Good Bye to From My Perspective

Recently my conscience got the better of me and I finally inquired into getting "official" permission to base my monthly church newsletter on Gary Larson's "The Far Side®." Here was the response:

Dear Rev. Davis,

Thank you for your request to reprint Gary Larson's Far Side cartoon(s) in your monthly newsletter.

Regretfully, we must decline permission, as Mr. Larson has a blanket policy against allowing his work to be reprinted in newsletters or any publication that are of a religious or political nature. Mr. Larson strongly believes in showing no preference to any particular religious or political organization, unless he is personally familiar and in agreement with the organization and their viewpoints.

Again, thank your for your interest in The Far Side® and we hope you continue to be a fan of Mr. Larson's work. 

While I do not agree that using Mr. Larson's cartoons as fertile ground for expressing my own faith perspective (hence the title From My Perspective) in any way implies that he agrees or shows preference... I intend to honor Mr. Larson's request and in doing so have removed all of the past posts of From My Perspective.

And if you're wondering... I still remain a fan of  The Far Side®.

3/7/2010 Sermon Notes

got forgiveness?
Isaiah 55:1-9
55Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. ²Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. ³Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. ⁴See, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. ⁵See, you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you, because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you.

⁶Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; ⁷let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. ⁸For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. ⁹For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Luke 13:1-9
13At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. ²He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? ³No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. ⁴Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? ⁵No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.” ⁶Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. ⁷So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ ⁸He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. ⁹If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’” 

Isaiah v. 1-3 with references to wine and milk and honey (eschatological terms… the establishment of the new Kingdom of God’s reign on earth or the final coming of the Son of Man); one way we can understand this passage is that we do not have the means to effect or bring about our own restored relationship (salvation) with God… we thirst and hunger (for righteousness) but we have nothing in ourselves to quench the thirst or hunger… Yet God calls us to himself and provides the very thing we need… God calls us to listen and to respond… to feast upon him… his word to us… that is the true source of life (eternal life) that includes but goes beyond our physical life.

v3. inclusion into the covenant of David? By extension the covenant the God made with Abraham and the call that included being a light to all people to reveal to them the extent of God’s love for all creation… for all people to know and praise God?

v6-7. the covenant requirement… God calls all people to repent or turn away from our sinful actions and words (the wicked and unrighteous) and turn back to God… God’s desire is to be merciful and compassionate to all who deny Him… to all who curse him… (the source of Jesus’ lament from last week)…

v8. This goes against the logic and understanding of the world… it is contrary to the way we as sinful human beings reason.

Bottom line: God wants to forgive… but first we must be sincere in our desire for forgiveness and honest in our repentance….

That moment, or those moments, come when Jesus speaks a word to us (through a scripture, an individual, a situation) that hurts us. And the hurt is caused by our understanding that we desire Jesus more than we do anything else… and it becomes clear to us that we need to turn away from those actions

Lent can be a process that helps us to begin to listen more fully, more carefully so that we are willing to deal with the pain that separates us from God. God’s word to us in Jesus is not the source of our pain… it is the cure for our pain

Jesus is the expiation of our sin. The rooting or cutting out of our sin… that process has already occurred through the cross for the original sin of humanity… the sin is no more because Jesus has dealt with it already … but our specific sin(s) still needs attended to…

Jesus deals with that on a far more personal level as he speaks his Word to us… and the pain we experience it is not due to the Word but the reaction of our sin to the Word…

The image of having a splinter comes to mind… it’s not until we become aware of it that it starts to hurt and then the process of removing it can bring about even more pain… so our natural reaction (as a child) is to deal with the pain of the splinter rather than the pain of removing it. It isn’t until the pain of having the splinter in us is greater than the pain in removing it do we feel compelled to endure having it removed.

It is when we experience the pain of true repentance that the forgiveness given to us by Jesus on the cross becomes effective for us… in other words the splinter comes out and true healing begins.

Luke. In the verses prior to this (most of if not all of chapter 12) Jesus is speaking to the crowds about the coming judgment (12:57-59 the debtor pleading for reconciliation for example).

The examples that follow in our text relay a really simple message: repent now for the time is short.
This can and should be understood that our life is short and disaster can strike any of us without notice (recent events to remind us of this… the flooding of 2008, earthquakes in Haiti and Chile’, the recent death of the 14 year old girl from Williamsburg on I-80).

None of these events happened as a result of God’s anger or judgment of these person’s or city’s or state’s or country’s sinfulness. They are all part of life.


However, what it does do is show us the depth of God’s desire to forgive us… to restore us… his longing to have us close to Him in the life to come and even more importantly in this life.

God longs for our repentance because God longs for us to accept or make effective the forgiveness that he has given us in the Person of Christ Jesus the Son on the cross.

That’s where I see the link between this passage from Luke and the one from Isaiah. God longs for us to come to realize how we are separated from Him… God knows that on our own we will never be able to overcome that separation… that ultimately God, in the Person of the Son (Christ Jesus), will have to provide both the means and the ability (through faith) for us to be able to respond… to hear the word of God that allows us finally to long more for God than for the things that separate us from God… to hear the word that brings us to repentance… Then and only then will we know true forgiveness... and it is in that same moment that we experience what love and forgiveness feels like… it is then that we are made new…

On this side of glory we’re never perfect… but we know that we are forgiven…

And that forgiveness empowers us to live our lives in the Promise

1.17.2010 Sermon Notes

Living the Promise -

Can You Spare Some Change?

Living the Promise: 1. accepting the gift of faith in Jesus (entering into a personal relationship with God through faith in Jesus) 2. living our daily lives like we say we believe. It is growing to be more like Jesus in thought, word and action.

The words above imply something. In a sense it’s kind of like saying, “I’m going to accept that free lifetime pass at the gym and get this body back into shape!”

What’s implied? Change. But also something more. What else is implied? There is something that needs changing.

Why don’t we like change? I just gave part of the answer… the idea that someone thinks I need to change something about myself… but there’s more to it than that. We get comfortable with they way we are, what we do, the way we live… whether it’s the way our house looks or our body looks; what we eat or what we say; where we go and what we do when we get there… even if we know that sometimes what we do, eat, or watch along with what we don’t do, eat, or watch isn’t good for us.

It’s true for our physical life and it’s also true for our spiritual lives [“The brussel sprout story” One of my seminary professors talking about the pervasiveness of sin in our lives gave an analogy about brussel sprouts and hot fudge Sundays. Even though we know that brussel sprouts are good for us we often refuse to eat them. Hot fudge Sundays on the other hand are not good for us and we’ll eat them readily without prompting—in his words we’ll eat them all the way to hell] 

That’s one of the reasons that I can identify so strongly with the apostle Paul’s cry … who can save me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord… there is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus… for if anyone is in Christ they are a new creation… (Romans and 2 Cor)

Paul was talking about how difficult it is for us to change… the reality that some attitudes and actions become so deeply ingrained in us that it becomes impossible for us to do it on our own. That even though we know what is right and good and healthy… what God desires for us because God knows that it’s healthier for us and can bring us closer to God… and deep down inside us we may long for it too… when push comes to shove we have a hard time following through and so… we go back to what’s familiar… what’s comfortable even though we may realize what’s going on.

Then to make ourselves feel better we start telling ourselves things to make us feel better for doing what we know isn’t healthy for us, which only tends to reinforce the need for the change.

We need a savior… someone who can do for us what we can’t do by ourselves

That’s what we have to have in mind when we read this account of Jesus changing the water into wine. We can’t understand it right away because of our American culture and the day and age in which we live; we see what’s happening and think of it in terms of what these details mean for us instead of what they meant for first century Jews… what it pointed to. Because it pointed to God keeping God’s Promise.

Symbolism of the wine-abundance of wine a sign of the inbreaking of God’s Kingdom and God’s salvation

Breaking down the miracle. Things to note:

The number of jars and their capacity (120 to 180 gallons of wine). Linking it to the the overabundance of wine at the inauguration of the Kingdom of God.

The purpose of the jars. For the rights of Jewish ritual purification. Symbolic for the practice of practice of faith of the Jewish people.

The jars were empty. Symbolic for the generalized view that many (including the religious leadership) had allowed the content of the faith to become more focused on the practices of faith (observance of the law) than who the practice brings us close to-God.

