God is With You
For the past few weeks, we’ve been exploring the blessing that has closed our services together for the past couple of years. God created you, God loves you, God is with you and God blesses you. Next week, we’ll be blessed to have Rev. John & Barbara Meyers with us to explore our faith visually. Our first week, we looked at the beginning—God created you and we saw creation from the beginning and creation within the waters of our baptism when we became a new creation and were commissioned into the ministry of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Last week, we explored God loves you and heard the story of Jonah and how God loves us right where we are, but loves us enough not to leave us there. This week we look at God is with you.
Now this one seems, just like some of the others, seems to be pretty self explanatory…God is with you. God is with you always…There are times when it just doesn’t seem like God is there…Like God is around…Like is with us. The movie A Walk to Remember is based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks about the relationship between Jamie & Landon—Jamie is the daughter of the preacher in town & Landon is the bad boy who Jamie sees something good in. After a rocky start, the two begin dating and fall in love, and is not without bumps in the road. Jamie has leukemia and gets very sick, but her faith never shakes. Landon’s faith was minimal before, but questions God as Jamie helps him to understand the faith that she has in God and helps him come to know the God that she loves so much. This scene comes at the beginning of Jamie & Landon’s relationship where they both realize that they are in love…(Clip)…Love is like the wind—I can’t see it, but I know it’s always there…That’s what God is like—we may not be able to recognize God’s presence, but God is always there…
In the passage from 1 Samuel, we get the call story of Samuel—Samuel is the son of Hannah & Elkanah…Samuel was so prayed for by Hannah as she didn’t have children. She prayed to God for a child and then became pregnant with Samuel. In thanks, once Samuel was weaned, he was sent to the temple and given back to God in service…Samuel studies and learns under Eli, whose eyesight is going bad and he’s just getting older…So, as a young boy—probably between 10-13 at this point, Samuel is laying in bed, when he hears a voice. “Samuel, Samuel” and of course the only logical explanation is that Eli needs him, so Samuel rushes to Eli and discovers that Eli is still sleeping and didn’t call for him…So he goes back to bed and a second time he hears his name called and he goes to Eli and discovers that Eli didn’t call for him so he goes back to bed…And a third time, Samuel hears his name being called and rushes again to Eli, but this time Eli tells him that the next time he hears his name, he should say, “Speak for your servant is listening” because God is speaking to him…
Can you imagine how scared Samuel must have been? The passage tells us that Samuel had never heard the word of the Lord and did not know the Lord…And yet, here God is speaking to Samuel…For those who know God, to hear God speaking is quite frightening! Maybe you’ve had an experience like Samuel where you’ve heard the voice of God or felt the presence of God so strongly that you were convinced that it had to be something else—the person in the next room calling or some other logical explanation. Sometimes the only logical explanation is that God is speaking…And maybe you haven’t had an experience like Samuel where you’ve heard the voice of God, but you have felt God’s presence strongly or you could tell that there was something different about a particular circumstance…maybe the hairs on the back of your neck stood up or you got the chills for no apparent reason. God is with you…
Now the 4th time came around and Samuel heard the voice calling his name again. And here’s the choice that Samuel had to make—he had to decide whether he would listen to Eli and say, “Speak for your servant is listening” or he could roll over and put a pillow over his head and pretend like he couldn’t hear…Both are honest reactions and I think a lot of people would be content with rolling over and putting a pillow over their head and pretending like they can’t hear or can’t feel the presence of God. Maybe you’ve done it yourself…I can tell you for sure that I have! There are times when I haven’t wanted to hear or feel God…There are times when I’ve been angry with God and didn’t want to feel God anywhere near me…There have been times that I’ve been ashamed in front of God and although I knew God had forgiven me, I was embarrassed and like Adam & Eve, I hid from God…There have been times when I am so convinced that I am right about something that even God can’t convince me otherwise or that I am so focused on something that even God can’t draw me out…And I roll over and put the pillow over my head and pretend like I can’t hear or feel God…Have you felt that way before?
Well Samuel has that same choice…roll over or listen…and Samuel chooses to listen. He chooses to listen to this God that he doesn’t even really know, but has just heard calling him by name…And he hears his name a 4th time, “Samuel, Samuel…” and he says, “Speak for your servant is listening.” Can you put yourself in the emotions of that room? Maybe it feels like a time in your life or maybe you can imagine the fear that Samuel must be feeling…Are his hands shaking? Is his breathing faster? Is he lying down afraid to move, or sitting straight up trying to take everything in? How would you feel?
We don’t get any of what Samuel’s emotions must have been in that moment, just what we imagine or put in from our own experiences…but we get the message of God to Samuel…And it’s not a happy message, but it’s a message against Eli and it’s a message that God really isn’t happy…If Samuel was okay with hearing God’s voice, I can’t imagine he’s very okay with hearing a negative message about his teacher & mentor. Well, he’s so not okay with it that he doesn’t want to tell Eli about it…Now, Eli knows what happened because he was partly involved the night before…Eli knows that Samuel heard from God and that God had a message from Samuel and the next morning, Samuel doesn’t want to tell him what God had spoken.
Sometimes it’s like that for us too…maybe God has spoken something so powerful or frightening that we just can’t tell anyone…We’ve had an experience with God that others just won’t understand and so we don’t tell anyone…Maybe we think others will think we’re crazy or we’re not even sure if we should believe it ourselves…So we keep it to ourselves and don’t share…Samuel would have been content to do it that way, but Eli convinces him to tell everything that God said…
It can’t be easy for Eli to hear the message that Samuel has—that Eli hadn’t been doing what God wanted and God wasn’t happy with Eli…It had to be painful for Eli to hear that…Eli who had been listening and serving God for his entire life—sometimes faithfully and sometimes not, was just told by this young boy—a child that God told him that Eli wasn’t doing his job…It must have been very painful for Eli to hear this and recognize his own shortcomings…To see where he had fallen short…And just like Samuel, Eli had a choice in what to do as well…He could pretend like Samuel couldn’t possibly have heard that kind of a message or tell Samuel that he was crazy or even told Samuel that he was wrong or that he was listening to something other than God…I’ve been in that position too—Where I’ve been Eli and have been held accountable and I didn’t want to hear it…and I’ve been Samuel having to tell an Eli that they’re not doing what God called them to do and to be and things have to change…It’s not an easy position for either to be in…And Eli has a choice—he can lash out at Samuel and tell him he’s wrong and go about doing things the way that he’s always done them…or he can listen to Samuel and what God has to say and pass the mantle…If you were Eli, what would you do? What have you done?
Eli says to Samuel, “It is the Lord, let him do what seems good to him.” And we don’t hear from Eli much after that…But we know that Samuel listened to everything God said after that…
Now we have much to learn and experience through this story of Eli & Samuel…Much that we can incorporate into our own lives and our own faith development as much as we can point out where we have been like Eli or Samuel…And although we have much to learn, there may be some of you who have been stuck thinking, “I want an experience like Samuel had.” I want to hear God’s voice…I want to feel God’s presence…I want that! How do I get that?
Well, there are no magic words to say or a particular place to be in…There’s nothing that you can set up to make sure that this is the time that you hear God’s voice…But you can set up the space to hear…You can silence yourself enough to hear God’s voice…Because God’s voice isn’t always audible or able to be heard above all of the noise of our lives and all of the noise of our minds…Sometimes we just don’t want to heard God, because we’re afraid of what God might say to us…I heard a song lyric recently that said, “ I don’t want to be the girl that has to fill the silence…The quiet scares me cuz it screams the truth.” How quiet are you making your life in order to hear God? In the morning, before I have my cup of coffee, I have my morning devotions. There are times when it comes quite easily and I can hear and feel God strongly…and there are times when I really don’t want to, but I pretend like I do because I feel like I should…I come away those times and think, “Well, God just wasn’t talking this morning.” But the truth is, God was talking, I just didn’t want to listen…God is with you…God is with you always…Are you listening for God? Are you looking for God’s presence? If you look, you’ll hear and you’ll see…God is with you always…Sometimes the message that God has for us is not easy or one that we necessarily want to hear…Sometimes it’s difficult, sometimes it’s painful, but it’s always told and shared in love…God’s love which is perfect and can see beyond our own understanding and our own comprehension. God is speaking—are you listening? God is with you—are you looking? Don’t be afraid of what you might see or what you might hear…God is with you…God created you…God loves you…God is with you…God blesses you…
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Sunday, January 18, 2009
United Methodist Women
Due to the weather, United Methodist Women was cancelled last Thursday. The meeting will be this Thursday at 12:30 pm at Sheridan UMC.
God Loves You
God Loves You
For the next few weeks we’ll be exploring together the blessing that has closed our service for the last couple years together…The blessing: God created you, God loves you, God is with you, God blesses you. Last week, we explored together the first part: God created you and saw the connection of Jesus’ baptism to God’s creation and making us a new creation to fulfill our mission as Christians—to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Now, within in creation, we saw the love that God had for creation…that God created the world out of love, God redeemed the world out of love, and God sustains the world out of love…
Now, I have to confess that this part of the blessing brings about a story…When I first started using this blessing with a group of seminary students, I had done the blessing first and as our time together progressed, we decided to bless one another. One of the women there was so concerned about getting the wording just right. I wrote it on the white board for her and she was practicing all day on how to say it. When it came to be her turn to use the blessing balm, she got visibly nervous and kept looking at the white board… “God…” she began and took a deep breath… I told her that it was okay if she didn’t get it in the same order; whatever came out of her mouth was the blessing. She nodded and looked like she started to feel comfortable. “Okay…Created, loves, with, bless…I got this.” She turned to the person next to her once again and took the blessing balm still repeating created, loves, with, bless…and then she started the blessing… “God loves you…NO!” Well…Yes, God indeed does love you.
Throughout Scripture we have stories of this love that God has…We saw it through creation, in the waters of baptism, and of course the story of Jesus is full of love. In our Gospel lesson this morning we have the story of Jesus calling his first disciples…The men that Jesus called were not men of high stature at all…they were fishermen—men who had to work hard in order to survive. These weren’t people who had the freedom to leave work for a few years to follow Jesus…They were men who took great risk to do this…And they weren’t men who were close to being kings or other royalty…Jesus’ first disciples were ordinary people—people who made mistakes…people who had families…people who questioned who Jesus was…Ordinary people…Out of love, Jesus called them to be his disciples and told them that he would make them fishers of people. That’s a pretty amazing love…the love that chooses ordinary people to do extraordinary things. That’s the love of God. God loves you.
