The Unforgivable Sin

1 Samuel 8:4-20, 11:14-15; Psalm 138; 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1; Mark 3:20-35

Over the last fifty years or so, I’ve seen several church controversies that occurred in the Body of Christ. I’ve seen arguments that, in each case, were presented as a battle which would determine once-and-for-all whether the church of Jesus Christ would continue to exist upon this earth. Of course, what was most amusing was that BOTH sides claimed that this was the Most Important Thing in the history of the church, and BOTH sides claimed to represent Christ’s settled opinion about the matter at hand. What were some of those controversies?

The first one I remember was whether or not it was ok for men to wear long hair or beards in church. For those of you who were not around at the time, the Beatles had come to America and brought a longer style of hairdo for men. Most men still wore their hair in the style they learned during World War II or the Korean War – most men had served in war or peacetime, because we had a peacetime draft in those days. So the standard haircuts were either the buzzcut – or the flattop if you wanted to be stylish. But now, young men were letting their hair grow out to maybe an inch and a half or more in length, and it was the end of Western Civilization. And so, these long haired types were not allowed in some churches. And they left.

Quick to follow were the controversies about women’s dress lengths. Mini-skirts, it was argued, should not be worn in church – ankle-length, or at the shortest calf-length dresses were expected. The survival of Western Civilization and the church was once more at stake. Those who wore shorter dresses were asked to leave, and they mostly did.

The next controversy, though, was slightly different. The question was whether or not a woman could wear a pants suit in church, and since an older group of women liked those suits and they did much of the work in the church the decision in most churches was that pants suits were grudgingly accepted, and once again Western Civilization survived.

Soon, the issue was Christian rock and electric guitars in the church. Two churches in my home town held a 6-week long formal debate on this issue. The established church was against it and the upstart church was for it. Interestingly enough – both churches held to women wearing long dresses. Once again Western Civilization barely survived and both churches are still going strong in that town today, though the rocking church has grown while the conservative church has dwindled.

Over the years, the church has had many controversies and hyperbole is always used. Hyperbole, if you don’t know the word, means “excessively excessive exaggeration”. And yet – the church always survives and Western Civilization won over godless Communism.

And over the years, we have also been treated to a list of sins that are “The Worst Sin.” It seems like everyone has a pet sin that is the worst possible sin. For example, a hundred years ago, the worst sin was drinking alcohol. Then, the worst sin was being a Nazi supporter, then a Communist, an anti-war protester, then wearing long hair, short skirts or pants suits. It was a terrible sin for a woman to preach, it was a horrible sin to do drugs, it was unforgivable to be a single mother, and just as bad to be divorced, and it was almost as bad to be on welfare. And through it all, the more-accepting people also began to label those who were less accepting as "sinners" (or worse), simply because they had trouble accepting people who were doing things they had been taught were terrible sins. And some churches continue to fight the fight against cultural norms: I know churches today who will not let anyone who has been divorced lead a study group, let alone preach. Another church tolerates divorce, but not remarriage.

Everyone has a “worst sin” list – it usually only includes the sins which do not affect us. After all, who would include on their list of sins today “eating an apple?”, which I have on good authority was one of the first sins, if not the most critical sin.

And so the church constantly argues about what to do with sin. Do we accept the sinner? Do we reject the sinner? Do we welcome the sinner if they will stop sinning immediately or do we give a “grace period” before we reject them?

Do we let sinning people into leadership? What exactly is leadership in the church? Is it eldership, leading a local church, leading a Sunday School class, or simply singing a solo during worship? How long before a person is forgiven of their sin and allowed to lead or return to leadership?

Our fights over these issues are complicated because everyone brings to the fight their own personal background, which changes from generation to generation, from state to state, and between different church backgrounds. Sixty years ago, adultery was still a crime in many states and seen as a horrible sin, motels could not legally allow unmarried couples to stay in the same room, and divorce was looked at as a terrible sin. Today, attitudes are different – we have many pastors who have been divorced, some repeatedly, but that doesn’t necessarily make the traditional views wrong – or right.

Throughout time, our churches must be careful to deeply understand that the Word of God is always relevant, and let that guide us in our acceptance – or rejection - of things the culture tells us are good and wholesome. Those new ideas may be just what we need – such as when churches began using microphones - did I mention that microphones were controversial at first? – or those ideas may cause terrible harm when a good idea is applied in the wrong place - the church - such as two hundred years ago when many churches adopted the democratic idea that the congregation should vote on every decision, an idea which has split more churches than any other idea.

But there are some times when the church and the people of God must learn hard lessons because they choose to follow what their neighbors tell them, rather than read and listen to Holy Scripture to find out what the Word of God tells them.

In our first reading, the time is around 1100 BC, about 500 years after Moses and the Exodus from Egypt. Joshua has conquered the Promised Land for the nation of Israel, and the country has been ruled by the elders of the tribes and occasionally by judges, special people appointed by God for the duration of an emergency. In effect, the nation – although not every person – the nation as a whole looked to God directly as their overlord.

Samuel is the High Priest of Israel. He’s getting old and the elders of Israel meet with him and tell him, “Look, Samuel, we like you and you’ve done a good job, but your sons aren’t up to the job, we don’t want to follow them because they’re not very godly, and so we’ve decided that this High Priest and God stuff is old-fashioned, and we want a king, a human king to follow. That’s what we want. It’s the style of the times, and our families are telling us we’re old-fashioned, so give us a king. That’s what we want.”

Samuel looks at them and thinks. “Hmmmm. I don’t think they understand what they’re looking for.” And then he goes and talks to God.

But God is resigned to the situation. He says something like: “Samuel, do you remember when your Mom told you not to eat all those dates, that too many dates would upset your digestion, and you ate them anyway and you learned for yourself? It’s kinda of the same situation here. These people aren’t upset with you – they’re doing the same thing they’ve done since they got away from Pharoah – they look to me when things are bad and then ignore me when things are good. They always think the next god is the best god, and now they think that having a king must be the best government because the Egyptians and the Phoenicians and the Assyrians are all doing it. So listen to them, but warn them of the problems with kings first.”

Samuel said “Are you sure?” and God says, “Yes, I’ve seen it dozens of times before already. They just won’t listen to Me. Now go and tell them.”

So Samuel goes back before the elders and he says, “I went and talked to God and he told me to tell you this:

“This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. 12 Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. 15 He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. 16 Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle[b] and donkeys he will take for his own use. 17 He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. 18 When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”
But the elders and people said, “You’re making that up and you’re old fashioned. Nothing bad is going to happen. Instead, we’ll have a great-looking king who will lead us like everybody else has and he’ll win our battles for us just like all the other nations. We want a king over us. Could you go get us one now?”

Did you notice that they thought "the king" would win the battles? Instead, it was the ordinary soldier who fought and died in those battles, win or lose.

And you know, the people of Israel were ruled by kings – either their own kings or outsiders – until the Temple was destroyed in 70 AD, over 1100 years later. And then, they lived in other countries, without even a country of their own until 1948 when the State of Israel was established as a parliamentary democracy after World War II and they stopped being ruled by kings. The people of Israel were ruled by kings for 3000 years and were never completely free during all that time.

Sometimes God lets a people learn a lesson the hard way. The really hard way.

And so we come to our Gospel reading.

Jesus is driving demons out of people. Now you may have never seen demon-possession – I have a friend who was a missionary in Jamaica and has seen it. Despite what some people will tell you, it is not epilepsy, and it is not an ordinary mental problem. It is something much worse. But Jesus was driving demons out of people.

Some of the busybodies from Jerusalem came to a conclusion: Jesus must be using the dark powers to drive the demons out of people.

