Politics According to Jesus

Deuteronomy 34:1-12, Psalm 1, Matthew 22:34-46

Good morning!

Turn to your neighbor and say, “Neighbor, who are you voting for?”

Do you realize that that question has been extraordinarily rare in the history of the human race? Voting for our leaders is just not something that most people have done. In fact, it was so rare that we don’t see it in the Bible. Even in the selection of an Apostle to replace Judas Iscariot, the followers of Jesus came up with two men and let God select the winner through the casting of lots.

Throughout most of history, the vast majority of people have lived under governments that were established not by the vote of the people, but by the vote of the sword. The men who held the weapons decided who would lead the nation. In many cases, this meant that the leader of the nation was the most capable military leader. In other cases, it meant that the son or grandson of that great military leader retained control. But in many cases, it simply meant that the country was ruled by the man who was most ruthless.

You will notice I’ve said, “man”. I meant that. Until the 19th century, the number of women who ruled nations who were more than figureheads could be counted on your fingers. Of course, those few that did were very notable – Cleopatra of Egypt, Elizabeth I of England, Catherine the Great of Russia.

Democracy and its modern cousin, the democratic republic have been very rare, only becoming popular recently. The first democracy of any note was the city of Athens, Greece, around 500 BC, when any free adult male could come to the city center and vote on any issue. There was no mayor, no city council – the men simply talked for hours and voted on the issue.

Rome had a bit of a democratic republic in its early days, but it was stacked. If you were a foot soldier, you and 99 other foot soldiers got together and your company had one vote. If you could ride into battle on horseback, you and 9 other friends similarly equipped came together and your squad of cavalry got one vote. And if you were the leader of one of the noble families, you got one vote. And this crazy system worked for about 700 years, and only failed with the arrival of Julius Caesar, about 60 years before Christ was born.

After Caesar, all thoughts of ordinary people electing leaders were lost until the days of the American Revolution in 1776. But since then, one nation after another has gone to the vote principle, and today, almost every country in the world has some form of vote for their leaders.

But at the time of Christ, voting was not used. Men became king or emperor because of their military genius – or their family connections. And so we often wonder what Jesus had to say about politics.

Today, when politicians look toward Christians, it always seems to me that they are trying to sell us something. They see us as a constituency, as a group of people who will support them if they will say the right thing, if they come down on the right side of “our” issues, or they assume we will vote for them because they are one party or the other.

It wasn’t always that way. Politicians used to be very careful to listen to the people in the churches, for pastors looked to the Bible and made up their minds about what our positions would be, people listened to their pastors, and then the politicians, no matter which party, listened to what the church people said, for it was the people in the churches that consistently voted. In fact, many Presidents and powerful politicians started out in churches, or came from ministerial families. Woodrow Wilson’s father actually helped to found the Southern Presbyterian Church in the United States when the Presbyterians split during the Civil War.

But today, politicians rarely come from a church background. There simply doesn’t seem to be time – or perhaps Christians don’t want to get their hands dirty with the political mess.

But what did Jesus have to say that can guide us in our voting?

Perhaps the most important thing is related to our reading today. David was the greatest king that Israel had ever had. Under David and his son Solomon, Israel had been a great nation, able to stand up to the Egyptians in the south and the various countries in the east where modern day Iraq and Iran are. Israel, for one brief period of time, was able to stand tall and not have to play its neighbors off against each other. So David was the model king for the people of Israel who lived at the time of Jesus.

Jesus gets into a verbal battle of wits with some of the Pharisees. They asked Him what was the greatest commandment of the 632 commandments in the Old Testament, and Jesus tells them that they should love God completely – and love their neighbor as themselves. He says that these two principles summarize the entire law, the 632 commandments, and they are most important. We would do well to remember these – Love God completely and love your neighbor as yourself. In everything we do, do we follow these two commandments? You see, all the remaining commandments are simply ways to love God completely and to love your neighbor as yourself.

This is our first principle of Christian politics. Does our vote help us – and others - to love God more completely and to love our neighbor as ourselves? Consider what the men and women you are considering voting for are saying, consider who they are: Which one appears to love God more completely? Which one loves other people more?

Jesus gives us another principle of Christian politics with his response to the Pharisees. He says, in essence, “You asked me a question, now I get to ask you a question.” He asks why, if the Messiah, the Savior of Israel is to be a son of King David – a descendent of King David – why does King David turn to the Messiah and call Him Lord?

If you think it through, then the only way for King David to want to bow down to the Messiah, his son, is for the Messiah to be in some way greater than David. But a man’s son was by definition in that culture LESSER than the father. But also, David must have known this Messiah to mention Him as He does. Yet David had died a thousand years before the conversation that Jesus was having. The only conclusion is that the Messiah must be divine and immortal – and descended by normal means from King David.

Jesus met this criteria. Through His mother, He was a blood descendent of King David. And through His Father, He was divine. In fact, He was present as the eternal Word of God even earlier, at the creation itself.

But let’s put aside all of this about Who Jesus is. Let’s look at it through our lense of today’s politics.

If King David, the greatest King of Israel, looked up to Jesus the Word of God as His Lord, then we should always keep in mind that Jesus is the One to whom we owe allegiance – not a governor, not a President, not a party. Ultimately, we should be looking for men and women to vote for who are loyal – not to the party – we’ve seen what trouble that causes, not to some other man or woman, for that leads to corruption or a dictatorship, not even to the people, for while ordinary people often have wisdom, we are prone to panic and be swayed by fancy speeches and advertisements. No, we want to vote for men and women who are loyal to Jesus Christ as their Lord. This is how we get good, wise, government.

There is one final point I’d like to make about politics. Too often, the people of the church have let their political parties determine their ideas of right and wrong, their ideas of theology, their ideas of what the church should do. I have seen this happen on both sides – Republicans want me to preach against some issue – Democrats want me to preach against a different issue.

There are several problems with this. First of all, on almost any political issue, I’d bet that half of you agree, a quarter of you disagree, and a quarter don’t really care. If I join in with the half of you that agree, I’ll upset the quarter of you that disagree. Some pastors go ahead and do that. And so there are churches around that are known for being conservative strongholds – and other churches that are homes for liberals. But churches should welcome people of all political parties.

But the practical aspect of church unity aside, the problem is that we should be praying carefully for what Jesus wants first – and let what Jesus wants influence our political views. We should NOT let our political views decide what we think Jesus wants. And that is a very difficult habit to get out of once you go down that path. Instead of being Republicans who happen to be Christian or Democrats who happen to be Christians, we should be Christians who decided this time to vote Republican or Democrat or independent.

That’s why I don’t generally speak on politics from the pulpit. Christians should vote – always vote – there may be no one you feel like voting for, but there is always someone you want to vote against. But before you vote, before you drive to the polling station, and again as you stand in the voting booth – pray for the Holy Spirit to guide you in who to vote for – and who to vote against, particularly when you don’t know the candidates or when you know them both too well and know that they are both good – or know they are both slimy.