Now, this is the same God throughout all of Scripture…God is the same yesterday, today, and forever…So, this is the same God of the Old Testament and the New Testament. Many times people will say that it seems like there is a different God in the Old Testament because God is always so angry…But there are many stories of the love of God throughout the Old Testament and just as many stories of human beings denying and rejecting that love. The parable of Jonah is one of those stories. The parable of Jonah is an incredibly beautiful love story…Many people may have heard of this story…Jonah was a prophet. Now, a prophet was someone who shared a message from God. These were people who were deeply connected to God and shared messages that were really controversial—they were messages of God’s displeasure in their rejection of God…they were challenging messages encouraging God’s people to follow God once again. They were messages that were not well received at all…Mostly because they were often telling people what they were doing wrong and how they weren’t following what God had intended. Many people didn’t want to hear that kind of a message and honestly, not much has changed because most people today don’t want to hear that message either! Prophets were often killed for sharing this message—John the Baptist was a prophet who literally lost his head…most other prophets often met a violent death because people were so opposed to hearing their messages of truth. So, Jonah was one of these prophets and he often went from town to town sharing these messages from God. Then, God tells Jonah that Jonah needs to go to Nineveh because Nineveh was a wicked city…Now if you’ve seen the Veggie tales version of the Jonah story, you would have seen Nineveh as the city that slaps people with fishes. Well, in reality Nineveh was much worse that a city that slapped people with fish…Nineveh was a city full of violent people, it was unwelcoming and not a place that anyone would willingly go…. At the entrance to the city you would find stakes with the heads of the unwelcomed people lining the entrance…So it may make a little bit more sense as to why Jonah was not interested in going to Nineveh to tell them that God was displeased with their behavior. If Nineveh took the heads of people who were just visiting, what would they do to someone who told them they were wicked?? So Jonah goes the opposite direction of Nineveh and goes out to sea where it is the furthest he can get and once out in the sea, it is made clear that God wants Jonah to go to Nineveh…The boat is rocky and the storm is fierce and as Jonah is tossed overboard, he finds his way to the belly of a great fish. When Jonah emerges, he finds himself on dry land ready to go to Nineveh. Sometimes it takes us to be alone and only able to rely on God to realize that we really do need to do what God has called us to do…Jonah is still not excited about this mission, but he figures that he’ll preach this message of repentance and share God’s message with the people and then they still won’t repent, so he’ll get to watch God destroy the city. And that fuels Jonah—so he goes to Nineveh and tells the people of Nineveh that in 40 days Nineveh will be overthrown. Well, something clicks with the people of Nineveh—through Jonah’s message…the grace of God…Something clicks and the people of Nineveh believed God, began to fast and repent. They turned around and went a new direction from what they were doing. And God was true to God’s word too…God saw what they had done and that they had turned around and so God decided not to destroy the city. See because God loved the city of Nineveh before this…God loved the city of Nineveh so much that God was so hurt by what they were doing—their evil and wicked ways…That God wasn’t going to leave them in their wickedness…So God sent Jonah to remind them of who God is. See that’s what God does…God loves us right where we are in the middle of all of our brokenness and giftedness…God loves us in spite of and because of our brokenness…But God loves us too much to leave us there. Just like the city of Nineveh—God wasn’t going to leave them in their wicked ways, but show them there was a better way through Jonah. And it happened! And God stayed true to God’s word…the city repented and God didn’t destroy it.
That’s where our passage ends for this morning, but that’s not the end of the story for Jonah…Because you see, Jonah believed in the love of God and the grace and forgiveness of God. He was constantly preaching it to different places…And he certainly believed in God’s mighty power and forgiveness and grace and love…But he thought that Nineveh was much past that. So, after proclaiming this message, Jonah saw what happened to Nineveh—that they repented and God didn’t destroy the city, so what did he do? Did he celebrate with the people and join in their repentance or share in the good news that they had been redeemed? Actually no…Jonah gets mad at God…Jonah gets angry with God for being faithful. So Jonah tells God, “That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.” Jonah is mad because God stayed faithful! Jonah is mad because God did exactly what God promised and Jonah is mad! So Jonah goes east of the city and says it would be better for him to die than to do something like this again…Did you hear that? Jonah would rather die than to see God’s love in action—to see people repent and believe and live their lives differently because of God’s love! So, he goes and starts to do just that. And God provides a bush to Jonah to give him shade and ease his discomfort and Jonah is so happy about that—he’s thrilled about the bush and the shade and is resigning himself that maybe this way of life he’s choosing won’t be so bad. Well, the bush withers because of a worm and the wind blows hot and the sun beats hard…And Jonah has more compassion for the bush that withered than for all of Nineveh. And God says, to Jonah—“You are concerned for this bush, that you had nothing to do with—you didn’t create it or sustain it…It was there a day for you and in a night it was gone…Don’t you then see why I am so concerned about Nineveh? That in this great city there are more than 120 thousand people who didn’t understand what they were doing and needed to be shown my love.” God is telling Jonah that even in their wickedness & brokenness God loved Nineveh and wanted them so much to understand that and turn around and believe that. And they did! And Jonah doesn’t want to accept that…Jonah doesn’t want to accept that God loves Nineveh as much as God loves Jonah.
I think that we can behave like Jonah sometimes…Oh we believe that God loves us—I mean we don’t do anything really wrong for the most part right? So of course God loves us more than God loves those wicked and evil people? Well, actually…God loves everyone—that doesn’t mean that God loves what people are doing and their actions, but God loves everyone and loves us all in the middle of our weakness and our brokenness and our hurting and God loves us enough not to leave us there…All of the world. All of creation…No matter how many times we break God’s heart by what we do, God still loves us. And there are times when we want others to love God the exact same way that we do using the exact same experiences and the exact same words…and sometimes that just isn’t possible. People experience God differently and that’s okay. It’s okay that you had an amazingly powerful experience of God’s love and you want to share it with others, but they will experience that same love on their own in their own time and in their own ways. When we try and force someone to have the exact same experiences that we do, it’s sometimes more harmful. In this clip from the movie Dan in Real Life. Dan & his family are on vacation at a cabin and & his daughter Cara’s boyfriend has taken a bus and snuck up to the cabin in order to spend time together. When Dan finds them together, he sends the boy right back where he came from leaving his daughter with a broken heart…(Clip)…God’s ability to love far surpasses our own…God loves you with as much passion as Cara running after the car…With as much protection as Dan doing what he thought was best for his daughter…With as much wisdom as Will sharing philosophies on love…with as much gentleness as Marie softly correcting Dan’s way of thinking…God’s love encompasses all of that and more!
And guess what—there’s nothing that you can do to repay that love. You can love back and you can worship and you can turn your life around and do what God has called you to do. That’s very important and that’s what we do in response to God’s love and grace for us. Because we have been offered the gift of salvation, we respond to all of God’s people to meet their needs…But we don’t do it to pay God back for what God has done or to earn salvation or earn more love from God. There’s nothing that we can do that Jesus hasn’t already done for us. So, we don’t do good works to earn God’s favor and God’s grace…We do good works because God has already loved us. God loves what we can be and what we are. God loves who we were and who we will become…God loves you.
John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement spent some time in America and his mission was to come to America and share the message of the Gospel and see how God’s grace moved and worked. He was different from Jonah in that he really wanted to see this change happen. Well, John Wesley was a brilliant and faithful, but complicated man and through a series of circumstances John Wesley made some mistakes and was issued a warrant for his arrest…So, John Wesley fled America returned to England where he felt defeated—he didn’t do what he had set out to do at all and in fact may have done more harm than good…John continued to remain faithful to his vows as an Anglican priest, but he was really just going through the motions…He believed in God’s love and forgiveness, but he was struggling to believe in it for himself. Until one day he went to a worship service where he heard God’s message of love proclaimed in a way that he finally heard it for himself. And at Aldersgate, John Wesley said that his heart was strangely warmed as he realized that Jesus died for me…Yes, even for me. That’s the love of God…To realize that God loved the whole world so much that God sent Jesus Christ…And that you as an individual of sacred worth are who God had in mind in doing that…God loves you.
It is overwhelming to think of God’s love because quite honestly it is way too big for us to even imagine…God loves you. Don’t worry about figuring out all of the intricacies of God’s love—don’t worry about figuring out how you repay God for God’s love…Don’t worry about doing everything perfect so you can keep God’s love…Just stay in love with God. And let God love you…and that love will change you because that’s who God is…God loves us right where we are and God loves us enough not to leave us there. God loves you.
For the next few weeks we’ll be exploring together the blessing that has closed our service for the last couple years together…The blessing: God created you, God loves you, God is with you, God blesses you. Last week, we explored together the first part: God created you and saw the connection of Jesus’ baptism to God’s creation and making us a new creation to fulfill our mission as Christians—to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Now, within in creation, we saw the love that God had for creation…that God created the world out of love, God redeemed the world out of love, and God sustains the world out of love…
Now, I have to confess that this part of the blessing brings about a story…When I first started using this blessing with a group of seminary students, I had done the blessing first and as our time together progressed, we decided to bless one another. One of the women there was so concerned about getting the wording just right. I wrote it on the white board for her and she was practicing all day on how to say it. When it came to be her turn to use the blessing balm, she got visibly nervous and kept looking at the white board… “God…” she began and took a deep breath… I told her that it was okay if she didn’t get it in the same order; whatever came out of her mouth was the blessing. She nodded and looked like she started to feel comfortable. “Okay…Created, loves, with, bless…I got this.” She turned to the person next to her once again and took the blessing balm still repeating created, loves, with, bless…and then she started the blessing… “God loves you…NO!” Well…Yes, God indeed does love you.
Throughout Scripture we have stories of this love that God has…We saw it through creation, in the waters of baptism, and of course the story of Jesus is full of love. In our Gospel lesson this morning we have the story of Jesus calling his first disciples…The men that Jesus called were not men of high stature at all…they were fishermen—men who had to work hard in order to survive. These weren’t people who had the freedom to leave work for a few years to follow Jesus…They were men who took great risk to do this…And they weren’t men who were close to being kings or other royalty…Jesus’ first disciples were ordinary people—people who made mistakes…people who had families…people who questioned who Jesus was…Ordinary people…Out of love, Jesus called them to be his disciples and told them that he would make them fishers of people. That’s a pretty amazing love…the love that chooses ordinary people to do extraordinary things. That’s the love of God. God loves you.
Now, this is the same God throughout all of Scripture…God is the same yesterday, today, and forever…So, this is the same God of the Old Testament and the New Testament. Many times people will say that it seems like there is a different God in the Old Testament because God is always so angry…But there are many stories of the love of God throughout the Old Testament and just as many stories of human beings denying and rejecting that love. The parable of Jonah is one of those stories. The parable of Jonah is an incredibly beautiful love story…Many people may have heard of this story…Jonah was a prophet. Now, a prophet was someone who shared a message from God. These were people who were deeply connected to God and shared messages that were really controversial—they were messages of God’s displeasure in their rejection of God…they were challenging messages encouraging God’s people to follow God once again. They were messages that were not well received at all…Mostly because they were often telling people what they were doing wrong and how they weren’t following what God had intended. Many people didn’t want to hear that kind of a message and honestly, not much has changed because most people today don’t want to hear that message either! Prophets were often killed for sharing this message—John the Baptist was a prophet who literally lost his head…most other prophets often met a violent death because people were so opposed to hearing their messages of truth. So, Jonah was one of these prophets and he often went from town to town sharing these messages from God. Then, God tells Jonah that Jonah needs to go to Nineveh because Nineveh was a wicked city…Now if you’ve seen the Veggie tales version of the Jonah story, you would have seen Nineveh as the city that slaps people with fishes. Well, in reality Nineveh was much worse that a city that slapped people with fish…Nineveh was a city full of violent people, it was unwelcoming and not a place that anyone would willingly go…. At the entrance to the city you would find stakes with the heads of the unwelcomed people lining the entrance…So it may make a little bit more sense as to why Jonah was not interested in going to Nineveh to tell them that God was displeased with their behavior. If Nineveh took the heads of people who were just visiting, what would they do to someone who told them they were wicked?? So Jonah goes the opposite direction of Nineveh and goes out to sea where it is the furthest he can get and once out in the sea, it is made clear that God wants Jonah to go to Nineveh…The boat is rocky and the storm is fierce and as Jonah is tossed overboard, he finds his way to the belly of a great fish. When Jonah emerges, he finds himself on dry land ready to go to Nineveh. Sometimes it takes us to be alone and only able to rely on God to realize that we really do need to do what God has called us to do…Jonah is still not excited about this mission, but he figures that he’ll preach this message of repentance and share God’s message with the people and then they still won’t repent, so he’ll get to watch God destroy the city. And that fuels Jonah—so he goes to Nineveh and tells the people of Nineveh that in 40 days Nineveh will be overthrown. Well, something clicks with the people of Nineveh—through Jonah’s message…the grace of God…Something clicks and the people of Nineveh believed God, began to fast and repent. They turned around and went a new direction from what they were doing. And God was true to God’s word too…God saw what they had done and that they had turned around and so God decided not to destroy the city. See because God loved the city of Nineveh before this…God loved the city of Nineveh so much that God was so hurt by what they were doing—their evil and wicked ways…That God wasn’t going to leave them in their wickedness…So God sent Jonah to remind them of who God is. See that’s what God does…God loves us right where we are in the middle of all of our brokenness and giftedness…God loves us in spite of and because of our brokenness…But God loves us too much to leave us there. Just like the city of Nineveh—God wasn’t going to leave them in their wicked ways, but show them there was a better way through Jonah. And it happened! And God stayed true to God’s word…the city repented and God didn’t destroy it.
