Isaiah 42:1-9; Psalm 29; Acts 10:34-43; Matthew 3:13-17
As many of you know by now, I usually follow the lectionary, a three-year cycle of readings that cover the most important aspects of the New and the Old Testament. Today, I had a choice, a choice between the readings of Epiphany, which is the visit of the wise men from the East to the young Jesus, and the readings of the Baptism of the Lord. I chose to go with the Baptism readings, but we should note that both events and readings are united by faith – the faith the wise men had to follow the star hundreds of miles, the faith the wise men had to bow down and worship the young child – and the faith that Christians must show as they encounter Jesus and choose the sacrament of Baptism. Let’s go back in time for a while, back to a day long ago in the dry land of Palestine, back to a young man named Andrew who was a follower of a wild and crazy prophet, a man known to history as John the Baptist. Let's hear Andrew's tale...
…
It was another day down at the Jordan River. Our leader, the crazy holy man John – they called him John the Baptist – John was baptizing an endless succession of people who had come down from Jerusalem, down that long, long walk down the 3000 feet from the Mount of Olives, down past Jericho where Herod the foreign King, an Edomite, had his golden palace, and across the valley to the Jordan River.
We had followed him for several months. He told us to repent, to rethink our relationship with God, because the kingdom of heaven has come near. And then he baptized us to clean us of our sins, like the way a farmer washed his hands before a meal to clean the filth off. So many of us had forgotten God’s Law, we had forgotten things in the struggle to survive, we had forgotten that God had led us into this land – not Moses, not Aaron, but they had followed God and we had followed them so many years before. And just like many times before, we had turned away from God and because of that we had been conquered once again.
At first, we thought that John might be the Messiah, the savior of the Jewish nation. But he assured us that he was not the Messiah, yet here was this man acting and dressing like the prophets of hundreds of years ago, living on food that God brought him, dressing in clothes that he made himself, speaking in public the words that all the people wanted to say, all the people except those people who were in power in the land. He reminded us of Elijah, the great prophet that spoke to Ahab and Jezebel and destroyed the priesthood of Baal.
Oh, it was amazing the way he spoke – there was nothing subtle about John! One day some Sadducees and Pharisees came down from Jerusalem, dressed in their fine blue-and-white robes, wearing tassels that each took a woman a day or more to make. Each one of those men wore a robe that would take me three months to buy if I worked every day and saved all the money just for that piece of fine cloth. Can you imagine a single outfit of clothing costing three month’s of your wages?
Of course, they had made deals with the Romans and with Herod, they owned the land, they ran the Temple, they had come from good families whose grandfathers and fathers had bought up land when people couldn’t pay their taxes, the taxes that had built that gold-covered Temple. And us? My brother owned a fishing boat on the lake, and we spent long, hard hours six nights a week catching fish to sell to the Romans and whoever else would buy them. We worked hard, and we had saved up enough money to come and spend a year with this man, the eldest son of a Levite priest.
But earlier that day those Sadducess and Pharisees had come down to the river. It was so hot that day! Down in the valley it was extra hot as the blinding sun beat against the walls of the valley and those rocks bounced the heat down to us. The river’s humidity let green plants grow, it was true, but it made things feel hotter, we were sweating so much, the water was cool but not cold to the touch.
Flies buzzed around, the stink of people and animals and cooking fires bringing them all together here at the riverbank. A dozen of those flies came charging towards me. I moved to avoid the smell of a donkey that had decided to unload yesterday’s meal beside me, the pile that was attracting those flies. Oh, to live in a place without flies! It seemed like everything was rotten or decaying in our land.
John saw those blue-and-white robed men and he shouted, ““You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” – I told you John had a way of saying what we all wanted to say. “Brood of vipers!” Yes, they slithered down the road like the snakes they were. But John wasn’t finished with them:
“Did you come to repent? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.” John was really on a roll today.
“Produce good fruit for God! The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fi-re.” And he said it that special way he always said it for emphasis – Fi-re” and you knew he meant that those priests and those people who split hairs over the Law were headed to hell fire even though they made all the sacrifices, they went to the Temple every week, they did their duty under the Law toward God but they ignored the suffering, despairing, dying people around them and, worse yet, they blamed the problems of the people who were suffering on those people and felt smug about their nice clothes, their beautiful Temple, and their ability to buy and sell dozens of animals when we could barely hope to have a milk cow.
But despite his loud, thundering voice, John was a humble man who knew his place in the world. His duty toward God was to tell the people of the coming Messiah: “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fi-re. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fi-re.”
And it was about that time that the stranger showed up.
A muscular man, about thirty years old, s bit on the tall side, he looked a bit like John, except where John was all crazy looking and loud, this man was calm and had a pleasant smile. And His eyes – they pierced you when He looked at you and you knew that He knew everything about you and yet even though He knew everything about you, He cared for you still, He wasn’t repulsed, He was waiting to help you. But that came later…
Today, this man walked down to the water. I was standing there close enough to hear John and Him talk. John must have known Him – I later found out they were cousins. The new man said, “John, please baptize me.”
John’s eyes opened wide and said, ““I need to be baptized by you, and you come to me?”
That got my attention! Who was this stranger? Who was this man that John claimed was holier than John, for that is the only conceivable thing that John could mean when he said, “I need to be baptized by you.”
The stranger looked at John with those eyes and said, “Nevertheless, we need to do this because righteousness demands it. It is the right thing to do.” And then John relented and baptized Jesus.
It was soon after that that Jesus chose me to follow Him and I left John behind, as well as the fishing boat. Over the next three years I came to know Jesus well, as did my brother Peter and the rest of the twelve. Jesus always did the right thing, never taking shortcuts, never turning aside from the path that He had set for Himself. And it always puzzled me why He had to be baptized...
…
People today also wonder about baptism. Why do we get baptized? Is one baptism better than another? What’s the deal here?
There are three basic positions on baptism today. There is the Reformed position which many - but not all - Baptists hold to, there is the simple church-joining position, and there is the third position which is held by Methodists, Lutherans, Episcopalians and thoughtful Catholics.
First, let’s look at the most common Baptist position, which is also held by many Reformed churches:
Their idea is that baptism is a public announcement of becoming a Christian – no more, no less. To a good Reformed Southern Baptist, there is nothing more to baptism than this public announcement. An easy thing to teach and remember. Yet, despite this idea that it is only a public announcement of a faith you already have, most Baptist groups have a tremendously detailed list of requirements – you must be baptized by immersion – some groups maintain you must be baptized in a river or creek – you must be a particular age - in some cases you must wear a white robe - and there is a belief that goes along with this that you can - and probably should be - baptized multiple times, with the “best” baptism being immersion occurring in the Jordan River, just like Jesus’ baptism.
Yet there is a fundamental contradiction here. If baptism is simply a public announcement, why the big deal over the details? Couldn’t we just take out an ad in the local newspaper – or make a posting on Facebook – “John Smith announces that he has become a Christian believer?”
At the other extreme, you have the simple church-joining position. The Amish, some Lutherans, and some Catholics take baptism to be your acceptance of God’s Laws as expressed by the church. Through baptism you join the church – a particular church. Once again, simple and easy to handle, easy to remember.
Yet there is a much richer, deeper purpose to baptism in mainline theology, the theology that includes thoughtful Catholics, Episcopals, Methodists, most Lutherans, and some other groups. Here’s how baptism works.:
When you believe and declare you are following Christ, you are now right with God. God’s wrath is gone from you. When you ask for God’s forgiveness, He truly forgives and forgets your sins. So far, so good. Through praying for forgiveness and declaring your belief in Jesus’ worthiness to God, you are now okay with God.
But there is a fundamental change that needs to be made in our souls if we are to remain in God’s good graces. We need to change our spirit. Will you all say, “Amen”?
John the Baptist told us that he baptized with water to remove our sins, "but there is one who is coming who will baptize with fire and the Holy Spirit." Let’s explore that a bit.
People are inherently lazy and uncomfortable with change. You know it and I know it. If I asked you to switch sides of the aisle today, it would be disturbing to almost all of you. I know. It was disturbing to me when a pastor once asked us to move at a church I attended.
Do you think God understands this? Of course God does.
A minute ago, I asked you all to say “Amen” and about half of you did. It is relatively easy, from the security of your pew, to say you believe in Jesus or, for that matter, almost anything. But if I ask you to get up out of your seats, to do something mildly uncomfortable, few of you will do it. How do I know this?
Last week, we had Holy Communion. I asked about ten people to help serve communion, and most of you turned me down, which is fine. Really. But why did you turn me down? Because it involves people watching you. It puts you in a position where you might make a mistake and you remember that day back in grade school when you were asked to read, made a mistake, and everyone in the classroom laughed at you. That fear makes us uncomfortable.
We don’t like being uncomfortable. And God knows this. So God asks us to get over our fears and get wet to prove we are really going to follow His Son when the going gets tough. For God may ask us to do something really uncomfortable someday. Christ had to do some very uncomfortable things, like hang on a cross until His death. Being Christians can lead to some uncomfortable things in our lives.
On Christmas at Monroe Chapel, we had two baptisms. I offered both people the chance to get immersed in the creek, have a pitcher of water poured over their head, or get sprinkled. And both chose sprinkling – a choice which has been around since the earliest days of the church. I can’t understand why someone wouldn’t want to get dunked in a freezing creek on Christmas Day…
Now when we get baptized, with the cleansing of our sins, God reaches into our heart and flips a metaphorical switch. And a minute later, I pray for the Holy Spirit to come upon you and now you have a new spirit, a spirit that wants to do good instead of that natural, rebellious spirit that you were born with, that spirit that wants to do everything your way and not God’s way. Where before you were saved from God’s wrath by your belief, now you have a chance to be saved from your own foolishness because now your spirit – the Holy Spirit – wants to lead you along the right path instead of the foolish, rebellious path. And so you will gradually see that now you can notice your sins and get free from them with the prayerful help of God, where before you were blind and enslaved to your sins. And since the change in your heart only happens once and the Spirit comes into you only once, then you never need to be baptized a second time, for it is not about what you or your pastor knew or saw or felt, but baptism is about what God did for you and your eternal soul, and surely God could not make a mistake!
And its worth noting that wherever the leaders of the early church traveled, they told the story of Christ’s Resurrection, they baptized people with water, and they laid on hands to give the baptism of the Holy Spirit. There is even a couple of stories in Acts of believers earlier receiving baptism without the laying on of hands, and the apostles then lay on hands to these believers to complete the job, for they considered the transfer of the Holy Spirit to be of supreme importance. The writer of Hebrews considered it to be an "elementary teaching" of the faith (Heb 6:1-2). When I’ve laid hands on people, many of them have reported feeling strangely warmed, just as John Wesley reported being "strangely warmed" the night hundreds of years ago when he first understood that Christ’s salvation is truly a gift of God, without price. We have heard of the fire that came to the believers with the Holy Spirit during Pentecost. Is this warming the fire of the Spirit moving into a new person? I can’t say for sure, but a deep change happens when someone receives the water and the Spirit, a deep change that goes beyond the joy that happens when we first believe and choose to follow Jesus.
The earliest known meaning of the Greek word baptizo that we translate as baptize meant what happens when a cucumber becomes a pickle. It is baptized – there is a change of something essential in the cucumber. Later on, the word took on the meaning of dyeing cloth, changing its color, which you could do by putting the cloth in the dye - or by pouring or sprinkling the cloth with the dye. We even find in Mark 7:4 that the Pharisees ceremonially purified cups, pitchers, utensils and – according to some early Greek copies of the Gospel of Mark – even dining couches by baptizing them, which meant that those couches were sprinkled to purify them. And so, baptism creates an essential change inside of us and purifies us.
But why did Jesus, the sinless Son of God, need to be baptized? He was already pure.
There were ultimately two reasons. The first was that it showed humbleness to do something uncomfortable for God’s sake. Jesus said that it was “to fulfill all righteousness”. It was simply the right thing to do, it was how things should be done, it was proper and even - or perhaps especially - Jesus, Son of God that He was had to do the right thing.
And that leads to the second reason. Following Jesus is a matter of faith and sometimes things happen in our lives which lead us to develop our faith. As we get to know Him, we should develop a deeper, more mature and well-grounded faith. Simply put, having faith in Jesus means that we trust Him even when we don’t understand. Jesus said He needed to be baptized – we trust Him – so we can put this question off until we can ask Him in person: "Jesus, we know you had a good reason. Why did you have to be baptized?"
And, you know, there are three mysteries we don’t understand.
We don’t really understand death and how Jesus will bring us back to life after death. Yet, we trust that His promises and His power are so reliable that we have faith we shall be resurrected.
Secondly, we don’t really understand all the ins and outs of Holy Communion. We don’t understand just how deeply He meant it when He said that the bread is now His body and the wine or grape juice is now His blood. Yet, on a regular basis we eat and drink those elements and have faith that Holy Communion is a way to grow closer to Jesus.
And third, we don’t fully understand all the details of the relationship between Jesus, the living water which He said keeps us from every getting thirsty again, and baptism. We know that in some way water is tied up with our birth, the new birth, the crossing of the Red Sea, the crossing of the Jordan River, life and new life. Perhaps Jesus needed to be baptized to purify the water? We simply don’t understand it fully. But what we do understand is this: If we have faith in Jesus, we are to be baptized, especially since Jesus said that His baptism was necessary to fulfill all righteousness.
And so we all have to make a decision. In some cases, our parents had such strong faith that Christianity was the right choice that we were baptized at an early age, even as infants, and hopefully those parents raised us up to be Christian believers, declaring to the world ourselves that we were believers as we were confirmed as teenagers.
In other cases, we became adults, unbaptized, having to make that decision ourselves. You may still be in that condition, believing that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and worthy of being followed, but you haven’t yet stepped forward and received the water of baptism yourself. Now is the time to make that decision.
The wise men who traveled from the East also did not know many things about the Babe of Bethlehem. Yet, they had faith, and so they bowed the knee when they found Him and they worshiped Him, not fully understanding, but fully having faith that worshiping this young child was the right thing to do. Will you do the right thing? Will you show your faith and be baptized?
Monday, January 9, 2017
Tuesday, January 3, 2017
The Day Bob found His Purpose
Ecclesiastes 3:1-13; Psalm 8; Revelation 21:1-6; Matthew 25:31-46
New Year’s Day is a time for changes. Even the ancient Romans recognized this, for they named January after their god Janus, who was the two-headed god of doorways, looking forward and backwards. Of course this meant he must have had a difficult time putting on his makeup...
Bob stammered a bit about his difficulty in finding the right church. Emma invited him in for some fried chicken and mashed potatoes, which she just “happened” to have extra of that evening. After the usual excuses, which Emma did not let him get away with, Bob had dinner with her, because, after all, he was lonely and that fried chicken smelled wonderful!
As they talked, the story of Bob’s search for the perfect church came out. And Bob told Emma much of his life’s story. Eventually, she told him, as a woman who had raised three children can, that his problem was not the in the churches he had found, but in his ideas about what the purpose of church was.
