Christmas Eve - Who are You?

As we come together this Christmas Eve, surrounded by family and friends, we are here for several different reasons, for we are different people.

Some of you have been coming here every Christmas eve that you remember. You look forward to the candles, the music, the red and green decorations, to sharing this evening with the people you love during the rest of the year. Thank you for your passion!

Some of you have come here this evening because you are struggling. This has not been a good year for you. Yet, you know that this is the place where the struggles are put into perspective. This is the building where people remind you of what is important in life. This is the place where your tears are dried and your life is put back together. May God give you joy this evening!

Some of you are new to this building, yet know the Lord Jesus well. You may have traveled a long distance to arrive here, like Mary and Joseph traveling to Bethlehem, or you may have simply taken a walk or a short drive to get here, like the shepherds who listened to the angels and went to find the infant in the manger. You are most welcome here tonight in this branch of the great worldwide fellowship of believers, joining together as believers all over the world celebrate this night!

And some people may have come here this evening reluctantly, coming into a building in which you feel uncomfortable, sitting with a group of people you don’t know very well, listening to lessons you aren’t familiar with. To you I say, “Welcome!” We are glad you are here. Not so many years ago I was just like you, because for much of my life I did not believe in God and thought the people of God were mildly annoying, often asking me to check my mind at the door as I entered. Relax! You are among friends and people who love you.

So what do we find when we look at the infant Jesus, the Babe of Bethlehem.

Well, that largely depends upon who we are. You see, the Christ-Child affects us each in different ways, and that depends upon who are are. But who ARE we? Perhaps this is a question you’ve been asking yourself.

In ancient times, the answer to that question was easy because other people answered the question for us. We belonged to a certain nation of people, a particular tribe of people, descended from a particular man and woman, our father and mother were so-and-so, who owned a particular farm or had a certain trade. Jesus was a member of the Jewish nation, a descendant of David the King, royalty, His mother was Mary – and His father – well that was up for discussion, but the man who raised Him was Joseph the carpenter of Nazareth, and so as oldest son, Jesus was expected by society to become a carpenter, supporting His mother Mary, and His younger brothers, first with Joseph, and then after Joseph’s death, by Himself and with a wife He would meet and marry. As a good member of that traditional society, Jesus was told He had few choices. This was Who He was – His choices were already made, and His only freedom was to tinker around the edges – which girl would He marry? What type of carpentry would He focus upon?

But Jesus had a particular identity that was always floating in the background, an identity that tore loose the chains of custom and tradition that yelled at Him and tried to tell Him who He was. For Jesus knew that His Father was the Creator of the Universe and that He was therefore God’s Son, Prince and future King of this world, He knew that He was royalty, a descendant of David the great king of Israel on both His mother’s side and on Joseph’s side, and He knew that the people of Israel were under occupation by the Romans, by a foreign king, Herod, by a Temple priesthood that was corrupt, by the Pharisees, a legalistic group of teachers who condemned all people who did not follow the rules, and most importantly, people were under occupation by the despair and depression and fear that was all around, the lack of hope, the shame that happens when you don’t live up to your own standards.

And as the descendant of an earthly king and as the Son of the Heavenly King, Jesus chose His identity. He did not choose to be another ordinary man, but He remembered that God the Father, the Creator of the Universe was His Father, and Jesus chose to become the Savior of the World as He and His Father had decided long before the world was made.

For you see, when Jesus arrived that dark and cold evening in that manger, it was not His first visit to planet earth. The Old Testament has many cases of a mysterious Angel of the Lord walking on the earth, talking to Abraham, leading Joshua’s armies, speaking to the prophets and the kings of the Old Testament. And it goes back even farther, for the Creation story tells of Adam and Eve walking with God in the Garden of Eden, not speaking to a Spirit, but walking with God, and before that John tells us in his gospel that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. …14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” John makes it clear that Jesus is the Word of God.

And what does it mean to be the Word of God?

Jesus, the Word of God, is the walking, talking, Message from God. He was both Messenger – and Message. If you received a message from a foreign country, it would make a difference whether that message was sent to you by radio, by email, or in person. It would make a huge difference if a foreign king sent a general with the message of wrath and destruction – or his son with a message of hope and friendship and love.

And God did not choose to send us a message of wrath and destruction. He did not send us a frightening angel, a destructive robot, a leader of armies delivered directly to Caesar Augustus in his palace at Rome. Instead, God sent all people His message as a weak infant, sent to a young girl engaged to a man who was a carpenter, descendants of a great king, yes!, but otherwise average, common, ordinary people.

And the message is critical. For as we saw Jesus grow up and live among us, He told us several things. He told us that God sees us as His children, and that God is a loving Father, a good Father, a proud Father. Jesus told us that God wants a close personal relationship with each of us – not a distant ruler/subject relationship, but a close personal relationship as a good Father to a child, and Jesus demonstrated this by using the word ABBA to speak with His Father – the same word an infant uses, the word we pronounce as Da-Da.

Yet Jesus struggled with people who did not believe Him when He told them time-after-time that He was God's Son, God Himself, that when people had seen Jesus they had seen the Father. And so the people picked up rocks to stone him to death, and ultimately they had the Romans execute him for the crime of claiming to be God.

Jesus was executed in a particularly vile and violent manner. He was whipped, weakened by blood loss, suffocated upon the cross, and died, Then, a Roman soldier checking his dead condition by stabbing him with a spear. Jesus was buried that Friday evening in a rock tomb and a 2000 pound boulder was placed in front of the tomb’s entrance.

And then, to prove that Jesus was exactly who He said He was, Jesus came back alive, the tomb was miraculously opened, He was seen in at least eleven different situations by different groups of men and women, they saw him speak, they heard him teach and preach, they ate with him, and in one case over five hundred people saw him, and a half-dozen men wrote down different accounts of what happened and what He taught during that fabulous month that He was once again walking upon the earth, alive. These accounts form much of the New Testament of the Bible. Feel free to borrow a Bible from our pews and take it home to read the New Testament over the next couple of days or go here to read in a recent easy-to-read translation.

And then Jesus, the infant become adult man, returned to His Father. And Christianity began to grow so fast it took over the Roman Empire, and is today the world’s largest religion.

But before He left, Jesus told us that He will return once again.

And now that I have told you who Jesus is, I ask you again – Who are you?

It’s amazing and interesting. All those thoughts that go through our minds when someone asks: Who are you? We want to answer them by telling people our name, who are parents are, who are children are, what we do for a living, where we live, what our function in life is, anything except who are are in our heart. But really, truly, there are only three possible answers that will make any difference at all a couple of hundred years from now, for the Babe of Bethlehem forces us to face the eternal consequences of that most important question: Who are you?

Are you a skeptic? Do you question everything that is told you? If so, I know you’ve heard the Hollywood view of Jesus, the skeptic’s view of Jesus. Perhaps you’ll take some time to read the Christian view of Jesus so you’ll have a balanced view, so you’ll understand us better. Perhaps you have questions for me. 

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” If what Jesus said is true, then it is very important to understand more and more about Jesus.

Perhaps you are a believer? Have you always understood who Jesus is and put your life in His hands, understanding that He is the Son of God, God Himself walking upon the earth, following Jesus and learning more and more about Him every week, every day? If so, you’ll pray for your friends who are skeptics. You’ll help them understand more about Jesus and why He is so central to the Christian story.

Are you on the border, not skeptical, yet not a believer either? Perhaps you do believe but you are afraid that people will look down at you if you admit to being a Christian believer. If so, let me suggest that if Jesus truly is the Son of God, what your friends think of you isn’t nearly as important as what Jesus and God think of you, for you know the truth but are simply afraid to admit it. Isn't it about time you admitted this to someone who believes and ask them for advice?

O Magnify the Lord – Deep Thoughts on God's Holiness

Micah 5:2-5; Psalm 80:1-7; Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-55

“My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.”

These words begin the New King James Version of the Magnificant – the magnification song of Mary.

Such a beautiful song.

Mary, a girl in her mid-teens, has become pregnant through the action of the Holy Spirit – the breath of God has breathed upon her and quickened an egg inside her.

There is no illicit union, no passionate attack by a god or angel as in the Greek stories, no runaway desire which has attracted her to a bad-boy god.

No, the Holy Spirit – the Greek uses the same word pneuma for breath or wind – the Holy breath of God has done something to her and she will now have God’s child, God’s only child, God’s Son – and she will name him after His Father: Yeshua, Joshua, Iesous in Greek, Jesu in Latin, Jesus in English. A new Yeshua – the name means “Yahweh is salvation”. Yeshua ben Yahweh. Yeshua, the Son of Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Yeshua will be the fulfillment of the prophecy, “And you shall call him Emanu-el – God with us.” A new Yeshua – the first Joshua took over leadership of the Israelites after Moses gave them the law and then died, Joshua led the people into the Promised Land. The new Yeshua would lead all people into the Promised Land, all people who would follow, all people who would choose to follow this new leader, the “God with us”.

It would have been easy for Mary to turn inward and speak of her own goodness – for she WAS good, a virgin, a faithful girl toward her fiancée, a man named Joseph. But Mary doesn’t do that.

Mary speaks of the goodness of God, what God has done for her, what God has done for Mary’s people, what God does – and not what she has done, for Mary knows that she has done nothing special. She was offered a gift and she said “whatever God wants is ok with me”. And because of that open obedience, Mary will become known throughout history as the Theo tokos – the bearer of God.

We often make a big deal out of the holiness of Mary, assuming that there was something extra special about Mary. Some denominations have gone so far as to declare that Mary’s own conception was something extraordinary, that she was conceived without sin, and that she remained a virgin for her entire life. That may be so – but that does not have to be so.