Jesus points out the flaw in their logic. Demons are part of the evil kingdom. If Jesus is using demons to drive out demons, then the evil kingdom of Satan is ready fall because it is destroying itself. A house divided against itself cannot stand.

And then He lays into them…

He tells them that it is true that every blasphemy and slander and sin is forgivable, except one. Everything, no matter how heinous is forgivable except for that one sin. Absolutely every practice, every mistake, every intentional deed is something that God can forgive you of except one thing. Nothing is too bad for God – if you are willing to apologize to God and throw yourself on the mercy of God’s judgment, God will accept you and give you a new, fresh start. Everything, that is, except for the one unforgivable sin.

And that one unforgivable sin is to call the Holy Spirit evil. If someone continues to call the Holy Spirit evil, then that sin will never be forgiven. Why the harsh judgment on this one sin?

Because it is completely denying the goodness of God. When a person sees good as evil, then there is little hope. Why do I say little hope?

Because there are people who are so twisted in their moral ideas that they have decided that anything to do with Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit is evil. You see, most non-Christians simply do not understand Christianity, or else deep down understand deeply that they will need to give up their favorite sin if they are to follow Christ, listen to the Holy Spirit, and become close to God. Most non-believers are in this position and can find their way home if someone will help them understand or lead them past their fear of losing their sin into the house of God.

But there are some people who have confused their sense of morality to the point where they have declared Christ, God, and the Holy Spirit to be evil of themselves. This is a position which is virtually impossible to return from.

But it can be done. God dispenses grace, and ultimately all judgments are God’s decision. God can choose to forgive even the unforgivable sin – if God chooses. It is within God's power - but is not something promised, unlike God's promises to forgive other sins.

You know – there is absolutely nothing we can do to compel God to forgive us of the least sin – whether it be a word which hurt someone, an accidental injury, a theft, a murder, or something much worse. God, though, has chosen to forgive us solely because God does not wish any of us to perish. And we would perish forever if left to our own devices.

When you begin to think that there are some people who have committed terrible sins which disqualify them from our fellowship, keep in mind this: There is no one here who has not committed a sin which is on someone else’s list of terrible sins. None of us deserves or has a right to be here.

Yet there are many sins which other people commit and we look down upon those people. Unfortunately, every time we fail to show grace to others and forgive them, we commit a sin against them and against God ourselves, for we harm others. After all, wouldn’t we want OUR sins to be forgiven?

We are only here because God took sins which we considered unforgivable – and forgave them. Now, we are to go and forgive the other people we know of their sins against God and against us. For a permanent failure to forgive others is truly the only unforgivable sin, for it goes directly against what the Holy Spirit is asking you to do. When you do not do what the Holy Spirit asks but follow the ways of the world, you are denying the divinity of the Holy Spirit. And what else can blasphemy be except denying that God is God and making what is not God into God?

As Jesus said to the teachers of the law, “28 Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.”

Listen to the commands of the Holy Spirit, for the Holy Spirit is God. Do not blaspheme that Spirit, lest you lose your immortal soul.

From our Third Reading:

13 It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.” Since we have that same spirit of faith, we also believe and therefore speak, 14 because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to himself.

Will you speak of what you believe? Will you listen to the Holy Spirit, do what the Spirit commands, and not deny that Spirit?

Graduation Sunday

Isaiah 6:1-8; Psalm 29; Romans 8:12-17; John 3:1-17

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
Familiar words, aren’t they? How many times have you seen John 3:16 put on a poster at a ball park or at a basketball game? How often have you seen it on a bumper sticker? How many times have you told this to someone who is hurting and desperate, needing hope?

Too often, we look at our church as an exclusive club. We’re glad to belong to it, and we use special code words and phrases between each other to prove that we are members of the club. “Bless you”, we say. “I feel blessed.” Or perhaps we say, “He arose”. For a while last year, we said to each other “Shake your salt”.

We talk about communion and baptism and charge conference and confirmation. We speak about sermons and altar calls and hymns and psalms. Do you realize that none of these things are known in the outside world, that the only reason people know of them is because Christians have explained them, but that no one will run into any of these things unless they walk into a church?

We speak of being “saved by grace” and assume everyone knows what we mean. What we fall to realize is that most people aren’t even sure what they’re being saved from!

And most of all, we say “I was saved by Jesus Christ” and that just bounces off of people, because they really have no idea what we are talking about unless they, too, have been saved by Jesus Christ. And then, we talk about becoming holy and that can really be confusing, for holy means something pure and churchy to most people, but those same people look at you and listen to your speech and wonder what it has to do with you!

Isaiah was a man like any other. He cussed and spoke evilly of other people. He wasn’t a particularly holy man when he began his trip with God. Instead, he was a pretty ordinary guy who God chose to do extraordinary things. Isaiah had a dream that he was standing before God in the heavenly temple and saw God, with the seraphim, six-winged angels flying around, angels whose name means “those who kindle fire or make hot” Their name is associated with ardor or passion. (see Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite in his Celestial Hierarchy (vii) and Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologica)

5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”

6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”

And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
And so Isaiah steps forward to speak on behalf of God to the people of Israel.

Notice one important thing. The Seraph, the “one who kindles fire” came forth and removed Isaiah’s excuse with a hot coal, removing Isaiah’s guilt for the words he had previously spoken and atoning for his sin. Isaiah was made clean when he developed a passion for God and God acknowledged this passion through the heavenly seraphim, God’s representative. Isaiah graduated to become a prophet that day. For the rest of his life, he spoke for God.

Today we honor graduates. You’ve worked hard at whatever schooling you’ve gone through, you’ve worked and studied and done work which seemed meaningless at times, you’ve worked and studied and sometimes the hardest work was to simply get out of bed and make it to class. And so, a tradition has developed that we honor those who have completed the course, a tradition that we give these people a piece of paper called a diploma, and we give them a new title: graduate.

Over the years, people complete different courses. We now recognize those who graduated from kindergarten, from elementary school, from middle school, from high school, and from college. We recognize those who graduate from the advanced schools we call “graduate schools”. And it is not only in those schools where we recognize the graduates – we recognize them in this church as well, for we understand that this is an important point on your way to becoming full-fledged members of our society. Those who graduate from high school and college – you’ve made it into the club of adults.

But God did not institute the twelve-grade system and God did not institute the Bachelor of Arts programs around the country. It is true that our first colleges were all founded primarily to teach ministers about the Word of God and to teach them the ancient languages needed to fully understand the Word. Oxford in England and Harvard in America were both founded to train pastors. Questions of faith were the key questions on the entrance applications. But unfortunately, that mission has slid into simply preparing people for the workplace. Today, the key questions are “Have you passed algebra?” and “Have you taken the SAT?”

But I think that we can assume that God’s plan has not changed, despite what has changed at our colleges, universities, and employers. And what is God’s plan of education? Let us look at our Gospel reading to find out.

Nicodemus is an elder of Israel. He is a member of the Sanhedrin, the council of seventy elders who ruled Israel at this time together with the High Priest and subject only to the veto power of the Roman governor. Nicodemus was the equivalent of an American Senator, and he comes by night, sneaking over to talk with Jesus.

Did you notice he came by night? Why do you think he came by night?

It could have been that he was afraid of being seen by other members of the ruling council. After all, it wouldn’t be the last time that someone was afraid to let people know he thought that Jesus was cool.

Another possibility is that Nicodemus was simply a busy man during the day, and he decided to take some of his leisure time to visit this new teacher, taking advantage of his position to arrange a private audience with the Rabbi. There are many people today who must learn their religion during the evening hours after the workday. Isn’t it interesting that the single most important thing you can do in your life is thought so unimportant that you pay attention to it only on your “day off”? Why is it that people do not take time off from work specifically to ask pastors important questions, such as “Will I go to heaven?”