In filling the jars and transforming the water into wine Jesus created something new in the midst of Judaism—but it is not a rejection nor a replacement of the old. “I tell you the truth, I did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.”

So can this all mean for us?

For us to be able to live the promise of God not only do we need to accept his gift of faith… we need to submit to the transformation to the change Jesus can bring in our lives…

We are not water… water has no mind; water has no will… human beings do.

The miracle of changing water into wine shows us the possibility of what God can do in our lives through our sharing in the life of Christ and what it can mean. Changing and transforming us into the character and nature of God… so that we can be more like Jesus in thought, word, and action.

Can you spare some change?

Sunday 1/10/2010 Sermon Notes

Living the Promise – God’s Seal of Approval

Acts 8:14-17

14 Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. ¹⁵The two went down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit ¹⁶(for as yet the Spirit had not come^* upon any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus). ¹⁷Then Peter and John^* laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.

Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

15 As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah,^{* 16}John answered all of them by saying, ‘I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with^* the Holy Spirit and fire. ¹⁷His winnowing-fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing-floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’ The Baptism of Jesus

21 Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, ²²and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved;^* with you I am well pleased.’^*

_________________________________________

Living the Promise: 1. accepting the gift of faith in Jesus (entering into a personal relationship with God through faith in Jesus) 2. living our daily lives like we say we believe. It is growing to be more like Jesus in thought, word and action.

Both of these texts speak about baptism and the role of the Holy Spirit in baptism… and the role of the Person of the Holy Spirit is emphasized more

Before the accounting of Jesus’ baptism; people were filled with expectation; questioning in their hearts if John was the Messiah; John testified that he was not

What happened in Jesus’ baptism?  He submitted to baptism; He was praying;  Heaven opened and the Person of the Holy Spirit descended upon him;  At the same moment God spoke, “You are my Son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased.”

What does Jesus’ baptism mean? I think it clearly gives testimony to John’s statement that he is not the Messiah and that Jesus is; I also think it clearly is God’s seal of approval on a) who Jesus is and b) Jesus’ attitudes and actions leading up to this point

~ As such we can understand Jesus’ baptism as an anointing as Messiah or Christ (that is after all the meaning of those words… anointed one) in the same manner that David was anointed by Samuel… he was the chosen shepherd of God’s people… a man after God’s own heart… but he had not yet ascended to his throne.

But in the words of the old song by Peggy Lee… “is that all there is?” I don’t think so.

~ When I think of what this might mean for us as human beings, it leads me to the questions, “What is the role of the Messiah? What is it about him that matters to me and my life today? Why is it important that he received God’s Seal of Approval? What is it about Jesus’ baptism (his anointing as Messiah) that is important for us” and finally, “How can it help me Live the Promise?”

The answer, for us, I believe lies in how God has revealed Himself in the Person of Jesus as God the Son… in other words “who” Jesus is and the role of the Holy Spirit in connecting us to God through faith in Jesus. The Connecting piece for us, in my mind, is Jesus’ baptism, how it relates to ours and how we should understand them.

Interesting reading regarding Peter and John’s baptizing in the Spirit. One commentary I read, while not able to explain why the people of Samaria were not baptized in the name of the Holy Spirit, connects Peter and John’s going to Samaria and baptizing in the name of the Holy Spirit to the first part of the book of Acts. There they initiated the practice of sharing all things equally and participating fully in the community of faith. This passage seems to indicate that this includes the missionary vocation.

There are a couple of things to note here: 1) There is a continuity between the Baptist’s words that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit (and with fire), Jesus’ promise to baptize with the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:5 “…John baptized with water but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit…”), and the fact that John and Peter went to baptize in the name of the Holy Spirit. That continuity… that connection is the Person of the Holy Spirit.

Let’s talk about baptism for a moment. What does our baptism do effectively for us?  Baptism is a symbol or sign of our faith or the faith we profess for our children. Baptism is a symbol of our remorse and regret for our sins and have turned away from sin and toward God. Baptism symbolizes our participation in God’s saving act, by faith, through the incarnation, life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus. Baptism symbolizes God’s acceptance of us as a part of God’s family the church.

The act of baptism in no way washes away our sins… Jesus’ sacrificial death did that. The act of baptism does not get us into heaven.

Baptism is a sacrament; a sign or symbol of what God has done; is doing; or will do in our lives to bring us to a life saving relationship with Jesus.

If baptism is a sign God’s power and grace at work in our lives (and it is); then for us baptism is a sign of our obedience and trust in God—our submission to God. And the means by which this is accomplished is the Person of the Holy Spirit.

Now I want to go back to the importance of Jesus’ baptism for us in this being able to take place.

We can’t look at and understand Jesus’ baptism in quite the same way we do our own. First of all Jesus was without sin. So his baptism should not be associated with any admission of sin and the repentance that John was calling for. So why submit to baptism? It is because of his unique nature as the incarnate Person of God the Son.

The witness of the early church, related to us in a hymn quoted by the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Philippians (2:5-8, explains it):

5 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, 7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, 8 he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross.

Because in Jesus God became human… he identified himself completely with us… Jesus came to do completely and perfectly what we could not… turn away from sin and back toward God… not as God… but as a human being… In the act of submitting to baptism he did for us what we cannot do completely and perfectly… he humbled himself and submitted his will as God the Son… his being… to God the Father…

God responded to this act with his seal of approval… the anointing of the Holy Spirit and the proclamation that this is my Son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.

And it is the Person of the Holy Spirit the indwelt him in his human life that empowered him and enabled him to remain obedient because he was continually submitting to the will of God the Father. Jesus’ life was lived in and through the Person of the Holy Spirit. His preaching, his teaching, his acts of mercy, his miracles, his final act of obedience on the cross was enabled because of his intimate relationship with his heavenly Father mediated by the Person of the Holy Spirit. We have a fancy theological name for that—perichoresis (pear-i-core-ee-sis)—literally it means mutual interpenetration. It describes how the 3 persons of the Holy Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) are able to maintain their individuality while sharing completely and perfectly in the lives of the other two.

All of this is a detailed way to say that even when Jesus set aside his Godhood in the incarnation he still shared in the life of God by the power of the Holy Spirit.

So Jesus’ baptism is important for us because it, as a part of the Christ event—the incarnation, birth, life, sacrificial death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus—it makes it possible for us to submit ourselves to God and share in the life of God, however imperfectly, through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit by the gift of faith.

So, that’s how God helps us to Live the Promise… through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit in us.

Need to notice a something… the purpose or goal of the Holy Spirit isn’t just to bring us closer to God… but so that we can participate as fully as possible in the life of God.

So what is the life of God focused on… in part, to reconcile the world to himself…

By our sharing in the baptism of Jesus through faith we also share in his life… his ministry… his mission.

He was able to do it as he submitted to the leading of God the Father through the guidance of the Holy Spirit… just the same way that the early church did after Pentecost… which is why Peter and John went to baptize with the Holy Spirit…

That means that we are called to do the same… and our effectiveness is determined by how well we seek out and submit to the leading of the Spirit…

How do we do that? Again we find our answer in Scripture…

Luke 3:21-22 …when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, ²²and the Holy Spirit descended upon him…

He prayed. And it wasn’t the act of praying that was the most important, but the attitude in prayer… humble submission and willingness to obey…

So being able to Live the Promise is made possible by

Humbling ourselves before God and submitting/trusting ourselves to his leading

Stay in touch with God through prayer (listening as well as speaking)

When we’re able to do that we will someday hear God say This is my child, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased… and receive God’s seal of approval.

Thinking Along the Same Lines

I heard a radio broadcast this past week from Dr. David Jeremiah that caught my attention. I think it's another good way for us to think about what "Living the Promise" might mean; or at least enable us to come at it from another angle. He's doing a series called "Preparing for a High Definition Life." The gist of the message I heard assures us that as people who live in a relationship with Jesus experience life with more clarity and color. In my words it's more real and has greater impact than what the world without that relationship with God experiences. I'll be chewing on his analogy for a while and hope you will too.