For God had and has the power to step into anyone’s life. There was no need for Mary to be particularly pure and holy to carry Jesus – look at the unsanitary and downright dirty location of His birth in a manger, surrounded by livestock and what livestock leave lying around. Look at the normal mingling with friends and enemies of all moral character of His life, the fact that He ate and spoke and spent the night at homes of people who were far, far, far from holy.

No. Mary did not need to particularly pure and holy to carry Jesus. We want her that way so we can emphasize the special natures of Jesus, for that gives us more of an excuse when we don’t act very much like Jesus – “Well, Jesus had the advantage of having God for a Father and Holy Mary for a mother.” It allows us to blame our father and our mother for our faults, doesn’t it?

No, Mary didn’t have to be holy to carry Jesus – in fact, it is the carrying of God’s Son in her womb that made her holy to us. And so it is with all people.

We have a mistaken impression that we must be holy to come to God. Deep down, we feel that we must be someone special to come forward to God. Different people have told Saundra and I that they aren’t good enough for communion, good enough to be baptized, good enough to become a Christian. They feel that somehow they must work harder and harder and longer before they will be good enough for God. I’ve asked people to serve communion, to read scripture, to teach classes, to do various functions and many people are amazed that they’ve been selected, because they thought they weren’ t good enough for God to use them in that way.

Yet, we become holy when we walk with God. Mary became holy because she carried God's Son, she did not carry God's Son because she was holy. Pastors become holy because we walk with God daily and speak with Him and read of Him. Gradually God’s holiness wears off on us, pastors do not begin holy – and it takes a very long time for pastors to become holy. And so it is with all people. Have you ever noticed that holy people tend to have white hair? It takes time to become holy.

If you desire holiness, walk with God, speak to God, read God’s Word, do God’s work, talk to people about God, represent God to your friends, pray to God with sick people, take homebound people Christ's body and blood, point people to God.

Have you ever gone on a walk with God? Do you ever just take a walk and speak with God as you walk around your house, in the woods, down the street, at the mall?

Do you speak to God? Not a formal prayer, but just a talk, the way you do to your closest friend when you have something to talk about that you are really passionate about? Do you speak with God as you would a close friend?

Do you read God’s Word – do you sit down in the morning or the evening and just read through the New Testament until the wee hours of the night? Have you ever read any of the Gospels at one sitting, ever sat down and read a half-dozen Psalms out loud? Do you read God’s Word?

When do you do God’s work? Is it something you do once a year, once a decade, once in a while or do you regularly do chores for God? Do you serve at the mission, work the food pantry, teach a Bible study in your home or at McDonalds? I know you work hard, but do you do God’s work?

Do you talk to people about God? Who was the last person outside of the church that you talked to about God? Or, for that matter, do you even talk to people inside this church about God or do you prefer to talk about the weather, the Mountaineers, or politics? Which people in your life do you talk to about God, who is supposed to be your first love, but is often more often treated like your crazy uncle that you never mention?

And when things come up in conversation, do you represent God to your friends, do you defend God and the church, or do you quietly look for the exits, avoiding letting people know that you are proud of the God you serve and will not allow your God to be bad-mouthed?

And when your friends and relatives are sick, do you say, “Let’s pray to God and ask for healing?” Do you pray for sick people? Do you pray in their presence? Or do you let that happen in church, in Sunday school, and when the pastor comes to visit?

Have you ever taken a homebound person the body and blood of Christ? Have you ever thought that perhaps that spiritual food might be just what they need? Or have you just considered that one day, when - and if - they return to church, they’ll be able to enjoy Communion? Is it because you are afraid that you are not holy enough to act as a pallbearer for Christ? Or is it because you never thought about it because, after all, it isn’t that important for you?

Have you ever simply talked to someone who is hurting or lost or confused or down in the dumps and pointed them to the God who is there, the God you claim to worship, the God who is watching you at this very moment as you try to avoid God’s eyes? When did you last point someone to Christ?

For you see, each of these actions are the things you do if you desire to become holy, to become closer to God, to become more like Christ. We actually have to walk with our Lord each day as the disciples did for three years, talking with Him, asking Him questions, listening to Him, doing what He asks. This is the path to holiness.

And yet…you can do all these things and never, ever become holy.

"What? Pastor, why can’t I become holy?"

Because all of these things require God in the persons of the Holy Spirit, and God’s son to be with you. To walk with God requires God to walk with you. Speaking to God requires God to listen to you. Reading God’s Word requires God to first speak that Word. Doing God’s work requires God to first give us work, talking to people about God means that God must first do something worth talking about, representing God to our friends means that God must first exist and give us friends, praying to God with sick people means that God must first lead us to sick people and give them the hope that God will heal them, taking homebound people God’s body and blood means that God’s Son Jesus Christ must first have had His body broken and bled that blood, pointing people to God means that God must become visible, and thus becoming holy means that God must choose to allow you to become holy, for you cannot become the least bit holy until God acts in your life as God has acted in every other person’s life since God created the first person!

Mary did not become Jesus’ mother because she was holy. Mary became holy because she was Jesus’ mother.

But there was something that Mary did which few women would have done. And doing that one thing was probably why Mary was chosen. She agreed to let God do whatever God thought best in her life. She was open to God working in her life. And she did what God asked her.

Yet even here, God did not need her agreement. God, who created the Universe, destroyed entire cities, raised volcanoes and leveled land with earthquakes could have forced Mary to have God’s child. But that is not the character of God.

God is polite, and never forces. And this is what makes God’s character so high. This is one reason we love God – because God gave us the choice to sin or not in the Garden of Eden, and God gave Mary the choice to bear Jesus or not in Nazareth, and God even gave Jesus the choice of death on Good Friday.

God gives us the choice. He gives us the choice to follow the path of holiness – or not. What is your choice?

What does it mean to have a God who so much wants us to develop wisdom that God gives our race the opportunity to experience famine and death and sickness and warfare for thousands of years rather than to take away our ability to say “God, I won’t follow You today?”

What does it mean to have a God who picks a young girl who is helpless, yet gives her the choice to bring part of God directly into this world, when the Creator of the Universe voluntarily gives up all of that power and instead choose to put Himself into the body and the arms of a teenage girl to feed Him, to protect Him, to teach Him what it means to be human?

What does it mean to have a God that allows His created creatures to kill Him one day by the most painful, terrible method known, and yet says just before His death – “Forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing?”

It means a deep, deep love, a love that is ready to endure any hardship, any torture, even death itself for the sake of those who are loved. Even for those who choose to ignore Him six days a week, or even seven days a week.

St Augustine, the great bishop of the church around 400 AD, tried to understand that mystery that we call the Holy Trinity – God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. He finally concluded that what makes these three persona a single God is that they have the same will.

The writer of Hebrews wrote: [Jesus] said, “Here I am, I have come to do [the Father’s ]will.” … 10 And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”
What Mary did not realize at first was that God’s will was that her body should bring God onto the earth as a human, growing, walking, talking, and preaching, and ultimately dying a sacrificial death so that God’s will would make us all holy through that “sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all.”

Look around – there are people here who have become holy, there are people who are becoming holy, and there are people who have just a touch of holiness. Almost everyone here has been set aside for God – not by their own works, not by their own goodness, not because they’ve worked hard to understand their Bible and not because they’ve prayed long hours.

Each of us has become holy because Jesus Christ, the Son of God, declared that we would be free from the chains that bind us to the world, the chains called sin, addiction, fear, death, and hatred. Instead, we have become caught up in a cloud of glory that follows God wherever Jesus and the Holy Spirit choose to go – a cloud called holiness, a cloud called righteousness, a cloud called peace, a cloud called life, a cloud called love.

If Jesus had not died upon the cross, few people would be speaking of Him today, for He would be just another philosopher and teacher in a long line that includes Confucius, Plato, and Aristotle. But because Jesus died upon that cross, we have become holy, set apart for God, our lives changed, and our future certain of eternal life. Will you remember this and act as holy people, a holy priesthood of God representing God upon this earth?

So Thursday Evening or Friday, as you gather with family and friends to celebrate the birth of Christ, remember that it is Jesus who made Mary holy, it is Jesus who made Peter and Paul holy saints, and it is Jesus who has given you holiness and given you hope for the future. Tell your friends and family this as we remember the God that so trusted us that He emptied Himself of all power so that He could be born as a human, live as a human, and die as a human. Thankfully, He did what no other human could do by Himself – He came back to life once again. And this is how we know that Jesus was exactly who He said He was – the Almighty God, the Creator of the Universe, God walking upon earth, Emanu-el – God with us.

And so, please join with me as we-who-have-been-made-holy recite together Mary’s Song, the Magnifi-cant.

“My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.

for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
holy is his name.
His mercy extends to those who fear him,
from generation to generation.
He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
remembering to be merciful
to Abraham and his descendants forever,
just as he promised our ancestors.”

Just as Mary was open to God working in her life, are you open to God working in your life? Or are you holding back, with part of your mind saying “God, come in” and part of your mind saying, “God, stay out?”

As people whom God has made holy, you have nothing to fear from God. And so I encourage you to be as Mary and as Jesus and as many people throughout the ages– open to the Holy Spirit, and open to doing the Father’s will. Ask God to tell you His will for you this Christmas!

It’s Not Your Birthday – Balancing Self & Ego

Zephaniah 3:14-20; Isaiah 12:2-6; Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:7-18

A couple of months ago, Saundra decided that our home needed a nice green plant to fill a corner of the living room beside a chair. She had some plants, but they were far too small to fill up the corner, so she went to Lowes to find a plant. She checked several plants and finally settled upon a palm tree that looked good and healthy. She bought it and brought it home.

Unfortunately, what had looked like a good, middle-sized palm tree in the store totally dominated the corner. It was much too tall and wide – when you sat in the chair beside the palm tree, you had to move a branch out of your face. It seems that the palm tree –which was big enough we named it Matilda – that palm tree was just far too large for the place it was intended for. And so we moved around Matilda several times, moved furniture, and finally found a place for Matilda.