The third possibility is that Nicodemus was a genuinely polite man, who understood that Jesus was tied up with the public during the day and wished to approach Jesus during a quiet evening when he could get some personal questions answered. Many people over the centuries have found that they have some private questions, and they need to approach a pastor when he is less busy than on Sunday mornings. Following Jesus’ pattern of making time for Nicodemus, most of us will be happy to answer those questions in the living room or on the back porch during the evenings.

Whatever the reason he visited at night, Nicodemus pays Jesus a complement: “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”

Then Jesus responds with one of those responses which is completely within character for Him, but which doesn’t seem to be the next step in the conversation at all. Jesus says: “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”

Now what did THAT have to do with what Nicodemus said?

Did you notice that Nicodemus admits that Jesus is a teacher who has come from God? Therefore, Jesus’ answer is either a rebuke to Nicodemus, or a straight-forward answer to the question implied in the complement. Let’s look at these possibilities.

Perhaps what Jesus is saying is that recognizing Jesus to be a teacher sent from God is not enough. He accepts Nicodemus’ complement, but with His answer, He is telling Nicodemus that the complement is not enough for Nicodemus to do. And there is truth in this. Those people who recognize the wise teachings of Jesus and even recognize that Jesus was sent by God are still falling short of the entire Gospel. For it is not enough to look to another, but there must be a change made in your own heart. You may be proud of your birth, your family, your accomplishments – Nicodemus was at the very top of the social structure in Jerusalem – but even your earthly successes are not very important. In modern context, you could be a billionaire Kennedy or Bush or a Bill Gates, known for giving billions to solve the world’s problems, born to a family with a great history – but ultimately neither of those are important. What is important is if you are reborn through water and Spirit.

The Greek word here often translated as “again” – “you must be born again” is a word with two possible meanings. The word can mean “again” – or it can mean “from above”, as in “you must be born from above”. Either way, the result is much the same – something about you must be restarted, you need a reboot, you need an upgrade from what you started with. You need new software, a new spirit, a new heart which has been cleaned and regenerated free from the defects of sin.

The water cleans the outside and the spirit cleans the heart.

Jesus says that the Spirit gives birth to spirit. Have you let the Holy Spirit truly come into your heart, cleaning up your heart like a group of Merry Maids, straightening up the clutter in your life, removing the dirt and filth from your thoughts, burning out the garbage which is rotting and making your life such a mess?

My son Andrew is a very good son, but he is a teen-age boy. And one of the problems that Andrew has fought has been the tendency to simply drop his clothes on the floor of his room – both clean clothes, and dirty clothes. He also tends to leave dishes and glasses sitting in odd places in his room, and he dusts once a year whether his room needs it or not. And so a few weeks ago, his mother attacked the room, removing the papers and dishes and glasses, washing and folding all the clothes, vacuuming the floor and dusting all the surfaces. Some boxes that had not been opened since we arrived were disposed of – others went to the basement, and some items were burned. And by the end of the weekend, the place was spotless. Andrew’s room had been given the equivalent of a baptism!

But now came the difficult part. Although the place had been cleaned by the baptism, Andrew now had to keep the room clean. And he mostly has. For Andrew had been so deep in clutter since we moved in that he really didn’t know before what a delight a clutter-free room is. Now he does and his room shows it.

And this is the way our heart is. Our baptism cleans out our messy heart. But after that point, the Holy Spirit, given to us by God, leads us and guides us to keep our heart clean and motivates us to want our heart to be clean.

Some people do a passable job of cleaning up their hearts without God’s help. But there are always certain items that are left in the heart that darken it and keep it from being as clutter-free as it could. For example, there may be old grudges that are held and not forgiven, like an old trunk that sits in the middle of the room to trip over daily. There may be just one or two bad habits that dirty up the floor in the corner of the heart. Or there may be a lack of total surrender to God’s will, like a burned out light bulb in the closet that keeps us from seeing the cobwebs in the corner of the closet. We cannot completely clean our hearts without God’s help.That’s why we are to be baptized and let the cleansing water of baptism and the flaming Spirit of the second birth give us a completely new start to our life, our relationships to each other, and to our friendship with God.

Writing twenty years later, the Apostle Paul understood our reluctance to give ourselves up totally to the Holy Spirit. He understood our fear that we would move from being slaves to our sins and instead become slaves to God. But Paul, prompted by the Holy Spirit wrote in the 8th Chapter of his letter to the Romans:

14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. 15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory

The reason we are able to call God “Father” or even “Daddy” – the literal translation of “Abba”, is because the Holy Spirit which possesses us speaks inside our heart and we know that God is our deeply loving Father, who sent part of Himself – Jesus Christ – to earth to sacrifice Himself on our behalf that we might live as children of God.

You know, we just had Memorial Day, which was started back after the Civil War to honor the dead men who sacrificed themselves for their wives and children so that they would be able to live in freedom. Those men understood. They understood the sacrifice that God made, that desire to free His children from the lack of freedom that sin presents. And so they shared in Christ’s sufferings and today they also share in His glory. And not only the soldiers of the Civil War, but those of World War I and II and Korea and Vietnam and the Gulf Wars and Afghanistan and Iraq and all those small conflicts around the globe.

For you see, part of being a child of God means that we are to act as a child of God, being willing to sacrifice for others in love. Sometimes that sacrifice means dying a bloody death, as with the men and women who have died proclaiming their Christianity in the face of ISIS terror.

More often, that sacrifice means using valuable time to teach children about Jesus, to donate tens and twenties and hundreds of dollars to support missions and the church, to spend an hour each week practicing with the choir, to show up a meeting in the hope that your experience with cancer may help someone else who is fighting the disease. That sacrifice may mean that you take an hour every Monday night to call several people who missed church to see if they are ok. That sacrifice may mean that you take a minute to share announcements of upcoming church events or a sermon link on Facebook. That sacrifice may mean that you buy your friend lunch and have a heart-to-heart talk with them about what you have seen Jesus and God do in your life and explain to your friend that you have been worried about their eternal soul. That is what Paul means when he says, “17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.”

Christianity is not cheap nor is it easy. There is hard work involved and studying involved. But there are three points of graduation along the path.

The first time you graduate as a Christian is when you declare your baptismal vows to God as a Christian believer, and promised the church to “faithfully participate in its ministries, by your prayers, your presence, your gifts, your service, and your witness.” The church responded by welcoming you as a full member. You became a full Christian, baptized or confirmed, fully aware of your promises. You have become born again and start a new life.

The second time you graduate as a Christian is when you bring your first friend, family member, or neighbor to the altar and declare that you are sponsoring this person for baptism. This graduation means you probably had a lot to do with your friend coming to know Jesus and your friend’s soul will be saved because you stepped forward.

The third time you graduate as a Christian is when you stand in front of the throne of God, and God says to you: “Well done, good and faithful servant.” And that, my friends, will be worth more than any home or car or iPhone or diploma will ever be worth to you.

The Lord God has need of willing servants. When God asked, Isaiah said, “Here I am. Send me. “ Have you considered what God is calling you to do in your life? It is difficult to be too old – or too young to answer the call. I have a friend who was 60 years old when he went into the ministry. I know another who knew he would go into ministry when he was a teenager. I have seen people become ministers who have three degrees already, and I have seen people go into ministry with barely a high school diploma. God calls all those who will follow, truly follow Him. Has God been talking to you over the last year or so about your life? Have you been hearing a call to ministry of some sort?