That’s where our passage ends for this morning, but that’s not the end of the story for Jonah…Because you see, Jonah believed in the love of God and the grace and forgiveness of God. He was constantly preaching it to different places…And he certainly believed in God’s mighty power and forgiveness and grace and love…But he thought that Nineveh was much past that. So, after proclaiming this message, Jonah saw what happened to Nineveh—that they repented and God didn’t destroy the city, so what did he do? Did he celebrate with the people and join in their repentance or share in the good news that they had been redeemed? Actually no…Jonah gets mad at God…Jonah gets angry with God for being faithful. So Jonah tells God, “That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.” Jonah is mad because God stayed faithful! Jonah is mad because God did exactly what God promised and Jonah is mad! So Jonah goes east of the city and says it would be better for him to die than to do something like this again…Did you hear that? Jonah would rather die than to see God’s love in action—to see people repent and believe and live their lives differently because of God’s love! So, he goes and starts to do just that. And God provides a bush to Jonah to give him shade and ease his discomfort and Jonah is so happy about that—he’s thrilled about the bush and the shade and is resigning himself that maybe this way of life he’s choosing won’t be so bad. Well, the bush withers because of a worm and the wind blows hot and the sun beats hard…And Jonah has more compassion for the bush that withered than for all of Nineveh. And God says, to Jonah—“You are concerned for this bush, that you had nothing to do with—you didn’t create it or sustain it…It was there a day for you and in a night it was gone…Don’t you then see why I am so concerned about Nineveh? That in this great city there are more than 120 thousand people who didn’t understand what they were doing and needed to be shown my love.” God is telling Jonah that even in their wickedness & brokenness God loved Nineveh and wanted them so much to understand that and turn around and believe that. And they did! And Jonah doesn’t want to accept that…Jonah doesn’t want to accept that God loves Nineveh as much as God loves Jonah.
I think that we can behave like Jonah sometimes…Oh we believe that God loves us—I mean we don’t do anything really wrong for the most part right? So of course God loves us more than God loves those wicked and evil people? Well, actually…God loves everyone—that doesn’t mean that God loves what people are doing and their actions, but God loves everyone and loves us all in the middle of our weakness and our brokenness and our hurting and God loves us enough not to leave us there…All of the world. All of creation…No matter how many times we break God’s heart by what we do, God still loves us. And there are times when we want others to love God the exact same way that we do using the exact same experiences and the exact same words…and sometimes that just isn’t possible. People experience God differently and that’s okay. It’s okay that you had an amazingly powerful experience of God’s love and you want to share it with others, but they will experience that same love on their own in their own time and in their own ways. When we try and force someone to have the exact same experiences that we do, it’s sometimes more harmful. In this clip from the movie Dan in Real Life. Dan & his family are on vacation at a cabin and & his daughter Cara’s boyfriend has taken a bus and snuck up to the cabin in order to spend time together. When Dan finds them together, he sends the boy right back where he came from leaving his daughter with a broken heart…(Clip)…God’s ability to love far surpasses our own…God loves you with as much passion as Cara running after the car…With as much protection as Dan doing what he thought was best for his daughter…With as much wisdom as Will sharing philosophies on love…with as much gentleness as Marie softly correcting Dan’s way of thinking…God’s love encompasses all of that and more!
And guess what—there’s nothing that you can do to repay that love. You can love back and you can worship and you can turn your life around and do what God has called you to do. That’s very important and that’s what we do in response to God’s love and grace for us. Because we have been offered the gift of salvation, we respond to all of God’s people to meet their needs…But we don’t do it to pay God back for what God has done or to earn salvation or earn more love from God. There’s nothing that we can do that Jesus hasn’t already done for us. So, we don’t do good works to earn God’s favor and God’s grace…We do good works because God has already loved us. God loves what we can be and what we are. God loves who we were and who we will become…God loves you.
John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement spent some time in America and his mission was to come to America and share the message of the Gospel and see how God’s grace moved and worked. He was different from Jonah in that he really wanted to see this change happen. Well, John Wesley was a brilliant and faithful, but complicated man and through a series of circumstances John Wesley made some mistakes and was issued a warrant for his arrest…So, John Wesley fled America returned to England where he felt defeated—he didn’t do what he had set out to do at all and in fact may have done more harm than good…John continued to remain faithful to his vows as an Anglican priest, but he was really just going through the motions…He believed in God’s love and forgiveness, but he was struggling to believe in it for himself. Until one day he went to a worship service where he heard God’s message of love proclaimed in a way that he finally heard it for himself. And at Aldersgate, John Wesley said that his heart was strangely warmed as he realized that Jesus died for me…Yes, even for me. That’s the love of God…To realize that God loved the whole world so much that God sent Jesus Christ…And that you as an individual of sacred worth are who God had in mind in doing that…God loves you.
It is overwhelming to think of God’s love because quite honestly it is way too big for us to even imagine…God loves you. Don’t worry about figuring out all of the intricacies of God’s love—don’t worry about figuring out how you repay God for God’s love…Don’t worry about doing everything perfect so you can keep God’s love…Just stay in love with God. And let God love you…and that love will change you because that’s who God is…God loves us right where we are and God loves us enough not to leave us there. God loves you.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Mary's Song
Mary’s Song
Here we are in the third week of Advent…Advent is the season before Christmas in the church…Advent is the season of waiting…waiting for the birth of Jesus. This week as we continue to wait for Christmas, we turn our attention to another song in the Gospel of Luke. Last week, we heard the song of Zechariah—Zechariah & Elizabeth are the parents of John the Baptist, Jesus’ cousin. John was the forerunner to the Messiah—he proclaimed loudly of the coming Messiah. When John was born, Zechariah sang a song dedicating John to the work of the prophet and praising God for what God had done.
Luke tells us in the 6th month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, that Elizabeth’s cousin Mary receives some very interesting news from an angel of the Lord…The angel Gabriel comes to Mary and tells her that she will have a child…But who exactly is this Mary?
Well, Mary is betrothed to marry Joseph—a carpenter. So, we can be sure that Mary is not a queen or a princess or really anyone of high class stature. And she’s from Nazareth…Nazareth was known for being one of the poorest regions and had the stigma from the surrounding communities of being the “bad side of the tracks”…When people ask the question, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” They aren’t being sarcastic or witty…they are really asking if there is anything positive that can come from such a vile place…The place that Mary lives. So, we know that Mary is one of the poorest of all.
The other thing that we know is about the betrothal…In that time the age of marriage was between 11-13. Mary was probably around the age of 13 when she was engaged to be married to Joseph. Shortly after her engagement was when she learned that she was pregnant with Jesus.
The annunciation, when the angel told Mary that she would have this child—Mary took a great risk in saying “Let it be with me”…She was unmarried, engaged to be married…When she started to show her pregnancy, there were going to be questions and accusations…Her whole family would be disgraced and her fiancée would have an option to take her in or throw her out. Joseph clearly knew that there was no way that he could be the father of this baby…So that left only one option—Mary clearly had an affair. So, Joseph could legally have cast her out with nothing and even more than that—have her put to death. By saying to the angel, “Let it be with me according to your word,” Mary knew the great risks that she was facing—an almost sure death. But she also knew the risks if she told the angel that she wouldn’t carry this child…
This was no small thing that Mary did—Mary gave her whole life to God—she put her whole trust in God’s grace and that God would remain true to God’s word. If this was God’s son that she was carrying, she had to trust that God would care for her and for Jesus.
This baby was no ordinary baby—this baby is the Messiah…Which we know means something very different. This baby was born to die…This baby was born to take away the sins of the world through his blood. Did Mary know all of this? Did she understand what it meant that this baby would be born? Did she know? We can know for sure that Mary certainly looked on this time much differently at the foot of the cross than at the manger…
But that’s getting a little ahead of the story, because our passage for this morning is the song that Mary sings of gratitude of what God has done, what God is doing, and what God will do. In the Greek language, which is what this was originally written in, the verb tenses shift from the past to the present and to the future. Which is not all that unsimilar from what we know of God…God is the past, present, and future—God has no beginning or no end. So, when Mary sings about what God has done, what God is doing, and what God will do—it’s really not that much of a surprise because that’s who God is!
Mary sings over and over about the lowly being raised up and powerful being scattered. It’s a theme that is recurring all throughout Jesus’ life & ministry…All throughout the story of God. The ones who are considered to be the least are favored in God’s eyes. Mary was one of the most lowly people and she carried God’s son…It’s not the first story of God using and unexpected person to share God’s message of love and grace…God uses unexpected people all the time!
Mary’s song ends with the reminder of God’s covenant with God’s people through Abraham…Which is also a reminder to those who have heard the story would remember their part within the covenant—they are blessed to be a blessing. Mary was blessed to be a blessing—she gave birth to Jesus.
Mary is an amazing person to learn from—in the face of some incredible risks, she told God that she was willing to be God’s servant and do whatever it took to follow God. If we could only have faith like Mary…What would the world look like? What would it look like if we were like Mary and put aside our own comforts, our own lives even to follow God and to do what God calls us to do? Mary gave up everything because God asked her to—she faced death, rejection, alienation, suffering…just to do what God called her to do. God continues to make that call to all of us—to put ourselves aside to do what God calls us to do.
It’s not an easy place to be and it’s not something that our society teaches. Our society tells us to look out for number one and take care of yourself first before thinking about anyone else. And God’s message is counter to that—God says think of “ME” first, and I’ll take care of you. It’s not comfortable to have to rely on someone other than ourselves and yet it’s what God calls us to do… Once there were three trees on a hill in the woods. They were discussing their hopes and dreams when The first tree said, 'Someday I hope to be a great Treasure chest. I could be filled with gold, silver And precious gems. I could be decorated with an Intricate carving and
everyone would see the beauty.'
