Do You Bow? How to find True Worship

As we look forward toward Advent next week and the arrival of Christ, perhaps it is time to review our thoughts about worship...and why we worship Christ.

In our world, there are stereotypes of people. We have an image of different types of people. And these are enhanced by our movies and books.

It is said by our stereotypes that the English are cultured, that Russians all drink vodka to excess, and the French make the best food. It is said that Japanese are hard workers, Chinese all know martial arts, and Tibetans have wisdom. And our stereotypical views of people apply to people of other times, also.

For example, we think of the ancient Romans as cruel and loving pleasure. We think of the people of the Middle Ages as superstitious. And we think of ourselves, modern Americans as scientific and rational. 

Deuteronomy 8:7-18; Psalm 65;2 Corinthians 9:6-15;Luke 17:11-19

But stereotypes from movies are often wrong. After all, those cultured English seem to love to use the f-word in their current movies, the supposedly drunk Russians appear to have a very effective military, And when I was in France, they ruined a perfectly good pizza by cracking an egg over it as it came from the oven. My hard-working Japanese co-workers at one company spent the evenings at work... simply chatting among themselves, many of our Chinese friends were indeed great at martial arts – as long as they were playing video games, and a Tibetan girl that we once knew was one of the most foolish persons we’d ever met. Stereotypes are just that: stereotypes.

And so it is with the stereotypes of people from different times. People don’t always fit the stereotype of their time. Rome produced some of the greatest Christian philosophers. The eleventh century, smack in the Middle Ages, produced Thomas Aquinas, who wrote a four volume work which answered rationally 4000 questions of theology. And today, in modern America, we have plenty of people who believe that crystals and pyramids contain special powers. Not exactly the rational scientific engineers we like to think we are.

Yes, we seem to have divided ourselves into rational people and mystical people, and we do not believe that these should ever exist together.

Have you noticed that some people are rational and scientific, are stable and in control, do not let go unless they’re drunk or high or angry? They calculate carefully before they buy anything, and if left to themselves, would have nothing but useful things in their lives? I have friends like this, who research their next car or pickup for a year before they buy, who have nothing on their walls except a calendar and a mirror, and a pegboard of tools, who keep a calculator open on their computers, and who think long and hard before committing to anything new. They don’t have pets – they have guard dogs or hunting dogs or barn cats. Everything is useful or a waste of time or money.

And other people, their emotions and mystical ideas appear to guide them through their lives. They couldn’t and wouldn’t solve an equation if their life depended upon it. They buy things because “they’re pretty”. They are always listening to music, Their homes are filled with pretty things. They hug! These people took an hour to buy their last car – spending fifty of those sixty minutes deciding on the color – and if left to themselves, they would dance. Simply dance. And they own pets that are fluffy and have ribbons in their fur.

And we like to stay in our group. Rationalists over here, mystical emotionalists over there. Think or feel – you can’t do both. Listen to the lecture – or dance. Mind or body. Logic or emotion. One or the other. Stay in control or let go!

In ancient Rome, there were two philosophies that reflected this. There were the Stoics, who clamped down on emotion and stuck to logic – think Mr. Spock from Star Trek or the early Jethro Gibbs from NCIS. They were logical, rational. There were also the Epicureans, who focused upon living life for the pleasure it gave you. We still have those groups today, only the names have been changed. Studious or partiers. That’s the way we name these groups today. But keep them apart. Don’t blend them together. If you are rational, you can't be emotional. If you are emotional, you can't be logical.

And so, in modern America, we are rather weak in our understanding of worship, for true worship begins with the rational understanding of what is important in life, and then moves to "letting go" in an absolute devotion and commitment to the One who is worshiped! 

The rationalists among us are cynical, always believing that "letting go" is somehow giving in to evil.

And those who are mystical among us, those who can be swayed by beauty and emotion and "let go" often let go without much thought, being caught up by the emotional appeal of religious fads, of supernatural interest in zombies, vampires, and witchcraft.

And so the rationalists reject mysticism of all sorts, for in it they see the potential for the devil. And the mystics reject too much rationalism, for it limits their ability to follow their emotions. Two types of people. Keep them apart, we think - and feel.

But the true worship of God means combining the mind, the body, and the spirit, for we were created with those three parts just as God is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

And so we need to have our rational mind which understands something about God. We need to have our emotional body, which reacts with joy to the actions of God and lets go. And we need to be filled with the Holy Spirit, which gives us the life to react to God because the Spirit is God.

And so, at this time of the year, it is wise to rationally look at what Christianity is all about before we move into the more emotional time of Advent and Christmas.

There are many people in this world who claim that Christianity is a system of morals and ethics, a listing of do’s and don’ts which each person must choose to accept or reject. It is said that our system of morals is outdated, that it doesn’t account for modern inventions such as birth control, self-supporting women, and the ability to help people die without pain. It is said that Christianity is all about securing the power of older white men, the Europeans, those who dominate others.

