Christ the King

Jeremiah 23:1-6; Psalm 46; Colossians 1:11-20; Luke 23:33-43

Throughout history, people of all ages have had a very important question to deal with. Who shall we accept as our leader? The answer ultimately determines who are and how we shall act, as well as our eternal destiny.

When a child is born, the answer is very quickly found. The infant will accept as leader anyone who does exactly what the infant wants. If the infant is hungry and a woman nearby feeds the infant, the infant is happy. But if no one feeds the infant, then that infant will struggle and resist and cry out very loudly until all the people around her do exactly what she wants done – or until she dies from starvation and weakness. For most infants, questions of leadership are easily answered: “It is my way or I will punish you with my wail!”

As a child grows, there is always a struggle between the child and the parents over who will lead. Usually, the superior force and wisdom of the parents will win over the whiny little brat, but not always, for there are many children in this world who lead in their households. I knew a couple that had decided that their three-year-old child should make decisions. “Son, do you want to go to bed?” the exhausted father would ask. “No!” was the answer from the three-year-old who was so ragged he was ready to fall down. Eventually, an hour later, “Son, I’m getting tired. Do you want to go to bed?” The response was immediate: “No! You go to bed!” And Dad walked down the hall and went to bed! I’m not sure what happened as that child grew up, but I’m sure it wasn’t pretty.

As we move into our teenage years, the question arises once again: Who shall we follow? Shall we follow our parents, shall we follow our teachers, shall we follow our coaches, or shall we follow our charismatic friend? Who do we give the right to tell us what to do?

Increasingly today, we claim that right to lead for ourselves. We shall bow to no one else! We are self-sufficient, able to make all of our own decisions, accepting the leadership of no man or woman. And this is the American ideal.

In the 1800’s, a visiting Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote, “As social conditions become more equal, the number of persons increases who, although they are neither rich nor powerful enough to exercise any great influence over their fellows, have nevertheless acquired or retained sufficient education and fortune to satisfy their own wants. They owe nothing to any man, they expect nothing from any man; they acquire the habit of always considering themselves as standing alone, and they are apt to imagine that their whole destiny is in their own hands.” [emphasis mine]

And so who do we accept as our leader? It used to be that a woman accepted her husband as her leadership, for he likely had more education, had experienced more of the world, and it seemed the natural thing. This has been turned upside down in the last forty years. Today, more women are attending college than men, and increasingly the leading cause of divorce is a fight over who will lead the household.

Most people no longer live near their parents, so it is difficult for a college-educated man or woman who lives 200 miles from home to respect the judgment, let alone obey the orders of a father or mother who has less education. So who will you follow?

In the 1940’s and 1950’s, men were drafted into the army and they learned to follow orders. Today, few people enter the armed forces and we look with suspicious eyes upon any organization that asks for obedience. We do not want to obey anyone – Why not?

Perhaps there are three key reasons:

First of all, it is the effect of democracy that de Tocqueville noticed a hundred and fifty years ago. We have been told that we are sovereign, that we make the decisions with our vote and that our representatives in Charleston and in Washington are our representatives, not our rulers. And so, we have become very independent-minded because we have the power. The latest election was another example of the power of the independent person.

Another reason we don’t want to follow anyone is because every time we have chosen to follow someone, they disappoint us. Perhaps this began with Richard Nixon, when the Watergate tapes told us that our President was one of the foulest mouthed people we knew. Those tapes showed us that Nixon regularly talked like a sailor – and that’s an insult to sailors! And that was perhaps even more important in Nixon’s fall than the Watergate coverup was.

And soon after Nixon, we began to see a parade of pastoral leaders and ministers fall from grace. Silver and sex brought down major television ministries of different denominations, and even the separated priests of the Catholic Church were not immune to scandal.

Nixon’s fall was just the beginning for politicians. Regular prosecution began to bring down Senators, governors, mayors, sheriffs. Money, sex, drugs, power were their downfall. Even high-ranking military leaders were prosecuted for various crimes.

Our celebrities fell from grace. At first, actresses with “nice girl” images on screen were caught in adultery. Some actresses were found to be terrible mothers. Then men with “tough guy” images were found to have male partners. And eventually, the drug-using, promiscuous Hollywood or Nashville star became the stereotype, with the few clean, happily married stars that kept a balanced life were now seen as odd.

And we can’t find a Walter Cronkite anymore. Those trusted news anchors of the 1960’s and 1970’s began to fade the election night when and 80-year-old David Brinkley famously cussed a blue streak on an open mike, not realizing that what he was saying was going to televisions across America. And now we find that reporters were actively colluding with the campaigns, feeding questions before debates so answers could be prepared, checking stories with campaign leaders so nothing embarrassing would accidentally be said about the preferred candidate, and generally taking sides rather than reporting.

So who is left to trust?

And the final blow from the world came when the churches that claim to promote Christ’s love to all instead stopped fishing for men and women and decided that they only wanted cleaned, fillets in their buildings, people who were already “good Christians”. We forgot that we were supposed to love people first, tell them that Jesus accepts all people and all people have sinned, including each one of us, and instead we told people they had to clean up their act before they’d be welcome. But how could we know what to do if we were denied listening to the Word of God? And so there was no one left for ordinary people to follow.

But there is still one left. As we think of Thanksgiving, we can be thankful that there is still one person left to follow.

Two thousand years ago, Jesus of Nazareth was arrested for the crime of blasphemy. It seems that this Jesus had claimed repeatedly to be God’s Son, divine. He even claimed once in John 10:30 that “I and the Father are one”. And so, when they were able to, the Jewish authorities came one night and arrested him and charged him with the capital crime of blasphemy. They wanted Jesus to die.

Jesus had a very long night. The next day, he was taken to the Roman governor, and Pontius Pilate, the governor asked him an important question: Pilate said to Jesus, "Are you the King of the Jews?"... Jesus answered, "My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not here." So Pilate said to him, "Then you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You [correctly] say I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth (John 18:33b, 36-37).

A king of a kingdom which does not belong to this world? But what proof could Jesus provide? What reason would anyone have to follow a king whose kingdom is not here?

And so, Pilate reluctantly sentenced Jesus to death by crucifixion. And Pilate, to taunt the Jews and anyone else around who might challenge the power of the Romans to determine who was a king and who was not a king, put a sign on the pole with Jesus which said in several languages: “This is the King of the Jews”. Jesus was forced to carry his cross outside the walls of Jerusalem. Our reading takes it from here.

When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left.Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.

The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.”

The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar and said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.”

There was a written notice above him, which read: 'This is the king of the Jews.'

One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”

But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”

42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

43 Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

Everyone wanted to know if Jesus was a king worth following. The Romans taunted him, others sneered at him. But one of the criminals recognized that Jesus had done nothing wrong. He believed that Jesus was a king.

That Friday afternoon, Jesus died on that cross. The Romans even stabbed his already-dead body to make sure he was dead. And so the question becomes, “Why should anyone follow a dead man who claimed to be a king?”

The answer came to us on Sunday morning. It was then that people began to report that he was alive. Eventually, over the next 40 days, over 500 people saw him alive, speaking, eating, preaching, and teaching. Several of those witnesses wrote down what they had seen. Others traveled as far as India, as far as Rome, as far as Persia, as far as Egypt, as far as Spain to spread the word.

Apparently, it was true that Jesus was a king, because God would not have raised anyone from the dead who was a liar or who was delusional and tried to lead others to accept his delusion.

And over the centuries, literally thousands upon thousands of people have reported seeing or hearing Christ, talking to Him, and millions more have reported being guided by him.

And so we ask, Who is more worthy to be followed than the Son of God, a man who has a kingdom with over two billion people, more people than India or China? Who is more worthy to be our king than the Son of God, wise beyond measure, good and sinless above all people, and able to access the creative power of God with a Word – indeed, the man who is the living, breathing Word of God?

But then again, our American independence kicks in. More of the people in this country who claim Christ as their king treat him as their Sunday shift-manager rather than their king. How about you? Do you listen more and closer to your boss at work than you do to Jesus? Do you respect your shift manager more than Christ’s commands? Are you more supportive of an ordinary politician than you are the King of Kings?

Where is your loyalty? He commands us to tell all the people of all nations about Himself. He commands us to baptize people in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach those people all His commands. And in return, he promised that he will always be with us, to the very end of the age.

Why do you come to Church? Is it because you have a promise of eternal life? Is it because you have friends here? Or is it because your King has asked it of you, because your king wants you to proclaim Him to the nations, because your king wants you to know what you’re talking about and you have been filled with gratitude that you have finally found the one Person in this Universe worth following?

Each of us made a choice to follow this King, Jesus. But we would do well to remember that before we chose Him, He chose us. Without His choice, we could not follow Him, we could not be here today, we could not feel the joy of His love.

As we finish up our worship today, we are at the end of the Church Year. Next week begins Advent, the time of preparation for the coming of Christ. Perhaps this is a good time to consider where your loyalties lie, to consider what you believe in your heart, to consider what the purpose of your life is.

