Who is First into Heaven?

Good morning and welcome again to Cedar Grove United Methodist Church.

You will remember that a few weeks ago, I asked each of you to make a list of twelve names, a list of people who apparently know little about Jesus Christ nor follow him. I asked you to begin to pray for these people and to attempt once a week or at least once a month to engage them in a discussion of God and Christ. Today, I’m going to give you some ideas which might assist you in leading your people to an understanding of what it means to be saved by Jesus Christ. And if you have not turned your life over to following Jesus, these ideas might help you understand Jesus better. Let’s begin by turning on our imagination. Imagine this: 

The Man, the Child, and the Cat

There was a man, a very neat and clean man. Apparently he had been an officer in the service and the old habits remained. This man was a bachelor and he kept his apartment spotless. There was never a speck of dust in the house on his fine furniture, there were no dirty dishes in his sink, the clothes were all neatly put away or lie in a clothes basket awaiting laundry, which he did twice a week. Even his carpet was vacuumed weekly and the nape on the fibers lay in a single direction when he was finished and there was never an unusual odor in the place. As I said, this guy was neat and clean.

A friend suggested that he get a pet, like a cat.

“No!” he responded in no uncertain terms. “I will not have a cat because cats, by their nature are dirty creatures. They shed fur on the carpet; they scratch the furniture. They cough up fur balls and their litter boxes can become a stinky mess. No, I will not have a cat – or even a kitten.”

Time went on, the man met a woman, they were married, and they had a child a year later who the man loved dearly, perfectly, and wonderfully. One day, a few years later, the child was outside walking and came upon a stray kitten wandering the street. “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty. “ Soon, the kitten was safe in the child’s arms and taken home to see the man.

“I found this kitty. Can I keep him?” the child asked the man. “I’ll clean up any messes.” And, of course, you know what happened. The man allowed the child to keep the kitten in the house. And true to form, the kitten shed fur on the carpet, scratched the furniture, coughed up fur balls, and even made the litter box into a stinky mess. And yet, the man allowed the kitten to stay. Why?

It wasn’t because the kitten was an especially good kitten. It made messes as all cats do.

It wasn’t because the kitten was good at catching mice. Like Garfield, it never considered chasing a mouse.

It wasn’t because of anything the kitten did or didn’t do. As you probably realize, the man allowed the kitten into his house simply because he loved his child – and the child loved the kitten…because the kitten had come to the child when the child said, “here, kitty, kitty, kitty.” The only thing the kitten had done to deserve this home in the man’s house was to trust the child.

And this is the way it is with God. We are the kittens and cats for God. Jesus is God’s child. We can’t be good enough for God to allow us into Heaven, because we all have bad habits by our nature. But God’s Son, Jesus Christ, has said that He will clean up our messes. And God loves His Son so much, and Jesus loves us so much, that God allows us in – if we trust Jesus enough to follow Him when Jesus calls us to Him. All we have to do is to go to Jesus and follow Him.

It isn’t that we are particularly good people. We all make messes.

It isn’t that we are particularly useful people. We all have a hard time doing God’s will.

Our salvation with God rests solely on the fact that Jesus has decided He loves us and has decided to call us to Him where we can be kept safely.

Will you go to Jesus and follow Him home?

So many people in our world have decided that Christianity is all about being good enough for Heaven. Unfortunately, that has been a lie that has come down from many years ago. It is not the Gospel, the Good News that the early church discovered.

The Old Testament speaks of a people who had been in slavery in Egypt over four hundred years. In those days, the Israelite people were not educated, they were not allowed to live freely, they simply did as they were told. Eventually, God took one of their number, Moses, dealt with him and sent him back to negotiate for the release of all the Israelites. Eventually, after a series of ten plagues, the Israelites were set free and escaped ahead of the Egyptian army across the Red Sea in a miraculous journey which was famously handled by God.

After the escape, God gave Moses a series of commandments and laws for the Israelites to follow which would take the place of following the orders of the Egyptians. It was a way for them to live together as a society and get along without violence, for the example of their slave masters had not been good. The Egyptians had simply taken what they wanted. Now, the freed Israelites must agree to follow certain laws so their society could function peaceably.

Over the centuries, the Israelites learned to follow the laws. In fact, for many Israelites, now known as Jews by the time of Jesus, following the laws became more important than paying attention to the God who had brought them out of Egypt. They would do evil to another and justify it by pointing out that they had followed the rules to the letter. For example, the law said not to work on the Sabbath. Harvesting was work. So some would punish people who were hungry and walked through a wheat field on the Sabbath, picked the tops of a handful of wheat, and ate the seeds because that was said to be harvesting, and that was work, and the law said not to work on the Sabbath. Jesus’ disciples got in trouble for this very situation. The people had made the rules more important than treating other people well. Jesus taught differently. 

Two Sons

Our reading today speaks of one day when Jesus told a group of rule-following religious people a brief story of a man with two sons. He asked his first son to go and work today in the vineyard. The son said, “I will not,” but he later changed his mind and went to work.

The father went to the second son and ask the same thing. The second son said, “Of course I will, sir.” But he did not go.

Then Jesus asked a question. “Which of the two sons did what his father wanted?”

The listeners answered, “the first, of course. The one who said “I will not” but later went to work.

And then Jesus said to the religious people. “Truly, I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. John the Baptist came to show you how to be righteous, but you did not believe him. But the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed." 

You see, the first son represents the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the people who ignore God early in their lives and then turn to God, doing what He asks. The second son represents people who grow up giving lip service to God, perhaps attending church regularly, but not doing what God asks, which is to help others, to take care of others, to lead others to an understanding of God.

The point of the story was that over time, the religious people had developed the idea that following the rules made them good enough for Heaven. Yet Jesus pointed out that choosing to follow Jesus was the way to Heaven. The rule-following would always remain secondary to worshiping God and doing good for all the other people around us.

Even today, we often get the idea that following the rules is the way to end up in Heaven – and if we haven’t followed the rules, we can’t get to Heaven. But that’s not true. That’s not what the New Testament tells us.

It is true that not following the rules, the commandments, the law of the Old Testament will usually lead to trouble. For example, if we break the commandment and steal, we are likely to end up in prison. If we kill others, we are likely to either end up in prison for murder – or be shot by someone taking revenge. Looking at some of the other Old Testament commands, such as not to eat pork, we find that eating too much pork will raise our cholesterol.

But Jesus also taught us that God can forgive any rule-breaking, any sin, any crime against his commandments. For following the rules is simply a guide to a way to live without trouble. The key to being on God’s good side is not following the rules, but – as both John the Baptist and Jesus taught – is to repent, to rethink our relationship with God and apologize to God for what we have done and choose to follow the teachings of Jesus and His example of living – worshiping God and treating other people very well.

If we focus upon these two things, worshiping God and treating other people very well, listening to the guidance of the Holy Spirit every hour, God will lead us to do the right things and will be pleased. And if we mess up, God will forgive us.

Now, just like that cat I talked about earlier, we can’t be perfect. It isn’t in our nature. But we can begin to work to follow the way of Jesus.

What Jesus was talking about to the religious people was that it seemed that those people who had been living rough lives, those people who were outside of normal society, those people who the good religious people didn’t associate with were more likely to believe Jesus and turn their lives around than the religious people who were following the rules but were unkind to others, more likely to believe than those people who never broke the commandments but looked down on others, more likely to believe than those people who blamed the poor for being poor, the addicts for being addicted, the starving for stealing food.

And Jesus asked everyone to rethink what God wanted and learn to do two things: Love God and love other people. All other people. Give God the glory God deserves and treat people right.

Why is it important to God that we treat people right? 