Then the second tree said, 'Someday I will be a Mighty ship. I will take Kings and queens across the Waters and sail to the corners of the world. People Will feel safe in me because of the strength of my Hull .'
Finally the third tree said, 'I want to grow to be The tallest and straightest Tree in the forest. People Will see me on top of the hill, look up to my branches, And think of the heavens and God and how close
to Them I am reaching. I will be the greatest tree of all. Time and people will always remember me.'
After a few years of praying that their dreams would come true, a group of woodsmen came upon the trees. When one came to the first tree he said, 'This looks like a strong tree, I think I should be able to sell the wood to a carpenter, and he began cutting it down. The Tree
was happy, because he knew the carpenter would Make him into
a treasure chest.
At the second tree the woodsman said, 'This looks like A strong tree. I will be able to sell it to the shipyard.' The second tree was happy Because he knew he was on His way to becoming a mighty ship.
When the woodsmen came upon the third tree, the tree Was frightened because he knew that if they cut him Down his dreams would not come true. One of the men Said, 'I don't need anything special from my tree, I'll Take this one,' and he cut it down.
When the first tree arrived at the carpenters, he was Made into a feed box for animals. He was then placed in A barn and filled with hay. This was not at all what he Had prayed for.
The second tree was cut and made into a small fishing Boat. His dreams of being a mighty ship and carrying Kings had come to an end.
The third tree was cut into large pieces, and left alone In the dark.
The years went by, and the trees forgot about their dreams.
Then one day, a man and woman came to the barn. She gave Birth and they placed the baby in the hay in the feed box That was made from the first tree. The man wished that he Could have made a crib for the baby, but this manger would Have to do. The tree could feel the importance of this event And knew that it had held the greatest treasure of all time.
Years later, a group of men got in the fishing boat made from The second tree. One of them was tired and went to sleep. While they were out on the water, a great storm arose and The tree didn't think it was strong enough to keep the men Safe. The men woke the
sleeping man, and He stood and said 'Peace' and the storm stopped. At this time, the tree knew That it had carried the King of Kings in its boat.
Finally, someone came and got the third tree. It was carried through the streets as the people mocked the man who was carrying it. When they came to a stop, the man was nailed To the tree and raised in the air to die at the top Of a hill. When Sunday came, the tree came to Realize that it was strong enough to stand at the top Of the hill and be as close to God as was possible, Because Jesus had been
crucified on it.
Sometimes it takes putting aside what we think is best to do what it is that God thinks is best…Like Mary did—putting aside our own selfish desires and our own selfish thoughts in order to do what it is that God calls us to do?
What does God call us? To make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world…To share the message of love and grace that is found within the message of the Gospel. That message of love and grace shines through Mary’s story as she felt the grace of God in her womb and watched her child grow up. She saw what God’s love could do as Jesus was crucified on the cross…Mary’s story is an example of the Gospel…But her life isn’t the only example…Your life should be an example of that story as well…Are you a living example of the Gospel message? Do you show love to others? Do you let God’s grace shine through your own life? Do you tell others about your faith in God? Do you put yourself aside in order to do all those things? God has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly…God has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich empty away…Does your soul magnify the Lord?
We are blessed to be a blessing…This Advent season let us remember that as we celebrate the birth of Jesus—and celebrate that birth by remembering whose birth we are celebrating—that Christmas is not our birthday, but it’s Jesus’ birthday…That our life is for God…My soul magnifies the Lord…
Here we are in the third week of Advent…Advent is the season before Christmas in the church…Advent is the season of waiting…waiting for the birth of Jesus. This week as we continue to wait for Christmas, we turn our attention to another song in the Gospel of Luke. Last week, we heard the song of Zechariah—Zechariah & Elizabeth are the parents of John the Baptist, Jesus’ cousin. John was the forerunner to the Messiah—he proclaimed loudly of the coming Messiah. When John was born, Zechariah sang a song dedicating John to the work of the prophet and praising God for what God had done.
Luke tells us in the 6th month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, that Elizabeth’s cousin Mary receives some very interesting news from an angel of the Lord…The angel Gabriel comes to Mary and tells her that she will have a child…But who exactly is this Mary?
Well, Mary is betrothed to marry Joseph—a carpenter. So, we can be sure that Mary is not a queen or a princess or really anyone of high class stature. And she’s from Nazareth…Nazareth was known for being one of the poorest regions and had the stigma from the surrounding communities of being the “bad side of the tracks”…When people ask the question, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” They aren’t being sarcastic or witty…they are really asking if there is anything positive that can come from such a vile place…The place that Mary lives. So, we know that Mary is one of the poorest of all.
The other thing that we know is about the betrothal…In that time the age of marriage was between 11-13. Mary was probably around the age of 13 when she was engaged to be married to Joseph. Shortly after her engagement was when she learned that she was pregnant with Jesus.
The annunciation, when the angel told Mary that she would have this child—Mary took a great risk in saying “Let it be with me”…She was unmarried, engaged to be married…When she started to show her pregnancy, there were going to be questions and accusations…Her whole family would be disgraced and her fiancée would have an option to take her in or throw her out. Joseph clearly knew that there was no way that he could be the father of this baby…So that left only one option—Mary clearly had an affair. So, Joseph could legally have cast her out with nothing and even more than that—have her put to death. By saying to the angel, “Let it be with me according to your word,” Mary knew the great risks that she was facing—an almost sure death. But she also knew the risks if she told the angel that she wouldn’t carry this child…
This was no small thing that Mary did—Mary gave her whole life to God—she put her whole trust in God’s grace and that God would remain true to God’s word. If this was God’s son that she was carrying, she had to trust that God would care for her and for Jesus.
This baby was no ordinary baby—this baby is the Messiah…Which we know means something very different. This baby was born to die…This baby was born to take away the sins of the world through his blood. Did Mary know all of this? Did she understand what it meant that this baby would be born? Did she know? We can know for sure that Mary certainly looked on this time much differently at the foot of the cross than at the manger…
But that’s getting a little ahead of the story, because our passage for this morning is the song that Mary sings of gratitude of what God has done, what God is doing, and what God will do. In the Greek language, which is what this was originally written in, the verb tenses shift from the past to the present and to the future. Which is not all that unsimilar from what we know of God…God is the past, present, and future—God has no beginning or no end. So, when Mary sings about what God has done, what God is doing, and what God will do—it’s really not that much of a surprise because that’s who God is!
Mary sings over and over about the lowly being raised up and powerful being scattered. It’s a theme that is recurring all throughout Jesus’ life & ministry…All throughout the story of God. The ones who are considered to be the least are favored in God’s eyes. Mary was one of the most lowly people and she carried God’s son…It’s not the first story of God using and unexpected person to share God’s message of love and grace…God uses unexpected people all the time!
Mary’s song ends with the reminder of God’s covenant with God’s people through Abraham…Which is also a reminder to those who have heard the story would remember their part within the covenant—they are blessed to be a blessing. Mary was blessed to be a blessing—she gave birth to Jesus.
Mary is an amazing person to learn from—in the face of some incredible risks, she told God that she was willing to be God’s servant and do whatever it took to follow God. If we could only have faith like Mary…What would the world look like? What would it look like if we were like Mary and put aside our own comforts, our own lives even to follow God and to do what God calls us to do? Mary gave up everything because God asked her to—she faced death, rejection, alienation, suffering…just to do what God called her to do. God continues to make that call to all of us—to put ourselves aside to do what God calls us to do.
It’s not an easy place to be and it’s not something that our society teaches. Our society tells us to look out for number one and take care of yourself first before thinking about anyone else. And God’s message is counter to that—God says think of “ME” first, and I’ll take care of you. It’s not comfortable to have to rely on someone other than ourselves and yet it’s what God calls us to do… Once there were three trees on a hill in the woods. They were discussing their hopes and dreams when The first tree said, 'Someday I hope to be a great Treasure chest. I could be filled with gold, silver And precious gems. I could be decorated with an Intricate carving and
everyone would see the beauty.'
Then the second tree said, 'Someday I will be a Mighty ship. I will take Kings and queens across the Waters and sail to the corners of the world. People Will feel safe in me because of the strength of my Hull .'
Finally the third tree said, 'I want to grow to be The tallest and straightest Tree in the forest. People Will see me on top of the hill, look up to my branches, And think of the heavens and God and how close
to Them I am reaching. I will be the greatest tree of all. Time and people will always remember me.'
After a few years of praying that their dreams would come true, a group of woodsmen came upon the trees. When one came to the first tree he said, 'This looks like a strong tree, I think I should be able to sell the wood to a carpenter, and he began cutting it down. The Tree
was happy, because he knew the carpenter would Make him into
a treasure chest.
At the second tree the woodsman said, 'This looks like A strong tree. I will be able to sell it to the shipyard.' The second tree was happy Because he knew he was on His way to becoming a mighty ship.
When the woodsmen came upon the third tree, the tree Was frightened because he knew that if they cut him Down his dreams would not come true. One of the men Said, 'I don't need anything special from my tree, I'll Take this one,' and he cut it down.
When the first tree arrived at the carpenters, he was Made into a feed box for animals. He was then placed in A barn and filled with hay. This was not at all what he Had prayed for.
The second tree was cut and made into a small fishing Boat. His dreams of being a mighty ship and carrying Kings had come to an end.
The third tree was cut into large pieces, and left alone In the dark.
The years went by, and the trees forgot about their dreams.
Then one day, a man and woman came to the barn. She gave Birth and they placed the baby in the hay in the feed box That was made from the first tree. The man wished that he Could have made a crib for the baby, but this manger would Have to do. The tree could feel the importance of this event And knew that it had held the greatest treasure of all time.
Years later, a group of men got in the fishing boat made from The second tree. One of them was tired and went to sleep. While they were out on the water, a great storm arose and The tree didn't think it was strong enough to keep the men Safe. The men woke the
sleeping man, and He stood and said 'Peace' and the storm stopped. At this time, the tree knew That it had carried the King of Kings in its boat.
Finally, someone came and got the third tree. It was carried through the streets as the people mocked the man who was carrying it. When they came to a stop, the man was nailed To the tree and raised in the air to die at the top Of a hill. When Sunday came, the tree came to Realize that it was strong enough to stand at the top Of the hill and be as close to God as was possible, Because Jesus had been
crucified on it.
Sometimes it takes putting aside what we think is best to do what it is that God thinks is best…Like Mary did—putting aside our own selfish desires and our own selfish thoughts in order to do what it is that God calls us to do?
What does God call us? To make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world…To share the message of love and grace that is found within the message of the Gospel. That message of love and grace shines through Mary’s story as she felt the grace of God in her womb and watched her child grow up. She saw what God’s love could do as Jesus was crucified on the cross…Mary’s story is an example of the Gospel…But her life isn’t the only example…Your life should be an example of that story as well…Are you a living example of the Gospel message? Do you show love to others? Do you let God’s grace shine through your own life? Do you tell others about your faith in God? Do you put yourself aside in order to do all those things? God has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly…God has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich empty away…Does your soul magnify the Lord?