Matilda’s problem – being the wrong size – is a problem many people have difficulty with. But the size I’m talking about today isn’t body size, although most of us could – and do – complain about our body size. No, the size I’m talking about is the size of our ego – how much are we worth in the world?

The world has several different ways to tell us how much we are worth.

One way we judge our value in front of other people is through our birthdays and Christmas. Who gives us a present? Who sends us Christmas cards? How many did we get and when did we get them? I know of people who are terribly hurt and feel that other people have insulted them if they are left off another’s Christmas card list, or if they don’t get a valuable enough present on their Christmas or birthday. Just this last week I’ve seen a commercial which urges a man to stay out of the dog house by buying his wife jewelry instead of a small appliance, and there is some truth to that. With some people, one misstep in choice of present – and zip! You are in the dog house at least until Valentine’s Day!

I remember when I was a child that there would often be a “big” box in the corner of the room. I always wanted the big present and my sister and I would always wonder who was getting the big present. And we kept track of how many presents we got – did she get more or did I get more?

And of course, many times the big present would be for my dad from my mom or would be something my dad was giving to my mom. But I would always hope, each year my sister would always hope – which one of US would get the big present, because that told us which one of us was more valuable, and that was important. Of course, we never really realized this was what we were doing, but it was true. It was true. We judged our value by the size and number of our presents

There is the Ted Turner method of deciding the value of someone. You remember Ted Turner, the guy who founded WTBS, CNN, Turner Movies, and several other cable channels? Turner famously said that “Life’s a game and money is how you keep score.” And many, many people judge their own value by how much they are paid. If you get a raise, you feel good. If the company cuts your pay, you look around for another place to work – even if you didn’t need the money, because you feel less valuable with a smaller paycheck. Many marriages have encountered problems when one spouse is paid more than the other, or the previous balance of paychecks is changed because of a layoff. There is something about earning money that gives us a feeling of worth and of power. We even brag about the paychecks of our favorite pitchers or quarterbacks, believing that the highest paid pitcher is naturally the “best” pitcher. And when our retirement nest eggs shrank a few years ago when the stock market fell, we felt terrible – even if we didn’t plan to retire for 15 years – because somehow, we had become less valuable.

We feel valuable when we own an expensive car, a nice new pickup, when we find our house appraises more than the others near us. We feel less valuable when we own a cheap but working car that is 8 years old. And the advertising and the salesmen and everyone we see reminds us that this world decides value based upon how much money you have or how much money you earn. If you want proof, watch the difference in how most people treat a medical doctor and anyone who admits to being unemployed. How differently do you treat a lawyer and a homeless man who stops by here for a couple of nights, a meal or two, and asks for a bus ticket? And most importantly, how do you feel when you are unemployed instead of employed, when you are retired instead of working, or if your husband is unemployed instead of employed? How much is what you think of yourself related to how much you or your spouse makes?

Another way our society decides who is valuable and who is not valuable is by beauty and other physical attributes. Studies have shown that good looking people are hired quicker and earn more money than average looking people and they both do better than downright ugly people. Tall men also do better than short men – in almost every presidential election, the taller of the two final candidates has won – but the tall man advantage applies to many fields. The fat and the very skinny suffer discrimination. Until the passage of the Americans with Disability Act, those with disabilities were often discriminated against in hiring.

A fourth way our society decides who is valuable and who is not valuable is by speech. Did you know that people buy more often from a salesman with an upperclass British accent than one with a common Midwestern accent? When I lived in Johnson City, TN, I spent a year as a life insurance salesman and once a week I had to make phone calls to set 20 appointments. I quickly found out that if the person answering the phone answered with a Tennessee accent, I’d better speak with a Southern accent, but if the person answering the phone had a Northern accent, I’d better respond with a Northern accent. And we assume that certain accents mean that a person is uneducated or stupid because of the way television has portrayed people with those accents.

And then, there are clothes. If you don’t think people judge you by clothing, then apply for a manager’s job in a government office and show up wearing dirty blue jeans and an NRA t-shirt instead of a suit and tie. If you think that only snobs judge you by clothing, then show up to apply for an oil truck driver’s job and wear a three-piece suit and tie. We assume that people who dress appropriately are more valuable and we assume that people with the wrong clothes are less valuable.

And of course, there is political or other power. How many of you will treat a governor or President you like better than the man who asks you for $10 to buy cigarettes? How many of you will listen to what a politician says but totally ignore what one of the Kardashians says? (I admit to being guilty of this!) How many of you will listen to what your supervisor says, or a state policeman says, or a soldier says instead of what the checkout girl at the supermarket says?

And why does this matter?

Because when we think we are more valuable than someone else, we think we have power over them. And when we think we are less valuable than someone else, we let them have power over us. Yet what we need to remember is that God created each of us, and therefore we are each God’s possessions, worthy of being treated as valuable possessions of the Creator of the Universe.

When John the Baptist began to preach in the wilderness near the Jordan River, he said that God wanted people to repent of their sins. And when people asked him what he wanted done, John answered them: “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.” You see, clothing is not to be a way to judge the value of a person.

He told tax collectors:

13 “Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them. Money is not to be a way to judge the value of a person.

And solders: “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.” Power is not to be used to judge the value of a person.

John the Baptist told people that each person was just as valuable as the next person. Just because you have power over someone is not a reason to use it. Instead, those who are powerful should help those who are weak and treat them well.

And John told us something else.

On the day when people were looking at John with awe and with wonder, trying to decide if John was the Messiah, God’s Anointed man who would set all things right, on that day, John said, ““I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire."

When John was being looked at by people who were thinking that John was very, very valuable – John told them that he was lower than the lowest slave, not even worthy of touching the sandal straps of Jesus Christ.

In other words...clothing, power, money, speech, education, all of these things do not matter to God. It does not make you more valuable to God if you speak well, if you wear nice suits, if you have great military or political power, if you have billions of dollars and a Harvard education. It does not even matter if you are the greatest prophet who ever lived, which is what Jesus later said about John the Baptist. It does not matter if you are Billy Graham, devoting your life to God and Jesus Christ. You are still unworthy to untie the sandal straps of Jesus Christ, the Holy Messiah, the Savior of the world. We are no where near the equal of Jesus.

But at the same time, there are other people who feel that they are too poor, too ugly, too bad for God. There are people who will not come to church because they have skeletons hidden in the closet that they worry will be used to shame them. They may have used drugs – they may still use drugs. They may have been a heavy drinker – they may still drink. They may be living with their boyfriend or girlfriend and they worry that someone will be critical of them.

It is amazing the ways that people think that they are too far gone for God to save them. I knew a woman who was convinced that God would never forgive her because she slapped her son – who was a real brat – once several years before. I knew another man who wouldn’t come to church because an old girlfriend attended the church. Another woman was concerned that she had divorced a guy who had beaten her, put her in the hospital, threatened her with a pistol, starved her, and then run off with a pair of women, and she was concerned that God would not forgive her for the divorce. We can be SOOO harsh on ourselves!

And that is the beauty of the God we serve. If you ask for forgiveness, if you make the choice to try your best to follow God’s Son, Jesus Christ, God will forgive you of whatever your sin is! For no matter how much you’ve messed up, you are still a person made by God, a special photograph of God made from a special angle, with special lighting, and there is only one copy of you, and so you are immensely valuable to God – and to all who truly are following the teachings of Jesus Christ. Your sins do not make you less valuable to God!

And so this is the really wonderful thing about Christianity:

We are asked to do what is not normal for us. We are asked to both recognize our immense value, to understand that we are truly sons and daughters of the Creator of the Universe, Princes and Princesses of the Kingdom of God – and yet we have to recognize that we are no better – yet no worse – than any of the other Princes and Princesses of that Kingdom. The very wealthy, committed Presbyterian deacon named Sam Walton who found a way to provide products to people at a lower price is just as important to God as the poor shoe maker named William Cary, who became the first modern missionary to India. Saundra and I have a friend who is a Methodist pastor who used to be a violent drug dealer – perhaps you know someone who is at bottom today who could one day lead hundreds and thousands of people to Christ – or someone who has millions of dollars who could make a tremendous difference in the world by supporting missions and relief work. Both are valuable to God – and so is the woman who is lying in bed this morning with a hangover as her three kids are trying to eat cereal and watch television by themselves because she had her mind on finding a new guy last night. She is also valuable – a special view of the God and God’s love that is unique in this world – and the only difference between us and her is that she doesn’t know it. Yet. Will you tell her?

That doesn’t mean that every person is asked to do the same for God the King. One Prince may be a great administrator, another be a great speaker, a third may be a great teacher of teenagers, and a fourth may be excellent at building things. One Princess may be a wonderful seamstress, another be a great singer, a third may have a gift of raising money, and a fourth may be able to listen to Alzheimer’s patients ramble for hours on end. Each person is unique and shows a special view of God’s love. What is your unique gift, your special view of God’s love that you could show others?

And so what would happen if we really listened to John the Baptist’s words over the centuries? What would happen if we listened to those words that were given to John by God? What would happen if actually did what John told us God wants us to do?

We’d have to remember that Christmas isn’t our birthday party, wouldn’t we?

“Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.”

Do you have clothes? Give a set of clothes to someone who doesn’t have clothes. Do you have food? Share your food with someone who doesn’t have food.

And perhaps we need to understand what John meant, and put it into the context of the time. In John’s time, probably 99 percent of the people had either one, two, or three sets of clothes, or only a partial set of clothes. And so when John was saying to give away a set of clothes, John truly meant to give away at least half your clothes, and he may have meant for you to give away all of your extra clothes.

