continue to expose itself to ridicule and opposition and persecution and even death? Remember that as Paul was writing this letter of encouragement, he, too, was in prison, expecting to die shortly.

The truth is that people continue to see Jesus Christ as the only way, and when we imitate Christ, there is no way to do it half way or half heartedly. We must do it all the way or not at all. Who did Jesus love? Everyone! We saw that time and time again. He spent time with the people of Israel, and he spent time with the Gentiles. He spent time with the “righteous” men in the temple, and he spent time with the sinners that walked along every road that he walked. He spent time with men, and women, and even welcomed the children to come to him. He was with everyone who would listen, and even those who closed their own hearts and minds to his teaching.

What did Jesus detest? The things that his beloved did. He detested the righteous arrogance of the Pharisees, and he detested the indifference that he was constantly being confronted with. He detested the sinful lives that people tried to justify, and he rejected the laws that demanded so much from those who had so little to give. He detested legalism, and he detested apathy. He detested self centered attitudes, and he hated the death that all were destined to suffer.
Jesus never avoided the hard words, and he never cheapened the easy ones. And this is what we must do, too.

Scripture lays out very clearly the path that our faithfulness must take, but that doesn’t mean that it is easy to understand. It takes study. It takes prayer. It takes commitment! It takes a desire that is all consuming and it requires an effort that never takes a vacation.
But it does not mean that we must be constantly busy in the church. Burn out is no stranger to Christians, and it probably accounts for more failures in faith than persecution does. If we aren’t constantly revitalized, constantly supported, constantly supporting, constantly growing, how will we ever weather the worldly storms that are always blowing up in our face?

Paul was encouraging the church to be the church together. You’ve all heard the expression “Divide and Conquer”! That is what the world tries to do to the church. They try to inject fear into the lives of the faithful. They try to cause divisiveness. They try to introduce false teaching so we are confused as to what we believe. They try to fill us with uncertainty and apprehension and apathy. And it works! If we aren’t the church together, and if we aren’t the church with Christ, then we aren’t the church at all. Imitation is the only way, and that model is only accurate in Jesus Christ.
Imitate the Lord and his goodness in all of it’s aspects, and when we do, the church will grow and thrive. Paul’s last words for us today is this – “For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you? Indeed, you are our glory and joy!”

The faithful church, emulating the one Lord, united in one belief, living it to the fullest in our own individual lives – that is the glory and joy that Paul was talking about. Be that glory and joy for someone today.

“Never Flatter, Always Glorify”

2011-10-16T19:05:00.000-04:00

Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 2:1-12

When we strike out in ministry or mission, we never know where it is going to lead. It might turn out to be a wonderful effort, succeeding far beyond our hopes and dreams. On the other hand, it could be a total flop!
Why would one effort on behalf of Christ be a victory, and another fail so miserably? Simply this – if the effort is initiated by the leading of the Holy Spirit, it will flourish – not always in the way we would like it to, but it will. But if it never bears any fruit, it’s usually because it is our desire, our plan, and not the Lord’s. We can have the grandest plan to evangelize, or to build, or to serve, or to witness, but if it isn’t the one that God has laid out for us, it will go nowhere!
The disciples and the early apostles knew this. As we read the gospel accounts of the 12’s early walk with Christ, they failed far more often than they succeeded. Paul’s venture into faith as the persecutor of the early church didn’t fare any better. But as each one discovered the power of the Holy Spirit in their lives, they began to listen closer, and walk closer, and their efforts in faith began to not only blossom, but sprout wings!
Paul’s second missionary journey had been a real trial. There had been some notable joys, and a few that weren’t quite so joyful. Philippi hadn’t been all that pleasurable a stop, but they would reach a few folks. (Acts 16:11-40) As an abbreviated summary, He and Silas had to go outside the city to even find some people who would listen, and they only met a few women who showed any interested in their message. The rest of the city turned against them, they were dragged into court, were flogged and imprisoned, and eventually asked to leave the city for good. When they got to Thessalonica, they reached a few Jews and a number of Greeks, and even though they would eventually be thrown out of that city, too, their efforts were a bit more rewarding. (Acts 17:1-9)

Read 1 Thessalonians 2:1-6a

Ministry in the Holy Spirit’s leading isn’t always easy, but it will always bring results. The men had been directed away from some cities, and lead to others. And in it all, they did as the Lord planned, and never what they desired. In all things, “[they spoke] as men approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel.” They weren’t about to preach or teach in a way that would make people feel good. Their mission was to carry the message of Jesus Christ to the Gentile nations, and they did.

They didn’t “fake” the Holy Spirit, they didn’t twist the call on their lives around to suit themselves, they didn’t turn Jesus into a “warm-fuzzy” to make the Gospel message more appealing to the Jews and Greeks, they didn’t invent or dream up spirit dreams so they could justify whatever they felt comfortable in. They trusted God implicitly, and followed him wherever they were lead. Any glory that came of their mission was for the Lord and no one else; they gave none to others and took none for themselves.

Read 1 Thessalonians 2:6b-12

“We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well”. Think about the images that Paul was sharing with the church – a Mother or Father caring and loving their children, encouraging them, comforting them, urging them to live their lives in a way that was worthy of God. Sound like the way that Jesus lived? You’d better believe it! Not reinventing or softening the message, not avoiding the tough places, but loving the people with every word that was spoken, every body that was healed, every heart that was strengthened, every mind that was changed, every life that was saved. Paul and Silas and Timothy found joy, not in the victories that were gained, but simply in the faithful witness that they were able to offer.

Our life in Christ is not about the victories, not about the glory, and it’s especially not about how much others appreciate us and the things we do and say. It’s all about how much we trust God, and whether we walk with him in joy and faith. Victory and glory and thanksgivings for our ministries and missions are not for us to keep – they are for God’s honor.

As we prepare for our healing service today, I want to encourage you to put your thoughts completely in the Lord, just as Paul and Silas and Timothy did. They trusted him, and looked to him for all of the victories.
Can God heal? Absolutely!
Can he change you? Absolutely!
Can he make all things new in you? Without question?
Does he love you implicitly and want only the best for you? Yes, and Yes again!

Come, knowing that he, too, is your source of encouragement, comfort, love, and hope.

(Note: Follow the message, a number of people at each church came forward for anointing and prayers.)

“Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Faith”

2011-10-09T16:45:00.000-04:00

Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 1:2-10

The concept of imitation is often considered as being synonymous with stealing. Imitation in literature is called “plagiarism”. Imitation in business is known as “patent infringement”. Imitators in life are “copy cats”. Sometimes we say that “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”, but only the most shallow personalities would tend to believe that. To copy the style, the work, the dress, the mannerisms of another person is never seen as an individualistic form of personal expression. And yet, people do it all the time.
What about faith? Is it permissible to imitate the faith of others? The faith expression of others? The faith walk of others?

1 Thessalonians 1:2-7

The basic tenets of our faith are intended to be taught and followed, and even imitated by those who come after us. But one major caution must be that the one who is being imitated must be accurate in their understanding.
In the very early church, before the invention of the printing press, bibles were painstakingly reproduced by hand. Monks would dedicate their entire life to coping the text, and a concerted and dedicated effort was made to ensure that each and every copy was perfectly accurate. When a monk finished copying a page, presumably exactly, including sentence breaks, line spacing and letter spacing, a “supervisor” would examine both the original and the copy, to verify that it was, indeed, an exact copy. He would choose a random line number, such as the 12th line, then count across a given number of characters, such as to the 20th character, and would then compare the result in both documents. He might do this several times, and if there wasn’t a perfect match, the page was destroyed, and the monk started over again on a fresh page. And it didn’t matter if that page had taken him 6 months to produce – it was no good!
Accuracy in faith is just as important. But what if the accuracy of our imitation is flawed?

Humphrey Bogart was once taken to watch a young comedian who had a reputation for doing a very good Bogart imitation. Bogie sat in the audience and was asked afterwards what he thought of the imitation. His reply was, 'One of us stinks.'
--As quoted in Context, (15 March 1993), 6.

The early church struggled with faith expressions that figuratively “stunk”! As we read through 1 Corinthians and other epistles, we see the struggle that the church was experiencing. Many people were trying to include worldly attitudes and ideals in the faith, and it was causing a great conflict in the congregations. Consider the issue of sexual expression. The Greek and Roman influence in society was very strong, and sexual activity was a varied as the people who lived in a particular community. Anything went! And this attitude found its way into the faith.
In 1 Corinthians 5:1, we read “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that does not occur even among pagans: A man has his father’s wife.” Leviticus 18:7 & 8 specifically address this, and the law declares that the act is “dishonorable”. And yet, members of the church were actively promoting and engaging in worldly wiles. They were imitating false precepts of faith, and the church was being torn apart from the inside out.
And the erosion that begins within is the most dangerous kind. It’s insidious. It’s infectious. And many times, it’s subtle. And if it is advanced by a respected member of the community, it will almost always be accepted as a valid expression. Sound familiar? The greatest danger in the church today comes from the very people who are charged with preservation and expansion of the faith – the clergy and laity in leadership positions. For the most part, they can offer nearly any thought in the local church, and it will, at least in part, be accepted as “gospel”. They are seen as a spiritual authority, and few will question their teachings.
But it’s about time that we started counting “lines and characters”, and comparing the teachings in the church to the original text. I don’t mean to imply that we have to do things exactly like the early church did, or even teach as the early church apostles did. Every person’s faith walk is unique, and people today will respond to music and styles in different ways than they did in the 1st, or 5th, or 15th centuries. It’s perfectly acceptable to use new methods, new forms, new expressions in faith, new music, but we can never deviate from the original intent and teachings of Jesus, or for that matter, of the prophets and the apostles. And I want each of you to know that I must also be accountable to those same teachings, and if you believe that I have wandered too far afield in my messages, I want you to challenge me. If I can’t defend my position with thoughts from the mind and heart of Christ, then I’m in trouble. If I can, then maybe we can both learn something new.

1 Thessalonians 1:8-10

The church in Thessalonica was following Paul’s teaching as closely as they possibly could. In Paul’s words, they were imitators of both him and the Lord. And the message of good news was beginning to be spread far and wide. They had been persecuted, their faith had been under attack from the outside and even possibly from the inside, they had been ridiculed, and had experienced any number of other humiliations, and still their faith remained firm.

Paul recounts the accuracy of their teaching. They had turned away from false gods and toward Christ. They knew that Jesus would one day return to claim them. They knew for certain that Jesus had died for their sins, and that he had been raised form the dead and into new life. And they knew that it was Christ and Christ alone who would judge their worthiness for a life in eternity with him.

That is the “line and character” verification of their faith. They lived the Lord’s call that is in Matthew 28 – they were making disciples of all “nations”, they were baptizing them in the name of God the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and were teaching the people to know and obey the commandments of Christ, and not those of society.
To imitate Jesus Christ – his life, his teachings, his humility, his obedience, his faithfulness – is the ultimate expression of love for Jesus that any Christian can make. And yet, some still think that the faith needs to be modified and updated to match societal standards of today.

When I was growing up, and most of you are from that same or similar era, we all had our heroes. For some, it was an inspiring teacher; for others it was a person who had overcome some great adversity; for some it was a great sports figure or a highly respected member of the military; and some even saw their parents as their heroes! It was always about the way their “hero” lived their life to the fullest and how they used it to help others.
Today, the heroes seem to have deteriorated a bit. Now it is all about individualism and self expression. It is all about self advancement, and seldom about raising others up. Imitation is no longer the admirable character trait that it once was.

But for those who still have the life goal of imitating Christ, there is still hope. The standards of Jesus are no further away from that of the world today than they were 2,000 years ago, and unfortunately, no closer, either – it’s just that the separation today has become personal. We are living it. We are struggling in it. We are still being tempted to embrace the world, to be accepting of the world, to at least try some “new” way, even though there is nothing new about it. It admittedly has a new packaging, but the attitude has not changed one bit in the last 2 millennium. “Why get stuck in a rut from the past? Strike out in a new direction! Be daring! Be new!”

We need to be careful as to what and who we are imitating. Paul had imitated Jesus to the best of his ability. The church in Thessalonica had imitated Paul and his message to the best of their abilities. And they were carrying that same message to others – the message of Jesus Christ that was in the original thought, and not massaged into a completely new, and politically correct, and unrecognizable form.
We need to be imitators of Christ, and that is the only faith that can be seen as sincere. All of the rest? They just “stink”!

“All Lost to Gain More!”

2011-10-02T15:02:00.001-04:00

Scripture: Philippians 3:4b-16

Dr. James Dobson says he keeps a particular photograph in his files to remind him of what parents [and I might add, all people!] go through today. It is of an elegantly dressed woman who is holding a cup of coffee. Her little finger is cocked ever so daintily, and her face reveals complete self-assurance. Unfortunately, this woman does not yet know that her slip has collapsed around her feet. The caption reads: “Confidence is what you have before you understand the situation.”
- Homiletics On Line

Have you been there? Been so sure of what you have done, that there is no doubt whatsoever that you are right? – or at least until someone else notices some minor detail that you have overlooked, and which makes a world of difference to your prestige? Humbling, isn’t it?
Confidence in faith is no different. If we are confident that we are righteous and completely faithful, we had better understand that we have made an error in our assumptions! But if we have confidence in the one whom we have faith in, we will then discover that we are at least on the right track.

Read Philippians 3:4b-7

Paul had every reason to boast in his worldly position – prestige in his heritage, high regard and respect as a Pharisee, zealous in the living out of his faith, and legalistic to perfection in his morality. He had everything going for him, and every reason to believe that he was living a holy and worthwhile life. But that was before he understood the situation!
And then he decides to go to Damascus to root out some more of those Christian agitators. He sets out on the journey, with some colleagues in attendance, never realizing that his life would soon be changed forever. (See Acts 9:1-19a) Saul the perfect Jew would become Paul the humble Christian, and he would set all of his worldly esteem behind him and never pick it up again. Paul would discover that his interpretation of holiness couldn’t even begin to come close to that of God, and he came to understand that for years, he hadn’t been attacking the perversion of faith, but rather the Holy Faith itself.

First, Paul hears the voice of the Almighty, not in a condemning way, but as a simple question – “Why do you persecute me?”, and he is told that God, indeed, has a plan, but that it is totally different from the one he had been following. The next voice he would hear is that of a humble man – a mere man, a man who would have been on the tormenter’s list of the faithless, a man who he fully intended to arrest and very possibly to torture. And he didn’t condemn Paul, either. Instead, Ananias offers a prayer for healing, and Paul’s sight is restored, and he is baptized into the faith.
A life time of rigidly following all of the rules, and it only took 3 days to discover that they are all completely meaningless in the light of eternity!

Read Philippians 3:8-11

All of the honors and glory of his previous life are now seen as worthless. We read the word “rubbish” in our text – it is nothing more than trash, it has no value whatsoever, it is good only for the garbage heap! The attributes that he once saw as infinitely valuable are now to be discarded as readily and deliberately as a broken lamp might be.

How did this drastic change come over this otherwise unyielding life? Was it because he had been confronted by Jesus Christ Himself? Could it have been his encounter with a true Christian man who seemed to have no fear of him? These certainly had an impact, but I think that there is more, that there is a symbolism in the Acts account that we sometimes overlook. The Acts passage tells us that “something like scales fell from his eyes, and he could see again.” (v. 18), and this may be symbolic of a spiritual healing that came into his life, and not just a physical one. Ananias had told Paul that he had been sent to him “so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Paul didn’t ask the Spirit to come over him, and he probably didn’t even understand what Ananias was telling him, but he certainly did know it when it happened!
Paul would come to know the glory of Christ in his life, and it would never leave him. He would realize that the prized life that he had been living was worthless without Jesus, and that with Jesus, he had gained far more than the glory of earth could ever give him. Did you notice that Paul repeats this theme of “gain” three times in a row? (vs. 7 & 8) He doesn’t want us to miss this point - that by letting go of the short-lived things that earth would have us cherish, we can then receive the things of heaven that have an eternal and infinite worth.

And we also need to consider his words regarding the power of Christ’s resurrection. For the vast majority of people, death is something to be feared and avoided as long as possible. Have you noticed that there is a growing trend toward plastic surgery, with all of those procedures that are intended to make us appear more youthful, for Botox and all of those other medical innovations that are intended to make us look “years younger”? After all, from a psychological point of view, if we look younger, then we feel younger and we think that we have a longer time before we become old! And “getting older” is seen as being synonymous with “death”! And no one wants to die!
But Paul is able to see beyond the limitations of this earthly life, and he claims the power of eternal life in Jesus Christ. He sees the “gain of Christ” as being able to participate, not only in Christ’s suffering on earth, not only in the sharing of physical death, but more so in the resurrection power of the Easter Christ. When the scales fell from Paul’s eyes, he suddenly could see beyond the earthliness that had been his lot for years. He had thought that he could earn eternity though his rigid faithfulness in “doing” right things, but he came to know that it is only through Christ that we can gain true life.

Read Philippians 3:12-16

He readily admits, and rightly so, that he has yet to grasp that prize that he has seen, but is still pressing on toward the goal. And the closing words for today’s reading must be the Christian’s charge for these times – “Only let us live up to what we have already attained.” (v. 16) None of us are perfect in this life, but whether we are vastly imperfect, or approaching the edge of a righteous existence, we can’t sit back and claim “Oh well – Jesus will take us regardless.” Paul tells that we can’t sit back in complacency and expect that God’s merciful nature will welcome us. While we are here, we need to live as Christian a life as we possibly can. It’s true that we have received salvation through the gift of new birth in Christ, but now we have an obligation to live as thought we appreciate that gift! Is Sunday the only day we give to God, while the other 6 days go to the world? Are we content in our own salvation, and willing to let others find their own way to the Lord? Have we truly denounced the things of earth as “rubbish”, as trash, as worthless, or do we still like to keep a tight grasp on all that we have gained? Do we have enough respect for all that the Lord has won for us to give our all to him? Our time, our resources, our finances, our life?

“Whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.” (v. 7) Do you truly believe that all that this life has brought to you is “loss”? Not just worthless, but as a negative? It is, you know.
Let go of the worthless, and claim the fullness, the glory, the power of Jesus Christ today.

“The Hope of Horeb”

2011-09-25T19:59:00.000-04:00

Scripture: Exodus 17:1-7

“Hope for the best, expect the worst, and be happy with whatever comes.” Have you ever heard that expression? Some of us may have even used it upon some occasion or other. Think about those words, though – what kind of hope do they express? The truth is that they aren’t very hopeful, are they! The “hope” is simply expressed as some subjective desire, with no expectation of a pleasant outcome. As a matter of fact, this phrase would encourage us to have a yearning for the best, but don’t expect that it will come about - the only certainty, the only expectation that we can ever have, is the “worst”! And when the best eludes us, just settle in and be happy with whatever you get.

The expression is, at best, defeatist in nature, and is not a worthwhile attitude for any Christian. We talk about the Hope of Christ. Is that a defeatist “hope”, an elusive “hope”, a questionable “hope”? Of course not! The hope that we have in Jesus Christ is a certainty and we can never see it in any other way.

But how about the Hebrew children? Was the hope that they placed in Yahweh elusive? Most of the time they seemed to see it as questionable, but only because they never quite came to grips with God’s all encompassing and undying compassion for them. Yahweh saw them safely through the sea, and then closed the waters up right on top of the entire Egyptian army (Exodus 14:5-31). When they ran out of food and were hungry, he would send them nourishment in the form of manna and quail – not once, not once in a while, but manna every morning and quail every evening, every day of their desert journey (Exodus 16:11-26). And then they ran out of water and got thirsty.

Read Exodus 17:1-1-4

“Expect the worst!” That’s exactly what Israel was doing – “We’re all going to die! Don’t you care what happens to us?” And just who do they direct their demand for water to? Moses! What did they expect the man to do for them? He wasn’t a magician, he wasn’t sorcerer, and he definitely wasn’t divine. Moses couldn’t get water to bubble up out of the sand anymore than the people could! But he knew that God could, and so he confronts the tribes with the truth of where their question is really being directed - “Why do you put the Lord to the test?”

But they don’t hear him, they don’t get it, and they accuse Moses of bringing them out into the desert (actually it was God who did that), and claim that it was Moses’ only desire that they should all die of thirst, which, of course, was never anyone’s desire or intention!

Didn’t they know that they were in a land that was filled to overflowing with God’s promise? And that his promise isn’t up for interpretation – it’s sure and firm. In God, “hope” becomes the expectation, not a simple desire. The problem was that they weren’t satisfied with having trust in their Lord – they wanted God to anticipate their needs and to proactively provide them. They didn’t want adversity in their lives, they didn’t want trials to come, they didn’t want to humbly play out the hand they had been dealt, they didn’t want to simply trust that the Almighty would provide for each and every need, that he would guide each and every step, and that he would do it at the very moment that his help was needed the most.

A man, returning home late one night, stopped at a roadside diner in a Texas hill country town to snag a quick cup of coffee. As is typical of many men, he quickly used all the sugar packets the waitress had left on the table for him, but wanted more. As the waitress came near his table again, he called out, “I want some more sugar, please.” The crusty old gal defiantly put her hands on her hips, leaned over toward him and snapped, “Stir what ya’ got!”
-- Howard Edington, Downtown Church: The Heart of the City (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996), 27-28.

Israel didn’t want to “stir what they had”, they wanted more and they wanted it yesterday! And that attitude has survived through the centuries, and permeates our present day society. John D. Rockefeller was once asked “How much is enough?”, and his reply was “Just a little more!” A Rockefeller can’t be satisfied, even with all that the Lord has already blessed him with? So why should we be any different? And the truth is that both Israel and we aren’t!

Where is the “hope”? Where is the trust in God? Israel had placed their hope in the physical world, and it wasn’t looking very promising. They had been crying out to the Almighty for many years, and he heard their petitions. But when he began the preparations for their relief, they could only see the probability of more pain and suffering, and they never heard the promise of relief that was already on its way.

Read Exodus 17:5-7

“Is the Lord with us, or not?” We might as well ask “Where is God in all of this mess?”, or “Why is God doing this to me?” That seems to be a relatively common theme for those who are experiencing some great trial – it certainly was the question that Israel seemed stuck on. “Why hasn’t he fixed our problem already?”

Why does God wait until the situation is so desperate that we tend to lose our trust in him? The Lord has an infinitely benevolent nature – why don’t we fix our gaze on that? I don’t think that it is so much that he wants to test our faith, as it is that he wants to show us what a little faith can do. Faith, just like Hope, is not a desire, not a wish, not a craving – Faith and Hope, for those who trust in the one and true God, must be an expectation. It isn’t a confidence, though, that we will never have a need, but rather that God will meet our every need, when it is needed.
It’s also interesting to note that Yahweh doesn’t bring the water out of the rock all on his own. He could have, but he uses Moses to strike the blow. It certainly is the power of God that produced the result, but it is through the faith of the man. God tells Moses “I will stand before you at the rock”. Moses didn’t have to do the work all by himself, and he didn’t even have to take the lead, but he had to take that one important step in faith – a step in expectation - that the water would come.

Mount Horeb is the mountain of Expectant Hope in God. And it would be proved over and over again.

Moses and Elijah are both strongly associated with Mount Horeb. For Moses, Horeb was not only the place that water was found, but also the site of the burning bush (Exodus 3:1), and the giving of the Ten Commandments (Deuteronomy 4:10).
For Elijah, it was the site of his crisis of faith, where God sent an earthquake, a rushing wind and an all consuming fire, before speaking to him in “a sound of sheer silence” (1 Kings 19:8-12).
- Homiletics On Line

When we look at our own church, this place of worship — our holy mountain, as it were – the place where we are rested and restored and renewed for this life, the same question applies. Do we see this place as our Horeb? Are we the “faithful” through whom God works many miracles? Are we the “hopeful” who expect to see great things happen when we reach out with the common every day gifts that Almighty God has given us?

The lesson of Horeb is before us today, and that lesson is this – “Hope for the best that you can possibly imagine, and then expect even more.” The Lord has proven this over and over - in Moses’ time, in Elijah’s time, in Peter and Paul’s time, in the time of the early church, and he continues to prove this in our time. But we have to do more than just believe and expect – we have to take that step in faith that places us in a position that is immediately behind the Lord. We have to be prepared to go where he asks us to go, to do what he asks us to do, to trust as he asks us to trust, to surrender to Christ as he surrendered to the will of the Father.
Romans 8:24-25 – “For in this hope we were saved, but hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not have, we wait for it patiently.”

That is the hope of Horeb. A hope that can not be seen, and yet is the hope that will save us. Horeb is the commandments. Horeb is our sustenance. Horeb is our assurance. Horeb is our trust. And Horeb is our patience.

Know the Hope of God that is in Christ Jesus, the one who is not only our Living Water, but also our Living Horeb.

"Understanding Job. Praise God!"

2011-09-11T17:52:00.002-04:00

Note: This past week, we were inundated by flood waters from Hurricane Lee, so our standard order of worship went out the window, so to speak. We used worship to talk about our storm experiences and the damage that was inflicted on our homes and possessions. We used the time to consider how we had just come through a "Job time", and to see how we now understand the lesson of Job. It is also the anniversary of the 9-11 attack on our nation, which seemed to fit well with this new disaster, except that now it became extremely personal.