I’ve met enough politicians to tell you that about a fifth of them are honest, hard-working, smart people who actually care about what they are doing. And about a fifth of them are ambitious and prone to backstab, doing anything to get what they want. The remainder are like most people – moderately decent, reasonably honest, doing a job for a reasonable paycheck – no more – but no less.

Please vote. The Apostle Paul tells us that God gives us the rulers that He decides we deserve. If you vote to put God-fearing people in the halls of power, they may make good decisions and they may make bad decisions, but at least they’ll be trying to listen to God as they make those decisions. There are plenty of candidates that don’t even pretend to care about God.

We have been given a little bit of power to influence the world with our votes. Use that power wisely – listen to God, and look for godly men and women to vote for.

So turn to your neighbor and say, “Neighbor, who are you voting for?”

And turn back to your neighbor and say, “Neighbor, I’m voting for God.”

Hot and Cold

Isaiah 45:1-7, Psalm 96, I Thess 1:1-10, Rev 3:14-22

Good morning!

Turn to your neighbor and say, “Neighbor, are you hot or cold?”

This time of the year, the weather drives me crazy. One day, it’s hot outside – nearly 80 degrees! The next morning, the temperature has dropped to nearly freezing and I’m cold! If I dress for the cold mornings, by the afternoon I’m sweating in my clothes. Like many of you, I long for a nice middle-of-the-road temperature, a nice constant 70 degrees.

Moderation is nice, isn’t it. We love our moderation. “Moderation in all things”, we state in a nice, moderately loud voice. In the early twentieth-century novel, Lost Horizon, a British diplomat is kidnapped from the war and chaos in China and finds himself in a wonderful peaceful valley called Shangri-la lost in the Himalaya Mountains. There, the monks practice moderation in all things, including, as one says to our hero, “moderation in our moderation”.

We want to avoid passion and hot emotions, for those emotions, we say, are the cause of all the problems of the world. Love causes jealousy and fighting – as we see on Facebook. Hate causes more fighting. Yoda from Star Wars tells Anakin Skywalker – and us - “Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hatred, and hatred leads to much suffering.”

Emotion is bad. Reason is good! In another science fiction show, Mr Spock shows us how we can remove emotion from our life and become successful. We admire the airline pilot who coolly landed his plane in the Hudson River when everyone else would be panicking. We want leaders who tell us that everything is under control – the terrorists are being quietly rounded up, the Ebola cases are all being monitored, the Russians will be calmly dealt with no matter what they do. We want our fears to be dealt with by men and women who don’t show any emotion, for that calms us down and helps us control our strong emotions.

We don’t like it when the stock market has wild swings. We don’t like it when the unemployment rate suddenly changes. We don’t like it when there are too many people at the stores – or too few. We love moderation, we love predictability, we love stability. Change frightens us. Cold weather worries us. Hot weather bothers us just as much. We want the 70 degree sunny weather of San Diego, day after day, month after month, year after year. We want to make simple plans for our lives and then work those plans. We don’t like it when things change.

But things do change. The reality of the world is that the world swings suddenly from hot to cold and back again. Our lives swing with the world. One day you’re driving down the Interstate at a calm, collected 65 miles per hour and 3 seconds later you’re spinning out of control in the median strip, headed for the opposite lane, fighting with the steering and the brakes to come to a safe stop. And all because that little red sports car cut in front of you.

Did you stop quickly enough? How much damage was done to your car? Is everybody in the car ok? The feeling is unpleasant, your heart is beating far too fast and you know that this will be a day you’ll remember, but it isn’t pleasant, and so you begin to hit the wheel in anger.

But, you know something? Our God is not a God that hates emotions. Our God is not a God that hates change. Our God is not a God that wants you to remove all passion from your life.

Listen to what Jesus says to the church of Laodicea in Revelation Chapter 3:

14 “To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:

These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. 15 I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 16 So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.

In the twentieth century, the Methodist church became known throughout the country for the stability of its finances, the predictability of its worship, the solidness of its individual churches. To be a Methodist meant that you were a solid member of American society, sober, making decisions only after careful thoughtful deliberations, never getting carried away with any of the extreme and new ideas that swept through American Christianity like speaking in tongues, Christian rock music in services, and television evangelism. Say what you might about the Methodists, you would never accuse us of being fanatics about religion.

Yet it was not always that way with the Methodists.

The early Methodists were a radical group. John and Charles Wesley, who formed with several friends an accountability group at Oxford University, were so devoted to living a holy lifestyle that their group became known by the other students as the Holy Club. Most of the Holy Club was soon ordained in the Church of England, by far the largest church in England. In the years that followed, John Wesley led the Methodists to do strange and new things, things that simply weren’t done in the dull, dying Church of England, a church that Wesley wanted to revive.

John Wesley preached outdoors in the streets. He preached at the factory gates. He preached at the mine entrances. Only the Holy Club preachers did that.

His brother Charles began to write hymns that could be sung by ordinary people to ordinary popular tunes instead of fancy choral songs that could only be sung by professional singers with orchestras and organs. His hymns became popular. They were also denounced as the tools of Satan by mainstream pastors.

Soon, a group of Methodist preachers began traveling around the country, preaching at buildings that weren’t churches, but which had preaching at least three times a week. Instead of stone – the Methodist chapels were built from wood in an eight-sided style that allowed people in the pews to see each other. The movement grew.

People listened to the sermons and fell down on their knees, weeping and crying and yelling out loud. Some fainted. Others claimed to see visions. The Holy Spirit was moving.

The Methodist preachers were so focused upon people coming to know the Lord that they didn’t even bother to form congregations, but instead simply pointed the people to the nearest Church of England, but the people didn’t want that. They joined up to small groups of 12 and 20 and went once or twice a week to their small group, groups that helped them stop cussing, that helped them stay away from whiskey, groups where they taught each other what it meant to follow Jesus Christ. And the Methodist got a reputation for being fanatics for God and soon after John Wesley’s death they had to form a new church and began to build new churches and chapels in a different way.

In the new churches, the ceilings were lower than in the huge Church of England cathedrals. In the new churches, the pews were arranged in a half circle so you could see others speak, for it wasn’t just the preacher who spoke in the Methodist assemblies, but many people prayed out loud and many people testified of what the Lord had done in their lives and many people ministered to one another and the movement grew and grew and grew.

In America, the Methodists became the largest church in the country, larger that all the Baptists put together. A third of Americans at one time were Methodists.

The Methodist preachers, traveling from one church to another, sometimes serving 30 different churches, were proverbial. If the weather was bad, really bad, it was said that the only things moving on the highways and trails were the Methodist circuit riders, who went from church to church, making a loop of the churches over 6 or 8 weeks, preaching at 4 and five churches every Sunday and teaching local men and women to lead the church while they were at the other churches. And all those local leaders grew and grew and grew the Methodist churches.

But in the Twentieth Century, we became more concerned with being known as solid and stable members of society than with the things of God, and gradually, gradually, we stopped growing and began to die. When a church looks inward and cares more about what good society thinks of it than saving souls, it soon begins to die. Despite the fact that the country has added a hundred million people since our last merger in 1968, like many mainline denominations, today’s United Methodist Church is smaller than at the time of the merger.