Now I know that we live in a wealthier time, and I know that the Clarksburg Mission sends most of the clothes donated to it to a company that sends the clothes over seas to people who are truly poor, who have one set of clothes or a partial set of clothes.

And so we update John’s commandments for our time.

If you buy the members of your family nice Christmas sweaters, wouldn’t the right thing to do be to buy Christmas sweaters for people who have no Christmas sweaters? If you buy a doll for your daughter, wouldn’t the right thing to do be to buy a doll for another child? If you buy a rotary saw for your husband’s hobby, wouldn’t putting a rotary saw in the hands of a man who is willing to work, but can’t afford the proper tools to get started be the right thing to do?

And so let me suggest this:

• Buy some kid’s clothes and give them to a teacher you know to give to the right students.
• Buy some dolls and give them to the elementary school.
• Buy some tools and sewing machines and give them to Gail at Open Heart Ministries at Duff Street Church to give to men and women who want to work.

Look at what you are doing for your family – and do that for people who really need help, who are struggling, who would really benefit from a used computer, a how-to DVD, a book about restaurant cooking, a book on home-made crafts. Think outside the box and get creative about helping your brothers and sisters in this world.

And now I’d like to have a short video about an out-of-the-box way to help people. Think about what you would do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_nuPlE2KU8

Of the people in the video, who would you most trust inviting over to your home? Yet which person would you have most likely invited over to your home before seeing the video?

Think about it.

John compared people to trees in an orchard, and pointed to God as the owner of the orchard. In an orchard, every year about this time of year, the trees that are rotten, the trees that are diseased, the trees that aren’t producing fruit are cut down and burned to keep the rot from spreading. John said: 9 The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”

Have you been producing good fruit for the Master of the Orchard?

John also compared people to wheat that has been harvested. Once again speaking of God as the owner of the farm: 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
After the harvest, the good grain is threshed, it is separated from the chaff, the useless part of the wheat stalk. Have you become good wheat or are you useless chaff, just lying there on the threshing floor doing nothing for God, ready to be burned up?

The King’s Son returns shortly. When He arrived on that dark night long ago, the most powerful Person in the Universe became a humble infant, emptying Himself of all power to be born in the lowest of places that He might show people of God’s love. Perhaps you can be like Him.

Now is the time to turn around your life, becoming humble if you’ve been full of yourself – and lifting up your head if you’ve been burden down with your head to the ground. God wants us to hold an honest understanding of who we are – Princes and Princesses of the Kingdom, representing God on this earth. But God wants us to find our brothers and sisters, who are just like us – only they don’t realize that God loves them as sons and daughters also. It is up to us to show them this truth, this Gospel.

Take a gift to someone new this year. Take the time to balance their self and their ego the way that God wants us all to do. Remember that Christmas is not your birthday, but it is the birthday of Jesus Christ, the Beautiful One who came from God to tell each of us of God’s love, who died for each of us that we would know how deep that love is, how valuable we each are. He came back to life to demonstrate that He was who He claimed to be – God walking upon this earth, the Eternal, Almighty One who loves you despite everything you have done, not because of anything you have done, but because of how good God is and what God has done.

And to think that He came to us as a little Child! Can you imagine what Joseph must have thought that night? Could you imagine having been trusted with Someone who is eternal? You have been trusted with someone who is eternal – bring your neighbors and family and friends into eternity by sharing with them the beauty of what Christ has done for each person this Christmas time.

As you remember what you have done, both good and bad – and what He has done –remember your friends, neighbors, and family – those who think too highly of themselves – and those who think too little of themselves. Speak to them as you are able.

Every Valley – Ethics, Morals, and God

Genesis 3; Malachi 3:1-4; Luke 1:68-79; Philippians 1:3-11; Luke 3:1-6

When Saundra and I were first married, we moved into an apartment in Johnson City, TN, and then six weeks later, I found a job in Medina, NY, halfway between Buffalo and Rochester. I had to find a place to rent in a couple of days, and there were only a couple of homes available in the small town, and so I found a small farmhouse a couple miles outside of town on County House Road beside a 40-acre cabbage patch. It was the better of the two places, but it had its issues. I’m sure many of you have lived in homes or apartments that had issues.

First of all, we soon discovered that the previous renters had kept a tomcat in the house. At least for a few months, the weather was pleasant and we could keep the windows wide open – and did! The kitchen stove did not work – at all, and when Saundra turned on the electric skillet and microwave at the same time, the fuses blew. Not the breakers – the fuses!

But the most interesting part about the house was the plumbing system.

It seems that the house had three separate water supplies. There was the original 30 foot deep hand-dug well, lined with stone. There was a large basement cistern which received water from the roof. And there was a drilled well, such as many people have today - perhaps you have one.

But there was a problem with the drilled well – the well had so many minerals that the pipes and pump were clogged up with the minerals and so the water did not flow from the drilled well.

This left us with the hand-dug well, which ran dry from July to November so we had to have water delivered to it, and the rain-fed cistern.

Now to make things really interesting, the hand dug well was connected to one pump which supplied the cold water, and the cistern was connected to a different pump which supplied the hot water. And when you’d take a shower, the different pressures between the water systems meant that the temperature was constantly changing as first one pump and then the other kicked on and off. It was always easy to tell when someone was in the shower – particularly washing their hair - from the shouts every time a pump would kick on or off and the water temperature would change from 100 degrees to 130 degrees to 55 degrees and then back again.

It would have been so much better if the different systems had communicated with each other, but they had been piped poorly, and it would have also worked well if the drilled well had not been clogged up, since that pump fed both hot and cold water systems. But it wasn’t hooked up that way, and after about 8 months of tolerating this mess, we moved from the wilderness of County House Road to a modern apartment 15 miles from Medina.

The wilderness. Our readings today speak of a great savior who would come to Israel. They speak of a man who would come before that savior, a man who would declare the coming of the Messiah, a man would prepare the way. That man appeared one day in the wilderness and people began to listen to him. Would you have the guts to go into the wilderness, live in a tent, and begin preaching on a riverbank?

That man became known as John the Baptist – or more properly, John the Baptizer, a cousin of Jesus of Nazareth, a strange man, a man who rejected worldly goods and left the cities and towns to preach in the wilderness by the Jordan river. As Luke tells us:“3 He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” John’s ministry had three components.

First, John called people to look at their sins and to repent of those sins. Second, John offered forgiveness for those sins through the physical act of baptism – a way to wash away the sins. And third, John announced the coming of the Messiah and pointed to Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah.

Sins. It reminds us of the apple from the Garden of Eden. It is interesting that sin – which Jesus Christ died to remove from the world – is the single thing that most people associated with Christianity. If you ask the average person what Christianity is all about, and whether or not they agree with Christianity, you will find that your discussion will center around what people think of the moral and ethical positions that various Christian preachers have taken. To the world at large – the most important aspect of Christianity today is the ethical and moral system of Christianity.

The world is filled with moral and ethical systems. There are people who believe that you should do that which gives you the greatest pleasure. There are people who believe that you should do that which provides the greatest good for the greatest number of people. There are people who believe that you should always be fair. There are people who believe that you should always help the weakest people, various minorities, women and children first, and there are those who believe that the world would be a better place if everyone would simply try to do what is best for themselves without forcing anyone to do anything.

And so, many people look at Christianity and say, “Christianity is just another moral and ethical system. What makes it so special? I disagree with several of its commands and so I reject Christianity!”

And what is the common Christian response? “The ethics and morals of Christianity were given by God, so we should follow them.” And our unbelieving friends say, “If God has that system of ethics, I don’t want to follow that God.”

And so where do we go?

Perhaps we need to understand the place that sin and ethics and morals has in Christianity before we begin to argue sin and ethics and morals with our friends.

Christianity is actually a very simple story. It is about God, who created a Universe and a race of humans and asked them to take care of that Universe. They were given all things, but were asked not to do one particular thing. You see, they were given a wonderful home, abundant food, a pleasant eternal life if they would simply obey the One who created them.

Gen 3:6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

Adam and Eve chose to disobey by eating the wrong apple, and then they were kicked out of their pleasant home to survive as best they could in the world, operating by their own rules.

In essence, Adam and Eve were given a choice – live by God’s rules or make up your own rules.

The world we see around us is the world that we get by making up and then not following our own rules. For nobody ever follows their own ethical or moral system completely. How many of you have ever cheated on a diet, have ever stolen even a pencil, have ever done something that you once said you’d never do?

Do you have any ex-friends? I think we all have people who were once in our lives and now we no longer talk much because one or the other of us hurt the other – usually we both were somewhat at fault if we are honest.

You see, breaking God’s rules – what we call sin – harms relationships. Sins are like the mineral deposits that clogged up the well and the pump and the pipes and the valves in our home in Medina. Every time we do something sinful, it is like putting another spoonful of minerals in the pipe system that communicates between us and our friends, our families, and our God.

Have you ever tried to make things right with someone? All the old things that were said and done get in the way. It is like the minerals in the pipes are clogging the flow of love from one person to the other. And if there are enough minerals, there is no way that the relationship can ever be mended, short of God’s intervention.

And that is what happens when both people ask God for help mending a relationship. That choice of both parties to ask God for help gives God permission to cut out the old relationship pipe and to insert a clean, new relationship pipe between the two of you, which allows the love to flow again. Don’t you have someone where you’d like God to put a clean new relationship pipe into place?

But what place does the Christian ethical system have in the scheme of things?

What most people miss is this: Christian ethics and morals is almost the last thing about Christianity. It isn’t the core of Christianity – it isn’t even an important part of Christianity. It is what we get when we have already made a full and complete commitment to following Jesus Christ and practiced it for several years.

Imagine, if you will, an apple? An apple has an outer protective skin, a wonderful sweet and sour fruity part, and a tough core with seeds in the middle.