Sermon Notes 1.03.2010 – Epiphany Sunday

Living The Promise

Living the Promise: 1. accepting the gift of faith in Jesus (entering into a personal relationship with God through faith in Jesus) 2. living our daily lives like we say we believe. It is growing to be more like Jesus in thought, word and action.

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From Isaiah: These verses are part of God’s promise fulfilled in and through Jesus who is the light of the world (John 1)

The word is given to God’s people as an insight into the reestablishing of Jerusalem and the Kingdom of David and as such is a Messianic prophecy… not only is it a word of hope but it is a reminder that God’s light shines through God’s people…

Arise. Shine. For your light has come. We reflect and shine the glory and the love of God.

Because the world is still in darkness… lack of understanding about who God is and God’s desire for us as human beings to live in relationship with God and what that relationship should look like

Darkness shall cover the earth and thick darkness the peoples (nations)

The passage identifies first the Hebrew nation; we understand it to be speaking about Jesus who is the perfection and completion of the Israel; we should also apply it to ourselves as Christians or the Body of Christ…

Today v3. is the result of our response to the coming of God’s glory in Jesus… it is a continuation of what we read in Matthew with the Magi… their recognizing and responding to the revelation of God in and through Jesus… for we are the Body of Christ as we receive the promise… the promise continues to be given through us and fulfilled in and through us as we live the promise.

From Matthew: some months after the birth of Jesus.

In Luke the emphasis on the revelation of the incarnation and birth is to the people of Israel—the children of the promise—emphasis is on role of savior (as well as King since born in Bethlehem—the house of David)

In Matthew emphasis is placed on 1. role of Jesus as King (where is the child who has been born King of the Jews?) and equally important 2. Revelation came to non-Jews so the light that Isaiah proclaims is linked to a) the same star foreseen by Balaam b) the light and glory that is Jesus.

Responses: even though they found Jesus in a barn/stable instead of the palace they accepted the truth of what was revealed to them rather than the logic of the world (in darkness… impaired understanding)… Response was focused on what they could offer—not what could be gained.

Compare to that of Herod… responded with fear… trying to hold onto what he had… thinking of what he might lose… missing the significance that what was revealed to him was worth more than anything else this world could ever hope to offer.

December 20 – Fourth Sunday of Advent

The Promise is  Joy

Isaiah 7:13-14

¹³Then Isaiah^* said: ‘Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary mortals, that you weary my God also? ¹⁴Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman^* is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel (God with us).

This is one of God’s Promises to be with us… a promise of hope. But what is one of the possible human responses to the Promise of hope; one that God wishes to inspire in us?

Luke 1:39-44

39 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, ⁴⁰where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. ⁴¹When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit ⁴²and exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. ⁴³And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? ⁴⁴For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy.

John the Baptist even while in his mother’s womb recognizes the Promise of God and responds as a person should when encountering the presence of God… with unrestrained joy.

True joy comes from our acknowledging and responding to God’s Promise… Jesus… Immanuel; God with us… and God wants us to live lives of joy… to acknowledge and respond positively to God through faith in Jesus.

Nehemiah 8:10

…do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.

Just as God is love, God is also joy; where love and joy abound there can be no room for fear for “perfect love casts out fear” 1 John 8:18

Joy 1 a : the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires b : the expression or exhibition of such emotion 3 : a source or cause of delight

Joy is spoken of often in the Bible in both the Old and New Testaments (joy in one form or another—including rejoice—is found almost exactly 400 times. Compare this with love-586; glory-468; mercy-310; and faith-275) and in different ways depending upon the situation the writer found themselves in (this includes happiness from married life and family to particularly harvest. Overwhelmingly though, these examples are related to God—some attribute or action of God in relationship with God’s people and our response of joy.

In the Old Testament, difficult times (times of war, famine, poverty, oppression etc.) the experience of joy became the anticipation of God’s deliverance from whatever it was they were being subject to either because of their faith or their lack of faith and so joy became a central theme in their eschatological hope—their hope in God’s promises of salvation in the coming of God’s anointed or Christ and again in the coming Son of Man.

As Christians, we understand and believe that Jesus is the fulfillment of the promise and hope and so the source and object of joy.

This is a key theme in Luke’s gospel beginning with the angel’s announcement to Zechariah in the temple, that he and his wife would have a son and they would have “joy” at his birth because of who he was and what he would do in relation to the coming of Jesus; again in the passage for this morning; the pronouncement of the angel to the shepherds; throughout his ministry and his resurrection. As seen in John’s gospel, our relationship with Jesus is a source of our joy as believers.

The Apostle Paul argues that our joy in Christ can be experienced even during trials and troubles in life as an expression of our faith. He understands them to be temporary (agreed a subjective term but from God’s perspective all of existence is temporary) and as such should not dampen the joy we experience in life. In addition he believes that these difficult times suggest that the pending completion or consummation of God’s promise and our hope and so should heighten our joy. In circumstances where our hardship can be understood as being experienced because of our faith, Paul argues it is an extension or reflection of Jesus’ own suffering and so cause for more rejoicing.

God wants us to experience joy… Jesus tells us that he wants his joy to be in us so that our joy may be complete. Paul reminds us of this when talking about the character traits of Jesus that we receive when given the gift of the Person of the Holy Spirit—the Spirit of Christ—and the fruit of the Spirit, one of which is joy!

I think we also need to stop and think for a moment about the character and nature of God… God’s attributes. Scripture tells us that God is love, God is peace and so also God is joy. God not only evokes these responses in us but God is the source of them for God “is” these things. We experience them in different ways as human beings but in God they could be considered interchangeable but most certainly they are so intimately inter-related as to be indistinguishable… much like the Triune nature of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

These ideas are important because they help us think about how we can understand and experience joy in our own lives.

Think about people’s situation and response from the passage from Isaiah and in the early part of the gospel when God breaks into their lives.

Ahaz—king of Judah is going to be besieged and is in fear for the future; Zechariah—aging, he and his wife Elizabeth past child bearing years and childless, without hope; Mary—a young girl engaged to be married and with bright prospects for the future only to hear that that future all of a sudden doesn’t look to bright; Joseph—Mary’s betrothed… he has just found out his fiancée is pregnant and faces disgrace

God comes to each and says do not fear… the promise is that God is or will be with them and will see them through whatever is going to take place. And what does God say to each of them… do not be afraid…

Their response? Ahaz refused to accept God’s word out of fear. Zechariah questioned and doubted. Mary and Joseph accepted God’s word and acted upon it. But nowhere in these passages is the word joy mentioned, so why bring them up? The passage from Nehemiah is my clue.

Ezra instructs the people not to grieve; which here literally means “not to worry.” That the joy of the Lord will give them strength… will give them courage to do what they need to do.

Think back to the situations that we listed before. Ahaz worried and did not act on God’s word. Zechariah while he certainly wasn’t the example of faith of Mary and Joseph did not doubt any longer. Mary and Joseph, accepted God’s word to them and acted. In a sense you could say that they acknowledged God’s joy in choosing them and that joy provided them the courage to act in faith.

Think back to God and God’s attribute of love casting out all fear… all worry and read that with the passage from Nehemiah in mind and the responses of the folks.

This can help us to understand how Paul talked about he experienced joy during all of the trials and hardships of his ministry for Jesus… the joy of the Lord was his strength.

Does this mean that when we have feelings of happiness when things are going right we should not call it joy? To quote the Apostle Paul… “By No Means!” Of course we can experience joy and celebrate the blessings in life that involve success and good fortune! The Bible is full of examples of those. But we should not limit our understanding of joy and God’s desire for us to experience it to only that understanding.

The reason, I believe, that we sometimes don’t understand that joy can be experienced during difficult times in our lives is that we misplace the source of our joy as well as the object of our joy. The Bible is clear that God is both. And as Christians we experience that in the Person of Jesus Christ… the incarnation of God… Immanuel… God with us… that is God’s Promise to us.

The question we may ponder, especially in light of everything that’s going on in the world around us… political unrest, international conflict, questionable economy, unemployment, the reality of death in our own families and communities… the question we many ponder is, “how do I respond?” Do I refuse to believe God’s Word to me? Do I doubt and question? Or do I take courage in God’s Promise… do I take courage in the abiding presence of Jesus… and live in faith… with joy? For myself, for my family, for those near and for those far away. For the Promise is for all that the Lord our God calls.