Scripture: Philippians 1:12-20

Paul had his "Job times", as did nearly all of the disciples and many in the early church. Even Jesus had his trials and storms, and Good Friday was his 9-11. The only difference is that he also had an Easter morning, and one day, and so shall we.

The message was informal and interactive, so it is not reproduced here.

And as an afterthought, the title of this blog is a reproduction of a text message that I received from a parishoner the day after the rains stopped, and he was able to get back into his home to discover the significant damage that had been inflicted.

Praise God Indeed!

“Lessons From the Whirlwind: Overcoming”

2011-09-04T15:50:00.000-04:00

Scripture: Job 38:1-7; 40:3-5; 42:1-6,10

After taking 3 weeks to consider the struggle that Job went through, today we approach the resolution that he has so desperately needed. He doesn’t get an answer to his “WHY?” question, but he will discover that not only is the question irrelevant, but the answer to “Why” isn’t all that important, either.

The author Sister Ritamary Bradley writes:
“It is not why does God not hear me, but why do I not hear God?”
--Ritamary Bradley,
Praying With Julian of Norwich.

When you ask the wrong question, you either get the wrong answer or no answer at all. For Job, it was never a question of “Why?” or “How?” or anything else! It had to be a statement - his response to the struggle had to be the exclamation “Yes!”

A fourth friend by the name of Elihu comes to Job, and for 7 chapters begins to unfold the majesty of God to Job and the other three. He would be the last and the youngest to address Job’s condition and, apparently, the wisest. As a brief summary of what Elihu tells the others, it is this: “Job – you’re not as perfect as you seem to think you are. The suffering that you are experiencing is the pain of death that comes to all who sin. Relief and redemption from the pain of this life can only come from God, not by our own hand.”
And he tells the other three that they aren’t quite as smart as they seem to think they are. Not one of them has proven Job wrong, and none of them has truly answered Job’s arguments. And regardless of how much they had to say about the Lord and his ways in Job’s life, none of them actually understands how just and powerful and all encompassing and magnificent God really is.
And Elihu ends his speech in 37:23-24 with these words “The Almighty is beyond our reach and exalted in power; in his justice and great righteousness, he does not oppress. Therefore, men revere him, for does he not have regard for all the wise in heart?”
When God knew that Job finally understood that, he began to tell the man exactly what he needed to know.

Read Job 38:1-7

Job was a righteous man – God told the Accuser that back in Chapter 1. But the man wasn’t perfect and suffering came just the same. But through it all, Job’s only plea was not necessarily for relief, although that would have been welcome, but rather that he might once again see his Lord’s image and hear his Lord’s voice.

God tells the man to fasten his seat belt and to hold on tight, because now the tables would be turned – the Almighty would do the questioning, and the man would give the answers, if indeed, he could! And the divine response would last for four chapters

But the answer isn’t the one that Job or the other four were expecting, and it isn’t the one that any of us would want, either. We want to hear that God suddenly spoke words of compassion and hope to Job and would immediately take pity on his sorry state and heal him on the spot. But he didn't.
As for the 3 friends, we want God to offer them words of condemnation and correction for the way that they treated Job. But he doesn’t. The words that come from God, basically, remind these men - all of them - of the power and mystery that is behind the very nature of his Almighty hand, and that there isn’t one of them (or one of us for that matter!) who has the right to question God’s ways; that no one can have even an ounce of understanding of him. He offers one point after another, and every one of them is intended to reveal the glory that is God and the miracle that is his creation. There isn’t a single word of deep theological thought here, and yet it lays out the Divine purpose in such visual and understandable way that it is unmistakable.

Job had been waiting to plead his case to God, and it seems that it is God who asks the questions and makes the case for Job! And the man and his friends sit in awed silence until God asks: “Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him? Let him who accuses God answer him!” >(40:2) And then Job replies:

Read Job 40:3-5

Job tells the Lord that he has nothing to say in response. He’s starting to get it, but God isn’t done yet, and continues:

Read Job 40:8-14

I wish more people would consider these words and try, just try, to understand what they are saying to us. After all of the “Can you’s” and “Where were you’s”, and “Do you’s” of chapters 38 & 39, God tells Job that if he can even begin to do the things that the Lord has already been doing, then he will acknowledge that salvation by human hands is, after all, a possible and viable option.
But there are a lot of folks out there who don’t appreciate this fact.
They discount God’s solitary authority over control of the universe, over who will be saved, and over who can’t and won’t.
They don’t, or won’t, understand, that while the decision that they make is the difference between salvation and condemnation, it isn’t going to be based on their standards!
Salvation is not the default for our lives! The lack of a conscious decision will not bring about the desired effect for our life in eternity! Even Job the Righteous knew that he was incapable of controlling anything that God had made – items that the Lord has had power over and has commanded in every moment of every day since the beginning of time.

The renowned story teller John Henry Faulk tells a story from his early childhood:
While growing up with his cousin, Billy, deep in East Texas as nine-year-old make-believe Texas Rangers, they were the scourge of all bandits, robbers and desperadoes when they rode their trusty stick horses on the range between the kitchen door and the corn crib.

One day John Henry's mother sent them out to investigate a commotion in the henhouse. They cautiously entered where all the chickens were squawking and fluttering around and began to examine the nests. About half way through their investigation, as they peered into a nest, a black snake raised its head about six inches from their noses. John Henry remembers how all of their make-believe heroism fell away as they made a new door in the side of the henhouse.

When John Henry's mother questioned them about the incident, she wondered how the two bravest lawmen in East Texas could be afraid of a harmless black snake, adding, “After all, everybody knows a black snake can't hurt nobody.” To which young Billy replied, as he rubbed his bruised head and backside, “Yes, Ma'am, but they sure can cause you to hurt yourself.”

The struggle that Job went through, and the attacks of his friends, and the frustration that Job felt during those months of pain and suffering and agonizing hopelessness, was not caused by either God or the Accuser! God allowed Satan to take blessings away from Job, but the greatest pain came, not because of the loss of family or possessions or health, but because of human perceptions and attitudes and disjointed faith.
The point of the suffering, as well as that of the Divine lecture, was not to humble Job and to beat him down into submission. It was to teach a lesson to all who were involved – Job, Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, Elihu, and especially Satan the Accuser - and to grow the man Job into even greater faith and righteousness.
And it was successful.

Read Job 42:1-6, 10

The lesson of Job is not about enduring pain, and as much as tradition would tell us otherwise, it is not about patience! Job was not a patient man! It’s about living a life in faith that is so strong that nothing can come between us and our Lord. And in our lives, whether in tragedy or in joy, we need to claim the words that showed the world that Job had learned the lesson well.

“My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.”

Then God tells the friends that they have to go to Job to seek his forgiveness for all of the wrong advice that they had given. He knew the commandment “Whatever you forgive on earth will be forgiven in heaven ..” (Matthew 18:15-19) some 2,000 years before Jesus ever spoke them!
Have you forgiven your friends of all the hurt that they have brought into your life? And if you have, have you seen your Lord today? Have you heard his voice? If you’re not sure, then just look around you and marvel at the creative and restorative and redeeming powers that he gives to our benefit every day. Open your ears to the glory of a newborn’s cry, or a breeze blowing through a tree, or an unexplained word or sense that gives you the very answer that you need. Claim the forgiving power of God, and be part of that restorative work in our world.
See with the eyes on your face, and with the eyes of your heart; Hear with both the ears of your body and with those of your soul. Know, without question, that he and he alone is God, and that our very existence is based in his grace and his love for the likes of you and me.

“Lessons From the Whirlwind: Asking”

2011-08-28T12:45:00.000-04:00

Scripture: Job 29:1-13; 30:16-26

Job has been in a real mess over the past two weeks. First, he loses every possession that he ever had, including his children. Then He loses his health and finds himself covered from head to foot with oozing sores. And if that weren’t bad enough, 3 friends arrive to give him comfort and encouragement and to help him through his ordeal, but the only thing they really accomplish is to drive the man to the brink of spiritual collapse.
He had answered their accusations as well as he could, considering his plight, and they continued to badger him time and time again. Job was starting to wonder if maybe, just maybe, they might be right? Had he offended his Lord? Had he been the cause of God’s apparent absence at the very time when he needed the Almighty the most?

There is a Charlie Brown cartoon strip where Lucy asks, “Why do you think we're put on earth, Charlie Brown?”
Charlie replies, “To make others happy.” [a world view of creation at best!]
Lucy says, “I don't think I'm making anyone very happy .... Of course, nobody's making me very happy either.”
Then in the final panel, Lucy screams at the top of her lungs ...
“SOMEBODY'S NOT DOING HIS JOB!”
- Homiletics On Line

Do you think that this may be how Job felt. He wasn’t happy, and no one else appeared to be happy, either. Where was God? Why had all of the joy of life been taken away?

Last week after worship, a man in the congregation asked me if I knew how long Job’s ordeal lasted. I replied that I didn’t know. Today, we get the answer. Watch for it!

Read Job 29:1-13

Months of pain and anguish!

Each time that one of the friends attacked Job’s virtue, he responded with the plea that if he could just talk to the Lord, he could get this whole mess straightened out. In Job 9:32-35, we see an example of his frustration – “If only there were someone to arbitrate between us, to lay his hand upon us both, someone to remove God’s rod from me, so that his terror would frighten me no more. Then I would speak up without fear of him, but as it now stands with me, I cannot.”

Job had not only lost all – literally all – that he had, he now felt that he had lost touch with God. He didn’t understand why, he just knew that it had happened. No flocks and herds. No servants. No children. No health. And with friends like the ones who had come to him – no friends, either. No one to intercede for him. No one to pray with him. No one to arbitrate on his behalf. No one to lean on. No one to turn to. NO ONE AND NOTHING AT ALL!
How much misery can a person endure before they just totally give up?

The Scottish preacher Dr. Arthur Gossip was famous for his inspirational messages in early 20th century Scotland. When he was 54, and at the height of his [ministry], his wife died suddenly and unexpectedly.
The first time Dr. Gossip returned to his pulpit after his wife’s death, he preached on the subject “But When Life Tumbles in, What Then?” In the sermon he said, “I do not understand this life of ours. But still less can I comprehend how people in trouble and loss and bereavement can fling away peevishly from the Christian faith. In God’s name, fling to what? Have we not lost enough without losing that too?”
- From “The Hero in Thy Soul”, by Arthur John Gossip, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1929, pg 110, as quoted in Kalas, J. Ellsworth, “When Suffering Comes”, 1988 Abingdon Press., pg27

Dr. Gossip, even in the depths of despair over his wife’s demise, even in the midst of his personal suffering, even in the anguish of his soul, couldn’t even imagine his life without faith in Almighty God. And even though Job was in an even worse condition, even though Job was distraught over not hearing God’s word for his life and couldn’t understand why, even though Job felt that for some unknown reason he had become the Lord’s enemy (Job 13:20-24), he never fell to the level of denying the presence and glory of his Lord.
But the grief would continue.

Read Job 30:16-26

He is lost in his grief and hopelessness. But he continues to call out to God, seeking some word of promise and comfort! He never stops asking – during months of torment, he continues to seek for a word – just one would be a blessing. And you never ask for help from someone who you think can’t hear you or who you think will never help.

Did God hate Job? Did God desert Job? Did God decide that this man wasn’t worth his time or effort? NO! NEVER! The promise of Deuteronomy 31:5-6 was sure and true for Job – “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” NEVER!

But God wasn’t answering the calls for help. He was still with Job, but he was there silently. Job was getting a little frustrated, and his questioning was starting to become rather desperate and almost angry. But the real point here is that regardless of his tone of voice, Job never stopped asking and pleading with God! “Give me something, Lord - anything!” Job never doubted that the Lord was still there – he just didn’t understand why everything was going so badly.
And we all may have felt that same sense of silence and struggle at one time or another in our own lives - a time that we may have interpreted as abandonment by God. But in truth, a different type of question must be asked in this situation
If God was being silent, why weren’t the people of God answering loudly!
The 3 who came to Job may have thought that they were the best friends that Job could possibly have, but I doubt that we would get that same observation from the man himself. They were certainly loud, but where was their Godliness?

How about our friendship in those times of trial that our friends go through? How many times do we have to hear a person tell of their struggles before we decide that we are the ones who ought to do something about it? Or worse yet, how few times will we listen to a person’s trials before we decide to head for more pleasant surroundings? Most people want friendships to be based on collective happiness, not on shared suffering. They readily admit that hospitals and nursing homes depress them, and steadfastly refuse to go there to visit – even for a friend. And yet, that is exactly what we are called to do in Matthew 25:34-46.

Jesus had quite a following as long as he was blessing and healing and feeding the masses. But as soon as his teaching began to get tough, the masses began to dwindle. In John 6:25-69, Jesus accuses the people of following him only because he has fed them. They had received something that they wanted, and the Lord knew that they just wanted more of the same. He tells them to work, not for food that will spoil, but for food that will endure forever, food that he will provide. They inquire as to what they must do to do the works of God, and Jesus tells them that the only work that must be done is to believe in the One who has been sent. He then begins his discourse regarding the Bread of Life - that he is that Bread, and that this Bread is his flesh.
And the people decide that they don’t like the message, and begin to desert him in droves. Then he turns to his disciples and asks them if they were going to leave, too? And it is our good friend Simon Peter who answers - :68-69 “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” Where else can we go but to you? The work of God is for us to believe in Jesus, and to live out his plan for our lives.

That plan, though, is an unknown for most of us, and in general, we aren’t real comfortable with that concept. We believe that Jesus is Lord and Savior of the world, but aren’t very happy about being his hands and feet to this world. His followers, as we read in the scriptures, would be pretty wishy-washy when it came to their faith walk in the hard times. In their ignorance, they would constantly question his teachings; in their arrogance, they would question the faith of anyone who wasn’t part of their band; they would be anxious to serve the Master when all was going well, but when the fires began to erupt, they suddenly got cold feet. After Jesus’ arrest, Peter would deny that he ever knew him; many would run for the hills like Cleopas did; Thomas would disappear for a week, and then express grave doubts that Jesus had ever returned from the dead. The others would go into hiding, and would barely see the light of day for days on end.
And yet, they would, one day, in the not so distant future, show such great faith and trust in Christ’s call on their lives, that with great confidence, they would begin to spread and share and live the message of grace and mercy throughout the world.

And that is what the people of God have always done, and must always do. When one who is suffering calls out to God, it is seldom that the Lord will respond directly. Instead, he will send a legion of his people – whether that “legion” consists of 1 person or of many, the necessary number will be called and sent. We go in a faith that is greater than any army; we go in a faith that can overcome any trial; we go in a trust and promise that loudly proclaims “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
And that is what we must help others to understand. God may not be answering their calls in the way that is desired, but we go to stand, to serve, to love, to encourage them, until the Lord does speak the final answer – “I am with you always, even to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:16-20)
Job would soon discover that his precious God is with him, and loves him dearly, and will prove all things to him, and we must know that this is true for our lives, too. But that’s a topic for next week.

“Lessons From the Whirlwind: Helping”

2011-08-21T07:59:00.000-04:00

Scripture: Job 4:1-8; 8:1-6; 11:1-9; 13:1-5

I believe that one of the greatest difficulties that humanity faces is to live fully the words in 1 Thessalonians 5:14-18 - “encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with everyone. Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always try to be kind to each other and to everyone else. Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
We may be able to accomplish 1 or 2 of those items, but seldom do we fulfill all of them at the same time. We may extend a hand of encouragement or help, but are we patient when we do it? We may have the greatest intention to be kind in our words to another who may be struggling, but how often is our advice taken as condemnation? And we may find the strength in our heart to always be kind to those we see as brothers and sisters, but how about “everyone else”? Are we joyful and prayerful and thankful all the time?

We all know where “good intentions” can lead us, but in Christ, we can truly walk the higher and better road. In our study of the book of Job last week, we considered the depth of Job’s suffering, and how he never turned against his Lord, in spite of the extent of his loss and despair. But Job was, for the most part, facing these trials alone. No encouragement, no help, no patient love. I believe that his joy had now been placed completely in God, and he was certainly prayerful and thankful beyond all expectation.
But he had no friend to walk through these trials with him.

And three friends would soon come to him - to console him, to grieve with him, and to just sit and morn with him in the ashes of Job’s sorrow. And at the end of the 3rd chapter, Job says “I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil.”
No matter how strong or resolute a person may seem to be during great trials, there is always an overwhelming desire and even greater need for the comfort of a friend. But that needed support seldom comes easily, and it is never easy to give. But even so, Job’s friends each decide to give him a word that is at least intended to help him. But how helpful will they be?

Read Job 4:1-8

Eliphaz begins his discourse by recounting how good a man Job has always been, and reminds him that his faith and piety should now be his great hope, but then implies that he is hopeless! Eliphaz even goes as far as to let Job know that “You reap what you sow!” (Galatians 6:7-10) Eliphaz has set himself up as Job’s judge, and is doing all that he can to convince him that this dire condition that he now faces is of his own doing.
Do you see much of 1 Thessalonians 5 in this approach? How much encouragement? How much help? How much patience? How much joy?

You’re right – not much at all! The only thing we see in Eliphaz’ dissertation is 2 chapters of condemnation and judgment. He sets himself up as the only one who truly understands God and his ways, and at the end of his speech, we read these words “We have examined this, and it is true. So hear it and apply it to yourself.” (Job 5:27) Everyone knows that pain and illness only comes from sinfulness, and you wouldn’t be in this mess if you truly loved God and served him! Pretty smitten with himself, isn’t he? But he doesn’t speak a single word of truth.

And Job begins to respond to Eliphaz’ accusations with these words “If only my anguish could be weighed and all my misery be placed on the scales: It would surely outweigh the sand of the seas – no wonder my words have been impetuous.”(Job 6:1-7) The words of a humble man who has received only animosity from a friend. Jobs anguish has not been relieved, there is no empathy, no sympathy, no understanding, and I suspect that his struggle has only been heightened. And he ends his thoughts in 7:21 with these words “Why do you not pardon my offenses and forgive my sins? For I will soon lie down in the dust; you will search for me, but I will be no more.”
The words of his friend which should have lifted him up have, instead driven him to the edge of despair. And then another friend is heard from.

Read Job 8:1-6

Bildad tells Job that he just doesn’t understand the situation! That he doesn’t have a clue as to what sins he has committed against Almighty God, and that he had better get his life straightened out! He offers a number of analogies that are intended to show Job that the good life can only thrive in righteousness – reeds can never grow without water and a spider web is fragile, and when you lean on it, it breaks.

He offers advice to Job to prove that Job is not the righteous man that he thought he was. V. 20 – “God does not reject a blameless man or strengthen the hands of evildoers.” Job, you’re a sinner, and you had better come clean!

Job agrees with Bildad, but he knows that his plight has nothing to do with whether he has sinned or not. He tells his friend that (v. 9:22) “He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.”

Even though the advice that Bildad offers is nothing short of conceited rhetoric, and it does nothing to help Job through his trial, his friends aren’t done yet!

Read Job 11:1-9

Zophar begins to chastise Job for his arrogance, but if the truth were known, it is Zophar who has exhibited arrogance. He is the last of the three to speak, and he has lost any patience that he might have had. He accuses Job of not appreciating the immense nature of God, and of thinking that he knows more than the Almighty. Job, you’re getting exactly what you deserve!

Where is the compassion? Where is the empathy and sympathy? These men had sat with Job for 7 days in the ashes of the garbage heap, and they never uttered a single word. That was compassion! That was empathy! That was true friendship, but eventually, each one turned against Job with their biting words and accusatory tones.

Eliphaz was judgmental in his words – telling Job that he wasn’t all that great, that he wasn’t as righteous a man as he thought he was.
Bildad was the advice giver – and it was to the extreme. His only intent was to let Job know that he must have done something that angered God, and what he needed to do to make things right with the Lord.
Zophar was impatient with Job and seems to scold him for his religious arrogance when it was actually Zophar who exhibited the arrogance.

Read Job 13:1-5

“If only you would be altogether silent. For you, that would be wisdom.” What are the best words to give to a person who is suffering? It is this: don’t give any advice, don’t offer any judgment, and be as patient and understanding as you possibly can. If you are able, join them in their emotional “pile of ashes”, and quietly show them your undying friendship.
There is no better friend than this. But these friends wouldn’t hear Job’s words, and each would take another turn at berating Job and dragging him even deeper into his pain. While it isn’t specifically said, do you think the Satan had anything to do with their actions?

There is an old Hasidic story about Rabbi Moshe Loeb, who said in part:
… if someone comes to you and asks you for help, it is not for you to receive him with a pious word, “Trust, and cast your need on God.” Then you should act as though there were no God, but only one person in the whole world who can help this person, [and that person is] you.
- Homiletics Online.

You are that person. You are to be the hands and feet and arms and love of Jesus Christ for all who suffer, for all who mourn, for all who struggle. And that will be good enough! These will speak much greater words than your lips ever could!

“Lessons From the Whirlwind: Suffering”

2011-08-14T19:22:00.000-04:00

Scripture: Job 1:1-3,8-11,20-21

A few months ago, a friend of mine gave me a DVD titled “Whirlwind”. It was a short 15 minute presentation on the Book of Job that gave me a whole new outlook on faith, and it convinced me that I needed to do a sermon series on this book. As if that weren’t enough, about a month ago, Diane showed me a book of hers on Job, “When Suffering Comes” by J. Ellsworth Kalas, that fitted perfectly into my thoughts for the messages.
So, for the next 4 weeks, we will be looking at the trials, as well as the victory, of Job, and will consider what his life has to teach us about living and walking in a consistent way with the Lord.

Eugene Kennedy writes:
Enjoying spiritual feelings without spiritual ideas, is what tacks the foam rubber onto the cross. Spirituality, under the modern template, does not brace one for suffering that leads to inner growth. Instead, it obliterates suffering by providing the musical equivalent of an injection from Dr. Feelgood.
The New Age movement survives by ignoring or distracting us from the staples of any profound spirituality: a sense of sin, an acceptance of the tragic, and love conquering suffering and death to lead us to resurrection, or life, as the disciple John wrote, to the full.
--Eugene Kennedy, quoted by Martin Marty in Context, January 1, 1999, 2.

This week, we begin our study of Job by considering the issue of “Suffering”.

Read Job 1:1-3

Job was one of those people who had the “golden touch”. He had 10 children, with 7 of them being sons. He had flocks and herds that were so numerous that they nearly defied counting. His wealth was beyond description, and scripture tells us that he “was the greatest man among all the people of the East”. For our purposes and for that time, we can take this to mean that he was the wealthiest and most influential man in the entire known world. And if his worldly possessions and position wasn’t enough, he loved God, he lived a righteous life, and he avoided everything that might even be construed as being immoral. Job was about as perfect a man as you could ever want to meet.

Then one day, the Lord is having a meeting with his angels, and Satan joins them. Now just a word about the Evil One. The word Satan isn’t as much a name as it is a title. The word means “Accuser” – it doesn’t mean “Evil”, or “Condemner”, or even “Destroyer”. This former lead angel that Isaiah calls the fallen “son of the morning” (Isaiah 14:12), certainly goes by these other names, as well as “Deceiver” and “Oppressor” and other less complimentary names, but his primary approach in leading us away from God is through accusation. He tells us on one occasion that we are weak and unworthy, and on the next that we are just as good as God. He convinces us that we are incapable of following the Lord, and then he turns around and tells us that God can never have the last word and that whatever we want to believe and do is just fine. The name “The Accuser” fits very well. His accusations create doubt in our heart.

Read Job 1:8-11

The Satan lets God know that he has been checking out the world, apparently looking for people who he can torment, and God raises Job up as an example to a “blameless and upright” man. And Satan’s mouth begins to water, for he has discovered his next target for destruction. The stage is now set for Job’s struggle to begin.

Satan lays the first accusation, not on Job, but on the Lord. “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has?” Of course he is upright – you’ve given him everything he has and you continue to protect him!

Therefore, an important lesson for us is this – God is greater than Satan, and the Accuser can do nothing that God would have otherwise!
But if Job is such a great guy, such a faithful man, a righteous man,
why would the Lord allow Satan to begin messing with him? Why does he torment us? Why is he allowed to range all over the world spreading his carnage? “Why is he doing this to me, Lord?”
I could probably offer a few theological reflections on these questions, but when we actually face the trials, the theory never seems to satisfy. We want to be reassured that the suffering has some greater meaning beyond the pain so that we can continue to have hope. But even the lesson that comes from this whirlwind doesn’t give us a satisfactory answer. It can only be a statement: In John 14:1, Jesus tells us “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.” No promise, no real answer, no course of action, no glimpse of what good might come of this – just a call to trust in him. And there are many other related quotes from scripture that have basically the same message. “Trust in God, and don’t let the troubles of the day wear you down!”

And God grants Satan authority over all that Job has, and the Accuser begins his work. Slowly, all of Job’s flocks and herds are either stolen or destroyed, and all but a very few of his servants are killed. Job’s wealth is no longer his to control, and then his greatest possessions, his sons and his daughters, are also taken from him.
And how does Job respond to his dire situation? With anger? With insults? With his own accusations?