To this I have two responses:

First, if Christianity is about supporting Europeans, why then is this religion most vibrant in America in the black church, and strongest in the world in the wildly growing non-European churches of Africa, Brazil, India, and China? If Christianity is all about keeping women under control and men in power, then why does almost every church have more women than men? If Christianity is outdated, then why is this outdated religion growing around the world at the same time that modern ideas on almost everything are spreading?

But the second response I have is more fundamental. You see...at its heart, Christianity is not a system of morals and ethics like most people claim. Christianity’s morals and ethics are important…but unlike most moral and ethical systems, the moral and ethical teachings of Christianity are secondary.

At its heart, Christianity is much more important than being a system of morals and ethics. Christianity is nothing less than a worldview, an explanation of the way the world and the Universe and absolutely everything operates. It is the explanation of Truth with a capital T, how you and I came to be created, why we are alive, how the Universe functions around us, and what happens when we die. Instead of dealing with petty questions of whether or not it is right or wrong to drink a beer on a Friday night, whether it is right or wrong to kiss someone before marriage, whether it is right or wrong to test new medicines on bunny rabbits – Christianity deals with the most important questions we each have to answer: Where did I come from? Why am I alive? What is my purpose? What happens when I die?

It is only after answering these questions that Christianity gets down the question of answering “What is right and what is wrong?”, the question of morals and ethics.

And here are those basic, important questions answered:

Where did I come from?

God, whose personal name, YAHWEH means “I am that I am” is the ability to create, creation itself, the personality that creates all things. It is meaningless to ask the question “what created God” because YAHWEH’s name tells us “I am that I am”, self-creation, the beginning of everything. In a very real sense, the beginning created the beginning.

God created all things, the Universe, the stars, the planets, the things on the planets, and life. God may have taken just six literal days to create all things or those days may have been periods of millions of years, we don’t truly know, but God began the creation. Sometimes God creates in a blink of an eye and sometimes God creates by simply starting something in motion and letting it grow, like the Church which God started with Jesus Christ and twelve students, but 2000 years later is now composed of over a billion people.

God is all powerful and all knowing, but sometimes God limits His own power, as when He gave us the free will to choose obedience to God’s will or not, for God knows that while God’s will is best for us, making us robots forced to do as God wills is evil – and so we are left to choose good or evil, to choose to praise God or to forget God, to worship God or curse God or even ignore God.

But God made this Universe and then began the human race. It is God’s ballpark, God’s rules, God owns the teams, God owns the equipment, God controls the lighting and God controls the weather. And so, in this game, you can choose to pretend that God doesn’t exist – but the game is still played by God’s rules. It is better to understand those rules.

Why am I alive?

Simply put, God wants other creatures to enjoy life, both in this limited life and in the life to come. Ask yourself, in a world which allows you to choose to have children or not, what are the good reasons to have children? Perhaps almost all of those good reasons apply to why God has put you alive in this world.

What is my purpose?

God tells us that our purpose in this life is to praise Him and bring others back to know God’s love. How you do that is personal, between you and the Holy Spirit of God, found out through two-way prayer, through searching Scripture, and by groping toward God yourself, learning more and more about God’s will for you, personally. Your purpose is found when you turn from the distractions of this world to face God directly, turning your focus away from your job, your bills, your home and other stuff to look directly at God and spend time, quality time, considerable time asking God what God wants you to do and listening to God without making excuses. It is then that you will find your purpose.

What happens when I die?

It is here that our faith meets the road, for despite the best work of scientists, science has little to say about what happens to the soul after death. God has put a one-way door there, giving us no hard scientific evidence of what happens after death to the soul. The only evidence we have of what happens after death comes in his black hood with his sickle and cuts us down is the testimony of Scripture and what the Holy Spirit whispers to us in the night. Science has nothing to say.

For it is as though God says, “Beam that one up, Scotty”, and we are gone, vanished from this life forever. The door is opened and slammed shut before anyone can peek in to see the other room.

Sometimes, this happens suddenly, without warning. One moment we are driving along in our car, a deer jumps out in front of us, we hit a patch of ice, or a water truck slams into our car and we are gone. Perhaps our heart stops and we fall unconscious, or a blood clot moves to the brain, or a vessel bursts and we fall unconscious, and the door opens and slams closed again.

Other times, we are given days or weeks, or months of warning. The doctor tells us that our body is malfunctioning, and, like a car with an engine damaged by running it with too little oil, it is only a matter of time until it gives up and the door opens and closes, perhaps gently one night as the morphine drip provided by the hospice nurse overcomes the struggle of breathing, and the soul is carefully walked through the door which closes behind it.

But one thing is certain. Christians believe that unless Jesus returns sooner, we will all travel through that door into the next life, and the door will close behind us. And so, for many people, this is the true core of Christian teaching. This is the core of Christianity that makes it more than just a teaching about morals and ethics. This is the center of our faith. When all is said and done, I would gladly not know anything about Christianity except this core, central teaching. And that core teaching is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Good News.

And what is that Good News?