Sunday December 13 – Third Sunday of Advent

 

The Promise is Peace

“For the Promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls…”    Acts 2:39

Ephesians 2:11-16

11 So then, remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth,^* called ‘the uncircumcision’ by those who are called ‘the circumcision’—a physical circumcision made in the flesh by human hands— ¹²remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. ¹³But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. ¹⁴For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. ¹⁵He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, so that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, ¹⁶and might reconcile both groups to God in one body^* through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it.

Advent—a time of expectation for us as Christians. For some it is expectation of the celebration of Christmas. Gathering together with family and friends… the giving and receiving of gifts. For others it is time of expectation and preparation… and no not the house for the dinners or parties and family… but a time of preparation of our hearts… our minds… the way we live… not just this time of year but each day of the year. That’s the preparation part. The expectation is for the reason why we prepare—the coming of Jesus.

We do that two ways… the celebration we know as Christmas or the Christ “Mass” to commemorate, to celebrate and give thanks to God for His incarnation and birth as God the Son in the person of Jesus... but also we prepare in anticipation of Jesus’ return in glory to judge the world. To complete what was begun with His incarnation and birth.

That’s God’s promise to us. Jesus is God’s promise to us… Jesus as God the Son is the giver of the Promise… as the incarnate son is the Promise… and as the Son of Man coming in final glory and victory is the fulfillment of the Promise. Jesus is the Promise.

During these past weeks of Advent we’ve been looking at some of the different expressions of God’s promises to us and how they have been fulfilled in Jesus. We’ve seen that the Promise is Hope… that the Promise is Love… and this week we will explore how the Promise is peace.

Peace is sometimes defined as the state prevailing in the absence of war or the absence of hostility. Dictionaries define it as: 1 : a state of tranquility or quiet: as a : freedom from civil disturbance b : a state of security or order within a community provided for by law or custom <a breach of the peace> 2 : freedom from disquieting or oppressive thoughts or emotions 3 : harmony in personal relations 4 a : a state or period of mutual concord between governments b : a pact or agreement to end hostilities between those who have been at war or in a state of enmity

Over the past 8 years or so peace has been a reoccurring issue for us as Americans… this is especially true for many that have family members serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. The definitions that we heard have particular meaning in that case. But when they stop to consider the number of wars that have occurred in human history… some folks stop and think, “Are God’s promises of peace valid? Are they true? (ex. Psalms 72, 85, 147; Isaiah 9:6-7; 32:1-10; 54)

The basic problem we face here is trying to understand God’s promises from a human or worldly point of view. Here’s how I understand this… It means that we as a sinful and fallen people are ruled by the attitude, logic, mindset, pattern of thinking of the world that defines victory in terms of overcoming our adversaries by force (most often expressed in violence) and that victory ensures peace.

Now force does not need to be physical… there can be economic force, political force, psychological force… all of those might be considered non-violent in physical terms but have the effect of violence if they are understood as not being entered into freely; in other words coercion or threat.

Now consequences to our choices should not be understood as threat or coercion. In any human relationship there should be an element of cooperation and or incentive for certain behavior. For instance; I’m trying to help our kids understand that there are consequences for their behavior… that the choice they make in cleaning their room or the way they treat each other can have blessings… or not.

In a perfect world our relationships would always be mutually beneficial and motivated purely by selfless desire to make sure that everyone’s needs are met including our own. But we don’t live in the perfect world. One of the interesting things that I noticed when I read those definitions was that all of them talk about peace as a state of existence that is dependent upon how well we as people can get along. That’s always the rub isn’t it? That we need to agree on some common core values and purposes—hey we have a hard enough time doing that in the church and sometimes in our own families.

Look back over the course of human history. Our nature, our cultures and societies are not only marked by constant reoccurring warfare of one kind or another, but they have been shaped by it as well. Our character as human beings is competitive in nature and that has been understood and explained as a self-defense mechanism… in Darwin’s terms, it is survival of the fittest. The stronger and more adaptable an organism was thought to be the better its chances of surviving and multiplying. Now whether we believe in evolution or not we all understand the principle and can see it lived out on a daily basis.

Hearing all of that can be depressing. It can make it sound like there is no hope at all for us as human beings in general and as a country… even as a people. This is especially true when so many Christians around the world are being killed because they are Christians. And I say that knowing that our own past as Christians has its own share of violence and conversion by the sword.

So are we without hope? That depends upon where you draw your hope from.

You see I believe in that maxim that victory ensures peace… The questions are; what kind of victory and what kind of peace?

Listen again to the words of the Apostle Paul in his letter to the church at Ephesus… (my paraphrase)

Remember at one time you were far away from God… in the way you thought and in the way you acted… your character and nature was miles apart from God’s… because you did not know or have Christ… you had no hope… But now you have been brought near to God and have received his character traits because of Jesus’ victory on the cross… because off the gift of his blood and his life… he has conquered violence and death and hostility… Jesus is our Peace… the Promise that God gave to us.

That’s why we have hope… that’s why we can look at all the violence and bloodshed and oppression and greed and coercion and threats from within our country and from without and still have hope.

We know that it doesn’t have to be this way because God has spoken his Word and fulfilled his Promise to overcome it. It’s just that the world doesn’t realize it. It refuses to listen or to pay attention to it because the world thinks that it has won. It hasn’t won… It just hasn’t realized that the victory that has ensured the final outcome has already been won and that everlasting peace is inevitable. What that means is, yes we will continue to have wars… because we will continue to have people, organizations, and governments that continue to seek and maintain power for the benefit of a very few… especially those in control of that power… and let’s be clear here that this is not a Republican or Democrat issue… it’s not about one administration or another or one country or another… it goes much deeper than that. It is a human issue… a condition of our spiritual health…

Jesus himself warns us of how deeply rooted it is in our human nature when he answered a question about the coming of the Son of Man… Jesus’ own return in final victory and glory… it’s from the Gospel of Mark

Mark 13:5ff Jesus said to them: "Watch out that no one deceives you. Many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am he,' and will deceive many. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.

As a human endeavor peace is a state that will ebb and flow…

But it doesn’t need to be that way for us as followers of Jesus. And we shouldn’t throw in the towel and not try to make a difference in the world… we are called to be peace makers.

The thing is; we need to stop looking at peace from viewpoint of the world… we have to begin to understand how God defines it and claim it for ourselves… for our family of faith… for our communities and for the world.

If God’s Peace is Jesus… and he is… then God defines victory as self-giving; and we won’t truly understand this until we come to the cross… until we come to Jesus.

You see, peace is a state… not a state of mind but a state of being… a way of living… living in relation with ourselves… with others… but it all flows from the state of our relationship with Jesus.

If we are looking for peace in our lives then we need to start with the peace that God not only promised us but the peace that God has provided—a personal relationship with Jesus.

When we, with God’s help, place our faith in Jesus, God begins to change our broken human character and nature into Jesus’. If we choose we will begin to see things as Jesus sees them… to think and reason as he does… we will begin to care more about others and trying to encourage and serve them rather than worrying about being served.

What would happen if people started to really think and act this way? So much of what we struggle with in our communities, our countries and around the world simple disappear…

Hunger? Gone. Prejudice? No more. Violence, oppression, War? Things of the past. It would be like… it would be like… heaven.

Will we ever see it in our life time? Don’t know. But I pray for it and as a church along with millions of others WE pray for it at least every Sunday just like we will in few minutes:

“Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”

We pray for Jesus’ return. For the victory that has been won in his incarnation, death and resurrection to be consummated… for every person to bow and confess that Jesus is Lord of all.

For Jesus is our Peace… it is through him that all who are far away from God will be brought near… I’ve been kind of dancing with this throughout this message… there is another way to understand or define peace… a biblical way. In Scripture peace has the primary understanding of being made or restored to wholeness.

Why do we have war and all of those negative expressions of what it means to be human? We have them because of our separation from God. We are broken and fragmented as human beings because of it. In my mind then it follows that we will not know peace, wholeness; completeness; until we know Jesus. Because Jesus is the Promise of God… and the Promise is Peace… for those near and for those who are far away.