Princes and Princesses of the Kingdom of God, Jesus Christ, the King of this Kingdom has asked you to tell people about Him. At the end of the book of Matthew, Jesus said: “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you."
Will you do this today?

If so, then say, "Yes. With God’s help, I will do my best to declare Jesus’ name and power to all the nations, to make disciples, to lead people to baptism, and to teach them to obey everything Christ has commanded."

Will you read the Word of God?

Response: "Yes, I will do my best to read something from the Holy Scriptures each day."

Will you pray for guidance?

Response: "Yes, I will pray that the wisdom of Christ guide me each day."
Will you listen for the response of the Holy Spirit?

Response: "Yes, I will listen for that still, small voice that has guided the saints through the ages."
What do you expect for your obedience?

Response: "Only these…That Jesus will be with me until the end of the age, and that I will one day enter into the life eternal in His Presence."

May God bless you and help you keep these promises!

Now may the blessings of the Holy Spirit enter into you, may your life become whole and healed through your service to Jesus Christ, and may the power of God the Father enable you to do miraculous signs and wonders which grow the Kingdom of God, filling you with joy and love!

Living in Terrible Times

Malachi 4:1-2; Psalm 98; 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13; Luke 21:5-19

There was this couple who had found a great place to live. It was basically a park-like estate, maybe in South Carolina, and in exchange for rent-free living, the couple took care of the estate. The estate had many berry bushes and gardens already planted, there were fruit trees of all types, and there were no utility bills for them to pay. So they spent their time tending to the gardens and trees and had a wonderful time. The owner had a single rule – don’t mess with the fruit from my prize tree, a one-of-a-kind tree that was the owner’s pride and joy. He reserved the fruit from that tree for his own table.

Unfortunately, one day, they ate a couple of fruits off of the prize tree and the owner found out, because he counted the fruits every evening. And so, the owner kicked them off the estate and they both had to go to work at McDonalds. They had lost their wonderful jobs and now they had to pay rent and utilities and live in a little cramped one-bedroom garage apartment, working 60 hours a week just to pay the bills. And furthermore, the woman became pregnant shortly after they got kicked off the estate. She eventually had two sons, they grew up, got into an argument one day and one of them killed the other and became a fugitive.

And you think you’re living in terrible times!

Of course, some of you have guessed that I’ve just retold the story of Adam and Eve.

Ever since our ancestors got kicked out of the Garden of Eden, people have lived in terrible times. Imagine living in a world without electricity, a world where they only heat you could get is by cutting up trees and burning wood – and you only have a hand axe. Imagine living in a world without telephones, without television, without the internet. Imagine a world without automobiles, without grocery stores, without jobs other than farming. Imagine living on 2 acres and trying to survive on that land with a shovel, an axe, and a pig. There’s no birth control. Glass is too expensive to buy, so you don’t have glass on the windows of your homes. Canning hasn’t been invented, the only fabrics you have are wool and cotton-based linen and leather. A pound of iron costs a week’s wages. The only fertilizer available comes from the pig or your neighbor’s cow. There is no such thing as insulation, as carpet, and you need to make all of your furniture from the wood on your land. Only one person in town can read. And there are no such things as toothpaste, deodorant, or toilet paper!

This, my friends, is the world of 99% of the world’s people up until about 150 years ago. It is still the world of 50% of the world’s people today, particularly in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, SE Asia, parts of Latin America, and most of Africa. And we in the United States just spent almost $2 billion on an election for an office which pays $1 million a year.

After almost every election, there are certain things that happen - things that always happen. Half of the voters are happy because their candidate won. You may be happy today. Or you may be sad today because your candidate lost. If you backed the losing candidate, about half of you will get over the loss very quickly and go about your lives, while about half will stay bitter, sniping for most of the next four years. That's what always happens. Whether or not you remain bitter depends upon how much you bought the politicians’ stories. The first story is this was the most important election ever – it always is, have you noticed? I found a photo from 2008, and much the same from 2012 and much the same in 2016 and each of them urged people to vote because "This is the most important election ever!"  REALLY?

The second political myth that people buy from the politicians is that the President will actually change things in our world that will make a direct difference to our lives. And it simply isn't true.

After the election of 2008, I saw a couple of things happen that have affected me directly in my life. First, I was able to trade in my old van that had 284,000 miles on it for a new car, getting a $4000 trade-in value for my old van because of the cash for clunkers law instead of the $750 the van was worth in the blue book. This was positive.

Second, I noticed that the racial and sexual rhetoric during arguments in my seminary classes grew more intense on both sides. This was negative.

Now, I’ve noticed other things from that election affected people around me. I’ve seen a friend of mine, a very good doctor, sell his imaging practice to his local hospital because the new law almost forced him into it against his will. I’ve seen some improvements in the medical record-keeping at the hospitals and doctor’s offices, and I’ve seen the prices go up there because there is less competition. I’ve talked with coal miners who have been laid off and don’t see themselves going back to work, ever. And I’ve talked with people at the FBI who could or could not take vacation at certain times of the year because of temporary budget fights. 

The reason we don't have extreme effects is because our government system is much larger than the Titanic and turns much slower than it ever did. It takes decades to make significant changes – unless there is a clear and present danger, such as the bombing of Pearl Harbor or a 9/11. Then, our system reacts in a week, declaring war and appropriating the funds. But those times are very few and far between.

Most of the changes that happen in our world because of a change of President are subtle and rarely affect us directly. "But what about the economy?" you might ask. To be honest, the recent recession had its roots in credit law changes made in the 1990’s, which were supported by both parties. "But what about wars?" you ask again. The vast majority of wars will happen regardless of which party controls the Presidency - our national interests will demand it. Can you imagine a Republican president ignoring Pearl Harbor or a Democratic president ignoring 9/11? 

Our attention on the Presidency is because we get bent out of shape by news reports we see on television, news which is intentionally made confrontational, news that is portrayed as apocalyptic because terrible, drastic news draws more viewers (and ad revenue) than “ho-hum” news, it draws more people to support the vocal politicians on the two sides of the issues, and it draws our attention into Satan's world and away from the really important things that happen in this world. Do you think your friend who just lost his wife really cares about the election? In reality, when we really think about it, a change of President rarely affects us significantly. It isn’t like we live inside the Washington Beltway, with our very jobs depending upon who is in the White House. Instead, our lives are influenced the most by the people close to us and how we interact with each of them.

Believing in the all-powerful nature of the President is believing in the wrong God, whichever your party is. It is the same mistake the Romans made - they believed their emperors were gods - and it is a mistake which will endanger your immortal soul. You can let the election results lift you up…or you can be sad about them. But don’t make the mistake in believing the hype that the Presidency has the power to change your life! That is giving a mere human far too much credit and power. Worship God…not any man or woman!

JRR Tolkien was a devote Christian and wrote books that expressed his mature Christian view of the world. His most famous set of books was The Lord of The Rings, and its prequel book, The Hobbit, books about a land where there is a tremendous conflict between good and evil going on – clearly influenced by the fact that these books were written during World War II and Tolkien was a professor of history at Oxford in England.

In the movie version of The Hobbit – the first of the three Hobbit movies – Gandalf, the kind and wise wizard, points out that Saruman, the leader of the wizards, believes that the world’s course of events is determined by the power of the powerful people in the world. But Gandalf points out that he has generally found that it is the little things, the daily acts of kindness and love done by ordinary people that determines the flow of good and evil.

I agree because this is scriptural – if we remember God is in charge and loves us, we defeat evil with every kind deed we do and every kind thing we say. Paul compared the speaking of Holy Scripture to a slashing sword in this low-level, daily spiritual warfare. When you speak Scripture, you are swing a slashing sword at evil!

Yet terrible times are coming. In our first reading, from Malachi, the prophet writes what God has said:

“Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on fire,” says the Lord Almighty. “Not a root or a branch will be left to them." 

Yes, Christian. There are terrible times coming. But God reminds us that God protects His own. Malachi continues:

"But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays. And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves."

Is it any wonder that the author of Psalm 98 cannot contain himself?

Sing to the Lord a new song,
for he has done marvelous things;
his right hand and his holy arm
have worked salvation for him.
The Lord has made his salvation known
and revealed his righteousness to the nations.
He has remembered his love
and his faithfulness to Israel;
all the ends of the earth have seen
the salvation of our God.

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth,
burst into jubilant song with music;
make music to the Lord with the harp,
with the harp and the sound of singing,
with trumpets and the blast of the ram’s horn—
shout for joy before the Lord, the King.

Let the sea resound, and everything in it,
the world, and all who live in it.
Let the rivers clap their hands,
let the mountains sing together for joy;
let them sing before the Lord,
for he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness
and the peoples with equity.

It is with this continuous praising of God, this outburst of happiness, this exuberant joy that we defeat the evil and depression around us! But even this joy, we must remember, is simply a foretasting of the joy of the future. There are great things the Lord has done – His Son has sacrificed Himself upon the cross for all of our sins, we are saved from God’s wrath when we believe and are baptized, but our joy is not yet complete, there is still more to come, the best is yet to come, and that hope for even better is what lifts us up today!