That two thousand years ago, God decided that we had become more focused upon morals and ethics than upon God and so God sent part of Himself to become human, the man Jesus, who was the Messiah of Israel, the Christ who was the savior of all humans, to teach us what God wanted for three years of glorious ministry.

During this time, Jesus the Christ taught us through words and deeds what it means to be a good person, what it means to love God, and also claimed that He was God himself walking upon the earth. Eventually, Jesus was executed for this claim of being God on a Friday afternoon as Passover approached in the springtime around the year 32 or 33 AD. And many people witnessed his execution on the cross that afternoon.

The Good News is that on that Sunday morning, Jesus walked out of the sealed tomb, with a 2000 pound stone being rolled away, defeating death, opening the door and coming back through it from the other side, announcing to his followers and directly to over five hundred people that He holds the key to the locked door of death, of life and death itself!

And He told us that those who choose to follow Jesus, to bow down before Him as their rightful king, their ruler, their God, will also be granted eternal life, restored one day from death into life again. This is the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ, the King over all Kings! Will you bow before Him as the One worthy to lead us?

And yet, we humans are rude, skeptical, and proud. Even those who met Jesus  and were blessed by Him were rude to Him.

One day, while Jesus was teaching His students, before his execution, they came upon a group of ten lepers, both Jewish and Samaritan men who suffered from terrible, incurable skin diseases. Their rejection by society had brought them together, men who would normally not have associated with each other. But the rules of the time said that these men were never to be touched by anyone, that they could never enter the city, that they could never come to the Temple to get right with God, that they were doomed, lost people who would soon die and have lost souls because they could not get right with God. Until a priest pronounced them clean, they were rejected from society.

Today, don’t we have lepers around, people we are afraid to touch, to talk to, people we would discourage from coming to church? Oh, none of us probably know anyone with Hansen’s Disease, the single disease we call leprosy today, a disease that destroys the flesh and gives the survivors tremendous scars, a disease that can be treated only through months and months of antibiotic treatments and sometimes surgery.

But as we walked through the malls and department stores and the parking lots this week, we saw people we didn’t want to be around, people we mentally labeled as “dangerous”, “a bit crazy”, “a drug user”, or “dirty”. Our food pantry gave away many meals this week to people – few are here with us today. We still toss our alms to the beggars, but we don’t bring them home, we don’t touch them, we don’t hug them, we don’t bring them here to get right with God.

I have a friend whom we knew in another state. She let her child play with some friends, the Riccio’s. One day, her three- or four-year-old son began a new behavior of which she didn’t approve and she complained, “It’s the Riccio kids!” Don’t we all complain about our Riccio kids, the folks that lead us and our families astray? But do we ever reach out and bring the Riccio kids home with us, teach them, bring them to church? Don’t we treat the Riccio kids like lepers?

That day, Jesus healed the ten lepers with a word. Notice that Jesus didn’t pick and choose. He healed each one, every single one. He didn’t leave any behind, not one, not one soul. He simply spoke to them and told them to go and show themselves to the priest at the Temple, who could legally announce they were healed and no longer banned from human touch, from the city, from contact with the Holy God they needed for their souls.

And we can do the same. Sometimes, a simple word is all that is needed for the healing to begin. “How can I help you?” is a good start. “Can I give you a ride?” “What cute children!” “We have a dinner at 5:30 on Wednesdays, come as my guest.” “You’d be soooo welcome at our church on Sunday morning. Can I give you a ride?” or simply, “Tell me what’s wrong.” And we can learn to talk to everyone, not leaving anyone behind, not one, not one soul.

Notice that Jesus didn’t do everything for the men. Jesus did what was needed. He healed them with a word…we can start the healing with our words.

Then, Jesus referred them to where they could get help for the next stage. It’s important to remember that they needed a priest to pronounce them clean.

Perhaps you’ll remember that Peter wrote that we are all priests of God. "Members of a holy priesthood", Peter called baptized Christians.

And so, each of us has the power to pronounce our modern day lepers as clean. When you bring someone to church and introduce them as your friend, you are pronouncing them as clean. You are bringing them into the community again. You hold that tremendous power – and when someone brings someone strange into our community, remember that your friend is a priest, has looked at this stranger and pronounced them clean.

It is an awesome power, the power to pronounce someone clean. It is ultimately the power over their eternal soul, the ability to bring them in front of Christ and the Holy God and allow them to choose to follow Christ into eternity.

And don’t think of this power as being limited just to bringing people into church. For when you make friends with someone, when you pronounce they are clean enough to associate with, you are pronouncing the words that heal this new friend. For the most terrible injuries that people endure are the injuries inflicted by other people’s words and deeds, those words and deeds of exclusion. Your words and deeds can heal those wounds. “I care.” “Jesus helped me.” “You are important.” Can you imagine the good you can do just by talking to people?

One of the lepers, a Samaritan man, saw that he was healed and came back to bow down at Jesus’ feet, praising Jesus, who was clearly Jewish. This was remarkable in itself, that a Samaritan praised a Jew, but Jesus focused upon the missing men. Only that one man, that Samaritan, had come back to thank Jesus. Where were the others who rudely did not show their gratitude?