Sunday December 6 – Second Sunday of Advent

 

The Promise is  Love

(Sorry, initial notes only. The sermon text was the unfortunate victim of operator error… yeah, I erased the wrong file.)

Malachi 3:1-4 (God’s promise to send a messenger to prepare the way of the anointed and the anointed’s purpose in coming)

3See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. ²But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; ³he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness.^{* 4}Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.

(You do not purify and sanctify what you do not love… so what is spoken of here in Malachi is an act of love)

Luke 3:1-6 (God’s fulfilling God’s promise to send a messenger to prepare the way of his anointed… his Christ)

3In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler^* of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler^* of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler^* of Abilene, ²during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. ³He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, ⁴as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, ‘The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. ⁵Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth; ⁶and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” ’

The Word of God came to John… he went into all the region around the Jordan proclaiming a baptism of repentance and the forgiveness of sins… and all flesh shall see/witness (not necessarily experience) the salvation of God

The fulfillment of God’s promise: 1. if my people will seek my face and turn from their sin I will forgive their sin (2 Chr. 7:14 if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land) 2. God will send a messenger to prepare the way of the coming of the Messiah

In the Old Testament, the land acts as a spiritual barometer registering the people’s loyalty and devotion to the Lord… God’s response to Solomon’s prayer reminds the people that through worship at the Tempe God has provided a way for the forgiveness of sins… that beyond the broken covenant are divine resources for healing and restoration… the land is a symbol for the people… it suffers as result of the people’s sinfulness

Why is this important? Because the temple will be destroyed along with Jerusalem and their will no longer be the focal point for divine healing and restoration or forgiveness of sins… But God himself has interceded and prepared the way by establishing both a new temple and the sacrifice for the sins of the people…

So God’s promise of forgiveness is preceded by God’s call to repentance and that promise is being fulfilled by John as the one who goes before (as God promised) the one who is the Promise and the fulfillment of the Promise

The key is highlighted in the above verses: John shared God’s Word (not John’s)… the Word (God’s promise is a message of repentance and forgiveness) is an expression of God’s love… that calls us back to a way of living that honors God and our relationship with God as well as others and our relationship with them.

In Malachi the image of the Lord’s anointed is that of judge… but in reference to God’s people… those that kept covenant with God… the judgment is not one of eternal separation of God but that of refinement or sanctification… where all impurities will be removed and we will be made like Christ Jesus at the coming of the Son of Man (from last week). This can (and I believe should) be understood as an expression of God’s love in that we are not punished but disciplined.

But even for non believers the message should be one of hope based upon God’s love for us and God’s desire that all flesh should experience the salvation of God… the way the passage from Luke reads “all will see” but not all will experience the salvation of God… but God’s desire is that all will experience it. We get this understanding from numerous places in the Bible but perhaps the most well known is John chapter 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son so that all who believed in him would not die but have eternal life…”

The call to repentance is God expressing God’s desire for us to accept God’s gift of love and forgiveness for the things in our lives that separate us from God…

Like Isaiah the promise is not only for the Son of Man who comes but that there will be one before him that is to prepare the people for the coming of the Lord’s anointed.

John the Baptist was the messenger… the one who came before with God’s Word of forgiveness and acceptance pointing to the One who was in essence the giver of the promise and the one who would make the promise effectual for all who received the promise

This is a call to repentance for us so that we too can share in the receiving of God’s promise… in Advent repentance is part of our preparation to receive the Christ child…

we are the objects of God’s love and desire… the reason for the incarnation and birth of Jesus

The call to repentance is an expression of God’s love

We need to be ready to claim the promise (accept God’s gift of faith in Jesus… just as we prepare to receive in Spirit the Christ child) and we need to be ready for the coming of the Son of Man… the day of judgment that is promised

The coming judgment is also an expression of God’s love

Focus on God’s faithfulness in keeping God’s promises…

God’s nature is self-giving love… God’s promise is lived out exactly that way in the life of Jesus

Jesus is the giver of the promise and fulfillment of the promise—on God’s behalf as well as ours--

Sunday November 29 – First Sunday of Advent

The Promise is Hope

Jeremiah 33:14-16 and Luke 21:25-36

The first Sunday of Advent remembers God’s promise of both coming of the Messiah and his return to judge the living and the dead… it anticipates the celebration and remembering of the in breaking of God’s salvation in Jesus Christ as well as the anticipation of his second coming… so the first Sunday in Advent communicates God’s past faithfulness, present faithfulness and future faithfulness…

Because God is faithful to God’s promise we have hope.

Some History from our passages

~ What situations did they speak to?

The passage from Jeremiah spoke to the people of Judah as they were in exile in Babylon… they were cut off from their identification as God’s people (Jerusalem and more specifically the temple… in fact it had been destroyed) and so they had lost the physical manifestation of God’s promise to them… the land or physical location of their nation (if you will be my people and obey my word I will give to you a land flowing with milk and honey and I will establish you as my people). So this was a time of great loss emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually. It was also a time where they questioned God’s faithfulness to God’s promise because they applied the promise in ways that suited their purpose… in other words of the 60’s song The Boxer… they heard what they wanted to hear and they disregarded the rest…

Jeremiah was reaffirming God’s promise to them… that God had not forgotten God’s promise and that God had not forgotten them

The passage from Luke spoke to a similar situation where the country had come under the control of the Roman empire (and before that the Greek, the Persian, and the Assyrian empires) and they were again looking to God’s promise of an anointed one… a Messiah… to reestablish them as a political power. Jesus in his preaching had been saying; repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand or close. In other words he was restating God’s promise through the prophets (like Jeremiah)… which again was understood two ways… political kingdom and eternal kingdom AND that he was the fulfillment of God’s promise (think back to the beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry when in the synagogue in Nazareth… when he read the prophecy—promise of God—from Isaiah Luke 4:18 "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

~ What is God’s promise of hope? (Specifically in these passages and in general)

That God has not forgotten God’s promise to his people that was first given to Abraham and then Isaac and Jacob, to Joseph, to David and Solomon. God’s promise is to make them a holy and special people; to be their God and one day re-establish God’s people as a light to the nations as representatives of God’s Kingdom on earth… a kingdom where justice and mercy are to be lived out in the lives of the people under the leadership of God’s anointed… and this was to be an everlasting or eternal kingdom… this promise was understood two ways; that there would be an earthly political or human kingdom and there would come a time when God would re-create the world through God’s anointed one—The Son of Man which Jesus in citing passages from Daniel who speaks of the Messiah (anointed one) as the Ancient of Days (a descriptive name for God)… is proclaiming that God will in fact establish an eternal divine Kingdom where justice and mercy will be finally realized by all. The gospels make clear that Jesus is the Son of Man

Hope is grounded in God’s promise to be Immanuel – “God with us” that is the basis of all of God’s other promises… peace, love, joy; the promises of healing, restoration

What God promises us is that God will always be with us (hence the promise of Immanuel—God with us) so the promise is relationally based… the kingdom of God is not so much a physical reality (meaning a political one) but a spiritual and relational one (God affirms this through Jeremiah earlier—chapter 31—when he says, 31:31 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

~ Is God’s Promise still good… is it still valid? Can we still trust God? How has God fulfilled promises in your life?

We may not experience or see the completion of the secondary promises but we can always experience the first… it is based upon our trust or faith in God… not having to follow laws or rules… the laws or rules are there to help point us toward God and to help us keep and live out our faith… they do guarantee us the fulfillment of the promise… they help us to appreciate it more…

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for; the conviction of things unseen. Hebrews 11:1

One of the things that we need to remember is that God’s Promise is eternal in scope or range… God’s concern is not only for what we are experiencing now but for God’s concern for all humankind in the present but also the future…

That’s why I place so much emphasis on the God’s promise to be Immanuel… “God with us”

~ How did God fulfill God’s promise?

Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promise of hope

And God fulfilled that promise in Jesus… his incarnation/birth as God the Son; his ministry and teaching; his self-giving on the cross; his resurrection; and his self-giving in the Person of the Holy Spirit…

Jesus is the Giver of the Promise and the Promise… and so is the source and object of our Hope

That’s what we celebrate on this first Sunday of Advent as we proclaim his coming in the celebration of his birth… as he comes to us continually in the Word and in the Person of the Holy Spirit, and whose return as the Son of Man we anticipate to complete our hope.