Portraits of God

Imagine that you come across a portrait of God – a real-life painting of God. How much could you sell it for? How valuable would it be? The most valuable painting ever sold at auction was worthy over $400 million. It was a painting of Jesus Christ called Salvador Mundi, the Savior of the World, as imagined by Leonardo Da Vinci. It was an imagined portrait of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It was in poor condition, with scratches and mold on it. Now imagine how much a real, honest to goodness painting of God would be worth! Billions of dollars?

Yet in Genesis, we are told that we have been created in the image of God. We are walking, talking sculptures of God, each made from a different angle. Let me try to be clearer – if you and I and everyone else in this room took a photo of someone in the room, they’d all be slightly different, shot from different angles, right? That’s what the Bible says about us. We are all images of God – and of course, we are all shot from different angles, showing different features of God just as the works of different photographers and painters will all be slightly different even when they shoot or paint the same thing.

Look around. Near you are dozens of portraits of God, each done from a different angle with a different style. And each person is that image of God, potentially worth billions of dollars.

And now I want you to recognize this. If each person is an image of God, then you and I are images of God, immensely valuable even if we have the scratches and mold of the world on us that have come because of our poor choices in life. WE ARE VALUABLE TO GOD! You and I are in God’s photo album!

Let’s put the rules of the Old Testament in proper perspective. Those rules were provided to a group of people who had previously had no rules except to do what their Egyptian masters said to do. This set of rules was given, much like the rules for handling valuable portraits in a museum – Don’t touch the portraits, don’t harm the portraits, don’t use flash photography, don’t stack the portraits on top of each other without a soft cloth between them. We don’t want to damage the portraits or put scratches on them! These are the rules of the Old Testament – to avoid damaging yourself and others, to properly worship God. But the rules couldn’t handle every situation and people forgot the purpose of the rules and simply followed the rules, even though no list of rules could cover every situation. And because of that, we put scratches and damage on each other and ourselves.

And so God said, through Jesus Christ, that if we will apologize for putting those scratches on ourselves, if we will choose to follow Jesus’ teaching and example, if we will start trying to repair ourselves by listening to Jesus and the Holy Spirit – we will be kept with Him forever.

We won’t be tossed out with the trash. We won’t be left to fend for ourselves alone. We won’t be left to fade away because of the sunlight or the weather or the rot and mold that has started to grow in our souls. We will be restored to the full glory that every portrait of God deserves.

And all we have to do is choose to follow Jesus, God’s Son.

The lie that has come down through the ages is that it is following the rules that gets us into God’s kingdom. No, following the rules is how we polish up our portrait and restore it and protect it and other portraits. Getting into Heaven is by following Jesus.

So how quickly will you make that decision to follow Jesus? You might find yourself moving to the head of the line for Heaven, because there are even some people in the churches who have not made that choice yet. They have been following the rules, but have not decided to do what Jesus asks – to treat all people, all those images of God with kindness and love, to do what God asks, to follow Jesus’ example of sacrifice and love for others.

Choosing to follow Jesus requires change. You’ll need to grow and change. You’ll need to change your habits, perhaps even your friends. But it is for your good. Let me tell you one last story: 

Two Trees

I saw two trees. One was dead, gray and lifeless. A vulture perched on a limb.

The other tree was filled with life - songbirds, fruit, even caterpillars enjoyed its dark green leaves that moved constantly in the bright sunlight and slightest breeze. Every day it was different and growing, and a joy to be around. Underneath it was a cool place on hot days.

Every day, the dead tree was the same, never moving, always still except when a strong wind blew, it would drop a branch or a few twigs as it slowly decayed. There was very little shade. It was sad.

I realized that people are this way, too.

As COVID-19 changes our world, as everything seems to change in our world, we can choose to stop growing, to try not to change or grow, to stand still in the winds of change, to await our death alone, sadly.

Or we can be joyful, putting out new shoots as we move in the winds of change, unfurling new leaves and skills, letting others be attracted by our growth, our skills, our movement, our fruit of life like the songbirds and the caterpillars are. We can choose to be different every day and a joy to be around, lifting up others to the sunny, blue sky. People will join us in the shade given by our beautiful leaves. We will never be alone again.

I choose to grow in this time of change. I choose to follow the living, breathing Jesus, doing what He asks each day, following His example of loving God and all the people around me, not stay the same day-after-day following some dead code until I die, piece-by-piece. I choose to be transformed and changed by His example and His teachings, I choose to grow! How about you?

Father, I pray for these people in this church and all those watching and listening at home. Fill them with your Holy Spirit, teach them Your ways, help them bring the Good News of Jesus’s love into their hearts so that they may do great things by trusting and following Your Son Jesus and Your Holy Spirit. Give them the courage to step away from their old life, to forgive others daily, and joyfully do Your will. I pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Remember: God loves us because of the Son, not because of anything we do. We are valuable because we are each images of God. Change and growth is good for us, God asks us to grow and change.

Benediction

Now Go into the world, listening to the Holy Spirit, declaring the Word of God and speaking of the glory of Jesus our Redeemer, Whom we follow. And be blessed by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Mission to ISIS

Good morning and welcome again to Cedar Grove United Methodist Church.

A few years ago, around 2014, apparently out of nowhere, a frightening, evil group appeared. Known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, ISIS for short, it was founded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and claimed to be the restored, rightful home of the Islamic caliphate, the religious-based kingdom which, according to their view, would usher in the end-times.

The violence of the group was appalling. Captured Christians, moderate Moslems, and members of other religions were tortured, beheaded, or burnt alive. It soon attracted fighters from across the Arab world and even from Europe and America. In the midst of the Syrian civil war, ISIS carved out a small territory with its army, and captured Iraq’s largest western city, Mosul before an international coalition turned the tide and eventually defeated the group, which still exists in small groups throughout the Arab world.

I became aware of the group before it arrived on Western news media because while reading about the Syrian civil war, I had come across a video made by the ISIS leader, where he personally ripped the heart out of a dead enemy and took a bite out of it. Those who think that evil doesn’t exist in today’s world, those who think that political struggles are just differences of opinion might want to think again.

As the group expanded, captured the city of Mosul, I became aware of something unusual. In the Middle East, every small place has history that dates back thousands of years. And just across the Euphrates River from Mosul, within a couple miles of the city center, there are significant ruins of an ancient city, a center of evil, the ruins of the city of Nineveh, where God asked a Jewish man named Jonah to go and preach.

We all know about Jonah and the whale. We all know that Jonah was swallowed by a whale and then spit up after three days onto the shore. What we often miss is the context. Why was Jonah in the whale? Why was he on a boat out in the sea? What was the overall story?

In ancient times, a person might be sold into slavery to pay off debts or taxes owed to another. Each major family had a wealthy man or two who looked after the extended clan. In a good family, if someone was sold into slavery for debts or taxes, this wealthy family leader would go to the new master of the slave and negotiate a deal. He would pay a price and “redeem” the slave from slavery. He would rescue him by paying off the slave’s debt. He was the family’s “redeemer”, the one who rescued the slave and bought him back. But there was one catch – the slave also had to accept the redemption. For the slave might have decided that he or she liked being a slave more than freedom. The slave had to agree to the redemption.

Jonah heard from God. He was told to “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”

At the time, around 750 BC, Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian empire and probably was the largest city in the world. This empire was known for the particularly savage ways they treated defeated enemies, skinning their enemies and hanging those skins up in the town. They were enemies of the Israelites who lived in Palestine.

And Jonah, the Jewish man, was asked by God to go to Nineveh and preach against their wickedness.

Imagine that God spoke to you about four or five years ago, telling you to go preach against the Islamic State, against ISIS in Mosul, the center of the evil. Would you have gone? Would you have had the courage to travel to that city, to enter that town where Christians were beheaded or burnt alive, to preach loudly a gospel of repentance to such a population of people who were committed to the destruction of Christianity?