“But I thought the purpose of church was to learn lessons about God and how to live a godly life.”
“Young man, that’s only part of the truth. You already know that Jesus died on the cross to pay for your sins, don’t you?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Are you baptized?” Emma liked to make sure all her acquaintances had crossed their "t's" and dotted their "i's" with God.
“Yes. I was baptized when I was young and then confirmed.”
“Then Bob, you have apparently missed a key part of the Gospel message, because you sound like all you’ve ever done in church is sit there listening to choirs sing and pastors preach!”
“Isn’t that what church is all about?”
“It may be that way where you come from, Bob, but it isn’t that way here.”
“Why? What do you mean?” Bob wanted to understand better.
“If you really understand what Christ has done for you – rescued your eternal soul from hell fire and damnation – you’d show a bit more attitude of gratitude. When you understand that God gave you a free ticket to New Jerusalem, you’d start to look outside and see other people who don't have that ticket. Tell me, Bob, are you a sheep or are you a goat?”
“A sheep or a goat? What are you talking about?”
“In Matthew 25, Jesus is talking to his disciples – the men who are already following Him. Notice that these guys already are part of his flock! He talks about how at the end of God will separate people into sheep and into goats. Sheep stick together in flocks, they help each other, they work together. Goats go off by themselves, leaving each other alone.
“Jesus says that the way God will tell whether you are a sheep or a goat is whether or not each person did something for other people. Jesus takes it really personally whether or not we treat each other like the images of God, the special, unique valuable portraits of God that we each are. Jesus even says that when we give someone food, we are giving food to Him, when we give someone a drink, we are giving water to Him, when we invite in strangers, we are inviting Jesus in, when we give someone clothes, we are giving Him clothes, when we nurse sick people, we are nursing Jesus, when we visit someone in prison, we are visiting Jesus. Those who do these things are sheep and will inherit a place in New Jerusalem.
“But when we don’t do these things, we are goats, off by ourselves, ignoring Jesus. And He’ll send the goats to eternal punishment," Emma paused for breath.
“Bob, a church is not Sunday morning entertainment. It is a group of people who are changing the world and helping people avoid hell fire. If all you are doing is sitting on a pew, all you are doing is warming the air in the sanctuary, and they already have a furnace for that!”
Bob thought a moment and he felt offended and upset. He fired back at Emma, “But what do you do? You don’t go to the church often during the week. At least, I haven’t seen you go there. You're here almost every night!”
“No, I don’t go, Bob. I once was just like you, though. I thought that the work of the church was pretty limited. You’ve got the preacher, the worship leader, the choir director, some choir member, the organist, the praise band members, the ushers, a custodian, some Sunday School teachers.
“My health issues mean I’m able to go to Sunday services, but I’m not much for dancing around and singing in the choir with this cane, and otherwise I’m pretty limited in how much I can get out. But once a month, a friend of mine takes me to another woman’s home – Betty has a nice home and she likes to entertain – and I teach an hour long Bible study to the women who are there. It’s actually very simple – they think I’m such a great teacher! All I do is read a chapter from a book in the New Testament and ask everyone what they think about the chapter and get them to discuss it. Oh, I plan ahead and have three or four points I want to make about the chapter, three or four questions to ask to get discussions going.”
She lowered her voice, almost whispering as she leaned forward, “When I’m stuck, I go onto the Internet and look for what other people have written about the chapter.” She straightened back up. “Bob, Betty and I started with just us and two other women. Now two dozen women come every month. And after the lesson, we make items that the food pantry gives to people in need. That's how I change the world!”
“But that’s not in the church!” Bob was confused.
“So-o-o-o what?” Emma replied. “We pray, we read scripture, we discuss it, we pray again. God is glorified, Christ is glorified, people become more godly, and the world is changed for the better.
“In our church, there are some men who repair 20-year-old junker cars so they’ll run and the Salvation Army gives them to people who need a car for work. Another group of people collect old crutches, wheelchairs, oxygen tanks, C-Paps, and similar medical equipment to give to other people who need them.”
Emma stood up to clear the dishes, leaning on her cane. “There’s even two men who are really old who drive a shuttle car from downtown to the telemarketing center so some young people can get to work. They don’t charge a dime for the first three months, then a dollar a day after that. “
“Bob, you know that Ecclesiastes says that there is a time for every purpose under heaven. So stop searching for the perfect church and start making a church better. Your time has come to start showing that you want to be a sheep and not a goat. ”
And you know, Bob only visited one more church – Emma’s church. He wasn’t too comfortable with all the “amen’s” during the service at first, but he grew to like it so much he was married in that church to one of the women he led to Christ. That happened when his puppet ministry performed at the home for unwed mothers just two years later. And he was never lonely or sad again, for he was too busy leading children and their parents to Christ with those puppets.
New Year’s Day is a time for changes. Even the ancient Romans recognized this, for they named January after their god Janus, who was the two-headed god of doorways, looking forward and backwards. Of course this meant he must have had a difficult time putting on his makeup...
Clearly I don’t believe in Janus, but I do recognize that New Year’s Day is a time for looking backwards and looking forwards.
It’s been a rough year. I wouldn’t call the last year a particularly Christian year, with all the terrible things that have been said on Facebook this year because people who used to be friends disagreed over who the President should be. It has been a year where many fine people have transferred to the Church of Heaven, and a year when many other people experienced an encounter with their final judge.
Looking forward, I have hope that things will improve, for in these churches we have seen tremendous growth in the depth, knowledge, and commitment to God among the people of these churches. Last Sunday, Christmas Day, Monroe Chapel had two baptisms and an incoming transfer. So I have hope in our future, particularly when we look forward to the sight one day of the New Heaven and the New Jerusalem coming down to earth, dressed as a bride for her bridegroom. Imagine the sight!
Monday evening, Saundra had a call at Ruby hospital to make, so I went along with her. We made the call and then stopped at Hobby Lobby because Saundra just loves that store with all the crafty items. When we left, the sun was just setting and a beautiful golden light reflected off the clouds in the west, lighting up the sky. I won’t call it yellow – it was golden on a background of a beautiful blue that can only be described as cerulean, which is actually a color you can look up on the Internet. I know this because Saundra told me.
As we watched, the oranges and reds and pinks began, along with a lavender purple around the edges. Yet always, glowing there in the middle was that golden glow, like God had melted down some heavenly pavement and poured it onto the clouds. It was quite a sight there, that evening after Christmas Day, a reminder of what God has in store for us one day, just as was written in Revelation.
And it reminds me of a story of a man who made some changes and had a new beginning one day. ..
Once upon a time, a few years ago, there was a man who had grown up in a small West Virginia town and moved to a larger southern city. He was lonely, very lonely, but the reason he was lonely was because he kept to himself and, if the truth be known, he was just a bit of a perfectionist in his choice of friends – including girlfriends. He wasn’t married, wasn’t even dating right now because he had high standards – the girl he married would be perfect! So he went to work and he drove home each evening and spent the evenings watching television alone wondering who would be the last survivor on the island.
But he had grown up in the church and so when he moved to this large city, he went to visit a church one Sunday morning. The worship leader greeted everyone, a prayer was made, some hymns were sung, and the choir sang. The visitor noticed that there were some voices in the choir that were on the wrong notes, so after the service, he decided, “I want good singing in my church, so I’ll go find a different church.”
The next church he went to had a contemporary service with a really good praise band with professional quality singers. As he listened to the praise band play, he grew bored when the second song repeated the chorus about seven times. So after the service, he decided, “I hate boring songs, so I’ll go find a different church.”
Over the next few months, the man visited a dozen or more churches. But the temperature at the church was too cold or too hot, the pastor was too intellectual or not deep enough with his sermons, the people were too aggressively friendly or they were too distant, the church seemed too liberal or too fundamentalist, the people who attended were too rich and snooty or too poor for him to associate with, or the church was too big to make friends or too small to stay anonymous in. He just couldn’t seem to find the right church in that town of 2 million people.
It was about this time that he ran into a neighbor in his apartment building. And that was when things changed.
The neighbor woman was devoted to God. She was in her seventies and had some health issues, but she had decided long ago that as long as her mind and her mouth could operate (and they both operated quite well!) she could work for God and spread the Gospel. But, she also knew that she could use some help spreading the Gospel to the people in the apartment complex. So when she saw this sad man driving out every Sunday morning at 9 am and coming home around 1 pm, she recognized that this man was going to church somewhere. So Emma planned things carefully, watching and figuring out when he came home from work, and one day, she prepared a bit of extra food.
She met him with her cane carefully carrying her laundry basket up the steps from the laundry room as he came home from work. She was indeed out of breath, so what she said wasn’t really a lie, “Young man, I’m having trouble getting my laundry up the stairs today. Could you help me?”
The man, having been raised in church, couldn’t refuse an old woman. So he put his toolbox carefully on the box of detergent in the laundry basket and carried them both up two flights of stairs to her apartment.
As they neared her door, she said, “Hi, I’m Emma. What’s your name?”
The man introduced himself as Bob as Emma opened the door and the wonderful aroma of fried chicken filled the hallway. Emma then asked, rather boldly, “Bob, you’re a nice guy. Where do you go to church?”
It’s been a rough year. I wouldn’t call the last year a particularly Christian year, with all the terrible things that have been said on Facebook this year because people who used to be friends disagreed over who the President should be. It has been a year where many fine people have transferred to the Church of Heaven, and a year when many other people experienced an encounter with their final judge.
Looking forward, I have hope that things will improve, for in these churches we have seen tremendous growth in the depth, knowledge, and commitment to God among the people of these churches. Last Sunday, Christmas Day, Monroe Chapel had two baptisms and an incoming transfer. So I have hope in our future, particularly when we look forward to the sight one day of the New Heaven and the New Jerusalem coming down to earth, dressed as a bride for her bridegroom. Imagine the sight!
Monday evening, Saundra had a call at Ruby hospital to make, so I went along with her. We made the call and then stopped at Hobby Lobby because Saundra just loves that store with all the crafty items. When we left, the sun was just setting and a beautiful golden light reflected off the clouds in the west, lighting up the sky. I won’t call it yellow – it was golden on a background of a beautiful blue that can only be described as cerulean, which is actually a color you can look up on the Internet. I know this because Saundra told me.
As we watched, the oranges and reds and pinks began, along with a lavender purple around the edges. Yet always, glowing there in the middle was that golden glow, like God had melted down some heavenly pavement and poured it onto the clouds. It was quite a sight there, that evening after Christmas Day, a reminder of what God has in store for us one day, just as was written in Revelation.
And it reminds me of a story of a man who made some changes and had a new beginning one day. ..
Once upon a time, a few years ago, there was a man who had grown up in a small West Virginia town and moved to a larger southern city. He was lonely, very lonely, but the reason he was lonely was because he kept to himself and, if the truth be known, he was just a bit of a perfectionist in his choice of friends – including girlfriends. He wasn’t married, wasn’t even dating right now because he had high standards – the girl he married would be perfect! So he went to work and he drove home each evening and spent the evenings watching television alone wondering who would be the last survivor on the island.
But he had grown up in the church and so when he moved to this large city, he went to visit a church one Sunday morning. The worship leader greeted everyone, a prayer was made, some hymns were sung, and the choir sang. The visitor noticed that there were some voices in the choir that were on the wrong notes, so after the service, he decided, “I want good singing in my church, so I’ll go find a different church.”
The next church he went to had a contemporary service with a really good praise band with professional quality singers. As he listened to the praise band play, he grew bored when the second song repeated the chorus about seven times. So after the service, he decided, “I hate boring songs, so I’ll go find a different church.”
Over the next few months, the man visited a dozen or more churches. But the temperature at the church was too cold or too hot, the pastor was too intellectual or not deep enough with his sermons, the people were too aggressively friendly or they were too distant, the church seemed too liberal or too fundamentalist, the people who attended were too rich and snooty or too poor for him to associate with, or the church was too big to make friends or too small to stay anonymous in. He just couldn’t seem to find the right church in that town of 2 million people.
It was about this time that he ran into a neighbor in his apartment building. And that was when things changed.
The neighbor woman was devoted to God. She was in her seventies and had some health issues, but she had decided long ago that as long as her mind and her mouth could operate (and they both operated quite well!) she could work for God and spread the Gospel. But, she also knew that she could use some help spreading the Gospel to the people in the apartment complex. So when she saw this sad man driving out every Sunday morning at 9 am and coming home around 1 pm, she recognized that this man was going to church somewhere. So Emma planned things carefully, watching and figuring out when he came home from work, and one day, she prepared a bit of extra food.
She met him with her cane carefully carrying her laundry basket up the steps from the laundry room as he came home from work. She was indeed out of breath, so what she said wasn’t really a lie, “Young man, I’m having trouble getting my laundry up the stairs today. Could you help me?”
The man, having been raised in church, couldn’t refuse an old woman. So he put his toolbox carefully on the box of detergent in the laundry basket and carried them both up two flights of stairs to her apartment.
As they neared her door, she said, “Hi, I’m Emma. What’s your name?”
The man introduced himself as Bob as Emma opened the door and the wonderful aroma of fried chicken filled the hallway. Emma then asked, rather boldly, “Bob, you’re a nice guy. Where do you go to church?”
She had found that question was a great way to lead to a discussion of the Gospel.
Bob stammered a bit about his difficulty in finding the right church. Emma invited him in for some fried chicken and mashed potatoes, which she just “happened” to have extra of that evening. After the usual excuses, which Emma did not let him get away with, Bob had dinner with her, because, after all, he was lonely and that fried chicken smelled wonderful!
As they talked, the story of Bob’s search for the perfect church came out. And Bob told Emma much of his life’s story. Eventually, she told him, as a woman who had raised three children can, that his problem was not the in the churches he had found, but in his ideas about what the purpose of church was.
“But I thought the purpose of church was to learn lessons about God and how to live a godly life.”
“Young man, that’s only part of the truth. You already know that Jesus died on the cross to pay for your sins, don’t you?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Are you baptized?” Emma liked to make sure all her acquaintances had crossed their "t's" and dotted their "i's" with God.
“Yes. I was baptized when I was young and then confirmed.”
“Then Bob, you have apparently missed a key part of the Gospel message, because you sound like all you’ve ever done in church is sit there listening to choirs sing and pastors preach!”
“Isn’t that what church is all about?”
“It may be that way where you come from, Bob, but it isn’t that way here.”
“Why? What do you mean?” Bob wanted to understand better.
“If you really understand what Christ has done for you – rescued your eternal soul from hell fire and damnation – you’d show a bit more attitude of gratitude. When you understand that God gave you a free ticket to New Jerusalem, you’d start to look outside and see other people who don't have that ticket. Tell me, Bob, are you a sheep or are you a goat?”
“A sheep or a goat? What are you talking about?”