The disciples were looking with Jesus at the great temple of Herod, the Second Temple, a Temple that had taken forty years to build and was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The Temple had precious stones all over, rubies here, topaz there, diamonds, agates, pearls, emeralds. There was much gold and silver. It glittered in the sunlight that day. And the disciples were looking at the Temple, talking about its beauty, when Jesus dashed some cold water on them.

“As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down.”

It was like a group of us today, standing in the World War II memorial, looking at that beautiful monument to the men who sacrificed in that day, and our leader telling us that in a while it will be bulldozed over. Imagine standing there and someone credible telling you, “This monument will be bulldozed, the Washington Monument will be toppled, the Capitol dome will be smashed down, the great statue of Abraham Lincoln that you and your fathers and grandfathers fought to defend, it will all be destroyed one day."

And you know….it’s true! All those beautiful monuments, all those fantastic marble buildings, all those beautiful fountains will be destroyed one day. While it lasts, they help us to remember our Veterans, those men and women who fought valiantly for our freedoms, but one day it will all be gone, crumbled stone lying in the swampland near the Potomac River.

I think a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley says it well:

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

(Ozymandias)

The disciples looked at the Temple, beautiful in the sunshine.

“Teacher,” the disciples asked Jesus, “when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are about to take place?”

Jesus replied: “Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and, ‘The time is near.’ Do not follow them.  When you hear of wars and uprisings, do not be frightened. These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away.”

Then he said to them: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.
And you can just see the disciples standing there, thinking about the far distant future when trouble would come to their nation. They had lived through troubles some 20 years before when there had been riots and uprisings, just as many of us lived through 1968 and we lived through the Los Angeles riots, and we lived through the last year’s troubles in St Louis and Baltimore and Dallas, and we've lived through the riots and protests of the last week. It was so distant and far away. But now Jesus looked them in the eye, just as He looks us in the eye and says:

“But before all this, they will seize you and persecute you. They will hand you over to synagogues and put you in prison, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name.And so you will bear testimony to me. But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. Everyone will hate you because of me."

The troubles would come to them. Of the original Twelve disciples, all but John died a violent death, martyred for their faith and the Gospel they were proclaiming. Peter was even crucified upside down! Only John lived to be put on a distant island and he alone was allowed to live out his natural lifespan, to live into his nineties in peace, writing to us of a vision he had one day when the Holy Spirit took Him to Heaven in his far future and he wrote the book we call The Revelation of St. John, a disturbing book, an unsettling book, a book filled with fire and plagues and famine and wars – but with an ending that leads us back to joy. Jesus reminded his disciples that day overlooking Jerusalem, as He reminds us as we think about the city of Washington and a future when it also lies in ruins, just as Jerusalem was destroyed about 40 years after that day when they looked at the Temple in the bright sunshine. Jesus reminds us that only God and the eternal life God gives are permanent. All else will be destroyed. Jesus had more to say, though…

But not a hair of your head will perish. Stand firm, and you will win life.”

Yet they died violent deaths. Was Jesus wrong? No, for He was talking about the eternal life that comes from following Christ.

And so, the disciples that day began to realize that following Jesus wasn’t going to be one continuous traveling party. Following Jesus wasn’t going to be week after week of sitting in the pews, listening to great music and decent sermons. Following Jesus wasn’t going to be a movement of a million people led by a man in armor on a charging white stallion to change the world by overcoming the powerful armies of evil while the disciples safely walked in the middle of those million people, urging them to march on the capitol of evil!

No! Jesus planned to change the world, but He planned to do that by changing individual people in the world, by focusing upon the little, day-to-day things rather than upon the powerful. Jesus, you see, wanted a group of fishermen and farmers, a guilty tax collector, a failed revolutionary, some ordinary people to change how they treated each other for the better and that was how He planned to save the world! He was much more concerned with what these ordinary people did every day than He was about what King Herod did, what the High Priest did, and what the governor of the Roman emperor did. For it is not the great and powerful who change the world, but the everyday little deeds of kindness and helpfulness and politeness and hospitality and holiness of the ordinary people which decides what the world will be like.

You see, those who have the money and the power of gods on this earth do not have need of other people or know what other people need. It is those of us who have little power, little wealth, and great needs ourselves who know of the needs of the people near us.

So do not expect the government and those who run government to solve our problems. Our problems in this life are to be solved by us, by the wisdom we share every time we gather, by the love we show each other in practical ways – a woman washes her neighbor’s dishes, a man mows his neighbor’s yard, a boy takes the newspaper to the old lady’s door, a girl walks the old man’s puppy. As a group we provide some food for families in need, we watch a group of children so their parents can talk in private without interruption, we go Christmas caroling to our neighbors so those neighbors will know that at least someone remembered they exist.

We pick up the phone and call three people from the prayer list each week. We mail postcards to five other people. We listen to the lonely woman in the card aisle at Wal-mart and we invite her to our Wednesday evening dinner together. And so we work – and it is usually easy work, for it is work driven by the Holy Spirit speaking to our hearts and anytime we work according to what the Holy Spirit has told our hearts, it is good for us. We are not to be idle, simply listening to the Word of God without doing anything.

There is something, you see, about living the Christian life that changes us for the better. It is one thing to know all the doctrines of Christianity – it is still another thing to follow Jesus, for following implies action. In fact, Paul had some harsh words for those who simply waited for Jesus to return, snug and secure in their own salvation:

We hear that some among you are idle and disruptive. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the food they eat. And as for you, brothers and sisters, never tire of doing what is good.

Do you work for Christ? Or do you simply meddle in the work that others are doing for Christ? This can be real problem in churches, when more people see their role on committees as managing ministry rather than doing ministry. Instead, our committees are to be teams of people working toward a purpose, the purpose of changing the people in the world around us.

We often talk about changing the world. And we sit back and we look at the world and it is a big old thing! We feel like the ant must feel when he looks up at the huge three-story house that is newly built next to the anthill, preventing the ants from expanding their ant hill by overshadowing them. It is too big and too evil to change! And so, like the ant, we do little.

But the termite is different. The termite looks at that huge evil three-story house and realizes that it is full of food, indeed, it is made of food. The termite resolves that it will change the world near it, it will remove the house one bite at a time. And unless the homeowner shows up with termite spray, a very small termite nest will completely remove that house, destroy it, and it will fall down.

In the same way, we need to look at the evils in the world around us and realize that it is of such stuff that ministries are made. Do you realize that if there were no evil, there would be no need for any ministries? So stop thinking like an ant and start thinking like a termite, and start looking for how you and a group of friends can eat up the evil in the world around us.

Let me give you an example. In one church I know, a couple of women from the church went to the closest elementary school and asked them how they could help with homework, with an afterschool program, or with the needs of the children in the school. They found that the principal was always in need of help, so the three of them – the two women and the principal – cooked up some ideas.

The next thing you know, over the next year the church bought a dozen computers for the school, they were put in a room at the school, an afterschool homework group began, a dozen people from the church took turns one or two days a week, and about 40 kids began to see their grades improve. And many of the kids from the church began to bring their parents to the church because of the chance for those church people to meet the kids and parents at the school. And that elementary school moved from being the worst in the county to second best in the county over the next five years. Over the next few years, the property values in that neighborhood increased as the vandalism and crime rate dropped dramatically as those kids became teenagers.

Are their terrible times coming in this world? Yes. It is predicted by Holy Scripture. But until Jesus returns, we are not to be idle, we are to looking at what we can do to lead people into the Kingdom of God and out of the kingdoms of the world.

Have you thought about what this country would be like if over half the people who vote were regular church-goers, reading the Word of God and listening to the Holy Spirit as they made their decisions in the primaries and in the general election? There would be no close elections. 

Have you thought about how long the darkness that is running around the world would be held off here if the church were about the business of the church, doing the little acts of kindness, telling people every week about the love of Christ for all people, looking how to give practical help to people who are struggling? Have you thought about how many souls would escape hellfire and sit with you under the Tree of Life one day if you really decided to do all you could to help people understand who Jesus is?

Church, let’s remember who we are. We are the children of the Almighty God, adopted sons and daughters of the Kingdom. When was the last time you told someone of the great things our Father, the King has done for you? When was the last time you actually acted like a Prince or Princess of the Kingdom?

Awaken! It is because of the terrible times in the world, in our lives, that Jesus came to remind us of who we are and to reconcile us to our Father. And since He has done that, giving up His very life that we would become His brothers and sisters, shouldn’t we go out into the world and change at least our piece of it back into what it once was? A garden. A safe place. A world where even the lion and the lamb get along.

Some of you voted for Mr. Trump and are glad about the election. Be glad, but do not believe that Mr. Trump has more power than he actually has. Some of you voted against Mr. Trump and are sad about the election. You can be sad, but do not believe that Mr. Trump has more power than he actually has. Instead, all of us should remember that through Jesus Christ, we each have the power to change the world around us, through prayer and through those little acts of kindness and love where ordinary people determine where the good is and where the evil stops. Do your part!