Leads me to some questions

~ So do we accept God’s promise of hope?

Individually? As the church?

~ How do we experience hope? Through our relationship with God lived out through our relationships with God’s people

~ If we have accepted and experienced God’s promise of hope;

Have we shared it? How do we share it?

~ How do we fulfill the promises we’ve made to God?

God has made promises to us but in response we have made promises to God… so how do we keep those promises? This is a way of asking, how are we living out our faith and our hope?

OR

~ How do our acts of faith help in executing God’s promise of Hope to humanity?

On the front of the bulletin there is the passage from Acts 2 where Peter in his preaching on the day of Pentecost…

“For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who 
are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him."                 Acts 2:39

~ How can our congregation promote acts of compassion to actively live this message of hope in our community?

Being prepared and ready does not mean to be passive… to not be active in who Jesus has called us to be and what Jesus has called us to do…

Who are the ones out there who need this… who can we identify… who needs to hear God’s promise and know the giver and the keeper of the promise

Advent 2009

The Promise

This year, once again, I’m using Michael Card’s “The Promise” as the basis for the celebration of Advent. I told someone just the other day(and I’m sincere in this) that I believe “The Promise” is the best Christmas CD ever produced… if not musically certainly theologically.

While not taken directly from Card’s devotional that accompanied the release of the CD; the messages for each Sunday of Advent certainly (I hope) draw upon the spirit of The Promise.

11/15/2009 Final Stewardship Sermon

Stewardship as Worship

Today’s gospel lesson is a parallel verse to Matthew 22:39 where Jesus is asked the question of which is the greatest commandment:

2^nd Scripture Reading: Luke 10:25-27

25 Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he said, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" 26 He said to him, "What is written in the law? What do you read there?" 27 He answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself."

Matthew 25:14, 19-21

¹⁴“For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; ¹⁹After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. ²⁰Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.’ ²¹His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’

Review the main points… what stewardship is:

Stewardship is about trust… God trusting us more than our trust in God… God entrusts us with the most valuable gift imaginable—himself through faith in Jesus

Stewardship is about meeting our most fundamental need… a restored relationship with God… stewardship is a way that God transforms us into the character and nature of Jesus

Stewardship frees us… from the things that separate us from God (greed, fear, worry, etc.)

Stewardship is about investing in what is important to God… God’s creative purpose…

redemption of creation… so

Stewardship is primarily about people not money… it’s about relationships… God entrusts himself to us so that we can share him with others

Discipleship is stewardship of the life of Jesus that God entrusts to us… by each of us sharing in the process and investing that gift in each other we help one another grow into the character and nature of Jesus.

Evangelism is stewardship of the message of God’s love in Jesus, that God entrusts us to share with the un-churched and the marginally churched.

Membership is stewardship of God entrusting us with each other as the church… it is as the church… the body of Christ… that we are called to live out our lives of faith

Mission is stewardship of the service that God has entrusted us to engage in as we invest in tangible ways the love of Jesus that God has entrusted us with.

This week we have worship as an expression of stewardship… and what I hope to make clear is that worship is so much more than just another purpose we have as Jesus’ church.

Define worship… as it is described so often in the psalms… worship is bringing God pleasure… it is whatever makes God smile

Doing whatever we do to glorify God… to please God

Peterson’s The Message of Romans 12 So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life - your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life - and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.

Worship is what we do here on Sunday mornings but it can and should be what we do every moment of our lives… That is one of the messages of the New Testament and it finds it’s origin in the Old Testament… in fact Jesus references one of the key passages from the Old Testament when asked when asked about the greatest commandment and the key to receiving eternal life… "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself."

What that tells me is that when we worship we are to 1) respond to God’s love with all of who we are and all of what we have been entrusted with… and 2) it’s to be directed toward God and other human beings… And by all here I’m talking about an attitude that holds nothing back… nothing of our time, our energy, our talents, our personality, our financial resources... it all needs to be on the table and available to used by God.

This attitude is important because it demonstrates our desire for God and God’s desire to be the most important thing in our lives. Why is this important? Because; anything that is allowed to come between us and God is an idol.

The Bible talks a lot about not wanting us to be double-minded, meaning, that’s where we try to have two incompatible ideas, attitudes, lifestyles at the same time. What it is really, is a form of rationalization… we try to talk ourselves into believing that we can do both, when we know deep down inside that we can’t give both equal importance… there is always going to be a pull towards the one that focuses more on what’s in it for us… our self-centeredness… as opposed to what’s in it for God or other-centeredness or God centeredness. The self-centered focus becomes an obstacle to our relationship with God as well as what God wants to do through us.

But it’s not like the other things in our life are always bad… it’s really just the opposite… often they’re things that are good and even necessary to spend time on. Work… family… leisure. Each of these, and so many different expressions of these, require time and energy and have a financial component… they are all part of our lives… of which our relationship with God is an important part. So the question becomes; how important? How much do we value one compared with the others. How we answer that question is an indicator of the maturity of our faith which is a demonstration of our level of trust in God—or who we identify with more.

And that’s the important question when we stop and think about living a life of worship… worship is where our relationship with God… the gift that God has entrusted us with… is THE starting point for everything we do and say… and provides the guidance we need when faced with choosing what to do and say…

In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus, in response to the rich man’s question of what he must do to inherit eternal life (which is another way of asking how do I respond to the great gift of God’s love for me…) Jesus said in essence… follow the commandments and then to sell everything you own, give it to the poor and then follow me… the man was deeply grieved because he was extremely wealthy… This was an example of what Jesus spoke of earlier when he said, “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Mammon or money”

Remember from last week what Jesus said to his disciples from the gospel of John… if you love me you will obey my commandments…

God wants us to love… to love God with everything we are… because that’s what God has entrusted us with… everything that we are… and when we put our best effort into doing just that we make God smile… we bring pleasure to God… we are worshipping… we are taking the gift that God has trusted us with and investing it in situations, in lives, in relationships that are important to God…

When we respond in that way we experience such freedom… because we are free… we’re free from the selfish thoughts that sometimes rule our attitudes and actions… that’s what’s behind the old proverb… it’s better to give than receive… because in the giving we are freed from what might be holding us back in our relationship with God AND we receive so much more… we grow closer to God…

I want you to think about a time when you were moved to do something totally and solely for someone else… remember how you felt… the rush of satisfaction and pride… the joy! Where do you think that came from? What was that? I have a suggestion to consider… what we experienced didn’t originate from us… it was and is a gift… I believe that we received the gift of experiencing God smile…

God longs to be part of every moment of our lives… I’m the youngest of three brothers and I remember growing up as a kid… following my older brothers around… just wanting to be a part of what they did… really just wanting them to notice me and include me in what they were doing… to my shame as a parent there were times I would get annoyed at my kids for doing the same thing… and I wonder… is that how we treat God’s presence in our lives?

I started this message out by saying that I hoped to make clear that “worship” is more than just one of our purposes as a church… I want to add to that I feel the same way about discipleship, evangelism , membership, and mission…

Over the past five weeks we’ve been discovering the relationship between each of these and stewardship… that each is an expression of stewardship… that God has entrusted us with each of these as a way for us to grow closer to God, each other and the people in our daily lives… that each is something that we need to think about as something that we should be involved in daily…

I’d also want to encourage you think about what is involved with each from the perspective of worship… When we are being good stewards with all that God has entrusted us with by making use of the gifts of Discipleship… Evangelism… Membership… Mission… then we are living lives of worship…

Discipleship is stewardship of the life of Jesus that God entrusts to us… by each of us sharing in the process and investing that gift in each other we help one another grow into the character and nature of Jesus and that pleases God… it is an act of worship

Evangelism is stewardship of the message of God’s love in Jesus, that God entrusts us to share with the un-churched and the marginally churched… and that pleases God… it is an act of worship

Membership is stewardship of God entrusting us with each other as the church… it is as the church… the body of Christ… that we are called to live out our lives of faith… and that pleases God… it is an act of worship

Mission is stewardship of the service that God has entrusted us to engage in as we invest in tangible ways the love of Jesus that God has entrusted us with… and that pleases God… it is an act of worship

Stewardship is about investing what God has entrusted to us in what is important to God…

God entrusts himself to us so that we can share him with others… when we do that… it pleases God and it is an act of worship

As we continue to grow in doing these things we make God smile… and we can hear our master say… well done good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your master…

My desire is for us as a church is experience God’s smile on a regular basis

So with that in mind…

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life - your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life - and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.