“In Matthew 25, Jesus is talking to his disciples – the men who are already following Him. Notice that these guys already are part of his flock! He talks about how at the end of God will separate people into sheep and into goats. Sheep stick together in flocks, they help each other, they work together. Goats go off by themselves, leaving each other alone.
“Jesus says that the way God will tell whether you are a sheep or a goat is whether or not each person did something for other people. Jesus takes it really personally whether or not we treat each other like the images of God, the special, unique valuable portraits of God that we each are. Jesus even says that when we give someone food, we are giving food to Him, when we give someone a drink, we are giving water to Him, when we invite in strangers, we are inviting Jesus in, when we give someone clothes, we are giving Him clothes, when we nurse sick people, we are nursing Jesus, when we visit someone in prison, we are visiting Jesus. Those who do these things are sheep and will inherit a place in New Jerusalem.
“But when we don’t do these things, we are goats, off by ourselves, ignoring Jesus. And He’ll send the goats to eternal punishment," Emma paused for breath.
“Bob, a church is not Sunday morning entertainment. It is a group of people who are changing the world and helping people avoid hell fire. If all you are doing is sitting on a pew, all you are doing is warming the air in the sanctuary, and they already have a furnace for that!”
Bob thought a moment and he felt offended and upset. He fired back at Emma, “But what do you do? You don’t go to the church often during the week. At least, I haven’t seen you go there. You're here almost every night!”
“No, I don’t go, Bob. I once was just like you, though. I thought that the work of the church was pretty limited. You’ve got the preacher, the worship leader, the choir director, some choir member, the organist, the praise band members, the ushers, a custodian, some Sunday School teachers.
“My health issues mean I’m able to go to Sunday services, but I’m not much for dancing around and singing in the choir with this cane, and otherwise I’m pretty limited in how much I can get out. But once a month, a friend of mine takes me to another woman’s home – Betty has a nice home and she likes to entertain – and I teach an hour long Bible study to the women who are there. It’s actually very simple – they think I’m such a great teacher! All I do is read a chapter from a book in the New Testament and ask everyone what they think about the chapter and get them to discuss it. Oh, I plan ahead and have three or four points I want to make about the chapter, three or four questions to ask to get discussions going.”
She lowered her voice, almost whispering as she leaned forward, “When I’m stuck, I go onto the Internet and look for what other people have written about the chapter.” She straightened back up. “Bob, Betty and I started with just us and two other women. Now two dozen women come every month. And after the lesson, we make items that the food pantry gives to people in need. That's how I change the world!”
“But that’s not in the church!” Bob was confused.
“So-o-o-o what?” Emma replied. “We pray, we read scripture, we discuss it, we pray again. God is glorified, Christ is glorified, people become more godly, and the world is changed for the better.
“In our church, there are some men who repair 20-year-old junker cars so they’ll run and the Salvation Army gives them to people who need a car for work. Another group of people collect old crutches, wheelchairs, oxygen tanks, C-Paps, and similar medical equipment to give to other people who need them.”
Emma stood up to clear the dishes, leaning on her cane. “There’s even two men who are really old who drive a shuttle car from downtown to the telemarketing center so some young people can get to work. They don’t charge a dime for the first three months, then a dollar a day after that. “
“Bob, you know that Ecclesiastes says that there is a time for every purpose under heaven. So stop searching for the perfect church and start making a church better. Your time has come to start showing that you want to be a sheep and not a goat. ”
And you know, Bob only visited one more church – Emma’s church. He wasn’t too comfortable with all the “amen’s” during the service at first, but he grew to like it so much he was married in that church to one of the women he led to Christ. That happened when his puppet ministry performed at the home for unwed mothers just two years later. And he was never lonely or sad again, for he was too busy leading children and their parents to Christ with those puppets.
And he learned to ask each of his Christian friends...."Are you a sheep, or are you a goat?" What about you?
Sunday, December 25, 2016
Christ has Arrived - A Christmas Story
Isaiah 52:7-10; Psalm 98; Hebrews 1:1-12; John 1:1-14
Once upon a time there was a man who had it all. He had a good wife and wonderful children. He owned a small, but very productive farm which grew all sorts of vegetables. On the edge of the beautiful farm he had planted fruit trees which grew wonderful fruit almost every year. In the woods nearby were deer and turkey and rabbits which came down to the farm, but the farmer was an excellent shot so his family always had meat to eat. A stream ran through the farm in which there lived many fish. And the farmer’s neat house was warm and cozy in the winter, because he worked hard and everything was kept in good repair.
One day, the farmer was talking to himself and he said, “You know, I’ve got a good life. I’ve worked hard and my farm is in excellent shape. I think I’ll build myself a swing for the back porch where I can look over the farm I built.” And the farmer did just that. And for the rest of that summer and fall, in the evening after he finished his work, the farmer and his wife would sit on that back porch swing and swing.
Winter came and it snowed. That cold and snowy Christmas night, the wind began to howl, and from the back porch a thumping sound came. The farmer thought: “I hope my swing isn’t destroyed by the wind blowing it away.” So the farmer quietly got out of bed without waking his wife, and went outside where the swing was thrashing wildly back and forth. As the farmer reached for it, the wind shifted, the farmer slipped just a bit on some ice, the swing hit him in the head and the farmer went down, knocked out cold.
Hours passed before his wife found him in the grey light of morning. Some of the farmer’s hair was still stuck in the wood of the swing, the swing had hit him so hard. The fingers on the farmer’s right hand were frost-bit. The next day they turned black, and within a few days it was clear that they had to be amputated. The doctor was sent for and the operation done. All that winter the farmer recovered, but now he had no fingers on his right hand, which was his strong hand.
That year was terrible. The farmer’s wife and children did what they could to help out, but they just couldn’t do what the farmer had done. Weeds were growing in the vegetables and some rabbits and deer managed to eat some of the vegetables. The fruit trees, which were not properly pruned that winter, didn’t bear properly. That year, the harvest was only about half what it normally was, and the house began to have some leaks in the roof and some wind came through some cracks in the walls.
A traveling minister came through in December of that year, after the harvest time, when the snow was just beginning to fall. The minister stopped at many people’s homes and God led him to stop and spend the night at the farmer’s house on Christmas Eve. That night, in front of the fireplace, the farmer told the minister his story, choking back tears. “Why is God so angry at me?” the farmer wanted to know. “I worked hard, I did everything I was supposed to do, I took care of my family, and now everything is falling to pieces!”
This question bothered the minister. Being a wise man, he didn’t answer right away, but asked the farmer to let him think on it and pray on it, and he promised the man an answer in the morning. The farmer agreed and went to bed. The minister, though, he stayed up most of the night in front of the fire, reading his Bible and praying for an answer.
Eventually, after reading many scriptures, the minister came to Psalm 98 where he read:
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 minister had his answer. And he slept soundly the rest of the night.
The next morning, when the farmer came down for breakfast, the minister was waiting for him. “I’ve found your answer”, the minister said.
“Yes, what is it?” the farmer asked.
“I listened to you last night. You talked to me for hours about how nice your farm was, how prosperous you’d been, and how hard you worked. But in all that time, not once did you give the credit to God for your success. You never mentioned the times God sent you rain and the times God sent you sunshine. You never mentioned that God always sent you deer when your family needed venison, or fish when they were hungry for fish. You never mentioned that God had kept blights and mildews away from your plants and your fruits and that God had protected your farm from storms and tornados. Yet as soon as something bad happened to you, your first tendency is to blame God. But listen to this Scripture from the Gospel of John:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.
“The Word is Jesus Christ.”
“You’re so right”, the farmer said, hanging his head. “I always thought it was myself and my hard work that made this farm prosperous. But God was there with me all along. It was through Jesus that everything was made. He brings life to this farm and everything else.”
“Yes, you’ve got it. Sometimes God knocks us on the head to get our attention. Now listen to this from Psalm 98”, the minister said.
“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.
“God can replace your right hand, if you will but ask Him.” The minister said confidently. “Why don’t we pray?”
The farmer and the minister got on their knees and prayed long and hard that day. They prayed that God would forgive the farmer of his sin of ignoring God’s goodness. They thanked God for thumping the farmer on the head with the swing. And they prayed that that farmer would receive Christ into his heart that Christmas morning.
Every day after that the farmer began his day by reading His Bible, giving God his thanks when things went well, and asking God for help and guidance when things did not go well. And to the neighbors, it was as though the farmer had replaced the fingers on his hand, for between the farmer, his good wife, his growing children, and God’s blessings, the farm prospered even more than it had before.
Later that winter, after the minister had gone walking west over the mountains to help other souls, the farmer read in Isaiah 52:
How beautiful on the mountains
are the feet of those who bring good news,
who proclaim peace,
who bring good tidings,
who proclaim salvation,
who say to Zion,
“Your God reigns!”
And so whenever a neighbor or traveler stopped by, as the farmer and the visitor ate delicious fruits, vegetables, and venison from that prosperous farm, the farmer had the visitor sit on the back porch on the porch swing with him. There, he pointed out a bit of old hair caught in the wood on that old swing, and then told the story of his farm and how Christ had come to that farmer on Christmas.
Once upon a time there was a man who had it all. He had a good wife and wonderful children. He owned a small, but very productive farm which grew all sorts of vegetables. On the edge of the beautiful farm he had planted fruit trees which grew wonderful fruit almost every year. In the woods nearby were deer and turkey and rabbits which came down to the farm, but the farmer was an excellent shot so his family always had meat to eat. A stream ran through the farm in which there lived many fish. And the farmer’s neat house was warm and cozy in the winter, because he worked hard and everything was kept in good repair.
One day, the farmer was talking to himself and he said, “You know, I’ve got a good life. I’ve worked hard and my farm is in excellent shape. I think I’ll build myself a swing for the back porch where I can look over the farm I built.” And the farmer did just that. And for the rest of that summer and fall, in the evening after he finished his work, the farmer and his wife would sit on that back porch swing and swing.
Winter came and it snowed. That cold and snowy Christmas night, the wind began to howl, and from the back porch a thumping sound came. The farmer thought: “I hope my swing isn’t destroyed by the wind blowing it away.” So the farmer quietly got out of bed without waking his wife, and went outside where the swing was thrashing wildly back and forth. As the farmer reached for it, the wind shifted, the farmer slipped just a bit on some ice, the swing hit him in the head and the farmer went down, knocked out cold.
Hours passed before his wife found him in the grey light of morning. Some of the farmer’s hair was still stuck in the wood of the swing, the swing had hit him so hard. The fingers on the farmer’s right hand were frost-bit. The next day they turned black, and within a few days it was clear that they had to be amputated. The doctor was sent for and the operation done. All that winter the farmer recovered, but now he had no fingers on his right hand, which was his strong hand.
That year was terrible. The farmer’s wife and children did what they could to help out, but they just couldn’t do what the farmer had done. Weeds were growing in the vegetables and some rabbits and deer managed to eat some of the vegetables. The fruit trees, which were not properly pruned that winter, didn’t bear properly. That year, the harvest was only about half what it normally was, and the house began to have some leaks in the roof and some wind came through some cracks in the walls.
A traveling minister came through in December of that year, after the harvest time, when the snow was just beginning to fall. The minister stopped at many people’s homes and God led him to stop and spend the night at the farmer’s house on Christmas Eve. That night, in front of the fireplace, the farmer told the minister his story, choking back tears. “Why is God so angry at me?” the farmer wanted to know. “I worked hard, I did everything I was supposed to do, I took care of my family, and now everything is falling to pieces!”
This question bothered the minister. Being a wise man, he didn’t answer right away, but asked the farmer to let him think on it and pray on it, and he promised the man an answer in the morning. The farmer agreed and went to bed. The minister, though, he stayed up most of the night in front of the fire, reading his Bible and praying for an answer.
Eventually, after reading many scriptures, the minister came to Psalm 98 where he read:
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 minister had his answer. And he slept soundly the rest of the night.
The next morning, when the farmer came down for breakfast, the minister was waiting for him. “I’ve found your answer”, the minister said.
“Yes, what is it?” the farmer asked.
“I listened to you last night. You talked to me for hours about how nice your farm was, how prosperous you’d been, and how hard you worked. But in all that time, not once did you give the credit to God for your success. You never mentioned the times God sent you rain and the times God sent you sunshine. You never mentioned that God always sent you deer when your family needed venison, or fish when they were hungry for fish. You never mentioned that God had kept blights and mildews away from your plants and your fruits and that God had protected your farm from storms and tornados. Yet as soon as something bad happened to you, your first tendency is to blame God. But listen to this Scripture from the Gospel of John:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.
“The Word is Jesus Christ.”
“You’re so right”, the farmer said, hanging his head. “I always thought it was myself and my hard work that made this farm prosperous. But God was there with me all along. It was through Jesus that everything was made. He brings life to this farm and everything else.”
“Yes, you’ve got it. Sometimes God knocks us on the head to get our attention. Now listen to this from Psalm 98”, the minister said.
“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.
“God can replace your right hand, if you will but ask Him.” The minister said confidently. “Why don’t we pray?”
The farmer and the minister got on their knees and prayed long and hard that day. They prayed that God would forgive the farmer of his sin of ignoring God’s goodness. They thanked God for thumping the farmer on the head with the swing. And they prayed that that farmer would receive Christ into his heart that Christmas morning.
Every day after that the farmer began his day by reading His Bible, giving God his thanks when things went well, and asking God for help and guidance when things did not go well. And to the neighbors, it was as though the farmer had replaced the fingers on his hand, for between the farmer, his good wife, his growing children, and God’s blessings, the farm prospered even more than it had before.
Later that winter, after the minister had gone walking west over the mountains to help other souls, the farmer read in Isaiah 52:
How beautiful on the mountains
are the feet of those who bring good news,
who proclaim peace,
who bring good tidings,
who proclaim salvation,
who say to Zion,
“Your God reigns!”
And so whenever a neighbor or traveler stopped by, as the farmer and the visitor ate delicious fruits, vegetables, and venison from that prosperous farm, the farmer had the visitor sit on the back porch on the porch swing with him. There, he pointed out a bit of old hair caught in the wood on that old swing, and then told the story of his farm and how Christ had come to that farmer on Christmas.
Monday, December 19, 2016
God with Us!
Isaiah 7:10-16; Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19; Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-25
As I sat down to write this sermon on Tuesday afternoon, our home was being invaded. Two nice men from Stanley Steemer had arrived at the front door and were proceeding to clean the carpets in the parsonage.
Our Shih Tzu Brownie was not impressed.
And so, I went back the hallway to my office and Brownie followed me, reminding me every step of the way that there were MEN! MEN! In the HOUSE! She barked with every step.
Finally, she followed me into my office and I closed the door. She jumped into my chair and as I sat down, she snuggled up tight against the small of my back. And so far, while I’ve put together the service, she has stayed snuggled up tightly against me, letting me know about once a minute that there are still MEN out there, doing who knows what to our house.
Brownie understands that she wants to be close to me, because, unlike some dogs like our friend Kelsey’s Beau (who is a 120-pound mastiff), Brownie trusts me to protect her, not the other way around. And so Brownie likes to be close to me.