We became lukewarm and forgot our first love, the love of God.

16 So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. 17 You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. 18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness;and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.

19 Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent. 20 Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.

We have our priorities turned around. We Methodists, who were the poor farmers, the poor miners, the workers – we wanted respectability. And so we traded our spiritual wealth for material wealth. We became rich in the rewards of this world – nice homes, good cars, comfortable clothing. Yet, in doing that we became “wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.”

And so Jesus says to us: “Buy from me gold refined in the fire.” What is that gold? What is that fire?

The gold is spiritual passion, refined by the Holy Spirit that moves inside each of you. That Spirit is moving within you, It has made you uncomfortable in your life, and the Spirit is drawing you to greater things. You know that there are great things that could happen here – great things HAVE happened here in the past – and you want to be a part of that greatness, going where God leads with His Spirit Fire, consuming the evil and dreariness and sadness and trouble in the world, leading us into a shining future filled with a golden joy!

And white clothes to wear! White – the symbol of purity. Christ wants us to become pure in His service, to be known for our Christ-like hearts, to be seen throughout the area as the people who have an unstained love for God, to be the sort of people that everyone would like to sit down and talk with.

We people who want to be known for our moderation…There is something we need to understand. Many people are blocked from Heaven, not because we have too much emotion, but because we have too little emotion. Jesus never complained because people loved too much – only because people loved too little. Jesus did not complain because people became too angry – only because people were never angry enough about the things that keep people from God. Jesus cried his eyes out when he stood outside the tomb of Lazarus because He was so upset with death. Yet we “learn to accept death”. Jesus chased the moneychangers and merchants from the Temple with a whip in his hand, yelling at them for making it hard for people to come to God. Yet in many of our churches we put dress codes in front of people and tell them that a donation of “only” so much money will buy a poinsettia or a lily – and we imply that our worth in the kingdom depends upon our free cash.

No, Heaven isn’t a place where our emotions have been taken away – Heaven is a place where the emotions are much more intense than here. The joy that we feel when we see a new member join or a new life comes through a baptism is only a shadow of the joy we will feel when our loved ones join us on those gold-paved streets. And our sadness will be equally intense when our loved ones do not join us. But our tears will be wiped away by the intense love of the One who loved us before time began.

And so our task on this earth is to let our emotions about the things of God rule us more deeply. We need a passion for telling people about God and the saving love of Christ, a passion that burns hot within us because our hatred of eternal death is so strong. Yes, we can hate as Christians, and we should hate those things which keep those people we love from God. And we should take our fondness for people and turn it into love, our appreciation for good, godly things and turn it into a passionate pursuit of those things, and our appreciation of human life and turn it into a love of all things truly human – and a hatred of all things associated with death and Satan. We need to let our emotions about the things of God rule us more deeply. We need to let go in joy in our worship and let our eyes shine with joy when we talk about what God has done for us.

You know, the Thessalonians were such a people. They had a passion for the Lord, they imitated Paul and the Lord, they became a model for the people who lived in their area. They accomplished great things individually and as a group because of that passion. They were willing to work through trouble and hardship, lifting each other up, looking outside their small fellowship to those around them, and spreading the Gospel in their area after Paul had moved on to other cities and other countries. Their passion for Christ led them forward.

Where is our passion? Where are the people who come to the altar each week to pray? Where are the people that pray for an hour each morning asking for growth for the church? Where are the people who walk through the stores looking, just looking and hoping and striving for a chance to talk to people about their broken lives, their dashed hopes, their shattered dreams, and tell those people why Jesus Christ is the answer to all their lives’ problems?

The Methodist movement was never primarily about the passion of the pastors. It was about the ability and love of the people who were looking across the aisle at one another and encouraging each other to do great things with God’s help. It was about three friends sitting down together over some coffee, praying, and hatching a plan to reach the five families that live down the road. It was about the five men who sit in the back deciding that something needed to be done about the gambling and drunks in the town and building a men’s accountability group by accepting non excuses. It was about four women who decided to build and run an orphanage because it was needed. It was always about ordinary people doing extraordinary things with God’s help and guidance, because they had a shared passion to give other people the joy that they knew in Jesus Christ.

Where is your passion? Do you still have the ability to think about extreme things? Some of you have told me that when most of you were teenagers, you did some pretty wild things, didn’t you? Why don’t you do those things now? Is your respectability worth more to you than the eternal souls of your neighbors? Is your image more important than your brother or sister’s eternal life? Are you more concerned that people like you – or are you more concerned that God approves of you?

As the Holidays role around this year, we’ll be having a very important series of sermons which begins the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Those sermons that begin that week are being developed to bring people who know very little about Jesus Christ to an understanding of who Jesus Christ is. Those sermons will answer common questions about Jesus, about why Christians believe the things we believe, and why God is real. They will peak on Christmas Eve with a strong sermon about the reality of Christ.

Between now and then, I’ll be giving you ideas on how to talk to your friends, neighbors and family about God and Christ. You’ll find out how to be different, how to get people’s attention in a good way, and how to help people begin the process of approaching Christ.

But it all depends upon you making a key decision.

Some of the people in this room have already made that decision. Your leaders have already found the passion that you need to find. You need to decide whether the salvation of the world is important enough for you to get excited about. You need to decide whether you care about other people. You need to consider whether you want to be remembered someday by twenty, a hundred, or a thousand other people for showing them the way into Heaven.

A man did a study about 15 years ago. He found out that the average adult in America knows about 1000 people. There have been more studies over the years that have found that people who are happy tend to make their friends become happy – and people that are depressed tend to make their friends depressed. If you post angrily on Facebook, your friends will tend to become angry posters. If you post happy things on Facebook, your friends will tend to post happy things.

This also happens for other emotions, and it happens with ideas, too. And the influence is not just on your immediate friends, but also upon their friends. The result is that the average adult in America has the ability to influence – positively or negatively – about a thousand times a thousand people or 1 million people in their lives.

We do it all the time and don’t even realize it. Imagine what could happen if we get passionate about it. Imagine what could happen if everybody in this room decided to make their life’s goal to be bringing people to Christ. If you want learn how to do that, join us this evening at 6 pm for Defending the Faith.

Imagine what would happen to the world around us if the two-thirds of this county that does not have a home church decided to go to church on a regular basis.

Imagine what would happen if most of today’s alcoholics began going to AA meetings on Saturdays and church on Sundays. Bob’s group has grown to 14 people, its making a difference! Imaging what would happen if the drug users – and the drug pushers – would join small accountability groups and come to church every week. Do you want to start such a group?

Imagine what would happen if just a thousand people in this county that are unemployed today would gain enough confidence from listening to Jesus Christ and listening closely enough to the Holy Spirit that they started successful, ethical businesses! Imagine what would happen as they hired other people and taught them about Jesus! What if you organized a group of people who want to start up small businesses using Christian principles. Let me know where and when – I’ve started three businesses in my life. It is amazing what God can do if you ask Him for guidance and help in doing it.