We are blessed to be a blessing…This Advent season let us remember that as we celebrate the birth of Jesus—and celebrate that birth by remembering whose birth we are celebrating—that Christmas is not our birthday, but it’s Jesus’ birthday…That our life is for God…My soul magnifies the Lord…
Monday, December 8, 2008
Zechariah's Song
Zechariah’s Song
The season of Advent is 4 weeks long…Advent is the season of waiting…It’s not Christmas yet as we wait for the birth of Jesus…Now, we of course know the whole story—the story of the baby that was born. But until Christmas comes, we wait…And our waiting isn’t quite as long as it must have seemed for the people who were waiting for the Messiah to come.
One of the things that is interesting to point out in all of the Gospels is that not much time is spent on Jesus’ birth…The Gospels of Matthew & Luke are the only two gospels that share anything about Jesus’ birth. In the gospel of Luke, where our passage comes from today…The birth of Jesus is told in 21 verses. The birth of Jesus’ cousin, John—known more commonly as John the Baptist, is told in 24 verses. Luke spends more time talking about the birth of John than the birth of Jesus.
John’s birth was one of miracles…The angel Gabriel came to Elizabeth and Elizabeth was told that she would have a baby. Elizabeth had been without child for so long that she was in advanced age, that it must have been a surprise to her when the angel told her she would have a baby, but she accepted this good news with excitement…Zechariah, well Zechariah on the other hand had another reaction…Zechariah, Elizabeth’s husband was in such disbelief and so surprised by this news! He just didn’t believe that it was possible. Now if there’s anything that we can learn throughout history is that one should always believe that God will do what God says God will do…
A baby was something that Elizabeth & Zechariah had been wanting for a long time, but had given up hope that it was even possible. Maybe you’ve felt like that before…There was something that you wanted so desperately but had given up hope that it was possible and then it just happens! And Zechariah was completely out of the loop with it…An angel came to him and told him that Elizabeth was going to have a baby…Exactly what they had been wanting…And Zechariah’s reaction was not one of joy, but one of disbelief and anger…How is this possible? No one consulted me on this? No one made sure this was okay with me? This is not happening—Elizabeth is old! And I was not there for this decision! Oh Zechariah is upset! But here’s what happens…The angel tells Zechariah what this baby means—that this baby will be the forerunner for the messiah…That this is a joyful thing and that he should be excited and grateful for the gift that God is giving them…But Zechariah doesn’t stop…So, then it comes…The angel says…Hey, I was there—I know the whole story, what you clearly can’t understand. So, if you can’t accept this graciousness, the wonder of this gift, this baby…You will not speak until after your son is born. The angel takes away Zechariah’s voice…And Zechariah was not able to speak again until John was born.
Now this seemed to be quite an effective tool…it gave the angel the quiet to share the good news and it gave Zechariah time to think about what had just happened…He remained without a voice until his son was born. When John was born, Elizabeth & Zechariah brought their baby to the temple on the 8th day to be circumcised and named…Zechariah; still unable to speak was asked what name they were going to give this child. The angel had instructed both Elizabeth & Zechariah that their child was to be named John, so Elizabeth told the priest that was the name of the child and they argued with her. John was not a family name, so they questioned Elizabeth and asked Zechariah…Unable to speak, Zechariah wrote done the name John for the priests…It took him some time to soak in all that happened—the gift of a baby that he and Elizabeth had been given, the calling their son had been given by God, and the special circumstances around this baby…And he took it all in and accepted it. As he wrote down the name John on the tablet, his mouth was opened.
Our passage from this morning has the first words that Zechariah spoke when he was able to speak again. This really isn’t as much of a speech as a song. This was a song that Zechariah sang out of joy and belief. He had some time to think about what had been happening in Elizabeth & his life…And this was the song that he sang out of joy for what God had done in their life. Today, if people are so excited about something that they burst out in song, we think that there might be something a little wrong with them…But it was not uncommon in the temple for outbursts of song to happen. Its how people expressed themselves. Sometimes it’s easier to express in song what words can’t convey. And we have Zechariah’s song.
Even in the miraculous events around the gift of the baby and the birth of his son John, Zechariah recognized that there was something bigger going on. That his role in this was very small…As he sang, he prophesized about the coming Messiah. Now, Jesus was not yet born, but Mary was pregnant. And Zechariah sang of this coming Messiah. The horn of salvation from the house of David…The one who would save us from our enemies…The one who will execute mercy…The one who will remember the covenant of Abraham…The coming Messiah was a huge deal for God’s people.
The Jewish people were in exile once again as the Roman authorities had seized control over all of the world that they knew. They were waiting for the Messiah to come and overthrow this government and restore them to the power they thought they should have as God’s chosen people. What they had forgotten was that they had not lived as God’s chosen people…They were blessed to be a blessing…Instead they lived the blessing without sharing it with anyone else…When Zechariah sings about the covenant of Abraham—God had lived up to God’s end of the covenant, it was God’s people who fell short and didn’t live up to the covenant. So the Messiah that was coming was going to fix everything…
Zechariah’s song makes those promises again—that the Messiah was the one that they were waiting for…And as we knew Jesus came as the Messiah in ways that the world wasn’t expecting and in a lot of ways, the Messiah that the world didn’t want. So, Jesus is coming as the unexpected Messiah and John will be the prophet who will share the good news of Jesus’ coming.
When Zechariah dedicated his son as a prophet of the Most High, the one who will go before the face of the Lord, he knew the risks that this meant…Prophets were not well accepted and often met a terrible death…Not only was John being dedicated as a prophet, but as a prophet for the coming Messiah…Although most people wanted the Messiah, there were some who didn’t—mainly the people who were in political power and authority. And John will be the one to proclaim the coming of the Messiah.
Zechariah sang this song of joy knowing all the risks involved and he still sang to the glory of God. The decision that he was upset about at first, he knew had a bigger meaning than himself…It really wasn’t about him, but about God’s plan of salvation.
We have a lot to learn from Zechariah and his story seems so short…Just a few verses in the Gospel of Luke…We hear Zechariah’s selfish and angry disbelief and his move from that into understanding that there’s more than himself and what he wants.
Which is what the spirit of Christmas is about…Christmas is not about what we get and what we want, but Christmas is about that baby—the Messiah…It’s not about our desires, but it’s what God’s desires…And that spirit doesn’t last as long as Christmas, but that’s what the church is about. The church is not about our own desires, but about fulfilling the mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. We are blessed to be a blessing! How are we being a blessing to the world? How are we living like Zechariah and putting away our own selfish desires in order to live God’s desires? Do we fight for what we want or for what God wants? Are we working harder at keeping ourselves comfortable or are we willing to be uncomfortable in order for someone to understand the love of God? That’s what Zechariah did—he put aside himself in order for God’s plan for salvation to be made known…It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t comfortable, but it’s what God calls…We are blessed to be a blessing.
This Advent & Christmas seasons are great times to reconnect with that idea…Christmas is not about what you want, but it’s about Jesus…Christmas is not your birthday, it’s Jesus’ birthday…Church is not about what we want, but what God wants…And what God wants is for all people to know about God’s love…For all people to know about God’s mighty acts of salvation…That God’s love is free and available for all people…That Jesus Christ was born for the world…That’s the message that we should be sharing as we make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.
My friends the good news of the gospel is shared in Zechariah’s song…that God has raised up a horn of salvation from the house of David …The one who would save us from our enemies…The one who will execute mercy…The one who will remember the covenant of Abraham…The one who has blessed us to be a blessing for others.
The season of Advent is 4 weeks long…Advent is the season of waiting…It’s not Christmas yet as we wait for the birth of Jesus…Now, we of course know the whole story—the story of the baby that was born. But until Christmas comes, we wait…And our waiting isn’t quite as long as it must have seemed for the people who were waiting for the Messiah to come.
One of the things that is interesting to point out in all of the Gospels is that not much time is spent on Jesus’ birth…The Gospels of Matthew & Luke are the only two gospels that share anything about Jesus’ birth. In the gospel of Luke, where our passage comes from today…The birth of Jesus is told in 21 verses. The birth of Jesus’ cousin, John—known more commonly as John the Baptist, is told in 24 verses. Luke spends more time talking about the birth of John than the birth of Jesus.
John’s birth was one of miracles…The angel Gabriel came to Elizabeth and Elizabeth was told that she would have a baby. Elizabeth had been without child for so long that she was in advanced age, that it must have been a surprise to her when the angel told her she would have a baby, but she accepted this good news with excitement…Zechariah, well Zechariah on the other hand had another reaction…Zechariah, Elizabeth’s husband was in such disbelief and so surprised by this news! He just didn’t believe that it was possible. Now if there’s anything that we can learn throughout history is that one should always believe that God will do what God says God will do…
A baby was something that Elizabeth & Zechariah had been wanting for a long time, but had given up hope that it was even possible. Maybe you’ve felt like that before…There was something that you wanted so desperately but had given up hope that it was possible and then it just happens! And Zechariah was completely out of the loop with it…An angel came to him and told him that Elizabeth was going to have a baby…Exactly what they had been wanting…And Zechariah’s reaction was not one of joy, but one of disbelief and anger…How is this possible? No one consulted me on this? No one made sure this was okay with me? This is not happening—Elizabeth is old! And I was not there for this decision! Oh Zechariah is upset! But here’s what happens…The angel tells Zechariah what this baby means—that this baby will be the forerunner for the messiah…That this is a joyful thing and that he should be excited and grateful for the gift that God is giving them…But Zechariah doesn’t stop…So, then it comes…The angel says…Hey, I was there—I know the whole story, what you clearly can’t understand. So, if you can’t accept this graciousness, the wonder of this gift, this baby…You will not speak until after your son is born. The angel takes away Zechariah’s voice…And Zechariah was not able to speak again until John was born.
Now this seemed to be quite an effective tool…it gave the angel the quiet to share the good news and it gave Zechariah time to think about what had just happened…He remained without a voice until his son was born. When John was born, Elizabeth & Zechariah brought their baby to the temple on the 8th day to be circumcised and named…Zechariah; still unable to speak was asked what name they were going to give this child. The angel had instructed both Elizabeth & Zechariah that their child was to be named John, so Elizabeth told the priest that was the name of the child and they argued with her. John was not a family name, so they questioned Elizabeth and asked Zechariah…Unable to speak, Zechariah wrote done the name John for the priests…It took him some time to soak in all that happened—the gift of a baby that he and Elizabeth had been given, the calling their son had been given by God, and the special circumstances around this baby…And he took it all in and accepted it. As he wrote down the name John on the tablet, his mouth was opened.
Our passage from this morning has the first words that Zechariah spoke when he was able to speak again. This really isn’t as much of a speech as a song. This was a song that Zechariah sang out of joy and belief. He had some time to think about what had been happening in Elizabeth & his life…And this was the song that he sang out of joy for what God had done in their life. Today, if people are so excited about something that they burst out in song, we think that there might be something a little wrong with them…But it was not uncommon in the temple for outbursts of song to happen. Its how people expressed themselves. Sometimes it’s easier to express in song what words can’t convey. And we have Zechariah’s song.
Even in the miraculous events around the gift of the baby and the birth of his son John, Zechariah recognized that there was something bigger going on. That his role in this was very small…As he sang, he prophesized about the coming Messiah. Now, Jesus was not yet born, but Mary was pregnant. And Zechariah sang of this coming Messiah. The horn of salvation from the house of David…The one who would save us from our enemies…The one who will execute mercy…The one who will remember the covenant of Abraham…The coming Messiah was a huge deal for God’s people.