God had told Jonah to go to Nineveh and preach against the wickedness of the Ninevites. Jonah decided to run down to the port city of Joppa and hop on a ship headed for Tarshish, the land we call Spain. Jonah had decided – he was NOT going to go to Nineveh and preach to those dangerous people!

Of course, after Jonah gets on board and the ship sails, God sends a great storm that threatens to destroy the ship. All the sailors cry out to their own gods and throw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship and help it sail higher on the water. But Jonah had gone belowdecks and fallen asleep, exhausted from his journey to the coast. However, the captain of the ship woke Jonah up and ordered him to call upon his god – apparently the idea was that if everyone prayed to their own god, one of the gods would hear and save them.

But the sailors were a superstitious group. They cast lots to determine who was responsible for the storm – it must be the presence of some evil person on board who had led the gods to send the storm.

Naturally, the lot fell on Jonah. He admitted that he was running from Yahweh, which is the proper name that God had told Moses when Moses asked for God’s name. YHWH. Yahweh. I Am that I Am. The name of God.

Interestingly enough, as recently as the 1800’s, when bad things began to happen on board a ship, sailors often decided that it was because of the presence of a Jonah on board, a man who had committed a great crime against God.

The sailors asked Jonah what should be done to him to calm down the sea. And Jonah told them to throw him into the sea because the storm had been caused by God because of Jonah’s disobedience. But the men tried to row back to land, yet finally gave up and then prayed to God asking to be forgiven before they eventually threw Jonah overboard. And the storm stopped and the sailors began to believe in Yahweh, the God of the Jews.

And it was at this point that a huge fish or whale swallowed Jonah. And Jonah prayed to God, viewed to make sacrifices to God and promised to praise God, saying “Salvation comes from the Lord!”

And after three days, God had the fish vomit Jonah onto dry land. Three days in a dark place. At one point during His ministry on earth, JESUS says that the only sign that will be given to a group of people about Him is the sign of Jonah – and Jesus spent three days in a dark place, His tomb.

Meanwhile, back at the coast, after getting fish guts cleaned off of him, Jonah hears from God again – God to Nineveh and preach.

You have to give Jonah credit. He learned his lesson. He walked through Syria to Nineveh and began walking through the city, preaching that the city would fall in 40 days. It took Jonah three days to walk through the city, it was that large. Three days again. Jonah spent three days preaching to one of the most blood-thirsty, violent groups of people on earth. Three days he preached. Many years later, Christian tradition has it that Jesus spent the three days His body was in the tomb walking through Hell, preaching to those who had been condemned before He came to earth. Three days again.

Who do you think about when you think about lost people who are far from God? Do you think about ISIS, which has taken over some tiny islands in the Indian Ocean? Or do you think closer to home? Do you think about places filled with people addicted to drugs, people who are focused upon violence, people who neglect their families and choose to worship chemicals that have enslaved them? Do you think about those areas where we get regular reports of shootings, of break-ins and robberies, of arson? Do you think about the areas or does your mind see people, people who once were delightful children but over the years lost hope, children who grew up without skills people would hire, teenagers who wanted friends even though with the friends came the addictions, young men and women who have no good way of paying rent, and so they fight and they steal, and they sell what should not be sold just to pay the bills or to buy the chemicals that keeps them from feeling miserable?

We have often thought of addiction, whether it be to drugs or alcohol or nicotine or gambling or whatever as a moral failing. But the doctors tells us today that for some people, the pull of the drug, the taste of alcohol, the smell of tobacco, the thrill of pulling the lever is so strong that it enslaves the person. It changes the brain and orders the person to go back to the addiction. It is, as the Apostle Paul told us, an enslavement to sin. Just as in the old days of debtor slavery, we cannot get free by ourselves.

And for many people, addiction can only be broken by a combination of staying far from the supply of the addiction – and a prayer to God to provide help in breaking free, admitting that we are powerless to break the addiction by ourselves. We have to desperately ask God for help – whether the problem is our addiction to alcohol, our addiction to cigarettes, our addiction to hard drugs, our addiction to gambling, our addiction to pornography, our addition to anger or violence or eating too much fat and carbohydrates! If we have tried a few times to break free, we need to pray to God for help getting free. We must ask God to redeem us from this slavery.

In Nineveh, Jonah walked through the city, a huge city, the largest in the world. He stopped many times and proclaimed, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown. And to their credit, the Ninevites believed Jonah. The king took off his robes and put on sackcloth, the roughest cloth he could find. He walked off his throne and sat in the dust, humbling himself. He even sent out a proclamation, a press release, and order to the people of Nineveh. He told them to fast, to not eat or drink. He told them to wear sackcloth, to pray urgently to Yahweh, to the God that Jonah had preached about. He ordered everyone to give up their evil ways and their violence in the hope that Yahweh, that God would have compassion on the city and let them survive.

Jonah walked out east of the city and made camp. Jonah hated the Ninevites and wanted them to die. Jonah wanted God to nuke the city. And so Jonah sat down and waited – 37 more days to go. And God grew a leafy plant at Jonah’s camp that provided shade for the man. And this made Jonah very happy, but the next morning God sent a worm to chew into the stem of the plant, and the plant began to whither and shade was gone. As the sun came up, God sent a scorching east wind, blowing off the desert, and that day the sun came down on Jonah’s head and so Jonah became angry with God about the plant.

Meanwhile, God had heard the prayers and seen the repentance of the people of Nineveh. God had seen how they had humbled themselves, stopped their violence, and prayed for help from God. They had accepted God’s redemption. And so God chose to let them survive.

This made Jonah hopping mad. “That’s why I went to Spain!”, he said. “I knew that you love all people and now, since I’ve preached, you aren’t going to destroy these evil people who I hate!”

And God asked him “is it right for you to be angry?”

And that day when the sun beat down on Jonah’s head, God also said, Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?

God said, “You’ve been so concerned about this plant – but you didn’t plant it, you didn’t tend it, you didn’t make it grow. I provided it for you. It grew in a day and it died the next day.

“So shouldn’t I be concerned about this great city, with over a hundred and twenty thousand people who don’t know wrong from right, and besides them, there is all their livestock?”

And the message is this: Jonah – and us – are often concerned about the little things of life – is our phone working? is the Internet on? Did the delivery from Amazon arrive on time? How’s the air conditioning working today or the heating system? We are so concerned with our comforts – did we spill something on our shirt this morning and have to change into another shirt? Was our coffee hot enough? Did we have the right brand of breakfast cereal? Were there too many people in front of us in the line at McDonald’s. We’ve all complained about these things that are so important to us.

Yet God is concerned with the hundreds and thousands and millions of people in this world who don’t know right from wrong – especially with those people who have made the wrong choices and are suffering because of it. God is more concerned about the people who are not praying to Him than with the people who are praying to Him, sitting safely her in a church building. God sent a storm and a huge fish just to get Jonah to walk to Nineveh and preach for three days. Why? Because God is concerned with all those people who were living in violence in Nineveh. Like an ancient redeemer, God wants His family members to be free.

In the same way today, God wants each of us Christians to go to our personal Nineveh, the homes where the people we most fear live, the people we despise live, the people who we don’t trust live – and speak with them gently, kindly, but insistently about the need to rethink their relationship with God, their need to turn – not to the church, but to God, their need to ask God for help with their lives and their need to choose to follow the leadership of Jesus Christ, God’s Son. Like Jonah, we need to tell people that they have been redeemed and are free – if they will humbly accept the redemption and turn to the Redeemer.