You see, the God I worship is a God of excitement. I worship a God that spoke and created an entire Universe. I worship a God that spoke again and entire species came into existence. That same God blew upon the Red Sea and cleared a path that allowed 600,000 people to escape a murderous army. That same God raised Lazarus from the dead – and then raised Jesus Christ from the dead, the man who claimed to be that same God.

Next week, we are inviting all the children in the Pioneer Clubs and their parents to visit us as they receive awards. Many of these children you know – you see them here regularly. But some of these children don’t have a home church – yet. Welcome them and their parents next week. Help them feel at home. God is on the move. He is building excitement and getting ready to do even greater things here.

Have you noticed? Have you also noticed that some new people have started coming here on a regular basis? Have you met the new people, have you welcomed them, have you learned from them? Have you noticed that our Wednesday evenings have grown from 5 people to 40 people?

I have seen something happen in the last two years that is exciting to me. For the first time in many years, I can say that our new bishop understands the Holy Spirit – and she also understands how God wants to grow the church. She isn’t concerned with our respectability, she isn’t concerned with our political correctness, she isn’t concerned with her personal career – she is concerned with the things of God. And that is exciting. It means that we are free to grow as we please, bring Christ to save the souls of whoever we meet – of everyone we meet.

I want to warn you – if you like to come to church every week and know exactly what is going to happen – then I suggest you find another church. There are many churches that have been doing the same, predictable things for the last twenty years or more. Almost all of them are much smaller than they used to be, though. We will not be a lukewarm church, for we do not want to be spit out of Jesus’ mouth.

Instead, we will listen carefully to the Holy Spirit as it speaks to us. If you are hearing the Holy Spirit speak, come and talk to me. I want to hear what the Spirit has been telling you. Who knows? You may be the third person to send me an email telling me that Dennis needs to wear a purple tie and a green propeller beanie to bring a hundred people to Christ, or more seriously, you may be the third person to tell me about a particular ministry need or opportunity that will bring hundreds of people out of despair and suffering. Let me know.

You see, we keep falling into the same trap we fall into with our government. I once saw a live interview with the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfield, who was serving under George Bush. The interviewer asked him “What is the administration’s idea about [some particular issue]” Rumsfield, to his credit, said, “First of all, there is no “administration’s idea”. I have some ideas, the President has some ideas, the Joint Chiefs have some ideas.” You see, he was reminding the interviewer – and us – that a government is composed of individual people.

In the same way, we often talk about “this church believes this” and “that church does that”. But churches are made up of individual people. If you want this church to grow, then walk outside the church this afternoon and talk to people about Jesus Christ. I knew one 88 year old woman who single-handedly brought 15 new people to a church one year. If you want this church to have more people in the choir, then come to choir practice on Thursday night and bring a friend from outside the church.

If you want this church to have a polka band, then buy an accordion and start it up with your two friends who love polka music! If you want to have a tent revival at the projects, then pull together two or three friends and start planning it. Tell me when and where to show up. If you want this church to show movies here on Friday evening – with hot buttered popcorn – then talk to me and we’ll reserve the space for you and help you get fliers printed for the community. If you want more people in your group that meets here regularly to come to the church on Sunday, then talk about the church, invite me to your meeting to speak, or at the very least, introduce me to the group’s members when I wander in!

It is amazing how things work, sometimes. Sometimes I run into some of you at Wal-mart or at a restaurant, and you have friends there with you, and most of the time you introduce me. But once in a while we’ll talk for 3 or 4 minutes – and you never introduce me to your friends! At least you all are much better about this than one time this happened at another church, a church that had been slowly dying for 30 years. After the other family walked away, the church member turned to me and said, “I would have introduced you to Jim and his family, but they aren’t Christians.” DUH!

There are people in the leadership of the Conference who have their eyes on this church, people who actually know something about church potential. And they are asking, “Why can’t Quiet Dell become a church with 500 people, with a thousand people, or even more? It has the location, it has the land, it has great people with a great attitude?” And furthermore, why can’t Monroe Chapel grow to a hundred or a hundred and fifty people? It may lack the location and the land, but we have been growing recently. There are hundreds of people within five miles of this place, hundreds of people who do not know Jesus Christ, hundreds of people who do not know the joy that you have.

I agree. This church is on the brink of bringing many new people to know the Lord. We are right there.

But everything depends upon us each choosing no longer to be lukewarm in our Christianity. Hot or cold – make the decision: Is Jesus Christ truly the Son of God and worthy to be followed completely – or is He just another fairy tale character, made up to make you feel good and safe and live a quiet life? Hot or cold – make the decision.

Tomorrow or today, you’ll need to decide – Hot or cold – make the decision: Is it worth taking 15 minutes to stop and talk to that couple that you overhead worrying about their lives, that couple you don’t even know? Hot or cold – make the decision: Hot, passionate Christianity says talk to them – cold Christianity says walk away, lukewarm Christians walk away and feel guilty. Are you hot or cold or lukewarm? Make a decision.

Your friend says they are worried about the Ebola virus. Hot or cold – Make a decision: Do you mention that Jesus Christ will take care of your family no matter what? Or do you sort of agree that you’re worried and change the subject. Hot or cold – make a decision.

Another friend says their child is acting up in school. Hot or cold – Make a decision: Do you offer to pick them up and bring them Wednesday evening to the dinner and Pioneer Clubs? Or do you agree that the school should fix the problem. Hot or cold – are you a follower of Jesus Christ and believe He has the solutions to all the world’s problems - or not? Hot or cold – make a decision.

Stand up! Stand up! Stand up!

Where is your passion? Where is your emotion? When was the last time you cheered and sweated and prayed for something really worthwhile? To have passion – to become hot for the things of God – means we have to let go and let God’s Holy Spirit take us over. It is an act of trust, an act of submission, and an act of surrender. Staying cold means that you are fighting the fire. And that means that you are fighting the Holy Spirit. And if we find that we are fighting the Holy Spirit, we need to intentionally ask for God to do with us what God wills.

Turn to your neighbor and say, “Neighbor, are you hot or cold?”

And turn back to your neighbor and say, “Neighbor, I am on FIRE!”

Now come to the altar today as we sing this final hymn. Come up front, everyone of you and take turns kneeling at the altar and praying to God to give you a hot passion for doing His will, to ignite the fire of the Holy Spirit in you, to show you a purpose for your life, to lead you to people who need to hear about the transforming possibilities of Jesus Christ, to guide you in your speech, your habits, and your holiness!

Let us pray:

Oh Passionate Son of God! Give us the burning desire to spread Your Word to all the people we meet, that through our trust that You will provide, we may find the life Your Word has promised.

Help us to hate what You hate, to love as You love, to care as deeply as You care, to be as sad as You are at the injuries done to Your brothers and sisters, and to be a joyful as You are when another comes to follow You. Help us to remember to not be cold or moderate in our relationships with other people, but to be burning hot in those relationships, that some may come to know the joyful personality that is You.

We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ,

Amen.

The Wedding Garment

Isaiah 25:1-9, Psalm 23, Matthew 22:1-14

Good morning!