The Jewish people were in exile once again as the Roman authorities had seized control over all of the world that they knew. They were waiting for the Messiah to come and overthrow this government and restore them to the power they thought they should have as God’s chosen people. What they had forgotten was that they had not lived as God’s chosen people…They were blessed to be a blessing…Instead they lived the blessing without sharing it with anyone else…When Zechariah sings about the covenant of Abraham—God had lived up to God’s end of the covenant, it was God’s people who fell short and didn’t live up to the covenant. So the Messiah that was coming was going to fix everything…
Zechariah’s song makes those promises again—that the Messiah was the one that they were waiting for…And as we knew Jesus came as the Messiah in ways that the world wasn’t expecting and in a lot of ways, the Messiah that the world didn’t want. So, Jesus is coming as the unexpected Messiah and John will be the prophet who will share the good news of Jesus’ coming.
When Zechariah dedicated his son as a prophet of the Most High, the one who will go before the face of the Lord, he knew the risks that this meant…Prophets were not well accepted and often met a terrible death…Not only was John being dedicated as a prophet, but as a prophet for the coming Messiah…Although most people wanted the Messiah, there were some who didn’t—mainly the people who were in political power and authority. And John will be the one to proclaim the coming of the Messiah.
Zechariah sang this song of joy knowing all the risks involved and he still sang to the glory of God. The decision that he was upset about at first, he knew had a bigger meaning than himself…It really wasn’t about him, but about God’s plan of salvation.
We have a lot to learn from Zechariah and his story seems so short…Just a few verses in the Gospel of Luke…We hear Zechariah’s selfish and angry disbelief and his move from that into understanding that there’s more than himself and what he wants.
Which is what the spirit of Christmas is about…Christmas is not about what we get and what we want, but Christmas is about that baby—the Messiah…It’s not about our desires, but it’s what God’s desires…And that spirit doesn’t last as long as Christmas, but that’s what the church is about. The church is not about our own desires, but about fulfilling the mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. We are blessed to be a blessing! How are we being a blessing to the world? How are we living like Zechariah and putting away our own selfish desires in order to live God’s desires? Do we fight for what we want or for what God wants? Are we working harder at keeping ourselves comfortable or are we willing to be uncomfortable in order for someone to understand the love of God? That’s what Zechariah did—he put aside himself in order for God’s plan for salvation to be made known…It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t comfortable, but it’s what God calls…We are blessed to be a blessing.
This Advent & Christmas seasons are great times to reconnect with that idea…Christmas is not about what you want, but it’s about Jesus…Christmas is not your birthday, it’s Jesus’ birthday…Church is not about what we want, but what God wants…And what God wants is for all people to know about God’s love…For all people to know about God’s mighty acts of salvation…That God’s love is free and available for all people…That Jesus Christ was born for the world…That’s the message that we should be sharing as we make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.
My friends the good news of the gospel is shared in Zechariah’s song…that God has raised up a horn of salvation from the house of David …The one who would save us from our enemies…The one who will execute mercy…The one who will remember the covenant of Abraham…The one who has blessed us to be a blessing for others.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Stay in Love with God
Stay in Love with God
I love coffee…The taste, the smell, the idea…I’m not gonna lie, I need to have at least 2 cups of coffee in the morning to be functional and the stronger the better…I like my coffee with cream and sugar…I prefer fair trade coffee because there’s nothing like knowing that a farmer earned a fair wage for their work rather than being exploited by corporations…I love coffee…I love the way that it warms me up when I’m feeling cold or if I’m feeling adventurous and try ice coffee, how it cools me down…I feel better after that first drink in the morning and I feel full of energy and ready to tackle the day…I crave coffee…Coffee fills me up! And yet…no matter how much I love coffee, there are times when I’m just done with it…I cut out the hard stuff by about 2:00 and am not a fan of decaf…Sometimes I’m just not thirsty and don’t need a drink…Sometimes I’ve just had too much and I’m done for the day…As much as I love coffee, I’m just kind of done with it…I’m sure you’ve got something like that for you…chocolate? Sports? Shopping? What is that thing that you just seem to crave? And yet no matter how much coffee I drink, it’s not always what I’m craving…I think it might be, but it’s just not satisfying like I want it to be…It seems like there’s something more…
For the past couple weeks we’ve been going through John Wesley’s 3 Simple Rules…The first week, we explored the first rule—Do No Harm, which isn’t as easy as we may think nor is it one that many people go out to intentionally break and yet it happens, right? So there’s grace for when we do fall short…But more than doing no harm, we explored the second rule—Do Good…which is the other side of do no harm—where we seek to do all the good we can in all the places we can to all the people we can as long as we ever can and not because we are trying to earn God’s love, but because we have already received God’s love…Which brings us to the third rule which is clearly not about coffee…But the third rule is to stay in love with God. So, what does that mean?
When married couples are having difficulties in their marriage, one of the pieces of advice is to think about what made them fall in love. To go to the time when they knew this was the person with whom they wanted to spend the rest of their life with—the person that they were madly in love with. So, when was the first time that you knew that you were in love with God? Now, it sounds like an awkward question because we usually don’t talk about God in a romantic way or in a way where God is my boyfriend or girlfriend…But, falling in love with God is something that we do when we decide to claim Jesus Christ as Lord…If you didn’t love God—would you really do something like that? Give your whole life over? No, we don’t talk about God with the romantic love, we talk about God in the “agape” love…Agape is the fullest kind of love…In the Greek language there are several different words for “love” each describing a different kind of love—erros which is passionate love; philios which is brotherly or friendship kind of love, and agape which is the fullest and Godly kind of love. The root for the word agape is also the root for the same word as holy in the Greek…So agape is kind of that holy love. So, when did you fall into agape with God? It doesn’t have to be a life changing moment, although that’s possible! It may have been a gradual happening—something that you didn’t even realize was happening, but now life will never be the same! When did you fall in love with God?
Jesus’ sermon on the mount is a challenging piece of Scripture because it challenges beliefs and actions…Jesus calls for a commitment to the whole of God—to fall in love with God with our whole beings…The last section doesn’t sway from that idea whatsoever…Jesus tells those listening that not everyone that says “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom of God…That’s not very comforting is it? Not everyone that calls on the name of God will enter the kingdom of God? What does that really mean? Jesus is insistent that our actions must match our belief…If we confess that Jesus is Lord, Jesus is Lord over our whole lives and not just what we want Jesus to be Lord over…So you can’t say, Jesus I want you to be my Lord, but stay out of my business…And if we confess Jesus as Lord it’s all the time and not just when it’s convenient…Jesus I want you to be my Lord on Sundays and Tuesdays, but the rest of the time is off limits…Not everyone who claims to believe really believes…
Now that’s not to say that we should look at everyone who confesses Jesus with suspicion and think, “I wonder if they’re one of those Christians.” Jesus also said, take the log out of your own eye before you attempt to remove the speck in another’s…Don’t worry so much about what someone else is doing—what are you doing? Are you in love with God with your whole being? Because I have to tell you that it is not easy all the time…
There are so many things pulling our attention from God…Oh, I’ll just watch this one episode of ER and then I’ll pray…Oh, I’ll just miss worship this one week so that I can sleep in…Oh, I’ll just stay at work a little bit longer and then I’ll study the Bible…There is much that will pull our attention away from God. There is much that comes between that love that we have with God…Now some may be thinking…Well, you know what Melissa you have no idea—I do love God with my whole being…Which you may very well do…But let me ask a question—where does most of your money go? If you looked at the register in your checkbook—where does most of your money go? Is it to God? Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also…
In a couple weeks we will begin the Advent countdown…The four weeks where we prepare for the birth of Jesus—Christmas. Our culture gives us subtle hints as to when it’s time to celebrate Christmas…Maybe you’ve heard the songs on the radio already, or have seen the decorations in the stores, or have started thinking about gifts lists…Christmas has taken on a whole new life in the middle of our culture…Over the past few years there have been arguments about whether to say “Happy holidays” or “Merry Christmas”…but instead of focusing what we say to one another, what if we focused on what Christmas is really about? Because Christmas isn’t really about what our culture tells us…It’s not about gifts or ribbons, or cookies…Christmas is about a Messiah that came to us because we couldn’t do it on our own…Christmas is about a Savior who chose to spend time with us so that we could understand the love and grace of God…Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus…Christmas is Jesus’ birthday! Christmas is not your birthday…you have a birthday where you receive gifts and celebrate…Christmas is about Jesus’ birth…Now some may be thinking, “I’m not going to let you make me feel guilty for wanting to buy gifts for my loved ones.” Well, I’m not trying to…But here’s the challenge I give to you…Whatever you spend on Christmas this year—bring that same amount to the church. So, if you spend $1,000 on Christmas, bring $1,000 to the church…If you spend $10,000 on Christmas, bring $10,000 to the church. Whatever is collected from this Christmas miracle offering will go to help hunger issues. Because 30,000 children die every day from hunger issues. Because most of the world’s population lives on less than $2 a day…Because it takes just $360 to feed a child for a year…$40 to feed a family of 5 for a month…Can you imagine what kind of a gift it is to give someone help to meet their basic needs? That instead of focusing on what we get and what we need, we focused on what someone else may need to live…That we live simply so that others may simply live.
Stay in love with God…Any relationship takes work…It takes communication and action…If you talked to someone you loved once a week, what kind of relationship do you have? If you talked to someone you love only when things are going wrong, what kind of relationship do you have? If you tell someone you love to stay out of your business, what kind of relationship do you have? Why is it okay to say & do those things to God? How do we stay in love with God?
By focusing on God…By being intentional about making God first in every aspect of our lives…John Wesley said to it was by attending upon the ordinances of God….Worship, Communion, Prayer, Bible study, Christian fellowship and discussion…
Imagine what it would be like if instead of craving a cup of coffee in the morning, you craved spending time with God in prayer…Because the satisfaction that comes from that is more than any cup of coffee can give…Every morning, I start the with prayer and devotion. Upstairs in my library, before I even go downstairs to make my coffee, I’m in prayer and time with God…Sometimes it’s a long time before I can get settled enough to be fully with God and sometimes it’s very quick…And there are days when I’m running late or my alarm doesn’t go off that I don’t spend that time with God…And I know it because my whole day is off…I feel like the person Jesus talks about who built their house on sandy land instead of a strong foundation…That’s what it’s like when we don’t give our whole selves to God—when we still want to follow our own way or the way that our culture tells us…our lives are built on sand instead of a strong foundation…
Stay in love with God by attending to all the ordinances of God…God asks a lot from us…Just in Jesus’ sermon on the mount, there is a lot asked of us…Don’t murder, don’t be angry, don’t commit adultery, don’t look at anyone with lust, treat others as you would like to be treated, forgive your brothers and sisters, whatever you do to the least of these you do to me, where your treasure is there your heart will be also…And that’s just the beginning…God asks a lot from us—God asks for all of us! God wants us to love God with our whole being…And it’s not an impossible task…Yes, it is hard because so much pulls our attention elsewhere…But it’s not impossible to stay in love with God…If you find it challenging, turn to the person sitting next to you and promise to help them when life gets hard and they promise to you the same thing…Find some friends to build a covenant group…Find someone who will hold you accountable…It’s not impossible to stay in love with God…Partly because it’s deep within us to want to…God has placed a desire in us to be with God…Instead of filling that desire with other things, let’s fill it with God…By attending to the ordinances of God…By doing no harm…by doing God…and Staying in love with God.