The Election and the Church - How to Vote and Living after the Election

Job 19:23-27; Psalm 17:1-9; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17; Luke 20:27-38

There was an old man who was giving advice to a younger man about the subject of elections. “Always vote,” the older man said. “Always vote. There may not be anyone you want to vote for on the ballot, but you can always be sure that there is someone you want to vote against!”

I was telling this story to someone recently and someone else spoke up: “This year you get double the fun. There’s TWO people you want to vote against!”

Our elections. I’m so glad our founding fathers decided to only hold elections every two years and presidential elections every four years. I’m not sure we could take an election every year. But it would be good for the news channels' bottom lines with all the extra advertising dollars.

Did you hear that the NFL television ratings are down? The people that understand these things are blaming the election. It seems that that the election is more brutal than any of the NFL games...

And so I’ve had people approach me, wondering what I think about the election. My answer is this: The Bible says that God appoints our leaders so that we get the leaders we deserve. It should be noted that God provided Israel with David and Solomon. David, a man after God's own heart and Solomon, the wisest man to ever live. But God also provided Israel with Ahab and Jezebel at a different time, two people whose names have become proverbial for evil. 

Human judgement is fallible. Abraham Lincoln was elected with slightly less than 40% of the vote. Three out of five people voted for someone else because Lincoln was considered too inexperienced, a loser, and a rather stupid country hick by most people. Yet he was the man God decided we needed. And it should also be noted that Abraham Lincoln was widely considered to be our second greatest President, behind only George Washington. Would you have voted for Lincoln?

So as we go into the election, I say to you: vote! We have five candidates to choose from – Trump of the Republican Party, Clinton of the Democrat Party, Johnson of the Libertarian Party, Stein of the Green Party, and Castle of the Constitution Party. At least we are not at the point where we only have one candidate, like some countries.

How should you vote?

I’ll suggest you make your voting decision the same way you should make all decisions – by following Jesus. Take a moment in the parking lot where it is quiet. Read some scripture. Ask Jesus: “Who do You want me to vote for?”. Then listen for an answer. And then get out, get in line, and vote.

And that is how you make a difference. If more Christians listened carefully to what the Holy Spirit tells them, we would have a different country. Remember to let your children see how you make your decision.

And after the election? Our scripture today reminds us that Christians have lived through good times and bad times. Paul, writing to the church at Thessalonica in Greece, is dealing with a particular issue.

The Thessalonians had listened to some people who had a mistaken view. They believed that “the day of the Lord has already come. “ They believed they had missed the boat, they had missed the last trumpet.

Isaiah spoke of the great and terrible day of the Lord. The day when God judges the world and makes things right, with the evil being judged and punished and the righteous being rewarded. There were people who thought this day of the Lord was the day Jesus arose from the dead. But Paul and the apostles had heard differently from the Holy Spirit – and perhaps from Jesus Himself:

Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.

According to Paul, the day of the Lord will not come until someone sets himself up in God’s temple and proclaims that He is God. Jesus, while claiming to be God, always pointed to the Father as ultimate authority, and furthermore, Paul had heard from Jesus or the other disciples that the time was in the future, so Christians should be on the lookout for a bad time to come.

And a bad time did come. In AD 70, the Temple and Jerusalem were destroyed by the Romans. But neither the conqueror, the future Roman emperor Titus nor Tiberius, his second in command, proclaimed themselves as God in the temple. And the temple has not been rebuilt. Ever.

And so we still wait for the great and terrible day of the Lord. It cannot come until God’s temple has been rebuilt in Jerusalem.

About 15 years ago, a group of people in Jerusalem, after long litigation, gained permission to go up to the Temple Mount and have a symbolic cornerstone-setting ceremony for the Third Temple. After the ceremony, though, they had to pick up the cornerstone and leave the Mount to avoid trouble with the Palestinians. They have not gone back.

So for almost 20 centuries, people have been born, they’ve believed in Jesus Christ, they’ve been baptized, and they’ve died. And still we wait, knowing that the great and terrible day of the Lord is in our future.

What a recipe for hopelessness this could be! Everything is going to fall apart someday. And this is true. The world will fall apart; war will happen again, plagues will kill untold numbers of people, famine will starve many, and destruction will cover the earth.

But that does not mean we are without hope. For we know that we will live because we have the resurrection! But how are we so sure?

The group of Jews who ran the Temple in Jesus’ day were called the Sadducees. The Sadducees were convinced that there was no resurrection of the dead, because they only accepted the first five books of the Old Testament as Scripture, and it is very difficult to find a reference to resurrection in those five books. And since they did not believe in the Resurrection, they were sad, you see…

One day a group of Sadducees came to Jesus. They asked a question:

“Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died childless. The second and then the third married her, and in the same way the seven died, leaving no children. Finally, the woman died too. Now then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?”

Don’t you love it when people try to catch up Jesus in a logical trap? The Sadducees were saying that this woman, who was married seven times during her life – legally and properly, following the Law of Moses – who would she be married to after the resurrection? The question shows the narrowness of the Sadducee’s outlook – they were trying to prove that there is no resurrection because they figured a woman can only have one husband at a time. It’s like saying that a person can only have one home at a time or only one telephone at a time. But I once read in National Geographic magazine of a group of people who live in the Himalayan mountains who regularly practice a form of marriage where one woman maintains a home while her five or six husbands, who are usually brothers, travel with their flocks. This is not to say it doesn’t create problems. But it is what works for that group of people. But the Sadducees could not even think of the possibility.

In the Law of Moses, a man must marry his brother’s widow if the brother dies childless so his brother and the woman will have children who can inherit his property. The focus of this rule is the inheritance of property. The basis for this Law was to keep the land well distributed in families. And the whole idea is based upon the idea that, in a subsistence farming society, husbands are needed to work the farm and take care of the women. In that society, widows without sons died from starvation.

Jesus pointed out that “in this age”, people get married. Then He goes on…

But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.

Okay. Jesus tells the Sadducees and us that marriage is not an institution of the next age. So the Sadducee’s reasoning doesn’t matter. Jesus says that there is no need for marriage, since people don’t die. Have you ever considered that marriage might exist because people die? Notice the precise wording: “Those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead” are the people Jesus is talking about. “They are God’s children,” Jesus says. They are "children of the resurrection.” Jesus appears to focus upon marriage as a way to determine who the fathers are for the purpose of determining who gets the property. But if people don’t die, there’s no need to prove you are someone’s son or daughter for property inheritance reasons. In the next age, everyone is God’s child, an heir to everything God has. We don’t need to farm “by the sweat of our brow” to survive. We have access to everything God owns and the concept of a starving widow is gone forever.

But Jesus goes even farther to talk about resurrection. “But in the account of the burning bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ “

Jesus is quoting from Exodus Chapter Three - one of the first five books that the Sadducees accepted. And Jesus makes this declaration turn on the precise tense of Moses’ statement, “for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ The Lord is God of all three men at once! 

Jesus is saying that Moses could have told us the Lord said, “I was the God of Abraham, etc.” or even “I am the God that Abraham worshiped. But instead Moses reported in chapter three of Exodus the Lord said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, etc.” Even accepting only the Sadducee version of what scripture was canonical, the resurrection is there in scripture - to God, at the time of Moses, all three of the patriarchs are alive.

Jesus’s conclusion? “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”

And so we find out two things. Jesus truly believed in the resurrection, and Jesus took Scripture in the original languages very seriously. What about yourself?

Later on, Jesus Himself resurrected several people, most notably Lazarus, and then Jesus Himself was resurrected by God. The disciples and many others saw Lazarus resurrected after four days dead, and over 500 people saw Jesus after His resurrection. Four of the disciples wrote down detailed accounts of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection – these are what we call the Four Gospels, the four Good News accounts that form the first four books of the New Testament – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. At least five other disciples mention the resurrection or eternal life – Peter, Paul, James, Jude, and the unknown author of the Letter to the Hebrews. It is a core doctrine of Christians everywhere. Without the resurrection, Christianity becomes just another wise man’s idea for a society living together. But with the resurrection…we find the hope of eternal life – and we are faced with the idea that Jesus, who claimed repeatedly to be God, was indeed speaking as God, divine, eternal, and therefore His statements are far more important than those of Plato, of the Buddha, of prophets, of philosophers, of politicians. He deserves to be listened to and followed.

In fact, the resurrection is something which connects us together, the knowledge that people who believe in Jesus Christ have existed in the flesh in the past, exist today, and will exist in the future. We have picked up the faith from Christians who have simply transferred to the Church of Heaven and we will pass the faith onto these children we see here today and they will pass on the faith to their descendants long after we are gone – unless Christ returns sooner. And then we will all come together to meet and worship the One we follow. It is through this that the Church remains One Body of Christ, eternally connected through our worship and service to the God who created us.