How many people have attended a wedding? I’ve attended quite a few in my time and they’re all different. I was a guest at the first wedding I went to, played piano at the next wedding, was an usher at the next, best man at the fourth, and married Saundra at my fifth wedding. I once was at a “Redneck” wedding where everybody dressed in camouflage outfits and the pastor rewrote the entire service into Redneck dialect – “Do ya’ll take this fine gal, to take kere of ‘er fer the rest a yer lives?” etc.

One particular wedding we attended was at a reception hall for a couple of friends. The wedding was scheduled for noon, so we arrived at 11:45. About 12:15, with the start running late, Andy said to me…”You’re not doing this wedding, are you, Dad?” “No,” I said, “I’m just here because they’re friends. You’ll notice I don’t have my black book and I’m not wearing my clerical shirt and collar.”

Well, about 12:30, one of the bridesmaids and an usher came over to me. “Are you Brian?” I said I was. “We may need you.”

Finally, at 1:00, after hearing the city official scheduled to perform the wedding had left town and was unreachable, they asked me to perform the wedding. Thankfully, it was close to our home, so I talked to the couple while Saundra ran home and brought back my clerical shirt and collar, and my black book that has the wedding service in it. And at 1:30, I performed the wedding. Now, I always try to wear my clerical shirt and collar and bring my black book to weddings and funerals I attend. Just in case.

Our Gospel reading today is one of the last parables that Jesus told, and it is about a wedding. Jesus and His disciples have gone up to Jerusalem and Jesus is in the Temple each day teaching. This is the second day that Jesus has been in Jerusalem during his last visit to the city, just a couple of days before His arrest.

The day before, Jesus attacked the money changers and those who sold sacrificial animals in the Temple courts on the grounds that these people were preventing poorer people from approaching God. He has reminded the temple priests and the Pharisees that God would not be happy with tenants who kill His messengers with the parable of the workers in the vineyard. And now He tells another parable, a parable about a wedding banquet.

In the world of the first century in ancient Palestine, at the time that Jesus lived, there were few things which might be called entertainment. After all, for most people, life was a bare struggle to raise enough food to eat. Every day, from just after sunup to just before sundown, people worked. And when the sun went down, in an Israelite village, it was very dark. There were no streetlamps, for there was no electricity, there were no gas lamps. The only light there was came from the occasional cooking fire and the dim light of a beeswax candle or a wick burning in a bowl of fat or olive oil – expensive, edible fuel for people who were always one poor harvest away from starvation. No, people did not burn their lamps much after the sun went down, for they could not afford to.

It was only on Friday evenings and during the day on Saturday that people actually took time off from work.

The Sabbath day was mandated by the laws of Moses as a day to rest and to study about God. It was held in much higher regard than we hold Sundays today, for there were no restaurants open, no stores open, no ball games to be played. Saturday mornings were spent in the synagogue, hearing scripture read and debating about what the scripture meant.

Then, there were the Festival weeks. During these few times each year, the entire family went to Jerusalem for the Festival. There, it was a lot like our festivals today – special food cooking, people selling things, a chance to meet old friends. It was a fun time.

But there was no regularly scheduled entertainment – no football games, no World Series, no movies, no television or radio, very few traveling poets and musicians, and there was no money to pay for the entertainment. And so, the big entertainment each year was the round of parties given when young people were married.

When a marriage happened, it was a joyful celebration. The father of the groom would kill one or two prize cattle – valuable creatures, worth a year’s paycheck each! – and those cattle would provide steaks and briscut and roasts for everybody that evening. Roast beef for everyone – and some of those people might never taste beef except during these feasts! The entire village would bring their expensive-to-operate oil lamps and their very expensive beeswax candles to the center of the village, where equally rare and expensive wood was burned in a fire and there would be a celebration. All day long and all evening they would sit and drink and dance and drink and enjoy the wine provided by the groom and his family.

But outside the center of the village – the world was dark! I mean, really dark! It was dark and lonely and some months of the year it was cold, very cold. And so when someone was not invited to the wedding party, they had a cold, dark, miserable, lonely night. And outside the village at night prowled jackels, dog-like creatures much like coyotes or wolves.

Let’s take a look again at the parable that Jesus told that day in the Temple in Jerusalem. Things begin as in a normal wedding:

22 Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: 2 “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. 3 He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.

What? There are people who are not coming to the banquet? This simply wasn’t done – to refuse such an invitation is a deliberate insult!

Have you ever seen the movie, “The Godfather”? In the days when Jesus walked upon this earth, there were many men who acted like the Godfather – and the kings of the nations of the Mediterranean were the original Godfathers. When they sent you an invitation, they expected you to be there – and if you refused to come, you knew what the consequences might be. After all, you were telling the king that you didn’t care that he had gone to a lot of expense and a lot of trouble to prepare a feast for you. You were telling the king that you didn’t care about one of the most important events in his son’s life. You were telling the king that you really didn’t care what the king thought about you.

But this king was willing to go one more step. He sent out a second invitation:

4 “Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’

5 “But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business.6 The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them.

Now they’d done it.

7 The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

We’ll forget for a moment that all that good roast beef is getting cold while the king and his army destroy a particular city. After all, Jesus was trying to make a point – He was telling a parable, not a factually true story. So He points out that the king had had enough of the insults and was really, really angry.

Jesus goes on with His story about the king:

8 “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. 9 So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ 10 So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.

Notice that the king’s servants brought in good people AND bad people. We can learn from this…On the king’s orders, the servants went to find “anyone” they could find. And so they filled up the hall with guests who wanted to eat the king’s good roast beef and drink the king’s great wine.

11 “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes.

Have you ever been to a wedding or a funeral and find that you are terribly underdressed? Or just plain dressed wrong? There was one guy who showed up at the Redneck wedding in suit and tie – they made him take off the jacket and the tie – it didn’t fit.

Well, this guy wasn’t wearing wedding clothes.

Now, there are several reasons why you might show up at a wedding underdressed. Perhaps you don’t have the proper clothing. Perhaps you didn’t realize the type of clothes required. Perhaps you were running late. Or perhaps you just didn’t think it was important to get properly dressed, because, after all, you know the man and woman getting married and know that they’ll be happy you showed up. Or perhaps you wanted to insult the couple or the couple’s parents.

In ancient Palestine, a king’s wedding was like going to a formal reception at the White House. If the invitation says “white tie”, you’d know it meant to wear the most formal clothing available. And this was the standard for weddings in Jesus’ day. There were a couple of rules you did not break. First, if the king invited you, you went to show respect. Second, if you went, you wore special wedding robes to show respect.

Jesus continues the story with the King asking a question:

12 He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless.

13 “Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

What a harsh punishment? Can you imagine this happening to someone today? Apparently the king had finally lost his cool. He had had enough disrespect, he was tired of people ignoring his office, and he did not want any rebels. The man who showed up without proper attire was bound hand and foot and tossed out of the village, into the darkness where the jackals prowled every night.

Jesus ends this parable with a moral:

14 “For many are invited, but few are chosen.”

So what does it all mean?