2000 years ago, God sent part of Himself to earth in the form of Jesus Christ. Jesus was sent to be the Redeemer, to pay the debts we had run up, the fines God was due for disobeying Him. He paid the price through His sacrifice upon the cross in Jerusalem. And through that sacrifice, we were redeemed – if we will accept the redemption. We must want to be free of our slavery, our debts. But if we will accept the redemption, our Redeemer will set us free!

Perhaps you are watching or listening, and your life has been one bit of trouble after another. Perhaps you’ve begun to realize that you are escaping from the world in a way that’s harming your health, your relationships, your job. Perhaps you’re one of the young men or women I spoke of earlier who has lost hope. As the king of Nineveh saw, there is always hope with God – if we pray to God, if we ask for help, if we turn to His Son for assistance.

But, you say, someone from a church hurt me once. I’m sorry. But will you let a person from months or years ago keep you from a good relationship with the God of the Universe? Will you let that person control your life, even today? Or will you step forward with Jesus to take control of your life by asking His help today?

If you can, join us at our 10:30 am live service any Sunday morning on Rt 47. For here, you will find people ready to point the way to a bright, wonderful, joyful relationship with God – the same God who had the fish dump Jonah on the shore, the same God who controlled the storm, the same God who changed the hearts of the people of Nineveh, whose descendants would have to be saved once again from violence when the men of ISIS took over.

But God saved them again when the coalition of Western nations, led by the United States, destroyed the armed forces of the Islamic State and set them free.

You, too, can be set free from the evil that controls you. Simply pray to God to be set free, for God’s son has redeemed you. You need to accept the redemption.

And if you have been close to God for months and years – Go home this afternoon and find your person Nineveh, the people who need to hear God’s word the most – and talk with them – in person, over the phone, on chat, and by writing cards and letters. You can tell others of the great things that God has done in your life and the lives of your friends. Don’t make God send a whale after you. Go to Nineveh and tell the people of the God who loves them!

Father, I pray for these people in this church and all those watching and listening at home. Fill them with your Holy Spirit, teach them Your ways, help them bring the Good News of Jesus’s love into their hearts so that they may do great things by trusting and following Your Son Jesus and Your Holy Spirit. Give them the courage to step away from their old life to go to their personal Nineveh's, to forgive others daily, and joyfully do Your will. I pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Remember: God forgives when we humbly ask Him for help. Each of us has a personal Nineveh where we are to speak God’s word. Each of us has been redeemed – and we need to accept that redemption by the One who is greater than any of us.

Benediction

Now Go into the world, using your God-given gifts, declaring the Word of God as Jonah did, and speaking of the glory of Jesus our Redeemer. And be blessed by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Forgiveness and Justice

Good morning and welcome again to Cedar Grove United Methodist Church. Today, we’ll be talking a bit about Forgiveness and Justice.

You’ve undoubtedly heard the story that Jesus said we are to turn the other cheek if someone strikes us on the cheek. When we mentored international students at Marietta College, I remember one evening explaining this to a student from China. After hearing it and making sure the translation had come through to him correctly, he just blurted out: “That’s just crazy!” Unfortunately, that is the world’s reaction to this fundamental Christian teaching.

When I was living in Atlanta, Evander Holyfield, the heavyweight boxer lived in the area. Holyfield is a born-again Christian and had his own take on the subject of turning the other cheek. The story goes – I’m not sure whether it was true or not – that one day a group of young men broke into Holyfield’s home to rob the place and he happened to be there. They did not realize that at the time Holyfield was the undisputed Heavyweight champion of the world. Holyfield asked them to leave. One of the young men punched him in the face. Holyfield said quietly, “Gentlemen, I really must insist that you leave.” Another young man punched him in the face. The very large Holyfield then stood tall, leaned back into a fighting stance and said, “Gentlemen, my Lord Jesus has no further instructions for me at this time.” The police arrived a few minutes later to find a group of men on the floor who offered no resistance to arrest.

In our Gospel reading today, Matthew 18:21-35, Peter is clearly upset at someone. He has heard that he has to turn the other cheek, but apparently Peter had been through a rough time and so He comes to Jesus and demands an answer to a question. “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”

Oh yes. Peter understood forgiveness. But Peter was through forgiving. He wanted a hard and fast rule – 5 times, 7 times, 10 times he could forgive, but then, Peter, the big fisherman, was ready to act like Evander Holyfield and solve his problems with his fists. Up to seven times, Lord? The rabbi’s always gave a legal ruling. Surely Peter didn’t have to put up with whoever was hassling him more than seven times!

Nope. Jesus answered Peter. “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”

Some believe the ancient Greek actually says 70 times seven times. 490 times. Forgive someone 490 times – almost five hundred times.

In the words of my student friend, “That’s crazy!”

And so Jesus tells a story. He says that the kingdom of heaven is like this story. This is the way things are in Jesus’ world – you may live in the world around you, but this is the way things are in Jesus’ world, the kingdom of heaven.

A king wanted to settle accounts with his servants, but as he was staring the process, a man who owed him ten thousand talents of gold was brought before him. Now a talent of gold – a single talent – was worth about 20 years of an ordinary laborer’s wages – call it three-quarters of a million dollars. And this man owed the king ten thousand times that – around $7 billion. Impossible for man to pay back – and so the king ordered that the man and his wife and his children be sold into slavery and everything else he owned be sold to pay off the debt. The man begged the king – “Be patient with me and I will pay back everything.” And the king took pity on him, forgave the debt and let him go.

So the guy leaves the king and finds someone who owes the guy a hundred silver coins – about $10,000. The guy grabs this other man, puts his hands around his neck and begins to choke him, demanding – Pay back what you owe me!

The second guy also falls to his knees and begs – Be patient with me and I will pay it back!”

But the first guy refused, had the second guy thrown into prison for the debt. But others were watching and told the king what had happened.

So the king called the first guy in. “I forgave your debt because you begged me to. Why didn’t you have mercy on your debtor like I had on you?. And so, the king had the first guy handed over to the jailors to be tortured until he paid back the $7 billion.

And Jesus draws the morale. “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

Hmmm. There’s a lot to learn here – strong lessons about what it means to be a Christian in good standing with God. 

To Whom is Jesus Speaking?

First, notice to whom Jesus is speaking. This is not a parable told to the Pharisees or the Jewish leadership. It is not told to people outside the church. This parable is told, probably to the disciples, but definitely to Peter, the leading disciple. This is a parable told to Christian followers of Jesus. It is told to us in the church – people who have already chosen to believe in Jesus, even to follow Jesus. And Jesus makes sure we know that this applies to the kingdom of heaven by saying “the kingdom of heaven is like” and then he speaks of the king and his servants.

The interpretation is that God is the king in this story. He forgives us of much, more than we can ever repay, for the man in the story represents us. The purpose of the story is to remind us that we have been forgiven much and therefore we are to forgive others of much in the same way. Forgiveness is a key Christian virtue, a core Christian value, something that is not optional, but is to be front and center for Christians.

And don’t we often, like Peter, hold grudges? Don’t we forgive once, twice, thrice, and wonder how many times we need to forgive.

But the implication of Jesus’ parable is that we are to forgive, forgive, forgive, forgive, forgive daily, weekly, monthly, annually, forgive for the rest of our lives. And so we might come to a different understanding of forgiveness from our normal meaning.

For the normal idea of forgiving a person is that this is an event. Once and done. “You are forgiven!” we say, and its over. That’s the way it is when God forgives us. “You are forgiven!” and everything is fine between us and God. And so we should forgive others in the same way. “You are forgiven!” and its over.

But we know it isn’t over, is it? We humans seem structurally unable to forgive once and be done with it. The natural person cannot do this. Peter could not do this. We cannot naturally do this. And so, until we have practiced this skill for years and decades, until we have turned this part of our life over to the Holy Spirit, until we have followed Jesus long enough, Jesus tells us how to forgive.