Read Job 1:20-21

He takes a stand of sorrow and repentance, and he falls to the ground in worship of his Lord. Not a single word of accusation or condemnation comes from Job’s lips – he only offers words of praise to the Almighty. He fully acknowledges that his wealth was never his to start with, that they were all gifts from God.

In verse 21, Job seems to be saying that God has taken all these things from him – “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away” – and while this thought may not be totally accurate (remember that it was Satan who did the taking!), he never decries the loss as unfair, or hateful, or even as a punishment. He simply acknowledges the blessings that God had given him, and that now they are gone.

The Satan hasn’t won, but he isn’t done yet, either! He will go back to the Almighty and complain that it is Job’s health that is sustaining him and keeping him faithful. So the Lord gives the Accuser authority over Job’s body, but not his life. And Job then receives an attack of sores that extend from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet, but even in Job’s agony, he continues to place his entire hope and trust in God.
His life has been torn apart, his possessions have been taken, his children killed, and now his body is covered with sores. He is racked with pain,
the smell of the discharge must have been overwhelming, and his body was basically in a state of decay. There was no medicine, no doctors, no surgery to bring a cure to him. There was no comfort or respite at all – not physically, not emotionally, not intellectually.
The only hope he had was in his faith, that his God was good and gracious and giving, and that the Lord held no malice or animosity toward him - that he was truly loved. He didn’t understand the trials that had come upon him, but he never questioned God’s motives in this matter.

Many people here today have gone through trials of one kind or another. Some have had medical issues that have taxed your endurance. Some have experienced the loss of loved ones to death, and others to emotional differences that have resulted in separation. Some have had financial losses that resulted in the need for a major change in lifestyle. But I would venture a guess that none of us has ever experienced the extent of loss that Job did. And therefore, our brother Job can be a lesson for all of us.

We all want to find the answer to the questions “Why do the righteous have to suffer?” and “Why do bad things happen to good people?” But even though Job doesn’t give us the answer to these questions, there are lessons to be learned.

Lesson #1 - Suffering is a mystery. We experience it, but we don’t understand it. We face the pain as courageously as we can, but our greatest, and only, desire is that it would just stop and go away! And the answer to “Why?” never seems to come. Eventually the pain may subside, but we can never forget it and we will never understand it.

Lesson #2 - Evil exists in this world in many forms and it comes at us in unanticipated ways. Most of the time, we can do little to gain relief from the evil, but our faith calls us to believe that God is still in control and that in the end, he will triumph gloriously. Evil is, but so is God.

Lesson #3 - The Adversary exists, he is real, and he is responsible for all of the sin and pain and tragedy and loss that befalls us. We may never understand why he must be, but he is. We may never understand why he must do, but he does. We may never understand why our loving and compassionate and merciful God would give us over to this evil, but it happens.

The one thing we must always understand and never forget, though, is this: that our God is God, and The Satan is not; that our God creates and blesses, but the Satan cannot; that our God gives but the Satan only takes away; that one blessed day, our God will be all that there is, and that The Satan will be no more.

Faith can never fully explain the origins of evil, but faith knows that ultimately, evil will not win. And Job had some friends who would come to help him to understand his situation, but that’s a topic for next week.

For today, know that God is God, and that he is our God. Job knew that, and it kept him strong every day of his life – through the good times as well as in the whirlwind. Know that the Lord is always there for us, too.

“The Offensiveness of Faith”

2011-08-07T17:12:00.000-04:00

Scripture: Matthew 15:10-20

Master preacher John Killinger begins his book “You Are What You Believe” with the story of a woman who phoned a seminary president one Saturday night. “Dr. Miller, what do I believe?” she asked.
“What do you mean”? Miller was not sure he had heard her correctly.
“I mean”, she said, “what do I believe? You see, I've just come from a party where several people got into a discussion about various beliefs. One woman was Jewish, and she told us what she believes as a Jew. Another was Roman Catholic, and she told us what Catholics believe. One person was a Christian Scientist, and he talked about what they believe. I was the only Protestant in the group, and frankly, I didn't know what to say. What do I believe?”

That woman, said Dr. Miller, must have come into the church on a “confusion” of faith, instead of a “confession” of faith.
-Killinger, You Are What You Believe: The Apostles Creed for Today (Nashville: Abingdon, 1990), 1.

I truly believe that this is the main reason for the decline of mainline Christianity today. We just don’t know what we believe! It’s not that folks don’t go to church, although lack of worship is a big part of it. It’s not that folks don’t read their Bible, but that, too, is a major issue. But many who do go to church and many who do read their Bible only do so in a cursory manner. There is no reflection on faith, there is no personal thought as to what faith means and requires, and there is no effort to go beyond the norm in searching for God’s truth in this life.
We let others tell us that faith isn’t all that important, and that if we live a good life, that will be good enough. (It's a lie, you know!) We fail to look for the truth of God, and we never learn what is truly important for a life in faith.

Read Matthew 15:10-14

The woman in our opening story was one of those “blind” people that Jesus was talking about. She was not only confused about her faith, she didn’t have a clue as to what it is all about.

In the verses immediately preceding our text for today, (Matthew 15:1-9) we find Jesus in a discussion with the Pharisees over what their faith meant to them. For these learned men, faith meant that they painstakingly adhered to the law and to their understanding of how the law was to be lived out. Jesus quickly pointed out that it had nothing to do with what they thought the words meant, but rather what God had intended them to mean. He then quotes Isaiah 29:13, but let me read a few more verses (Isaiah 29:13-16)

Left to its own devices, it would seem that human wisdom isn’t such an all powerful thing after all! And that is exactly what Jesus is saying to the Pharisees. In this instance, they were hung up on what caused a person to be clean or unclean, or in a more contemporary term, what is there in this life that makes us unrighteous, that makes us sinful. What is it that creates separation between us and the Lord? These men were telling Jesus that his disciples were “unclean”, unworthy, because they didn’t wash their hands before they ate.
When I was growing up, I wish I knew how many times I heard “Cleanliness is next to Godliness”! The implication was that I had to be physically clean if I wanted God to like me, and apparently this wasn’t a new thought! This is exactly what the Pharisees believed! And Jesus was about to take them to task for the entire “clean / unclean” controversy. The Lord tells them that it isn’t about what we eat, or what we touch, or how we appear
that destroys our relationship with the Almighty – it’s what we say and do that really matters. And for the intellectuals, the scholars of Jesus‘ day, this was blasphemy. Scripture tells us that they were offended! Offended by God?

And some folks seem to still be offended, even today! Have you ever known someone who said that they were embarrassed by some passage that they have read in the Bible? They are all around us. They don’t like the call to tithe – it’s too much to expect from them. They don’t like the description of Israel as the Chosen People – it too exclusionary. They don’t like the limitation of salvation for only those who accept Christ Jesus – it isn’t fair. They don’t like the condemnation of homosexuality or abortion or drug and alcohol abuse or many other issues – it flies in the face of “personal decision”.
And the list goes on and on. And they are so opposed to the aspects of faith that they describe as “cold and indifferent”, that their Bible is reduced to about 10 pages in length. The rest of the pages have all been torn out.
And Jesus replies “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots.” – which means that if the concept isn’t of God, then it will never survive. And one day, it won’t be God’s word that will be thrown away, it will be the word that comes from the world!

Read Matthew 15:15-20

Is it wrong to say “I don’t understand this.” Or “I don’t know why God would want us to do this.”? NO! It isn’t a sin to wonder, or even to question why God does or doesn’t do things, and I might even say that it’s OK to get angry at the Lord. But at the core of every issue, whether we are comfortable with them or not, we have to believe that the Lord’s ways and the Lord’s commands are the only ones that are true and righteous.

Dr. Holmes Harshorne writes:
Faith without doubt is dead; but doubt without faith is death. Doubt that is not grounded in an ultimate confidence in the Cross of Christ is doomed to skepticism, cynicism and despair, for it cannot see that in the loss of our certainties there is given to us the greater certainty of God's redemptive presence. It cannot see that through doubt we are delivered from the great lie that we are gods and our truths are eternal truth and our standards timelessly valid. But where doubt is rooted in faith, it becomes the source of honesty, humility and joy.
--M. Holmes Hartshorne, Faith Without Doubt Is Dead, Religion and life (April 1956), 69-70.

It would seem that doubt within faith is not an unclean aspect of our lives. Doubt only joins that rather extensive list of uncleanliness when it is fostered outside of faith. And what a list it is. The first 2, as well as the 5th, are, for the most part, generally accepted as sins by a majority of people. However the others are up for grabs. The concept of sexual immorality no longer exists for many – since the 60’s, the phrase “If it feels good, do it” has become the prevalent watchword in our society. False testimony, or lying, has become a way of life for many, including government officials, media moguls, Wall Street tycoons, and even some folks who claim to be Christians. Slander, the demeaning of another person’s character, has become the norm in politics and business.
And when we include this list with that in Galatians 5:19-21, it pretty much includes all of earthly life. For many, these condemnations of life hold little influence,and for those in the church who subscribe to the less “restrictive” lifestyle, scripture has become an embarrassment to them.

Ashamed of the Gospel? Offended by Christian principles? Luke 9:23-27 tells us that if we are ashamed of Christ and his words in this life, then he will be ashamed of us on the Judgment Day. The Pharisees were offended by Jesus’ words because they went against their rigid legalism, and so Jesus denounces them as blind guides who will lead others into the pit of eternal darkness. And the phrase “the blind leading the blind” is born.

Light or darkness? Faith or shame? Glory or condemnation? What do we believe? Do we believe that the Lord has planted many things, but that the Satan has planted even more? Do we believe that God created us in perfection, but that we have been corrupted by the lies of the ruler of this world? Do we believe that because of our sinfulness, the Lord of Glory willingly took our place in torture and death so that we might live with him in eternity? Do we believe that if we confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, and believe that God raised him from the dead, that we will be saved? (Romans 10:8-9) Do we believe that there is only one path to salvation, and that is through Christ Jesus?

What do we believe? May the word of Almighty God never stick in our throat, may we never be ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and may we never hesitate to speak and live the Word simply because it may offend someone else.
Live in faith, and never look back.

“Ya’ Gotta Get Out of the Boat!”

2011-07-31T19:00:00.000-04:00

Scripture: Matthew 14:22-33

Some time ago, we talked about taking risk in our faith – that a safe faith is no faith at all. In his book “If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat”, John Ortberg says he believes our courage, or the lack thereof, is directly related to the size of our God. If we live with a small God, then we live in a constant state of fear and anxiety because everything depends on us. We cannot be generous because our financial security depends on us. We cannot take risks because our safety depends on us.
But if our God is huge – larger than life itself - then nothing can hold us back, nothing can keep us down.

Read Matthew 14:22-24

When I was in the Navy, I remember several storms that came against us. On one particular evening, we were scheduled to refuel from the tanker that was in our group, and neither wind nor waves was going to interrupt that evolution. We pulled alongside the tanker, with a safe distance between us. I was an Electronics Technician, but I was also assigned to the forward refueling detail, and everything that night began in a fairly routine manner. Lines were put across, the messenger lines were pulled in, then the fuel lines. While we were standing on the forecastle going about our efforts, the wind kept us a little off balance, and mist was coming over the bow and soaked us pretty good, but we knew that it was only going to take 10 or 15 minutes to get our work done, so no one was too concerned.
But then it happened. Due to the excessive strain on the pelican hook – the device that held the fuel line to our ship – it broke. And just as we thought that we were going to be relieved and sent back inside the ship, orders changed, and the forward detail was assigned to hold the fuel line with all the strength that was in our arms and legs! So for the next 45 minutes, we alternately were standing at a 45 degree angle to the deck holding the line with all the strength we could muster, or either our feet would start sliding across the deck or we would loose our grasp on the line, loosing the fuel line. We then would have to pull it back up into position, and the process would start all over again. And as if the wind and waves and the exertion wasn’t bad enough, the Boatswains mate was constantly yelling at us to “hold that line”! We could have strangled him!
Eventually, though, we took on enough fuel to satisfy the Chief Engineer, and we got to head back to our berthing compartments to get some dry clothes and some badly need rest.

Storms at sea are nothing to laugh at, and that one has stuck in my memory for 45 years!

We were on a ship that weighed 7,600 tons and was 550 feet long, and we did a lot of bouncing around. Imagine what that storm was doing to the boat that those fishermen were on! We had powerful boilers and turbines to keep us moving, but the disciples had to row if they were to get to the safety of the shore, and it was taking them all night to make any headway.
We weren’t happy about being so exposed on the forecastle that night, but the disciples were in a lot worse condition in their storm than we were in ours! And they were alone without their leader – their “captain”, if you will.

Consider the plight of the church whenever we decide to make our own headway without our Captain present, without our Captain in command of the ship.

Read Matthew 14:25-29

And then the Lord appears to these wet, exhausted, and frightened men. It was the middle of the night – almost early morning – and they were seeing anything but straight! How could anything appear from out of nowhere in the middle of this storm? It couldn’t be human! It had to be an apparition! And then Jesus gives them a calming word and relieves all of their pain.

Now as an aside, I wish I could know just how the disciples felt at that moment. In one instant, they were terrified beyond all belief, and in the next to have a calm and reassurance that allowed them to know that the Lord was with them, and at least in Peter’s case, to call out to Jesus and ask him to invite the disciple to come out and join him. How great a change would have to come over them to allow a request like that? How great a faith must the man have received to even entertain such a thought? But Peter would soon discover that it wasn’t the waves or his great ability or his faith that held him up – it was the fact that as long as he stayed in Jesus, the Lord had a “salvation” hold on him!
Did Peter realize the risk that he was bringing onto himself?
Did he fully appreciate the hazards that the storm held in store for him?
Or did he fully understand these things, but because of the presence of Jesus at that moment, and the grasp that he had on Christ, that the negatives of the moment no longer had any control over him.

Will knowing, without question, that the Christ is with us, truly give us a strength and courage that can overcome any difficulty? It certainly seems that this is what came over Peter and the others, and it will hold us up, too. That’s what faith is all about. It’s faith that allowed Peter to have the confidence to step out of the boat that night, with the full assurance that nothing could harm him if he could just remain focused on Jesus.
They had to set out on this journey alone, knowing only that this is what the Lord wanted them to do. Jesus was nowhere to be seen. They had no idea as to what they would be doing once they got to the other side of the lake. They had no idea that a storm was brewing up and that it would catch them in deep water. They just went.
And sometimes the church is called to go, with no more explanation than that. No real vision of what the destination will look like, or what the task will ultimately be, or what the result of going will be. Will there be trials? Will there be obstacles?
We’re usually pretty good at imagining all of the potential problems in ministry and mission, but how often, even when we are faithful and just “go”, do we have even an inkling of what the final result is going to be? But if we focus on the “storms”, all of those negative possibilities, we will never even get in the boat, much less begin rowing! And what a shame that would be – never getting to know what our faithful start might bring about.

Read Matthew 14:30-33

There is a story of a young Naval Academy graduate, who after completing his first overseas cruise, was given an opportunity to display his talents at getting his ship underway and out of port. The young officer's efficiency established a new record for getting a naval ship underway.
He was stunned, however, when a sailor approached him with a message from their captain. “My personal congratulations upon completing your underway preparations exercise according to the book and with amazing speed. In your haste however, you have overlooked one of the fundamental rules -- make sure the captain is on board before you leave.”
-Bobby Ives, Greetings, Boat Notes, The Carpenter's Boatshop, Fall 1999 Newsletter, 1.

When Peter stepped up on the gunwale, and then out on to the waves, and then began walking toward Jesus, the Captain was fully in charge of his life. No hesitation, no concerns for the storm, no fear of the price that he might have to pay, just solid and unshakable faith. But then his eyes wavered, and his gaze shifted, and his Captain was no longer in charge of his steps. And he began to sink.

And that’s what happens when we decide that the power of earth is greater than the power of God. When we place more faith in the concepts and precepts of our society than we do in the Lord, when the things of earth become more important than the call of the Divine, we will always fail! We can never succeed!

We, too, have to be willing to take a step in faith, just as Peter did. If he had never got in the boat and set off toward the other side of the lake, if, at the first hint of a storm, he and the others had turned around and headed back to where they had come from, if his faith was weak and he never stepped out of that boat that night, he never would have walked on the water.
Don’t think about his failure! Stay focused on his walk on the waves! Stay focused on what was accomplished in faith! Give God the glory for what can be accomplished in a faith that’s the size of a mustard seed!

And when Jesus caught Peter’s hand and helped him back into the boat, the storm died out immediately. The winds didn’t stop when Peter left the relative safety of the boat, and Jesus didn’t stop the winds when Peter began to sink. The winds stopped when, and only when, the experience was completed, and it was then that the disciples fell down and began to worship the Lord with their entire being.

The church is called, over and over again, to get up and go. A direction may be given, but many times, there is no more than that. And when we respond to Christ’s call on our church, we can also expect that storms and other difficulties will also appear to make our way nearly impossible. But we can never turn back from what we feel the Lord is leading us into, even when the storms seem to be poised to destroy us. And it is at that very moment that, in faith, we need to stand up and say “Lord, give us even greater faith, that we might do the impossible in your name!”

We may think that we have been doing well in our faithfulness, but the truth is that we have only begun. When we head off into the unknown, trusting only that this is where the Lord wants us to go, we had better be prepared to row as hard as we possibly can, and when the winds begin to blow, and we are soaked to the skin, and we feel as though can’t row another stroke, that is the very time when we need to stand even taller, prepared to take that step that we know for certain is impossible to do.
“Get out of the Boat” must become the church’s principle of faith, for if we aren’t willing to take that step, the storms of this life are going to win. And that is not an acceptable future for the church that Jesus died and rose again for, the church that he came to save.

“Always One, Never Apart”

2011-07-24T13:22:00.017-04:00

Scripture: Romans 8:28-39

We had a great vacation last week. We had some family pictures taken (Yes, I have a copy of one to show after worship!), we had a snow ball fight on Mount Rainier while clothed in short sleeve shirts and sun glasses, we “lunched” on the Space Needle, we made a few runs to the landfill, and attended worship several times with Nate and Bev. Their church is a little larger than ours are, even if you add them together! Their sanctuary holds about 600 and at a couple of services it was nearly full, they have 3 preaching pastors, a 6-7 piece band, and about 45 in the choir. The pastors, as well as the people, were very friendly and welcoming to us, but to tell you the truth, I missed my church family here.
As Nathan was introducing us to a number of the folks at his church, many commented on the family resemblance and how obvious it was that Diane and I were his parents. Sometimes family likeness is in appearance, sometimes in laughter or voice or mannerisms, and sometimes in attitude. But when it comes to family, there is always some characteristic that says “we belong to each other”!

Read Romans 8:28-30

No wonder Christians are said to bear a family resemblance to the Savior! We have been conformed to the image of Christ, and in that, we have been called and justified and glorified, just as Christ is glorified. But note that this predestination isn’t due to some random or indiscriminate decision. Verse 29 tells us that God “foreknew” us, and that is a very important distinction. Many people seem to settle on the predestined part, and claim that God has chosen them over everyone else, but it is always for some unknown reason. The truth is that the choice is all about “knowing”, and the “knowing” must work both ways.
In Matthew 7:15-23, Jesus warns us that just because we cry out “Lord, Lord, haven’t we prophesied in your name, and driven out demons in your name?”, that is no guarantee that we will be allowed to enter through the gates of heaven! Jesus will tell many that he never knew them, regardless of how well they may have lived in this life! So how does God decide who he is going to “know” and who he is not going to “know”? It seems that scripture tells us that we must also know him – not know about him, not know of him, but truly and fully know him. We read several times in scripture that even the demons know who Jesus is Mark 5:1-20, Luke 4:31-41, James 2:18-19). And while Jesus knows who the demons are in return, he also knows them for whose they are, and that they are not of him! In John 10:1-10, Jesus says that his “sheep”, those who he “knows”, also know his voice and listen to his words. It isn’t enough to know who Jesus is, it isn’t enough to make proclamations in his name, it isn’t even enough to do apparent miracles in his name. If we want Jesus to know us, if we want to be conformed in his likeness, if we want others to see the family resemblance that we have to God, then we must listen to the Savior’s voice and do his will, not our own.
God knows us, and predestines us, and conforms us, and calls us, and
justifies us, and glorifies us, but only when we surrender our lives to his Son, who, incidentally, the Father has given to us for this very purpose.

And when we listen, and when we follow, and when we fully and truly know Jesus, what will come of it?

Read Romans 8:31-36

If we are for Jesus, then God will be for us. If we claim Jesus as our own, then God will claim us as his own. “If God is for us, who can be against us?” That doesn’t mean, however, that everyone is going to love us and respect us. As a matter of fact it means quite the opposite. But when we read down a couple of verses, we discover the meaning of those words - that in the final judgment, the deciding question will be “Whose family resemblance do we bear?”
If it is that of Christ, then no one can bring any charge of failure, any charge of inadequacy, any charge of unworthiness except Jesus Christ Himself. Only Christ can condemn, and only Christ can raise us up to eternal life! And it is Christ alone who will present our case before the judgment seat. Not our friends, not the pastor (Thank you Lord!), and definitely not Satan or his minions! It will be Christ in and of and through his grace! Period!

The American writer and theologian Frederick Buechner writes:
Grace is something you can never get but only be given. The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn't have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It's for you I created the universes. I love you. There's only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you reach out and take it. Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too.
--Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC (New York: Harper&Row, 1973), 33-34.

Grace is a gift. Justification and glory are gifts of God’s grace. Salvation is a gift of God’s grace. Being conformed to the image of Christ is also a gift of that same grace. But all too often, we miss the gift. Our eyes are glossed over by the trials of the world, and all we can focus on is the failures of this life, or the attacks that come from others, or the impending finality of our earthly flesh. There are some days when nothing seems to be going our way.
The words that we read in verse 36 – “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” – these can all too easily become our watch words, our focal point in this existence. Those words are from Psalm 44:22, and the verses that follows read (:23-24) “Awake, O Lord! Why do you sleep? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever. Why do you hide your face and forget our misery and oppression?”
Some might even think that this life is the end! Our judgment!

Read Romans 8:37-39

Do we really think that the Lord is vindictive? Egocentric? That he is that insensitive to our plight? God is not asleep! He has not rejected us! He has not hidden himself from us!
What he has done is that he made us to be conquerors in the image of Jesus Christ! But not a conqueror in the earthly sense – we are actually a conqueror of the earthly sense, a victor in eternal life and in Godly grace and Divine mercy that flows to all who claim salvation in Christ Jesus. And these last 2 verses are our shout of victory. Paul writes that the end of this life in physical death cannot break the bond that unites us with the eternal God, and nothing in our physical life can cause the Lord to turn his back on us; that all the angels of God nor all the demons of Satan can ever convince the Glory to cast us aside, that our situation today, as painful and disappointing as it may be, is not in the least way justification for God to hate us, and the life that may turn against us tomorrow will never mean that we have been deserted by Almighty God; that there is no power in all of creation – not the power in heaven and definitely not the power of hell, not on our best days and never on our worse days, not the power of salvation and not the threat of condemnation – nothing – nothing! - can ever make God turn away from those who are in Christ Jesus!

It’s about family. Our human families are fallible, and sometimes our love for each other wobbles and stumbles and breaks. And when that happens, it usually takes a lot of time and a great amount of personal effort to repair the damage. But the family resemblance must prevail, otherwise it is just a coincidence and not a family at all.

It’s about family. We are conformed to the image of Jesus Christ – not by some arbitrary standard, not by our worthiness, and certainly not because we have earned it – but because we simply claim the offer is described in John 3:12-19; “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believe in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but the save the world through him.” Not through us or anything about us – it's through him.

Family sticks together through thick and thin, and God’s family is no different. God will never break the relationship – nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord, and that is our promise for eternity.
Never forgotten, never forsaken, always one in him.

“Where Do You Keep God’s Word?”

2011-07-10T19:28:00.000-04:00

Scripture: Romans 10:1-15

Last week, we took a look at how humanity always seems to come up short when we try to understand what God is all about. Sometimes it is simply because we are imperfect humans, but other times, it is because we try to mold the Lord into our image instead of allowing him to mold us into his.
This week, we consider a passage from Paul’s letter to the Romans, in which he sets the story straight – that it isn’t our rationalization and intelligence that is critical in our understanding of what Jesus has been teaching us. It is quite the opposite – it is only by our surrender and acceptance to Christ’s call that will lead us to eternity. Romans 10 is about our renewed and covenantal life in Jesus Christ.