For, you see, some of you are ready to graduate to ministry. Will you graduate – or will you remain here in school for several more years?

Pentecost

Ezekiel 37:1-14; Psalm 104:24-35; Acts 2:1-21; John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15

When we talk to people in the community at large, we often run into people who will say, “I believe in God”, but do not mention Jesus Christ. There are many people in our country who “believe in God”, but don’t have any real understanding of how Jesus Christ fits into the picture. For them, they often understand that Jesus was a boy born in a manger at Christmas, a man who taught some good ideas about not judging anyone, about treating the poor well, and He ended up dying upon a cross. Perhaps they even understand that Jesus loves you and He was resurrected. But they do not tie Jesus Christ and God together, except to note that they both have to do with “religion”.

I say we often run into people who have a very weak understanding of Who Jesus Christ is. In fact, polls show that about three to four times as many people in America “believe in God” as accept that Jesus was God walking upon this earth, which is the answer that the leaders of the Christian Churches have given for 2000 years.

And still less understand this mysterious third Person of the Trinity that we call the Holy Spirit. Many people in our modern society are completely unaware of the Spirit’s presence – and most of those who are vaguely aware of the Spirit make one of two opposite mistakes: They either become overly focused upon the Spirit’s doings, declaring that only those people who have shown the overt possession of the Spirit through speaking in tongues, being “slain by the Spirit”, or who have received or given miraculous healing can possibly be saved Christians – or they avoid learning about the Holy Spirit, equating talk of the Spirit as Pentecostal belief only, and essentially declaring knowledge of the Holy Spirit to be a devilish heresy, a dangerous thing akin to magic, demonic possession, or consulting with fortune tellers.

The Holy Spirit is the third personality in the Holy Trinity, the complex person that includes God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

The truth of the matter is that the Holy Spirit has been the recognized third leg of standard Christian belief by all regular Christians since the days of the Apostles – and is even mentioned in the Old Testament.

Saul, the first king of Israel, is filled with the Holy Spirit and begins to prophesy with a group of prophets even before he becomes king of Israel. The Holy Spirit spoke through King David. The Holy Spirit comes upon various prophets and leaders of Israel throughout the ages, even as early as the time of Moses, when two men received the Spirit and began speaking about God. Moses wished at that time that all the people of Israel would receive the Spirit.

And we have the valley of dry bones from our first reading.

To understand this fully, we need to understand one key fact about the ancient Hebrew and Greek words that are translated into modern English as “spirit”. The very same words that we translate as “spirit” in the ancient languages had three meanings: First, it meant spirit. Second, it meant breath. Third, it means wind.

Thus, when we talk about the Holy Spirit, we are talking about the breath of God, the holy wind that flows from God and wraps around us, the very presence of God that whips around us. After fashioning Adam from the clay, God breathed into the nostrils of Adam and Adam came alive. God sent His Spirit into Adam and gave life to Adam.

You may remember that during one of the visits to the eleven disciples on Easter evening, Jesus breathed upon them and they received the Holy Spirit. Of course they did! They had received the Holy Breath of God from God Himself, Jesus Christ!

So let’s go back to Ezekiel’s prophecy of the dry bones. I’ve included this on a sheet with your bulletin today so you can follow along. The Reading begins:

37 The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones.

Notice that the Lord brings Ezekiel to a vision by the Spirit.

2 He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. 3 He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”

I said, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”

The valley is filled with bones, very old, dry bones that have lain here in the desert for a long, long time. God speaks to Ezekiel and asks him if the bones can live. At least that is what it appears at first glance. But Jesus, during His ministry on earth, repeatedly refers to Himself as “the Son of man”. Perhaps Ezekiel, through the Holy Spirit, is witnessing a conversation between God the Father and God the Son – Jesus Christ – the One who is also the Son of man? But who are the bones? Most theologians think that these dry bones represent people who have either walked away from God totally – or who have become so focused upon the regular rituals of religion that they have lost their passion for God – and the purposes of God.

4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! 5 This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”

God tells Ezekiel – or Jesus – that He should speak to these old, dry bones and tell them that God will “make breath enter” them – God will send His Spirit into these bones and they will come to life. God will send His Spirit to people and give them a beautiful, joy-filled life!

7 So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8 I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.

9 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’” 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.

Life is given by the breath of God.

Did you notice how the Psalm writer also mentions how God’s breath and Spirit are tied to life?

when you take away their breath,
they die and return to the dust.
30 When you send your Spirit,
they are created,
and you renew the face of the ground.

We live only due to the life given to us by God’s breath. And when we give God permission to pour out God’s Spirit upon us, and ask for that Spirit to come into us, When we breath deeply of the Spirit-breath of God, wonderful things happen.

In our Gospel reading, Jesus made a promise. It was during His last talk with the disciples at their Passover Supper that evening, a couple of hours before His arrest, that Jesus began to talk about the Holy Spirit – the Advocate who would lead the disciples into all truth. The Holy Spirit, Jesus said, would lead us into all truth.

But when would this Holy Spirit arrive?

Look at our third reading.

Jesus has ascended to Heaven. It has been about ten days since He returned to Heaven outside of Jerusalem, leaving them alone. But the disciples did not give up. For the next ten days, they assembled together daily to study scripture and to pray. And then, on the day of Pentecost, Shavuot, the festival of Weeks, the festival of First Fruits, the day when tradition said that God made his rainbow covenant with Noah after he came forth from the ark, the day Moses brought down the Ten Commandments from Mt Sinai, the night Boaz chose Ruth, King David’s birthday and the day of his death, the day when everyone brought to Jerusalem the first part of their harvest to give to God at the great Temple – on that morning, something wild and amazing happened.

They were gathered together in a room probably about the size of the Quiet Dell fellowship hall. There were about a hundred and twenty believers gathered together that morning, men and women, teenagers and children. You can hear the faint hum of men talking and reading scripture, the sound and smell of breakfast being made downstairs, the laughter of children from time to time. And then, suddenly, it happened.

There was a mighty sound like a rush of wind and it filled the entire room. God’s breath had hit the room! Then tongues of fire came into the room, split up, and settled upon each person. And then, then, the Holy Spirit took possession of each person there and they began to praise God. They praised God – Halleluyah! They praised God – Praise God! They praised God – Gloria Deus! They praised God in different languages! Gloria Deus Patri! Glory to God the Father! They praised God in Hebrew – Hallelujah! They praised God in Latin – Gloria Deus Patri! – They praised God in Greek - doxázoun ton Theó ! They praised God in Egyptian and Persian and Aramaic and many other languages that don’t even exist today!

And a bunch of people came running to see what was happening.

Someone yelled, “What’s happening?” and some smart aleck replied: “They’re drunk – they’ve drank too much wine!”

And then, Peter stood up.

Peter, the big fisherman who had captained a boat on the lake in Galilee. Peter, the brash young man who was always ready to speak up and take action, even when it was dangerous or would get him into trouble. Peter, the man who just seven weeks earlier had hid and snuck around and denied that he even knew Jesus three times on that horrible night when Jesus had been arrested. Peter, the man who had seen the risen Christ and been restored by Christ’s forgiveness. Peter, the man who was always quick to understand. Peter, the man who had had enough! Peter stood up with his fishing captain’s voice and said, “

“Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. 15 These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! 16 No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:

17 “‘In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams.
18 Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
and they will prophesy…
21 And everyone who calls
on the name of the Lord will be saved.’
And Peter continued onward to speak, standing in front of the other Eleven witnesses, the chosen men who had been with Jesus from the beginning in Galilee, who had followed Him for three years and heard and seen all that Jesus had done, these men who had seen Him arrested, seen Him die, and then seen and talked and ate with Jesus after Jesus came back to life and who had been taught by Jesus for forty days and who had seen Jesus go back to Heaven. Peter spoke in front of the Eleven witnesses, for under Jewish law, the testimony of two or three was needed to establish a fact in a court of law, but here were twelve men standing tall that morning, speaking to the crowd when Peter finished his sermon, and people believed.