We are to forgive a person hundreds of times. Every day that we see the person who has hurt us, when the memory of the hurt comes back, when the anger starts to build, when the hate starts to flow – we are to forgive. We practice forgiving the person every day. If necessary, we practice forgiving every hour, even every minute. And we do this every time we need to forgive the other. If we have to, we might even say we must CONTINUALLY forgive those hurts against us.

But what about the other person? Don’t they need to ask us to forgive them?

No. Forgiveness is not a negotiation with the other, forgiveness is not a matter of pride, forgiveness is not about showing yourself as “the bigger person” or “the better person” or “winning over the other.” 

Forgiveness is all about self-healing

Forgiveness, you see, is all about self-healing. Forgiveness is about you fixing your hurts. Forgiveness is when you use Jesus’ teaching to heal your soul before God.

When Adam and Eve ate the apple in the Garden of Eden, God gave them a just punishment. God had told them, the people He had created that they could eat any fruit in the garden except the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. But that was the fruit they ate, in disobedience, and thus God justly punished them by sending them from the Garden into the world. A bit of rot came into the world with Adam and Eve. And that was inherited by their son Cain, who murdered his brother Abel, and the rot continued to be inherited, passing from parent to child down through the ages.

Every person receives the sin rot from other people, like rot passes from one peach in a basket to the next peach, until the entire basket is rotten. One person hurts the next, passing on the hurt from one person to another, until the entire world is rotten.

The interesting thing is this – a natural person cannot help but hurt other people. But when we choose to follow Jesus’ teachings, when we choose to accept baptism and the Holy Spirit of God, when we LISTEN to the Holy Spirit’s quiet whisper in our ear, we can remove the rot from our soul – and gradually, gradually learn to stop hurting others, to stop spraying rot on others – and we can learn to clean the rot from our own soul. For it is only when our soul has been cleaned that we can stop hurting others.

And the cleaner that we use to clean our soul is forgiveness. It doesn’t clean others. It simply cleans our soul. Forgiveness takes away the rot. Forgiveness gives us healthy souls.

The opposite of forgiveness is the desire for revenge. And you may have heard that seeking revenge, desiring revenge is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. Seeking revenge rots our soul faster. Forgiveness cleans our soul of the rot.

God says we should ask God to be forgiven. And God immediately forgives us. God restores our relationship right now! God can do this. God has the self-discipline to forgive immediately and completely. We don’t have that self-discipline because our soul has been damaged in many ways. Only a completely perfect soul such as Jesus has can forgive completely and immediately. But the first step when we have offended God is to ask God to forgive us. The second step is to accept that it has happened.

Yet, how many times have we said, “I’ve apologized to God, I know God has forgiven me, but I can’t forgive myself?”

There are two reasons we have trouble forgiving ourselves.

First, our soul is still damaged. We have to practice forgiving ourselves 70 times 7 times just as we have to practice forgiving others daily, constantly. We have to practice until we have cleaned our soul of the damage that has accumulated by following the world’s advice over years and decades, the advice that has hurt us deeply and led us down the wrong paths. We have to practice forgiveness, for ourselves as well as others. It takes time.

But there is a second reason. It is because we have bought into the devil’s lie, a particular lie, a devious lie that is hard to see. This particular lie is that the moral and ethical law of this world is fundamental. We hold ourselves to principles, we look at the Ten Commandments, the entire Law of Moses, to our own ethical and moral standards, and we say that these are the foundation of what it means to be a good person. If we have done wrong, we say this in relationship to some idea of good, proper behavior, and we say that we have done evil, we have failed, we have done wrong.

Justice, you see, is when we get what we deserve. And, unfortunately, every man, woman, and child has broken the Law of Moses. The tenth commandment says not to covet, not to desire the things of your neighbor. How many of us can truthfully say we have never wanted anything that any of our neighbors have? The commandment lists our neighbor’s wife, his servant, his donkey. Have you ever desired a neighbor’s wife or husband, an appliance, a home, a vehicle? Have you ever wanted clothing that a friend had, a phone they had, a big-screen television? Have you ever wanted a piece of jewelry, a tool, a pickup, a camper, a pair of tennis shoes, a toy? You have broken the Tenth Commandment and broken God’s command, and thus justice says you deserve to die forever. When you demand justice, you are asking to receive what you deserve. Is this why we demand justice for our enemies, but mercy for ourselves? And when we realize what we have done wrong and realize what justice would do to us, we search desperately for a way to beg for mercy, don’t we?

Let me tell you a story. You are traveling somewhere in Europe, it’s Tuesday at 4 pm, and you know that one of those tiny little postage stamp countries is coming up. You are driving in Europe in a rented Porsche convertible, along a straight-away, and that means you can travel 60, 80, 100 mph and it’s perfectly legal. Life is good, life is free!

But you suddenly pass onto a different piece of pavement, and you notice blue lights behind you, it’s the police pulling you over. And so you stop, the officer checks your license, realizes you’re an American and tells you in English that you were doing over a hundred miles per hour in a 60 mph zone – and he points to the speed limit sign a couple miles back. There will be a terrific fine, maybe $2000, he says. And just at that moment, a man in a black Mercedes pulls up, walks up, and you recognize him as the guy who rode beside you on the ferry crossing the English Channel. And he recognizes you, talks to the officer for a moment, and officer tears up the ticket and sends you on your way. For, you see, the man in the black Mercedes is the prince who rules this little country, his word IS law, and he has forgiven you for your speeding, and so it is as if you had never broken the speed limit, because your friend has said the law didn’t apply to you this time because it was Tuesday at 4 pm. Will you run after the officer, asking to pay the $2000? Or will you simply be grateful to your friend who has forgiven you?

You see, the Truth is that the ethical and moral Law, the Ten Commandments, the entire Law of Moses is not fundamental. God’s will is what is fundamental – God established what is right and wrong. God decided what the Ten Commandments would be, what the Law of Moses would be, what the ethical and moral Law is. And, like an absolute King of old, our God has the ability to say that this part of the Law applies to you and this part does not, simply because God, out of God’s complete mercy, has decided that it was ok for you to drive 72 miles per hour yesterday at 5 pm.

God, you see, has the ultimate power – including the ability to suddenly write a clause into the moral law that says God has forgiven you for the time you stole that stuff from your employer, a clause that says God has forgiven you for the harsh words you said to your mother, a clause that says that the Law didn’t apply to you for such and such an action on such and such a day because God has changed the Law just for you when God forgave you. And so you can now forgive yourself, because what God decides is of far more importance than some moral or ethical set of ideas that you have decided is your basis for living. 

What Does God Ask of Us?

God does ask something, though. As Jesus said, God asks that you forgive other people their debts, just as God has forgiven your debts. God asks that you forgive yourself, just as God has forgiven you. God wants your soul polished clean of the rot – and the way to remove the rot is to forgive others and forgive yourself!

Most of us just continue to hurt others and spread the rot, though. Most of us would rather be right than kind. In the name of justice, most of us would rather hurt other people than help them with their souls. And so we don’t like to make it easy for others to forgive us, do we? We insist upon apologies, we insist upon pushing people into corners, we insist upon punishments and revenge and causing trouble for people who have hurt us. But Jesus says to forgive them. And it always helps to apologize to others.

But what about issues of theology? What about the very important issues of following God’s will and God’s Law?

In our reading from Romans 14:1-12, Paul tells us to “accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters.” He then goes on to give the examples that were very important in the early church, such as whether or not the Jewish dietary laws applied to Christians or not. Paul and Peter clearly taught that, unlike Jews, it was not necessary for Christians to avoid pork or shellfish. But Paul also said that those people who were “weak in the faith”, those people who thought it necessary to follow the Jewish dietary laws and who avoided pork and shellfish, those people should not be argued with, but accepted. The same goes for those people who carefully observed the Jewish holidays, while Paul taught that those holidays need not be observed. For, Paul said, “Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God.”