Read Romans 10:1-4

“Their zeal is not based on knowledge.” Zeal is a passion, a fervor that comes from understanding, but it can never be limited to that knowledge. Zeal inspires us to take an unpopular stand, when intelligence would have us run away! Zeal strengthens us in our resolve to never give up, while intelligence would lead us to evaluation, not necessarily resolve. Zeal focuses our life and it becomes our trusted way. But when Intelligence becomes our focus, we begin to put our trust in it.
And zeal, when it is based on a false ideal or concept, will become worse than useless. It will lead us unfailingly in the wrong direction. It will become the basis for even more false decisions. It will motivate us to spread the deception and to lead others into our delusion. This was Paul’s type of zeal before he met Jesus on the road to Damascus, so he knew very well what he was talking about!
Misplaced zeal is a dangerous thing, and Paul is issuing a call to return to the truth of righteousness. His warning rings as true today as it did 2,000 years ago – that we can never create our own blameless and honorable nature. Righteousness can only come from righteousness, and the Lord is the only true source of that perfect virtue. Perfect righteousness can only come through our surrender to the Lord’s covenantal offering.

He also tells us that Christ is “the end of the law”. Now, many today would take this to mean that Jesus has rendered the law as moot, that it is no longer necessary or pertinent for our lives, that it is old and outdated. And we see evidence of this attitude all around us.
“You shall have no other gods before me.” (Exodus 20:3-7) is no longer an absolute. Not only does our society tells us that we must be accepting of all other faith expressions, but many have begun to worship the gods of earth – those of personal pleasure, of financial worth, of power and control, of greed, and many others.
- “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy." (Exodus 20:8-11) So much for that one! But remember that Sabbath isn’t just going to church on Sunday – it’s a day that you set aside for the Lord, to focus on him in worship and study and sacrifice.
- “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-12) I think that our love of self has surged to the fore, and is now way ahead of that for God, and when this happens, there isn’t a lot of love left over for him.
But the truth is that we have to fall back on Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:17-20. Jesus is the “end” of the law, but not as an abolitionist. He came to finally make it complete and perfect. There will be no more commandments given, no more amendments offered, no more limitations and exceptions granted. There will be no more changes that can possibly improve on that Divine Word!
Righteousness is now available to all who will come to Christ as repentant, humbled, and forgiven servants of his.

Read Romans 10:5-9

If we depend on the law and our interpretation of what it means for us, then salvation can only come by following it completely and perfectly, which, if you hadn’t noticed, no one has ever been able to do! We know that the law has no righteousness and no redemptive power. Its only authority is punitive, and our failure in the law can only lead to condemnation. But when the law is combined with the grace of Jesus Christ, when we claim both – Christ and Law - as one, when we live the very best life that we can but still fail, when we turn to the Almighty God and his redemption, then and only then can salvation become our greatest hope.
But where do we find the Almighty God? Where is the Lord and his righteousness? Verses 6-8 seem to ask and answer this eternal question.
Do we have to go to heaven to find him?
Must we crawl down into the pit to find him?
Paul tells us that neither journey is necessary, as the Lord of all creation, the King of Kings, the Prince of heaven and earth, the very Word of God is as near as our own heart and lips! If we believe with all of our heart that Jesus Christ is the Living Lord, and confess this glorious truth of God with our words, we will be saved! Hallelujah! We can receive Christ’s righteousness, his salvation, and we can experience his glory solely through our faith in him! Praise the Lord!

Read Romans 10:10-15

So where do you keep God’s word? Is it in a place so that all might see it, or is it hidden carefully away? Is his word shared with great joy, or do you silently fear it? Is your trust completely in Christ, or do you trust the opinions of others more and are frightened by what they may think about your faith, should you ever express it?
Verse 11 reminds us that anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame. Romans 8:1-4 compliments this thought - “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Do we prefer the admiration of the world, or the love of Jesus Christ? It’s very seldom that we receive both, so we get to choose!
Where is God’s word in you?

From the New Interpreter’s Bible’s commentary on this passage from Romans:

The main theme of the passage is the covenant renewal, and covenant redefinition, that has taken place in the Messiah. God has done what he has always promised; and what he had promised, in the crucial Deuteronomy 30, was that after the punishment of the exile he would restore Israel, enabling it to keep the law in a new way. The Israel of Paul’s day, his kinfolk according to the flesh, did not understand this; they did not, in other words, understand the … righteousness of God. They did not understand either how God had been true to the covenant all along, or how he was now doing exactly what he had promised in renewing that covenant and bringing Gentiles into membership, by faith, alongside believing Jews. But the covenant renewal that has taken place in and through Jesus the Messiah, the world’s true Lord, is – so Paul argues – the renewal spoken of in Deuteronomy 30. At its heart is faith; faith in this Jesus, faith that is open to all, faith by which all may be saved.
- New Interpreters Bible, Commentary on Romans 10

It is about Jesus, the Word of God, and him alone.
But the last 2 verses of our lesson for today asks 4 questions regarding the sharing of the word. Paul asks us these 4 questions that almost seem rhetorical in nature, but which all actually have the same answer:
1. “How can anyone call out to one who they don’t believe in?”
And the answer is “They can’t and they never will.”
2. “And how can they believe in one if they have never heard about him?”
And again, the answer is “They can’t and they never will.”
3. “And how will they ever hear about him if no one shares him with them?”
And the answer is still “They can’t and they never will.”
4. “And how can they share this wonderful story if they have never been sent?”
And the answer has not changed – “They can’t and they never will!”

Has everyone here today ever heard any preaching about the righteousness of God that comes to us in the redemptive Spirit of Jesus Christ? And if you have heard, do you believe in the Anointed one of God, the only one who can bring about salvation for our lives? And if you truly believe in Christ and his great works on our behalf, do you call on him and his Spirit on a daily basis? And if you call on him, do you do it out of love for him, a love that fills your entire heart and soul and strength?

If so, then the last question for today must be this – If you have heard, and if you believe, and if you call, and if you love, are you sharing the precious Word of God with others? If you are, then Praise the Lord! If you aren’t, then I have to ask “Why not?”
Paul writes that the evidence of righteousness in faith is that the word of Jesus Christ is near and dear to us; that it must sit in our heart and reside upon our lips, poised to spill out upon the world at a moment’s notice.

When was the last time you proclaimed out loud that Jesus Christ is Lord? Maybe today is that time! Praise him loudly with the joyful words “Jesus Christ is Lord!” “Glory to God!” “Hallelujah!” Share those marvelous words with others, just as you have right now!

“Drunkards, Demons, and Blindness”

2011-07-03T20:29:00.000-04:00

Scripture: Matthew 11:16-30

There's a story of a garment buyer who traveled to Korea on a buying trip. It was his job to purchase vast quantities of clothing for a large department store in New York. After a banquet where he was wined and dined by his Korean hosts, he, as the guest of honor, was invited to speak before all the would-be suppliers.
He told a long and complicated joke, after which only he laughed, since he only spoke English. The translator stood and said a few short sentences in Korean. The hall broke loose. Men cried, they clapped, they whistled, they screamed. The buyer was pleased that he was such a success, but curious how his long story could be so compressed and still carry such punch.
What did the interpreter say to them? He later asked someone who had been present. The interpreter said, “Fat man with big checkbook told funny story. Do what you think appropriate.”
- Homeletics Online

All the folks needed to appreciate the story was the perspective! And we need perspective on the viewpoints of others if we are to understand what they are all about, and Jesus understands that. He understands our failure to follow him, he understands our love that tends to be weak and ineffectual at times, he understands that we can be self centered and arrogant in our relationships with others, and he understands our need to be forgiven.
Humanity on the other hand, seldom, if ever, understands what God is about.

Read Matthew 11:16-19

Throughout history, the rift that has developed between us and God is not so much due to our sinful nature as it is to our failure to understand and appreciate God for who he truly is. We want him to be like us. We want him to think and act and reason like we do. We want him to follow the same standards that guide our world, to administer justice by a myriad of definitions to suit the desires of each and every individual, and to see our human condition through the same bloodshot and bleary eyes that we see through.
Neither John nor Jesus could walk in an earthly context, and therefore they were labeled as outcasts – John as being demon possessed, and Jesus as a fat old drunk.

But we’ve got it backward. We need to set our “rose colored glasses” aside, and see Jesus and his ways without a worldly tint.

Fuller Seminary president Richard Mouw, in his book Distorted Truth: What Every Christian Needs to Know About the Battle for the Mind, (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1989), contends that there are two distances that separate us from a complete knowledge of the absolutes that could guide our lives (145).

The first is the distance between creature and Creator. This is an eternal distance. It will never go away. Since God is infinite and we are finite, we will never know as God knows. This means that there may very well be dimensions of God's moral standards that we will never fully understand.

The second distance separates the way we are now from the way we will someday be. We shall be changed. We will never know as God knows, but we will someday understand things much better than we do now: “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood” (1 Corinthians 13:12).
--Donald C. Posterski, "True to You: Living Our Faith in Our Multi-minded World", Canada: Wood Lake Books, Inc., 1995), 56.

Since John was offering a message that went completely against the conventional thought of the day, and whose appearance and living was as unconventional as his message, it was assumed that he was being controlled by something other than Divine inspiration.
Since Jesus, who some claimed to be Messiah, was acting totally different than the way that God should, or rather was expected, to act, he too wasn’t to be trusted. Why in the world would God, or any holy man for that matter, want to spend time socializing with the likes of “those people”? He must be addicted to food and drink. This Jesus must be an addict! Shame on him!

When you don’t understand the message, and when you don’t trust the messenger, and when you can’t make the messenger change the tune, then the only option left is to drag the other person down to your level.

Read Matthew 11:20-24

We don’t read a lot about Korazin and Bethsaida in scripture, but we see Capernaum mentioned quite often. Capernaum became the unofficial home for Jesus during his ministry, if Jesus could ever claim to have a single place called “home” (Matthew 4:12-16). And he pronounces a word of condemnation on all three.
Was it because of their wicked existence?
Was it because they had completely rejected Jesus and his teaching?
Apparently not!
The passage says that the “woes” are declared on each one because they had received the teachings, but did not repent of their ways!
Miracles had been performed in the cities, and the people must have seen that Jesus was no ordinary man. But they didn’t take the next step.
They had heard the teaching, and they had to have known that Jesus had an authority unlike any other in all of history. But they didn’t take the words to heart.

They heard the words and experienced the miracles, but were blind to the meaning. They had been with the Messiah, and somehow never quite came to understand the blessing that the Lord was offering them. So who will actually be the eternal outcast? Jesus tells them that on the Judgment Day, even Sodom, the city that had been destroyed by the rain of heavenly fire, would fare much better than they would.

Read Matthew 11:25-30

“No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to who the Son chooses to reveal him.”
And who does Jesus choose? All who will follow him and who will put the things of earth far behind them.

So what can we learn from this passage?
First, that even though Jesus’ teaching isn’t always clear and concise and straightforward, even though he taught using parables so that the meaning might be hidden, that shouldn’t prevent us from being his disciple.
Second, just because the teaching isn’t always to our liking, that is no reason to reject the teacher and the things he stands for.
And third, the decision as to who will be an outcast in the world resides in the hearts and minds of mankind. But the authority for casting out in eternity is God’s and God’s alone.
And who will get to know the Father and his great plan? Those who come to Jesus Christ and claim him as the authority for their life.

John was accused of being demon lead, but only because he didn’t dance to the tune that the world played. Jesus was ridiculed for eating and drinking and rejoicing with sinners, but only because he didn’t teach the lessons that the world wanted to hear.
Jesus knew about rejection, and that is what he is telling us in the last 3 verses of our lesson today. If you are being ridiculed and rejected by the people of this world, he understands. And if, in our misery, in our exhaustion, in our failure, in our pain, we turn it all over to Christ, we will come to know a life in the here and now that we can live with, and we will know a life in the eternal that will give us far more than we could ever hope and dream about.

Drunkenness, demon possession, blindness, deafness – Jesus knows about it all, and wants us to know that the woes pronounced on the 3 cities don’t have to be the final word for our lives, and that the only tune that we need to dance to is his. And what a glorious dance it will be!

“The Church’s Commission”

2011-06-26T13:20:00.000-04:00

Scripture: Acts 2:37-47

This week, we finish our study of Acts 2. But even though we finish the chapter, that doesn’t mean that we can leave Pentecost behind for the next year. Pentecost must be more than just the appearance of the Holy Spirit, more than the first recorded instance of the gift of tongues, more than the day we celebrate the beginning of the Christian Church, more than just the claiming of 3,000 souls for Christ. Pentecost must become a way of life for all who believe and follow the Lord.

In Our walk through Pentecost, we have seen the promise that Jesus made to the disciples come true. John 15:26-27 “When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.”
We have seen the fulfilling of Joel’s prophesy of miracles, wonders and signs.
We have heard the truth of Jesus’ resurrection and new life proclaimed
And today, we will hear more. Today we take a look at the conclusion of Peter’s sermon, and then at what came of Peter’s call to all who would believe in Jesus.

Read Acts 2:37-40

Suddenly, the people are listening to the preacher. No longer are they hung up on the speaking in tongues that was ridiculed by the crowd. No longer are they simply amazed at what they are hearing. They are moved to cry out “What shall we do?”
They knew that they were in the presence of one who had the authority and blessing of God Almighty, and they knew that they were hearing a truth that they had, somehow, missed in the past. But the message was no longer being missed. They heard, they were convicted, and they wanted to do something about it.

And Peter tells them that the thing that they need to do is to repent and be baptized, in the name of Jesus Christ, that you might be forgiven of your sins! They had come to know their sins for what they were, and the mere fact that they were God’s Chosen people could no longer be used as an excuse to keep living a sinful life. And 3,000 accepted the message that day, and they repented of their worldliness, and they were baptized.

But the promise didn’t end with their new membership! Peter also tells them that they would receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. John 15:26-27 said that because of the coming of the Spirit, that the disciples must also testify about him, because they had been with him since the beginning. It could be assumed that the reference to “being with Christ from the beginning” referred to his ministry. But these folks had not! The “beginning” doesn’t, and can't, refer to the ministry, it doesn’t even refer to the moment of creation, it refers to pre-creation – the very beginning.
Since the “Beginning”, since God was, Jesus had been with these 3,000 people, and now they were with him, and they, too, would soon testify to Christ in their lives!

Read Acts 2:42-47

And evangelism is born! And just so we are all on the same page as to what evangelism is all about, I looked it up in Webster’s Dictionary. The first definition is this – “of, relating to, or being in agreement with the Christian gospel esp. as it is presented in the four Gospels”., and an additional thought is ”emphasizing salvation by faith in the atoning death of Jesus Christ through personal conversion, the authority of Scripture, and the importance of preaching as contrasted with ritual.”
And that is exactly what the people began doing.

They devoted themselves to teaching and fellowship. They would come together to study and learn – not by speculation and supposition, but by the apostles. The teaching would be conducted by followers who had been with Jesus for a while, and had learned from him. But everything wouldn’t continue nice and smooth. If we jump ahead and read 1 Corinthians, we discover that as the church grew, false teaching began to creep in, and new believers were being deceived. And this will continue to be a problem right up to today, and will be until Christ returns and again begins to teach us directly once more.
The problem is that humans like to theorize, and we like to figure things out for ourselves. And that’s not a bad thing, at least not until our theories begin to lead us away from what is true. And when we don’t have all of the truth, this is going to be inevitable. But when we stick to scripture – all of scripture – not one piece taken out of context, not one piece that is twisted to suit our own desires, and when we study as a body, we will find that God’s truth will rise to the surface and will prevail.
The second part – that about fellowship – is almost as important as the study. In our meeting together, our partnership in Christ is solidified and strengthened. Conversely, when we only join together once in a great while, we not only miss out on the teaching and strengthening, but we miss out on being part of the solidarity. And that is when the “untruths” begin to emerge.

The people would also devote themselves to communing with each other, and to prayer with and for each other. The early church would gather together for a meal, for communion, for prayer, and for study and worship. There was a unity unlike anything that had been seen before. And the church of 2011 doesn’t to have that. We don’t commune with each other nearly enough. Our lives get busy, we have other obligations, the job demands more and more of our time, and there just isn’t enough time in the day to do everything! Unfortunately, the world is intruding into our spiritual lives and that isn’t good. We need to become more intentional with the fellowship and study and worship and prayer that we are called to be doing, and that includes me. We need to surrender to the unity that can only come from the Spirit of God.

But in that early day, there was a unity. Verse 44 tells us that “the believers were together and had everything in common.” That doesn’t just mean that they got together on a regular basis. It means that they were in agreement on all matters and that they were constantly ready, and even anxious, to help each other. If another person was in need, they saw to it that the need was cared for. They would give their possessions to others, and would even sell them off to raise money to benefit someone else. If there was a need, there was no question that the community of believers would stick together to resolve the situation.

And in all things, they praised God and rejoiced in the fellowship of each other. “Make disciples, baptize, and teach them what Jesus would have them know.” This wasn’t a commandment just for the 1st century church – it’s a commandment for all time. Being a Christian must be cyclic in nature. You come into the church, become a committed member through baptism, you study and learn about the faith, and go out to invite others into the fellowship. You then come back, to be refreshed, to learn some more, and go out again.

The people did just that and the church grew daily. More and more would turn to Christ, repent of their sins, receive baptism for forgiveness, and they would begin to learn what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

Consider the last call that Jesus placed on us, the one we know as the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19 – 20.
First, make disciples, then baptize them, (both of which had happened at Pentecost), then teach them to obey the Lord’s commandments, and that is exactly what began to happen.

From an article in Interpretation, a study and preaching resource:
Regardless of denomination, evangelism retains for Christians its strong and rightful appeal. The reason is that it is not tangential to Christian faith but rooted in the apostolic identity of the church. From baptism and Sunday school, Christians are shaped by a biblical narrative that enjoins them to make disciples of all nations. The risen Jesus delivers his great commission on a mountain in Galilee. Peter stands up on Pentecost, and 3,000 persons are said to hear his summons to repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. And Paul travels the roads of the Mediterranean world on three journeys to proclaim God's salvation to the Gentiles. As the activity that corresponds to these narratives, Christianity is unthinkable without evangelism.
--Interpretation, April 1994, 116.

That’s what faith is all about – living in Christ and proclaiming him to the world! This is the Church’s commission, our charge. John 14:12 – “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these ..” The life of the Church - its very existence, its future, depends on the acts of the faithful. The church can’t grow unless we invite others to come to know Jesus. And we can’t invite unless we know what the fellowship of believers is all about in the first place. And we will never know the joy of fellowship unless we are part of it. And we will never know the joy that comes with faith unless we actively participate in it. And we will never be able to study and learn and grow unless we are invited.
But someone invited us – it was probably our parents, but it may have been a friend, it may even have been a stranger. Regardless of who it was, what a wonderful friend that person was! What greater gift could there possibly be?
So teh question for today must be "When will you return the favor and begin the cycle all over again?"

“Never Abandoned, Eternally Exalted”

2011-06-19T15:38:00.000-04:00

Scripture: Acts 2:22-36

Last week, we began to look at Peter’s Pentecostal sermon. The scripture ended with his reminding the people of Joel’s prophesy of many miracles, that they would come when the Holy Spirit was poured out on all of the servants of the Lord. Peter told them that the blessing that they had just experienced, the prophesy that was offered in their own languages, was one of those miracles that the prophet had mentioned.
Some people today compare this to the abilities of magicians. From Houdini to Criss Angel, the magicians have had a following that is, in some instances, nearly fanatical. They go to see them disappear from one place and shortly reappear in another. They go to see the amazing, the things that they can’t explain, the things that are borderline to the miraculous.

But Philip Pare, an Anglican priest and author wrote:
Magic is usually a labor-saving device which spares the magician or his client time and trouble, and quite often magic is irrational. Miracles, on the other hand, tend to mean not less but more work for its beneficiaries.
-- Philip Pare,
God Made the Devil, cited in The Harper Religious & Inspirational Quotation Companion (New York: Harper & Row, 1989), 288.

The miracles that were witnessed on that Pentecost day would definitely create new work, if not more, for the disciples, and as more and more people came to Jesus Christ, they, too, would be put to the new work. And Peter’s work that day was just beginning.

Read Acts 2:22-24

Magic amazes and entertains through the skills of humans, but miracles bring about a change that is God inspired. The miracles that had surrounded Jesus’ ministry, and that includes the things that his followers had done in his name, changed lives. People were physically healed from many different ailments; they were freed from demonic possession; they heard teaching that had never been heard before, but which would give them an entirely new outlook on life; they had discovered new life and rebirth and salvation in a way that had never before been offered or imagined.
But Jesus himself was never about the miracles – he was about the result of the miracles. He was about the changed lives, the new birth that replaced the old death, the majestic presence of God Incarnate in human lives. He would be about the love that goes beyond all reason.

Biblical scholar and professor J. Clinton McCann writes
Psalm 8 had the distinction of being the first biblical text to reach the moon, when the Apollo 11 mission left a silicon disc containing messages from 73 nations, including the Vatican, which contributed the text of this psalm. Psalm 8 was clearly an appropriate choice for this cosmic journey, for it is both an eloquent proclamation of the cosmic sovereignty of God and a remarkable affirmation of the exalted status and vocation of the human creature.
-J. Clinton McCann, The Book of Psalms (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996), 710-711.

Let me read a few of those verses again:
Psalm 8:3-5
“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.”

The miracle isn’t that God could do all of that, but rather that he did do it for you and me! The miracle is that God loved his “created” this much! I once heard that love isn’t about how much you receive – it’s about how much you are willing to give up so that it might exist. How much does God love us? He should have turned his back on the whole lot of us, but instead, he came to earth to be the sacrificial offering for our salvation!

Read Acts 2:25-33

David knew this loving gift when he penned this Psalm 16, and Peter knew this when he spoke of it on that Pentecostal morning. You might think that Almighty God would have more important things to do in his creation than look out for the likes of us, but here it is – “he is at my right hand”, and he is with all of the people of earth, whether saint or sinner or somewhere in between.
Sometimes we like to think that the Lord is only with those who have given their life to him, but the truth is that he is with all – giving each us, at various times and in various ways, those little signs and wonders and miracles, that we might begin to consider just where those things come from, and why they come to us. David writes of a miracle – a revelation – that he received, that he will “live in hope and that he will not be abandoned to the grave”. And yet it seems strange that Peter only focuses on Jesus resurrection, and not on his promise that all who believe will be with him in eternity. But that’s the true miracle, isn’t it? Jesus is God, and resurrection to eternal life isn’t so astounding for him. But mortals? How can we be mortal and yet live an endless life with the Lord? Only as a gift to those who would follow the One who can change the mortal into the immortal! Now there’s a life changing miracle for you!
The miracle is that it’s a gift from God! Even as Jesus is exalted to the right hand of God, he will carry with him those who will follow.

Read Acts 2:34-36

Ronald Thomas, a 20th century Welsh poet, wrote:
Life is not hurrying on to a receding future,
nor hankering after an imagined past.
It is the turning aside like Moses to the miracle of the lit bush,
to a brightness that seemed as transitory as your youth once,
but is the eternity that awaits you.
--R. S. Thomas, Later Poems 1972-1982 (London: Macmillan, 1983), 81.

Our earthly death will get to hold us for a while, but even as it does, eternity will wait. Peter points out that David didn’t ascend right away, and, in fact, is still waiting, just as we are waiting. As Thomas wrote, this life isn’t about hurrying on to death, the “receding future” that he wrote about, but rather about our “turning aside” from this earthly path, and taking the new one that leads to eternity. Moses had to go out of his way to approach the bush, but it was life changing for him and for millions. David turned aside from the flocks that he tended, and the nation of Israel would be positioned for the miracle of all miracles. Simon left his fishing career to follow an itinerant rabbi that he had never met before and knew nothing about, and in doing so, he would become Peter who would preach like no one ever had before him. Saul thought he was on his way to Damascus to persecute a few more of God’s people, but the journey gave him a brand new name and a whole new outlook on the law and what really brings righteousness into our lives!
And the list of those who would make the decision to “turn aside” would go on to include Augustine, and Luther, and Wesley, and billions more people like each of us.

Jesus has become Lord and Christ – the authority and master of our lives, and the Anointed One of God, the Blessed One of Heaven. He promises that he will never abandon us to death, and that in all things he will be with us in this life and beyond. He promises that in his presence, we will have unimaginable hope and joy, regardless of the circumstances that this life brings. And on “that day”, we will be raised up to glory and will be exalted with him in eternity!
And this Lord and Savior and Messiah asks so very little of his subjects - only that they turn away from the path that they are currently on and follow the new one that he has created.

Psalm 8:3-5 once again:
“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.”

Ever mindful of our lives, and ready in an instant to raise us into glory. Never abandoned, always exalted, constantly blessed, eternally joyful.
And all of this for those who will turn aside from destruction, and into the new way of Jesus Christ. Sounds like a pretty good deal! Have you claimed it?

“The Spirit at Work in the Open Heart”

2011-06-12T22:50:00.000-04:00

Scripture: Acts 2:1-21

Pentecost is the day when glory came visibly and suddenly and unmistakably into the lives of humanity.
We had known about the Father, but we were scared silly over his call on our lives; we had met Jesus and he seemed to be an amazing guy, but we didn’t quite know what to do about his teachings, and then Jesus tells us that another was going to come and we didn’t have a clue as to what this Spirit – this Counselor – this Advocate – this Comforter was actually going to do for us.
But on this day, it all began to come together for the Church.