I love coffee…The taste, the smell, the idea…I’m not gonna lie, I need to have at least 2 cups of coffee in the morning to be functional and the stronger the better…I like my coffee with cream and sugar…I prefer fair trade coffee because there’s nothing like knowing that a farmer earned a fair wage for their work rather than being exploited by corporations…I love coffee…I love the way that it warms me up when I’m feeling cold or if I’m feeling adventurous and try ice coffee, how it cools me down…I feel better after that first drink in the morning and I feel full of energy and ready to tackle the day…I crave coffee…Coffee fills me up! And yet…no matter how much I love coffee, there are times when I’m just done with it…I cut out the hard stuff by about 2:00 and am not a fan of decaf…Sometimes I’m just not thirsty and don’t need a drink…Sometimes I’ve just had too much and I’m done for the day…As much as I love coffee, I’m just kind of done with it…I’m sure you’ve got something like that for you…chocolate? Sports? Shopping? What is that thing that you just seem to crave? And yet no matter how much coffee I drink, it’s not always what I’m craving…I think it might be, but it’s just not satisfying like I want it to be…It seems like there’s something more…
For the past couple weeks we’ve been going through John Wesley’s 3 Simple Rules…The first week, we explored the first rule—Do No Harm, which isn’t as easy as we may think nor is it one that many people go out to intentionally break and yet it happens, right? So there’s grace for when we do fall short…But more than doing no harm, we explored the second rule—Do Good…which is the other side of do no harm—where we seek to do all the good we can in all the places we can to all the people we can as long as we ever can and not because we are trying to earn God’s love, but because we have already received God’s love…Which brings us to the third rule which is clearly not about coffee…But the third rule is to stay in love with God. So, what does that mean?
When married couples are having difficulties in their marriage, one of the pieces of advice is to think about what made them fall in love. To go to the time when they knew this was the person with whom they wanted to spend the rest of their life with—the person that they were madly in love with. So, when was the first time that you knew that you were in love with God? Now, it sounds like an awkward question because we usually don’t talk about God in a romantic way or in a way where God is my boyfriend or girlfriend…But, falling in love with God is something that we do when we decide to claim Jesus Christ as Lord…If you didn’t love God—would you really do something like that? Give your whole life over? No, we don’t talk about God with the romantic love, we talk about God in the “agape” love…Agape is the fullest kind of love…In the Greek language there are several different words for “love” each describing a different kind of love—erros which is passionate love; philios which is brotherly or friendship kind of love, and agape which is the fullest and Godly kind of love. The root for the word agape is also the root for the same word as holy in the Greek…So agape is kind of that holy love. So, when did you fall into agape with God? It doesn’t have to be a life changing moment, although that’s possible! It may have been a gradual happening—something that you didn’t even realize was happening, but now life will never be the same! When did you fall in love with God?
Jesus’ sermon on the mount is a challenging piece of Scripture because it challenges beliefs and actions…Jesus calls for a commitment to the whole of God—to fall in love with God with our whole beings…The last section doesn’t sway from that idea whatsoever…Jesus tells those listening that not everyone that says “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom of God…That’s not very comforting is it? Not everyone that calls on the name of God will enter the kingdom of God? What does that really mean? Jesus is insistent that our actions must match our belief…If we confess that Jesus is Lord, Jesus is Lord over our whole lives and not just what we want Jesus to be Lord over…So you can’t say, Jesus I want you to be my Lord, but stay out of my business…And if we confess Jesus as Lord it’s all the time and not just when it’s convenient…Jesus I want you to be my Lord on Sundays and Tuesdays, but the rest of the time is off limits…Not everyone who claims to believe really believes…
Now that’s not to say that we should look at everyone who confesses Jesus with suspicion and think, “I wonder if they’re one of those Christians.” Jesus also said, take the log out of your own eye before you attempt to remove the speck in another’s…Don’t worry so much about what someone else is doing—what are you doing? Are you in love with God with your whole being? Because I have to tell you that it is not easy all the time…
There are so many things pulling our attention from God…Oh, I’ll just watch this one episode of ER and then I’ll pray…Oh, I’ll just miss worship this one week so that I can sleep in…Oh, I’ll just stay at work a little bit longer and then I’ll study the Bible…There is much that will pull our attention away from God. There is much that comes between that love that we have with God…Now some may be thinking…Well, you know what Melissa you have no idea—I do love God with my whole being…Which you may very well do…But let me ask a question—where does most of your money go? If you looked at the register in your checkbook—where does most of your money go? Is it to God? Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also…
In a couple weeks we will begin the Advent countdown…The four weeks where we prepare for the birth of Jesus—Christmas. Our culture gives us subtle hints as to when it’s time to celebrate Christmas…Maybe you’ve heard the songs on the radio already, or have seen the decorations in the stores, or have started thinking about gifts lists…Christmas has taken on a whole new life in the middle of our culture…Over the past few years there have been arguments about whether to say “Happy holidays” or “Merry Christmas”…but instead of focusing what we say to one another, what if we focused on what Christmas is really about? Because Christmas isn’t really about what our culture tells us…It’s not about gifts or ribbons, or cookies…Christmas is about a Messiah that came to us because we couldn’t do it on our own…Christmas is about a Savior who chose to spend time with us so that we could understand the love and grace of God…Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus…Christmas is Jesus’ birthday! Christmas is not your birthday…you have a birthday where you receive gifts and celebrate…Christmas is about Jesus’ birth…Now some may be thinking, “I’m not going to let you make me feel guilty for wanting to buy gifts for my loved ones.” Well, I’m not trying to…But here’s the challenge I give to you…Whatever you spend on Christmas this year—bring that same amount to the church. So, if you spend $1,000 on Christmas, bring $1,000 to the church…If you spend $10,000 on Christmas, bring $10,000 to the church. Whatever is collected from this Christmas miracle offering will go to help hunger issues. Because 30,000 children die every day from hunger issues. Because most of the world’s population lives on less than $2 a day…Because it takes just $360 to feed a child for a year…$40 to feed a family of 5 for a month…Can you imagine what kind of a gift it is to give someone help to meet their basic needs? That instead of focusing on what we get and what we need, we focused on what someone else may need to live…That we live simply so that others may simply live.
Stay in love with God…Any relationship takes work…It takes communication and action…If you talked to someone you loved once a week, what kind of relationship do you have? If you talked to someone you love only when things are going wrong, what kind of relationship do you have? If you tell someone you love to stay out of your business, what kind of relationship do you have? Why is it okay to say & do those things to God? How do we stay in love with God?
By focusing on God…By being intentional about making God first in every aspect of our lives…John Wesley said to it was by attending upon the ordinances of God….Worship, Communion, Prayer, Bible study, Christian fellowship and discussion…
Imagine what it would be like if instead of craving a cup of coffee in the morning, you craved spending time with God in prayer…Because the satisfaction that comes from that is more than any cup of coffee can give…Every morning, I start the with prayer and devotion. Upstairs in my library, before I even go downstairs to make my coffee, I’m in prayer and time with God…Sometimes it’s a long time before I can get settled enough to be fully with God and sometimes it’s very quick…And there are days when I’m running late or my alarm doesn’t go off that I don’t spend that time with God…And I know it because my whole day is off…I feel like the person Jesus talks about who built their house on sandy land instead of a strong foundation…That’s what it’s like when we don’t give our whole selves to God—when we still want to follow our own way or the way that our culture tells us…our lives are built on sand instead of a strong foundation…
Stay in love with God by attending to all the ordinances of God…God asks a lot from us…Just in Jesus’ sermon on the mount, there is a lot asked of us…Don’t murder, don’t be angry, don’t commit adultery, don’t look at anyone with lust, treat others as you would like to be treated, forgive your brothers and sisters, whatever you do to the least of these you do to me, where your treasure is there your heart will be also…And that’s just the beginning…God asks a lot from us—God asks for all of us! God wants us to love God with our whole being…And it’s not an impossible task…Yes, it is hard because so much pulls our attention elsewhere…But it’s not impossible to stay in love with God…If you find it challenging, turn to the person sitting next to you and promise to help them when life gets hard and they promise to you the same thing…Find some friends to build a covenant group…Find someone who will hold you accountable…It’s not impossible to stay in love with God…Partly because it’s deep within us to want to…God has placed a desire in us to be with God…Instead of filling that desire with other things, let’s fill it with God…By attending to the ordinances of God…By doing no harm…by doing God…and Staying in love with God.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Do Good
Do Good
This week we continue our series on John Wesley’s 3 simple rules. These rules were the basis that John Wesley required those in the Methodist societies to live by. As the members of the small groups gathered together they shared together how it was with their souls based around the general rules: Do no harm, Do Good, and Stay in Love with God. In their small groups, they were held accountable for their actions and responsible for deepening their faith together. It was John Wesley’s intention that through these Methodist societies, the Church of England would ultimately be revived. As with most revolutions, that proved to be impossible and the beginning of the Methodist Church was started. We didn’t become the United Methodist Church until 1968 when the Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Bretheren Church joined together. In the past few years there has been a resurgence in connection with the Wesleyan way or the way that John Wesley taught and preached. One of those reconnections has been through the general rules. Ruben Job wrote a small book on these general rules in order to help understand these general rules and that has been the basis of the 3 Simple Rules.
Last week we considered the first rule: Do no harm and discovered that it may be more difficult than originally thought. But we continue to strive toward the goal of doing no harm and for the times when we fall short, God’s grace is there.
So on the other side of do no harm, would be to do good. Which just like do no harm seems to be quite simple! Many people would agree that the world would probably be a better place if more people helped one another and cared for one another as Jesus taught. So if do good is such an easy rule, why is the world not such a perfect place? Maybe because do good isn’t as easy either…
Whenever I hear the rule do good, I can hear my dad’s voice…It must have started when I was little, but I can remember all the way until I graduated high school the message that he left whenever he left. “Be good.” He always said…Now, that meant to follow all the rules and be respectful and help out…None of that was ever spelled out, but it was what he meant when he said, “Be good.” I wonder if that’s partly what John Wesley meant when he said, do good.
The full rule from Wesley is “do all the good you can, to all the people you can, in all the places that you can.” Now, I don’t know about you but I can name a lot of places to do good…And I can name a lot of places where good is not done…
It’s not enough to just do no harm…Because even if you succeeded in doing no harm perfectly, what would you be doing? You’d be focusing so much on that that you would forget anything else! So as we try not to do harm we also try to do good.
As Jesus continues his teaching on the sermon on the mount, he is talking to the crowd about spiritual disciplines—fasting, praying, and giving to the poor. In each case he gives them an instruction on how not to do the discipline and how to do the discipline….