Over three thousand people were baptized and joined the newborn church on that day. Imagine how God’s breath magnified Peter’s voice so he could be heard in that busy city by over three thousand people! God’s Spirit, God’s breath, God’s wind…

About twenty years later, the Apostle Paul wrote more about the Spirit in the 8th chapter of Romans:

22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
Paul tells us that Christian believers “have the firstfruits of the Spirit”. This turn of phrase is important, because to have the firstfruits meant that you had the best of the harvest, but only a small portion of the harvest. The implication is that there are even more aspects of the Holy Spirit to come to believers than what we have already seen.

Do you remember the dial-up modems that your Internet used before high-speed Internet was available? I had to use a dial-up modem 19 years ago when I first put our company’s website on the Internet – It was painfully slow, we lost connections a lot of times, and the data was sometimes garbled. It could take a minute for a single photo to download on a website! But now we have high-speed cable Internet, which is much, much better and faster, and allows us to even watch movies over the Internet.

My friends, the Holy Spirit we have today may be like the dial-up modems. One day, we shall be upgraded and then we will be completely amazed at how the Spirit can connect us to God.

But even today, the Holy Spirit guides us in ways you may not understand, for the working of the Spirit depends upon how much attention you pay the Spirit.

In early 1945, my friend Jim Webb was a young Marine who had just landed on a Japanese-held island in the Pacific. Jim was a very god-focused young man, who had been raised in a godly family – he later became a pastor, and had served churches for 55 years when I met him about 15 years ago. The island Jim had landed on was called Iwo Jima – you may have heard of it.

About 8 o’clock that evening, there was some rifle fire and Jim was hit in the leg by a bullet.

At that very moment, it was still the breakfast hour in Jim’s parents’ home in Kentucky. Jim’s mother was serving breakfast to Jim’s father. Suddenly, she stopped, and turned pale. “Jim’s been hurt”, she said, as the Holy Spirit gave her the news.

Jim later mostly recovered, and he still had a bit of a limp in his 80’s when I knew him. But Jim was filled with the Spirit and wisdom, with more and more stories of the Spirit’s work.

The Spirit communicates with God – and can help us communicate with each other when the Spirit deems it to be important. In fact, the Spirit also helps us in times of trouble, praying FOR us when we cannot. As Paul wrote:

26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.

As we travel through life, we often feel that we are in a valley of despair. Things go wrong, bad things happen, people are mean and nasty to us. We may feel terrible and desperate. Our friends and neighbors and family often feel even worse, for they may not have the Rock that we call Jesus Christ to stand upon. We may feel like we are dead people walking, that we have been in the desert for years, or that our bodies have been roasted in a fire. We – or your friends – may have lost all hope. Do you feel like your bones are dry?

At times like these, it does us well to remember the last paragraph of our reading from Ezekiel:

11 Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’12 Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. 14 I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.’”

Are you filled with the Spirit? Do you have the Holy Spirit within you? Most baptized Christians do, but perhaps you have doubts. If you have doubts, visit a local pastor, ask him to lay hands on you that you may receive the Holy Spirit. And be filled with the Spirit!

Ascension Day

Acts 1:1-11; Psalm 47; Ephesians 1:15-23: Luke 24:44-53

There are some things about which the Biblical record is sparse. There are some areas where the Bible doesn't tell us as much as we'd like to know. For example, we have no information at all about Jesus' life from the time he was an infant until he was 12 and we see him scaring His mom and dad by staying behind to talk with the older priests at the Temple, and once again, we don't have any information about His life from the time He was 12 until He shows up to be baptized by John at the Jordan River when He was about 30 years old.

The time after the Resurrection is another of those times when we wish there was more said. Oh, yes, we have several recorded sightings of Jesus - eleven in all - where He appears and talks with different groups of disciples. Each is different - different people, often different places, different events. But there is an implication in some of the sightings that Jesus stayed around for hours or even days and taught the disciples much about Him that is found in the Old Testament scriptures. Yet we don't have this recorded. It is as if the Holy Spirit, working through the disciple's writings, says to us, "Isn't it enough that He came back alive?"

And so we come to our readings today, about forty days after Easter. Jesus had apparently been with a large group of the disciples, teaching them, when time expired. Forty, is the number of preparation in the Bible. It took forty days for the earth to dry after the Flood before Noah went forth. It took forty years before the Israelites could enter the Holy Land. Jesus took forty days in the wilderness to fast and pray before He began His ministry. And so, we now have the disciples taking forty days of instruction from Jesus before they will go forward with their ministries into the world. They walk outside of town, Jesus says a few words to them, and He takes off, literally floating up before them into the sky while the believers stand there with their mouths open staring into the sky and Jesus is going, going, gone! Jesus has left the planet!

Two guys in white robes suddenly appear beside them. I wonder if these are the same two angels that had the chance to tell Mary that Jesus was alive and would be waiting for the disciples in Galilee. Whoever they were, these two guys have a sense of humor. Looking at all these folks standing there with their mouths open, staring into the sky, they apparently materialize and say "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward Heaven?" and then they give a promise: "Jesus will return in the same way you saw Him leave."

Luke tells us that the group Jesus is teaching in the Gospel passage is "the Eleven and those with them, assembled together." In Acts, Luke tells us more about the group that went back into Jerusalem that day:

Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. 14 They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.

15 In those days Peter stood up among the believers (a group numbering about a hundred and twenty)"

This is quite important, because it helps us to understand to whom Jesus was speaking. You see, sometimes Jesus spoke to huge crowds, sometimes He spoke to only a small group of His disciples, others times He spoke to the Twelve, but this time Jesus is speaking to a group that includes not only the Eleven surviving disciples who would become known as the Apostles - you will recall that Judas hanged himself on Good Friday - but also Mary the mother of Jesus, his brothers including Joses, and James, as well as a group of women, and some other people, including Matthias (who became the replacement Apostle) and Barsabbas the Just, who was runner-up to replace Judas, and another hundred or so people. Therefore, we can safely conclude that whatever Jesus spoke during this time was directed toward all of His followers and not just the twelve Apostles.

Yes, these words of Jesus are directed toward you and me. It is interesting that three of the four Gospel writers record similar words during Jesus’ last hours on earth.

Hear these sets of commands again, the last words of Jesus spoken before He went back to Heaven:

From the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 24:

45 Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. 46 He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”

Luke points to the resurrection and tells us that "repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem" All nations will hear the good news that sins will be forgiven by God. But Luke also tells the listeners to stay in the city until power is given to them by God.

Again Luke, writing the Book of Acts, Chapter 1:

6 Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

7 He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

This time Luke is more detailed in his writing. The listeners will "receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon" them and be Jesus' "witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." The gospel message will be spread beginning in Jerusalem, which is the center city of the country, then Judea - the county-sized area around Jerusalem, and then Samaria, nearby, but home to people who were not Jewish, and then "to the ends of the earth". Putting this in a modern context, we are to be witnesses of Jesus first in Quiet Dell and Romines' Mill, then throughout Harrison County, then North Central WV, and then to foreign missions around the world.