There are people today who argue that the story of Jesus Christ must be made up, a fictional story, a legend with little basis in fact because so much of the story and the prophecies of the Old Testament fit the Christian message. What most of these people don’t realize is just how revolutionary the Jesus story was for ancient times. Today, the story makes sense – but that is only because for 2000 years people have been writing stories and making movies which have Christian ideas and Christian story lines at their heart. Let’s see if we can go back in time and understand how revolutionary the Jesus story really was.
This is the story of the birth of the Messiah, the savior and future king of Israel.
First of all, Jesus was descended from King David, the greatest King of Israel. His ancestors were forced to leave Jerusalem when Jerusalem was burned, but they escaped and lived in another country until the time was right for the Princess Mary to be married to the Emperor of Rome.
WHOA!
Did you see anything different?
Yes, our Mary – the real Mary – was not a Princess of the royal Davidic family, but instead was a 14 or 15 year old ordinary virgin living in a small village out in the sticks, a hundred miles from Jerusalem, when an angel came to her and said she would become pregnant through the Holy Spirit. And so Mary instantly became an unwed pregnant teenage girl, which was far more damaging to her reputation in those days than it would be today.
But Joseph, her fianc̩, had a particularly notable ancestry. Not only was Joseph descended from David and Solomon, but he was also descended from the main line of kings of Judea, which included Ahaz (found in our first reading), Hezekiah (who famously prayed for help from God and God destroyed 185,000 Assyrians who were besieging the town one night) and Josiah, the last godly king of Judea before the Babylonia exile (Josiah restored the worship of God and destroyed untold numbers of idols in Judea). Joseph did not have any of the final ungodly kings of Judea in his lineage. In addition, after the exile, when the kingdom of Judea was re-established by the Maccabees, a man named Zadok was Joseph's ancestor and may have been the founder of the Sadducees who became the high priests of the Temple. But by the time of Joseph and Mary, the family was decidedly middle-class РJoseph was a carpenter.
And Mary? An unwed teenage mother was hardly the woman a writer would pick to be the mother of a sinless religious leader and king. No. Instead, she would have been a princess, cloistered in a tower since her birth and wed by a powerful emperor whose son would now become the king. But that wasn’t the story either.
At this time in Israel, an engagement was almost the same as marriage. At that time a breakup was considered a divorce and was shameful, especially for the one being divorced. And a pregnancy with a wild story about the father being an unseen spirit was definitely grounds for divorce – or even for Mary to be considered an adulteress, worthy of being stoned. But Joseph sticks with Mary.
But lest we think Joseph is so noble and and such a good guy, we need to remember that Joseph doesn’t stick with Mary because he believes her or because he is in love with her. No, he has to be persuaded by an angelic vision. Joe’s idea of being a good guy was to break off the engagement quietly, keeping her from being stoned, but letting her live in disgrace for the rest of her life.
And what about the names? Is the child called Jesus or is he called Emmanuel? Let’s look at the two names and their meaning.
Jesus is the English version of Iesious, which is the Greek verson of Y’shua, the Aramaic and Hebrew name that we first encounter as Joshua. Jesus is the new Joshua. Joshua means “Yahweh saves”. Yahweh is the ancient Hebrew name of God. So the name Jesus ultimately means “God saves.”
Yet there is a bit more to the name Jesus than that. For Joshua was the great military leader who led the Israelites into the Holy Land. Imagine the meaning of having such a name. It would be similar to a man running for President today with the name “George Washington III”. So Jesus was the new Joshua, the man who would lead the Jews into a new Promised Land.
And so He did. Jesus leads all who will follow Him into a Promised Land of peace, a land of purpose, a land of eternity spent under God’s protection. What better outcome for the new Joshua?
And you know – we get that. We understand that God saves, Jesus saves. He leads us to the new Promised Land, to Heaven. But what the world wants us to forget is the second part, the name Emmanuel.
You see, the world is happy to let us think about God saving us – as long as we don’t get too close to God. The world wants God to stay up here at the front of the church and all of us to sit in the back row, in the balcony, maybe even out in the narthex. It’s ok to believe in God, just keep your distance. After all, we want the governor to stay in Charleston, the President to stay in Washington, the Secretary-General of the United Nations to stay in UN headquarters in New York City. Keep them all away from us – we’ll stay here in our place – let God stay in Heaven where He belongs and we’ll stay here in the back of the church or, even better, we’ll stay outside the church at home. That’s what the world wants of us.
But that’s where the world and God have a disagreement. For it is the second name, Emmanuel, that we have to take into account, for that is also the name by which Jesus was called.
And the name Emmanuel? What does Emmanuel mean?
The name Emmanu-el literally means “with us – God”, or more commonly, “God with us”.
And so, recognizing the divine nature of Jesus Christ, Matthew tells us that Jesus is the presence of God with us on Earth. God is with us. And this is the very important part of the entire Christmas story which we often forget – the New Testament writers were very clear that Jesus is not only a little baby boy who was Mary’s son, but was fathered by the Holy Spirit, and has a truly divine nature which amounts to God walking on this earth.
Theologians over the next three hundred years puzzled and made sense of all of this and came to two conclusions which are accepted by different Christian groups, from the Greek Orthodox church to the Roman Catholic church, from the Episcopal Church to the Southern Baptist Convention, from the Presbyterians to the Churches of Christ, from the American Baptists to the Lutherans, from the Dutch Reformed Church to the United Methodist Church.
The first conclusion is that the Christian “God” is actually a complex fusion, a mixture, a semi-blending of three personalities – God the Father, the divine super-spirit who is the power of Creation; God the Son, who is the Word of God, the Angel of the Lord, and is most commonly known as the God-man Jesus Christ; and God the Holy Spirit, who is everywhere and is found inside Christian believers and guides us in our communications with the Father and the Son. Three persons, of the same divine substance, communicating perfectly in harmony with each other, in perfect love with each other, and all eternal in existence beyond time. We call this three-in-one Being the Holy Trinity or the Godhead or simply God.
The second conclusion is that Jesus Christ has two natures. He is both an ordinary man, born of Mary, made of flesh and blood and bones like all men, needing to eat, drink, and sleep, limited by his body – and He is also the son of God, with a divine nature, far superior to us in wisdom and knowledge, eternally alive, overflowing with God-ness!
Let me be clear. Jesus was not just a wise man. He was God walking on this earth.
But let me be clear the other way. Jesus was not God the Father just looking like a man. He really was a man.
What makes Jesus the Christ unique is that He was and is 100% man and 100% God, undiluted, unblended, possessed of both natures.
And that has consequences…
First, it means that when Jesus died on the cross, he really died. He really died and then came back to life. He didn’t just pretend to die – his human nature meant that he really did feel that death because He really did die.
Second, His human nature meant that when He died, He really was a human sacrificing himself for all other humans. He showed his love for you and me and every other human that day and so his sacrifice meant something.
Third, His divine nature meant that He was of infinite value, for He was God being sacrificed. Only because of His divine nature could Jesus’ death be worth more than all the animal sacrifices that were required by the law, only because of His godliness could that sacrifice be of a perfect Being, only because He was the divine Son of God could He show that God truly loves all people to the point where He was willing to die for each of us.And He would have died just for you if you were the only person who needed His sacrifice.
Fourth, it was His particular God-nature that meant He had the creation energy inside Him which allowed Him to come back to life through the Resurrection. Only because of His God-natured goodness can we believe His promise that we will also be resurrected. Only because of his divine nature can we know that He has the power to make good on His promise that we will have eternal life.
And Fifth, it is only because of His Human nature that we humans could be close enough to Him to hear his daily teachings, to feel his healing touch, to know that He was one of us, born to an ordinary family in the ordinary way, growing up just like one of us, learning what it meant to fall and scrape a knee, to trip and fall into the dirt, to wake up in the morning with bad breath, to grow tired and hungry and thirsty, to be tempted to try to control the things and people around us that are so irritating and troublesome and tiring to us. In short, it is only because of Human nature that we could actually know He knew us and had experienced those problems that being human brings to us.
Our God is with us: Emmanuel. Our God saves: Jesus. Yes, our God saves. But our God is with us.
And that is how the Christian God is so different from Buddha, from Allah, from the Force, from all the other gods that people have invented over time.
Our God is with us. He does not live just in a temple or a church building or in a distant Heaven. He is here with us and can be approached and talked with and listened to wherever we are, for wherever we are, there He is. Whatever we run into in our life, He has already encountered it. And He came to earth as a baby boy to experience our lives, growing up in Mary’s arms, working with Joseph, walking alongside the lake with His friends, probably skipping a stone or two across the water...
When you or your friend are wondering about how to get through a tough part of this life, remember to tell yourself or your friend: Emmanuel. God with us. Christ is with us – no matter what.
And just like my little dog Brownie, snuggle in close to your Protector when you are afraid, for He is close by.
Jesus – God saves. A distant and powerful God. But Emmanuel – God with us. A very close God. We aren’t to stay outside the church, we aren’t to stay in the narthex, we aren’t to be in the back row, we are to come into the front row, no, we are to come right up to the altar and stand where we can touch Jesus and Jesus can touch us.
He wants you close to Him. Come forward and grow close. Bow down at His feet. Apologize to Him for trying to keep your distance. Feel His warmth, the heat of the candles, the smell of the wax, the wonderful touch of His love.
And this Christmas…snuggle in close to God. Read a gospel book. Speak with Jesus in two-way prayer. And be blessed by Emmanuel. God with us.
As I sat down to write this sermon on Tuesday afternoon, our home was being invaded. Two nice men from Stanley Steemer had arrived at the front door and were proceeding to clean the carpets in the parsonage.
Our Shih Tzu Brownie was not impressed.
And so, I went back the hallway to my office and Brownie followed me, reminding me every step of the way that there were MEN! MEN! In the HOUSE! She barked with every step.
Finally, she followed me into my office and I closed the door. She jumped into my chair and as I sat down, she snuggled up tight against the small of my back. And so far, while I’ve put together the service, she has stayed snuggled up tightly against me, letting me know about once a minute that there are still MEN out there, doing who knows what to our house.
Brownie understands that she wants to be close to me, because, unlike some dogs like our friend Kelsey’s Beau (who is a 120-pound mastiff), Brownie trusts me to protect her, not the other way around. And so Brownie likes to be close to me.
There are people today who argue that the story of Jesus Christ must be made up, a fictional story, a legend with little basis in fact because so much of the story and the prophecies of the Old Testament fit the Christian message. What most of these people don’t realize is just how revolutionary the Jesus story was for ancient times. Today, the story makes sense – but that is only because for 2000 years people have been writing stories and making movies which have Christian ideas and Christian story lines at their heart. Let’s see if we can go back in time and understand how revolutionary the Jesus story really was.
This is the story of the birth of the Messiah, the savior and future king of Israel.
First of all, Jesus was descended from King David, the greatest King of Israel. His ancestors were forced to leave Jerusalem when Jerusalem was burned, but they escaped and lived in another country until the time was right for the Princess Mary to be married to the Emperor of Rome.
WHOA!
Did you see anything different?
Yes, our Mary – the real Mary – was not a Princess of the royal Davidic family, but instead was a 14 or 15 year old ordinary virgin living in a small village out in the sticks, a hundred miles from Jerusalem, when an angel came to her and said she would become pregnant through the Holy Spirit. And so Mary instantly became an unwed pregnant teenage girl, which was far more damaging to her reputation in those days than it would be today.
But Joseph, her fianc̩, had a particularly notable ancestry. Not only was Joseph descended from David and Solomon, but he was also descended from the main line of kings of Judea, which included Ahaz (found in our first reading), Hezekiah (who famously prayed for help from God and God destroyed 185,000 Assyrians who were besieging the town one night) and Josiah, the last godly king of Judea before the Babylonia exile (Josiah restored the worship of God and destroyed untold numbers of idols in Judea). Joseph did not have any of the final ungodly kings of Judea in his lineage. In addition, after the exile, when the kingdom of Judea was re-established by the Maccabees, a man named Zadok was Joseph's ancestor and may have been the founder of the Sadducees who became the high priests of the Temple. But by the time of Joseph and Mary, the family was decidedly middle-class РJoseph was a carpenter.
And Mary? An unwed teenage mother was hardly the woman a writer would pick to be the mother of a sinless religious leader and king. No. Instead, she would have been a princess, cloistered in a tower since her birth and wed by a powerful emperor whose son would now become the king. But that wasn’t the story either.
At this time in Israel, an engagement was almost the same as marriage. At that time a breakup was considered a divorce and was shameful, especially for the one being divorced. And a pregnancy with a wild story about the father being an unseen spirit was definitely grounds for divorce – or even for Mary to be considered an adulteress, worthy of being stoned. But Joseph sticks with Mary.
But lest we think Joseph is so noble and and such a good guy, we need to remember that Joseph doesn’t stick with Mary because he believes her or because he is in love with her. No, he has to be persuaded by an angelic vision. Joe’s idea of being a good guy was to break off the engagement quietly, keeping her from being stoned, but letting her live in disgrace for the rest of her life.
And what about the names? Is the child called Jesus or is he called Emmanuel? Let’s look at the two names and their meaning.
Jesus is the English version of Iesious, which is the Greek verson of Y’shua, the Aramaic and Hebrew name that we first encounter as Joshua. Jesus is the new Joshua. Joshua means “Yahweh saves”. Yahweh is the ancient Hebrew name of God. So the name Jesus ultimately means “God saves.”
Yet there is a bit more to the name Jesus than that. For Joshua was the great military leader who led the Israelites into the Holy Land. Imagine the meaning of having such a name. It would be similar to a man running for President today with the name “George Washington III”. So Jesus was the new Joshua, the man who would lead the Jews into a new Promised Land.
And so He did. Jesus leads all who will follow Him into a Promised Land of peace, a land of purpose, a land of eternity spent under God’s protection. What better outcome for the new Joshua?
And you know – we get that. We understand that God saves, Jesus saves. He leads us to the new Promised Land, to Heaven. But what the world wants us to forget is the second part, the name Emmanuel.
You see, the world is happy to let us think about God saving us – as long as we don’t get too close to God. The world wants God to stay up here at the front of the church and all of us to sit in the back row, in the balcony, maybe even out in the narthex. It’s ok to believe in God, just keep your distance. After all, we want the governor to stay in Charleston, the President to stay in Washington, the Secretary-General of the United Nations to stay in UN headquarters in New York City. Keep them all away from us – we’ll stay here in our place – let God stay in Heaven where He belongs and we’ll stay here in the back of the church or, even better, we’ll stay outside the church at home. That’s what the world wants of us.
But that’s where the world and God have a disagreement. For it is the second name, Emmanuel, that we have to take into account, for that is also the name by which Jesus was called.
And the name Emmanuel? What does Emmanuel mean?
The name Emmanu-el literally means “with us – God”, or more commonly, “God with us”.