And we might apply this principle to our Christian theological disputes today. And you know that our various denominations have all sorts of minor disputes, mostly over the time, place, and meaning of baptism and communion. Paul would say, “Don’t argue, because those on one side of the issue are trying their best to follow God as they understand God’s rules, and those on the other side are also trying their best to follow God as THEY understand God’s rules. So if people are truly trying their best to get close to God, who are we to judge?” In other words, don’t argue, but give your Christian brother and sister the grace that God has given you.

You know, if Paul tells us to avoid “quarreling over disputable matters,” then doesn’t it follow that there are some things that are “disputable?” Let me give you an example: The Bible is rather vague about the exact meaning of communion. There are no instructions about the age and other requirements about to whom and when communion may be received. And guess what? Various denominations have developed different ideas of what communion means and who can receive communion. The same goes for baptism – who, when, where, and why. Clearly, these are “disputable matters”.

Also, it is clear that Christians are to receive communion and Christians are to be baptized. These are NOT in dispute. It is the details that cause our fights.

Since God could obviously have written the Bible in such depth as to make these issues crystal clear, could it be that those issues that are clear are very important – and those things where many learned men and women have studied and come up with different views are not so important? Christian – get baptized. Christian – receive communion. Don’t sweat the details.

And all this goes to the heart of the difference between the Gospel of Jesus Christ – and the Law that God gave to the Israelites through Moses.

The Law was a series of “do this” and “Don’t do that” commands. It established a standard of just and righteous behavior for the Israelite community. But over the centuries, because of our natural desire to do what we want to do instead of following God, a series of interpretations led to people using the Law to justify injustice and unrighteous behavior. And so Jesus came to us to be sacrificed under the Law for our sins. His death upon the cross was a voluntary sacrifice for everything everyone had done wrong over the centuries before and since.

And the Holy Spirit arrived when Jesus returned to Heaven. Now, instead of looking to the Law, instead of following the Law rigidly, instead of finding loopholes in the Law to treat people poorly and to harm people, those baptized Christians were given the ability – if they chose to listen to the Holy Spirit – of receiving guidance directly from God on all matters. No longer did they have to do wrong to follow the Law. Now, Jesus and the Holy Spirit made it clear, that they could heal a person on the Sabbath day while the Law said no work must be done. Now, Jesus and the Holy Spirit made it clear, poor people did not need to create and wear special garments that were worth 6 months of wages. Now, Jesus and the Holy Spirit made clear, people could eat pork without endangering their immortal souls. For Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit had made it clear that what was important was to love God, to love other people, and to learn to follow Jesus’ example for living.

And all those little wrong-doings, all those thefts of pencils, all those lustful looks, all those times spent coveting our neighbors’ things – were forgiven when the Christ-follower took some time, bowed down and apologized to God, asked for help in avoiding wrong-doing, and stood once again in preparation for following Jesus, God’s Son.

God’s forgiveness. God’s grace. God’s choice to set aside the punishment that we deserve for the simple reason that God loves us more deeply than we love ourselves and wants us to spend eternity with God and Jesus rather than wander alone, forever fighting with the other creatures who will not bow down to a wise, loving God.

And how to follow Jesus daily? It begins when we forgive others as we have been forgiven. It is core to the Christian life. It is even included in the prayer Jesus taught us.

Our Father, who art in heaven,
    hallowed be thy Name,
    thy kingdom come,
    thy will be done,
        on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
    as we forgive those
        who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
    but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
    and the power, and the glory,
    for ever and ever. Amen.


Father, I pray for these people in this church and all those watching and listening at home. Fill them with your Holy Spirit, teach them Your ways, help them bring the Good News of Jesus’s love into their hearts so that they may do great things by trusting and following Your Son Jesus and Your Holy Spirit. Give them the courage to step away from their old life, to forgive others daily, and joyfully do Your will. I pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Remember: Forgive others as God has forgiven you. Forgiveness is the core of the Gospel. Do not quarrel over disputable matters. And forgive others continually as God continually forgives us.

Benediction

Now Go into the world, using your God-given gifts, declaring the Word of God and speaking of the glory of Jesus. And be blessed by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Time for Children

Good Morning and welcome to Cedar Grove United Methodist Church! We want to give a special welcome this morning to listeners on V96 FM, which is broadcasting these sermons at 9 AM every Sunday.

Last week, we talked of how carrying our cross is to be a joyful experience, looking past the cross to the joyful life that lies on the other side. We talked about how our most wonderful life happens when we stop living our life plan and begin to listen to and follow Jesus’ life plan for us.

This week we’re going to talk about children. Our children.

Some of you may have young children in the cute stage. Others may have teenagers in the not-so-cute stage. Still others may have grown children and are working on those cute grandchildren or even great-grandchildren. And, I’m sure, there are those of you who are listening or watching who don’t have any children and are wondering if this is a blessing or a curse. And there are others of you who have wanted children but were never able to have children.

In my own family, we have all of the above or have gone through those stages. So far, we’ve raised five children, have seven grandchildren, a great-grandchild, and another on the way. Our family has experienced step-children, infertility, and adopted children. We’ve experienced times when we were very blessed by our children and times when we felt cursed by our children. But in the end, we’ve loved them all – everyone of them in the family that seems to grow every year.

Children hold a special place in the Bible. Back in Deuteronomy 6, Moses made sure that the people of Israel understood that the Law applied not only to the people, but their children and their children’s children. The Law Moses had brought down from the mountain, the Law given to him by God. It applies not only to you, but to the children and the grandchildren.

And how are those younger members of your family supposed to learn about what God wants? It was very simple. Moses said that “These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”

In Moses’ time, 3000 years ago, in a time before Zoom teaching, in a time before classroom teachers, in a time before videos, before books were common, indeed in a time before reading was common, in a time when professional teachers were only available to the wealthiest of the wealthy – Moses told the people to teach their own children what God wanted. How? How could these people teach their own children about God? Didn’t that require a professional? Haven’t times changed?

No.

For Moses understood that we are all teachers, even today. A father and mother talk about the politics, about the President, about the governor, about riots and protests, about COVID-19 and masks – and during all this time, they are overheard by their children and they are teaching their children. Grandmother makes rolls or a pie and her granddaughter watches and learns. Grandpa changes the oil for his truck and his grandson watches and learns. Mom tells the children to clean their rooms and vacuum and the children learn this skill. Dad complains about his job and the men he works with and the children learn what is right and what is wrong about those men – and what they need to do to be good or bad workers.

Families tell family history, they tell of grandfather who was in the Army and met grandmother at a USO dance outside Fort Hood during the Vietnam War. They talk of the tiny home they lived in and the children learn about early married life.

Families plant a garden together and the children learn how to make hills for zucchini and long rows for beans and how to pinch the first flowers off of tomatoes and such. They learn how to run a lawnmower and load a dishwasher and how to sort clothing before washing it and the second week of college those children who did not learn about sorting and bleach wear pink shirts to class.

And throughout all this, children learn very clearly what Dad and Mom and Grandma and Grandpa think is the importance of a relationship with God, because some parents talk about God and what God wants as they “sit at home” and as they walk along the road, as they get up to eat breakfast and as they lie down at night. Some parents talk about God all the time with their children and grandchildren – and others don’t talk much at all about God. 

By the time children are 12 or 13 years old, 80% of those who will be Christians in their life have already become Christians. Another 10% will become Christians before they graduated from high school. The final 10% will become Christians after they turn 18. So the odds of a child becoming a Christian after they have become an adult are very slim. 