From the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 16 we read:

15 He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. 17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”

Keep in mind that the signs will accompany those who believe, but this does not mean that all believers must have these powers. Some will, some won't. But the first line is a clear command: "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation." And Jesus was clear about the second line also: "Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned." Each person's eternal destiny hangs upon whether or not they believe the gospel or not.

And from Matthew 28 we hear this:

18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

And Matthew records that Jesus also made a clear statement: "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me." Do you believe this? If so, then the rest of the command is for you: "Therefore go...and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them...and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you."

If we believe in Jesus, then we are commanded to spread the Gospel, beginning close to home, in our personal Jerusalem, moving a bit wider in the county, and then working in the entire area, and finally traveling far and wide to tell people about the Gospel.

But first, you will notice that Jesus spent some time with the Apostles and the greater group of believers - 40 days, "opening their minds to the scriptures" and the believers waited to receive the Holy Spirit and the power of that Spirit.

Beginning next Sunday evening at 6 pm, we will have a five-week study specifically to prepare you to spread the Gospel to other people. Each Sunday evening we will spend one hour examining scripture, listening to the Holy Spirit, discussing the meaning, and role-playing to give you the knowledge and the experience to approach friends and neighbors and family with the saving Word of God. This begins next Sunday evening at 6 pm.

When Jesus left that day, He left us with one unanswered question: Why did He have to leave? Couldn't He have stayed with us?

But if we think it through, there is something Jesus understood far better than we do. As humans, we tend to act like sheep. Just like sheep, when we see someone leading us, we tend to follow. And when we really trust in that leader, we also tend to follow more than perhaps we should.

Jesus understood that our natural tendency would be to hang out with Jesus and not do anything else. We see that in the church today - we feel inadequate, we feel uneducated, we feel like we can't speak well enough to talk to other people about Jesus. And so you hang out at the church, listening to a grey-haired fat man speak up front as though I know more about God than you do. Maybe I do - and maybe I don't.

But what I do know is this: God has worked in your life. There have been times in your life when your faith in the power of Christ has lifted you up and kept you from completely falling to pieces. There have been times when you have lost a loved one and the only thing that kept you going was the sure, certain knowledge that your loved one was headed to be with Christ in Heaven. There have been times when your world has been shattered by a pink slip, by a bad medical report, by an emotional break-up, and the only thing that keep you from falling apart were the promises that Christ made you that God is watching you just as God watches each and every sparrow, and that God has a plan for your life which is designed to bring you good and not harm.

God does not want you dependent upon anyone except God. God wants you to completely put your trust in God the Father, to read and understand the commands of Jesus the Son, and to listen daily, hourly, even minute-by-minute to God the Holy Spirit as that Spirit leads you into all truth. Our purpose in getting together each week is to encourage each other, to support each other, and to help each other determine God’s will and do that will in our daily lives.

When you come here, the concentrated Holy Spirit helps you to grow closer to God, and your part of the Holy Spirit that you bring here helps other people to grow closer to God. Each day, each week that you show up here on Sunday mornings, on Sunday evenings, at mid-week studies is a time when the flame of the Holy Spirit has a chance to guide you through the words of a sermon, the teaching of a teacher, or the smile and hug of a dear friend – and you can do the same for another each time you show up, giving your friends around you great encouragement that you don’t see or understand, but which is real. When you show up at church, you both learn from people and help other people. You are important to the people who gather here each week.

Around you, everywhere, everyday, there are people who are hopeless, or who have put their hope in hopeless things. There are people who have no purpose and so they look toward violence and war to find purpose. There are people who have no cause and so they look toward strange and crazy causes to find meaning in their lives. They are waiting to hear from someone why life is not hopeless. They are waiting to hear from someone why their life has a future. While most of these people have no church home, some may actually be here today. Both those who never come to church and those who are here are waiting to hear from YOU about the saving love of Jesus Christ. You have the answer to what is wrong in their lives. Won't you turn to them and speak with them?

Let’s practice: Turn to the person beside you and tell them: “Jesus loves you, and so do I.” Now tell the person on the other side of you, or in front of you, or behind you the same thing. You’ve just told these people a third of the Gospel.

Now let’s try part 2: Turn to the person beside you and tell them, “Whatever it is that you are ashamed of, God will forgive it, because God is ready to forgive all sins. Do you want God to forgive you of some sin?” and if they answer “yes”, say, “In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven.” Now switch roles. That’s part 2 of the Gospel.

Now let’s go with part 3: Ask your neighbor if they are a baptized Christian. If not, ask them this: “Do you want to completely follow Jesus in word and deed?” If so, then offer to walk with your friend to the altar in the front of the church today. Who knows? There may be one or two of you that would like to get baptized this afternoon.

This, my friends, is one way that people come to the Gospel.

My friends, we have been commanded by Jesus Christ to deliver a message. That message is really quite simple: Jesus loves you. Jesus loves you so much that He died on the cross so that your debt to God could be paid. And God is ready to forgive you of all your sins, your crimes against God and other people if you simply will ask for that forgiveness. And the next act is to declare your intention to follow Jesus through words and through the deed of baptism. Through this you will receive eternal life and eternal communication with God through the Holy Spirit. And the final act is to follow those commandments of Christ, and become more like Him throughout your life.

Jesus went back to Heaven for one simple reason: He wanted us to step forward and grow closer to God by helping other people return to God. Jesus did not wish to leave us weakly dependent upon anyone, but wanted us to become strong, capable leaders of the faith, trusting in God the Father's plan and power – each of us.

There is a reason why every Ph.D candidate must teach others before receiving their degree – it is true that the teacher learns more about the subject than the students do when the teacher teaches. Find a friend or neighbor or family member to teach the Gospel to, and you will learn more about God and your relationship with God in a few days than you have in years. Do not let your fear or lack of knowledge hold you back – step out and learn about God through telling the Gospel.

As you go on your vacations this summer, as you meet people at the store or walking down the street, as you talk with friends and relatives and neighbors on the phone or over some barbeque – remember that you have been commanded by Christ Himself to share the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ with all people from all nations, both here, throughout the county and state, and even to the ends of the earth. Honor Christ’s sacrifice for you. Tell others about Him. Or explain to Him some day why you didn’t.

As we meet people, consider what is happening to them, and what you might say to them about God's love. Ponder this while you watch the following video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDDWvj_q-o8

We have the answer to these hurts and worries. Share the Good News.

Mother’s Day

Acts 10:44-48; Psalm 98; 1 John 5:1-12: John 15:9-17

I thought today about writing a sweet, touching tribute to Mothers because it is Mother’s Day. After all, the champion for this special tribute to Mothers, Anna Jarvis, waged her campaign only a few miles from here, from a house just south of Grafton. When Anna’s mother died in 1905, Anna began her campaign and was successful when the first Mother’s Day celebration occurred in 1908. Two years later, in 1910, West Virginia officially celebrated the day, and four years later, President Wilson proclaimed Mother’s Day throughout America. It is now celebrated in most countries throughout the world.

It is the mothers who most commonly put into your mind that there were good forces in the world and bad forces in the world. How many of you had a mother that told you, “If your best friend jumped off a bridge, would you do that too?” Mothers, it seems, were very quick to begin a tug of war for your souls. And so I thought I would simply write a sweet, touching tribute to Mothers.

But then I looked at the text for today, and I saw that this part of scripture is so important, so vital, so interesting that any Christian mother would prefer I said something about this to her children so that they might rest assured in the promises of Jesus Christ, and one day join their mother with Jesus in the next life.

In our third reading, the Apostle John writes: 5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.6 This is the one who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.

Let’s look at this in some detail.

John tells us that only those people who believe that Jesus is the Son of God are able to overcome the world. What does John mean by these words: “Overcomes the world?”