And where are we?

For we were all once lepers, frightening to be around. Ask the older men and women you know – what were you like as a young child? What bad paths did you once walk? Where you one of the Riccio kids?

Someone healed us. Someone spoke a word and we became clean. Someone told us that we would be welcome, and our process of healing began.

But have you bowed down in front of Jesus?

Have you accepted the Good News, the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

When you look at Jesus, do you see a kindly man, a friendly face, a smiling thirty-something bearded man in a robe?

Or do you see Him as He is today and shall be when He returns - as our King?

In Revelation 19, Jesus is described as a rider on a white horse. Hear what the Apostle John saw:

I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.” He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written:
KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS

This is your King, oh Christian! This is the One who will return at the end of time to conquer. This is the one we are to follow and praise and worship. He is God, He created all things and He will end all things. Our eternal destiny is forever bound up in Him.

And so, when you look around at the malls, the department stores, the Walmart parking lots this year, when you see a Christmas tree, when you walk into work and people are gossiping and playing office politics, when someone you love is dying, when someone is rejecting Christ because of Christian ethics and morals, when you yourself are dying….Remember this:

In the end, all that matters is that God is faithful and true, that God never lies, and that God has promised that all who trust and follow Jesus will live eternally with Him in New Jerusalem, a place of joy and peace.

For Christ the King shall reign for ever and ever!

The Return - Thoughts on Church Shootings, Sin, and Children

Why?

Why did he do it?

Why do men and women throughout history kill other humans?

This week, we saw a man come into a small church in Texas and not leave until he had killed half the people and injured almost all of those he hadn’t killed.

That same day, a man in Oslo shot up a cathedral and shops downtown. No one was killed, probably because few people attend church in Norway.

We also saw a man rent a truck in New York and drive that truck over a group of people.

A month ago, we saw a man load up weaponry in his Las Vegas hotel room and begin firing into a crowded country music concert, killing dozens and wounding hundreds. 

Amos 5:18-24; Psalm 70; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Matthew 25:1-13

We’ve seen this replayed again and again over the years, with the locations changing, one day a church in South Carolina, another day a concert in Britain, a café or theatre in France, a market in Iraq with a bomb or a subway in Japan with poison gas.

We hear the threats from a man in North Korea with nuclear bombs. In the last hundred years we’ve seen people killed by nukes, bullets, grenades, poison gas, shrapnel, knives, bayonets, cars, trucks, ATV’s, and rope. We’ve seen people killed because of their religion, the color of their skin, their clothes, their money, their tennis shoes, their phones, their children, their politics, and even their favorite football teams.

Our veterans have tried to stop wars. But each generation has a new group of veterans. The wars never stop.

In various countries we’ve tried regulating guns, we’ve regulated the ammonium nitrate fertilizer that is the basis of large bombs – and we’ve seen people find, modify, and make other guns and use propane for their bombs – and also seen millions of people killed by their own governments in those countries that were most successful with controlling their populations with regulations.

People find weapons. In the days before guns, the sword was regulated in many countries. Guess what? People used pitchforks and knives and sickles and homemade spears and the harvesting flail as weapons.

Just recently, we’ve seen people turn to using trucks to kill people. So will we demand background checks of people who rent U-Hauls?

When we were in Atlanta, there was a woman who had killed several husbands over the years by putting anti-freeze in their Kool-Aid. The men died of kidney failure. And we’ve long known of people who have simply taken a log or a shovel or even their fists and beaten others – even their own family members, even infants – to death.

The problem, you see, is not in the weapons, for killers can always find the next weapon.

Perhaps the problem is in poverty. Yet the man who shot up Las Vegas owned several homes. 

Perhaps the problem is too much wealth. How many people have killed who come from poor neighborhoods? No, the problem is not how much money people have or don’t have. Both the poor and the wealthy kill.

Perhaps the problem is in politics, that one group of people feels oppressed and rises to kill the privileged people. Sometimes this is true. But we’ve also seen wealthy and secure rulers from King Herod to Josef Stalin send their armies to kill groups of innocent people because of the fear of losing power.

The problem lies not in politics, for both rebels out of power and rulers firmly in power have killed.

Perhaps it is mental illness. Perhaps a person is so deranged that he or she just goes over the edge emotionally and starts killing. Sometimes the signs are there long before the killer snaps. But other times, the killer is just an ordinary guy, like the Quiet Dell killer who killed multiple women for their money back in the 1930’s, an ordinary salesman. Sometimes, you see, the killer plans for months or years, like the guy in Las Vegas. Sometimes, the killer is a Ted Bundy, who coldly killed for twenty years before being caught. No, the problem is not mental illness, or at least not illness we can spot.

The problem lies in the heart of the people who want to kill others, as sin lurks at the door of their hearts and seeks to devour the killers’ souls.