Pastor Peter Gomes writes:
The point of the divine encounter with the human is never that we should become divine ourselves, little gods; that was the problem in Eden, remember? The point and achievement of the divine encounter with the human is that the human become fully human, that is, that we become more fully what we are meant to be ...
--Peter Gomes, in a Pentecost sermon, cited by Eugene C. McAfee in The Place Belongs to God (Cambridge: Harvard College, 1995), 69.

There were about 120 of the faithful who were still gathering in Jerusalem after Jesus’ ascension, waiting to experience this next encounter with the Divine. I imagine that they were continuing to encourage each other, with all waiting expectantly for this Spirit to come into their midst. But how would he arrive? Would he come as an infant, as Jesus had? Would he come as a mighty warrior to overthrow Rome, and the nation believed? What would he look like? What would he do? What will it mean for our lives? How long must we wait?
And then the day came when they would have to wait no longer.

Read Acts 2:1-4

Now before we get into the Spirit’s grand entrance, we need to take a moment to consider “why Pentecost, why this day?” This wasn’t a new celebration for the followers of Jesus - it was a Jewish holiday to celebrate the first harvest – the first fruits of the field – and it was a time to celebrate the Lord’s goodness. People had come to Jerusalem from near and far to offer their sacrifices and gifts to their great Jehovah. It was the beginning of the yearly harvest, and it was important to honor the Lord for his graciousness.
And what better time for the Holy Spirit to break in to our lives?

And break in he did! We’ve heard reports from folks recently who had experienced the rushing wind of a tornado, and the description of the Spirit’s Wind sounds very similar – Young’s Literal Translation tells us that “there came suddenly out of the heaven a sound as of a bearing violent breath”. It was the Breath of God – the Spirit of God – and he had burst onto the world and beared down on us in such a way that no one could ever forget or deny!
And with the Breath came tongues of flame – the Message says it “came like a wildfire that spread through their ranks”. Fire has always been seen as a cleansing – In Isaiah 6:4-8, the prophet proclaims that he is unclean and unworthy to carry the Lord’s word to the nation, and so an angel takes a burning coal from a brassier on the altar and touches his mouth with it, and then Isaiah is told that “his guilt has been taken away”.

The Breath of God would come roaring into our souls to breathe into us a newness of life unlike any other. And the Breath brought a cleansing fire that would prepare all for the new ministries and missions that we would be called to live. And what would come of it?

Read Acts 2:5-13

The Jews who were in the vicinity that day couldn’t help but miss the commotion that was going on in that house. And they recognize the men as Galileans. And if they could see the men who were speaking in this multitude of languages, then the Holy Wind must have moved the entire assembly outside. They could no longer remain sequestered in hiding.

Here is the first work of the Spirit – it refuses to leave you where you are, comfortable and safe inside your personal walls. It takes you to the very place where ministry can happen unobstructed. The point is that ministry does not come to us – we must go to the ministry!

Now, at the beginning of this message, one of the questions that I offered regarding the coming of the Spirit was “What will it mean for our lives?” And the crowd asks that very question, too. They had never experienced, or even heard, of this phenomenon before, and I’m sure that it shook them to the core. They had to be wondering what this incredible happening would mean for them personally.
Of course, there are always the skeptics and jokesters, and on that Pentecostal day, they were there in force. But to be honest, I expect that the accusation of intoxication was due as much to their own personal nervousness as it was to unbelief, but there will always be unbelief!
But the two questions – “what does it mean?”, and “are these guys drunk?” – brings Peter to the fore, and he begins to give them a lesson in faith.

Read Acts 2:14-21

[Some time ago, there was] a news report about an Army veteran who had been receiving benefits from the government - he had been wounded in Vietnam and was now on permanent disability. One day, out of the blue, he received an official notification from the government of his own death. Needless to say, this was quite a shock!
The vet wrote the government a letter stating that he was indeed very much alive and would like to continue receiving his benefits. The letter did no good. He then tried calling the government. (Have you ever tried to call the government? This required the patience of Job and the persistence of Noah!) The phone calls didn't change the situation either.
Finally, as a last resort, the veteran contacted a local television station, which ran a human-interest story about his situation. During the interview, the reporter asked him, “How do you feel about this whole ordeal?” The veteran chuckled and said, “Well, I feel a little frustrated by it. After all, have you ever tried to prove that you're alive?”

The second work of the Spirit – it is the solid proof that you are truly alive in Christ Jesus. And it’s interesting to note that Peter doesn’t even mention the speaking in tongues as evidence of the Spirit. He speaks of prophesy, and visions, and dreams. He speaks of heavenly wonders, such as the sun becoming dark and the moon turning to blood. And he lets them all know that the miracle that they have just witnessed is a new sign of God’s presence in the world, and he offers them the possibility of one more sign for everyone personally – salvation for all who call on the name of the Lord.

This was, indeed, a revelation to the people that day. Salvation had always been seen as the blessing that would come when you lived as blameless a life as you could, and then offered sacrifices in the temple to care for the sins you had committed. You lived your life in the law, as well as in the interpretations that the learned men handed down to you. Most of these people had never even heard of salvation by faith, but here it was, and the Spirit was beginning to work in their lives.

And here is the third work of the Spirit – it turns the unbelievable into, not just the believable, but the expectant. It isn’t simply that we now believe that something could happen, might happen – we believe that it will happen. And that is the hope of Psalm 42 – that in the midst of our pain and struggle and failure and fear, God is still working in mighty ways.

Read Psalm 42:1-5

Opening our hearts to the working of the Spirit, placing our hopes and dreams and visions in him, trusting that, in faith, all things are possible. That is the promise and hope of God! In last week’s reading, Jesus was telling his disciples that if they would but open their hearts and minds to the hope and promise of new works by God, that nothing would be impossible for them.

The Spirit will never be understood until that day when Jesus returns to make all things new, and even then, we might not completely understand, but we will be able to believe and rejoice without hesitation or doubt.

So why wait? Believe and rejoice in this very moment! Claim the salvation and eternal life that will come by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ! Discover the glory that is there for all who will keep their eyes set on his cross, and their sails raised to catch every puff of the Holy Wind. Let the Spirit blow through the walls that you have created, and feel the uplifting of his power as he carries you on new wings! Let his Holy Fire touch you and refine you and prepare you and anoint you for the ministry that waits for you this very day.

“And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” And we all know that this beautiful and precious name is Jesus. Call on him today, let him work within you today.

“Open Our Minds, Too!”

2011-06-05T16:55:00.000-04:00

Scripture: Luke 24:44-53

Here is a truth that the world will never quite understand: Jesus’ strength was never in his flesh – it was focused totally in his Spirit. People of the earth are totally different. We are told, and we believe, that while spiritual strength is important to our lives, that we must also be physically and intellectually and mentally prepared to take the steps that are necessary each and every day. But the reality is that while spiritual power will see us through any trial, every other mighty attribute will eventually fail us.

Anglican Bishop John Taylor wrote:
The Holy Spirit is that power which opens eyes that are closed, hearts that are unaware and minds that shrink from too much reality.... Vision and vulnerability go together.
--J. V. Taylor, The Go-Between God, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972), 19.

Whether we like it or not, vision and vulnerability are the finest gifts of the Spirit that we will ever receive.

Read Luke 24:44-45

Over and over, Jesus tried to teach the people what God was all about, and few, at best, ever got it. The Pharisees relied on their intelligence to understand God, and it failed them – it was only when the Pharisee Nicodemus let go of his human knowledge that he was able to follow Christ. The Militant sects of Judaism wanted Messiah to be a physically powerful king, and expected him to lead them in a rebellion that would overthrow Rome – and it never happened. Jesus taught that it was the meek who would inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5), not the powerful. The early church tried to incorporate philosophy into the faith, to show that Christianity wasn’t just for the low classes, the intellectually inept – and their efforts never discovered the fullness of Christ.
It is only when we let go of all the power of earth, when we open our eyes and hearts and minds to Christ, when we surrender to the working of the Spirit, that we can begin to understand what Jesus would have us know.

And what does he want us to know?

Read Luke 24:46-49

A rabbinical story tells of the moment Adam first opened his eyes. He looked at creation, and he said to God, “This is utterly fantastic!”
“I know”, said God.
“But tell me”, Adam asked, “what is the meaning of it all?”
God, taken aback, replied, “You mean it has to have meaning?”
“Of course”, Adam answered.
And the Lord was heard to say as he sauntered off, “Well, I am sure you will think of something.”
--As told by Herb Miller, Connecting With God: 14 Ways Churches Can Help People Grow Spiritually (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), 49.

Isn’t this strange –Jesus “opens the scriptures” to his friends, to help them grasp the meaning of his word for them, and not a word about who God is, not a word about why creation, not a word about the future of earth, not a word about heaven.
But he does give us 3 truths for our lives.

1. “The Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead on the third day.” The inclusion of this spiritual truth might seem odd at first, but it is the basis for all that God is and for all that Christ stands for. When our hearts are closed to the trials and tribulations that God endured on our behalf, nothing else will make any sense. It is foolishness, senseless, and useless.

But when we claim this truth as the basis for our salvation,
when we accept that this unselfish act comes straight from the love of God for each of us, when we see this prophesy in the light of reality, it is only then that the truth of God in Jesus Christ can have a purpose in our lives.

2. “repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” Once we can see who Jesus truly is, we can begin to live out the mission that he has planned for us. And the mission? Leading the world to an understanding of the purpose of Christ – to bring salvation to all who would believe. And please notice that he said will, not should!

But before salvation, there must be forgiveness, and before forgiveness, there must be repentance, and before repentance, a claiming of the power of Christ, and before Christ, an understanding of his power over our sin, and before admitting our sin, we have to accept God’s law and call. Without this in its entirety, his mission becomes one of futility, and our lives can never move beyond this worldly existence.

And the second part of this statement is that it all begins in Jerusalem but t can’t remain there! The mission can never end until the message has been carried to all the nations of earth. And we can see the word “nations” in several lights. It can mean countries, or regions, or people who are related in some way, or areas of thought, or any number of other meanings. The point is that the gospel of Jesus Christ has to be carried to the ears and hearts and minds of every person on earth, and that requires a focused and concerted effort on the part of every Christian.

3. “I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” 2 more bits of advice – first, the gift of the Father, which is the Holy Spirit, will arrive very soon, and second, you aren’t to begin the mission until you are prepared though the presence of the Spirit in your life. Earlier, Jesus had told his followers that the Counselor would be coming (John 14:15-21), but not until he had left the earth. And without this “Spirit of Truth”, how can we preach Jesus in a way that reflects him in a true sense? The Spirit is coming, and we can do nothing without him.

And what will he bring? Why must we wait? 1 Corinthians 12:1-11 and Galatians 5:22-25 are 2 prominent passages that speak to the impact of the Spirit on our lives. And I think that 1 Corinthians 12:3 speaks directly to the point – “no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.” We can do nothing without the Spirit, and no one receives the Spirit except through Jesus Christ.

Read Luke 24:50-53

And he blessed them and left them, and their entire lives turned around. Once when they thought that Jesus had died, they were left in a state of confusion and fear and disarray, But now, with their eyes opened, and hearts aware, and their minds filled with the fullness of God’s plan, they could, at last, rejoice and worship and most importantly, obey.

Christ opened the minds of his closest friends, and the result was that the world would never be the same again. The glory of God would begin to spread from Jerusalem to all of Judea to the known pagan world to the new world, and it continues to spread into all of the cracks and crevices of hearts that have yet to be filled. And the promise would be fulfilled – “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:6-9)

And the promise continues to be fulfilled today in all who will believe, but until we accept the charge to be witnesses for Jesus Christ, we are not living out his call on our lives. The disciples lived as witnesses in joy and celebration, regardless of where their witness took them and regardless of what it brought to them in life.

Are we prepared to have our eyes and hearts and minds opened to the glory of God? Are we ready to be his witness wherever that may take us? And are we rejoicing and worshiping as true disciples of the Living God?
Only you can answer the question. Pray “O Lord, open my eyes, too”, and you will answer well.

“The Shepherd Calls Us”

2011-05-22T19:06:00.000-04:00

Scripture: John 10:34-42

This coming week, Diane and I are going to get to spend some time away, which we don’t get to do all that often. True, we’ll be a vaction with my brothers and their wives, but it will be a good time, and we’ll have 12 hours alone in the car during the trip to Charlotte on Wednesday. We’ll get to see nieces and nephews that we haven’t seen in a long time, and will get to meet a great neice and twin great nephews who we have only seen pictures of.

In the past few years, my brothers and I have come to the realization that with the miles that exist between us now, we have to become more intentional in our getting together - to reminisce over the memories of yesterday and to renew our relationships for today. Without taking deliberate steps to nurture each other, we could very easily begin to drift apart.

Read John 10:34-38

And in our relationship with Jesus, we also have to spend quality time together and be intentional in maintaining that relationship. For the Pharisees and Sadducees, the time that they spent with Jesus was in a more negative light - it was to catch him in some indiscretion, instead of trying to truly get to know him. Jesus challenges them to look beyond themselves, beyond their own disbelief, and let his actions speak for themselves. “..even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.” In essence, he asks them, point blank, if they really think that he could do the things he is doing if he wasn’t really the Son of God.

And the world today needs to ask themselves the same question. Could faith in Christ bring about the miracles that we see today if Jesus wasn’t truly God? Don’t try to explain away the miracles away – that it was only a coincidence, that it would have happened anyway, that it was a natural occurrence, and on and on. You’ve heard them all. Could he do these things without divine power?
And I challenge you to ask yourself the question, but in a slightly different way – ask "CAN faith in Jesus Christ bring about the miracles that we see today?" And the answer has to be a resounding YES! The evidence is before us. People are healed physically in ways that are beyond all reason and explanation. Resources suddenly materialize at the very moment that a believer has the critical need. A word is spoken, and relationships that have hung by a thread for many years, or which have broken completely apart, are restored.
“Believe the miracles, that you may know.” Jesus doesn’t even ask us to believe in blind faith! Believe because you have the hard evidence! Trust your eyes! Seeing is believing! He doesn’t care how we come to believe, just believe!

Read John 10:39-42

But for the learned men of the temple, seeing, apparently, wasn’t enough! They preferred to continue in their own self imposed darkness than to walk in the Light of God. But there were others who not only saw, but did believe. They saw the miracles with their own eyes, and the Son of God became real in them. They discovered the power of Christ through faith. (see Mark 10:46-52)
And disbelief is just as powerful as belief is. In several passages in the gospels, Luke 4:14-30 in particular, we read of the time when Jesus returns to his hometown, but is unable to perform many miracles because the people didn’t believe. Maybe that is why the Pharisees couldn’t accept the miracles of Jesus as the proof that they needed – their faith was misplaced and they simply couldn’t believe!

Jesus calls to us, he comes to us, right where we are, offering all that we need to believe. And this leads us to our next step. For the remainder of our time of worship, I invite all here today, who are in need of a word from your Lord, to come forward for prayers. Come for yourself. Come for a friend. Come for a physical need. Come for an emotional or relational need. Come by yourself or come with a friend.

Just come. Your Lord is waiting for you.

(As this point in worship, a healing service was held.)

“Jesus, The Divine Shepherd”

2011-05-08T16:51:00.000-04:00

Scripture: John 10:11-21

Last week, we began to look at the concept of Christ as our shepherd by considering the issue of a gate, and how the gate is important in keeping the sheep safe and secure. Today, we take a look at the shepherd – what makes a good shepherd, and what makes for a bad shepherd. As we read last week in verse 7, the best shepherd becomes the gate that keeps the dangers of earth away from his flock. Jesus is that kind of shepherd.

But there must be more than just being the “gate”, opening to only his own flock, keeping danger at bay, keeping others away.

Read John 10:11-13

It seems that it is more than just the actions – our reading tells us that it is more about the attitude. It isn’t so much the “what”, as it is about the “why”. Is it about you, or is it about the sheep? Jesus compares the shepherd to an employee who is hired to do the job. The one who identifies with the flock cares deeply for them, while the hired man only cares about what he will receive from the job. It’s about commitment. But the question is “How do we become committed?”
Over the years, I've had a number of bosses – some were good and some not so good. As I reflected on the passage for today [not in comparing them to Jesus, of course!], I realized that the poor bosses seemed to demand commitment to the task at hand, while others made it possible for you to become committed. I remember one particular research project that I had been given – to determine the potential for energy sales from 3 very specific promotional programs. As I delved into the processes, I discovered that first, each one had some very serious drawbacks, and second, that the incremental energy sales for all three would be minimal at best. So I wrote my report based on what I had discovered, believing that I had provided a realistic and honest evaluation of the project. However, I later learned that management was very upset with the report, as it was perceived that I had intentionally thrown a “wet blanket” on these sales programs, instead of developing a positive approach to each one.
To say the least, management’s definition of “commitment” was a little different than mine!

Commitment is not the same as personal gratification, it isn’t about satisfying your own needs. It is about having the courage to do what is needed, even at your own expense. In Jesus’ characterization of the “hired hand”, he never tells us that there is any indication that the man doesn’t do an acceptable job on most days. He tells us that when the going got tough, the one who had no stake in the flock had no lasting focus on the sheep – it was all about himself. The good shepherd, on the other hand, would stay and even die for the benefit of the sheep, if that is what was required.

So what connection would a good shepherd have to have with the flock to give so much of himself?

Read John 10:14-18

It seems that, first and foremost, that it’s all about a relationship.
First, Jesus tells us that he knows each of the sheep and each of them know him. The flock can’t be seen as a group – they must see be seen as individuals. It can’t be about the wool or the milk or the meat - it must be about their well being. It can’t be about what the sheep can give to the shepherd – it must be what the shepherd can give to the sheep.

Second, Jesus is prepared to lay down his life for those who will follow him. What other god, in all of history, has ever been willing to do that? He would sacrifice his earthly life, so that his own would not have to sacrifice their heavenly life. Jesus never saw his life among us as a time to be honored. To the contrary, he knew that it would be a time of hatred and condemnation and extreme pain – emotional as well as physical. And he claimed all of the humiliation that earth could throw at him so that we might be honored through all of eternity.
The sheep always come first - always.

Third, he has “sheep” that are different than the obvious ones. This is his reference to the gentiles, who would be strongly objected to by the Jews. He assures his “flock” that these others also know his voice, and that they also follow his leading, and that it is his plan, one day, to bring them all together and make them one flock, under one shepherd.
He gives an absolute sense of unity to all who follow his voice.

Without this drastically different and innovative approach to leadership, the leader is simply another definition of the old expression “What’s in it for me?”

And we, as dumb sheep, are in a drastic need for a different kind of leader – after all, the ones we follow in this world will always fail us.

Don Everts writes in “The Smell of Sin”
Consider the runaway sheep. Confused, short-sighted, blind to wolves and cliffs and jagged rocks, the runaway sheep dumbly fumbles his way around. If he trips and falls on his side, he could just lie there and die. He would never figure out why the field has suddenly gone sideways. He has no capacity, in and of himself, to regain his equilibrium.

While still upright, he follows his nose. And his nose doesn’t know much. The lone sheep is a picture of cluelessness, which is why “sheep without a shepherd” was a common metaphor for helplessness in the Hebrew Scriptures. Mark says that Jesus was sad, for “they were like sheep without a shepherd” (6:34).

Everts continues:
We’ve all had times in which panic sets in. It’s that shaky feeling of having no idea where we are or which way is up. We just want everything to make sense — for the wildly spinning room to just stop, for the sun to rise again.

“Sheep need a shepherd,” writes Everts. “We always have and we always will.”

Read John 10:19-21

Most of us, I believe, recognize the need for a new kind of leader – a different kind of savior! The problem is that many people want to be the ones who get to define what the leadership style is all about! We want the shepherd to be made in the image of the sheep, and not the other way around. And that attitude hasn’t changed one iota since the beginning of time!

Why are we so opposed, so reluctant, so afraid to let the Lord make these incredible changes in our life? We know that our way doesn’t work – it never has! And yet, we continue to cling to the “same old – same old”! Psalm 23 gives us every reason to turn to the Lord, and many passages speak of the folly of not turning back, of the people as “sheep without a shepherd”, such as Mark 6 and Ezekiel 34:5 – “So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered, they became food for all the wild animals.” This doesn’t paint a very rosy picture of the people’s efforts to make their own way in the world, and yet, we continue to try.

There is only one answer to our conflict of life verses death – turn to Christ, the perfect Shepherd, who is the only one who can, and has, and will, turn the defeat of death into the victory of life. And what does it require? To simply turn these pitiful, miserable, limited and temporary lives over to the one and true God. We really are like sheep – “confused, short-sighted, blind to wolves and cliffs and jagged rocks, and we dumbly fumble our way around”. And the more we try, the further away we get. In giving up the things we can’t keep, we will gain the very things we can never earn.

We can go our own way and face the jagged rocks, or we can turn to the wonderful Shepherd, who is constantly concerned for our best. And each of us has to make our own choice.

“Jesus, The Certain Gate”

2011-05-01T18:30:00.000-04:00

Scripture: John 10:1-10

Some people aren’t too keen on the thought that scripture compares us to sheep. And the truth is, the image isn’t very complimentary! Sheep aren’t very smart – they eat with their heads down, never looking up, and just wander wherever there is something to chew on. They don’t seem to care whether the fodder in front of them is good for them or bad – whatever is there gets eaten. Sheep are dumb.
And many don’t like the thought that the image of heaven includes a “gate”. Why should anyone be kept out? How can a loving and compassionate God be so exclusive?

And yet, scripture is full of these references, and we had better get used to them! Not simply because the Bible includes them, but because they are important for our lives!

Read John 10:1-3

The sheep pen isn’t some device that is used as a means of punishment. It exists to create a safe haven for those who are inside. In that day, there were many wild animals prowling the hillsides of Judea, and the sheep could easily become a tasty meal for them. The shepherd’s main job was to see to their well being – to lead them safely into areas that had good grass and water during the day, and even more importantly, to keep them safe from marauders during the night. The shepherd would see his sheep safely into the enclosure in the evening, and would then lie down in the entrance to sleep. Anyone trying to get in or out during the night would have to negotiate their way over the shepherd. He would, in all actuality, become a gate for his sheep.
Jesus uses this image of sheep and shepherd in our passages for the next two weeks. Today we look at this concept of a “gate”.

The first issue that Jesus presents is who is allowed to enter through the gated entrance. He tells us that it is only the sheep of the shepherd’s own flock that are permitted entry. Sheep from someone else’s flock do not get a pass. And, of course, the wild animals who intend to do harm to the flock are also excluded. Anyone – human or animal – who tries to enter by some secretive or cunning means will not succeed, and can only be described as dishonest and up to no good!

And we need to know that there is also a gate that bars the way to heaven. It isn’t a locked door, it isn’t an armed sentry, it isn’t some secret password or code. The restriction is more public than any security system in use today, and at the same time is more unbreakable than any system could possibly be. It can’t be bypassed. It can’t be defeated. It can’t be fooled. And there is no other possible port of entry.
And yet, folks continue to think that they can bypass the procedure, and create their own way to get inside.

Read John 10:4-6

As I think you all know, we have two cats. Sometimes they act as though they run the place, but the truth is, I have the upper hand – I know how to open the door to let them in or out of the house, and they don’t! It kind of makes me indispensible to them. I have to admit, though, that they can be very irritating when they want to go out, and I don’t jump as soon as they call! But as hard as they scratch and claw at the door, or meow as though they are being subjected to some great wrong, they still haven’t found a good way to open the door except to get me to do it! And on the other hand, if I go outside and call them to come in, especially after they have been outside for a while, they come running as if I was their best friend. But if someone else is trying to get their attention, especially with the older cat, they head in the opposite direction. They know my voice, and they know that they can trust me. With others, they aren’t so sure.

The shepherd’s flock is similar in nature. They come to trust the shepherd and know that he has only their best interest at heart. If he calls out to them, they respond. If some else tries to get their attention, they ignore him.

But the people who were listening to this teaching didn’t get the message. Jesus, as we all know, taught using parables and other examples that had hidden meanings. It didn’t matter if it was his disciples, or the crowd, or this group of Pharisees, he was equally adept at confusing them all. Those who heard his teaching always tried to take him literally and it never seemed to make any sense to them. In this instance, the analogy of “sheep and shepherd” was just as bewildering to the Pharisees as it would have been if Jesus was introducing the subject of quantum mechanics. They missed the issue of relationship in the discussion, and since they didn’t recognize Jesus as either a Shepherd or Savior, it was totally devoid of any meaning for them.

From the devotional “Streams in the Desert”:
The shepherd is responsible for the sheep; not the sheep for the shepherd. The worst of it is, that we sometimes think we are both the shepherd and the sheep, and that we have to both guide and follow. Happy are we when we realize that he is responsible, that he goes before and goodness and mercy shall follow.
--Streams in the Desert

The Pharisees wanted to be the leaders, and they strongly objected to anyone who tried to take that position away from them. They wanted others to listen to their teaching, not that of others. But Jesus would never give up trying to show them the truth.
It was a hard lesson for these learned men, and most of them failed to learn it.