The Apostles understood from their conversations with Jesus that there is a cosmic, supernatural war going on between God’s forces of good and the devil’s forces of evil. God is much stronger, but God has set a special task for his side – God does not plan to win this war as an evil or human ruler would win, through the destruction of open warfare, but God plans to first convert as many people as possible from the side of evil to the side of good. God understands that warfare is damaging not only for the losers, but also for those who are victorious. God plans to win a victory that is good for God’s people, and even more so, rescue as many people as possible from the devil’s side.

There are multiple places in scripture where “the world” is talked about as a synonym for the devil’s side in this war. Make sure you understand this: This world is enemy-occupied territory, and God, through Jesus Christ, began to grow an underground, subversive movement that has already changed the world, and will continue to change the world as more and more people follow the teachings of Jesus. When your mother told you not to follow your friend’s leading, your mother was concerned that your best friend was part of the dark side and she wanted to keep you on the good side.

Thus, for someone to “Overcome the world” means for that person to break free of the system of evil thought that is commonly found in the world. This includes such ideas as revenge-taking, the rejection of all people who are different, and the use of money and other prestige items to determine the value of a person. The new system says that we teach people about the love of God, we embrace people of all types, that we understand that each person is an image of God, an intensely valuable portrait of God, and that we recognize that each person, no matter how rich…or how poor… is a damaged image in need of repair and healing. Jesus did not condemn people for sins they committed because they felt forced into those sins, but instead gave them forgiveness and a second chance and a third chance to change their ideas and follow Him.

But to follow Jesus, a person needs a deep assurance that Jesus is telling the truth when He claims to be God himself upon this earth – the Son of God. And so, John tells us that there are certain pieces of evidence and testimony which – if we understand them – can help us feel more certain that Jesus is indeed the Son of God and give us the assurance that we will indeed have eternal life.

The first line of evidence is Jesus “came through water and blood.” Our rescue from God’s wrath is only possible if we take care of two issues:

First, we must become spiritually pure. God will not associate with those who are tainted by the filthiness of sin – any sin. So God demands that we clean and purify our souls through the water of baptism. Baptism is how a person’s innermost heart is made pure through God’s action, as God applies a spiritual water to the heart at the same time the physical water is applied to the outer skin. As we step forward and ask that God clean us and forgive us from all sins, we show that faith – that trust – in God’s ability and goodness to fix what is wrong inside of us. This is the water part.

Second, we must satisfy an external requirement. In the law of Moses, God decreed that all sins must be atoned for – there must be a fine paid, a sacrifice made, and that sacrifice must be of the life-giving blood of some living creature. We saw in the Cain and Abel episode that vegetables and grain are not sufficient – only blood. And so for over a thousand years, the people of Israel sacrificed their best cattle and other livestock to pay for their sins. Yet, there were always sins that were not atoned for, sins that were not paid for. A tremendous debt had built up in the ledger that showed what people owed God for their disobedience.

And so, Jesus Christ offered Himself as a sacrifice upon the altar of the cross. Jesus was killed and sacrifice to pay our sin debt for all people, for all time. God mailed you a letter which clears your account of all your debts forevermore. And it is the blood of Jesus Christ that has paid that debt. All you have to do is open the letter and agree to it.

Do you remember what happened soon after Jesus died upon the cross? A Roman guard, checking to see if Jesus was dead, took a spear and punctured Jesus’ side. Out of the wound, according to John, flowed water and blood, which is completely consistent with a death partially due to the tremendous beating which Jesus endured, because the beating would have led to a loss of blood pressure which leads to water collecting in the lungs. The spear thrust would have penetrated the lungs, causing both water and blood to run out of Jesus’ body. Cleansing water and the sacrifice’s blood.

And so these two, the water of baptism and the blood of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus became the first two testimonies for John. Are you baptized? Do you believe the sacrifice happened? These two are the first three legs of a three-legged stool supporting our understanding of Jesus Christ as Son of God.

The third leg on the stool is the Holy Spirit’s testimony. John continues: “And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. 9 We accept human testimony, but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son.

When a person is baptized, the pastor lays hands upon the newly baptized and prays for the Holy Spirit to come into the person. And an amazing thing happens – over the next few days and weeks and years, the person – if he or she listens to the Holy Spirit – experiences a change. Following the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the new Christian finds a new, inner strength that helps them kick bad habits and adopt new habits. The new Christian becomes a kinder, gentler person who now genuinely cares for others. The new Christian, in short, becomes “filled with the Spirit” and truly changes. Of course, this only happens if the new Christian listens to the Holy Spirit.

And so, the Holy Spirit becomes the third testimony. Are you baptized, do you believe in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and are you listening to the Holy Spirit?

The neat thing about this is that the Holy Spirit gives both an internal and an external testimony. Internally, if you listen to the Spirit, the Spirit will tell you when you are following God’s will – and if you are, then you have eternal life. Externally, your friends and relatives will notice the personality change over the days and weeks and years, and may tell you so, particularly if you ask them about it.

Thus, there are three questions for you to answer if you want eternal life. These questions are in no particular order, and the events are not in a particular order.

First – have you been baptized? It doesn’t matter if you were very young, or if the baptism happened last week, for it is God who acted with permission – either yours or your parents – upon your heart. If you have not been baptized, contact me this week, for we will be having a group of people baptized next Sunday.

Second – Do you believe in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus, the Son of God, upon the cross? If you are unclear about this, or need to have some questions answered, join us some Sunday evening at 6 pm at the Defending the Faith study, which is a small group that discusses these sorts of things each Sunday evening.

Third – What does the Holy Spirit tell you and the people around you? Ask someone you trust, and ask that still, small voice inside of you whether or not you are a member of God’s Kingdom. Are you controlled by that Holy Spirit, or are you still controlled by a spirit that is of this world? See me if you cannot figure it out.

You know, many of us have mothers and grandmothers that have already gone to be with Jesus. Others are still here – many are sitting beside you today. If you want to truly make your mother proud, sit back and think through your ideas regarding the church. I know that some of you showed up today only because your mother asked you. And so I’m asking you – on behalf of your mother – to look once more at Christianity with an open mind, a mind that considers that there may be some people who hate Christians but don’t know Christianity, people who hate the church, but don’t know this church, people who consider Christian ideas to be foolish and unscientific and stupid, but who have never really considered why such people as the physicist Isaac Newton, the great politicians Winston Churchill, and Abraham Lincoln, the reformer Martin Luther King Jr, the inventor of genetics Gregor Mendel, the brilliant writers Harper Lee and Leo Tolstoy, the philosophers Augustine of Hippo and Soren Kirkengarde, and the mathematician and philosopher Rene’ Descartes and a third of the world’s population today are all committed Christian believers. Why do all these people believe in a "foolish, unscientific, and stupid" idea? Perhaps someone had an axe to grind? Perhaps someone started with a bias? Perhaps someone rushed to judgment? Perhaps that someone was you.

Perhaps you need to make your mother proud and take some time to examine the claims of Jesus of Nazareth once again. Feel free to email me your questions or send me a comment.

You know – we make a great deal of the time Mary spent on the donkey traveling to Bethlehem when she was pregnant, and the suffering she must have had. But there was a worse time for Mary. When Jesus was on the cross, a few minutes before He died, Jesus spoke to the apostle John. He motioned toward His mother, Mary, who was standing there, and said to John. “This woman is now your mother” and He said to Mary, “This man is now your son”.

The moment must have been terrible for Mary, for only one who has lost a son or a daughter can fully appreciate this terrible time. Mary must have felt that this was goodbye forever. But it wasn’t. Jesus came alive once more and spoke with her and then He saw her again, years later when she went to join Him with His Father. And our sons and daughters will also live again, and we will speak to them once more in just a little while when we go to be with Jesus and His Father. The waiting is hard, but God’s promises are solid.