It begins at birth. A child feels hungry and cries. Mother runs to the child and feeds it. And the child realizes that it has power with its voice – it can control others by its cry! And this power to control grows with time. The child will use this power to control the world around it by controlling Mommy and Daddy! The child feels the power that allows it to control its Universe. In many ways, the child becomes a little-g god.

A “Terrible Two’s” toddler is a human in crisis. We’ve all noticed how the manipulative tantrums, the screams of anguish, the tears and the punching and the yelling seem to peak with most children when they are 2-3 years old? There is a simple reason, really. The child is trying to control Mommy and Daddy with the same methods that worked a year earlier, but the cuteness has worn off the child, so Mommy and Daddy have said the most horrible word in the dictionary to the child. “No!”

“No!” Mommy and Daddy will no longer be the complete servants of the young god. And over the next few months, in most households, the child begins to realize that it is not God, not in control of the Universe, not able to control the world around him or her with a simple word. The child is humbled.

But some children are never humbled. Some children never realize that they are not gods, with their word commanding the Universe. It’s easy to blame Mom or Dad about this, but the reality is that some children just never get the message.

The elementary child usually settles down. The child has learned that some things it must do itself, and other things Mom and Dad will do for the child. It has recognized its shortcomings – such as being unable to reach the cookies on the top of the refrigerator, a true “short”-coming – or the child’s inability to drive or lack of knowledge about such things as social security numbers and health insurance and filling out complex forms for school.

And we have another crisis as teenagers.

As a teenager, the child begins to realize both that it has the power to reach the top of the refrigerator where the cookies are kept – as well as to drive a car – and yet retains fear that if something goes wrong when those forms are filled out or job-related problems happen or someone says something mean to them at school – they realize that one day very soon it will be a problem they own, that their parental servants won’t rescue them from. And so they fight with their parents because they want to do some things their parents don’t think they should do – and they fight with their parents because they don’t want to do somethings their parents think they should be doing. And they have the crisis because deep down, they want to be completely in control and they realize they aren’t in control of their lives.

And our culture eggs this on. From mascara companies who want to sell to the teenage girl to car companies who want to sell pickups to young men, our advertising pushes our teens to grow up. Sure, you should flirt with guys! Sure, you’re not really a man until you’ve spent a night with a girl. Our culture encourages teens to grow up quickly.

But there is also a part of our culture that appeals to the fear and wish for child-hood in every teen. 17-year old girls should be able to wear shorts without fear of boys, just as they did when they were six. Nineteen year old boys should be able to play video games six hours a night, just as they did when they were ten. “Don’t grow up!” is the message our culture gives to the sixteen year old girls and 20 year old boys – the same ages of young women and men who were married and raising children a hundred fifty years ago.

And it’s not just the culture. We Christian parents buy into it, too.

We all want our children to stay clean, to avoid relationships, to stay in control and focus upon their studies until they have graduated with their Doctor of Medicine or Law Degrees, and then we want them to suddenly find and marry a wonderful spouse and have four grandchildren for us to spoil as they come to church with us every Sunday and Wednesday. We tell them that hard work means you control the things of life. Hard work, studying and working hard will give them control of their lives.

But the culture is telling them that they should be dating and spending the night starting in their teenage years. The culture is telling them that the cause of all problems are the restrictions that their parents and the church puts upon their behavior. The culture is telling them that high school and college are times to party and get away from all outside control, to become those little gods again that they were when they were infants.

Conflicting messages. Grow up – and don’t grow up. And it tears them apart.

But the one message we good Christian parents are giving them in common with the culture is “You should be and can be in control.”

And then they become adults and find themselves completely in control of their lives…Right! When were you ever in complete control of your life?

A huge part of maturity in life comes when a person recognizes that fighting to be in total control is a dead end. For the only way to be in total control of your life is to have the god-like powers to control everyone close to you and everyone close to them and everyone who impacts you in any way – in other words, to control everyone on earth. And even then, asteroids and meteorites happen.

Most people recognize the limits to their control. And when we realize that God is there, much wiser and more loving and more powerful than anyone or anything in the Universe – and that same loving God knows us by name – that deep-seated need for control can disappear, as we realize that “God’s got it!” and we don’t have to have it. Our heart changes and we feel peace for the first time in our lives.

But there are some people who never get it. Even as adults, they want to control their lives and the lives of other people. And this is why we have people who are so determined, so obsessed to become billionaires, controlling their lives through the power money gives, and other people who are so determined to control entire countries, controlling their lives through raw political and military power, and still other people who punch and fight and kick and yes, kill people who will not obey them - even in their own families. It is a disease of the heart which leads them to want to become little gods.

And like the guy in Texas, they often are atheistic in viewpoint. Because when you accept that God exists and cares about you, then you also recognize that here is Someone you can’t control, but instead must bow down before.

God, you see, cannot be controlled by our wishes, our desires, not even our prayers, but instead has a total freedom to do whatever God wants to do. And there isn’t a thing we can do about that, no manipulation, no whining and crying, no angry screams. You can’t detonate a bomb in God’s throne room, you can’t shoot a rifle at God, you can’t poison God. It doesn’t do any good.