”Whenever you give, do not sound trumpets so others will notice…Instead, don’t let your right hand know what your left hand is doing.” Now, in the past few years many celebrities have been outspoken about the donations that they have made to charities…And for some it is a way to get more people to give, but for others it’s a way to draw attention to themselves…Bill & Melinda Gates—the world’s richest couple have also been the biggest philanthropists, and although some of their work is starting to get some attention, the Gates do not bring attention to the amount of money that they give, just to the work that’s being done. In May of this year at our General Conference the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundations issued the challenge to double whatever was given to the Nothing But Nets campaign to buy nets for those who live in countries where malaria is rampant. I have not yet heard what the collection has been, but as the Northern Illinois Conference we have collected $22,983 during annual conference. Now some of you are probably thinking that you will not ever see that amount of money and so it’s pretty easy to think about not broadcasting how much you give…And although giving money is important because God commands it, it’s not the only way that we give…We give our time, our talents, our prayers, and our service as well…If the motivation of getting attention is your motive for doing good, are you really doing good or are you serving yourself? What does it mean to give without drawing attention to yourself? Well, it means to do good…
Jesus also talks about prayer….He talks about the hypocrites who pray loudly in order to be seen and get attention…Jesus says go into your closet and shut the door…What was happening was there were people who were in the temples and in the streets praying loudly and broadcasting all of their accomplishments and what they had done and focusing on themselves rather than on God. So when Jesus says go into your closet and shut the door he is reminding them to focus on God and their relationship with God rather than making themselves look good.
Jesus also talks about fasting—the discipline of giving something up, usually for 40 days. Most Christians understand this as a part of Lent, but fasting is not limited to the Lenten season. Fasting is something that can be done year round and in many different ways. Some people give up eating…some give up a particular item…What is important to remember in giving something up, is that we fill the time doing whatever it was that we gave up with spending time with God. So if your fast is from eating, the time that you would normally eat, you should spend that time in prayer and study with God. What was happening with the hypocrites as Jesus called them is that they were fasting for attention…They would go out into public looking pathetic…A way of saying, “I’m so faithful and holy--- look at me!” But Jesus says, to continue to fast and go out as though nothing had changed…Shower, dress up, put oil on your face and don’t look pathetic…Don’t draw attention to yourself because that defeats the purpose…
Jesus continues by saying not to store up treasures on earth—for where your treasure is there your heart will be also…Do good…If we are so focused on ourselves and what people think about us, are we doing good? Are we loving with sacrificial love like Jesus taught? Where is our treasure? Is it in our stuff? Is it in what other people think of us? Is it in God? As we love our neighbor as we love ourselves? Do good…
Doing good is important and there are many things that constitute doing good…But what is the motive behind it? Is it to get attention or is it to humbly serve? Do all the good you can in all the places you can to all the people you can.
It’s not enough to do no harm…If you hold your tongue from saying something bad about someone are you telling them something good instead? If you stop from hitting someone are building them up instead? If you stop gossiping are you instead sharing your faith? Are you doing all the good you can in the all the places you can to all the people you can? Even if we avoid doing no harm and do no good we have still been doing harm…Silence speaks volumes many times.
The Sudan has been called by the United Nations as the worst humanitarian crisis. Sudan is a country in Africa that is torn by war and genocide…Our government has called what is happening in Sudan a genocide…Children are being killed daily or forced to become soldiers…Women are being raped or forced to become slaves…There are conditions that we can’t even begin to imagine…We can say we won’t support the terrible regimes that are causing this harm and doing these things, but if we don’t follow that up with doing good our silence seems to agree with those who perpetrate the crimes against humanity…What does it mean to do good?
Maybe if more people focused on doing good the world would be a much better place…And it would be easy to look at the world and say, “well no one else is doing it so why should I?” or “There’s just too much to do and I’m only one person…” Maybe you’ve heard the starfish story? (Starfish story)…What difference are you making in even one person’s life? Are you doing all the good you can in all the places you can to all the people you can? It doesn’t have to be a grand event or something huge…It can be simple, but powerful…Like pushing someone’s cart back for them…or buying some extra food for the food pantry…or giving a smile to someone who’s had a hard day…giving someone a compliment rather than sharing gossip…Sharing your faith rather than worrying about what they’ll think about you…
There are countless ways to do all the good we can in all the places we can to all the people we can…And we don’t do good to earn favor with God…We do good because we’ve already gained favor with God…Jesus already took care of what we couldn’t…We are justified through Jesus because he did what we could not…Because of that justification we strive to do good…Not because we want God to love us more but because God has already loved us more than we can imagine…God doesn’t keep a tally list of how much good that we do and that means we get a bigger reward or it makes up for the times that we didn’t…We do good because it’s what God wants us to do…To love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength and to love our neighbor as we love ourself…To do justice, to love mercy, and walk humbly with our God…Do do no harm, to do good, and stay in love with God…
This week we continue our series on John Wesley’s 3 simple rules. These rules were the basis that John Wesley required those in the Methodist societies to live by. As the members of the small groups gathered together they shared together how it was with their souls based around the general rules: Do no harm, Do Good, and Stay in Love with God. In their small groups, they were held accountable for their actions and responsible for deepening their faith together. It was John Wesley’s intention that through these Methodist societies, the Church of England would ultimately be revived. As with most revolutions, that proved to be impossible and the beginning of the Methodist Church was started. We didn’t become the United Methodist Church until 1968 when the Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Bretheren Church joined together. In the past few years there has been a resurgence in connection with the Wesleyan way or the way that John Wesley taught and preached. One of those reconnections has been through the general rules. Ruben Job wrote a small book on these general rules in order to help understand these general rules and that has been the basis of the 3 Simple Rules.
Last week we considered the first rule: Do no harm and discovered that it may be more difficult than originally thought. But we continue to strive toward the goal of doing no harm and for the times when we fall short, God’s grace is there.
So on the other side of do no harm, would be to do good. Which just like do no harm seems to be quite simple! Many people would agree that the world would probably be a better place if more people helped one another and cared for one another as Jesus taught. So if do good is such an easy rule, why is the world not such a perfect place? Maybe because do good isn’t as easy either…
Whenever I hear the rule do good, I can hear my dad’s voice…It must have started when I was little, but I can remember all the way until I graduated high school the message that he left whenever he left. “Be good.” He always said…Now, that meant to follow all the rules and be respectful and help out…None of that was ever spelled out, but it was what he meant when he said, “Be good.” I wonder if that’s partly what John Wesley meant when he said, do good.
The full rule from Wesley is “do all the good you can, to all the people you can, in all the places that you can.” Now, I don’t know about you but I can name a lot of places to do good…And I can name a lot of places where good is not done…
It’s not enough to just do no harm…Because even if you succeeded in doing no harm perfectly, what would you be doing? You’d be focusing so much on that that you would forget anything else! So as we try not to do harm we also try to do good.
As Jesus continues his teaching on the sermon on the mount, he is talking to the crowd about spiritual disciplines—fasting, praying, and giving to the poor. In each case he gives them an instruction on how not to do the discipline and how to do the discipline….
”Whenever you give, do not sound trumpets so others will notice…Instead, don’t let your right hand know what your left hand is doing.” Now, in the past few years many celebrities have been outspoken about the donations that they have made to charities…And for some it is a way to get more people to give, but for others it’s a way to draw attention to themselves…Bill & Melinda Gates—the world’s richest couple have also been the biggest philanthropists, and although some of their work is starting to get some attention, the Gates do not bring attention to the amount of money that they give, just to the work that’s being done. In May of this year at our General Conference the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundations issued the challenge to double whatever was given to the Nothing But Nets campaign to buy nets for those who live in countries where malaria is rampant. I have not yet heard what the collection has been, but as the Northern Illinois Conference we have collected $22,983 during annual conference. Now some of you are probably thinking that you will not ever see that amount of money and so it’s pretty easy to think about not broadcasting how much you give…And although giving money is important because God commands it, it’s not the only way that we give…We give our time, our talents, our prayers, and our service as well…If the motivation of getting attention is your motive for doing good, are you really doing good or are you serving yourself? What does it mean to give without drawing attention to yourself? Well, it means to do good…
Jesus also talks about prayer….He talks about the hypocrites who pray loudly in order to be seen and get attention…Jesus says go into your closet and shut the door…What was happening was there were people who were in the temples and in the streets praying loudly and broadcasting all of their accomplishments and what they had done and focusing on themselves rather than on God. So when Jesus says go into your closet and shut the door he is reminding them to focus on God and their relationship with God rather than making themselves look good.
Jesus also talks about fasting—the discipline of giving something up, usually for 40 days. Most Christians understand this as a part of Lent, but fasting is not limited to the Lenten season. Fasting is something that can be done year round and in many different ways. Some people give up eating…some give up a particular item…What is important to remember in giving something up, is that we fill the time doing whatever it was that we gave up with spending time with God. So if your fast is from eating, the time that you would normally eat, you should spend that time in prayer and study with God. What was happening with the hypocrites as Jesus called them is that they were fasting for attention…They would go out into public looking pathetic…A way of saying, “I’m so faithful and holy--- look at me!” But Jesus says, to continue to fast and go out as though nothing had changed…Shower, dress up, put oil on your face and don’t look pathetic…Don’t draw attention to yourself because that defeats the purpose…
Jesus continues by saying not to store up treasures on earth—for where your treasure is there your heart will be also…Do good…If we are so focused on ourselves and what people think about us, are we doing good? Are we loving with sacrificial love like Jesus taught? Where is our treasure? Is it in our stuff? Is it in what other people think of us? Is it in God? As we love our neighbor as we love ourselves? Do good…
Doing good is important and there are many things that constitute doing good…But what is the motive behind it? Is it to get attention or is it to humbly serve? Do all the good you can in all the places you can to all the people you can.
It’s not enough to do no harm…If you hold your tongue from saying something bad about someone are you telling them something good instead? If you stop from hitting someone are building them up instead? If you stop gossiping are you instead sharing your faith? Are you doing all the good you can in the all the places you can to all the people you can? Even if we avoid doing no harm and do no good we have still been doing harm…Silence speaks volumes many times.
The Sudan has been called by the United Nations as the worst humanitarian crisis. Sudan is a country in Africa that is torn by war and genocide…Our government has called what is happening in Sudan a genocide…Children are being killed daily or forced to become soldiers…Women are being raped or forced to become slaves…There are conditions that we can’t even begin to imagine…We can say we won’t support the terrible regimes that are causing this harm and doing these things, but if we don’t follow that up with doing good our silence seems to agree with those who perpetrate the crimes against humanity…What does it mean to do good?
Maybe if more people focused on doing good the world would be a much better place…And it would be easy to look at the world and say, “well no one else is doing it so why should I?” or “There’s just too much to do and I’m only one person…” Maybe you’ve heard the starfish story? (Starfish story)…What difference are you making in even one person’s life? Are you doing all the good you can in all the places you can to all the people you can? It doesn’t have to be a grand event or something huge…It can be simple, but powerful…Like pushing someone’s cart back for them…or buying some extra food for the food pantry…or giving a smile to someone who’s had a hard day…giving someone a compliment rather than sharing gossip…Sharing your faith rather than worrying about what they’ll think about you…
There are countless ways to do all the good we can in all the places we can to all the people we can…And we don’t do good to earn favor with God…We do good because we’ve already gained favor with God…Jesus already took care of what we couldn’t…We are justified through Jesus because he did what we could not…Because of that justification we strive to do good…Not because we want God to love us more but because God has already loved us more than we can imagine…God doesn’t keep a tally list of how much good that we do and that means we get a bigger reward or it makes up for the times that we didn’t…We do good because it’s what God wants us to do…To love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength and to love our neighbor as we love ourself…To do justice, to love mercy, and walk humbly with our God…Do do no harm, to do good, and stay in love with God…
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