Read John 10:7-10

And Jesus explains that He is the gate that protects the sheep – his followers - and that all of the teachers of false salvation are just thieves and bandits. The “gate” of heaven is the most secure of any portal that has ever existed throughout all time. There is no key, no combination, no toll booth – the gate will open wide only in the presence of a sure and certain relationship with the shepherd. And it can never open under any other circumstance. And as secure as entry may be, this procedure for entry is given to all who wish to enter. Why do people try to make it so difficult?
The Psalmist reiterates this theme in Psalm 118:19-21. We can’t open the gate – it must be opened for us! It isn’t a gate that everyone will pass through – it is only for the righteous, and righteousness can only come through a relationship with the Divine Shepherd. But it is available to all who will ask.
And entry brings not just safety, but life! Can it possibly get any easier?

Do you think that the Pharisees may have cringed a little at this teaching, especially when Jesus implied that those who teach in opposition to Him are nothing more than thieves who “steal, kill and destroy”? You know that they did. And the “Pharisees” of today had better cringe, too!
There are no other entrances into heaven, there is no other entry criteria, there is no other gatekeeper, no other shepherd, no other opportunity for finding a different way in.
Every other teaching is nothing more than an attempt to grab the promise of eternal life right out of the hands of Christ’s faithful. They are thieves - no more, no less.

So how do we recognize these present day thieves? We know them only by knowing the teachings of Jesus Christ, and being able to compare the two thoughts. Know Jesus’ words, and be confident in them. “I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture.”
These are words that leave very little to the imagination – salvation is only in Christ – the Divine and certain Gate. We give him our lives, and he gives us new life. We give him our trust, and he gives us his ministry. We give him our all, and he gives us even more.

It’s as simple as that. Know his voice, his call, his touch. They are unlike any other.

“The Exclamation Point!”

2011-04-24T16:40:00.000-04:00

Scripture: Acts 10:34-48

Easter was never meant to be a one day holiday – it was given to us so that it could become a lifestyle. Think about it – the finality of death was overturned, and the resulting change was the beginning of an eternity of life. The end has become the beginning.

Let’s go back to that very first Easter. The disciples were beside themselves. Since Thursday evening, they had been in a constant state of panic. Some left town. Some went into hiding in the Upper Room. One actually would deny that he even knew Jesus. John would be the only one who would follow Jesus all the way to Calvary.
Wasn’t Jesus the long waited Christ? The Anointed One of God? How could He die? Who would lead them now? Would any of them live long enough to find a new rabbi? How could this wonderful experience go so horribly wrong?

[The Campville UMC has a signout front with sayings that change each week.] You may have been watching the sign out front this week, and wondering just what that message was all about. “Life is a ?” I suspect that many folks thought that it was a little odd, but the truth is that even in our best days, the next day, the next hour, the next minute is little better than a question mark! But if you noticed the message this morning, it now includes the punch line – “Easter is the !” Life will continue to be a question, until we discover that Jesus not only has the answers, but is the answer.

An anonymous writer once offered
“Christmas is the Promise, and Easter is the Proof.”
—Anonymous - (Homiletics OnLine.
It’s the same idea.

In our reading today, we find Peter speaking to Cornelius, the Roman centurion who, at an angel’s prodding, invites the disciple to his home. Peter had seen the vision of a sheet being raised and lowered from heaven, filled with both clean and unclean animals. He had gotten the message and now he is ready for this mission.

Read Acts 10:34-38

As Peter addresses Cornelius and his household, he begins by reminding them of everything that they already know about Jesus. It seems that this Roman officer already knew the God of Israel and His Son. He was devout and generous in a Christian way, and was already one of the faithful. But in his own mind, his life was still a question mark. He and his family knew the Lord, but what was to be done about their faith?
And in comes Peter – who, in the best Christian style, doesn’t give him an answer right off. He begins with telling this Roman that he, Peter, has now learned that God doesn’t play favorites (confession is always good for the soul!), and welcomes people from all nations and all walks of life to come to rejoice in Him.
At this point, we have to begin to wonder just who this visit was for – was it for Cornelius, or was it for Peter? Consider the old Peter – the impetuous, spontaneous, uncertain, crude man who had come to understand the truth of Christ – that there was nothing that He wouldn’t do for His faithful, that there was nothing that could stand in the way of His ministry, that His love for humanity was immeasurable. And here he is, standing with a Roman, leading him and his family into glory.
As Peter recalls all of Christ’s activity on earth – the baptism, His teaching, the healings from physical ailments as well as satanic ones, the power and Spirit that always filled Him - he continues to understand that all that Jesus said and did went far beyond the borders of Israel and Judaism. That this Jesus who he now served wholeheartedly was God for all, and not for a few! And so he witnesses to this Gentile family.

Read Acts 10:39-43

Peter continues to let Cornelius know that the things that he talks about weren’t just stories, that they were seen and experienced by not only him, but by many others. That this isn’t just some unbelievable story, some fairy tale that looks good on the surface, but falls apart the deeper you dig into it. It is the truth. It all really happened.

Then he gets to the resurrection – that it, too, wasn’t just a story, that Jesus didn’t just return to heaven, leaving his followers stumbling around in the dark! He stayed to eat and drink with them, continued to teach them and encourage them and call them into the ministry that He had begun, a ministry that extended to Gentiles and Jews alike. And that His story wasn’t just one that had been sprung on them, but that it was one that had been told for centuries by the prophets and other holy people.
And then the punch line – “everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins through His name.” Sin had always been the very thing that held the indestructible wall in place between the people of earth and God. No one could gain access unless they were clean and prepared to meet the wrath of almighty Jehovah Himself! And now there was a way that was available for all – belief in Jesus Christ, Judge of the living and the dead, the one who knows all about us and who loves us anyway, the one who has already prepared the way for us to move beyond our sin.

And that’s the exclamation point for our life. The curtain has been torn in half, the wall of sin has been breached, death has been defeated, and life is, for all time, triumphant! Hallelujah
We now have a way to move beyond the confines of thi!s life. Praise the Lord!

Did you know that “After” is every Christian's middle name?
The Methodist missionary Earl Stanley Jones, in his autobiography A Song of Ascents (Nashville: Abingdon, 1968), tells of an African who changed his name to After immediately following his conversion. He reasoned that all things were new and different and important after he met Christ, so he was going to reflect that new reality in his name as well as in his thinking (16).
Easter is what makes us “After” Christians. After Easter, nothing in life is ever the same again.
- Anonymous - (Homiletics OnLine.

After our personal Easter morning, everything is made new.

Read Acts 10:44-48a

And now there is an exclamation for Peter’s companions. The Holy Spirit settles on the Roman and his family, and very possible, his servants. All who receive his message of salvation is touched and begins to speak in tongues. And Peter’s friends are amazed! They had never known of the Spirit’s blessing on anyone but a Jew, and now they, too, know that the full extent of the Father’s Blessing is for all who believe, not just for a select few. They had been baptized by the Holy Spirit, and now they would be baptized with water, and welcomed into the fullness of Christian faith and thought.

Christ’s Way would never be the same again. There would be no limits and no question as to who would be welcomed into the faith. Gentiles, even the hated Romans would be welcome. Women, for the first time in their life, and regardless of their personal history, would be welcomed. Social status would no longer create an obstacle – free, slave, servants, even criminals, - your past would be left in the past, because of course, in Christ, they would all become “After” Christians.

Any question that may revolve around Christmas is answered with the exclamation of Easter!
Any misunderstanding that may exist regarding the parables that Jesus taught are set right in the exclamation of Easter!
Any confusion that we may have over Christ’s death and resurrection are soundly answered in the exclamation of Easter!
Any fear in this life, any fear for the next life, is satisfied and settled in the exclamation of Easter!

Easter is, once and for all, the very answer that we all have been waiting for –
Jesus is Risen!
He is Alive!
His message is sure and forever!
And all who will believe in Him receives forgiveness for their sins, and will rejoice in life eternal through his holy name. Amen, and Amen!

“Cleansing of the Heart”

2011-04-17T22:13:00.000-04:00

Scripture: Mark 11:12-25

For the past 3 weeks, we’ve been taking a closer look at the issue of Salvation in Jesus Christ.
First, we considered the faith of the man who had been born blind, but who seemed to know Jesus far better than the Pharisees did.
Then we took a closer look at him after he had been ejected from the temple, and how he still had a wonderful and over powering faith.
Last week, we considered the renewing of the dry bones that Ezekiel witnessed in that huge valley, and what they had to say about our salvation.
And for those who were able to attend the evening Lenten service at Nichols last week, we considered the call to new life - the call to salvation - in the context of the raising of Lazarus.
Today, we consider the need for Jesus’ cleansing power in our lives, and how our claim on His saving Grace can only come from that - how our salvation must come from that.

We’re going to take our reading for today in a different order – but it will make more sense in a few minutes.

Read Mark 11:15-19

I have read this passage first because these verses are the basis for the others.

Jesus throws the money changers and the sellers of sacrificial animals out of the temple. Now many see this as the cleansing act, but actually, this commercial effort was a necessary part of temple worship. The coinage that was to be offered in temple must be Hebrew, and since many people came from other areas of the world to give their offerings, they needed to obtain the proper type of money. Each region had its own coinage, and the pagan money, which contained the images of pagan deity, was not an acceptable gift to God. As for the livestock, that too, would be offered as a sacrifice and for many, bringing their own birds or lambs from home was not a good option for them. So the marketing effort was a necessity for worship, and Jesus would have understood this.
But His indignation arises from the fact that the money changers were making an obscenely great profit from the exchange, and the livestock that was being sold were not only extremely expensive, but they were far from perfect – broken wings, sickly lambs – all were in the very condition that the Lord had cautioned the people against using as a gift to Him.

The second issue is revealed in verse 17, as He quotes Isaiah 56:6-7.
Key words and thoughts –
“foreigners”, or Gentiles,
who bind themselves to God,
who would worship Him,
who will not desecrate their worship
– these will be welcomed in the Lord’s place of prayer.
In our reading from Mark, Jesus is telling Israel that
this outer court, the place where the travesty of commercialism is occurring, this place that is known as the Court of the Gentiles, the place where any non-Jew could come to worship Jehovah God, is also His “house of worship and prayer”.
He is placing the same level of honor on the non Jews who will worship him, as he does the people of Israel who will give Him that honor, and their place of worship was being desecrated and demeaned.
Sacrilege is sacrilege, regardless of where it occurs and who commits it.

And the third point that we must consider in Mark is this – Jesus is claiming authority over all worship in the temple – not over just that from those who would claim that they are righteous, but from those who would seek His righteousness.

So, when we put these points all together, we discover that
Jesus, and Jesus alone, determines what is acceptable in His sight, and what is not.
Jesus, and Jesus alone, defines what is righteousness and what a righteous life is all about, and He alone defines what is not.
The people have no say in defining what is truly honoring to God, and what is not – we can only act in response to what Jesus has taught!

Read Mark 11:12-14

Was Jesus really angry at the tree for not producing fruit when He wanted it? That’s what some folks would take from this, but the truth is that it is a prophesy against the temple, and in our case, against the church.
The temple of the 1st century was not producing fruit, and the people were actually desecrating the place of worship by not taking the call to sacrifice seriously, by not taking their call to righteousness seriously, by deciding to make their own way in the world instead of following the Lord’s way.
And He proclaims that same judgment on the church of the 21st century. Are we being “fruitless” by allowing worldly interpretations of the scriptures into our worship and lives? By attempting to define our path to salvation in ways that please us, that simplify our expression of faith, that conform to secular ways, expectations and demands?
Jesus didn’t hate the tree – it was simply offered as a symbol of His disdain of the direction that the temple, and now the church, was headed in. Even though the tree was obviously living, it was fruitless.
The temple was still in existence, performing all of its ritual, but it was faithless and fruitless.
The church is still in existence, but we must also ask this question of ourselves –
is the Church Universal - is the United Methodist church - is our church, more actively involved in issues of faith, than it is in simply keeping the doors open? Is it faithful in worship – both in formal and informal ways and times – and is it producing spiritual fruit? Is it bringing souls to Christ, and not just through the doors and to the offering plate? Is it truly honoring our Lord Jesus Christ in ways that He has prescribed, and not simply in a worldly sense?

Read Mark 11:20-25

We are called to live a complete and Godly life, not one of our own making! The fig tree was cursed, and it withered. The temple life was cursed by its own hand, and it withered. And in the context of today, we can’t become so complacent in our Christian lives that we are cursed, too – we need to become fruitful once again – we need to allow Christ’s cleansing to rid us of the worldly influences that are always sneaking in and dragging us down.

So how do we do this?
First, Jesus tells us that we must have faith in God – not a superficial faith, not a shallow faith, not a limited faith, not a self defined faith –but one that is in and of Him. Are we being influenced and controlled
by the lies of society? By personal addictions? By worldly friends and family? By other faith practices? By false teachings? Has idol worship become a way of life for us – the idols of career, of having fun at the expense of faith, of secular pleasures, of putting family and friends ahead of God, of striving to accumulate more “stuff” - money, positions, and prestigious possessions – the “stuff” of earth? In our efforts to be welcoming of others, have we also become welcoming of the things they believe and the things they do? In our outreach to the unchurched, do we try to entice them with the “niceties” of the church, of the “fun” part of faith - the dinners, the fellowship, the warmth of the people?
or do we tell them about our missions and ministries and worship and
the opportunities that we all have for spiritual growth in our lives? And the most important issue that is before us is this – have we claimed the cleansing power and the saving grace of Jesus Christ?
Do we claim His crucifixion and resurrection, and the blood that He shed, as the only hope that we have for eternity? Have we made a personal and faithful commitment to claim Him as our salvation and eternal life? Do we claim His teaching as the one true means of worship?

Palm Sunday is a day of the Lord’s jubilant entry into the city of Jerusalem – the day when He began His arduous journey to Calvary and beyond, solely for our sake. And today is also the day when you have the opportunity to jubilantly welcome Jesus into your life and claim the salvation that He has already won for you, and at such a great a cost to Him.

As we sing our last hymn – “Where He leads Me, I Will Follow”, will you consider putting yourself fully in His hands and truly following Him? Will you come to Christ today, and give your all to Him?

“From the Word, New Life!”

2011-04-10T22:32:00.000-04:00

Scripture: Ezekiel 37:1-14

It’s been said that there are four main groups of bones in every organization. The wish-bones: Wishing somebody would do something about the problem. The jaw-bones: Doing all the talking but very little else. The knuckle-bones: Those who knock everything. The back-bones: Those who carry the brunt of the load and do most of the work.
- Bits & Pieces, October 15, 1992, 16-17.

And the eternal question will always be “How do we get all of these bones to start working together?” Each of them could have a good purpose and could contribute in great ways toward strengthening the organization - the “wish-bones” could develop a vision and implementation plan for the future of the organization; the “jaw-bones” could promote the group and to be involved in outreach to others; the “knuckle-bones” could - well, I’m not use what they could do in a positive way, but I’m sure that there is something! And if all began to work together, every organization, from the local Fire Company, to Rotary and JC’s, to our jobs, to the church, would be far better off for it. And the “back-bones” wouldn’t get so tired out and burned out!

Don’t you just wish that all of our “bones” could get reconnected?

Read Ezekiel 37:1-3

Was this the remains of a great army from years gone by? Were they the bones of a civilization that had suddenly perished? A ravaged city? A burial place that had been uncovered by some natural disaster? No one knows, but there is was – a valley floor littered with countless bleached dry and decaying bones.

If the Lord had asked you that question – “Can these bones live?”, what would you have said? Smart money would have been on “Are you serious? They are deader than dead!” But a second question is also raised – “Can there ever be life beyond death?” And now, with this new question, we just might get a solid Christian answer – and hopefully it would be a resounding “Yes!” Yes, there is life beyond death, but only for those who are in Jesus Christ!
So, for just a minute, let’s think about this valley as representing a dying congregation. There’s no ministry or evangelism to speak of, no mission, no enthusiasm, no vision for the future. The laity’s idea of mission and outreach is that it’s the pastor’s job. They think that the pastor should be visiting every home in the area to bring fresh life into the congregation, but when the pastor suggests changes to the worship service to make it more alive, or to make drastic changes to the administrative organization, or in the role and involvement of the membership, a not-so-quiet revolution begins to develop, and a new pastor, one who won’t make so many waves, is soon brought in.
That type of church is just one generation away from extinction, and maybe not even that long.

Without revival, without a new spirit in each and every person, without a faith that goes beyond the “impending death”, the inevitable will happen.
But when the people put their hope in the Lord, when they begin to grow in faith, when they are willing to follow the leading of God’s Holy Spirit in all aspects of their lives, the “life” that is missing can and will return.

In Charles Sheldon’s book “In His Steps”, a congregation and its pastor are immersed in a slow spiral of death. There is no fire in the worship, no faith in the congregation, until one day, a homeless man who is out of a job enters their lives, and he shows up at worship that Sunday. And he rhetorically asks this question of no one in particular - “What did he [Jesus] mean when he said: 'Follow me?' The minister said" -- here the man turned about and looked up at the pulpit -- "that it is necessary for the disciple of Jesus to follow his steps, and he said the steps were obedience, faith, love and imitation. What do you Christians mean by following the steps of Jesus?”
This is the beginning of the restoration of “flesh” on the dry bones of this church. And the now-famous phrase “What Would Jesus Do?” would be born.

Read Ezekiel 37:4-8

Was this how the church in Sheldon’s novel began to grow – was this the beginning of love and victory and glory and unbridled happiness for all of the people? Not on your life! The homeless man continues “Of course, I understand you can't all go out of your way to hunt jobs for people like me. I'm not asking you to, but what I feel puzzled about is, what is meant by following Jesus? What do you mean when you sing 'I'll go with him, with him, all the way?'”
What does it mean to you when you sing “I’ll go with Him, with Him, all the way”?

But back to the book. Later that week, a handful of the congregation meet to consider the man’s questions and the challenge that they bring to their lives. And the result is that they make a commitment to ask the question “What Would Jesus Do?” before making any decision, whether private, public, professional, personal, relational, major or minor – in all aspects of their lives, for 1 full year. And their lives begin to slowly change – in faith, for the better, but in the world, for the worse.
In Ezekiel’s case, it took the prophesying of a man, in the name of God, to bring new life to the dry bones. In the case of Charles Sheldon’s First Church, it took the prophesying of a homeless man, in the name of God, to inspire the renewing of the people.

Read Ezekiel 37: 9-14

Thomas Merton writes:
As long as we are on Earth, the love that unites us will bring us suffering by our very contact with one another, because this love is the resetting of a Body of broken bones. Even saints cannot live with saints on this earth without some anguish, without some pain at the differences that come between them.
-Thomas Merton, A Thomas Merton Reader, ed. Thomas P. McDonnell, (New York: Image Books, 1974), 320.

What is the cause of death in the church? Simply, it’s a lacking of the Spirit! Verse 14 begins with “I will put my spirit in you and you will live ..” Israel had forgotten what it was like to have the Lord’s Spirit within them, and if they would allow Him to replace it, they would live again! No church, no nation, no people will ever pass from this earth if the Spirit of God is alive in them and if they are willing to follow in Jesus’ steps!

But what does it mean for us to “follow in Jesus’ steps”? If you want to know the specifics for your own life, I can’t even begin to tell you. I know where it has taken me in my inadequate attempt to follow Him, but in general, it means that you have to put everything that involves “you” (“me!”) aside – our understanding of “service”, our ideas of “faith”, our perception and desire of what is “right and wrong”, our interpretation of what is involved in “Loving God” and “Loving neighbor”.
It can no longer be about who we are and what we do in church – it becomes a matter of who Jesus wants us to be, and whether we are willing to let Him remake us in that image.
And without that change in each of us, we will continue to be just another pile of dry, scorched, decaying bones that have no life whatsoever in them.

Verse 12 – “Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel; then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord’”

The Lord wants to open our graves, but we can’t keep shoveling the dirt back in if we want to live and walk with Jesus!! Prophesy to the glory of God, proclaim the open grave in your life, rejoice in the new tendons, the new muscle, the new flesh, the new skin, the new breath and life, all that comes from Jesus Christ. One word – one word is all it takes – and that word is “Glory to God”, and our dry bones, the bones of the church, the bones of the world, can live again!

“Don’t Just Pretend!”

2011-04-03T06:17:00.001-04:00

Scripture: John 9:35-41

Did you ever play “Blind Man’s Bluff” when you were a kid? The name is actually “Blind Man’s Buff” – buff means a small push, like a tag. The children’s game is believed to originated in China in the 6th century, and the object of the game wasn’t much different than it is today – the “blind” person tries to tag another child, and then that child become it. The Chinese name for the game literally means “to bid to take the place of”.
The one who is tagged takes the place of the blind one.
Has a rather Christian overtone, doesn’t it. We wander around in our “worldly blindness”, and when we finally put our hands on Christ, we discover that he has been waiting to take our place, and as we get closer and closer to him, we soon discover that he has already done that!

In the case of the blind man from the message last week, he touched Christ when he received the healing. When Jesus gave sight to the man, he took the role of “blindness” away, and the man then took Christ’s place in witnessing to the Pharisees.
Today, we see the man after he was thrown out of the temple. Jesus has heard about the incident (as if he actually had to hear!), and has found him.

Read John 9:35-38

“Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him.”

He had new eyes, and they were working very well! Some would tell us that he only believed because Jesus healed him, and simply wanted to please the one who had accomplished the miracle. But when we read the earlier verses regarding the miracle itself, we discover that the man had never seen Jesus before this most recent encounter. He was still blind when he went to wash the mud off at the Pool of Siloam, and from there he went home, and then to the Pharisees! He had no idea as to who he was talking to! Jesus asks “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”, and the man replies “Tell me who He is so that I may believe in Him.” He proclaims his desire to believe before he even knows Jesus.

Remember last week, when we talked about having “Jesus Eyes”? This man did! He had newly restored physical eyes, made new by the Lord, and his spiritual eyes had become clearer than they have ever been before!

But how about the Pharisees? How was their vision?

Read John 9:39-41

The Pharisees were being more than just rhetorical! They were insulted! The insinuation that they may have been blind, whether actually or metaphorically, implied that they were sinners! How dare he! They? Sinners? Never! Why, they had the clearest spiritual vision of anyone in all of Israel! Blind? Just who did this Jesus think he was? The arrogance!

And so we come to the question for today – who had the true vision? The one who saw the truth of glory, or the ones who pretended to see it? The truth is that the Pharisees, the ones who had studied the scriptures over and over again, were only seeing what they thought was the truth, what they thought was important for their lives.

It was 17 December 1903. From Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville and Wilbur sent their sister a telegram. “Sustained flight for 59 seconds. Hope to be home for Christmas.” She found their successful flight extraordinary news, so she took the telegram to the local Dayton paper. The next day a small headline on a back page read: “Popular bicycle merchants to be home for Christmas.” Sometimes we miss the extraordinary because we are blinded by the ordinary.
—James R. Noland, “Up, up and away,” May 27, 2001, The Church of the Good Shepherd Web Site, goodshepherdva.com.

Seeing only what we want to see is no less debilitating than blindness itself. It keeps us from experiencing the richness of life, it keeps us living within the unexpected, it prevents us from being part of the truly amazing.
The blind man, even in his handicap, had clearer vision than the learned men of Israel. This man allowed Jesus to cover his eyes with mud, and then when he was told to go to Siloam and wash, he never questioned the order. He just did, with his new faith guiding him.
The Pharisees had seen, probably on a daily basis, far more of what Jesus was able to do and heard more of what he had been teaching than anyone else, but since it didn’t match up with what they wanted to believe, they could never see the truth of God in him. They could have been the ones who were the greatest disciples, sharing the glory of God with the masses, and through them, the word would have spread like wildfire. But instead, they chose to believe the lie that they themselves had fabricated, and in doing so, they missed out on the greatest experience of all time.

In a small college town, a tavern frequented by students ran the following ad in the campus paper during the days before Parents' Weekend: “Bring Your Parents in for Lunch Saturday. We'll Pretend We Don't Know You.”
The ad was soon challenged by the college chaplain, who posted a similar, but radically different version on the campus bulletin board. It read: “Bring Your Parents to Chapel Sunday. We'll Pretend We Know You Well.”
-Cited in C. Thomas Hilton, Be My Guest, Sermons On The Lord's Supper (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1991), 89.

Now on a personal note, the college chaplain was just as much in the wrong as the bartender was. Obviously, we should never pretend that we don’t have a habit that we actually do have, But we also must never pretend that we have a faith that we don’t really live. The man who had been blind was probably at the lower end of the social scale and had never really been allowed to live a full life in faith. On the other hand, the Pharisees had every advantage that life could bring, and they, above all, had the opportunity to live out a true and overflowing faithfulness. And who was it that discovered the abundant richness of Christ? That’s right – the one who never ventured into a life of pretense, who saw no advantage in pretending to be righteous, the one who took the step in faith and not in sight, the one who believed with spiritual eyes before he was ever able to see with his earthly ones.