To an apple tree, the important parts are the seeds. If the seeds end up in good soil, a new tree will grow. The tough core protects the seeds, while the fruity part is what is important to and attracts the deer, the horses, the people who will spread the seeds. And the outer skin is what protects the good fruity part from damage by insects and rot. Without that outer skin, the fruit would quickly rot.

And so it is about Christianity. The outer skin of the ethical and moral system protects from rot the wonderful fruity part of Christianity, the joy, the relationships with God, Christ, and Holy Spirit, and with other people who have those relationships, other Christians. But inside that joy and those relationships is a tough core, a series of understandings and beliefs about who God is, what God desires of people, and what the purpose of life is all about, what we call theology. It doesn’t taste very good and can be tough to swallow, but it is important to allow us to enjoy the fruity part of Christianity.

And in the middle of Christianity is that seed, the Gospel, the seed of the new life which comes when we accept that God does not hate us, but actually loves us intensely, when we accept that Christ did not come to earth to condemn us, but to save us, when we accept that "God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believe in Him will not perish, but have eternal life."

Remember that Eve saw that the apple was good for food and pleasing to the eye and desirable for gaining wisdom? The skin is not what we desire in the apple, but many people are taken in by the pleasing skin of the Red Delicious, the common apple found in the supermarkets, which has a tough but shiny skin, and disguises a horrible tasting inside which will feed you.

Instead, look at the skin of a Romney Golden Delicious found at a roadside stand or on your own apple tree, which isn’t that attractive, may have blotches which turn us off, but which contains a most wonderful tasting fruit. Do not fall for systems which have what appear to be beautiful moral systems but do not fill you with good spiritual nutrients and a good tasting method of reaching God who is the source of wisdom.

You see, a good skin must be both attractive and be a tough protective coating, yet not be too tough or you can’t get past it, nor too weak, or it does not protect the fruit. Like the Golden Delicious, Christianity’s moral and ethical system is balanced – tough, yet at first glance it does not appear as beautiful as some systems. But as we look at those blotches and dots, we see that there is a deeper beauty there, places where the skin has protected and healed itself without damaging the fruit.

But above all, remember that the moral and ethical system of Christianity is nearly the last part we truly learn about Christ. What is far more important is that Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Christ is the Wisdom of God. It is through an understanding of Jesus Christ the living water, a deep understanding, that we come to have a healed life in this world and an eternal life in the next. It is through understanding God, Christ, and the fire of the Holy Spirit that we come to understand how the Universe operates, the Universe we live in, the Universe that we die in.

And while you – and I – may at times disagree with some of the ethics and morals of Christianity, I have come to understand over the years and decades that there are wise reasons behind those ethics and morals that appear to be blotches and stains on the face of Christianity. And what is more, I’ve also come to realize that some of the very things that once bothered me the most about so-called Christian ethics and morals – were based upon ideas that are not Christian at all, but were later additions, later ideas that men and women added largely to help keep their children under control, and over the years the guiding principle was lost.

I’ll give you an example. Years ago, some preachers saw the evil and destruction of gambling addiction. And at that time, gambling was mainly done by card games such as poker. And so the preachers preached against gambling and card playing.

Fifty years later, the skill-based game of bridge became popular. But by that time, in the memory of the people who had heard the earlier preachers, but not really read the Bible, they only remembered: Don’t play cards. And so they frowned upon playing the game of bridge, a skill-based card game which is every bit as dependent upon skill as chess is. The real principle – don’t gamble – had been lost.

And in some cases, they were the teachings of a very few men and women, and had become noticeable because some Hollywood movie brought the teaching in front of their audience. Some of you may remember the movie “Footloose” in which a pastor preaches against dancing – any dancing. Yet we know that David danced before the Lord when the Ark of the Covenant was brought to town.

And so, it is important to look at what you think Christianity teaches very carefully, reading the Bible and asking questions, before concluding that a particular rule or declaration of good or bad is a “Christian” rule. You may find that that Christian rule is not so hard and fast – and is, in fact, only the rule of a particular denomination.

Let me give you another example. When I was a teenager, there was a great debate in the church. The issue was very simple – one group of people maintained that Christianity taught that women must not wear slacks or blue jeans, but only dresses and long skirts. Another group disagreed. And in some churches, the argument still goes on. But look around you today. Some women here today are wearing skirts, some dresses, some slacks, and some blue jeans, and all of them are accepted in this church.

I have seen this carried to the extreme. In some independent churches, the elders have decided that a proper church must never have a kitchen because no church in the New Testament is mentioned as having a kitchen, and people must never eat anything other than the communion bread in church.

For you see, those who see Christianity as a bunch of rules and instructions have missed the point. They are focused upon the skin of the apple instead of the fruit of the apple. And so here we try to be a bit different.

Our focus here is to help each person connect with God through Jesus Christ – they are given the seed, and then when that connection is made, to help each person learn to understand what God wants for them personally through the written Word of God – which means to read the Bible as people learn the core, and then we help them move forward through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the gentle whisper of the breath of God who speaks to us when we truly try to listen for God’s will, which is the fruit. And as they understand the seed, the core, and the fruit, they will develop their own beautiful, wonderful ethical and moral skins.

For truly, as a pastor in many ways I am like a water bucket bringing the living water of Christ to people. How much better if you were plumbed in with a clean pipe directly to the source of the water? I carry matches to bring the fire of the Holy Spirit to you. How much better if you were connected with a clean pipe to the source of the fire, like having a 2 inch gas line connecting you with the fire of the Holy Spirit?

For Christ - who IS the living, breathing Word of God – and the Holy Spirit have indeed come to us – and will one day come to all people. The clean pipe is laid and ready to be connected on your end. And when the living water of Christ and the fire of the Spirit arrive, they clean us up, purifying us as we trust and listen. As Malachi said:

2 But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. 3 He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, 4 and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years.

To be righteous, read the Word of God, follow Christ – the living Word of God, and listen to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. This will lead you to become “acceptable to the LORD, as in days gone by, as in former years.”

And most importantly, we understand that we cannot set rules for another who is not our child, that we cannot tell another what the right ethical and moral decisions should be, and above all that we cannot be another person’s Holy Spirit – the Spirit must speak to each person individually, for that is what Jesus taught – He would send us a counselor, the Holy Spirit, to guide us into all truth. We must grow our own protective ethical and moral skin from the Word of God and the Holy Spirit’s guidance.

And that, my friends, is our ethical and moral system: To do what the Word of God and the Holy Spirit of God guide us to do rather than attempt to lay out a specific set of do's and don'ts. Let the seed of the Gospel and the core of theology develop through the fruit of Christian joy and relationships a wonderful skin of morals and ethics. And if we do that, we will be the most respected people in the world – and will be told one day by God: “Well done, good and faithful servant."

If you are struggling with an ethical or moral dilemma, a problem which you cannot easily solve, begin to find a solution today by praying, asking God for guidance, and then listening for an answer over the next few hours in Sunday school, in the reading of Scripture, and in simply sitting in silence listening... listening... listening, and asking God to speak to you.

Be Alert – Seeing God in the Universe - The Four Barriers to Finding God

Jeremiah 33:14-16; Psalm 25:1-10; 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13; Luke 21:25-36

The other day, I looked at the sky. There was a single cloud floating in a wonderful blue, featureless void. The grass was green – the trees were brown and gray. The sun lit the whole scene up in a yellow-gold light. A gentle wind was blowing and a small bird was chasing a red-tailed hawk that was trying to make his escape, like a B-52 being attacked by an F-16. And all I could hear was the gentle whisper of the leaves moving across the yard.

At that moment, my mind’s eye saw something else. There was a Presence with me, a gentle Voice that stood and whispered in my ear – “Be Alert – the Best is yet to come!” And I knew that my oldest friend was with me, the Holy Spirit of God, the gentle breath of God that blows upon the earth and speaks to those of us who listen. You see, the presence of God is all around us if you simply take time to look for God, to be alert, to listen for the gentle voice of the Holy Spirit. Whenever you see something beautiful, you can be sure that God has been there, for Beauty is found in nature and in godly people, while ugly is confined to self-absorbed people and their works. Perhaps more than anything else, Beauty – real beauty, the deep, deep soul-filling, life-giving beauty, tells us where God is in action. Ugliness, decay, corruption, death are places where we find evil.

I can tell you why a rainbow looks the way it looks, but I cannot tell you why we consider it beautiful, except that our Creator loves beauty. And the same thing applies to a beautiful mountain, covered with beautiful fall leaves or even covered with new-fallen snow or green in the summer. The mountain is beautiful, but the only reason must be that our Creator loves beauty. And the same thing applies to the deadly coral reef, beautiful, yet deadly to people, who can step on a fish and die in 30 seconds from the fishes’ sting. Beauty tells us that God is around – stay alert.

And coincidence does the same. One special event when two great things happen just right is a coincidence. But to those who believe, we know that those coincidences that happen over and over again, that happen weekly, even daily are no coincidences, but are instead the fingerprints of our God making our life safer and better and good for us. Watch out for those coincidences – stay alert – God is working in your life. As David wrote in the Psalm: “In you, Lord my God, I put my trust.”

If you are a believer, you know what I mean, for you have put your trust in God. But if you are not a believer, at this point, I’d like to let you know where the exits are, since you probably are looking for the exits, for we are talking about the supernatural, and the supernatural makes many people uncomfortable.

Here in this place, most of the people around you truly believe that the Universe was created by a supremely wise, all-powerful, all-loving God who pays personal attention to us, a Being that is beyond nature, the Being that created Nature. And I recognize that you may be one of those few people here who do not believe this. Today, I’m going to talk about why Christians believe there is a Creator God, and more importantly, the barriers to believing that we put in front of ourselves.