Well, it’s pretty clear that the king represents God. It is also pretty clear in the context that the original guests that were invited to the wedding, the guests who did not show up, were the Temple priests and the Pharisees, the “good people” of Jerusalem. For centuries, God had ruled them, but increasingly they had ignored God, had stopped worshipping Him, and had pretended that God would ignore them.

The king’s servants are the prophets who told the people about God’s generosity – and were ignored or killed for their proclamations. Throughout the Old Testament, people were chased from the courts of power because of the uncomfortable messages from God that they delivered.

And so, as in the parable the king decides to wipe out the city that is in rebellion – God will wipe out the city and country that is in rebellion. Jesus was directly speaking of Jerusalem and Israel, but we may assume that God will do the same with any city and country that is in rebellion to Him. It is a message that works in our time as well.

How much time do we have left? I don’t know, but it could be running out. I don’t know how far God’s patience stretches – I know it stretches very far, but I can’t say “200 years” or “400 years” or “20 years”. He makes those decisions – I only know that there are many people in this country who ignore Him or are in rebellion to Him.

In the parable the king invites a different people to His banquet. Even today, we see all sorts of people coming to know God in many different countries – people in South America, people in Africa, people in India, people in China. The good news is that there are many people in America that are coming to know God. God invites to his banquet all types of people, both good people and bad people. Do we invite only good people? Or do we also bring the Gospel to “bad” people?

But there is a strong group of people who ignore God or even make fun of Him and His people. Who do you know that acts this way?

It is tempting to condemn these people to God’s wrath, but that is not what God or Jesus asked us to do. Jesus told us that God wants us to bring these people to know God. We are to tell them of God’s love for them – despite their mockery, despite their ignorance, despite their wicked ways – and we are to show them God’s love by reaching out to help them with their hurts, their loneliness, their angers. Especially when they try to hurt or mock us, that is when we need to show them the love of Christ. Who will you show the love of Christ to this week?

As people come into the wedding banquet, they all dress appropriately for a wedding. Mind you, this parable is NOT about how you are to dress for church. God does not care if you wear dirty blue jeans or a recently dry-cleaned and pressed suit to church. God doesn’t care about your physical clothing.

The parable of the man who is not wearing a wedding garment means this:

The wedding garment is your life. It can be a dirty, filthy rag that you wear as your life – Or it can be a clean robe, beautiful with decorations and embroidery of the great and wonderful things you have done in your life.

When you come to join in the celebrations and worship of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, do you pay Him the respect due the Son of the King of the Universe? Do you truly listen to what Jesus has taught, do you try to follow His Way, do you attempt to imitate Jesus as best you can? That is what it means to wear the beautiful wedding garment.

Or do you simply come as you are into the presence of Jesus, assuming that you know just as much as Christ does, assuming that your ways are superior to the ways of Jesus, assuming that you have the right to judge God rather than bowing down before the One God who will one day judge you? That is what it means to wear the filthy rags.

You see, that’s what we often do, don’t we? Deep down, we often believe that we are equal or superior to God and Jesus, with the …ahem… “God-given right” to judge those commands and attitudes that Jesus showed us and decide what is right – and what is wrong. “I can’t agree with the position the Bible takes on issue X” and you know, what you just said is true. At this time you can’t agree with the Bible and Jesus – but you should defer to them until you can understand and agree and follow that command or attitude. For when Jesus and the Bible are on one side of an issue and society tells you the opposite, it would be wise to follow the commands and attitudes of Christ.

Why?

Don’t we mostly agree that we should not judge the actions of others, for by whatever standard we use, we will be judged accordingly by God? Then why do we presume to put God in front of us – not as judge, but as the defendant, with us judging Him? And we do that, don’t we?

You see, as Christianity Today editor Andy Couch has written, “If faith means anything, then it must have implications for everything.” (Christianity Today, Oct.2014, pg 73) If we accept that Jesus is the Son of God – God walking on this earth – then this has deep implications for everything we do and say and think in this life and the next. It cannot be something that affects only our behavior on Sunday mornings, but must affect who we are and what we do and say every minute of this life.

The man at the wedding banquet presumed that His choice to not respect the king’s dress code would be fine. But that decision told the king that the man did not respect the king.

It is not enough to come to church to follow Christ. It is not enough to listen to hundreds of sermons to follow Christ. It is not enough to say that you are a follower of Christ.

Instead, we must bow our head and say with intense feeling and sincerity: Thy will be done in all things. Thy way is superior in every way to my way. Thy wisdom I will accept and follow every hour, even when I do not understand it or agree with it.

The man who came to the wedding banquet improperly clothed with disrespect for the king was bound up and tossed into the outer darkness with the jackals. Those of us who come into the church, claiming to follow Christ, yet do not truly respect the Son as our total and complete Lord will likewise be tossed into the outer darkness, separated from the Son and His bride the church and His Father God at the end of time. “And there will be much weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Jesus closes with the warning: 14 “For many are invited, but few are chosen.”

Throughout Christian history, there has been a tension. On the one hand, we see in scripture the clear concept that Christ has died for all people – absolutely every person – and that all people are invited to come to share in the love and eternal life of Christ. On the other hand, we also know that those who walk upon the path need to work towards holy living.

Different Christian groups have erred to one side or the other. Some say that all Christ asks of us is one time in our life for us to say, “I believe in you, Jesus!” and then we go our merry way. Other groups have bound us up in fear by arguing that even a single unconfessed sin will keep us out of heaven – woe to the man or woman on whom the proverbial piano falls out of the window or whom the bus hits, who in reflex says a “bad word” just before death hits!

But there is a third way, a way of sense and reason which pulls together the great body of Scripture. That is to declare ourselves as followers of Jesus Christ, believing that He was God walking upon earth – and then really try our best to follow the daily and hourly commands – and the minute-by-minute example – of Jesus, giving the Son of God the respect He deserves and also trusting in His grace to cover our mistakes, our lapses, and our humanity.

Only God’s free gift gives us the opportunity to follow Christ. God forgives all of our sins, yes. We cannot work hard enough to reach Heaven – only God’s grace, His divine choice allows us to reach Heaven, for we can never be good enough.

But God also asks that those who claim to be followers of Christ actually show respect for His Son by listening to Him, by following His commands, by walking the path that He walked. This requires we change our life’s priorities, our friendships, our understanding of right and wrong. We must not only claim to be followers of Christ – we must become followers of Christ.

And many Christian people choose not to do this, treating their relationship with God’s Son as an airplane passenger might choose to treat a parachute lying beside you in the next seat – a comfort, something that we hope we’ll never need, something to look at in detail only if the plane begins to go down. We note the parachute lying there, feel secure, and ignore it for the rest of the voyage.

But the reality is that the plane is going down. We are over the ocean and our fuel gauge is not working, but we are sure of this: There is not enough fuel to reach land. And so we need to look at that parachute, read the instructions, listen to those who try to teach us how to use it, and strive to understand it – as if our life depended on it?

Today, the deep question which each of us must ask himself or herself is this: Have I been showing Jesus Christ the respect that the Son of God deserves and thus putting on the wedding garment? Or have I shown up for the wedding banquet without respect, assuming that anything goes, anything at all is ok, any old filthy rag of a life is fine.