And so, with all the company of Heaven, we celebrate the feast of bread and wine, the Holy Communion where God reaches down and touches us through the veil for just a moment, connecting us together as we celebrate the body and blood of Jesus Christ, assuring us that we will share in His eternal life with all of those saints who are awaiting the resurrection, awaiting the return of Christ, awaiting the great and terrible day of the Lord, when all shall be rebuilt and all tears will be wiped away.

Remember who we are. Remember those who came before us and remember those who will follow us and our responsibilities to transmit the faith to them.

Now to the only wise God, who brings rain and sunshine, winter and springtime, death and life, and lives forevermore! Go forth and tell of God’s love and be blessed!

How to Follow Jesus

Isaiah 1:10-18; Psalm 32:1-7; Galatians 5:13-26; John 21:10-25

This is the final sermon in this ten-sermon series. This series is based upon the idea that we are very good at knowing what Christians should do and behave like, but we all have trouble with some of the basics, because we don’t understand How to do these things. Over the last couple of months, we have talked about the How of being a Christian.

· How to become kind.

· How to develop patience.

· How to love deeply.

· How to break addictions.

· How to control our tongues.

· How to trade fear for hope.

· How to stop gossiping.

· How to make good habits.

· How to become joyful.

This week, we’ll finish this series with how to follow Jesus.

How to follow Jesus?

"But pastor, I’m a Christian and have been for years. I come to church at least twice a month!"

I didn’t say you didn’t. But there is a lot to be learned in the phrasing of something. And today, I want you to notice I didn’t say the title was “How to be a Christian.” I said the title is “How to follow Jesus!”

"What difference does it make? Isn’t it the same thing?"

Well…yes. And…no.

Have you ever noticed that there are a lot of people in this world who claim to be Christians who rarely go to church? Have you also noticed that there are a lot of people in this world who go to church who you wouldn’t trust to take care of your dog for a week? Of course.

There’s several reasons we give why…

First of all, we say some people are beginners. They’re just learning about Christianity, and so we expect them to be kind of raw, vulgar, worldly. We don’t expect someone who was baptized last week to have the calm serenity of a saint who was baptized 70 or 80 years ago. For these people, time – and the word of God – will straighten out their kinks. So we say.

Second, we say some people are barely Christians – particularly those who don’t attend church. Once again, they aren’t really participating in the Body of Christ, so how can we expect them to act like people who have attended church and read the Word of God for 70 or 80 years. When the boy in the car next to me in the Wal-Mart parking lot plays a rap song with blaring obscenities, I don’t get mad, for how shall he know any different? For these people, a kind, gentle, but but sometimes firm word from someone they trust is needed to get them to a church where they can learn.

Of course, many of them say they’ve been hurt by church members, by churches, by pastors. They say they’ve given up going to church because the people in the churches don’t act the way they should. And to these people I say two things: 

First of all, why don’t you show us how it’s done? We’re always looking for people to teach new classes, and clearly you must be much better than the people in the church…and the second thing I say is: You’ve forgotten that church people are people still and will never be perfect. Whether you were treated poorly or ignored, judged or made fun of, dis-respected or called out in a sermon, the reality is that you missed two key points of what it means to follow Jesus.

First, we are supposed to be following Jesus. Not the people in the church. Not the pastor. Not even the Bible. You are following a living God, named Jesus Christ. And Jesus asked you to be involved in a group of believers. Why do you disobey?

Second, we are supposed to practice forgiveness. Of everyone, and for everything. And if we aren’t forgiving, then we are not following the example of Jesus. So please forgive those of us who have hurt you. Let’s try again.

There is a third group of people who don’t live up to the standards we know Christians are supposed to hold to. Those are the people who have been attending church every week for years, even decades. They may be 40, 60, or 80 years old. But they aren’t the pleasant saints we want to have lunch with. They are grouchy, mean, gossipy, jealous, envious, angry, are prone to ambition, and generally hurt people right and left. Some have all of these characteristics – and others only have one characteristic, but it flares up every now and then and causes trouble. Maybe it never causes trouble in the church – but it causes trouble at home or among friends. Of course, I’m speaking about everyone here, because I don’t see Jesus sitting in our pews today. We just don't measure up to what we're asked to do. Thankfully, we don't have to. More about that later.

Let’s see what Jesus has to say to the church…

The time is after the Resurrection, but in that glorious month before Jesus returned to Heaven. Jesus has met His disciples on a beach beside the Sea of Galilee. They had a record haul that morning, 153 large fish. Jesus guided them to those fish. It was a fisherman’s dream. Have you ever caught 153 big fish in a single day? Peter and John never forget that catch.

Jesus has a fire burning with hot coals and He cooks them breakfast, a breakfast of bread and of fish. Loaves and fish, the same thing He fed the 4000 with and the 5000 with. But this time, it’s just Him and seven of the Eleven disciples.

After they finish eating, Jesus speaks to Peter. He asks Peter if Peter loves Him more than these fish. Peter says, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” “Feed my lambs”, Jesus responds. Two more times Jesus asks Peter if loves Him and each time He tells Peter to take care of His sheep and to feed His sheep. He then points out to Peter and those watching that Peter will be led to his death some day. And at the end, Jesus says to Peter: “Follow me!”

Jesus is very clear here. Peter is to give up what is most important to him in the world – his fishing boat, his profession, his hobby, his entire identity – and follow Jesus.

Peter is not asked to “be a Christian”. Jesus is not asked whether or not he believes in God. Jesus does not give Peter a test of his morals and ethics, He does not ask Peter if he drinks, smokes, swears, or does drugs. Jesus doesn’t ask Peter if he’s been divorced, whether or not he’s ever cheated in school or whether he’s looked at a woman in lust. We all know that Peter is not a particularly good man.

Jesus knows that Peter has done wrong – and so does Peter. Jesus knows that Peter is the man who even denied knowing Jesus three times the night Jesus was arrested, deserting Him…and so does Peter. Jesus also knows that Peter will mess up again in the future…and really, deep down, so does Peter.

But Jesus says to Peter: “Follow me! Give up everything important to you and follow Me!” Is Jesus speaking to you today?

Peter tries one time to get off the hook. Peter points toward John and says, “What about him?”

And Jesus says something full of meaning for Peter and for us today. ““If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.”

Our relationship with Jesus does not depend upon other people. What Jesus has in store for each of us is between Him and each of us, individually. One man is called to go to India as a missionary. A woman is asked to start a Bible study in the projects. An old woman is asked to call every single person on her church’s prayer list every week. A young man is asked to go to seminary to become a full-time pastor. And a middle-aged man and his friend are told to start a church-supported school for troubled high school students.

Another man is told to take his woodworking skills and make beautiful Communion tables for the churches nearby. A woman is told to take her pastor’s sermons and edit them and format them into tracts that her friends at the church can hand out to neighbors. Still another man is told to simply say Jesus’ name once a day among his friends when he meets them at McDonald’s for coffee. What is Jesus asking you to do? Whatever it is, do it!

But always remember that our relationship with Jesus does not depend upon other people:

It does not matter whether or not this church has ever sent out foreign missionaries. If Jesus asks you to go to Haiti – you'd better go to Haiti. Follow Jesus.

It does not matter if anyone else in this church goes to the altar today. If Jesus calls you to the altar, go to the altar.

If does not matter if anyone else in this church laughs at you, makes fun of you because of where you speak the word of God, or whether people think you are crazy because you can hear the Holy Spirit and say so. If Jesus asks you to go into a bar and start a church, do it. If Jesus asks you to raise your hands when you sing a hymn, raise those hands. If Jesus gives you a message through the Holy Spirit, speak the message. It does not even matter if you believe every other person in this church is a rank hypocrite, going through the motions, ignoring the Bible, ignoring the Holy Spirit. What matters is what Jesus wants you to do.

And the other side is also true.

If someone raises their hands and shouts “Amen” in our services and Jesus has told you to be quiet, be quiet. If someone tells you about an encounter with Jesus in their living room, listen and be happy – but don’t laugh or gossip. If someone says they have been called to go to Russia to be a missionary, listen and see if Jesus is asking you to help them – or go along with them.

Even the same thing applies to those acts that many people would call sin. For following Jesus means listening to the Holy Spirit of God and letting that Spirit tell us what is sin and what is not sin for us. One man may be able to drink three glasses of whisky three nights in a row and then easily stop drinking for the next five years. Another man may not be able to stop after one beer. The whisky is not sinful for the first man but the beer is sinful for the second man. He should stop drinking.

One woman may get a divorce from her unbelieving husband because Jesus is telling her to leave and serve God. Another may stay with her husband because Jesus is telling her to stay and lead her unbelieving husband to know God. Follow what Jesus is saying to you.

One person eats fish every Friday during Lent because Jesus has told her to do this. Another person ignores that idea because Jesus has told him to ignore it. Follow what Jesus is saying to you.