If you are a believer, I’m sure you have some friends, neighbors, or family members who do NOT believers. In fact, I’ve asked you to make a list of a dozen people outside the church who are not believers. I’ve asked you to pray for them to come to know the Lord, and I’ve asked you to try to praise God to them each time you see them. But you will notice that I have not asked you to invite these people to church – that will come much later. And so, this sermon will hopefully help you as you talk to people who do not believe in a Creator God. As Paul wrote in his letter to the Thessalonians:

12 May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. 13 May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.

First of all, I’d like to tell you a bit about myself. I once was an atheist, a young man who did not believe in any God. I earned a degree in Physics, focused upon astrophysics, the study of the stars and the planets and the galaxies, and how they formed and developed. When you think about the scientific atheist, I was that person. So I know many of the questions you have, and most of the reasons people don’t believe. I’ll be happy to tell you my story and why I changed my mind about God sometime when you’ve got a half hour to listen, perhaps here at the church or at your home, or at McDonald’s. 

At first glance, it looks like there are dozens of different reasons why people don’t believe in God. But it is much simpler than that. There are really only four reasons why people don’t believe in God – Barriers that keep them from seeing Christ. – 

1. They don’t trust Christians. 
2. They see no need for God in their lives. 
3. They’ve decided that Christianity is no help with their problems, and finally, 
4. They see no hurry to become believers.

So the first barrier that people need to cross is a high stone wall labeled “I don’t trust any Christians”, and in order to cross that wall, they will need a trustworthy someone whose shoulders they can climb on and that trustworthy soul is you. Before anyone can trust in God, he or she must first trust a prophet of God – one who speaks for God – in short, a Christian.

We look around and we see the people around us as the only people in the world that we do trust, so we wonder why people can’t trust Christians. We have to understand why people trust some people and don’t trust others. People trust people who never hurt them, they trust people who love them, they trust people who are truthful, they trust people who have a proven record of being right.

Unfortunately, for many people, they have never met any mature Christians. Oh, it’s easy to find a Christian – just not a mature Christian. You see, most Christians are still in the disciple stage, the learning stage, where they are still hurting people as often as they are helping people, where they are still hating people as often as they are loving people, where they exaggerate things to make a point, and where they repeat things they have heard other immature Christians claim, things which have been shown to be wrong. In short, if there were a truth-in-labeling law for people, most of the people who claim to be Christians walking around in America should instead be labeled as “people learning to be Christians”. And so, our immature Christians often give Christ a bad name. They are like skinny, weak people who our friend begins to climb on, but they are so weak that they wobble and our friend falls to the ground, in worse shape than before they started to climb up and over the wall of trust.

The mature Christians, on the other hand, have worked long and hard at controlling their tongues. They have learned not to complain about others, they have learned to give other people grace, to help others understand the actions of the rude, the hurtful, the mean-spirited, the hypocritical, and they do not fall into these traps themselves. In short, they have practiced becoming holy – set apart for God and God’s purposes. They control what they say about others, and they limit what they claim for Christ, for there are many people who left Christianity when they prayed as a young child for a pet – or a grandmother – and then the pet or Grandma died despite their prayers. The mature Christian knows that God’s will is supreme, and that God may choose to save our loved one – or not – according to God’s purposes, and so mature Christians do not make promises for God which God may not choose to keep.

Mature Christians are never mean-spirited, and the mean spirit can apply to claims about science and other belief systems as well as about specific people. After all, if you believe that rubbing blue mud into your bellybutton on Wednesday mornings is the way to God, you will not trust me if I laugh at you, will you? And so when the immature Christian makes claims about science and scientists that are mocking – or worse yet – completely wrong – it does not help the cause when speaking to a scientist about a Creator God. Mature Christians, you see, are solid, strong, and stable. When another starts to climb on them to see over the wall of trust, they are like rocks of granite – strong, supportive, trustworthy. Are you strong and supportive and trustworthy for your unbelieving friends?

And so the first thing we work upon is to be trustworthy people in front of others. We must develop that trust over the weeks and months and years of a relationship – for example with the dozen people on your list. And this is not in the least bit a deceptive practice, for this is how we are supposed to be as Christians. In fact, we are to pray to become holy. As Paul wrote in I Thessalonians 3:13 “And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.“ We are not supposed to pretend to be trustworthy, but we are indeed supposed to be trustworthy people.

To share the Gospel, we must be trustworthy people and we must show love and understanding and joy and wisdom in all we do. What habits do you have that you need to pray for God to remove, that you need to work upon, that you need to destroy from your person so that you will be holy and blameless and trustworthy so that people will see in you the character of the Son of God standing before them? The Holy Spirit will guide you if you will listen to the Spirit. You must grow to the point where they can at least catch a glimpse of Christ shining through your smile, and then they will begin to trust what you say. Lift your friends up and help them to safely cross the Wall of Trust.

The second barrier to seeing God is when a person feels that they have no need for God in their lives. This barrier stands in front of them like a moat filled with crocodiles a hundred yards wide and they don’t want to get wet. For most people, a discussion of God is simply an intellectual exercise. It is a philosophical debate, a question similar to the other questions that will simply not matter in your life such as “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” or “Does life exist on other planets?” or “What is the price of eggs in China this week?” For most people, particularly people who are successful in life, these questions and the question of God’s existence are simply not important, and it doesn’t matter to them what the answer is. And so they can hold a discussion or debate and they believe the answer is meaningless in their lives. And so they will argue with you and simply work to score debating points - the issue never touches them personally. And so they stand on the shore of the moat and politely decline to cross the Moat of Need.

But for some people, the question of God’s existence has become very important. God has lit a fire behind them and that fire pushed them toward the Moat of Need where they must swim - or die on the shore. When you are lying in a hospital bed undergoing chemotherapy for Stage IV cancer, it really matters to you whether or not God exists, because you need to know what will happen to you if the poisons being dripped into your body fail to stop the killer. When your mother or father or child is lying in the hospital bed, you really want to know if God is real, for you want to know if you will see your dying loved one again in a few years. When you lose the career you’ve been working at for a decade or more, and when you have to start all over because of a bad marriage, it really helps to know what we are working for, why we are suffering, whether love is worthwhile.

And millions of people have recently begun to try to answer this question, because it really matters whether the God of Christianity is real, the God of Islam is real, whether they are both real or whether they are both simply pleasant ideas, for ultimately the answer to that question will decide what your actions in today’s world will be – will you follow the teachings of Christ, the teachings of Mohammed, the teachings of those who deny both, or the teachings of those who actually deny both because they claim that both are real? It affects our actions in today’s society.

And so, for your friends, be close enough to your friends - in particular your dozen friends - that you will know when they begin to wonder what is important in this life, whether God exists or not. It is important to be there, ready to speak of God, to help your friend see that the real reason they are so fearful about death is because they don’t know if God exists or not, the real reason they are so frightened about being alone is because they have never felt the presence of God, the real reason they are worried about their money is because they have always depended upon themselves and they have never learned to depend upon God. Help them know that they need help outside themselves, help them to learn to jump into the Moat of Need, for that is the second barrier they need to cross to find God. As David wrote in his psalm: 9 He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way. People must get humble before they will look for God! And once they are humbled, they will run across the Moat of Need, running across the backs of the crocodiles to get to the other side!

The third barrier all people must cross is the tall, razor-wire Fence of believing that God is of no help to us in our time of trouble. If you have lost your job, you feel trapped by the Fence of No Help. If your car is being repossessed, you are looking for cash, not a bible study. If you have just been told you have breast cancer, you are looking for a choice surgeon - not a church sanctuary. Yet, as David wrote to God:

2 I trust in you;
do not let me be put to shame,
nor let my enemies triumph over me.
3 No one who hopes in you
will ever be put to shame,

As we know, God is the answer to people’s problems because…God is always the answer to all of our problems. There is something that frees our emotion from the tremendous weight we carry when we turn over our burden to God. Our spirit floats free, our soul rises high, we cry out of the depths and God’s voice comes back – “I’m here and I can handle your problems”, like hooking up the Goodyear blimp to a single concrete block that we can barely carry ourselves, God lifts us up as high over the Fence as we need to be lifted.

But to our friend who doesn’t believe, we are asking the impossible. When you are in a hole, looking at your feet, it is very difficult to see the Goodyear blimp. And so, we have to tell stories, true stories, believable stories, wonderful stories of how God acted in our lives, how God acted in our friends’ lives, how God has acted throughout time, and every one of those stories needs to be true, vetted for accuracy, unexaggerated, and told with passion, in earnest, and with a solid look into our friend’s eyes so that they will know that as far as we are concerned, God acted for us and saved us once, or twice, or three times.

We have to truly be witnesses of the good that God and Christ have done in our lives. Through our true stories, Christ’s body will walk once again on earth as He appears in the other person’s mind when you tell that story and they hear and imagine what happened to you that night you prayed for help. And so you need to tell many people - a dozen, twenty, fifty people - the stories about what God has done for you so that you will become good at telling the story for the one time it saves another persons’ eternal soul and sets the angels singing praises in Heaven.

And so, with your help and the stories you tell, your friend can reluctantly clear the third barrier, the tall, razor-wire fence labeled “God is no help”, for you will have provided a balloon labeled “Look what God did for Me!”

And then, standing before them is the fourth and final barrier, the great final barrier of excuses, the barrier of fear, the barrier of taking a few more days to think about it, the barrier of procrastination, the barrier of thinking there is no hurry. It is like an obstacle course filled with rings and jungle gyms and robe ladders and zip lines and trees to climb and concrete tubes to crawl through. And yet, you must help them to get through this obstacle course. As Jesus said,

34 “Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you suddenly like a trap. 35 For it will come on all those who live on the face of the whole earth. 36 Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.”

You know when a person is ready to believe when they begin asking you detailed questions about your faith, about God, and about Christian ideas. When someone asks you to explain how the world was created in seven days – that person is ready to believe in God. When someone says they can’t believe in a God that would order the killing of innocent women and children, your friend is ready to become a Christian. When someone asks whether or not you think that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, you have someone who desperately wants to believe and find the answers to all their questions.