That’s why on about 25% of adults go to church regularly. Another 25% go to church 2 or 3 times a year. Another 25% claim to be Christian but haven’t gone to church in over a year. And the final 25% don’t even bother to claim to be a Christian anymore.

About 50 years ago, we assumed that our children would become Christian. We just didn’t know whether they’d become Baptist, Methodist, or Catholic or another Christian group. And so we didn’t want to force our children to pick a church – we let them choose. And many choose to not go to church at all. We thought they’d come back to church as adults. Many didn’t. And those children now have children and grand-children who never attend church. For they watched more movies and TV shows who made fun of Christians instead of meeting real Christians and understanding that while all people have flaws, there were outstanding Christian men and women who would have loved them and taught them wisdom. They would have learned wisdom that kept them from making many of the mistakes they’ve made in their lives.

And do you know how those older Christians learned that wisdom? Sometimes it was because they had listened to sermons on life given by older men and women. And sometimes it was because they – or their friends – had made mistakes. The same mistakes that people make today.

And this is a key reason why it is important for the children to be brought to church. A church is a community of wise men and women. Yes – every church has it’s share of people who don’t get it, who are still learning themselves, who hurt people without realizing it. But the people who lead in most good churches are sound, wisdom-filled men and women, who want to the best for others, and who are willing to teach newcomers what they know.

It is difficult enough in this world for us to get through as adults. It truly helps to have a community of older men who have been there to say to the young father, “What do I do with my son?”. It really helps to have a community of older women who can say to you, young mother, “Yes, my daughter did that, too, and here’s how we worked it out.”

This time of COVID has brought forth another reason to bring your children to church. After so many months at home, with little or no social interaction, most children – and adults – are starved for wholesome time spent with others. And while children at churches are not perfect – for they are children, after all – you the parent have the advantage of being able to spend time with their parents or grandparents, so you have an idea what lessons they are being taught – whereas at the school, you have little idea what the other children’s parents are teaching them.

And so, what Moses said to the parents and grandparents still applies. You are your child’s first and best teacher. You know your child and her learning style better than anyone else does. You know what you want to teach your child – that it is more important to teach a child to be kind than where Tajikistan is, that it is more important for your child to know how to share than to diagram sentences. You know that it is more important for a man to respect God than to know how to prove a geometric theorem. So bring your child to church – and even more, when you go home, discuss the sermons, read the Bible, and talk about God and what God wants of them as you sit, as you walk around the house, as you ride in the car, as you have breakfast together, and just before bed. Pray together. 

Many people talk about all sorts of things with their children: Football, acting, politics, other things. But what is truly important?

For, after all, only Tom Brady plays football after age 40, but all people die.

Only Betty White acts after age 90, but all people meet with God.

Only Jimmy Carter is still in politics in his 90’s, but all people stand in front of Saint Peter.

What is important for your children to learn? Football, acting, dance, politics? Or the keys to eternal life and a wonderful soul?

Some people have come to me in various churches and said that they do not like children in church because it disrupts the service. But here, I have not seen any of that. Instead, we would much rather have your children running in our aisles, for that gives hope. Running in our aisles while hearing about God instead of running in the streets learning about meth.

Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

My wife and I have raised five children. So when you come to our churches, please recognize this rule. “Let your children be children, for that is how they will receive the kingdom of heaven.”

If you have questions about bringing your children to church, just give us a call at the church office or send us an email. You can find all that at cedargroveunitedmethodist.org

Father, I pray for these people in this church and all those watching and listening at home. Fill them with your Holy Spirit, teach them Your ways, help them bring the Good News of Jesus’s love into their hearts so that they may do great things by teaching their children and grandchildren of Your love. We pray this in the name of Jesus.

Remember: Teach your children and grandchildren about the love of God and Christ. Bring your children to church.

Benediction

Now Go into the world, using your God-given gifts, declaring the Word of God and speaking of the glory of Jesus to your children and grandchildren. And be blessed by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

My Joyful Cross

Good Morning and welcome to Cedar Grove United Methodist Church! We want to give a special welcome this morning to listeners on V96.9 FM, which is broadcasting these sermons at 9 AM every Sunday.

Last week, we talked about how the Apostle Peter had declared that Jesus was “the Messiah, the Son of the Living God”, and how that meant that Jesus was both the man who would save Israel, and God walking upon the earth. Jesus was both Man and God, meaning that Jesus’ sacrifice for us was real and of infinite value, defeating death for us and reversing the curse that we had acquired in the Garden of Eden.

Our reading from Matthew 16, verses 21 to 28 today takes the story further. Now that Peter and the other disciples had decided that Jesus was indeed "the Messiah, the Son of the Living God," Jesus began to let them in on what was going to happen later that spring. He explained to them that He must go to Jerusalem, the capital of ancient Israel. He must suffer many things at the hands of the elders of Israel, the chief priests of the Temple and the teachers of the Law of Moses, and most importantly that Jesus must be killed and raised to life again on the third day. He was predicting all of this months before it actually happened.

Now I don’t know about you, but I can see where an ordinary man could predict that he had to travel to such-and-such political capital and suffer at the hands of the leaders there with whom he disagreed. But to the disciples – and other people hearing this for the first time, the idea that Jesus had to be killed and then raised to life on the third day must have seemed crazy. How can you make such a prediction? Who would be crazy enough to go somewhere you’d be killed – and even more crazy, who would predict that you’d be raised on the third day?

Peter, the leader of the disciples, despite having declared Jesus to be the Son of the living God just a day or so earlier, reminded us of how weak our faith can be. For despite Peter’s declaration that the man in front of Him was God walking on the earth, Peter pulls Jesus aside and says, “Never, Lord! This shall never happen to you!”

Who knows? Peter may have forgotten to whom he was speaking, or he may have remembered very well and just forgotten how much higher Jesus was than Peter was. Was Peter saying that “you ain’t gonna die because we won’t let you?” or was Peter saying, “No one would kill the Messiah, the son of the Living God?”

I tend to think that Peter had just forgotten for a minute that Jesus was God. After all, Peter had followed Jesus for a couple of years by now. He had seen Jesus eat, he’d seen Jesus get tired and sleep, he’d seen Jesus sleep, and he had walked and talked with Jesus many days. Peter was comfortable with Jesus as a man.

Peter was kind of like most of us. We’ve heard about Jesus for years, decades. We’ve seen his smiling face, we’ve seen his baby pictures, we’ve heard all the stories about Jesus, and He’s done good things for many of us. We’ve grown comfortable with Jesus the man, Jesus the teacher, Jesus the nice guy who wears a cream-white robe and is handsome and has a dark beard and a great big joyous smile. But just like Peter, we often forget that in this man was also the exact same substance as God the Father, the Being that created the Universe, that said “Let there be light!” and caused the Universe to explode into existence. We forget that, as Jesus famously said in John chapter 10, verse 30, that Jesus “and the Father are One.” We forget that this is the man-God who will one day be lead the armies of Heaven back to conquer the earth and become King.

It is like growing comfortable with the man who you eat lunch with each day, a man you’ve worked with for years, a man you’ve ridden to work with every day. And then, one day, he says, “my grandmother called me today. I’ll have to meet her at the airport, would you like to come with me?” And you say, "okay." And when you get to the airport and the plane lands and Grandma comes to meet your friend you find that Grandma is Queen Elizabeth II of England. Your friend is a prince, he has access to the ear of one of the most powerful people on earth and you never really knew, you’d grown comfortable with him, for he really is a nice guy, but that day you are reminded just what his family relationship really means.

Peter had grown comfortable with the man Jesus. We’ve grown comfortable with the man Jesus. He’s our best buddy, He’s fun to be around, He winks at things when we misbehave.