Instead, God loves us, as God has always loved us. The God we worship today is the same God who sent part of Himself to earth as Jesus Christ, who taught us, who claimed to be God, and then was executed on the cross for the crime of claiming to be God. And then, just to show us it doesn’t do any good to try to kill God, just to show us that He was correct when He claimed to be God, just three days later Jesus rose from the dead and showed Himself to over 500 witnesses in at least eleven different appearances to different people at different places and times.

That day, Jesus made His Roman and Judean executioners look as powerful as two-year-olds kicking and screaming before their six-foot tall Father.

In our readings today, Amos talks about the up and coming Day of the Lord. It is the day when God the Father sets things right, the day when justice and righteousness flows like an everlasting stream. It sounds good until we look in the mirror.

In short, the day of the Lord is a day when we all get what is coming to us. It is the day when we all lose control of our lives, our Universe, our existence. God takes active control on that day. He returns to earth as Jesus Christ once again, this time with an army, ready to give everyone what they have coming to them. Including us.

I assume you haven’t killed anyone, but have you hated someone? Jesus says that to God’s justice, this is the same as killing someone. You may have committed adultery, but even if you have looked at another with lust, to God’s justice it is the same as committing adultery. Have you stolen? Even if you have thought about stealing something, it is the same as far as God’s justice is concerned. Sin is about the condition of the soul, not about actions.

And the penalty for any sin is death. No petty fines, no jail terms, no house arrests. Just death. So while we may stand before human judges as innocent of crime, when we stand before God’s judgement seat, we are all guilty, deserving death.

And we have no defense, for we knew these actions and thoughts were wrong. Besides, there is no way to bribe God, no way to stand against God’s power.

And so, when our earthly death comes, is there no hope? Have we all reached the point where we look around and cannot control our lives, our Universe, our existence? Will God take away all of our control? Yes.

Will we all die the real death, the permanent death?

No, for there is one hope.

Listen carefully.

Jesus claimed to be God walking on the earth. Most people dismissed this claim as the claim of a deranged man, and eventually Jesus was executed for this supposedly blasphemous claim. In a devout land filled with devout people, what person can claim to be God and get away with it?

And so He was executed on the cross for claiming to be God. And most people were happy about this, as we would be happy when a false prophet, a false teacher got himself in over his head and his television program was yanked because of his fraud.

But Jesus came back to life and was seen walking and talking and eating by over 500 witnesses.

He must have been telling the truth. In some complex manner, Jesus was God.

And we know that God never lies. Jesus, God the Son, never lies. 

Jesus told us that if we will ask for forgiveness from God, if we will simply believe in Jesus, simply believe that He is who He claimed to be, if we trust Him, then His promise to us is that we will live forever in peace with Him and God the Father as God's adopted children.

He never lies. He promised this to us. Do you want to be forgiven? Ask God. 

Do you believe Jesus is the Son of God? Tell God.

Then stop being afraid of death. You will live forever. 

Then stop trying to control the world around you. God is in control. 

Then stop acting like you are so fragile and timid and what people say to you is so terrible.

Instead, start acting like the adopted sons and daughters of God that you are. You will not stand in the judgement at the end of time. You will not face the destruction of planet earth. And the same applies to your friends and relatives who have died believing in Christ. The same applies to the people shot in that Baptist Church in Texas last weekend who now sleep in death. We are all now children of God.

Look what Paul tells us in I Thessalonians 4 (NIV):

“Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

This hope is why those who truly believe in the Lord are rarely the people who commit mass murder. This hope is why those who truly believe in the Lord are rarely found ordering the destruction of entire cities, entire peoples, even individuals.

For we no longer need to control. God our Father is in control and we trust our Father. And so we remember this, we don’t try to act like little gods, ordering people around, manipulating others when we don’t have the power to order others around.

And this is why it is so important that the church continues to focus upon ministry to children.

For the children must learn the security of trusting in God and Christ.

The children must learn that others love them, especially the people of God.

The children must learn not to fear, for it is that fear that leads to the need to control and manipulate, the fear that ultimately leads to a hatred of those who will not be bullied by the child.

And that understanding of God and Christ must come at an early age.

Some people look at the various roles they can play in the church and feel that some roles are more important than others. Some are. The person who teaches the two- and three-year-olds, the person who teachers the four- and five-year-olds, the person who teaches the elementary, the middle school, the high school kids – these are the most important people in the church. They need your help and support – some of classes need assistant leaders.

(And if you’d like to lead or help, we ask that you be here at Quiet Dell next Saturday from 1-4 pm for a District level training we call “Child Protection”. It is about protecting the children from harm – and about protecting the teachers from the damage done by false accusations. If you haven’t been to this training before, but you deal with children under 18 – even at Vacation Bible School – we’d like you to come to this training. )

For one of the wise things we’ve learned over the years is that without help, children who think or are told they’ve been harmed often grow up to harm others. We will never turn this world around unless we turn around those God has asked us to minister to. And for us, that begins with the children that we are blessed with.