Our natural tendency is to become defensive, to cut and run, to get angry with them. But that’s because we think they are attacking us. They may look like they are attacking, it may feel to you like they are attacking, but that isn’t what is happening. What’s happening in their mind is very subtle, and it may be happening in some of your minds here today. Here is what is happening:

Every person understands deep down in their heart, perhaps below their conscious mind that believing in God has real consequences in our lives. You see, if we say we don’t believe in God, that means that we are the little-g god of our Universe. We are completely in control, we don’t have to listen to our mothers and fathers, we don’t have to do things we don’t want to do, and we get to stay up late, eat ice cream, and watch anything we want to watch on TV.

But if we accept that God exists, we believe that there is a price to be paid. That price we believe is that we owe God a debt for creating us, and if we owe God that debt, then we believe we will have to change our daily actions in some way. The changes we think we will have to make depend completely upon who we are and what we are doing that is in rebellion to our view of what God desires of us. For example, we may have grown up with the idea that Christians don’t drink, we like to drink, and therefore we believe that if we become Christians we’ll have to stop drinking. Or we may believe that being intimate outside of marriage is wrong, but we do it and we like doing it, and we are afraid that God will call us on the carpet for this. Or perhaps we just like sleeping in on Sunday mornings and we’re afraid that accepting God means we have to get out of bed early on Sunday mornings. It can be as simple as that.

The real problem, you see, is that we want to be in control of our Universe – our entire Universe – and we don’t even like the idea that a God may exist who has the right to tell us what to do and the power to make us behave. And so we rebel and we offer up all sorts of excuses which keep us from coming to God, even though we know that we need God and we know that God will help us. And we really have a hard time believing that the real price has been paid, and Christianity truly is the gateway to freedom. But the price has been paid by Jesus Christ two thousand years ago and our freedom is there waiting for us to pick it up out of God's metaphorical hands. But we still think we owe a debt.

And so we ask about whether or not Ezekiel saw aliens when he saw the wheels in the sky and we ask if a whale could actually have swallowed Jonah, and we ask if Jesus could actually have been a Hindu holy man who was misunderstood and we look like a fish on a hook slowly being reeled in, but we fight, we fight, we fight every foot.

I have most of the answers to most of these questions that people pose and probably fifty more, and I’ll be available to answer questions, any questions you might have because I had to have most of them answered myself, for I took a LONG time to reel in. Feel free to send me a question in the comments if you want, or via Facebook or email.

You see, you can lead your friend over the obstacles, through the concrete tubes, down the zip lines, and through every one of the barriers he or she wants to put in God’s way. But the simplest way to handle all of these endless questions is to walk around the obstacle course. Be honest with your friend to help them face the truth about how they are avoiding God. Try gently using this general answer for all of these questions:

“My friend, you already know that God exists, you already know you need God. These questions are small questions which my pastor answers all the time. Look around – there is a beautiful world around us, and I’ve told you stories of how I’ve seen God in action. Our world is a world that people are messing up, not God. Would you like to get into a good relationship with God right now and join a group of people who are working to take hate and destruction and death out of the world with God’s help?"

If so, repeat after me the following prayer:

Lord God,

I’ve messed up in this life and now I believe you exist.

Please forgive me, and help me in my life.

I pray this….in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

And so you’ve looked over the wall of Trust, swam the Moat of Need, floated over the fence of God’s Help, and walked around the obstacle course of Delay to reach God on this side.

Are there other reasons we think that God exists and that Christianity is true? Yes, of course. In fact, we have about seven or eight other reasons which I can talk about in some detail, (and do in my book "What do Evangelical Christians Believe?", which is found on Amazon.)

· First of all, there is the consistent testimony of the 66 books of the Bible, written by over 30 authors over a period of 1200 years. All are consistent in their narration of who God is, and the character of God. And we have many reasons we believe that the Bible is a trustworthy account of the life of Jesus Christ and what Jesus said.

· Second, there are the philosophical ideas that all things have a cause, or are set in motion by some other object or some force. Christians refer to God as the First Cause, the Cause that set into motion the Big Bang, the Creation of the Universe.

· Third, there is the moral argument that around the world, no matter where people are located, there is the concept of murder, the concept of marriage, the concept of theft, and many other legal, moral, and ethical concepts. The details differ from place to place, but all groups of people have these concepts, which points to there being some common origin of these concepts. Christians, Jews, and Moslems all point to the origin of these concepts as being the God who contacted Moses in the desert.

· Fourth, there is the logical concept first put forth by St Anselm in the 11th century, that since God is imagined to be a perfect Being, if God were not to exist, this would be imperfect, and a contradiction, so God must exist. An updated version of the argument is that if we admit that in some possible Universe God exists, then God exists in all Universes because God is powerful enough to move between Universes. I know – only a student of logic or math would love this argument, but it works for some people.

· Fifth, the argument from design points out that some things are so complex and require so many parts to have evolved simultaneously to be of any use, such as the eye, or the immune system, or even the existence of human beings on this planet, that a Designer must have manipulated things.

· Sixth, the very existence of consciousness proves that there is something beyond purely natural processes from a chemical soup involved in life, and the fact of our self-awareness means that there is something more to you and me than just the automatic reactions of a couple of pounds of wet cells. In other words, the fact that the mind is more than just the brain implies that there is something beyond physics, chemistry, and biology in this world. Which leads to…

· Seven – If you accept any supernatural idea at all – a mind, a soul, ghosts, life after death, angels, magic, spells, zombies, telepathy, miracles, Beauty, Justice, Righteousness, Mathematics, giving thanks, whatever – then this automatically should lead you to accept the existence of a supernatural Creator God, for the supernatural ideas that you cannot touch and feel and smell and taste and hear such as the perfect 90 degree angles found only in the ideas of geometry cannot come from the strictly natural. They require something supernatural – something found in the world of ideas at least.

But for me and billions of other people, the most compelling reason that I have that God exists is that I have seen God work directly in my life and in the lives of people around me. The number of coincidences has become truly astounding – and remember, my background is in hard science, mathematics, and statistics.

My final thoughts on this are these:

If the Christian God exists, the existence of this most loving yet powerful Being changes absolutely everything for anyone who is truly honest with themselves and sees the world around them. If the Christian God exists, our daily concepts of living and what happens after our physical death need to change and this God needs to become the center of our lives. You can’t really believe in God and then ignore God’s existence daily. But many people try. Are you one of those people?

And if the Christian God does not exist, then a tremendous number of the greatest and best minds of the Western world have fallen for a great scam – people like Galileo, Newton, Lincoln, Washington, Churchill, Harper Lee, Blaise Pascal, Rene Descartes, Larry Niven, dozens of Popes, Augustine of Hippo, Francis of Assisi, Maya Angelou, and millions of others. Humankind would save many resources if you could prove that they were all wrong.

Either way, the question is worth spending some serious time on – it is worth gathering all the evidence to make up your mind about. The question is important!

For when Jesus Christ of Nazareth claimed to be God Himself walking on the earth, He did so repeatedly and the crowed recognized this. This was the reason he was executed – for claiming to be God! And so He was either a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord of the Universe. The evidence that He existed is far too strong to say He did not exist, and we cannot say that He was just a very wise and good moral teacher, for wise and good moral teachers do not lie about critical claims and lunatics do not make as much sense as Jesus did, and so we left to face His claim to be God Himself – which is exactly the question He wants each of us to face.

So be alert – look around you for signs that God exists and point them out to yourself – and to your friends, your neighbors, and your families as we look forward to the Day of Christ’s Arrival into the world…and each of our lives.

The End of Everything - The Kingship of Jesus Christ and Thanksgiving

II Samuel 23:1-7; Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14; Psalm 93; Revelation 1:4-8; John 18:33-37

In a few days, we will celebrate that most Christian of all holidays as we gather together with friends and family and talk about all that we have to be thankful for around some turkey and dressing and gravy and mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie. The devil is only invited to this holiday in the form of eggs – Even now, people are shopping for ingredients for our favorite dishes and, you know, I really think that perhaps a few less stores are open this Thanksgiving than last year.

I sometimes hear a person declare themselves to not believe in God. But then, this person celebrates Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is a holiday where we give thanks - but Who do we give thanks to if not God? A wise young child said, "they give thanks to themselves!" when I asked this question. Who will you give thanks to?

On Wednesday, we will hear the kitchen timer go off and that is the signal, for it means that the first pies and cookies are coming out of the oven ready for Thursday, Thanksgiving Day. Even my son in China is planning to eat turkey with friends at his girlfriend’s apartment. Of course, having turkey, the King of Birds, in China is trickier than in America since almost no apartments are equipped with ovens – a deluxe cooking stove in China is one with two burners. And so my son and his girlfriend are paying $150 for a service to roast and deliver the turkey to her apartment and they hope to recover some of the money from their friends…Turkey is such an American thing.

Microwaves have their place, but there is something about the oven on Thanksgiving morning that is special. Perhaps that’s why every year our family has a tradition, a tradition developed over the years out of necessity, a tradition to avoid a late discovery when the dishes are being washed up, a tradition of just before grace is said, someone says, “Mother, what did you forget in the microwave?” For there is always a bowl of buttered cauliflower, or something forgotten in the microwave or the refrigerator because the oven and the King of Birds is what is important on Thanksgiving Day.

And here we are, sitting here on Sunday morning as ever, awaiting God. Here we are, listening to God’s Holy Word, spoken by people of various abilities, but all of whom love the Lord. Here we are, sitting among friends, singing hymns, in light that is dim, awaiting Him.