That day, Peter told Jesus that Jesus would never have to die.

And Jesus let him have it. Jesus reminded Peter of who He is. Oh, that we would all be reminded of who Jesus is! 

Jesus turned to Peter and called him “Satan!” “Get behind me, Satan!” 

Jesus was saying that Peter was acting as the devil or at least under the devil’s influence by trying to keep Jesus from dying in Jerusalem. For the Messiah had to die as a sacrifice for people to be reconciled to God. And Jesus was that Messiah who was prepared to die – partially because He had faith that He would rise from the dead three days later.

Jesus said that Peter was a stumbling block to Him, literally, an object in His way. He told Peter that Peter did not care about what God wanted but only the ordinary concerns of people. Get the big picture, Peter! 

Have you ever been a stumbling block in the way of someone who is trying to accomplish something great? Have you ever been an object in someone's way?

And it is difficult to get the big picture, isn’t it? When we’ve grown up in a world that tells us success is determined by the car we drive, the house we live in, the phone we have, the money in our retirement account, it is easy to lose sight of the big picture. When we’ve grown up in a world that is more concerned with looking young, with following football teams, with the daily political scandals we can lose track of what is important. When we’ve grown up in a world that every two years tells us that this is the most important election that there will every be (search Google images, you can find memes for the last 20 years!) We we live in a world that has us focus upon the daily deaths from COVID, that worries about the weekly Top 40 songs, we tend to forget that in a hundred years we will all be gone, that there isn’t all that much difference on that last night in the hospital between living 40 years and living 90 years, that eternity starts with ten thousand years and goes on from there. It is difficult to stay focused upon the big picture, which for Jesus was “How do I sacrifice Myself so all these billions of people will have a chance to live with Me and the Father forever?”

For Jesus, it really didn’t matter that He’d die upon the cross. For He looked forward past the cross to the joy that lie upon the other side. Like the man running for the touchdown – it doesn’t matter that it will hurt when he runs over that safety between him and the goal line. What matters is crossing the goal line. And for Jesus, what were little things like death, like the pain of the scourging, like the blood loss, like the beatings he’d have to endure if Jesus could simply die on that cross to defeat death forever for those people who chose to follow Him!

I’ve mentioned before that Jesus told us a couple times to believe in Him – but He told us about 80 times to follow Him. This is one of those times. We are to follow Jesus, to do what He does, to imitate Him, to become “little Christs”, which is what the word Christian originally meant. And this is one of those times He tells us to imitate Him. 

Taking up a Cross

Jesus says, “Whoever wants to be my disciples must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

A disciple is more than a student. A disciple is one who is disciplined to follow a particular leader. We spend a lot of time studying Jesus; how much time do we spend following and imitating Jesus?

We are to deny ourselves. We are to put aside what we want – and follow Jesus. Not only that, we are to find our cross and follow Jesus.

Now many people look at this as “Oh dear, this terrible time, this terrible thing is my cross to bear.” But that is not what Jesus meant. He meant we are to walk down the path of life, find a cross, and with Jesus’ help, JOYFULLY look upon this test for what it will do for us and others.

Does a great football lineman look at the opposing lineman as something terrible to deal with? No, that is the way a loser looks at things. A great football lineman looks at the 300 pound man in front of him as merely an obstacle to be moved and defeated as the game is won. Jesus looked at death on the cross as an obstacle to be defeated, a bridge to be crossed, a joyful way to show the world WHO HE IS.

Does a bride look at the wedding dress as something terrible to encounter, a horrible problem to be borne, a catastrophe that they will barely survive? No – the bridge looks at the wedding dress as something that must be found and put on for her to have her joyful wedding day! For it is partially the dress that makes her the bride! Jesus looked at death on the cross as a part of his identity, as part of who He would become, a necessary and joyful part of becoming the Savior of the world!

So find your cross to carry. Find that obstacle that you will defeat with Jesus’ help and that will become part of your identity. It won’t be easy – but looking past that cross to the joy of arriving on the other side and saying, “Jesus and I defeated that cross!” is what being a disciple of Jesus means.

In the Outward Bound program, a group of people who work together go into the wilderness together. They must learn to depend upon each other, they must help each other, they must defeat a common obstacle – a mountain to climb, a river to raft, a glacier to cross. And by accomplishing that difficult task, they become a team, which is why thousands of teams from leading companies have followed the Outward Bound adventures.

What could be your cross? Perhaps God has people watching you while you battle a difficult disease, which is your cross. Take up the fight joyfully, praying for God’s help, for you know that you will either have a wonderful story to tell – or you will grow close to God and be with Jesus in the end.

Perhaps your cross is a financial struggle. Take up your cross joyfully, praying for God’s help, for you will learn how to live on much less money as God gives you ideas on how to save money – and how to earn money.

Perhaps your cross involves a difficult relationship. Take up your cross joyfully, praying for God’s help, for God will pull you into a closer relationship with Jesus – which is our most important relationship, and God will teach you principles which can help you counsel another.

Perhaps your cross involves a struggle with a chemical. Take up your cross joyfully, praying for God’s help, for when you acknowledge your addiction and ask God to take over the fight for you, you can begin to break free.

So often, we want to hold onto the life we have – yet we complain about the crosses we bear. Jesus asks us to look at our crosses as ways to grow, that we might help others – and become closer to Him. But we have to be willing to let go of the life we have if we want to find a better life.

Jesus goes beyond taking up a cross. He says that whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever lose their life for me will find it. Jesus is saying that the path most people are following, the path of their life which was chosen by themselves is not working. By trying to save that life plan, you will lose your life, dying at the end, failing, accomplishing little which is worth doing. How is your life's plan working out for you? So-so?

But if you will pour your life into doing what Jesus asks, if you will focus upon what Jesus wants, if you will accept Jesus as your leader and do His will rather than your own will, you will find a wonderful, happy, joyful life in this world and an eternal joyful life in the next world. So let us lift our cross onto our shoulder and joyfully walk forward into a new adventure, a life led by Jesus.

You know, Ted Turner, the founder of WTBS and CNN and Headline News, famously said, “Life is a game. Money is how we keep score.” Jesus said something different. Jesus said, “What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?”

There is only one way to escape this world alive and that is to choose to follow Jesus. Jesus went to the cross to complete the sacrifice that was needed to allow us to approach God once more. That sacrifice was on our behalf, but there was one catch. We had to accept that Jesus was valuable enough and powerful enough that His sacrifice was worth it. We had to choose to follow Jesus, to pledge loyalty to Jesus, to recognize that He and only He is worthy to be followed – not the pursuit of money, not the pursuit of chemicals, not the pursuit of pleasure. We have to choose to follow Jesus, His wisdom, His counsel, His path chosen for us.

On Tuesday evening, September 8, we will start our fall small groups. We will also have a small group on Wednesday mornings at 11 AM. If you’d like to get involved, please show up – bring a mask for everyone’s protection in this time of COVID. And feel free to join us here at Cedar Grove United Methodist Church on Rt 47 directly across from WVU-Parkersburg any Sunday at 10:30 AM. All people are welcome. You are welcome.

Father, I pray for these people in this church and all those watching and listening at home. Fill them with your Holy Spirit, teach them Your ways, help them bring the Good News of Jesus’s love into their hearts so that they may do great things by trusting and following Your Son Jesus and Your Holy Spirit. Give them the courage to step away from their old life, find their cross, and joyfully do Your will. I pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Remember: We are to follow Jesus, not just believe in Him. Find your cross and joyfully take it up, confident that God will protect you and teach you great things. Walk away from the pathways of the world, and spend time with Jesus to save your soul.

Benediction

Now Go into the world, using your God-given gifts, declaring the Word of God and speaking of the glory of Jesus. And be blessed by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.