And so, recognizing the divine nature of Jesus Christ, Matthew tells us that Jesus is the presence of God with us on Earth. God is with us. And this is the very important part of the entire Christmas story which we often forget – the New Testament writers were very clear that Jesus is not only a little baby boy who was Mary’s son, but was fathered by the Holy Spirit, and has a truly divine nature which amounts to God walking on this earth.
Theologians over the next three hundred years puzzled and made sense of all of this and came to two conclusions which are accepted by different Christian groups, from the Greek Orthodox church to the Roman Catholic church, from the Episcopal Church to the Southern Baptist Convention, from the Presbyterians to the Churches of Christ, from the American Baptists to the Lutherans, from the Dutch Reformed Church to the United Methodist Church.
The first conclusion is that the Christian “God” is actually a complex fusion, a mixture, a semi-blending of three personalities – God the Father, the divine super-spirit who is the power of Creation; God the Son, who is the Word of God, the Angel of the Lord, and is most commonly known as the God-man Jesus Christ; and God the Holy Spirit, who is everywhere and is found inside Christian believers and guides us in our communications with the Father and the Son. Three persons, of the same divine substance, communicating perfectly in harmony with each other, in perfect love with each other, and all eternal in existence beyond time. We call this three-in-one Being the Holy Trinity or the Godhead or simply God.
The second conclusion is that Jesus Christ has two natures. He is both an ordinary man, born of Mary, made of flesh and blood and bones like all men, needing to eat, drink, and sleep, limited by his body – and He is also the son of God, with a divine nature, far superior to us in wisdom and knowledge, eternally alive, overflowing with God-ness!
Let me be clear. Jesus was not just a wise man. He was God walking on this earth.
But let me be clear the other way. Jesus was not God the Father just looking like a man. He really was a man.
What makes Jesus the Christ unique is that He was and is 100% man and 100% God, undiluted, unblended, possessed of both natures.
And that has consequences…
First, it means that when Jesus died on the cross, he really died. He really died and then came back to life. He didn’t just pretend to die – his human nature meant that he really did feel that death because He really did die.
Second, His human nature meant that when He died, He really was a human sacrificing himself for all other humans. He showed his love for you and me and every other human that day and so his sacrifice meant something.
Third, His divine nature meant that He was of infinite value, for He was God being sacrificed. Only because of His divine nature could Jesus’ death be worth more than all the animal sacrifices that were required by the law, only because of His godliness could that sacrifice be of a perfect Being, only because He was the divine Son of God could He show that God truly loves all people to the point where He was willing to die for each of us.And He would have died just for you if you were the only person who needed His sacrifice.
Fourth, it was His particular God-nature that meant He had the creation energy inside Him which allowed Him to come back to life through the Resurrection. Only because of His God-natured goodness can we believe His promise that we will also be resurrected. Only because of his divine nature can we know that He has the power to make good on His promise that we will have eternal life.
And Fifth, it is only because of His Human nature that we humans could be close enough to Him to hear his daily teachings, to feel his healing touch, to know that He was one of us, born to an ordinary family in the ordinary way, growing up just like one of us, learning what it meant to fall and scrape a knee, to trip and fall into the dirt, to wake up in the morning with bad breath, to grow tired and hungry and thirsty, to be tempted to try to control the things and people around us that are so irritating and troublesome and tiring to us. In short, it is only because of Human nature that we could actually know He knew us and had experienced those problems that being human brings to us.
Our God is with us: Emmanuel. Our God saves: Jesus. Yes, our God saves. But our God is with us.
And that is how the Christian God is so different from Buddha, from Allah, from the Force, from all the other gods that people have invented over time.
Our God is with us. He does not live just in a temple or a church building or in a distant Heaven. He is here with us and can be approached and talked with and listened to wherever we are, for wherever we are, there He is. Whatever we run into in our life, He has already encountered it. And He came to earth as a baby boy to experience our lives, growing up in Mary’s arms, working with Joseph, walking alongside the lake with His friends, probably skipping a stone or two across the water...
When you or your friend are wondering about how to get through a tough part of this life, remember to tell yourself or your friend: Emmanuel. God with us. Christ is with us – no matter what.
And just like my little dog Brownie, snuggle in close to your Protector when you are afraid, for He is close by.
Jesus – God saves. A distant and powerful God. But Emmanuel – God with us. A very close God. We aren’t to stay outside the church, we aren’t to stay in the narthex, we aren’t to be in the back row, we are to come into the front row, no, we are to come right up to the altar and stand where we can touch Jesus and Jesus can touch us.
He wants you close to Him. Come forward and grow close. Bow down at His feet. Apologize to Him for trying to keep your distance. Feel His warmth, the heat of the candles, the smell of the wax, the wonderful touch of His love.
And this Christmas…snuggle in close to God. Read a gospel book. Speak with Jesus in two-way prayer. And be blessed by Emmanuel. God with us.
Tuesday, December 13, 2016
The Rains are Coming!
Isaiah 35:1-10; Psalm146:5-10; James 5:7-10; Matthew 11:2-11
Shall we have a white Christmas this year? We know that Christmas is coming when the snows begin to fall. That’s how our climate is. And we know that shortly after Christmas, more snow will fall and the temperature will plunge.
Easter will arrive when the temperature has increase enough for the snow to melt. Oh, there may be an Easter snow, but the main thing we expect on Easter is the blooming of early flowers and the rains of April. April shows bring May flowers, right? But the main thing is that the temperature has increased enough that we don’t worry about wearing heavy coats anymore.
In many other lands, the climate is different than around here. In particular, in Israel, the seasons are more divided by rainfall than by temperature. And so, in Israel, almost all of the rainfall comes between October and early May, while there may be no rain at all in June, July and August. Farmers really don’t care too much about rainfall when the temperature is too cold to grow in December to February, so our Bible writers began to talk of the “early and latter rains” – something our NIV has translated as the “autumn and spring rains” – the rains of October and November being the early rains, while the rains of March and April are the latter rains.
Rain makes crops grow. Part of the reason our trees lose their leaves in the fall is because our winter season has such little moisture compared to the spring and summertime. But in Israel, the rain comes all winter, with very little snow except in the north and particularly in the high mountains of Lebanon and the Golan Heights.
So in Israel, farmers lived off of two crops. Ancient Israelites did not grow many vegetables other than fast-growing onions and melons because of the water issues. Instead, there were the summer crops, grapes and olives and figs and pomegranites, because the vines and the trees had deep roots which could survive the long hot dry months of the summer, when no rain fell, but which had gorgeous sunny days without a cloud in the sky, and that allowed the grapes and fruits to ripen beautifully without the rot that our foggy summer mornings allow to grow.
And then, there were the winter crops, sown in the dry soil of early October, ready to germinate and grow when the latter rains came and survive the cool but not cold of winter, growing all winter. Cereal crops like barley and winter wheat, along with other grains such as rye, buckwheat and millet. These were planted in the fall and harvested in March, April, and May.
James wrote to believers:
Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near. Don’t grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door!
James was writing some thirty or forty years after the Resurrection and Ascension. The disciples assumed Jesus was returning soon. Yet, months and years and decades had passed. Christians were starting to die while they waited on Jesus’ return to Planet Earth. It is as though Jesus left and then….”To be continued” flashed across the world! The season’s over… we have to wait until the next season to see Him again. Oh, we’ve seen previews, but we want to see the next episode of this story!
But what should Christians do while we wait? The question is as important today as it was in the days of the Apostles.
As we wait for the Lord’s coming, there are three reactions which we might have – two of which the world approves of and one which the Lord approves of.
First, we can grow impatient and give up on Jesus. “Jesus hasn’t returned in 2000 years and so He won’t return at all!, so why bother?” That’s the attitude many people have taken, particularly recently. They don’t have patience, so they want to prove Jesus isn’t for real. And so they state that since Jesus hasn’t returned in 2000 years, He won’t ever return. That’s like telling a child that since it’s been eleven months since Christmas, it will never be Christmas again. It makes about as much sense, for we have the promises found throughout the New Testament that Jesus will be returning. But the world would have us give up believing in Jesus because He is running late. Yet we should trust someone who has a history of being truthful and reliable.
One morning when I was a single insurance agent back in the days before cell phones, I got a call at home from another agent, a really nice-looking brunette agent from another firm that I knew from an insurance class. She wanted to discuss a mutual customer, so I asked her to meet me at a nearby Pizza Hut for lunch. I had a sales call on a small business, and while I was there, the owner encouraged me to take applications on all the employees – all ten of them. Naturally, I got to work immediately taking applications. Time passed.
The other agent went to Pizza Hut, and told the waitress she was meeting someone. A while later, the waitress asked her if she wanted something to drink. She ordered some tea. A while later, the waitress said, “He doesn’t look like he’s coming, would you like to order?” The agent ordered a personal pizza. After still more time had passed, reluctantly, she finally paid the bill and walked outside, getting into her car.
About that time, I wheeled into the parking lot and saw the agent’s car driving over to me. I rolled down the window. Saundra pulled up beside me and said, “Did you get the application?” “I did – it was a group policy.” And only because Saundra was another insurance agent did she understand, park her car, and walk back inside to have lunch with me. And that was our first date. God is good!
Saundra did not give up believing in me, and we shouldn’t give up believing in Jesus because he is running late by our standards.
The second reaction the world would like from us is to become impatient about Jesus’ return and, while still believing in Him, stop thinking about Him and His return. We should focus upon this world and today. That’s what the world tells us time and again. “Don’t be a religious fanatic – they’re dangerous, they’re weird, they’re kooks!”
But consider the farmer who believes in the rains. He knows that there may be no rain in June, no rain in July. He sits and watches throughout 31 days of August and there isn’t a cloud in the sky, nor dew in the ground. Through September he counts the days, Sept 1, Sept 2, Sept 3 and so on through 30 days. He’s counted 122 days without rain. But he knows that it will rain in the fall. He doesn’t know if it will rain in October or whether he’ll have to wait until November, but he goes forward in faith, plowing the hard-baked fields, scattering life-giving manure on the fields, disking the fields repeatedly to turn the hard-baked clods into sandy dust, and then taking his seed wheat and sowing it in the fields, fields that blow dust whenever the wind comes. And he waits for the rains to come because he knows that the rains are coming soon. He just doesn’t know which day or which hour, but he is prepared, his fields are prepared, he’s done everything he can do to stand ready, he’s worked hard, he’s even assured his worried young neighbors that all will be all right by telling them stories of what he’s learned over the years, like the time he waited until the 15th of November for the rains to come, and he waits for the rains to come. He has trust in the Lord and the weather the Lord sends and so is he a dangerous fanatic?
I ask you – why is the farmer, who has faith the Lord will send the rains – a logical, optimistic, good farmer, while the man or woman who prepares his family and friends, who spreads the gospel of Jesus Christ, who walks on the Way of Holiness, who has faith that Jesus will return soon, considered a religious fanatic?
The third response, you see, is what the world doesn’t want us to do but Jesus wants us to do. We are to act like the farmer. There is a Way of Holiness, a path we are to follow. We are to believe that the rains are coming soon, that Jesus is returning soon, and to prepare our family, our friends, our neighbors for that return by spreading our wisdom, our knowledge, the Gospel story to everyone around us. We are to change the world around us, the hard-packed hearts of the world by plowing the Gospel carefully into them, by spreading life-giving Scripture all around, by turning over and over the hard clodded hearts by doing good deeds and speaking words of kindness and life to others, by telling others of all the times Jesus and God the Father came through for us and why we believe Him when He says He will return and bring His eternal life-giving water to a land that is thirsty for new life!
James said:
Brothers and sisters, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.
If we follow the example of the farmer as I have said, we will show our patience, and we will be seen as the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. That is a cause for great rejoicing, that people would think us so devoted to God we’d be called prophets. We think well of prophets. What did the prophet Isaiah say about Christ’s return 2700 years ago when he compared it to the rains coming to the desert?
The desert and the parched land will be glad;
the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom;
it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
the splendor of Carmel and Sharon;
they will see the glory of the Lord,
the splendor of our God.
But we should also remember – and strengthen ourselves – that prophets in ancient times – and today – are not treated kindly by the world, for prophets make most people uncomfortable. Yet Moses wanted all people to be prophets, speaking on behalf of God, and that was what Jesus asked of the Twelve and the Seventy that He sent out to the towns and villages and indeed, that is what He asks of everyone in the Kingdom of God. For there is a time when we should stop being called Disciples – which means students – and become Apostles - which means those who proclaim.
When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”
Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. 6Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”
As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings’ palaces. Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written:
“‘I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way before you.’
Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
Members of the kingdom of heaven, you are greater than John the Baptist. Will you proclaim the Messiah to all, as John did? Will you remind people that Jesus will return? Will you, as the good farmer, prepare your field and show your neighbors what must be done?
The rains are coming soon. Jesus will return soon – when, exactly, I cannot say, just as the old farmer couldn’t say. But just as he knew that the drought would end “soon”, we also know that Jesus will return “soon”. Be ready. He may return in the middle of the night. Profess your faith, be baptized, be a member of God’s church. And help your friends, neighbors, and family come into the kingdom of heaven.
Shall we have a white Christmas this year? We know that Christmas is coming when the snows begin to fall. That’s how our climate is. And we know that shortly after Christmas, more snow will fall and the temperature will plunge.
Easter will arrive when the temperature has increase enough for the snow to melt. Oh, there may be an Easter snow, but the main thing we expect on Easter is the blooming of early flowers and the rains of April. April shows bring May flowers, right? But the main thing is that the temperature has increased enough that we don’t worry about wearing heavy coats anymore.
In many other lands, the climate is different than around here. In particular, in Israel, the seasons are more divided by rainfall than by temperature. And so, in Israel, almost all of the rainfall comes between October and early May, while there may be no rain at all in June, July and August. Farmers really don’t care too much about rainfall when the temperature is too cold to grow in December to February, so our Bible writers began to talk of the “early and latter rains” – something our NIV has translated as the “autumn and spring rains” – the rains of October and November being the early rains, while the rains of March and April are the latter rains.
Rain makes crops grow. Part of the reason our trees lose their leaves in the fall is because our winter season has such little moisture compared to the spring and summertime. But in Israel, the rain comes all winter, with very little snow except in the north and particularly in the high mountains of Lebanon and the Golan Heights.
So in Israel, farmers lived off of two crops. Ancient Israelites did not grow many vegetables other than fast-growing onions and melons because of the water issues. Instead, there were the summer crops, grapes and olives and figs and pomegranites, because the vines and the trees had deep roots which could survive the long hot dry months of the summer, when no rain fell, but which had gorgeous sunny days without a cloud in the sky, and that allowed the grapes and fruits to ripen beautifully without the rot that our foggy summer mornings allow to grow.
And then, there were the winter crops, sown in the dry soil of early October, ready to germinate and grow when the latter rains came and survive the cool but not cold of winter, growing all winter. Cereal crops like barley and winter wheat, along with other grains such as rye, buckwheat and millet. These were planted in the fall and harvested in March, April, and May.