November 8, 2009 Sermon

Stewardship as Mission

Our gospel passage follows the events of Easter morning; the women going to the tomb, encountering the angels and then the resurrected Jesus who says to them; “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

“Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Go therefore 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 that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Stewardship is about trust… God trusting us more than our trust in God… God entrusts us with the most valuable gift imaginable—himself through faith in Jesus

Stewardship is about meeting our most fundamental need… a restored relationship with God… stewardship is a way that God transforms us into the character and nature of Jesus

Stewardship frees us… from the things that separate us from God (greed, fear, worry, etc.)

Stewardship is about investing in what is important to God… God’s creative purpose… redemption of creation… so

Stewardship is primarily about people not money… it’s about relationships… God entrusts himself to us so that we can share him with others

We’ve looked at how we live that out in our lives of faith through discipleship, through evangelism, through membership and today we’re going to see stewardship through the lens of mission.

What is mission? We hear the words mission and ministry used almost interchangeably and it may get confusing… are we engaged in ministry or are we engaged in mission? We talk about the mission of the church… “to know Jesus and to make Jesus known” is that the same as being in mission? The answer is yes. To all.

Pastor Rick Warren (Purpose Driven Life) implies that there is a difference between ministry and mission. He proposes that Ministry is serving the needs within the community of faith—the church—so it is inward focused for the purpose of building up the body to be effective in it’s Mission which is serving the needs of the un-churched; so it (mission) is outward focused. Both are expressions of our overall mission of the church to make disciples of Jesus. While this may be a helpful way to distinguish between outward and inward service the separation of the two doesn’t really have any basis in scripture. The root word for mission is the same for ministry (diakonia). When translated mission (which depending upon the translation we will only see it one to three times in the NT) it is in the context of traveling away from what might be considered a home locale to engage in ministry. So “mission” is a type of, or expression of “ministry.” With that in mind Warren’s designation is helpful because it can help us understand mission as ministry beyond ourselves—whether that is our family of faith (local mission) or beyond our community (national or even international mission). It is this understanding that I want us to focus on.

Jesus spent the majority of his time ministering to both his disciples and to what he called the “lost sheep of Israel.” He had a few encounters with non-Jews and when they demonstrated the faith he was calling for in the Jews he blessed that faith. We might consider Jesus’ mission statement to be John 3:16… for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son… so that whoever believes in him will have eternal life. So Jesus’ mission is the same as God the Father’s… to restore all humankind in a right relationship with God. The plan to accomplish it however was and is to do it through the church. Jesus discipled Peter and the gang… he entrusted them with his character and nature… to re-present him… and then he entrusted them with his mission: Go therefore 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 that I have commanded you.

It began locally… where they were in Jerusalem… and initially to Jews… but it quickly spread to include non-Jews too. The ministry that the apostles were engaged in had both a local emphasis… we saw that last week with the passage from Acts… ⁴²They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

But it also grew to have an outward focus… the account of Peter on the roof praying and the Gentile Cornelius comes to him after being spoken to in a vision… and he asks Peter to come to his home and share the message of Jesus with them… with non-Jews… so Peter does.

Mission is ministry that focuses outside ourselves… as individuals and as the church… to the un-churched.

Mission is an expression of stewardship because we are investing both ourselves and what God has entrusted us with… himself in the person of Jesus… in the lives of people who are un-churched or marginally churched.

Mission is primarily God’s initiative in Jesus’ name and power… Whatever it is we do; we do it in Jesus’ name and power… we re-present Jesus… he is present to and through us… and he is the one that gives us the direction, the energy, and the passion to act.

In the book of Acts (5:12-39) Peter and John are arrested for preaching the Good News that is Jesus, for the second time… so they are repeat offenders… One of the leaders of the temple council (Gamaliel) says… hey let them alone… if what they are doing is of their own invention then it will quickly fade away… but if it is of God you won’t be able to do a thing about it—in fact you may even be fighting against God.

So God leads… God sends… and we respond… we go to where God is already at work… remember the story of Peter and Cornelius? God was already at work there and Peter just responded to the call… Peter preached but it was God in the Holy Spirit that touched peoples hearts and lives… but the catalyst was Peter’s willingness to go… to be sent.

Mission is individual and corporate… We need to note that when Jesus speaks he is not speaking only to Peter, or only to John, or only to Andrew… he is speaking to all of the faithful that will come to believe through the faithful response of the 12… so he is not speaking to us only as individuals… he is also speaking to us as a community of faith… he is speaking to the church.

So Jesus is sending us as the church… individual members working together for a common purpose… to go beyond ourselves… beyond our community of faith to serve the needs of those in the larger community around us…

So why are we supposed to be in mission? We might be able to come up with any number but the only one that really matters is that Jesus asked us to. I don’t think this will come as any great surprise but the great commission wasn’t only for Peter and the rest. We can learn that from a lot of different places in the Bible but we have one this morning… “teach them to obey everything that I have commanded you.”

In the gospel of John Jesus said, “if you love me you will obey my commands”; meaning that if we are disciples of Jesus we will willingly invest what God has entrusted to us… continuing the ministry of Jesus… to achieve God’s creative purpose of restoring people in a relationship with God.

That theme is repeated in all of the gospels as well as the book of Acts… it is one of the most mentioned aspect of the Christian faith next to John 3:16… for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son… Why?... so that all who believe in him would have eternal life. So even John 3:16 relates to it the great commission… and why not… it’s Jesus’ mission statement.

We are to be in mission because God cares about the lost… God cares about people who either don’t know him or trust him… to help them realize what it is that they really need…

The primary need that we are trying to fill is their awareness of their need for God… the difficult thing is that so many things of the world get in the way of recognizing that need… This shouldn’t be too hard for us to understand because we struggle with the same problem don’t we… we think that we need so many different things to fill something inside us when really what we need is a restored relationship with God…

That’s why the primary focus of mission is helping people meet their basic physical needs… providing security through helping provide shelter, clothing, food… helping them to develop job skills and the like…

People need to know that they have value… that they can make a difference in their lives and in the lives of others… that’s why ministries like Habitat for Humanity are so successful… or more locally The Mission of Hope or the Women at the Well Prison Ministry at Mitchellville… and we do it all in Jesus name… with no expectation of repayment of any kind… The goal of mission is to make disciples of Jesus… not us… not the local church… but Jesus. And we do that by being Jesus to the people we serve… We offer ourselves as a faith community… we invite, we encourage, we continue to serve… but if folks choose to be part of another church, then we celebrate with them… we rejoice just as Jesus rejoices because what’s important is that they are now part of the family…

In one of the earlier messages in talking about the parable of the talents I shared that the Master entrusted to them more than money. He gave them a way of thinking or understanding of what he wanted done and how he wanted it done… what he really gave them a way of living with others that was a reflection of himself—that’s the gift of discipleship. The result of that was is the same for us… our life of discipleship shows itself when we serve others as we share in the mission of Jesus to make disciples… people shouldn’t see us… they should see a reflection of our Master… Jesus.

This is going to sound familiar but, the important thing in using the gift of mission that God has entrusted us with isn’t the feeding, the providing of clothes, the repairing or building of homes… it’s not the wells that are built or the animals that are provided… it’s not the schools or the books or the supplies… it is the relationships that are developed… it’s in getting to know the people that we are in mission to and with because if we truly are disciples of Jesus then they will get to know Him too.

So where do we start? We need to start where we are…..We encounter Jesus in our lives; we worship but then we begin to question… But some doubted… we are always going to have questions… are we doing the right thing? Is this the way we’re supposed to go about it… the thing is we can’t let indecision or uncertainty about the details stop us from acting… we plan the best we can… we start small… we attempt… we review and analyze… we make corrections… try again… but we are always called to act

My prayer for us is that we can continue to grow in our stewardship of mission. We’ve made some good first steps in the past year with our involvement in collecting food and clothes for Mission of Hope and the local food banks. We’ve made some needed contributions as part of the Ingathering that will make a difference in peoples lives. But I believe that you have a lot more to offer than clothing and food and other material needs. I know this because I know the one who has entrusted you with so much more.