The world wants to paint Christianity as just another moral and ethical system with rigid moral and ethical rules, for when we believe that morals and ethics and sin are what Christianity is all about, then we easily get lost in a debate of what are sins and what sins are worst and what are the rules to be followed. But Jesus Christ died so we could stop worrying about the rules. Jesus died so that our sins would no longer make a difference. Jesus died so that our sins would no longer be a way for people, for the devil, indeed for our own souls to tie us down. Jesus died so we could be free from the slavery to our sinfulness. Now, we are to simply follow Jesus. The rules? Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. That's it. And follow Jesus!

Notice what Paul says in Galatians Chapter Five:

The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Paul has just listed many of the sins which we have all committed. While you may never have participated in an orgy, I’m sure that you have hated, you have caused discord, you have been jealous, you have been angry, ambitious, and envious at some point in your life. We all have. This is our body’s nature. This is what is natural to men and women. These are the acts of the flesh that Paul points out to us. He goes on:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

People from which the fruits of the Spirit flow are nice people to be around. These are the people we call “godly”. These are the people we wish we could be like.

But it is easy to get this message turned around. It is easy and natural to say, “Well, we should not have jealousy, but we should have gentleness. We should not get angry, but we should have self-control." And we could go down both lists, saying we should not do things on the first, but should do the things on the second list, for we all want to leave behind the acts of the flesh and grab the fruits of the Spirit. But how do we do this? Why haven’t we done this and simply stopped doing all the acts of the flesh? Why don’t we simply radiate the Fruit of the Spirit?

It isn’t a matter of trying harder. We don’t move from one list to the other simply by trying harder. This is not a problem we can solve by simple willpower, in the same way it is easy to say that the way to lose weight is to eat less and exercise more - hasn't your doctor told you this? -  or the way to quit cigarettes is simply to stop smoking. We all know this, but it isn’t that simple. We need the key that gets us out of the prison of the acts of the flesh and lets us have the Fruits of the Spirit. And following Jesus is that key. But even that requires we understand a bit.

I don’t know about you, but I have a key ring with about ten keys. And when I come home at night and it’s dark, I have to fiddle with the keys on the key ring until I find the right key and then I have to line it up just so to get it into the keyhole, and then about half the time, it seems I’ve got the key upside down. So it is when we want to use Jesus as the key to life. We get things upside down.

Becoming a Christian is easy. You believe that Jesus is divine, worthy of being followed, tell someone you believe this, get baptized, and  - Bam! - you are a Christian.

But becoming a good Christian is much more difficult – and yet the path is simple. You have to follow Jesus. It isn’t a matter of just believing certain things, it is a matter of who you are, how you act and speak on a daily basis, and why you do and say the things you do. And the only reason to do and say those things that makes sense is: That’s what Jesus told me to do. Not what your pastor told you to do. Not what your friends told you to do. For the issue here is your relationship with Jesus, your trust, your obedience, your willingness to listen and to learn. Just remember that Jesus is also known as the Word of God, and so the Bible will not contradict His commands. They will be one and the same.

Let’s get this straight. If Jesus is God’s Son, Jesus is worthy to be followed. He is good and wise and powerful. He will not let us down. Ever. He is not at all like other men because He has that unique blend of God and human that makes Him the Christ. And so we need to actually find out what Jesus said to do and do that. We need to find out what Holy Scripture and the Holy Spirit tell us Jesus wants and do that. We need to truly become followers of Jesus, not merely people who try to follow some instruction manual about what it means to be a Christian that was written fifty or a hundred or even five hundred years ago.

All of this is a round about way of saying that we don’t go from the acts of the flesh to the Fruits of the Spirit by going there directly. We get there by listening to what the Holy Spirit tells us Jesus wants us to do and doing it. Each day.

Because, you see, it is the change that happens in our soul that is important. It is the change that happens when we actively are seeking Jesus’ will, God’s will, listening to the Holy Spirit and reading God’s Word, when we accept that we DON’T know the answers and need divine guidance all the time, when we go beyond praying when we are in trouble and asking for help and move into the two-way prayer where we are asking for advice and instructions all the time….That’s what changes us, We don’t find the fruits of the Spirit lying along the way– we grow the fruits of the Spirit in our own soul as we travel along the path where Jesus is leading us.

The ancient Greeks spoke about virtue and St Augustine of Hippo taught about the idea of the virtuous soul. In both cases, they spoke of the need for people to develop good habits, good practices, good speech, wisdom, good character, holiness in themselves. The difference between the ancient Greeks and the great St Augustine, is that Augustine recognized that virtue comes when you listen to the teaching of the Word of God and the Holy Spirit, and you begin doing things in obedience to the commands of Jesus. If you follow Jesus, you will be good. Period.

For you see, no normal person can naturally perform the Fruits of the Spirit. No ordinary person can constantly have love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. No, it only comes when the Holy Spirit has been listened to so much that the divine Holy Spirit is in control, sitting there beside you in the cockpit of your mind, driving that body of yours around.

If you will, following Jesus is the path that leads us to begin receiving letters from the Holy Spirit, then telephone calls, then we invite the Spirit to come into us, and then we move from the driver’s seat into the passenger seat, letting the Spirit captain our body. That is when the Fruits of the Spirit begin to appear, and they feed everyone around us.

So how DO we follow Jesus?

First, find a place of some quiet. It doesn’t have to be in the woods with birds chirping around, but that can really work. It can be simply a few minutes in your car in a parking lot.

Now, read some Scripture. Perhaps a chapter, perhaps half a chapter.

Third, begin with this simple prayer:

Jesus, what do you want me to do today?

Then, listen for an answer. And do what appears, what you hear, what God sends to you.

It is a simple process. Find a quiet place, read some scripture, ask Jesus for guidance, listen for the answer, and do it.

After you have done this for a while, begin doing it various times during the day. You don’t need to read scripture each time, but you should still read scripture daily.

You’re walking into the store. “Jesus, what do you want me to do?”

You’re deciding where to sit at lunch. “Jesus, who should I sit with?”
You’re trying to make a decision. “Jesus, what should I do?”

You’re listening to someone rant and rave about something. “Jesus, what should I say or do? Anything?”

You might see a pattern here….

It really is simple. And the reason we don’t do it already is because of something we’ve seen in churches all of our lives.

Have you ever noticed during prayer time that people only ask for prayer for big things? My family member has cancer, please pray... My friend had a heart attack, please pray... My co-worker’s husband died, please pray... And so we sort of develop this idea that we only pray for big things.

But Paul tells us we are to live by the Spirit. That means we need to be talking with the Spirit constantly. You’ll notice I use Jesus and the Spirit almost interchangeably. Of course… they are both God.

We are to live by the Spirit. We live by breathing air. We should be talking with the Spirit, with Jesus, with God almost at every breath. Instead, many of us ask for help about as often as we change tires, every six months or so. Are you a tire changing Christian – or an air-breathing Christian? Remember that in the original languages, the same word was used for air – and for Spirit. Breath the air of the Spirit.

So this is how to follow Jesus. It will seem silly at first. But if you will practice this one, simple habit – “Jesus, what do you want me to do?” several times a day and actually listen to the answers and do them – you will become a true follower of Jesus, and soon, very soon, your friends will begin to comment to you about those strange and wonderful Fruits that have been growing from your soul. And you, my friend, will then be on the path to goodness, to virtue, to holiness in your life.

How to Become Joyful - Spiritual Reasons for Depression

Lamentations 3; I Chronicles 16:8-12, 23-36; Luke 10:1, 8-9, 18-24

How to become joyful? For some people, it seems like joy will never come again. Perhaps you are working through your sadness and depression. Perhaps you are looking for something that will help, because the medicine only works just so far and not far enough. Perhaps you have gradually let the news and the politics and the world around us bring you down into the dumps, into the darkness, into sadness, hopelessness, and into depression. This article isn't the whole answer...but hopefully, it can give you a step or two up out of the hole...

The world is falling apart around us. I’ve heard this from many people in the last year.

• You’ve heard about the tremendous death and destruction in the cities of Syria, and you wonder when that death and destruction will come here.
• You’ve told me how the jobs have dried up and those that remain don’t pay enough.
• You’ve told me how the politicians discuss each other’s sexual advances because it is simpler than talking about policies.
• You’ve told me how the Chinese and the Russians and ISIS are ready to destroy us.
• You’ve told me how our schools are becoming war zones.
• You’ve told me how our city streets are no longer safe for the police.
• You’ve told me how the police are killing all sorts of people without cause.
• You’ve told me how the drugs are killing our relatives.
• You’ve told me how less and less people attend our churches.
• You’ve told me how our television shows are no longer worth watching.
• You’ve told me how the weather is the worst it’s ever been.
• You’ve told me how people are doing terrible things to children and babies, both those who have been born and those who are still in the womb.

• You’ve told me how your life is depressing and lonely and without purpose.

It seems like sadness and depression are all around. Yet somewhere deep inside us, we know that joy exists. We had it once when we were younger. We had sunny days, we had carefree days, we had love, we had the excitement of good jobs that paid well and were interesting, we knew the USA was strong, we had days when our churches were full, we had great television shows like Andy Griffith and The Walton’s and Little House, our police were strong and respected, we had friends and love and joy. The joy was there, we know it, we remember it. We just can’t seem to find it anymore. It seems to have gone somewhere and hid. I guess we are sad and depressed.