Wear your life as your wedding garment. Do not show up for the wedding banquet in an old filthy, torn rag of a life to hear the Father of the Bridegroom say, “Be gone, I do not know you! – Bind him and throw him into the outer darkness!”

Instead, clean up your life with Christ’s help. Mend the tears in your garment by reading some scripture. Patch the holes in your life and wash the old fabric by practicing two-way prayer, talking to Christ and listening for the Holy Spirit’s responses. Ask Jesus for help with the larger rips and missing pieces by asking Him for new fabric and watch Him cut out the old fabric, sewing a seamless garment that glitters with abundant decorations and embroidery.

With Christ’s help walk into the wedding banquet dressed with the most beautiful life the world has ever seen since the Bridegroom Himself arrived, and let everyone know that you are the best friend of the Bridegroom. And then one day, He will introduce you to His Father and His Father will say, “I have seen you for years and your life’s garment has been greatly pleasing to Me.”

The choice is yours to make every day of your life.

Sin, Grace, and Our Role

Exodus 20, Philippians 3

Good morning!

A few years ago, I was teaching a calculus class at Parkersburg Catholic High School. One of the things we did – one of our secret academic weapons – was that we had a policy of requiring that students write a paper every semester in every class. It didn’t matter if the class was English, Social Studies, Algebra, or Phys Ed, every student had to write a paper in that class every semester. All the papers were then graded for content and grammar according to the same set of grading rules. And you know what? It worked. The 7th graders could barely write, but by the time they made it to the level of junior or senior, they could write well – very well.

I often asked for a paper such as, “If your life was a mathematical equation, what would that equation be?” or “Describe your relationship to God by developing an equation and explaining it.” One year, a young lady wrote me a paper answering that question.

As I read the paper, I could see that she truly wanted to have a close relationship with God. She explained that she was doing all the things that our society expects a Christian to do – she was helping at a food pantry, she was helping with the church nursery, she went to church every week, she was working hard to watch her language, and she was maintaining straight A’s in her classes while playing on a school sports team. In fact, she was working so hard to be good that she was exhausted and about to give up on being good. Being good – really good – can be hard work! If she only realized that God has provided an easier way.

Time and again, I have run into people who have a mistaken idea of what God requires of us to be saved, what God requires of us to go to Heaven, what God requires of us to be loved by Him. Let’s take a brief look at some of the ways people think they go to Heaven.

“I am a good person” a friend of your’s says, and you know, compared to the people around them, they are. Perhaps like the girl from my math class, this person does all the right things. If God were giving prizes for goodness based upon who is most good, our friend would probably win. But you see, there is a real problem with this line of thinking. How good is good enough?

Our first reading today was what we commonly call the Ten Commandments. These rules cover the most common situations. So let’s see how good we are. Have you ever taken a pencil or a paper clip from someone else’s desk without their permission? If so, you’ve stolen and you are a thief.

Have you ever wanted something someone else had? A car, a house, a toy, a painting, a tractor, a smartphone? If so, you have coveted and broken number 10. Have you ever lied? You’ve given false testimony. Have you ever worked on a Friday evening or a Saturday? You’ve broken the Sabbath rule. How are you doing?

But there are more rules given by God in the Bible. Have you ever eaten a pork chop, ham, or a BBQ sandwich? Have you ever eaten shrimp, crab, or lobster? You’ve broken the dietary rules. And that’s just the beginning of the 632 rules in the Old Testament. 632 rules.

Here’s the real kicker – Jesus came along and said that if you were angry with your neighbor, that’s the same as murdering them. If you wanted someone dead, Jesus says that God considers that the same as murdering them. If you gossip about someone, you can destroy their lives, and that is also like murdering them.

And the penalty for breaking any of the rules, any of the ten rules, any of the 632 rules – is death. God will not associate with someone who breaks His rules. Breaking the rules is like committing a crime. And we call committing crimes against God “sinning”. Those who commit sins are called “sinners”.

Everyone in this room is a sinner. Everyone here has committed sins. Everyone here is in big trouble with God – unless?...Unless there is another way to reach Heaven.

Many people have recognized that “nobody’s perfect”. Most people know that everyone commits sins. And so people have invented other ways to make it into Heaven. Let’s look at those ways.

“I’m better than him”. How many times have you heard this. It doesn’t work. Remember, the penalty for even one sin is death. And God KNOWS when you have committed a sin. It doesn’t matter how much better you are than the next person, we are all headed for death.

“Ok, I believe in God” But so did all the Jews of Moses’ time. So did the Jews of Jesus’ time. So do the devils and demons. Believing in the existence of God does not get you to Heaven.

“I was baptized as a child and have attended church all my life.” That’s good. That’s a good step. But where is your heart today? Baptism is not permission to sin as you please. You see, Baptism changes you from being a rebel – the way you were born – to being a citizen of the Kingdom of God. It is a first step. Attending church should help you walk as a citizen. But what is your intent today? Have you been trying to be a law-abiding citizen of the Kingdom – or have you been a law-breaker, not caring about the laws of the Kingdom?

Baptism is important. It is very complex and God does certain things when you chose to be baptized, or your parents chose to have you baptized. At baptism, God changes your heart from the heart of a rebel to the heart of a citizen. God changes you from being inherently evil, the way all people are born, to being inclined towards good. Your choice didn’t do it, your belief in God didn’t do it, God did it. And so it doesn’t matter how old you were, or whether you even knew it happened. If you were a baby, someone vowed that they would raise you as a member of God’s Kingdom and teach you God’s ways. God chose to declare you a member of His Kingdom and chose to protect you simply because He wanted to give you a gift. He gives you the gift of the Holy Spirit to guide you and teach you and lead you – if you will listen to that Spirit.

But Baptism alone isn’t enough. As with all people who are born into a country, when you reach a certain age, you must decide for yourself whether or not you will remain a citizen of that country. There is no hard-and-fast rule for this age, but for most people, a good time is ages 12 to 15, although some may be much older. At some point, you must decide whether or not you will attempt to the best of your ability to follow Jesus Christ, the Son of God. This is what Christians mean when we say “believe in Jesus Christ”. Do you try to the best of your ability to follow Jesus Christ?

Why is this important?

Let’s walk through this.

First of all, Jesus claimed to be God. In John’s Gospel, there are seven times when Jesus says, “I AM”, which everyone at the time knew was short for “I AM THAT I AM”, which was the name that God called Himself when He appeared to Moses at the burning bush. Jesus even went to far as to say, “I and the Father are One.” And you know – the crowds of people understood this. Every time Jesus claimed to be God, some people in the crowd picked up stones to stone Him or otherwise tried to kill Him.

Ok, but just because someone claims to be a pickled egg doesn’t make them a pickled egg. But Jesus proved that there was something special about Him through all the miracles He worked. And everybody knew these were miracles – they talked about them and many people followed Him because of these miracles. The people weren’t stupid – they knew that water doesn’t turn into wine and they knew that people don’t walk on water, and they knew that Lazarus had been dead for four days in His tomb and was going to stink like a dead deer carcass when Jesus told Lazarus to come out of the tomb – and he did!