So where are we? The Pharisees were caught up in doing what they believed the law was telling them to do. They saw their “righteous works” as their means to salvation. And they were wrong. They needed to listen to the man who had been blind but who now could see, the one who was uneducated by worldly standards, but who had received the wisdom of the heavens.
Is this where you are, or are you walking on the same path as the man who was healed – the one that Jesus Christ has paved for us?
Are you making your faith in Christ your first priority, or are you still trying to prove to the Lord just how worthy you really are?
Are you studying his Word and praying for his guidance daily? And by the way, are you following that word and guidance?
Have you come to Jesus, right where you are, and told him “Lord, I believe!” Have you confessed your love to Christ for “bidding to take your place” on the cross, and have you “bid to take his place” in witnessing to the world?
Don’t just pretend that you love the Lord, don’t just pretend that you’re a Christian – actually become one, and live as one in faith.

“Restoring our ‘Jesus’ Eyes”

2011-03-27T21:45:00.000-04:00

Scripture: John 9:13-34

This past week, I had a conversation with several folks that seemed to indicate that there may be some misunderstanding regarding what Salvation is, and what it isn’t. As we talked further, I was lead to consider a different approach for my sermons in these final few weeks of Lent. For the next 4 weeks, we will be considering the question – “How do I know if I’m truly saved?”

We know that salvation comes by faith in Jesus Christ, and not by the many good things that we do. And yet, how many see their attendance at worship on Sunday, and their involvement in the things of church, as their pathway to heaven? The truth is that these things are works, too, and must be seen as our response to salvation, and not a means to it. We need to have our spiritual vision renewed.

Read John 9:13-16

The man had been blind from birth and Jesus had given him sight. But the only thing that the Pharisees could see was that their interpretation of what it meant to keep the Sabbath had been violated. Who was the one that was really blind – the man who had been healed, or the ones who considered themselves righteous?

Spiritual sight is in a class that is totally different from human sight.
Remember the story about Peter and the others who were out on the lake in the middle of a storm? Jesus wasn’t with them, but shortly, He came to them, walking on the water. At first, no one recognized Him, but when He announced that it really was Him, Peter calls out “Lord, if it’s you, tell me to come to you on the water.” An interesting response, as Peter had absolutely no idea how this was going to happen. And Jesus calls back to him - “Come!”
In faith, Peter steps out of the boat and begins to walk toward Jesus - on the water! And as long as he stays focused on the Lord, he does incredibly well. But it doesn’t take very many steps before his gaze is no longer on Christ, and it shifts to the storm and the wind and the towering waves. For a few exciting moments, his eyes are totally on Jesus and he is safe, but as soon as the storms of earth catch his attention, as soon as he no longer puts his whole life and hope in Christ, he reverts to the power of earth, and he begins to sink. And Jesus’ response? “Oh you of little faith!” (Matthew 14:22-33) Peter lost his “Jesus eyes”, if only for a second, but that was long enough and he was lost.

The Pharisees had worldly eyes, and because of that, they had put their entire lives into the law, and the vast majority of them steadfastly refused to surrender that view.

Read John 9:17-24

They wouldn’t believe the man, so they called for his parents. And his mother and father would only testify to the fact that yes, this was their son, and he had, indeed, been born blind. But they didn’t have “Jesus Eyes”, either – they didn’t know the Lord. It is true that our only witness is that which we have experienced, and the parents hadn’t come to know Christ yet. But the Pharisees had been following Jesus around for quite some time, and they had seen the things that Jesus had done, and had heard the things that Jesus proclaimed, and even then, in their blindness, they couldn’t see to believe.
But the man who had been blind could see, and he had experienced, and he did believe.

Read John 9:24-27

And out of the mouth of babes! The Pharisees readily admit that they follow the memory of a mere man, a man who had been as fallible as they were, a man who was even more sinful than they were. They knew that God spoke to Moses, but when it came to Jesus, they simply couldn’t believe that He was the Word of God.
But the man who had received his sight could see with incredible clarity. And he knows for certain that Christ is of God Himself, and chastises the learned for not believing. Now those are “Jesus Eyes”! No doubt, no hesitation, no waffling whatsoever!

Back to Peter. Some days, Peter’s sight was wonderful, like the day he readily proclaimed that Jesus was the Christ, the Anointed One of God. (Matthew 16:13-20) But other days, the man really struggled. Like the night when Jesus was arrested and Peter, the “rock”, not only fell asleep while he was praying in the garden (Matthew 26:36-46), but he also publicly denied even knowing Jesus 3 times. (John 18:13-18; 25-27) One day he had the Eyes, the next they were closed tightly.

Read John 9:28-34

The man had received, not only physical sight, but spiritual sight. And he knew for certain who this miracle worker was. One minute he was just another blind beggar, and the next, he was publicly proclaiming that Jesus was the Man of God. Regardless of the attitudes of the others, even though his parents couldn’t back him up, he knew that Jesus had done something wonderful in his life, and that his life had completely changed, and he would never turn his back on this Savior.

Zan W. Holmes, Jr., tells the story of a college professor who met a South Korean tailor in Seoul. The tailor’s name was Smitty Lee. When Dr. McClain asked whether the name 'Smitty' was Korean, the tailor told the story of his life being saved during the Korean War by an American soldier from Virginia who was called Smitty Ransom.
The tailor further explained a rather familiar custom in that Asian culture, and summed it up in two simple sentences: 'He saved my life. I took his name.' That is indeed what happens when we encounter Jesus; he saves our lives, and we take his name.
--Holmes, Encountering Jesus (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1992), 18-19.

The man who had been blind had, in essence, taken the name of the One who had not only restored his vision of earth, but who had also placed in him a vision of glory.

And what about Peter? Even though he had taken his eyes off Jesus time and time again, Jesus never took His eyes off Peter. And on that night, when the Risen Lord called out to the fishermen to join Him for breakfast on the beach, Peter regained his Eyes. 3 times, Jesus asked the disciple if he truly loved his Lord, and each time Peter replied that he did with his whole heart. And later, on that Pentecostal morning, when Peter began to preach like he had never preached before, those new “eyes”, and new “heart”, and new “life” never failed him. He reminded the people of the words of Joel – “That whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” And that day, 3,000 people did call on the name of the Lord, and every one of them was saved. (Acts 2:14-41) New “Eyes”!

Two fellows opened a butcher shop and they did very well. Then an evangelist came to town, and one of the butchers went to the revival and was saved. He tried to persuade his partner to accept salvation also, but to no avail. “Why won’t you, Charlie?” asked the born-again fellow.
“Listen, Lester,” the other butcher said. “If I get religion, too, who’s going to weigh the meat?”
- Homiletics On Line.

The blind man had to put all that he knew about life and his lack of sight behind him, and came to trust completely in the new sight, the new vision that Jesus had given him. Peter had to surrender his doubts and arrogance and crudeness and worldly life, and to pick up the glorious life that allowed him to love the Lord with his entire being.
And we, too, must open up our “Jesus Eyes”, and give him our trust and faith and life. That butcher had it right – if he had accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior, he would never have been able to cheat his customers again. That’s what surrendering to Jesus is all about – it requires a complete change in the things we do, and the things we say, and the things we think about, and the things we focus on, and the things we stand for. It means that we have to surrender our earthly vision, and begin to see everything in a new way – through eyes that can only come from Jesus.

“Jesus Eyes” – are you able to keep yours wide open, or do you find that you are closing them more times than not? We can only serve our Lord Jesus when they are open. Open them today, and see your Lord in a new and powerful way.
This must be the first step in our journey toward Salvation. "Prepare the way for the Lord"! (Isaiah 40)

“Righteousness In Faith, Not Works”

2011-03-20T23:36:00.002-04:00

Scripture: Romans 4:1-8

One of the major stumbling blocks of the 1st century church was the issue of circumcision. For Israel, it was an absolute. If you were a Jewish male, on the 8th day after you were birth, you were “under the knife”. If you weren’t Jewish but desired to become one, you too had to be circumcised, regardless of your age! We have to remember that initially, until about 70 AD or so, Christianity was still a part of Judaism and this teaching on circumcision, so deeply rooted in the Jewish faith, seemed to be working its way into Christian teachings. And the Gentiles, at least the men, weren’t all that happy about it, but they were doing it just the same, and they saw it as an expression of faith.

But Paul, who would describe himself as a Hebrew of Hebrews, of the Tribe of Benjamin, a Pharisee in the law, and filled with zeal and legal righteousness (Philippians 3:4-6),
was now seeing this issue in a different light. In Romans 2:28-29, he writes that circumcision can no more make a man Jewish than the lack thereof can make you an unbeliever. He tells the church that it is our inward cleansing, our “circumcision of the heart”, that pleases God, and not our outward appearance.
And he prefaces our passage for today by telling the church that it is our faith that justifies us before the Lord, not the law, but that faith does not free us from law, it fulfills it.

Read Romans 4:1-3

“If Abraham had been justified by works, he had something to boast about, but not before God.” And this doesn’t only apply to circumcision – it applies to all good works. If the things that we do could be our justification before God, then we would be able to boast about them, and compare our lives to those of others, and we could be ranked as insufficient, marginal, fair, good, or maybe even blessed.
But justification by faith eliminates any possibility of our being better, or worse for that matter, than any brother or sister, and gives us absolutely nothing that we can point to in pride.
The reference to Abraham’s righteousness is found in Genesis 15:5-8. God then directs Abram to set up a sacrificial path, and God passes through it. The significance is this – when a covenant was established between a conqueror and a conquered people, animals were sacrificed, laid down in parallel rows, and both the new ruler and the people would pass between the sacrifices. This signified that if the covenant was broken, the offending party would suffer the same fate as the animals. But in the instance involving Abram, only God passed through, so if the covenant was broken, only God would be required to pay the penalty. Think about that for a moment – God would pay the penalty, even if we - even when we - break the covenant.
And Abram could never point to himself as either the faithful one, or the one who dutifully paid the penalty for failure. Not a single opportunity, not even one, to claim his own goodness or to prove his own righteousness.

Read Romans 4:4-5

We can’t compare our secular life with our spiritual life. Each has a totally different focus and a totally different impact. Our secular efforts create a debt that our employer then owes to us, and we are compensated through our wages. But a spiritual life in faith creates no debt, no obligation, but rather is simply recognized through God’s granting of His righteousness to us. Our work must justify our pay, and in this, we are seen as a good employee. But by faith, there is no reference to ourselves – only to God, and He will justify regardless of whether we are good or not – he only looks for faith. “God who justifies the wicked” is how Paul puts it – faith does not make us good in the eyes of God, because we can never be that good. Romans 5:8 – “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Justification, our validation as Christ’s own, doesn’t make us perfect – in faith, we are justified in Christ right where we are.

But this is not to be construed as meaning that works have no purpose and that we don’t need to work in faith.
Andrew Lincoln, in his commentary on Ephesians, writes “So good works are not the source but the goal of the new relationship between humanity and God. Salvation is not by works but for works. “
--Andrew T. Lincoln, Ephesians: Volume 42, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word Books, 1990), 114.

Paul is simply saying that works, of and by itself, are of worth only to the worker and never to God. But faith is of great value to both the individual and God!

Read Romans 4:6-8

Justification by faith is not the process that corrects our sinful ways – we are still sinful beings even in faith. Faith actually eliminates the debt that sin creates in us completely – it is gone from our lives. Faith does not make us perfect, but it allows us to stand before the throne of God just as if we were perfect – just as if we had never, ever, no way, no how, not once, committed a single, miniscule sinful act!
How could our human efforts, no matter how good and thorough they might be, ever accomplish that? Our abilities are feeble, our efforts are inadequate, our vision is clouded, and left to our own devices, we could never stand before God with confidence in our salvation.
And God has always known that. And so, God Incarnate, Christ in the flesh, came to earth and paid the penalty for our sinfulness, and now the only thing we can possibly do is to accept Him as our substitute – as the only one who could successfully bring about our salvation.

And so, where does that leave us? If we stand on our own works, it leaves us out in the cold, in the dark, all alone, wondering why we are unable to pick our foot up to take that walk that leads us inside. But if we stand with Christ, if we let go of our own accomplishments, if we take just one step in faith, we’ll find ourselves, not only on the inside, but as a beloved guest at the most glorious happening of all time and beyond all time.

Have you taken that step of faith?
Have you surrendered yourself to Almighty God?
Have you come to Him for forgiveness for your wholly inadequate life?
Have you admitted that your efforts can’t even come close to repairing the damage in your relationship?
Have you looked to the only one who can?

If you have never claimed Christ as your Lord and Savior, as the one who has redeemed you from your sin, as the one who has already paid the penalty for your failures, if you have never confessed Jesus as the only one who can bring righteousness into your life, or even if you have forgotten the time when you did, then today is the day when you can. During our last hymn today, as our brothers and sisters sing “I Know Whom I Have Believed”, and if you believe that this is the day when you are to take that one great step of faith, I want you to come forward and together, you and I, will join together in claiming before God, that you give your hope, your dreams, your sins, your life to Christ.

Come, not because you are worthy, not because you are able, but because you believe.

“Birth and Life Forever!”

2011-03-13T14:47:00.000-04:00

Scripture: 1 Peter 1:22 - 2:3

Lent is the time of year when we reflect on our lives – we consider the things we have done and the things we have not done, the decisions that have glorified God and those that have not. If we are completely honest with ourselves, the “nots” will far outweigh the “haves”, and that is what we must confront in this time of preparation before Easter.
But before we try to make any commitment to bring about a significant change in our lives, we must first consider the “why’s” of our condition. Why are we leaving things undone? Why are we not glorifying God in all that our life stands for? Why are we falling short in our faith walk?

And if we continue to be honest in our self examination, we will quickly discover that our “faith walk” is falling short because our faith has fallen short!

Buell Kazee wrote:
God is not trying so much to produce works in us as He is to produce faith in us. The Lord does not want to show the world so much how we can work; He wants to show how we can believe ... it is a glorifying faith that God wants in us. Certainly glorifying works will be the fruit of the glorifying faith, but the tree must come first ...
--Balladeer and storyteller Buell Kazee, Faith Is the Victory, (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, 1983).

“.. glorifying works will be the fruit of the glorifying faith, but the “tree” must come first..”. Think about that image for just a minute - faith as a tree – solid and strong at its root, tall and majestic in its trunk, and spreading its limbs wide to encompass and shelter all who seek refuge within it. That is the kind of faith that we all need to have – strong, tall, and sheltering!

Read 1 Peter 1:22-25

And if we are to get to that strong, majestic, sheltering kind of faith, we need to be nourished in the truth of Christ. Have you even seen a tree that was growing on the top of a mountain, or even in a split in a rock shelf? They are stunted, no strength, no spreading limbs, very little root. Every time the wind attacks, the tree is on the verge of being torn away. Yes, it’s true that the tree will adapt to its environment and it just may survive for many years, but it will never provide much lumber, or shade, or protection, and it will never grow to be as purposeful as the one that is firmly planted in good soil.
The tree that has good roots will produce countless seeds every year, and will bring about new growth, and in time, will grow to become an entire forest. The fruit of “glorifying faith” grows and spreads just like that.

Paul also talks about the seed of faith being imperishable. Those new sprouts can never grow if the seed dies before it can take root. They can’t be diseased, they can’t be damaged, they can’t be sown on a stone. New trees, new babies, and new faith must be nourished until it becomes strong for itself.
A woman at our other church is going to give birth to a baby this week. She can’t wait, for a number of reasons (!), to meet that new life. He has been growing and maturing inside of her for many months now, in safety, receiving nutrients and other life sustaining help from his Mom, and the time is nearly here for him to immerge into the world. But this isn’t the end of Mom’s job! It will continue, in various forms, for many years to come.
As you know, our youngest son lives in the Seattle area. This week, with the news of the tsunami that had raced across the Pacific to strike the west coast, my wife called our son on Friday morning to see how they were doing. His comment to her was “You’re doing your motherly thing, aren’t you!” Nate’s 31 years old, and Mom is still nurturing him. And that is good.

Throughout scripture, we are given this image of being born anew – of allowing the old self to die so that the “new” can come into being – but the emphasis is almost always on “birth” and seldom on the “nurturing”. But in this regard, spiritual rebirth is no different than human birth. We look for the birth, but the nurturing must be a slow, continuous, intention, and not always glamorous, effort. But I want to tell you that when we encourage a person to come to Christ, to allow the Lord to create a new being in them, that we also have the obligation to continue to encourage them, to help them to grow stronger in the faith, to come to know the fullness of the truth of the gospel message, to walk with them until they become strong enough to live in faith for themselves.
“..the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever.” Wonderful words, but they will remain just words if we ignore our obligation. If we aren’t intentional in our efforts to see that others become planted firmly in the word of the Lord, they, too, just may wither and fall away.

Read 1 Peter 2:1-3

And these are the things that will cause us to wither and fall in our walk – malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, slander. No one would ever lean toward these things intentionally, or almost no one, but it still happens. We are studying, and learning, and growing, but one day, we suddenly discover that the things that we thought we wanted in life were no longer important, and without even realizing it, faith has been transplanted by something of the world. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote “If you could prove God to me, I would believe in him all the less.” – All The Less! That’s what comes from impure seed and distorted growth.

From an anonymous writer:
There are some churches that attempt to shine a faint and fractured penlight of brightness out into the darkness by proclaiming “We Want to Be Your Friend” or “We Make Friends” or “This Is a Warm, Friendly Fellowship”. These congregations are often surprised when this faded message fails to draw others in out of the dark.

But it's that very message that is the problem! Friendship is not what people are looking for in a church; they're not looking for friendliness; they're not looking for friends. This culture would have the church adopt as its mission “We Make You Happy”. But the mission of the church is not to make people happy, or even to help people feel good about themselves. It is to glorify God and to be an earnest of eternity.
-- Unknown Author --

Paul talks about the new born craving spiritual milk – the teaching that advocates the “feel good gospel” is comparable to feeding the “newly born” polluted water! No nourishment, no sustenance, no real hope.
So who is responsible to see to it that the church is being fed good, spiritual milk, and not polluted water? My friends, you and I are the only ones who can do that! If the church is to move forward in faith, if new Christians are to be brought to Christ, if the teaching is to be true, if the nourishment is to be good, we cannot sit back and proclaim “Oh well, God will take care of it, He’ll sort it all out in the end.” It’s true that He will, but we can’t be complacent in our approach to the Judgment Day – not if we want to hear the words “good and faithful servant”.

Our new birth, the promise that we have received for eternal life, is not for us alone! It has been given to us so that we can carry that message of great hope to others who have yet to claim the promise for themselves. Nietzsche may have drank deeply from the world’s tainted water supply, and as a result, came to proclaim the fallacy of God, but there are others out there who are still craving good spiritual milk. And without it, they, too, will wither on the vine.
That baby is going to immerge hungry, and his loving Mom will want to give him the very best that she can. When we experience the spiritual rebirth of a friend, can we want any less for them?

As with any new birth, it is never without struggle to some degree. But when the process is complete, the joy will overwhelm the soul. The new being is incredibly beautiful, the future is full of promise, the fruit of new birth is rich and plentiful, and the message continues to spread.

“Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.”
New birth is a change for the better, new life in Christ is a change forever. Praise the Lord!

“The Power of the Gospel”

2011-03-06T19:08:00.000-05:00

Scripture: 2 Peter 1:12-21

The human mind is a truly marvelous thing. Even though it doesn’t work as fast as a super computer, it can still process information at an incredible speed – approximately 100 trillion instructions per second! And, according to the internet, while the human brain is calculating a math problem, it is also working, subconsciously, to process data from millions of nerve cells that handle the visual input of the paper and surrounding area, receive the audio input from both ears, and analyze the sensory input of millions of cells throughout the body. The brain is also regulating the heartbeat, monitoring oxygen levels, considering hunger and thirst requirements and deciding wheither you want to keep working or take a "snack break", breathing patterns and hundreds of other essential factors throughout the body, and simultaneously comparing data from the eyes and the sensory cells in the arms and hands to keep track of the position of the pen and paper as the calculation is being performed.
http://www.disabled-world.com/artman/publish/brain-facts.shtml

The human mind may be a bit slower than a super computer in actually making calculations, but it also has to monitor and regulate the rest of our body at the same time. However, the greatest differences in the 2 systems is this – the human mind provides us with the ability to reason, to consider abstract concepts, and to act on the information that we are constantly accumulating. Computers can’t even come close to doing all of this. At least, not yet!
We need to understand the information that we have, and not just accumulate more of it.

Read 2 Peter 1:12-15

One problem that we do have is the retention of information - our memory - and our reasoning can also become tainted by all of the information that we have collected and have processed incorrectly! But all in all, if we can just remember the important things, we can do wonderful things.
That is why Peter is so intentional in repeating those important things over and over.

Constance Vanides wrties:
“I have a friend who lived in Oklahoma as a child. She remembers getting the family’s water supply from rain which poured down from rooftop to rain barrel. The water was fresh and soft so long as rain continued to replenish what was in the barrel. As days became dryer, followed by drought with no fresh inflow, the water remaining in the barrel became stagnant. Children discovered “wiggly tails” swimming about! Although they were fun to watch, it meant the water was not fit to drink. No life can come to us from stagnant waters!”
So it is with our spirits.
—Constance Vanides, “Add water and stir,” Christian Inspirations Web Site, May 2000.

Reprinted with permission of Constance Vanides, “Christian Inspiration of Comfort, Edification and Exhortation,” GodCares.org.

We need to constantly be refreshed in the Word, just as Peter rightly knew and told his Christian friends. There is no life in stagnant souls! I struggle with those who claim that they can be with God when they are out hunting, or on the golf course, or relaxing at home on Sunday morning, and don’t see any need to be in some “stuffy, ego-centric” church.
The problem, as both Peter and Constance Vanides know, is that we are seldom refreshed when we are by ourselves engaged in some human activity! We almost never grow in faith when we are by ourselves! It is extremely difficult to discover some new aspect of God’s grace and presence, if we aren’t immersed in faith development that only the collective body of the church can provide.
We need others to help us remember, we need others to help us put all the pieces together in the right order.

Read 2 Peter 1:16-18

Part of this “reminding” is our personal witness of how the Lord is working in our lives. We sometimes envy the disciples who had a first-hand experience with Jesus. But don’t we have those personal experiences, too? Those times when the Lord leads us to just the right place, in just the right time, to make just the right decision, and only later do we understand just how right it was?
We don’t repeat “cleverly invented stories” – we share our personal stories, our personal witness, our personal walk! That is how we remember what God has done for us, and how we help others to remember what God is poised to do for them.
I would have loved to be on that mountain to see the glory come down and settle on Jesus. But that wasn’t to be my witness! Christ has given me other times and places when I have come to know His presence with me, and He expects me to share them with those who are struggling to come to grips with His presence in their own lives, or seemingly, the lack thereof. Peter, James and John weren’t invited to that revealing simply for their own benefit (Matthew 17:1-9) – they went so that they could share that story with others. Peter wanted to stay on the mountain to reflect on what he had seen, but Jesus took them all back down to the valley. The valley is where we share our memories and experiences of glory.

Read 2 Peter 1:19-21

On Wednesday mornings at Gibson Corners, we are currently studying the gospel of Luke, and on Wednesday evenings at Campville we are studying Isaiah. Both of these teachings are equally important to us. We read the Old Testament to hear the word that was given to Israel, and we read the New Testament to discover the word that is being given to the followers of Christ. Without the Hebrew text, the gospels begin to look pretty strange and have no basis for us in truth, and without the gospels, the word that was given through the prophets falls flat. And it all comes together for humanity in one package that we call The Word.
When we read of the trials of Job, we also have to remember Romans 5:3-5 – “we also rejoice in our suffering, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who he has give us.” We need both Job and Romans!
When we read of Christ’s crucifixion, we also must remember the story in Numbers 21:4-8, regarding the poisonous vipers that came among the people and many were bitten. All who were bitten died, until Moses was told to make a bronze serpent, place it high on a pole, and whoever would look upon it would not die. We need Numbers and the gospels!
And we could come up with many more examples of how all scripture works together, but only when we remember the passages and the stories of faith. It is the power of remembering that the glory of God has been coming down to us for millennia, and will continue to do so until Christ Himself comes to bring the glory to us in person. The power of faith, the power of the Word, the power of the prophets, the power of the gospels is all there for us. These gifts haven’t been offered to benefit God – they are given to benefit us, and if we forget these marvelous events of faith, we will be lost.

Elisabeth Elliot writes:
We cannot always, or even often, control events, but we can control how we respond to them. When things happen which dismay or appall, we ought to look to God for his meaning, remembering that he is not taken by surprise nor can his purposes be thwarted in the end. What God looks for is those who will worship him. Our look of inquiring trust glorifies him.
This is our first responsibility: to glorify God. In the face of life's worst reversals and tragedies, the response of a faithful Christian is praise--not for the wrong itself certainly, but for who God is and for the ultimate assurance that there is a pattern being worked out for those who love Him.
--Elisabeth Elliot, A Lamp for My Feet (Mich: Vine Books, 1985), 96.

The gospels, the Hebrew writings, the epistles – all are there to show us that a silent faith is no faith at all. We must hear them, repeat them, share them, remember them, for without their power in our lives, there is no perseverance, there is no character, and there is no hope.