James wrote to believers:
Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near. Don’t grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door!
James was writing some thirty or forty years after the Resurrection and Ascension. The disciples assumed Jesus was returning soon. Yet, months and years and decades had passed. Christians were starting to die while they waited on Jesus’ return to Planet Earth. It is as though Jesus left and then….”To be continued” flashed across the world! The season’s over… we have to wait until the next season to see Him again. Oh, we’ve seen previews, but we want to see the next episode of this story!
But what should Christians do while we wait? The question is as important today as it was in the days of the Apostles.
As we wait for the Lord’s coming, there are three reactions which we might have – two of which the world approves of and one which the Lord approves of.
First, we can grow impatient and give up on Jesus. “Jesus hasn’t returned in 2000 years and so He won’t return at all!, so why bother?” That’s the attitude many people have taken, particularly recently. They don’t have patience, so they want to prove Jesus isn’t for real. And so they state that since Jesus hasn’t returned in 2000 years, He won’t ever return. That’s like telling a child that since it’s been eleven months since Christmas, it will never be Christmas again. It makes about as much sense, for we have the promises found throughout the New Testament that Jesus will be returning. But the world would have us give up believing in Jesus because He is running late. Yet we should trust someone who has a history of being truthful and reliable.
One morning when I was a single insurance agent back in the days before cell phones, I got a call at home from another agent, a really nice-looking brunette agent from another firm that I knew from an insurance class. She wanted to discuss a mutual customer, so I asked her to meet me at a nearby Pizza Hut for lunch. I had a sales call on a small business, and while I was there, the owner encouraged me to take applications on all the employees – all ten of them. Naturally, I got to work immediately taking applications. Time passed.
The other agent went to Pizza Hut, and told the waitress she was meeting someone. A while later, the waitress asked her if she wanted something to drink. She ordered some tea. A while later, the waitress said, “He doesn’t look like he’s coming, would you like to order?” The agent ordered a personal pizza. After still more time had passed, reluctantly, she finally paid the bill and walked outside, getting into her car.
About that time, I wheeled into the parking lot and saw the agent’s car driving over to me. I rolled down the window. Saundra pulled up beside me and said, “Did you get the application?” “I did – it was a group policy.” And only because Saundra was another insurance agent did she understand, park her car, and walk back inside to have lunch with me. And that was our first date. God is good!
Saundra did not give up believing in me, and we shouldn’t give up believing in Jesus because he is running late by our standards.
The second reaction the world would like from us is to become impatient about Jesus’ return and, while still believing in Him, stop thinking about Him and His return. We should focus upon this world and today. That’s what the world tells us time and again. “Don’t be a religious fanatic – they’re dangerous, they’re weird, they’re kooks!”
But consider the farmer who believes in the rains. He knows that there may be no rain in June, no rain in July. He sits and watches throughout 31 days of August and there isn’t a cloud in the sky, nor dew in the ground. Through September he counts the days, Sept 1, Sept 2, Sept 3 and so on through 30 days. He’s counted 122 days without rain. But he knows that it will rain in the fall. He doesn’t know if it will rain in October or whether he’ll have to wait until November, but he goes forward in faith, plowing the hard-baked fields, scattering life-giving manure on the fields, disking the fields repeatedly to turn the hard-baked clods into sandy dust, and then taking his seed wheat and sowing it in the fields, fields that blow dust whenever the wind comes. And he waits for the rains to come because he knows that the rains are coming soon. He just doesn’t know which day or which hour, but he is prepared, his fields are prepared, he’s done everything he can do to stand ready, he’s worked hard, he’s even assured his worried young neighbors that all will be all right by telling them stories of what he’s learned over the years, like the time he waited until the 15th of November for the rains to come, and he waits for the rains to come. He has trust in the Lord and the weather the Lord sends and so is he a dangerous fanatic?
I ask you – why is the farmer, who has faith the Lord will send the rains – a logical, optimistic, good farmer, while the man or woman who prepares his family and friends, who spreads the gospel of Jesus Christ, who walks on the Way of Holiness, who has faith that Jesus will return soon, considered a religious fanatic?
The third response, you see, is what the world doesn’t want us to do but Jesus wants us to do. We are to act like the farmer. There is a Way of Holiness, a path we are to follow. We are to believe that the rains are coming soon, that Jesus is returning soon, and to prepare our family, our friends, our neighbors for that return by spreading our wisdom, our knowledge, the Gospel story to everyone around us. We are to change the world around us, the hard-packed hearts of the world by plowing the Gospel carefully into them, by spreading life-giving Scripture all around, by turning over and over the hard clodded hearts by doing good deeds and speaking words of kindness and life to others, by telling others of all the times Jesus and God the Father came through for us and why we believe Him when He says He will return and bring His eternal life-giving water to a land that is thirsty for new life!
James said:
Brothers and sisters, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.
If we follow the example of the farmer as I have said, we will show our patience, and we will be seen as the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. That is a cause for great rejoicing, that people would think us so devoted to God we’d be called prophets. We think well of prophets. What did the prophet Isaiah say about Christ’s return 2700 years ago when he compared it to the rains coming to the desert?
The desert and the parched land will be glad;
the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom;
it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
the splendor of Carmel and Sharon;
they will see the glory of the Lord,
the splendor of our God.
But we should also remember – and strengthen ourselves – that prophets in ancient times – and today – are not treated kindly by the world, for prophets make most people uncomfortable. Yet Moses wanted all people to be prophets, speaking on behalf of God, and that was what Jesus asked of the Twelve and the Seventy that He sent out to the towns and villages and indeed, that is what He asks of everyone in the Kingdom of God. For there is a time when we should stop being called Disciples – which means students – and become Apostles - which means those who proclaim.
When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”
Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. 6Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”
As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings’ palaces. Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written:
“‘I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way before you.’
Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
Members of the kingdom of heaven, you are greater than John the Baptist. Will you proclaim the Messiah to all, as John did? Will you remind people that Jesus will return? Will you, as the good farmer, prepare your field and show your neighbors what must be done?
The rains are coming soon. Jesus will return soon – when, exactly, I cannot say, just as the old farmer couldn’t say. But just as he knew that the drought would end “soon”, we also know that Jesus will return “soon”. Be ready. He may return in the middle of the night. Profess your faith, be baptized, be a member of God’s church. And help your friends, neighbors, and family come into the kingdom of heaven.
Monday, December 5, 2016
The Kingdom of Heaven - Present or Future?
Isaiah 11:1-10; Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19; Romans 15:4-13; Matthew 3:1-12
Jesus said, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these other things will be given to you.”
About 2700 years ago, 700 years before Jesus was born to Mary, there lived a man named Isaiah. God spoke to Isaiah, and Isaiah spoke to the people of Israel.
It was a gloomy time. Based in the area we call Northern Iraq today, the powerful Assyrian Empire had sent its armies to overrun the Northern kingdom of Israel, based at Samaria. Samaria was sacked and most of its people were sent away as slaves, where they lost their identity as Israelites and gradually faded away over the years and decades. Today, we know them as the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.
But the Assyrians were not ready to stop at Samaria. They sent another army to the south to attack Jerusalem and their commander sent an ultimatum to King Hezekiah of Jerusalem to surrender or be destroyed. Unlike most kings, who ignored what prophets said, Hezekiah sent a message to Isaiah asking him to pray to God for Jerusalem.
And Isaiah prayed. God sent Isaiah a message of hope, which Isaiah delivered to Hezekiah. And so King Hezekiah stood strong and did not surrender. And that night, the Lord sent a plague which killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers. The Assyrians returned to Assyria. Such was the power of Jerusalem when its kings listened to the prophets who spoke for God.
Isaiah was given visions of the future. In particular, Isaiah was told of a future new glorious kingdom, a kingdom ruled by a descendent of Jesse, the father of David the great king and grandfather of Solomon, the wisest man who ever ruled.
This new ruler would be righteous and wise. Hear what Isaiah has to say about Him:
A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of might,
the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—
and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.
He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
or decide by what he hears with his ears;
but with righteousness he will judge the needy,
with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
Wisdom, understanding, counsel and might, the knowledge and fear of the Lord. OH, wouldn’t we love to have a governor, a President, a king who had these attributes!
“He will delight in the fear of the Lord.”
What a comment! Can you imagine someone who is so confident of the goodness of God that he or she delights in being fearful of God?
I can. You were that way once with someone. When you were very small, your father or mother or someone else who loved you picked you up and dangled you by your ankles. They threw you up in the air and caught you and you giggled! Here was someone so powerful and so good, someone you trusted and knew loved you! And you delighted in that power! And I bet that when you had your children you picked them up and tossed them around, too. For you loved them and loved to hear them delight in your goodness and play with them. Can you now imagine how God feels when he does wondrous things for us and we delight in those things?
Isaiah spoke of a kingdom of God, a kingdom ruled by a ruler who was absolutely fixed upon what God wanted, and because of this, righteousness and justice and peace and wisdom would be what this kingdom would be known for. And so people began to look for this kingdom and they began to look for this ruler. They called him the Anointed One, because the kings of Israel were not crowned, but anointed with fragrant oil poured over their heads. The Anointed One – in ancient Hebrew, the word was Ma-siah. The Messiah. In Greek, the word translated to Christ. The Christ. In the Latin of Rome, the word was Christus. Other Romans called him the “Salvetor”, which the French changed to “Savior”, a word we use today in English.
The kingdom of God would be ruled by the Messiah, the Christ, the Savior.
And time moved on until about 700 years had passed.
After a hundred years, Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians. Seventy years after that, Jerusalem was rebuilt. Armies came and went. A man named Alexander the Great brought the Greek language and culture to Jerusalem and Judea, the area around Jerusalem. Hebrew declined in importance – the Aramaic language grew more important. A Greek king named Antiochus Epiphanes desecrated the altar of the Temple, the Jews rebelled and once again had their own kingdom under the Maccabee family. Then the irresistible army of the Romans arrived and conquered Greece and Egypt and Judea and everywhere in between. Once again, the Jews were a conquered people, beaten and depressed.
Matthew takes up our story eighty years later after that conquest:
In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah:
“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.’”
Isaiah had spoken of a man who was to come who would announce the Messiah. He would speak in the wilderness and he would tell people to get ready for the Messiah “Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.”
And so John told everyone who would listen that the kingdom of heaven was near. Can you imagine the excitement in those people who yearned to lift their heads up high as equals beside those Roman soldiers?
“I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
John spoke of Jesus. It was just a few days later that Jesus showed up at the Jordan River and John baptized Him.
But what is this kingdom of heaven? Is it a present thing or is it something to come?
The answer is: Yes.
As we read the scriptures, particularly the Gospels, we see that Jesus often had His mind on the kingdom of heaven. Because almost all Jews had heard Isaiah’s prophecies, Jesus continually referred to the kingdom coming, the kingdom coming near, joining the kingdom, and other phrases. But to understand this, we have to understand better what the ancients thought a kingdom and a king were.
Our view of a kingdom is based on the late medieval concept of a kingdom, which is essentially the same thing that we call a country today. The kingdom of France, the kingdom of England, the kingdom of Spain – these are our ideas of a kingdom. But at the time of Jesus, a kingdom was something with a slightly different idea.
Herod was king of the Jews. He ruled the Jewish kingdom, which consisted geographically of Judea and Galilee. By our modern definition, Herod would have ruled in Jerusalem, but that wasn’t true even though it is the capital of Judea. Herod ruled from Jericho. For you see, a kingdom in those days was composed of an ethnic group, a group of people who identified as one and the same people, like we might today think of the Scottish people, the Amish, or West Virginians.
You know that today, you don’t need to live in West Virginia to be a West Virginian. Someone, born in Clarksburg, can move to North Carolina and live for twenty years and even then, the people in North Carolina will refer to you as a West Virginian, you yourself will be a West Virginian, and when you come back home for a family or class reunion, you will still be a West Virginian. In fact, in some way, your children will be West Virginians, even though they were born in Charlotte. And if someone moves here from New York City, it takes a while before they are considered West Virginians. You can’t be a West Virginian living in West Virginia if you still root for Syracuse over WVU or Marshall! Being a West Virginian is not dependent upon where you live.
That was the way people thought of kingdoms in ancient times. Naturally, most people of one ethnic group lived in a particular area, the way you find most West Virginians living in the state. And so most Jews lived in Judea or Galilee, but Herod was the king of all the Jews – and he wasn’t the king of the Samaritans or the Greeks, even though they might live in Jerusalem or Jericho. And the Roman Emperor ruled over all the kings inside the Empire’s area of control – from Egypt and Turkey to Spain and England.
And so with this in mind, Jesus’ message was incredibly subversive. Jesus was saying to give your loyalty to the kingdom of heaven rather than the kingdom of Herod – or to the empire of Rome.
This kingdom of heaven was initially for the Jews, with Jesus as the head. But soon after his Resurrection and ascent to Heaven, Philip the Evangelist led Samaritans and an Ethiopian to join the kingdom. Peter led the entire household of a Roman soldier to join the kingdom. Paul and Barnabas and Silas and Mark and a host of others began to lead all sorts of Greeks and Romans and other people to join the kingdom. The kingdom of heaven wasn't just for Jews! And then, around the year 230, the kingdom of heaven took over the Empire of Rome as Constantine became the Roman Emperor and made Christianity the preferred religion in the Empire.
Today, the present kingdom of heaven counts some two billion people who claim their first allegiance is to God and Christ, and only secondarily to their earthly rulers. And so, the kingdom of heaven is almost twice the size of China or India and six times the size of the United States.
And inside that kingdom, we see that things are more peaceful, less barbaric, and generally a better place to live than outside that kingdom. It is lands where there are few members of the kingdom of heaven that we see the worst atrocities committed today, the worst justice, beheadings of innocents, executions without trials, the least righteousness in the judges and rulers. Even without Christ’s physical presence on the earth, the Body of Christ, the church, exercises influence over the kingdom.
And yet, Christ has not returned to rule. Yet. And so the present day kingdom of heaven is not as perfect as we'd like.
So we have a future kingdom to look forward to. What we see today is a foretaste, an influence, an appetizer, an anticipation of the kingdom of heaven which is to come when Jesus the Christ returns in glory and power to take personal command of his throne.
“Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
Our plan this year is to seek to establish and expand the kingdom of God in individuals and in this community. Our goal is to add 30 new members this year in the Quiet Dell church and 10 new members in the Monroe Chapel church. All of what we have been doing over the last few years has been in preparation, to help each of us understand more and better how to talk to people who are outside the kingdom about how to come into the kingdom. Now, we are ready to work together to grow the kingdom in this area.
You can join that kingdom. Have you joined the kingdom yet? Have you officially joined this church or another church? Have you declared your love of Christ, have you been baptized?
On Christmas Day, which comes on a Sunday this year, we will have a service which will include the opportunity for you to profess your faith, to be baptized, or to officially join this church. Speak to me or leave me a comment if you want to see what that involves. My contact information is posted nearby.