You know, my wife and son and I now have a combined experience in ministry at sixteen churches. When we began at those churches, only four had more than two children under age eighteen. In many ways, the presence of children is the definition of a vital, church with a future.

I have a dream.

That dream is for Quiet Dell to have a hundred kids in worship and at Monroe Chapel, Joe's dream - having ten kids in worship.

We are almost a third of the way there.

You know, a great danger in churches, as in any organization, is to promote ideas that are good for the leadership.

But we have no children in leadership. No children ever come to a board meeting, no children come to committee meetings.

Yet, to attract children and youth, we need the feedback of the children and the youth, and that means that those who have children need to tell us what we need to bring in more children. If you have children or grandchildren, watch them and find out what attracts them. If they are a bit older, ask them. And then come to our board meetings and tell us what you’ve learned.

One of the nicest things about children is that they all start out with parents. And many parents have followed their children to church. Today, many children are being raised by their grandparents or their aunts and uncles. There are many reasons for this – in some cases it is substance abuse. In other cases, it is the need for both parents to work. In other cases, it is because only one parent is available and is working.

We need to think outside the box to reach our goal.

Find those grandchildren, those nieces and nephews and cousins, and bring them to church. Make it a regular thing. Bring them to Wednesday evening Pioneer Clubs.

And our children need two or four special adults, for we need a Scoutmaster and an assistant. We need a Girl Scout leader and an assistant. We can start with Cubs and Brownies, whatever works. We could do the new Venture Scouts, which is co-ed and for teenagers. Whatever brings children into a relationship with God.

Where do you fit? Think and pray about it and let me know.

In our Gospel reading, there were ten young ladies who were waiting for the bridegroom to come to the bride’s house one evening to light the procession to the groom’s house. Things were running late, so they all fell asleep.

When the Groom arrived, the five wise ones sprang up, adjusted their lamps, topped them off with oil they had brought with them and gave light to the grand procession, walking back to the Groom’s house with the bride.

Five foolish young women had let their lamps run out of oil, and had to go buy more oil. And by the time they got back, the Groom’s doors were locked and they couldn’t join the party.

When Jesus returns as the Groom who will marry the Church, will we be ready? Will your church be filled with the light of believers, full of light and joy and laughter, with a full house of people of all ages ready for the wedding banquet? Will we all be prepared, young and old, ready to meet Him, ready to go to the party?

Or will your church be dark, as people struggle in the darkness to awaken, to remember what is happening, to rush about trying to explain Who the Bridegroom is to each other, to young relatives, to whoever we trip over in our darkness? Will we be without young people ready to go, will we ourselves be unprepared, will we be left behind, searching for passages in Scripture, trying to find oil for our lamps, as the doors are locked to Heaven forever?

I have attended churches in Ohio, West Virginia, and Georgia. I have attended churches of at least six different denominations. I have attended vibrant, growing churches and I have attended churches that were dying. And I have talked to many pastors about many more churches.

There are two common features that vibrant churches have that dying churches don’t have.

First, as I’ve mentioned, there are children. Children are almost always present in vibrant, lively churches, even the smallest churches. Children are a necessity - (and if your church doesn't have children, there has to be a cultural change which welcomes them with their noise and energy into the funeral home quietness of a dying church. Children will run. Do you want them to run in the aisles of your church or run in the streets outside on Sunday mornings?)

And secondly, almost everyone who has attended a vibrant church for more than six weeks understands that it is their responsibility – not the pastors, not the programs, not the committees, not the church council, not the conference, not “The Church” – no, it is each individual member’s responsibility to reach out and praise God to the people outside of the church, to talk to people about Christ and His love, to be excited about the church in the community, to do more than invite people to church, but even to explain Christ to people and pick them up and bring them to church.

That makes the difference.

It is like the difference between the ordinary part of the Army and the Army Rangers, the elite group of special forces. The Rangers have a saying: “No one left behind.”

Our culture around here has developed an attitude that says “church attendance is optional”. But my son Ian has a new friend from small town Texas, where they have a different attitude about church, a more intense attitude. When talking about the guy who wounded the man who had just shot up the church, Ian’s friend said, “So why wasn’t HE in church?”

It is an attitude that says we care about everyone and so everyone needs to be working on their relationship with God. It says church is the place you learn to spread the Gospel and help other people. It is a devotion to the God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit that goes far beyond attending church “most” Sunday mornings. No one can be left behind for the devil. No one. Not one soul. That’s what it means to love your neighbor as yourself!

You can let people decide about their toothpaste, you can let people decide about their automobile, you can even let them decide what church to attend, but Christians don’t ever let friends, family or neighbors go ignorantly off to spend eternity away from God. We may sacrifice our friendship, but we have to tell you the Gospel of Christ. That’s the attitude and the Spirit of love for the other!

That attitude and that Holy Spirit is what took over our church thirty years ago when it was growing rapidly. No neighbor lost.

That attitude and Spirit is what filled this church with children. No child lost.