You’ve heard all the world’s remedies for sadness and depression:

There are the physical causes: Perhaps we’re not getting enough exercise, we aren’t getting enough sunshine in winter, perhaps our caffeine that lifted us up yesterday has decided to let our mood fall today. Perhaps we need more sleep. Perhaps we’ve been getting too much sleep. Maybe our brain chemistry is out of whack and we need medication. Perhaps. These causes are real and affect many people. We can't ignore them or gloss over them.

All of these are real physical causes of sadness. For example, I know with me that if I have a large glass of Dr Pepper on Monday afternoon, I will drag on Tuesday morning. I have lots more energy when I’ve been to the YMCA than when I didn’t make it there. And dark, cloudy days of winter make me sad – sunshine makes me happy. And there is a sweet spot with just enough sleep. And all of this is tied into the same dopamine/serotonin system that’s involved with addiction, which is why addiction and sadness and feeling really, really good, feeling high can be so intertwined. And that’s why the anti-depression medicines and the opium-based pain relievers are so tricky to use together and to phase out carefully with medical attention.

Then, there are the event-driven causes of sadness. If you’ve lost a loved one through death or divorce or them moving away to college or work, it’s natural to feel sad. If you didn’t feel at least a little bit sad, you’d be a bit odd – even for those who wanted the divorce or wanted the child to get out of the house! We feel sad when we lose people we are used to being around. After all, How many of you went back to a high school football game after you graduated because you missed being there and the people from your class?

And why is it that some people seem to bounce right back from sad events and others stay sad and don’t see joy again?

We feel sad when we lose people because we actually have a connection, a spiritual and emotional connection with people we love, and when that cord between us breaks, that emotional energy springs back into our souls and it fries us, it injures us, and we need time and love for that burn to heal.

One day about twenty years ago, (don't try this!) I was testing a 600 amp, 480 volt electrical circuit when the circuit arced from one pole to another. A 300,000 watt heat source flashed six inches from my right hand. I was blind for a couple of minutes, my hair was crispy, my upper arm was in pain and red, I had blisters on my wrist and the back of my hand and my fingers looked like elephant hide, gray and fried. The pain was intense, a co-worker took my to the hospital where they gave me really good drugs and proceeded to remove the dead, cooked skin and then I spent three days recovering with plenty of morphine. It took six weeks for that burn to heal.

Twice a day I washed my hand in warm water with Clorox. Then I put a white burn cream on the exposed skin which sealed the skin and killed any bacteria. Then my hand was wrapped in bandages. But while I was washing my hand in that warm water, I had to carefully stretch my fingers and hand in all directions, because if I did not stretch my hand, painfully pulling apart the new skin that was growing, my hand would end up with limited movement, withered and drawn together, unable to function normally. And slowly my hand healed. And today I can play the piano even better than I did before the accident.

After we have a sad event, being loved by others is like that burn cream that heals the wounds and protects us from the bitter bacteria that would kill us. But loving others – children, friends, people through ministry – loving others, which is often a painful process - that is like the necessary stretching of the emotional skin that allows us to function normally or even better than before once again. We need to be loved – and we need to love others - to fully recover from the pain of losing someone we loved. For otherwise we will stay withered and drawn together, with limited emotional movement.

But what do we do when our sadness continues? What do we do when months and then years go by and we stay sad? I will point you to this reading from Jeremiah the Prophet, in the Book of Lamentations, the 3rd Chapter. Let’s learn from Jeremiah.

Lamentations was written shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC. The whole city was destroyed by the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar by fire. Archaeological evidence shows the entire city was burned and turned into rubble. And Jeremiah was there and lived through that terrible time. Afterwards, taken prisoner by the Babylonians and forced to walk 900 miles across the Middle East from Jerusalem to Babylon, south of Bagdad, Iraq, Jeremiah wrote this book.

Lamentations is perhaps the saddest book in the entire Bible. Let’s hear most of the 3rd chapter, which, unfortunately is the most uplifting chapter of Lamentations (New International Version),

I am the man who has seen affliction
by the rod of the Lord’s wrath.
He has driven me away and made me walk
in darkness rather than light;
indeed, he has turned his hand against me
again and again, all day long.

- Notice that Jeremiah is blaming God. Jeremiah has his head on straight – He knows that God is in charge of all that has happened. Jeremiah understands that God Himself is working against Jeremiah – Isn’t that enough to make you want to stay in bed all day! But it gets even worse for Jeremiah...

He has made my skin and my flesh grow old
and has broken my bones.
He has besieged me and surrounded me
with bitterness and hardship.
He has made me dwell in darkness
like those long dead.

He has walled me in so I cannot escape;
he has weighed me down with chains.
Even when I call out or cry for help,
he shuts out my prayer.

Jeremiah points out that even his prayers are not being listened to!

He has barred my way with blocks of stone;
he has made my paths crooked.
Like a bear lying in wait,
like a lion in hiding,
he dragged me from the path and mangled me
and left me without help.
He drew his bow
and made me the target for his arrows.
He pierced my heart
with arrows from his quiver.
I became the laughingstock of all my people;
they mock me in song all day long.
He has filled me with bitter herbs
and given me gall to drink.
He has broken my teeth with gravel;
he has trampled me in the dust.

That hurts just hearing it!

I have been deprived of peace;
I have forgotten what prosperity is.
So I say, “My splendor is gone
and all that I had hoped from the Lord.”
I remember my affliction and my wandering,
the bitterness and the gall.
I well remember them,
and my soul is downcast within me.

So far, I think we would agree that Jeremiah is having a bad time and is justifiably deep in depression. His bones have been broken; his teeth have been broken with gravel. He has been trampled in the dust. He’s been given gall – that is the liquid from the gallbladder - to drink. Everything has gone wrong for Jeremiah! And don’t forget that his home town, his capital city has been destroyed along with the beautiful palace of David and the even more beautiful Temple of Solomon. Everything has been burned to the ground. Jeremiah has been taken captive along with thousands of other people and marched from Jerusalem to Babylon, 500 miles if you go straight across the desert, but a 900 mile walk if you follow the rivers. From here in West Virginia, 900 miles will take you 40 miles south of Orlando, FL – how would you like to take that walk? And Jeremiah wept all the way.

And so we have come to verse 20 where he talks about the terrible things that have happened and Jeremiah writes “I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me.”

And then, Jeremiah writes something truly amazing. He writes verse 21:

Yet this I call to mind
and therefore I have hope:

Things are terrible, things have fallen apart, the city is destroyed, we’ve walked hundreds of miles as captives, our bones are broken, our teeth have been broken by gravel and ground into the dust and Jeremiah has hope?!

Is the man insane? Has the desert heat fried his brain? Is Jeremiah bonkers?

NO!

He writes:

Yet this I call to mind
and therefore I have hope:

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him.”

The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,
to the one who seeks him;
it is good to wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.
It is good for a man to bear the yoke
while he is young.

Let him sit alone in silence,
for the Lord has laid it on him.
Let him bury his face in the dust—
there may yet be hope.
Let him offer his cheek to one who would strike him,
and let him be filled with disgrace.

For no one is cast off
by the Lord forever.
Though he brings grief, he will show compassion,
so great is his unfailing love.
Jeremiah, who blames all of his troubles on God, has hope because Jeremiah knows God’s character. Jeremiah knows that God puts us through times of testing to work out the kinks in our character. Jeremiah knows that God sometimes disciplines us to get our attention. Jeremiah knows that sometimes God lets us get our teeth busted in so we will learn. But Jeremiah has hope because Jeremiah knows that God is wise, very, very wise and God loves us very, very much, and God has all the power in the Universe and therefore events will not get out of God’s control. And God has compassion for us!

And so, if God loves you and God is wiser than you and God has all the power God needs – why do you feel hopeless and sad?

For some people, a reminder of God's compassion may be all you need today to feel joy. If you are one of those people, smile, lean back, think about your life with hope and joy.

But for other people, there is something much deeper here at play. For other people, simply be reminded of God’s power and wisdom and love isn’t enough to turn us around, for there is something going on here that goes deeper than our forgetfulness about God's love. Sometimes, the very problem that lies at the root of our depression is that we have very good memories and so we have to work through some issues.

You may be one of those people or have a dear friend or relative that is one of those people. So let’s look at the spiritual causes of sadness and depression and perhaps we’ll see our way out to a joyful afternoon.

First and foremost, the world reminds us daily that we are not to believe in the Gospel. Oh, yes! Are you surprised? There are some parts of the world that insist that there is no God, and more who insist that Christianity is wrong and messed up. Jesus is said to be another man, a great teacher and philosopher, perhaps, but most of the world insists that Jesus is not divine.