And a voice says to me…will this be the Day? Will this be the Day that He returns. Will this be the Day when the sky is rolled up like a scroll, the Day when the trumpet sounds, the day when Jesus Christ arrives in clouds with the glory and majesty of God?

King David was beloved by God. And God spoke to David and told David that his descendents would rule a kingdom without end. A son of David would always be the rightful, true and proper ruler of the world. And when a member of David’s house”...rules over people in righteousness,
when he rules in the fear of God,
4 he is like the light of morning at sunrise
on a cloudless morning,
like the brightness after rain
that brings grass from the earth.’

Have you seen that brightness after the rain? The rain falls and then the cloud moves on, and the tender grass sparkles in the bright sunshine from the rain that fell as new lift moves into the grass and the grass gives life to the animals that dine on it and through those animals – deer, sheep, cattle – we have new life and the world is at peace and we are filled and everything is good.

But men of evil, David said, are different:

6 But evil men are all to be cast aside like thorns,
which are not gathered with the hand.
7 Whoever touches thorns
uses a tool of iron or the shaft of a spear;
they are burned up where they lie.”

The evil men are to be dealt with as you would a thornbush. An iron brush hook, a spear shaft, a sickle, a scythe, an instrument of iron is used to keep the evil at a distance and let it burn up in the hot sun, away from the life of the rain, the living water that gives all life.

Life or death? That is the choice. To love righteousness or to love evil. One gives life. One gives death. That is the choice. Follow a life-giving son of David, or be dealt with as a thornbush is dealt with - struck with iron or a spear, and left to burn. Life or death.

Many years after David, the prophet Daniel had a vision. He had a vision of four beasts, four great kingdoms that grew and died. And when the final one was growing, the leader spoke against God and the Holy People of God, and then Daniel saw God in God’s throne room:

“As I looked,
thrones were set in place,
and the Ancient of Days took his seat.
His clothing was as white as snow;
the hair of his head was white like wool.
His throne was flaming with fire,
and its wheels were all ablaze.
10 A river of fire was flowing,
coming out from before him.
Thousands upon thousands attended him;
ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him.
The court was seated,
and the books were opened."

The Celestial Court is now in session. God pronounced judgment, and the leader was destroyed and the kingdom is given over to God’s Holy People:

13 “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. 14 He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.
And so the people of God for centuries wondered: Who is this king of glory? Who is this man who is like a son of man? Who is this man who will be given authority, glory and sovereign power? Who will have this everlasting kingdom?

David had been promised an everlasting kingdom. The one who rules must be a son of David, a descendent of David, a man who can trace His ancestry to David, the righteous king of Israel.

But who would that be?

And so, the morning he was crucified, we have recorded a dialogue between Jesus of Nazareth and Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Jerusalem and Judea.

33 Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”

34 “Is that your own idea,” Jesus asked, “or did others talk to you about me?”

35 “Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “Your own people and chief priests handed you over to me. What is it you have done?”

36 Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”

37 “You are a king, then!” said Pilate.

Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”

When Jesus says, “You say that I am a king”, he uses the Greek word “legeis”, which is a variation of “lego”. Lego means to lay it on the table, to slap down the final card, to make a final strong statement. Jesus is saying: "Pilate, you have made the final statement in the argument. You have spoken the truth, you have cut to the chase, you have completely finished the discussion, for you have declared me to be a king and this is why I was born and came into the world. To be a king and to be the witness to the truth."

Jesus’ mission was now complete. Not only was Pilate about to pronounce the execution of a completely innocent man, who was not guilty of any crime, but Pilate was now about to kill a king, a foreign king, a king who was entitled to diplomatic treatment and not death, for even the Romans believed in the proper treatment of foreign kings. (Of course, they reserved the right to manipulate and mess with kings of lands they had conquered.) Jesus had just answered Pilate’s question, told him that he was the king of this world – (Kosmos), Pilate had stated in agreement that Jesus was a king, and in a few minutes Pilate would wash his hands and have Jesus the king executed for the crime of claiming to be God.

Never was there such a mistake made by a man. There has never been such a dangerous diplomatic blunder made in all of history. No ambassador has ever made such a terrible mistake as was made that day by a man who should have know better, as when Pilate chose to execute the king from outside the kosmos, the Son of God, for the crime of claiming to be God.

For you see, men may die and men may be executed. But despite what some philosophers claim, God does not die, and God has the power to set the cosmos right. And so it has happened, it is happening, and it will happen.

We know from eyewitnesses that that afternoon, Friday afternoon, Jesus was executed by crucifixion. We know from eyewitnesses that His bleeding, speared body was taken down and placed in a rock tomb by a wealthy member of the Jerusalem religious council, that a huge rock was placed in front of the tomb in a trench, and that Pilate’s seal was placed on the tomb with a 16 man guard to protect the tomb from tampering.

And we know from eyewitnesses that beginning early Sunday morning, some women, then some men, then two different men on the road, then a large group of disciples in a sealed, locked room, another group of fishermen, and then over five hundred people saw Jesus alive again, eating and teaching and walking with them. It is a difficult thing to permanently kill the Son of God!

And then, about 35 years later, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem. And about 20 years after that, John sat down and wrote once more. John wrote of a vision of Jesus that had been sent to him, and John wrote of a message that he had been given by Jesus, the son of man, the Son of God, to the seven large churches in western Turkey, and through them, John wrote to us…

“Grace and peace to you from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the sevenfold spirit before his throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.”

The message comes from the “ruler of the kings of the earth”, Jesus Christ. And what is the message that John is delivering to us?

7 “Look, he is coming with the clouds,”
and “every eye will see him,
even those who pierced him”;
and all peoples on earth “will mourn because of him.”
So shall it be! Amen.

8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”

It is a vision of the end of time. It is God and Christ returned to take possession of the world that rejected the son of man. The Son of God has returned with the power of His true kingdom to rule this world that preferred Rome. He has come to demand obedience where before He simply asked for followers. He has come in wrath where before He came in love. He has come to bring an end to all things where before He came to bring life to all. He has come to put an end to everything. “And all peoples on earth “will mourn because of him.” So shall it be. Amen.”

From David to Daniel was 400 years. From Daniel to Jesus was 600 years. From Jesus to John’s Revelation was 60 years. And from John’s Revelation til today was 1900 years. Over nearly 3000 years, men and women have been predicting the arrival of God’s Kingdom in full glory and majesty. For nearly 3000 years, an increasing number of people have come to realize that the kings of the world need a wise ruler over them. And for almost 2000 of those years, one name has been proposed: Jesus the Christ, the son of man, and the Son of God.

Our world is once more falling into ruin. It has fallen before and it will fall again. After David’s son Solomon ruled, the great kingdom that David ruled fell apart, split, and began a slow death spiral, ending in the conquest that took Daniel as a young man to Babylon. After Daniel, Ezra, Nehimiah, and then the Mccabee family resurrected the Jewish kingdom once more. Herod the Great rebuilt the Temple of Solomon. And then the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, and then the Romans were destroyed by the Huns and the surviving Eastern empire was eventually destroyed by the French. The great civilization of the French was destroyed by the Germans, the Germans by the British and the Americans, and now we wait, and wonder, and while our country stands on top today, we wonder – will Moslem civilization destroy the great British-American civilization, or will something else happen?

Each of those civilizations flourished as they stayed focused upon God. Each of them died as they mostly forgot God. And so we stand at the threshold – will America and Britain rediscover God or will we gradually forget God over the next two generations?

Perhaps we have time to turn things around. Perhaps we don’t. Paris has forgotten God and Christ and we have seen the effects as the hatred between different groups of people split mainly by heritage, color, language, and even religion has become stronger than the love of Christ for all men and women. I fear that France is about to descend into civil war, a war of hatred as Frenchmen, fearful of Moslems persecute Moslems, and Moslems, full of anger toward Frenchmen kill Frenchmen. And without Christ, the cycle of violence will grow and grow until a full-scale civil war breaks out. Will we be the next ones to become trapped in the cycle?

Or will we teach our friends, our neighbors, and our family what it means to love Christ by our examples? Will we welcome the family of another religion – or no religion - to our table and attempt to win them to Christ, not through coercion or guilt or declaration of their sins, but through love and joy and sweetness and the careful telling of the stories of those times that God made God’s presence known to us and saved us from disaster? Will we be able to inoculate this town against violence because all people, Christian, Moslem, Hindu, and atheist understand that the Christian people of our churches love all people and welcome all people, and want to share the love of their God with everyone because we truly care for their souls?

Of course, we may begin to do this and not have time.

It is easy to become so focused upon ISIS as the potential agent who destroys our world of peace that we forget that there is another who is far, far, far more powerful than ISIS.

For the King is coming. He is coming in power – and in wrath. This Thanksgiving dinner may be our last before Jesus returns. Will this be the Day when the trumpet call over powers the ring of the kitchen timer?

When you sit down to eat, consider before you pray reading one of today’s readings. Look around you at the table. Are all the people ready for the King’s arrival? Or do you have friends or love ones who may be forgotten, like a bowl of buttered cauliflower that is still waiting in the microwave, left behind and forgotten because the main event has arrived, the King has returned. If you’ve left people in the spiritual microwave, take some time during or after dinner to speak with them of the King who has made you thankful, the King who rules your life with joy, the King who will return to conquer through force those who did not choose to follow him.

If Jesus does not return, we’ll be here next Sunday to begin the Advent season, that time of joyful preparation for the arrival of the King at Christmas time. Our upcoming sermon series will be focused on helping you explain our Christian faith, upon finding God, understanding how God can help us find what is right and wrong, how God can lift us up and yet keep our arrogance in check, and on why God is important in everyone’s life. And then finally, on Christmas eve, we will tell the story of Jesus Christ once again. This is a great time of the year to invite people to church, especially with the revival of the spirit that hit us last weekend. They will get answers to their questions. Do not leave your friends in the spiritual microwave.