Jesus said, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these other things will be given to you.”
About 2700 years ago, 700 years before Jesus was born to Mary, there lived a man named Isaiah. God spoke to Isaiah, and Isaiah spoke to the people of Israel.
It was a gloomy time. Based in the area we call Northern Iraq today, the powerful Assyrian Empire had sent its armies to overrun the Northern kingdom of Israel, based at Samaria. Samaria was sacked and most of its people were sent away as slaves, where they lost their identity as Israelites and gradually faded away over the years and decades. Today, we know them as the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.
But the Assyrians were not ready to stop at Samaria. They sent another army to the south to attack Jerusalem and their commander sent an ultimatum to King Hezekiah of Jerusalem to surrender or be destroyed. Unlike most kings, who ignored what prophets said, Hezekiah sent a message to Isaiah asking him to pray to God for Jerusalem.
And Isaiah prayed. God sent Isaiah a message of hope, which Isaiah delivered to Hezekiah. And so King Hezekiah stood strong and did not surrender. And that night, the Lord sent a plague which killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers. The Assyrians returned to Assyria. Such was the power of Jerusalem when its kings listened to the prophets who spoke for God.
Isaiah was given visions of the future. In particular, Isaiah was told of a future new glorious kingdom, a kingdom ruled by a descendent of Jesse, the father of David the great king and grandfather of Solomon, the wisest man who ever ruled.
This new ruler would be righteous and wise. Hear what Isaiah has to say about Him:
A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of might,
the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—
and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.
He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
or decide by what he hears with his ears;
but with righteousness he will judge the needy,
with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
Wisdom, understanding, counsel and might, the knowledge and fear of the Lord. OH, wouldn’t we love to have a governor, a President, a king who had these attributes!
“He will delight in the fear of the Lord.”
What a comment! Can you imagine someone who is so confident of the goodness of God that he or she delights in being fearful of God?
I can. You were that way once with someone. When you were very small, your father or mother or someone else who loved you picked you up and dangled you by your ankles. They threw you up in the air and caught you and you giggled! Here was someone so powerful and so good, someone you trusted and knew loved you! And you delighted in that power! And I bet that when you had your children you picked them up and tossed them around, too. For you loved them and loved to hear them delight in your goodness and play with them. Can you now imagine how God feels when he does wondrous things for us and we delight in those things?
Isaiah spoke of a kingdom of God, a kingdom ruled by a ruler who was absolutely fixed upon what God wanted, and because of this, righteousness and justice and peace and wisdom would be what this kingdom would be known for. And so people began to look for this kingdom and they began to look for this ruler. They called him the Anointed One, because the kings of Israel were not crowned, but anointed with fragrant oil poured over their heads. The Anointed One – in ancient Hebrew, the word was Ma-siah. The Messiah. In Greek, the word translated to Christ. The Christ. In the Latin of Rome, the word was Christus. Other Romans called him the “Salvetor”, which the French changed to “Savior”, a word we use today in English.
The kingdom of God would be ruled by the Messiah, the Christ, the Savior.
And time moved on until about 700 years had passed.
After a hundred years, Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians. Seventy years after that, Jerusalem was rebuilt. Armies came and went. A man named Alexander the Great brought the Greek language and culture to Jerusalem and Judea, the area around Jerusalem. Hebrew declined in importance – the Aramaic language grew more important. A Greek king named Antiochus Epiphanes desecrated the altar of the Temple, the Jews rebelled and once again had their own kingdom under the Maccabee family. Then the irresistible army of the Romans arrived and conquered Greece and Egypt and Judea and everywhere in between. Once again, the Jews were a conquered people, beaten and depressed.
Matthew takes up our story eighty years later after that conquest:
In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah:
“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.’”
Isaiah had spoken of a man who was to come who would announce the Messiah. He would speak in the wilderness and he would tell people to get ready for the Messiah “Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.”
And so John told everyone who would listen that the kingdom of heaven was near. Can you imagine the excitement in those people who yearned to lift their heads up high as equals beside those Roman soldiers?
“I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
John spoke of Jesus. It was just a few days later that Jesus showed up at the Jordan River and John baptized Him.
But what is this kingdom of heaven? Is it a present thing or is it something to come?
The answer is: Yes.
As we read the scriptures, particularly the Gospels, we see that Jesus often had His mind on the kingdom of heaven. Because almost all Jews had heard Isaiah’s prophecies, Jesus continually referred to the kingdom coming, the kingdom coming near, joining the kingdom, and other phrases. But to understand this, we have to understand better what the ancients thought a kingdom and a king were.
Our view of a kingdom is based on the late medieval concept of a kingdom, which is essentially the same thing that we call a country today. The kingdom of France, the kingdom of England, the kingdom of Spain – these are our ideas of a kingdom. But at the time of Jesus, a kingdom was something with a slightly different idea.
Herod was king of the Jews. He ruled the Jewish kingdom, which consisted geographically of Judea and Galilee. By our modern definition, Herod would have ruled in Jerusalem, but that wasn’t true even though it is the capital of Judea. Herod ruled from Jericho. For you see, a kingdom in those days was composed of an ethnic group, a group of people who identified as one and the same people, like we might today think of the Scottish people, the Amish, or West Virginians.
You know that today, you don’t need to live in West Virginia to be a West Virginian. Someone, born in Clarksburg, can move to North Carolina and live for twenty years and even then, the people in North Carolina will refer to you as a West Virginian, you yourself will be a West Virginian, and when you come back home for a family or class reunion, you will still be a West Virginian. In fact, in some way, your children will be West Virginians, even though they were born in Charlotte. And if someone moves here from New York City, it takes a while before they are considered West Virginians. You can’t be a West Virginian living in West Virginia if you still root for Syracuse over WVU or Marshall! Being a West Virginian is not dependent upon where you live.
That was the way people thought of kingdoms in ancient times. Naturally, most people of one ethnic group lived in a particular area, the way you find most West Virginians living in the state. And so most Jews lived in Judea or Galilee, but Herod was the king of all the Jews – and he wasn’t the king of the Samaritans or the Greeks, even though they might live in Jerusalem or Jericho. And the Roman Emperor ruled over all the kings inside the Empire’s area of control – from Egypt and Turkey to Spain and England.
And so with this in mind, Jesus’ message was incredibly subversive. Jesus was saying to give your loyalty to the kingdom of heaven rather than the kingdom of Herod – or to the empire of Rome.
This kingdom of heaven was initially for the Jews, with Jesus as the head. But soon after his Resurrection and ascent to Heaven, Philip the Evangelist led Samaritans and an Ethiopian to join the kingdom. Peter led the entire household of a Roman soldier to join the kingdom. Paul and Barnabas and Silas and Mark and a host of others began to lead all sorts of Greeks and Romans and other people to join the kingdom. The kingdom of heaven wasn't just for Jews! And then, around the year 230, the kingdom of heaven took over the Empire of Rome as Constantine became the Roman Emperor and made Christianity the preferred religion in the Empire.
Today, the present kingdom of heaven counts some two billion people who claim their first allegiance is to God and Christ, and only secondarily to their earthly rulers. And so, the kingdom of heaven is almost twice the size of China or India and six times the size of the United States.
And inside that kingdom, we see that things are more peaceful, less barbaric, and generally a better place to live than outside that kingdom. It is lands where there are few members of the kingdom of heaven that we see the worst atrocities committed today, the worst justice, beheadings of innocents, executions without trials, the least righteousness in the judges and rulers. Even without Christ’s physical presence on the earth, the Body of Christ, the church, exercises influence over the kingdom.
And yet, Christ has not returned to rule. Yet. And so the present day kingdom of heaven is not as perfect as we'd like.
So we have a future kingdom to look forward to. What we see today is a foretaste, an influence, an appetizer, an anticipation of the kingdom of heaven which is to come when Jesus the Christ returns in glory and power to take personal command of his throne.
“Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
Our plan this year is to seek to establish and expand the kingdom of God in individuals and in this community. Our goal is to add 30 new members this year in the Quiet Dell church and 10 new members in the Monroe Chapel church. All of what we have been doing over the last few years has been in preparation, to help each of us understand more and better how to talk to people who are outside the kingdom about how to come into the kingdom. Now, we are ready to work together to grow the kingdom in this area.
You can join that kingdom. Have you joined the kingdom yet? Have you officially joined this church or another church? Have you declared your love of Christ, have you been baptized?
On Christmas Day, which comes on a Sunday this year, we will have a service which will include the opportunity for you to profess your faith, to be baptized, or to officially join this church. Speak to me or leave me a comment if you want to see what that involves. My contact information is posted nearby.
Monday, November 28, 2016
The Armor of Light
Isaiah 2:1-5; Psalm 122; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:36-44
His army lie asleep under the stars. The moon had long set and the only light present was the thin light provided by those cold stars – Orion walked high in the west. It was cold at that altitude – frost was on the ground. A gentle sound of snoring was all around. No fires were lit – that might betray the presence of the army to the Enemy.
And then, in the east, a bit of gray began to chase away the blackness. The sun was still an hour or so away, but now there was a bit, just a bit of light. And a bird chirped a few times.
“Wake up!” a sergeant began walking among the sleeping bodies. “Wake up and put your body armor on.” And gradually, throughout the camp, men and women began to rouse, putting on vests of Kevlar that would stop a bullet or flying shrapnel. Helmets were buckled in place, many put on Kevlar thigh, knee and shin guards. Boot laces were checked, weapons were checked, and within fifteen minutes, the company was ready to move out. No breakfast for this army today. They were ready for another day of fighting.
The long fight might be over today – if the unit stayed together and each member did his or her job. This might indeed be the day the reinforcements arrived, the day the choppers and the planes brought in overwhelming firepower to destroy the enemy – or it might be another day of tough fighting. The only thing they were sure of was that the choppers would always be able to come and evacuate them if things went wrong. They had confidence in the chain of command. They always knew their commander would come for them.
And so it is with us who fight for the King of Glory. We have survived days and nights of evil, with attacks coming any minute from any direction. We have survived attacks by the Enemy and we have survived episodes where we turned on ourselves, shooting ourselves in the foot, doing stupid, foolish things that hurt us and our friends and family, dragging each other down because of our fears. Yet we fight in a spiritual war for the eternal souls of the people around us, people who may not even realize there is a war going on, people who aren’t sure which side is good and which side is evil, people who are so spiritually lost they might as well be sleeping through Pearl Harbor.
But now, awakened to the idea that there is a battle going on around us, awakened by our King’s messengers, we Christians stand up and put on the armor of light, as Paul said:
"And do this, understanding the present time: The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. "
The Apostle Paul wrote this passage while in Corinth in Greece to a group of believers at Rome, sometime between 40 and 50 AD. Paul was planning on visiting Rome; he was writing to this group of believers so that they would be ready to receive him, and so they would understand the message of hope that he was bringing them. Just 15 years or so after the Resurrection, they were well established already – there were no less than three house churches already meeting in Rome. Priscilla and Aquila, Paul’s fellow tent-making co-workers from Corinth had gone to Rome and established one of those churches. A famous gladiator was on the list of believers in Chapter 16 of the Letter to the Romans; servants in the Emperor’s household were on the list. Several of Paul’s friends from his days in Antioch and Macedonia were already in Rome. The letter was carried by the Deaconess Phoebe, who served a church six miles from Corinth, which shows that churches were quickly being planted. Even in Corinth this early, the Way of Jesus of Nazareth was spreading fast.
And Paul says, “The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here.”
His army lie asleep under the stars. The moon had long set and the only light present was the thin light provided by those cold stars – Orion walked high in the west. It was cold at that altitude – frost was on the ground. A gentle sound of snoring was all around. No fires were lit – that might betray the presence of the army to the Enemy.
And then, in the east, a bit of gray began to chase away the blackness. The sun was still an hour or so away, but now there was a bit, just a bit of light. And a bird chirped a few times.
“Wake up!” a sergeant began walking among the sleeping bodies. “Wake up and put your body armor on.” And gradually, throughout the camp, men and women began to rouse, putting on vests of Kevlar that would stop a bullet or flying shrapnel. Helmets were buckled in place, many put on Kevlar thigh, knee and shin guards. Boot laces were checked, weapons were checked, and within fifteen minutes, the company was ready to move out. No breakfast for this army today. They were ready for another day of fighting.
The long fight might be over today – if the unit stayed together and each member did his or her job. This might indeed be the day the reinforcements arrived, the day the choppers and the planes brought in overwhelming firepower to destroy the enemy – or it might be another day of tough fighting. The only thing they were sure of was that the choppers would always be able to come and evacuate them if things went wrong. They had confidence in the chain of command. They always knew their commander would come for them.
And so it is with us who fight for the King of Glory. We have survived days and nights of evil, with attacks coming any minute from any direction. We have survived attacks by the Enemy and we have survived episodes where we turned on ourselves, shooting ourselves in the foot, doing stupid, foolish things that hurt us and our friends and family, dragging each other down because of our fears. Yet we fight in a spiritual war for the eternal souls of the people around us, people who may not even realize there is a war going on, people who aren’t sure which side is good and which side is evil, people who are so spiritually lost they might as well be sleeping through Pearl Harbor.
But now, awakened to the idea that there is a battle going on around us, awakened by our King’s messengers, we Christians stand up and put on the armor of light, as Paul said:
"And do this, understanding the present time: The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. "
The Apostle Paul wrote this passage while in Corinth in Greece to a group of believers at Rome, sometime between 40 and 50 AD. Paul was planning on visiting Rome; he was writing to this group of believers so that they would be ready to receive him, and so they would understand the message of hope that he was bringing them. Just 15 years or so after the Resurrection, they were well established already – there were no less than three house churches already meeting in Rome. Priscilla and Aquila, Paul’s fellow tent-making co-workers from Corinth had gone to Rome and established one of those churches. A famous gladiator was on the list of believers in Chapter 16 of the Letter to the Romans; servants in the Emperor’s household were on the list. Several of Paul’s friends from his days in Antioch and Macedonia were already in Rome. The letter was carried by the Deaconess Phoebe, who served a church six miles from Corinth, which shows that churches were quickly being planted. Even in Corinth this early, the Way of Jesus of Nazareth was spreading fast.
And Paul says, “The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here.”
It is time to put on the armor of light and prepare for a spiritual battle.
This is how we begin this new Christian year. Today is the first Sunday of Advent, the time of preparation for Christ’s arrival. But this year, unlike most years, we will not focus upon the arrival of the Christ child. We will focus upon the soon arrival of the Son of God in all His glory and power.
In many ways, we act like we are spiritually asleep, like we are wearing soft, cozy flannel underwear with footies, the type of nightclothes we might get toddlers, the type of nightwear that keeps us warm and protected and snuggly and drowns out the sounds of the outside world as we sleep the day away.