And that steady drumbeat of denial of Jesus, like the wipers on your car windshield when it rains, puts you slowly, slowly to sleep spiritually. Do you realize that most people in America, even those who are Christians, have a view of God that is more Jewish than Christian? Most people focus upon the rules that we break, upon the idea that “God is going to get you!” than on the gospel message. Christianity, we say, is about living a particular way, about following particular moral and ethical standards, about treating other people a certain way specified by rules, rules, and more rules. And so we focus upon the things we have done wrong, the times that we regret, the things we have said and the actions we have done which have hurt ourselves and other people, the things we didn’t say or do that we should have done and even if we ask forgiveness from God we don’t really believe that God has forgiven us – and we don’t forgive ourselves!

Why? This is because we really believe in the Law and the Rules and how important they are to our salvation. We believe in the Law more than we believe in the Gospel! Doing the right thing is critical! At least, that’s the way we act, and so that’s what we really believe down deep in our hearts. And this is because we’ve missed the Gospel message, the real meaning of the Good News that Jesus brought us.

But Pastor, didn’t I get the message that Jesus, who was the Son of God, died on the cross for my sins and was resurrected to prove He is divine, actually is the Son of God and if I believe this I have eternal life? What did I miss?

What you may have missed are the implications of this Gospel. Have you ever noticed that the Christian in the New Testament are joyful, praising God even when they are in prison? They may be in physical prison, but they’re never in an emotional prison. Let’s look at those implications of the Gospel people often miss:

Most of us remember very well the wrong things we have done. We remember those mistakes we made, those sins we committed, those times we injured ourselves and others. And because we remember them, we have a really hard time with forgiveness. Forgiving ourselves.

Oh, we ask God for forgiveness once a month during part of the Holy Communion ceremony. But we don’t ever really forgive ourselves. We know we broke the Law, the Rules, did the wrong thing. And because we have that idea down deep in our hearts that the Law is so divinely important, we don’t forgive ourselves, because, after all, the Rules were broken and you can’t fix that!

It is as though our sin debt was $100 billion – like receiving an invoice so huge it is impossible to pay. But don’t you see, if Christ paid the price for our sins as we say, if He paid the bill in full as we say, if his credit was good enough to pay that huge invoice with His death on the cross as we say, why do you want to keep paying additional invoices every week or so as you remember your sins? 

Only the Son of the owner of the Universe could pay that bill. So after Jesus has paid that tremendous debt for you, stamping the invoice “Paid in Full”, why do you try to keep sending $4 against the bill every week or every few days? Like any swindler who sends out fake invoices, the devil will send you invoice copies….”Remember when you…” And then the devil whispers into your ear “And you thought I’d forgotten about that time when you..." etc. But you don’t have to pay those invoices. Even if you send the money, the guilt in to pay back Jesus, the money or guilt goes to the devil and not to the Christ who paid the bill. The debt has been discharged, the bill marked “paid in full”, the mortgage has been burned. Believe that Christ has done this! There is nothing left to pay, nothing to feel guilty about!

My friends, Jesus didn’t pay for all your sins that you’d committed by the day you were baptized, He paid the price for all your sins, including the ones you committed in the last hour and those that you will commit tomorrow. And this is where we need to understand something really amazing about sin and kingdoms and how we think.

We live in a republic. We live in a country ruled by Law, not men or women. The Law is higher than the President, than the Senators, than the Congressmen. And the kingdom that we are most familiar with, the English kingdom, is ruled by Parliament, their equivalent of Congress, and the Queen of England has very little real power. Parliament could pass a law and remove her in an hour if she began breaking laws. If Prince Charles stole money, he’d go to prison, just like anyone else. And so we grew up to think we are under the Law in everything.

But in a classic old kingdom where the King truly rules – like the old Russian Tsar did or the Roman emperor did. the only way a prince or princess could get in trouble was if they were in rebellion against the King, their father. A prince was trusted to have the best interests of the nation at heart and so if the prince walked into a village and said, “I need all of your sheep and cattle for my soldiers”, he was not charged with being a thief and he did not get in trouble with the King as long as he had the King’s interests at heart. The King’s family was not under the Law.

And so it is with us. When we say, “We believe in Jesus Christ”, that is shorthand for saying, “We believe that Jesus Christ is truly the Son of God, divine and part of God, and we not only believe in His existence and title, but have decided to follow Him as His adopted brothers and sisters.” You see, we are looking toward Jesus to guide us in what God the Father, our King wants. And we have accepted and are happy that Jesus has talked to God the Father about us. We have been adopted as princes and princesses and SO WE HAVE BEEN SET FREE FROM THE LAW!
We now have one guiding principle: What does God the Father want us to do? And “What Would Jesus Do?” is a reasonable way to figure this out.

It is like you lived in that destroyed city of Jerusalem, that city destroyed by God's wrath. You may have been guilty of murder – actual murder or killing someone through gossip. You may have been guilty of adultery – actual adultery or lusting with your eyes and mind. You may have been guilty of theft, of arson, of terrible sexual crimes, of slicing and dicing someone in fact or with your words. It doesn’t matter anymore.

The day you signed up for Jesus through your belief and baptism, the day you asked for forgiveness from your sins, the day you decided following Jesus was the answer, you were set free from that past and that city of destruction. God truly forgave you, you were given a special pass to leave the city, and when you listen to the Holy Spirit, God will guide you to do the right things and avoid the wrong things because you are now His son or daughter, an adopted prince or princess of the Kingdom, and nothing can change that situation except your voluntary choice to walk back into that terrible city and completely forget about God and Christ.

But pastor, I hate that I did wrong. It keeps me up at night. I feel guilty.

The very fact it bothers you is why you have hope. There was a time when your sins did not bother you at all, because you didn’t care for anyone except yourself.

Now, you care for others and you look at yourself and you look at Jesus and you see his blazing white purity and your filthiness in comparison.

But where you once wore a blood-stained robe, you now wear  a robe that is clean, but dingy and worn cream and gray. Jesus still wears blazing white, but you have come so far, oh so far, my friend. Jesus washed your blood-stained robe in his blood and his blood is like full-strength Clorox bleach, undiluted, it bleaches out all the sins of the past.

And so, get this solidly in your mind. God has forgiven you. God no longer cares about your past now that you care about His Son and what He thinks about you. Forget about your past and be glad that you now ride in the company of God’s sons and daughters. Spend time with them. Don’t focus upon the past, but upon the future…And what is the purpose of this great company of God’s children, the Body of Christ on earth, the men and women who are brothers and sisters of Christ?

At one point, Jesus sent 72 people into the towns and cities to which He would go. They entered those towns, they told the people of the Kingdom of God, and they went back to Jesus with joy and He responded with joy!

He has put out a call for volunteers to us today, volunteers who are willing to walk into the dying cities which are being destroyed – the world around us - and find people covered in blood and lead them to the pool filled with Jesus’ blood, so they can wash their robes and bleach their lives. For the best cure for our sadness is helping other people. Only then can we see more realistically how well our lives are going and that brings gratitude – and joy.

The world is filled with people who are convinced, perhaps as you have been, that there is no hope, that they have no way to leave a dying, burning city, that, as with Jeremiah, the army sent by the Lord is about to grind their teeth into the dust, that everything is falling down around them. 

But you know better. You know that in this place, like a hospital in a war-torn city, there are many people recovering from the shock of the world, from the terrible sights they have seen, from the stories they have heard on the evening news. But you also know that in this place, just like in that hospital in that war-torn city, there are doctors and nurses who are working, there are aides and orderlies who are working, there are people who actually care and love and would do anything for you in order that you could be healed. The city is our world and this church is the hospital. The people sitting around you are the hospital’s staff.

And the treatment for all these spiritual wounds is the blood that was shed so long ago on a hill outside of Jerusalem. It is when we really, deeply grasp that Jesus didn’t die for humanity, that instead Jesus died for me and for you, and would have died for you even if no one else needed saving – that is when we realize how deeply God and Christ love us.

They have promised that soon, very soon, there will be a new Heaven and a New Earth, a New Jerusalem that will be rebuilt and replace the horrible place of death that surrounds us. And we will walk through those gates, gates which are each made of a single huge pearl, glittering in the light – not the light of the sun, but the light of God the Father.

But until that day, we have work to do. There are people who are still dying without that hope. You may not feel you can talk to anyone – that’s okay, we now have a short brochure we need distributed to homes and people in the area. You could just walk or drive up and down or pass these out to friends. There are other ways to begin to help people. Come by Wednesday evening and ask me what you can do while we share a meal at the Wednesday evening dinner. Or knock on my door or call me up and we’ll talk about it.

I’ve read the last part of the Book of Revelation. After all the destruction, after all the troubles, after all the Tribulation, the message is clear…Those who follow Jesus win in the end. And, as Jesus said, “My yoke is easy.” Our sadness comes when we look at ourselves too much, when we look at the past, when we look at the world that humans have made. Our joy comes when we-who-have-found-Jesus help our friends, our neighbors, and our family find Jesus, when we look at the future, when we look at the world the way God has promised it will be someday and we believe in those promises. 

Be joyful! All is forgiven! You are free of the city of death and now live in the beautiful land. It's time to look around and see God.