Jesus is already at work in the community around us and he is entrusting us to show people where he is… that he cares… that they matter. It is as we continue to grow into a life of mission that we will hear our master say, “Well done good and faithful servant… enter into the joy of your master.”

Sermon and Notes for Sunday Nov 1

Stewardship as Evangelism          Acts 2:37-42

³⁷Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?” ³⁸Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. ³⁹For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.” ⁴⁰And he testified with many other arguments and exhorted them, saying, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” ⁴¹So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added. ⁴²They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

[Believers who share a common geographical location are to share a common religious life.]

What happens in this passage:

~ Inspired by the Holy Spirit Peter gives a compelling witnesses to the people about the character and nature of Jesus… (Peter’s words and passion but the Holy Spirit’s power)

~ The Holy Spirit convicted them (they were cut to the heart) and they wanted to know how to have their most fundamental need fulfilled (be reconciled to God… be restored in their relationship with God) “Brothers what should we do?!”

~ Peter tells them:  turn away from the attitudes and actions that separate you from God; be baptized; put your trust in Jesus

~ Those that welcomed his message did just that (which means not all did)

~ Their life began to focus on several things: the apostles teaching (the Word); prayer; breaking of bread (and this is not communion but it can symbolize communion);  AND fellowship

Stewardship is about trust… God trusting us more than our trust in God; Stewardship is about meeting our most fundamental need… a restored relationship with God… it is a way that God transforms us into the character and nature of Jesus; Stewardship frees us… from the things that separate us from God (greed, fear, worry, etc.); Stewardship is about investing in what is important to God… God’s creative purpose… redemption of creation.

Link between Stewardship, Discipleship, Evangelism and Membership:

God entrusts us with a gift of incalculable value… the gift of himself through faith in Jesus. He also provides us with the means to invest that gift effectively in ourselves and in others… one expression of that (the means by which we do that) is Discipleship. Another is Evangelism; sharing the gift of God with others… last week we spoke of it in terms of sharing the invitation that God has entrusted us with… giving people who have not been considered acceptable (in a lot of different ways) compelling reasons to accept God’s radical hospitality. And how effectively we use and give these gifts is stewardship of the gift… and both are means by which we grow into the character and nature of Jesus—they themselves (Discipleship and Evangelism) are not the goal.

God entrusts us with another aspect of who God is in which we are to live out our lives of discipleship and evangelism… God entrusts us with each other the church… the community of faith… because God exists in community (communion of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit) we are called to live in communion (community)

Which is consistent with what we’ve been talking about… because earlier we talked about stewardship in terms of God entrusting us with people… with relationships

So this week we are going to be looking at membership in the church as another expression of stewardship.

What is it that is common to all human beings? What is it that we all long for… to know that we are loved and accepted… we want to belong… we want to receive love and give love… we want to have people committed to us and we really want to be committed to people… we long for meaningful relationships… we want to be part of something that makes a difference… all of this is a reflection of or based upon our need to be reconciled to and restored in our relationship with God. Our human relationships are an expression of our need for a healthy relationship with God because God is relational… God wants us to know Him in the way he knows us…

From God’s perspective the church is the best place to do that… that’s why he established it. Jesus in response to Simon Peter’s revelation that Jesus was the Messiah… the Christ said,  “And I tell you, you are Petra, and on this rock I will build my church.”

The passage from Acts can helps us look at why and how being a member of the church is a part of our living a life of faithful stewardship.

So what takes place? What do we see?

First of all Peter’s being a good steward… he is investing what God has entrusted to him and the other disciples by sharing a compelling witness about the character and nature of Jesus and what his death and resurrection can mean to the folks and the Holy Spirit convinces them of the truth of the message.

Then he responds to their question of, “OK, so what do we do now?” by saying, “Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus” so that:  sins will be forgiven and; they will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit… or another way to understand it… they too will be entrusted with the living and abiding presence of God… God will entrust them with himself.

Need to be clear here that it isn’t the act of baptism that does this… it is our conscious act of faith—empowered by God, to place our trust in God—by which God gives the gift of the Person of the Holy Spirit as the seal of that trust. The act of putting water on a head in no way obligates God… The water is a sign of our desire to be part of God’s family… to be a part of God’s household…

It is important however because it points to the covenant promises or commitments that we say that we are making and there are several:  The promise between the parents of a child or the person themselves with God to commit to a life of nurturing their faith as part of the church;  The promise of the church to be there to support the individual and/or the family in their life of faith together;  And last but certainly not least, God’s promise to all to accept them into his family.

One more word about baptism and how it relates to membership in the church… There is the church universal… The larger body of Christ, the saints that have come before and all believers around the world… we become a part of that family in our baptism… but then there’s the local church family.

Rick Warren gives what I think is a great example of why membership is an important choice to make he writes, “Whenever a child is born, he or she automatically becomes part of the universal [biological] family of human beings. But that child also needs to become a member of a specific family to receive nurture and care and grow up healthy and strong. The same is true spiritually. When you were born again, you automatically became part of God’s universal family, but you also need to become a member of a local expression of God’s family.” (The Purpose Driven Life, 2002) What Warren leaves unsaid is that that is necessary to receive nurture and care and grow up healthy and strong spiritually.

Baptism is a sacred gift... we are entrusted with the gift of baptism… it is a sign of our adoption into the family of God… we are not family because the law says we are family… we are family because the law of love says we are family. So baptism is not to be used indiscriminately or off hand… Baptism is a sign of commitment to each other… that we take this trust that God has given us seriously. It should also remind us that membership is accepting responsibility not only for nurturing your own life of faith but also for helping others nurture theirs. So, membership is a commitment to a life of discipleship… a commitment to a particular community of faith.

Many of you have heard me say I would rather have someone be active in the life of the church (the life of fellowship, study, discipleship, mission) and not be an “official” member than have them be an “official” member and only participate in Sunday morning worship. I still believe that. But let me also say this… at some time that level of involvement should translate into the same level of commitment. Membership in a particular church is a seal or sign of a person’s commitment. I would argue that it is similar to the sign of water at baptism.

So membership is important but like discipleship or evangelism it is not the goal… it is a means to the goal.

So, what happened next? The people repented or their sins, they turned back toward God, were baptized and God entrusted them with the gift of the Holy Spirit… what was life like for them?

⁴²They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

They began to fellowship together as they devoted themselves to the Word of God, to prayer, and the breaking of bread...

For me the key here is fellowship… they didn’t do it on their own… they did it together. We don’t understand this immediately from this passage but it is made clear as we read through the rest of Acts that, in the words of one Biblical Scholar, “Believers who share a common geographical location are to share a common religious life.”

Rick Warren in his book the Purpose Driven Life lists some reasons why he thinks that membership is important to us and I’d like to briefly share those; some of which we’ve already talked about:  identifies us as a genuine believer;  a means to help make us less self-centered; helps us focus on the needs of others; can help us understand, nurture and develop our faith… as each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love (Eph 4:16);  God has a unique role for each of us in the church… A spiritual gift is given to each of us as a means of helping the entire church (1 Cor 12:7); It will help us share in Christ’s mission in the world… He created each of us… to join him in the work he does… (Eph 2:10); Can help keep us on track… Encourage one another daily… so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness (Heb 3:13).

As we look at that list we should notice something… we should notice that each one of the things there are to help us invest what God has entrusted us with… At the risk of sounding like a detective in a bad mystery movie… we have the means; the motive; and the opportunity… all we need to do now is act… to put it into practice.

A couple of weeks ago I said that faith is not what we believe as much as its what we do… in other words our actions witness to what we really believe… our actions are our investment of what God has entrusted us with…

My prayer for us is that we will continue to grow in our commitment to invest more of ourselves in each other as Christ’s church… as His people… that we as his visible body can grow more and more into His likeness so others can receive what God has entrusted us to share with them and join us… in this church, the church universal and the church eternal…

As we grow in this way then we will be able to hear our Master say, Well done good and faithful servant, come and enter into the joy of your master.