But the big finale was when Jesus told his students what was going to happen and it did happen. He was sacrificed on the cross on Friday and then Sunday morning He began to appear to His students – and eventually to over 500 people in eleven different appearances at different times and places. And so, if Jesus were a nutcase claiming to be God, God must have really liked this particular nutcase. If Jesus were a liar, then God must have really liked this particular liar. And so it only makes sense that Jesus was exactly who He said He was – God, walking on this earth in an ordinary body made of flesh and blood.

There are two parts to Jesus Christ, and we must remember this. Jesus not only brought us a Message from God about the love of God and what we must do. He also was THE Message – showing us how to live as a walking, breathing, talking example of what God expects of humans. The disciple John calls Jesus the “Word of God”.

If you believe this, then it is natural that you believe that whatever Jesus said is very, very important, and thus you are now loyal to God. And if you are loyal to God, He can work with you through the Holy Spirit. God has all eternity to show you how to stop committing sins – if you trust Him and are loyal to Him.

And so, according to Jesus and His disciples, those people who trust and follow Jesus Christ as God Himself walking upon the earth, are given the Holy Spirit to lead, guide, and direct them, and are given the gift of eternal life that they may become perfect in their ability to follow God’s will, a will which is always for their good.

Keep this in mind. God created this Universe and He created you. God is like a man that built the ballpark, owns all the bases, owns all the gloves, owns all the baseballs, owns all the bats, owns both teams, is the umpire, is even the Commissioner of baseball himself. There is no game played unless God wants it played – he can take his baseballs and bases and gloves and bats and the ballpark itself and god home anytime he wants. He owes us nothing.

There is nothing you can do to get God to like you. There is nothing you can do to get God to hate you. God is so far above us, that he only laughs at us when we try. But God does love us. And because God loves us, He gave us these gifts, the gift of Jesus Christ’s presence, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the gift of eternal life. All this is provided by His choice. We say that this is God’s grace – His completely free choice to give us gifts, which he places on the table in front of you. That is His part – He created the Universe, He created you and gave you a life, and He puts the gifts on the table in front of you.

Now for your part. This is the hardest thing for us to accept. It doesn’t matter who your parents were, it doesn’t matter how good you’ve been, it doesn’t matter if you made a decision for Jesus years ago. What concerns us is today. Today, are you trying your best to actually follow the leadership of Jesus Christ, to follow His example of love, sacrifice, kindness, courage, and grace? Or have you strayed from that path, doing self-destructive things for your own amusement, killing people gently with the things you say and do, spreading a rot of the heart throughout the world?

Some Baptists are fond of saying, “Once saved, always saved.” But John Wesley, reading a bit deeper into the Bible, concluded that it is possible to go so far off the path of Christ that you are no longer loyal to Him. This isn’t something that is made by a single decision. It is what happens over days and weeks and years. One day you look up and discover that you have wandered far from the path of Christ and you are no longer following Him. It is indeed possible to lose your salvation because you no longer follow Jesus.

Just as we have seen ugly atrocities committed by some American soldiers in the Middle East, atrocities which greatly hurt the reputation of the American army by solders who were severely punished and kicked out of the service because this is not what American solders are supposed to do, it is possible for Christians to commit gentle atrocities and harm our reputation – and God’s reputation.

Gentle atrocities? What are they?

You’ve seen them. It is the gossip that destroys someone’s reputation. It is becoming too much like the world and letting the world’s ways guide us rather than Christ’s commands. It is the disapproving word or glance at a child that is acting like a child that chases away a family from the church. It is all the subtle ways that we tell people that we are a closed club. It is the carrying of grudges for years. It is complaining about some volunteer’s performance of a volunteer duty. It is a slight way of letting someone know that we disapprove of the way they are living. In all of these, people are hurt, chased from our churches, and then the devil finishes them off. It is the modern equivalent of throwing someone outside the camp so the wolves can finish them off. Or you can wander outside the camp and the wolves are waiting for you.

Make no mistake – there are wolves prowling outside in our community. Those wolves have names: drug dealer, bar owner, video poker operator, baby daddy. People’s lives are destroyed out there – children’s lives are destroyed out there – families break apart out there. People have enough trouble within these walls keeping on the path. Never commit the gentle atrocities that would chase people outside these walls.

Instead, walk the path of Christ fully. Go to those who suffer from the wolves and help them. Find those who have been bit and chewed and scratched and are barely surviving – drag the wolves off of them and bring them into your home first and teach them that God loves them too. And when they are ready, bring them inside this camp.

Our Pioneer Clubs are trying to do just that. Perhaps you aren’t able to work in the clubs, perhaps you aren’t able to bring children to the clubs on Wednesday evening as so many are doing. But you can help – our startup costs with Pioneer clubs are significant – but then, growth always costs time, talent, witness, and money. We give each older child a special Bible, a workbook, a sash, and other things. All of these run about $30 per child. Could you sponsor 10 children? Could you sponsor 1 child? If you want to support Pioneer Clubs and our children’s ministry, Ollie will be waiting with a basket after the service. (Those of you who are not able to come to the church on Sunday mornings can mail a contribution to the Quiet Dell UMC, 96 Trinity Road, Mt Clare, WV 26408 and mark it “children’s ministry”.)

God gives grace – His gifts – to everyone. If you have realized that you’ve left the path, God is waiting for you to come back. God doesn’t care who you are, for everyone has sinned – those on the outside – the person sitting beside you – the person talking to you – and you, yourself have sinned. Never forget that. Come to the altar today, kneel and ask forgiveness for what you have done – or not done. Ask Jesus for help finding the path of life again.

Your role is to pick up the gifts that God has given to you and make them yours. Follow Jesus, listen to the Holy Spirit, live forever. And imitate Jesus Christ in all you do.

John Wesley said, “Do no harm, do all the good you can do, and attend upon the ordinances of God.”

Today we will celebrate Holy Communion. As we do so, remember those who are in need. Any money you leave upon the railing will go into our fund for directly helping people in need. Perhaps you have a spare $5 or $20 or even more. Perhaps today you will choose to eat cheaply and give what you would normally spend eating at a restaurant to those who are in need. Be generous as Christ has been generous with you.

Our Service of the Great Thanksgiving follows a pattern that dates back into the early days of the church. These words – in different languages, changed as the language changes, but always holding to the same meaning – these words have been said in this ceremony for centuries, and so we are connected to those who have shared our faith before us – and to those who will continue in the faith after we are gone. In this breaking of the bread, we attend upon one of the ordinances of God. The Bread and the Juice are one way that God gives us eternal life. How is this?

Remember this: It was through the Word of God that all things were created – including life itself. John tells us that “the Word was made flesh and dwelled among us” – this is Jesus Christ, the Word – or Message - of God. If the Word was made flesh and blood, than it is natural that the body and blood of Christ can give us life. And so, as I say the words that have been said by Christians for centuries, listen to their meaning. Listen to them and memorize them. Listen to them and make them part of your mind and your soul even as the bread and the juice becomes part of your body.