Our first responsibility as the people of God is to bring glory to Him. But first we have to understand why he deserves that glory! Remember the Power of the Word, and rejoice!

“The Trust of Faithfulness”

2011-02-27T20:04:00.000-05:00

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 4:1-8

For the past 5 weeks, we’ve been taking a look at Paul’s warnings to the church in Corinth, and today will be our last look at how outside influences can creep into the church and steal the faithful heart away. Corinth was a Greek city, with all of the diverse attitudes and false gods and more distractions than you could count. The church had started to take on many of those worldly attributes, and it was beginning to tarnish their righteousness and wear away at their faith. We’ve seen many of them; the thought that they had to be welcoming of whatever false teachings that others might bring with them, the struggle, and even embarrassment for some, over the Christian view of the cross and the blood that Christ shed for the world, the emphasis and glory that was being given to worldly wisdom and power, the animosity and pride that was rising up over who was the better teacher, who had more faith, who was the better Christian, the church’s leaning toward other faith structures, and away from the foundation of faith that Jesus Christ had laid. Today, we look at the issue that allows all of these lies to grow and thrive in the Church – it is a lack of trust and faithfulness in Jesus.

Read 1 Corinthians 4:1-4

The first thing that Paul tells us is that we have been given a responsibility, and that we must step up and claim it. The problem, though, is that he doesn’t actually spell out what that responsibility is. He calls it a “trust”, which in this context and according to Webster’s Dictionary, is “an interest held by one person for the benefit of another”. I believe that Paul is telling us that we have been charged with preserving the faith – not only for ourselves, but for those who have yet to come and claim Christ for themselves.
Those who teach must teach faithfully. Those who pastor must lead faithfully. Those who witness must offer their experience of Christ faithfully. And why is it so important that we are faithful? James 3:1 says “you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.” False teaching is worse than simply sinning, because it not only impacts our own faith, but it leads others away from Christ. And just in case you think that because you don’t lead a Bible Study or Sunday school class that you are off the hook on this one, you aren’t! Whether teaching, pastoring, preaching, witnessing, or even sharing the Gospel in normal conversation, you are teaching! So this call is on all of us.
This is our trust – given to us for the benefit of others, and Paul reminds us that we must always be faithful whenever we present Christ to others.

The second thing that Paul offers in this passage is that we can’t be concerned with what others may think of us. The judgment of humanity, the judgment of the world, the judgment of human courts can never mean anything to us when the judgment involves our Christian walk, and then, it is Christ who is going to be our final judge.
Now, that doesn’t mean that as brothers and sisters, we aren’t allowed to call into question the teachings of someone else. But outright condemnation is not the way to do it. If we are in disagreement with another, we are to offer our proof through scripture, and then discuss it with our friend. If a teaching is false, we have the obligation, the trust, to offer correction. But even at that, we don’t judge the person – we are to be discerning of only the teaching.

Read 1 Corinthians 4:5

“Judge nothing until the appointed time.” And when is that? When Christ returns to sit on His Judgment seat. Our judgment is flawed, but His is perfect. Our timing is based on our watch, but His is based in eternity. Our wisdom is limited, but His is infinite. Let the Lord judge, and may we be satisfied with our own discernment, as imperfect as it may be.

Read 1 Corinthians 4:6-8

Vs. 6 - “Do not go beyond what is written”. That sounds like pretty good advice! If we all stick to the one Word, how can we go wrong? Remember that one of the problems in Corinth was dissention. And what causes us to disagree with each other? Divergent ideas and thoughts! What causes disagreement in the 21st century church? The same thing. Corinth was seeing the worldly view of life creeping into the church and taking root. The world doesn’t like to see thought that violates its concept of truth – not in the 1st century and not today. “They”, whoever they may be, will interject their own brand of what is right and what is wrong, and we are expected to accept it. That is what “going beyond what is written” is all about.
Some of you may remember the TV show Dragnet. One of the lines from that show has survived until today, and it seems that it may even have its basis in our reading for today. One of Joe Friday’s most memorable lines is “Just the facts, ma’am, just the facts”! Who says that there is no redeeming value in television? And I think that Paul would be very pleased to know that his words are being emulated today, because that is basically what he is telling us – stick to the facts of scripture, and you’ll never go wrong.
Some of the facts:
John 3:17 – “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”
John 8:12 - “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
John 14:6 - “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Romans 8:31 – “If God is for us, who can be against us?”
Romans 8:38-39 – “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

And the “written word” goes on and on, and all of it to give us a great hope for salvation in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! Trust Him, and Him alone.

In some Arab countries, there is a saying that if you trust someone, you should give that person your breath. In other words, there is no space between people who trust; no light shines between those who share personal space.

We need to do our best to live as in the words of Charles Albert Tindley,

“Nothing between my soul and my Savior,
Naught of this world’s delusive dream;
I have renounced all sinful pleasure,
Jesus is mine; there’s nothing between.

[Refrain]
Nothing between my soul and my Savior,
So that His blessed face may be seen;
Nothing preventing the least of His favor,
Keep the way clear: Let nothing between.”

--Charles Albert Tindley, “Nothing Between”, The United Methodist Hymnal (Nashville: UM Publishing House, 1989), #373, & Living Hymns (Encore Publications, Inc. 1975), #292

Let’s reread this refrain, and this time together as one Body, and as we do, I want each of us to take these words to heart. The church in Corinth was moving away from this concept of allowing nothing to come between them and Jesus, and it was only the letters that Paul wrote to them that brought them back to the truth of Christ.

[Read the refrain]

Let nothing between! Not the world view, not the social gospel, not our friends and family, not our own wisdom and not our ignorance, not our sin, and not our righteousness. Let nothing come between our soul and the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Be the heart and soul of faithful trust to those who have yet to know the glory and grace of Christ.

“True Faith, True Reward”

2011-02-20T20:27:00.000-05:00

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 3:10-23

Last week, we briefly touched on the analogy of the church as a building that is continuously under construction. Always growing, always changing, never quite finished, taking on new attributes and new forms every day.
I remember, to some degree, when my parents’ house was being built. I was only 5-6 years old, but I got to take the first shovel full of dirt from the ground, and then was assigned to sit at my grandparent’s kitchen table to watch, which, by the way, kept me out of the way of the carpenters. The process began with a great big hole in the ground, and slowly grew to be a two story Dutch colonial.
But the process didn’t end when the physical construction was complete. The "house" was ready, but it still had to become a “home”, and that required the addition of our family. And even that grew a little more after we had moved in.
The church building, the structure that we worship within today, isn’t the Body of Christ anymore than the house that I watched being built could be called a home. But each of them – the Church of Jesus Christ and the home that I grew up in - needed a solid footing and proper construction techniques if it was to become the warm, welcoming, nurturing, enduring place where our family grew.

Read 1 Corinthians 3:10-13

We need to be careful how we build. Paul gives us 2 caveats – the first is the foundation itself, and the second is how we build on that foundation.
He tells us that the only foundation worthy of the Church is Jesus Himself. Now at first glance, that may seem like a pretty basic truth, but consider the full extent of that thought. It doesn’t mean that we build on the image of Christ! It means that the Church is to be based on the life and teachings and character and heart of Jesus, not on just some esoteric thought. It doesn’t mean that the Church simply proclaims Jesus as Lord and Savior, even though that is a vital component of the Church, but that we must go far beyond that level, that we must “think” Jesus, “live” Jesus, “love” Jesus, “share” Jesus, “see” Jesus in all that we do, and others must come to “know” the complete Jesus through us. That is the foundation that Paul is talking about.
And the apostle also writes that not only is the foundation important, but the structure that is built upon that basis is also vitally important. The items that he mentions range from those that are extremely costly, to those that are about as base as you will ever find. The common aspect, though, is that all of them are of the world, and not one of them has one iota of spirituality in them. Gold and Silver and precious gems are nice to look at, but they can never keep their luster. They will soon tarnish, and not one of them will ever save a single soul. Wood, hay and straw are inexpensive and hold no pretense, but they, too, have no lasting quality, and will soon fail to support the structure. These materials may pass limited tests as specified by the world, but they can never survive the test of Judgment and they can never combine to convert the “physical house” into a “spiritual home”.

Why was Paul offering these thoughts to the church? It would appear that they were starting to interject other thought into their faith – Greek philosophy, worldly and pagan worship, legalism, and countless other unchristian ideals. He knew that they had to let go of those ideas, and get back to the truth of Jesus Christ.

Read 1 Corinthians 3:14-17

The faith that was beginning to immerge in Corinth had no Spirit. It may have been growing in numbers, but it was not growing, in any way, shape or form, in the Spirit of God. The Lord has no use whatsoever for physical dwellings. He could care less if our church building is 10 years old or 150 years old; whether it is make of exotic woods and inlaid marble, or if it is a grass shack in the middle of the jungle; whether it is an ornate cathedral or a humble 1 room cabin.
And He is equally unimpressed if the congregation numbers in the hundreds and thousands but without His Spirit being at the center of their ministry. The one thing that pleases the Lord is the quality of the heart that lives and grows within each person.
For centuries, Israel had seen, first the Tabernacle and then the Temple, as the House of God. The Spirit was contained in the Ark of the Covenant because, after all, didn’t even God need a nice place to live? Even today, we refer to our church building in the same way – God’s House, and many seem content to keep God safely warehoused there for six days until we return to worship Him on the seventh. But in Ezekiel 10:18, we read “Then the glory of the Lord departed from over the threshold of the temple and stopped above the cherubim.” And in the very next chapter, we read of Ezekiel being lifted up by the Spirit and that the Spirit came upon him and spoke to him. Ezekiel was in Babylon, not Jerusalem! The Spirit of God had “left the building”, and had gone to live and work directly within humanity!

Verse 16 – “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?” We are the temple of God, the house of God, the hands and voice and heart of the Spirit of God! The Glory left the temple in order to be with the people while they were in exile, or more properly, because they were in exile. They had to live in banishment for 70 years, but they would not have to endure it alone. The Lord would be with them and in them, His new temple, throughout their ordeal. And that very same Spirit lives within each of us, in good times and in bad, in our faithful moments and in our sinful days. The new temple lives, and the Sacred Glory of God lives with us.
The Glory of Christ is our foundation, and in that, our many lives become the Church.

Read 1 Corinthians 3:18-23

Remember a few weeks ago, when we were in chapter 1, with its many references to the “foolishness” that is assigned to the Church by those who are immersed in the world?
1:18 – “The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing”
1:23 – “We preach Christ crucified; a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks”
1:25 – “The foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.”
Paul tells us that we shouldn’t reject this concept of foolishness, but instead, should claim it! We are to become a “fool” in the world so that we might then become wise in God. With that rationale, no wonder the world thinks we’re strange! It makes no sense, has no logic! But the truth of this is so simple. We are to let go of the wisdom that comes from the world – to become foolish and empty – so that the wisdom, the truth, the holiness of God might fill us. We must always remember that the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of God cannot co-exist. We can use the abilities, the knowledge, that our human self has gained, but never as the means to personal greatness or perfection in this life. Homiletics comments on Matthew 5:17-20 with these words - “Being perfect is not moral perfection, but serving God wholeheartedly.”

We must use the gifts that are exhibited in our human existence to serve the Lord with all our heart and soul and strength. And this service, to be truly of His Church, must always be in the unity of Christ. Boasting is specifically called out by Paul as a divisive characteristic, that it will destroy the Church’s unity in the blink of an eye. And he continues to tell us that infighting makes no sense whatsoever, because we already have everything that we could ever want! Whether it is our favorite teachers or our favorite teaching, whether it is the things of today or those of the future, whether it is life now or life eternal – we already have everything of value! But unless we are working together in Christ, it becomes a moot point. The building that is our life can be glamorous and greatly admired by all, but without the true Foundation, it is destined for a fall and can have no lasting significance.

An observer asked [the great Presbyterian preacher] Lyman Beecher how it was that he had so many converts. Dr. Beecher answered, “I preach on Sunday and I have 400 members who preach every day, and that is the way, with the blessing of God, that we are doing so well.”
--William R. Key, The 'What Is' and 'How- To' of Evangelism, The Foundation for Evangelism Web Site, www.evangelize.org/articles/article22.htm, July 6, 1999.

Carrying the foundational message of Christ in a wholehearted manner, as the unified Body of Christ and the living temple for the Spirit of God. The promise is sure – that we are of Christ and Christ is of God. And without that assurance, without that direction, without that hope, there is no life, regardless of how wonderfully the church may appear to the world. Glory surrounds the faithful, and Christ is the Glory.
Can it possibly get any better than that?

“No Spirit in Dissention”

2011-02-13T17:02:00.000-05:00

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 3:1-9

For the past few weeks, we’ve been looking at the issues that Paul was addressing in the Corinthian church. Today, we look at the condition of “jealousy”, and as you may remember, jealousy, or envy, is one of the 7 deadly sins. Bishop Will Willamon wrote a book in 2005 by the name “Sinning Like a Christian”. He takes each of the 7 and considers their impact, not on general society, but on the people who live and worship within the Church. The “Seven” – Pride, Envy, Anger, Sloth (laziness), Greed, Gluttony, and Lust - aren’t so much the things we do as they are the things we feel and think. We are the ones who not only passionately condemn these practices, but we are the very ones who are the greatest perpetrators of them.
Jesus dealt with “jealousy” more than any other of the human conditions. Even His disciples were constantly bickering over who was the greatest, who would sit at Jesus’ right hand, who Jesus liked the best, and on and on.
And Jesus never accepted one word of their animosity.
Willimon writes:
“It is odd that we have made even Jesus into such a quivering mass of affirmation and oozing graciousness, considering how frequently, unguardedly, and gleefully Jesus told us that we were sinners. Anyone who thinks that Jesus was into inclusiveness, self-affirmation, and open-minded, heart-happy acceptance has then got to figure out why we responded to him by nailing him on a cross. He got there not for urging us to ‘consider the lilies’, but for calling us ’whitewashed tombs’ and even worse.”
- Willimon, William; Sinning Like a Christian; Abington Press, 2005
And jealousy was one of the whitewashings that received so much of His attention.

Read 1 Corinthians 3:1-4

Paul is just about as blunt as Jesus is. “Since there is so much jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly?” And the implication here is that these are some of the things that define a worldly life and that they can never be the acts of a spiritual life.

Historian Henry Chadwick discusses the radical transformation that occurred in the fourth century when the masses, who previously had worshipped pagan gods, filled the churches. The bishops of the church tried to get the masses to give up their pagan cults with their promises of success in love and fertility, in commerce and in health.

But bishops quickly found their people determined to have such things and ready to say (as Augustine reports) that “the Church's God was good for salvation in the next world, but one had better keep in with the old gods for success in this one.”

Augustine often laments the half-heartedness of many who have been baptized but who have not been touched to the heart, and sees an image of the Church in St. Peter's ship so weighed down with the fish that it began to sink.
--Times Literary Supplement, 5 April 1985, 379-80

The church in Corinth was beginning to sink under the pressure and weight of influences from the outside world. Willimon writes “I love the fact that Envy, as a sort of refined, subtle form of hate, is numbered among the Seven. Envy is less obviously sinful than crude, publicly expressed hate, but it can be no less deadly.”
The jealousy that Paul was seeing in the church sparked his concern and fears of spiritual immaturity. It had no place there, but here it is and it was actively tearing the Body of Christ apart, limb from limb, and heart from soul. It was destroying itself from the inside. And the issue? It was simply this - “Who was a better teacher – Paul or Apollos?” And the question that must be asked back to the church is this – “Where is Christ in all of this?” And the warning, and issues, and questions are still pertinent today.

Read 1 Corinthians 3:5-7

And Paul puts it all into perspective. He very clearly tells the church that it isn’t the teacher who is important – that those who lead are merely servants of the One who makes everything work together. And isn’t this problem true in the church of today? The servants of the Most High God want to be seen as the indispensable ones in the mix. "Nothing would get done around here if it wasn’t for me!” “No one else can do it right!” “Who do they think they are – don’t they know that I’ve always done that?” Or even worse “I could never do that – he (or she) is the only one for that job!”
It’s as if we don’t trust God to do the empowering! That God can’t work without me! Willimon writes that Pride is very possibly the worse of the Seven, because it tends to be the basis for the other six! Pride leads to jealously, and it causes nearly every other affliction to spread to the entire Body.

Now, we have to recognize the fact that Paul is not condemning diversity, those differences in our abilities and understandings. To the contrary, he is proclaiming it. Some can plant, some can nurture, some will encourage, and all must work together in the name of Christ. That is what being “spirit-lead” is all about – one concerted and united effort, using our diverse gifts, to accomplish our God given goals. The problem comes when we begin to think that our contribution in the effort is more important, more inspired, better given than that which comes from others, that the goal will be unattainable without us.
Paul is telling the church, both the one in the 1st century and the one in the 21st, that if we don’t grow up, we will surely give out.

Read 1 Corinthians 3:8-9

Paul uses 3 conceptual images in this passage. First, he offers the image of family – the infant who can only tolerate milk, versus those older members who can handle solid food. Second, the idea that the church is like a field prepared for a crop. And third, he ties it all together and adds the notion that the church is like a building that is under construction. We are growing, gaining, learning, changing, rising ever higher, but as we become more and more, we must never lose sight of the fact that the plan that is guiding us is never changing. We are the workers who are preparing the field, who are constructing the building, who are raising the family, but we do not cause the growth, we did not design the structure, we did not create the life, and the vision of the final result is not of us!
We simply work to enable the Lord’s plan for the church. And in that, we are the workers, the servants, and never the planner. As Corinth began to deviate from God’s plan for them, it became more and more obvious that they were not living within His will. The Lord’s plan of unity was failing in the dissention that was growing in the church.

In one of Charles Wesley’s hymns we sing:
“Come, let us use the grace divine, and all with one accord,
in a perpetual covenant join ourselves to Christ the Lord;
Give up ourselves, thru Jesus’ power, his name to glorify;
And promise, in this sacred hour, for God, to live and die.”
- Wesley, Charles; Come, Let Us Use the Grace Divine; 1762, page 606, UMH, based

With one accord… give up ourselves... his name to glorify… to live and die for Him. The church can never be about individuals – it can only be about the workings of the Holy Spirit within and through the entire church. Remember the message in Luke 18 regarding the prayers that were being offered by two men – one being a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The attitudes of these two men were drastically different and there was no unity whatsoever in them. The Pharisee was elevating himself over the tax collector, and wanted to be seen as being the best example for all to follow. But Jesus turns the table on him, and proclaims that it’s the humble man who God will raise up, not the one who already thinks so highly of himself.

The Spirit of the Church is freed to work God’s wonders through the humility and surrender of the servants of God. Continuing with Charles Wesley’s hymn:
“The covenant we this moment make be ever kept in mind;
We will no more our God forsake, or cast these words behind.
We never will throw off the fear of God who hears our vow;
And if thou art well pleased to hear, come down and meet us now.”

The covenant that the Lord offers to His church is this – if we will “no more our God forsake” and no longer “cast [His] words behind”, His marvelous spirit will grow within us, and the Church victorious can become a reality in our time!
No more dissention.
No more jealous pride.
No more “me first”.
Just Christ, and Him crucified. No more and no less.

“Wisdom in the Spirit”

2011-02-06T20:47:00.000-05:00

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 2:1-16

What is wisdom? We read “Wisdom” literature in scripture. Society places a high regard on wisdom. Many people claim to have it, but few can actually describe it and personally, I don’t believe that any of us actually has it. Wisdom has been confused with knowledge – but knowledge is simply the accumulation of facts. Wisdom isn’t intelligence – that is the measurable potential for understanding. And it isn’t even understanding – that is the ability to comprehend what someone else is saying.
For me, Wisdom can only be a “ideal and perfect insight” – it’s the ability to put all that there is into order, into context, into a perspective that can bring all that exists into focus. We don’t have it and couldn’t handle if we did! God has it, though, and He blesses us through it.

Read 1 Corinthians 2:1-5

As the story goes:
An angel appears at a university faculty meeting and tells the dean that in return for his unselfish and exemplary behavior, the Lord will reward him with his choice of one of three things: infinite wealth, infinite wisdom or perfect beauty. Without hesitating, the dean selects infinite wisdom.”
Done!” says the angel, and disappears in a cloud of smoke and a clap of thunder. Now, all heads turn toward the dean, who now sits surrounded by a faint halo of light. At length, one of his colleagues whispers, “Say something.”
The dean looks around the silent room and replies, “I should have taken the money.”
- Homiletics Online

The ability for humanity to deal with wisdom, in its purest sense, is feeble, at best. I don’t recommend that anyone settle on money as their choice of God’s blessing, but we would probably have a better chance of success with infinite financial resources than the dean had with “infinite wisdom”!
Even Paul tells the church that he came without wisdom – that he was filled with weakness, fear, and trembling, and that he was neither wise nor gifted with persuasiveness. He relied totally on the power of God that flowed through the Spirit. Why should the people of today think that they are smarter than Paul? The truth is that we aren’t – we just think we are.

Read 1 Corinthians 2:6-10a

If we really think about verse 6, we see that it is very obviously a stinging rebuke of what the world looks to as “wisdom”. He says that the insight that the rulers of the world have is worth nothing. And his evidence is this - that their lack of insight into God’s ways is what required the Lord to give His all on Calvary. If we – not only the wise of earth, but everyone – had a good grasp on the goodness and glory of God,
if we all had a true sense of God’s plan for His creation, Jesus could have been spared His horror on the cross. But we don’t, and Paul’s quotation from Isaiah makes this failure on our part very clear – “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” (Isaiah 64:1-5)
Our only hope to even come close to understanding the Lord’s plan is to lean on the teachings of Jesus Christ and the leading of His Holy Spirit. And what an incredible gift that is! God didn’t have to give us a view into His plan, but in His gracious nature, and in His desire for us to be active in His plan, His glory has been revealed to His created.
What an incredible and blessed God we serve!

Read 1 Corinthians 2:10b-13

No one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God, and the Spirit has been given to each of us. And we have received that Spirit so that we might understand – that we might comprehend what God is saying to us! And the converse is also true – if a person does not have the Spirit of God, they will be unable to understand. The wisdom of God will remain a mystery to them.

Wisdom in the Spirit is much more than some incomprehensible concept – it is a gift and a promise of even more to come. Some might say that verse 13 – “expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words” - is about speaking in tongues, but I believe that it is more than that, that this refers to anyone who receives the truth of God through the Spirit, and then speaks, in one of many ways, those same truths to the people of this world. They may not be able to understand the wisdom of God in a direct manner, but they just may begin to understand through us. We can’t keep those truths to ourselves, we can’t hide our Light under the proverbial “bushel”, we can’t sit back and revel in these amazing gifts of God. We have received them so that we might share them with others, so that they may receive the Spirit of the Lord, so that they might come to understand God’s plan for their life, and to accept it as their own.
But if we surrender to the temptation to put ourselves and our human spirit into those words, our Christian witness is going to be strangled. The world’s wisdom will shut out the truth of God, and the spiritual truths contained in these spiritual words will be muffled. The spirit of the world has no place in our walk with Christ, and we have to constantly be aware of our words and our attitudes and our actions! Our pride, our arrogance, our pains, our failures must all be surrendered to the Holy Spirit so that He can work within us.

Read 1 Corinthians 2:14-16

This passage has been an ideal and perfect view of what the church should be about. Mature, sensible, focused on God, listening and learning from the Spirit, being reborn and remade in wonderful ways, and never allowing ourselves to be corrupted by the false wisdom of the world.
The church at Corinth was, apparently, failing in these very things, and Paul was challenging them to see beyond themselves. The church was falling into a very worldly mode, and Paul was teaching them in the Spirit. They were failing in their understanding of spiritual matters, and in a human way, Paul was pointing out first, where they should be, and second, why they must correct their ways. It was to be his challenge to the church to get back in the Spirit.

During his presidency, Abraham Lincoln regularly attended worship services at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church. The pastor was Dr. Phineas Gurley. Barry P. Boulware [A writer]relates how on one particular evening, while walking home from church, an aide asked President Lincoln about Dr. Gurley's sermon.
The President replied in fragmented phrases: The content was excellent...he delivered it with eloquence...he had put work into the message... Then you thought it was a great sermon? asked the aide. No, replied the President. Dr. Gurley forgot the most important ingredient. He forgot to ask us to do something great!
- Homiletics Online

And so, with the words of the Apostle Paul and President Lincoln still fresh in our minds, I’m going to ask you to do something great in the coming week. For the next 7 days, I would like each of us, and that includes me, to consider everything that we do and say in light of our scripture lesson today. Are we walking in the Spirit of God, or in the wisdom of the world? Are we listening to the Holy Spirit, or are we depending more on our human spirit? Do our words come from the Lord’s truth, or are we giving the ways of the world legitimacy in our lives? Are we loving as Christ loved, or as the world demands that we love?
When we do these “great things”, when we can truthfully answer these questions to the glory of God, then even more great things will begin to happen. I won’t presume to know what those “great things” may be, but they will happen!

Give God the glory! Give Christ the glory! Give the Spirit a chance to work in your life! And set the world’s wisdom far, far behind.