This is how we begin this new Christian year. Today is the first Sunday of Advent, the time of preparation for Christ’s arrival. But this year, unlike most years, we will not focus upon the arrival of the Christ child. We will focus upon the soon arrival of the Son of God in all His glory and power.
In many ways, we act like we are spiritually asleep, like we are wearing soft, cozy flannel underwear with footies, the type of nightclothes we might get toddlers, the type of nightwear that keeps us warm and protected and snuggly and drowns out the sounds of the outside world as we sleep the day away.
There are two holidays called Christmas, you see. One is loud and boisterous, busy and frenzied, filled with shopping and cooking and decorating and lights and noise. It is what the world calls "Christmastime", a continuous party and preparation for a party which exhausts us and gives us a hangover of debit.
The other Christmas is quiet, peaceful, like the quiet noises that snow makes when it lands in your backyard or the gentle sigh of a newborn baby as it settles off to sleep. This Christmas is filled with candles and a small fire in the fireplace and a bit of hot tea drunk as one particular story found in the beginning of the Gospel of Luke is reread and remembered, perhaps with bread and with a bit of wine or grape juice.
Which one do you celebrate?
Our world around us is controlled by the Satan, the deceiver, who the Bible says is the prince of this world. Our world would have us to sleep, assuming that the Return of Christ will be hundreds of years in the future. Our world would have us to focus upon the really “important” things in life, like whether or not we could get a good deal on a 4k ultra curved 60 inch television set, or a new Playstation or a new smart phone. Our world would like us to think that the holidays are about friends and family, about traditions and coziness, about shiny ornaments for the tree, the happy cries of children as they unwrap presents, and the approving looks from the family as they see what we’ve prepared for Christmas dinner. Diamonds from Jared, watches from Wal-mart, clothes from Kohl’s, cars from Kia. And don’t forget the television specials, the football playoffs, the basketball games, and the constant news shows about the aftermath of the election. These are the things the world distracts us with this time of year. And we go along, occasionally protesting about the cost or the time or the effort.
Or we get sucked into the culture wars. Every year, there are the stories of the manger scenes not allowed, the Christmas plays that are censored, the coffee cups that don’t carry the right symbols, and we get outraged and post on Facebook and argue and fight and complain and where is the peace of Christ in all this?
Instead, do we stop during this Advent season to sit with our children and grandchildren and our neighbor’s children and read to them from the beginning chapters of Luke and Matthew? Do we decide to stay home instead of shop and read for ourselves an entire Gospel book of the Bible this time of year? Do we ever just build a fire, cover up with a blanket, and read a chapter from a New Testament epistle to the other person in the house, and then talk about what Paul or Peter or John meant when they wrote those words so long ago?
Do we have friends over to talk about the Gospel and our church? When was the last time we invited that young girl with her three kids who lives down the street over? What about next Saturday? We could cook hot dogs and macaroni and cheese and bake some biscuits and then we could direct the conversation toward the Pioneer Clubs and how our kids turned out reasonably well despite all the struggles in high school and that might give her an evening to relax. Yes, we could make some time, we could cut back on all the loud Christmastime stuff and focus on becoming Jesus to that family this year. After all, do we really need a new television? Do our kids and grandkids really need to be spoiled like we’ve spoiled them or maybe we could redirect some of those gifts to that young girl and her family because our kids are doing well, but I noticed her car was broke down for a week last month.
Maybe we could invite that old man who lives alone over for Christmas dinner. Maybe we could make friends with that struggling waitress at Denny’s and find out what her kids need and give her a giftcard for Christmas to Wal-mart. Maybe we could just leave a fifty or a hundred dollar tip for her? And there is that nice guy at the Mexican restaurant who seems to be so lost – what could we do for him?
Our homes are filled with things and our lives are full of time-wasting chores we put onto ourselves. Paul asked us to “put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.” That’s what Paul wrote…
Now I don’t think many of you spend time in carousing and drunkenness nor in sexual immorality. But we do have a tendency to indulge in our self this time of the year. We drink deeply of the intoxicating liquor of selfishness. We need to put down that cup and move onto the next level in our Christianity. Do you understand what I mean by that? Let me explain…
The natural person is by nature selfish. We want to gratify our desires first and foremost. And so everything is about my wants and my needs, my problems and my successes. As we take on Christ, we should be able to shed those night clothes that are designed for our comfort and our coziness, and put on our daytime work clothes, worrying about others.
The beginning Christian begins to do things for the people closest to him or her. We begin to worry now about our families, our wives or husbands, our children, perhaps even our nieces and nephews, our brothers and sisters. We have begun to shed those cozy night clothes and put on our work clothes.
But at the next level, we begin to look outside our family and our house. We recognize when our nest is warm and cozy enough and we look to see if there are people near us whom we can help, our friends, our neighbors, our church family. And so we share with the people we know.
Our world around us is controlled by the Satan, the deceiver, who the Bible says is the prince of this world. Our world would have us to sleep, assuming that the Return of Christ will be hundreds of years in the future. Our world would have us to focus upon the really “important” things in life, like whether or not we could get a good deal on a 4k ultra curved 60 inch television set, or a new Playstation or a new smart phone. Our world would like us to think that the holidays are about friends and family, about traditions and coziness, about shiny ornaments for the tree, the happy cries of children as they unwrap presents, and the approving looks from the family as they see what we’ve prepared for Christmas dinner. Diamonds from Jared, watches from Wal-mart, clothes from Kohl’s, cars from Kia. And don’t forget the television specials, the football playoffs, the basketball games, and the constant news shows about the aftermath of the election. These are the things the world distracts us with this time of year. And we go along, occasionally protesting about the cost or the time or the effort.
Or we get sucked into the culture wars. Every year, there are the stories of the manger scenes not allowed, the Christmas plays that are censored, the coffee cups that don’t carry the right symbols, and we get outraged and post on Facebook and argue and fight and complain and where is the peace of Christ in all this?
Instead, do we stop during this Advent season to sit with our children and grandchildren and our neighbor’s children and read to them from the beginning chapters of Luke and Matthew? Do we decide to stay home instead of shop and read for ourselves an entire Gospel book of the Bible this time of year? Do we ever just build a fire, cover up with a blanket, and read a chapter from a New Testament epistle to the other person in the house, and then talk about what Paul or Peter or John meant when they wrote those words so long ago?
Do we have friends over to talk about the Gospel and our church? When was the last time we invited that young girl with her three kids who lives down the street over? What about next Saturday? We could cook hot dogs and macaroni and cheese and bake some biscuits and then we could direct the conversation toward the Pioneer Clubs and how our kids turned out reasonably well despite all the struggles in high school and that might give her an evening to relax. Yes, we could make some time, we could cut back on all the loud Christmastime stuff and focus on becoming Jesus to that family this year. After all, do we really need a new television? Do our kids and grandkids really need to be spoiled like we’ve spoiled them or maybe we could redirect some of those gifts to that young girl and her family because our kids are doing well, but I noticed her car was broke down for a week last month.
Maybe we could invite that old man who lives alone over for Christmas dinner. Maybe we could make friends with that struggling waitress at Denny’s and find out what her kids need and give her a giftcard for Christmas to Wal-mart. Maybe we could just leave a fifty or a hundred dollar tip for her? And there is that nice guy at the Mexican restaurant who seems to be so lost – what could we do for him?
Our homes are filled with things and our lives are full of time-wasting chores we put onto ourselves. Paul asked us to “put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.” That’s what Paul wrote…
Now I don’t think many of you spend time in carousing and drunkenness nor in sexual immorality. But we do have a tendency to indulge in our self this time of the year. We drink deeply of the intoxicating liquor of selfishness. We need to put down that cup and move onto the next level in our Christianity. Do you understand what I mean by that? Let me explain…
The natural person is by nature selfish. We want to gratify our desires first and foremost. And so everything is about my wants and my needs, my problems and my successes. As we take on Christ, we should be able to shed those night clothes that are designed for our comfort and our coziness, and put on our daytime work clothes, worrying about others.
The beginning Christian begins to do things for the people closest to him or her. We begin to worry now about our families, our wives or husbands, our children, perhaps even our nieces and nephews, our brothers and sisters. We have begun to shed those cozy night clothes and put on our work clothes.
But at the next level, we begin to look outside our family and our house. We recognize when our nest is warm and cozy enough and we look to see if there are people near us whom we can help, our friends, our neighbors, our church family. And so we share with the people we know.
Perhaps we even get involved with organized ministries, like the shoeboxes or the Angel Trees or the donations that our church takes up. We give money - we even shop for other people - and then we hand over the money or the gifts to someone else to give to people who are in need.
But there is another level. That is when we begin to actively look for new people we can help, strangers, people who we don’t know, the woman crying in the card aisle at Krogers, the man walking beside the road, the waitress who is clearly having a rough time, the man at the checkout counter who is obviously buying a simple meal for himself because he is alone. Maybe we even go to work at the Salvation Army or the food pantry so we can meet people who need help and then we become friends and we treat them as our neighbors and family. We go beyond giving and find the person who needs and soon we find we have hundreds of new friends.
But there is another level. That is when we begin to actively look for new people we can help, strangers, people who we don’t know, the woman crying in the card aisle at Krogers, the man walking beside the road, the waitress who is clearly having a rough time, the man at the checkout counter who is obviously buying a simple meal for himself because he is alone. Maybe we even go to work at the Salvation Army or the food pantry so we can meet people who need help and then we become friends and we treat them as our neighbors and family. We go beyond giving and find the person who needs and soon we find we have hundreds of new friends.
You tell me stories. You tell me stories of people you once knew who were filled with the Holy Spirit, people who were godly, people who were so good and kind and generous! But there is a part to the story which I haven't heard recently. I used to hear this story earlier in my life. Someone would talk about that godly man or woman in wonderful terms and then say, "And I want to become just like him (or her) someday! I'm working to learn all I can to become just like her (or him)! Will you help me?"
I haven't heard that part of the story in a long time...
Imagine, if you will, that you put on armor when you get out of bed in the morning. It is an invisible armor, but that armor protects you from every flaming arrow that Satan and his friends can send your way. But there is a catch, a magical thing about this armor. It is totally useless and doesn’t help us at all until we charge it with goodness. And that armor begins to work and glows with light as we listen to the Holy Spirit and do good.
So as we work to get out of our comfortable cozy night clothes, we find that we are putting on an armor that serves us well when the enemy attacks us in our lives, for that armor of light is recharged every time we do something kind for someone else just because they are an image of God, another portrait of God from a different angle, just as we are. That armor of light begins to glow around us and nothing the enemy can do will take us down, for we know now that we are worthy, we know that we have a purpose in life, we know that we are doing good and we know that we are powerful, strong, and part of a victorious army because we know, deep down, we know to the depths of our heart that it is only because of Jesus Christ that we can even wear that armor. Every time we do something for someone else we remember what Christ did for us when we were needy, when we were struggling, when we were standing at the edge of the cliff, not sure if we would make it or not. We saw someone who was wearing Jesus’ armor of light and it lit up our lives! And now we have a set of the very same armor that fits us because we have decided to follow Jesus.
And so, my friends, put on the armor of light and charge it up by doing good works this season. Walk in that tremendously safe and joyous space, that space between Jesus and the people who need to meet Jesus, connecting Jesus and them together through your acts of kindness and charity. Let others fight the battles of Walmart and the shopping mall. You fight the important battle, the battle for people’s souls that may end this day, or this week, or this month or in a thousand years when Christ returns to earth.
While we wait for His return, we are to be wearing that armor of light, fighting the battle. Have you ever met a Christian who glowed? Of course you have! Have you ever met a man or a woman who was so calm, so peaceful, yet so passionate about saving people’s souls that there was almost a real glow to their eyes and their face when they spoke? They are rare and hard to find, but you can become one of those glowing Christians. You can be one of them, because Christ has already destroyed your sins and left you free to do good. Pick up the set of armor that He has given you! All we need to do, Paul says, is to "clothe ourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh."
Jesus said in Matthew 6 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? … Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. And all these things will be given unto you as well.”
Let Matthew 6:33 guide you this Christian year. “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness And all these things will be given unto you as well.” And wear the glowing armor of light that Jesus has given you as you go through every day doing good, changing the world, bringing people to know and understand the love of Christ.
We are the army of Christ. We are His soldiers, we are His warriors, we are the people who fight in the spiritual war. While we are free because of Jesus, millions of other people are still under the control of the Enemy. How can we leave them doomed to eternal death, the real death, eternity apart from God?
Imagine, if you will, that you put on armor when you get out of bed in the morning. It is an invisible armor, but that armor protects you from every flaming arrow that Satan and his friends can send your way. But there is a catch, a magical thing about this armor. It is totally useless and doesn’t help us at all until we charge it with goodness. And that armor begins to work and glows with light as we listen to the Holy Spirit and do good.
So as we work to get out of our comfortable cozy night clothes, we find that we are putting on an armor that serves us well when the enemy attacks us in our lives, for that armor of light is recharged every time we do something kind for someone else just because they are an image of God, another portrait of God from a different angle, just as we are. That armor of light begins to glow around us and nothing the enemy can do will take us down, for we know now that we are worthy, we know that we have a purpose in life, we know that we are doing good and we know that we are powerful, strong, and part of a victorious army because we know, deep down, we know to the depths of our heart that it is only because of Jesus Christ that we can even wear that armor. Every time we do something for someone else we remember what Christ did for us when we were needy, when we were struggling, when we were standing at the edge of the cliff, not sure if we would make it or not. We saw someone who was wearing Jesus’ armor of light and it lit up our lives! And now we have a set of the very same armor that fits us because we have decided to follow Jesus.
And so, my friends, put on the armor of light and charge it up by doing good works this season. Walk in that tremendously safe and joyous space, that space between Jesus and the people who need to meet Jesus, connecting Jesus and them together through your acts of kindness and charity. Let others fight the battles of Walmart and the shopping mall. You fight the important battle, the battle for people’s souls that may end this day, or this week, or this month or in a thousand years when Christ returns to earth.
While we wait for His return, we are to be wearing that armor of light, fighting the battle. Have you ever met a Christian who glowed? Of course you have! Have you ever met a man or a woman who was so calm, so peaceful, yet so passionate about saving people’s souls that there was almost a real glow to their eyes and their face when they spoke? They are rare and hard to find, but you can become one of those glowing Christians. You can be one of them, because Christ has already destroyed your sins and left you free to do good. Pick up the set of armor that He has given you! All we need to do, Paul says, is to "clothe ourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh."
Jesus said in Matthew 6 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? … Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. And all these things will be given unto you as well.”
Let Matthew 6:33 guide you this Christian year. “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness And all these things will be given unto you as well.” And wear the glowing armor of light that Jesus has given you as you go through every day doing good, changing the world, bringing people to know and understand the love of Christ.
We are the army of Christ. We are His soldiers, we are His warriors, we are the people who fight in the spiritual war. While we are free because of Jesus, millions of other people are still under the control of the Enemy. How can we leave them doomed to eternal death, the real death, eternity apart from God?
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