That attitude and that Spirit has begun over the last couple of years to return.

And so I ask you: Will you praise God this week to someone? Will you tell someone what Christ has done for you this week? Will you explain how it isn’t what we’ve done, but what Christ has done for us that is important?

Will you bring another child to church with you, that that child will grow up understanding that God is in control and they don’t need to be in control?

Will you pray for The Return of the Holy Spirit to this entire community, this state, this nation?

And when The Return of Christ happens, will you be ready?

A hundred children in 2018.

No one left behind. No one. Not one soul.

Luther Part III: The New Priesthood

Five hundred years ago, Martin Luther read and studied the New Testament, and began the Protestant Reformation of the church on October 31, 1517 – five hundred years and four days ago.

Luther’s reformation was deep and the beginning of a series of new churches. When he began, there were the Roman Catholic Church – and in the east, the Orthodox Church. The churches that chose to break away from Rome were initially known by two names: Evangelishe (Evangelical) for the churches who followed Luther, and Reformed for the churches who followed another reformer, Jean Calvin.

Today, Luther’s ideas are largely followed by literally hundreds of different denominations of churches, all Christian, all related. The United Methodist Church follows many of Luther’s ideas, but we’ve made some modifications of our own after John Wesley also read the Bible.

Revelation 7:9-17; Psalm 34:1-10, 22; 1 Peter 2:1-10; Matthew 23:1-12

But what were the most important ideas of Luther?

First, he rediscovered that our salvation comes by our faith in Jesus Christ – not by our faith in the works of the priesthood or our own good works.

Second, he realized that the Bible should be available to the average person in his or her own language. The new printing press meant that the cost of the Bible could fall to where it might be expensive, but every church and many ordinary people could afford one.

Third, he realized that there were only two sacraments, works of the church, which brought grace to people from Jesus Christ – Baptism and Holy Communion.

And fourth, he understood that the idea of a priesthood composed of men who had received special powers from God through ordination was limiting the church. Instead, Luther found in the Bible support from no less than the Apostle Peter that all baptized Christians belong to the priesthood of all believers, and are able to lead people into a relationship with Jesus Christ.

In our reading from First Peter, we see this, as Peter speaks of Jesus as the living Stone:

“As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. "

Peter wasn’t speaking to the original 12 disciples, but to all the disciples of Jesus, which numbered in the thousands by the time Peter wrote this letter. All people who have been baptized are included in this holy priesthood. You and I are included in this holy priesthood of Christ. All of these children are included in this holy priesthood. Both married people and single people are welcome to this priesthood.

It is as though we are in the army’s boot camp – basic training for this priesthood. Perhaps you’ve been through this basic training…perhaps you are in the reserves. Perhaps you are being called to active duty. Perhaps you are being put onto the front lines. Do not rest too deeply – we all are called to duty sometime…and we all have our part of the spiritual warfare front to watch and fight upon.

Recently, Saundra and I went to a funeral visitation of someone we didn’t know. We have a close friend who is a relative of the one who passed on. But while we were there, we suddenly found ourselves on the front line, helping a woman who was in spiritual crises because of this death. Always be ready. Always be ready to rescue someone from the forces of evil, to speak of the love of Christ, to take the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God and use it to expand the Kingdom.

So what do we have to do? We must offer spiritual sacrifices – we must give up our desires and do the will of Christ, for giving up something is the heart of sacrifice. Yet we don’t just “give up” something – we give it to Christ. Our time, our talents, our treasure, our regular presence and prayers, our witness – these are what we give up to Christ. We simply stand ready to serve. We speak the prayer of readiness: Lord, send me someone to lead to you.” And He will grant that prayer.

But we have been chosen to praise God also. So many people like to complain about life, but when we do that we are complaining about God’s judgement in this life. Shouldn’t we praise God instead? As Peter said,

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. "

Do you like sitting in the dark, talking about how bad the darkness is, or would you prefer to stand in the light? Wouldn’t you like to flip the light switch on?

Our world, like in the time of Luther, is becoming a dark place. Terrible things are happening in the world, in our country. It is only the light of Christ that will bring goodness and joy into this world. And so, when we praise God, we switch on the light switch, we stand as beacons of light, shining goodness into the world by proclaiming that Jesus Christ is the answer and leading people to the light, like lighthouses on the seashore lead ships through the darkness and the fog safely to shore.

And it is not only us, but it is also, like old lightbulbs, the slowly fading light from those saints of the past who have gone before us to be with Christ that we should proclaim. We are to speak of those people who have passed on and honor their memory by trying, as they did, to become Christ-like in our actions and in our words. In doing so, we hold up mirrors for their lights.

And so we honor men like Martin Luther, like Jean Calvin, like John and Charles Wesley, men who reformed the church hundreds of years ago. And we also honor those who kept the church going in our time.

Today, as we celebrate All Saints Day as the church has throughout the centuries, we remember those who have fallen asleep in the Lord, those people who await the sure and certain hope of the resurrection one day, that they and we may gather around the throne of God and praise God for ever and ever.