In the meanwhile, Jesus was a good son. Jesus made sure His mother was well taken care of in her old age through his friend and student John. And history records that where John traveled to, Mary followed. Legend has it that she is buried somewhere in Ephesus, an important Christian center of the time in southwestern Turkey.

And I guess I’ve just given you both an important teaching about a text – and a sweet story about a boy and His mother.

Abide with Me

Acts 8:26-40; Psalm 22:25-31; 1 John 4:7-21: John 15:1-8

Last Tuesday Andy and I were driving down Route 50 on our way to our house in Lowell, Ohio. BTW, please keep praying for our house to sell. Along the way, as we drove through Doddridge County, I began to notice more and more redbud trees along the roadside. Finally, as we approached Pennsboro, we began to go through cuts in the hills along which dozens of redbuds were in full blossom. Their mauve flowers were almost fluorescent against the green background of the other trees. It was quite a sight.

The eastern redbud is an interesting tree. I have a friend who has a PhD in biology and is an expert on West Virginia trees. He tells me that the redbud is actually a legume, like a bean or a pea, but it grows like a tree that is 15 to 20 feet tall. It only grows where the soil has been disturbed, which is why we find it so close to roadsides and rarely find it deep within the woods. The redbud is a marker tree. It tells you that you are close to a road. Flying along in the springtime, you can find a road by looking for that reddish-purple glow.

It reminded me that along the highway of life, we find markers that tell us when we are on the right path and when we’ve left God’s road. Let me tell you about some of those markers, redbud trees that God uses to tell us when we are on God’s highway.

First of all, God’s ways lead us to a land of less stress. If we are constantly having stressful days, then something is wrong in your life – but it could be either of two things. Your stress could be caused by doing the wrong things, which leads you from God’s path, or your stress could be caused by doing the right things, but your friends and relatives want you to go away from God’s path. Despite the potholes on the highway, God’s highway is smoother than driving off the highway, going over the rumble strips and then going over the ditches into the woods. But in the same way, if you have been off the highway, the trip back across the ditch and then over the rumble strip is not smooth. Only you and the Holy Spirit can decide whether or not you are headed off the highway into the woods, or out of the woods onto the highway.

Here’s some help, though. If your friends constantly talk positively of God’s ways, and you are under stress, then you are likely trying to drive off the highway. If your friends are obviously committing grave sins, if they are far from God, and your encounters with your friends are stressful, then you are probably headed back toward the highway and it is your friends who want you to stay in the woods, lost from God.

Another of God’s redbud trees is joy. Joy is that emotion that is the glimpse of heaven on this earth. Some people think that joy is intense happiness. That may be true, but that is only one way that joy appears. Joy can appear as an intense sadness for something that is wrong in this life when you also know that it will be made right in heaven and the knowledge of the heavenly state overrides the earthly state, as when you see a young child who has tremendous God-given courage die from leukemia, but you are overwhelmed with a vision of that child running with Jesus in Heaven. That is also joy, and joy is one of God’s redbud trees, telling us that our minds and souls are following His highway.

Another one of God’s redbud trees is our recognition of the beauty of a moment that is godly. Look at our first reading – the eunuch was a smart man, but was lost. He cannot understand what he is reading, yet the Holy Spirit leads Phillip to run near the Ethiopian, and to explain to him all about the sacrifice that Jesus had made. The Ethiopian – a man who was lost to God a few hours earlier – recognizes that he is lost to God, understands from what Phillip has said what is necessary to bring him into a complete relationship with God, and says, - “look – here is some water. Why can’t I be baptized right now?” If you see this as a beautiful moment, a joyous moment when a great sadness in the world was replaced with rejoicing, then you have just seen a redbud tree and are on the right track.

And some days, God puts the redbud trees all over the place. Have you ever had days when a particular verse speaks to you when you open the Bible in the morning, for example one day you are struggling to accomplish something, and here comes this verse 5 from our Gospel reading: 5 “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing." And then, your friend reminds you that you can not accomplish anything unless you are doing God’s will. Then, driving down the highway you turn on the radio and the verse of the day is 5 “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing." And you pick up your child or grandchild from school and they tell you that God helped them on a math test today.

Redbuds all over. Redbuds all over your life highway that day.

And the key message from Christ that you get and hold onto is: Abide in Me.

Abide – it’s an older word. It means to live within. We abide in a house. We abide in our abode, our house. Christ tells us to live within Him, within His system. Christ tells us to let Him live within you, within your mind and heart and soul, speaking to you constantly through the Holy Spirit.

There is a process in our life that we all must go through.

First, we hear about Jesus, God , and Holy Spirit. We go to find them, perhaps at church, perhaps on a televised religious program, perhaps on the radio.

Next, we begin inviting Them home with us to visit. We sit in the pews and listen to the scripture and the sermons and perhaps we are baptized And so we sit in the pews and invite Jesus to visit us from time to time.

Then we go to the next step. We invite Jesus, God, and Holy Spirit to begin visiting us on a more regular basis, as we begin to think about Them outside of church, in our own homes, in our cars, at our work.

But this is not what Jesus tells us to do. Jesus wants us to let Him live within the home of our body. He wants to be with you every minute of every day. Jesus invites you to live with Him, and He wants to live with you, walking around with you all the time, becoming part of your life and having you become part of His life. Does Jesus live with you or only visit?

Have you ever met a married couple that did not live together? You’d expect that they had problems in their relationship and that a divorce was soon to follow, wouldn’t you? But imagine meeting a married couple that has never lived together, that after the wedding they went to separate homes and simply visited each other a couple of times a week. What a strange relationship?

But that is what many people do with Jesus. In many ways, your baptism is just as strong a declaration of relationship as a wedding ceremony is, yet so many people forget to take Jesus home with them after the ceremony, preferring to meet Him here at church, once a week for years, perhaps even less often. Is that what you are doing?

On the other side of this are the people who take Jesus home and never come to the parties that He throws – and don’t allow Him to throw parties at your home. That’s what church worship is, after all. It is a party where the friends of Jesus get together and celebrate the good things He has done for us. If you never come to the party, how will anyone know what He’s done for you. Of course, you may not notice what He’s done for you, and that’s why you haven’t been coming to the party. Of course, you might want to consider how often you talk with Jesus at home and how close your relationship is, if you never want to celebrate anything with other friends of Jesus. If you have a Christian friend who rarely visits church, you might want to mention this idea of the party to them.

Let me suggest something. Imagine that the year is 2017 – two years in the future. Someone has just been inaugurated as our next President, and suddenly you realize that the President’s son has just moved in next door to you. The son comes over to talk – he’s a really nice down-to-earth guy! and he invites you over to his house – he’s planning on grilling some steaks with his immediate family and would like you and your immediate family to join them. Wouldn’t you think – this is someone who would be good to know, someone who could help in a time of trouble, someone who you’d like to have for a friend? Or would you decline the invitation because his father’s name and power frighten and intimidate you?

Now I’d like you to take some time this afternoon to consider just what it means to abide with Jesus, to live with Him, to live with the son of the Creator of the Universe. Are you taking advantage of the wisdom that He brings and willingly shares? Are you taking advantage of the power to accomplish good that He brings? Are you asking this man who knows more than any other man questions about what you should do, how you should live, and what is best for you and your family? Or do you prefer to keep your distance because you are afraid to get too close to God, because you are afraid of losing your independence, because you are too arrogant to admit you need help?

Hear again the words of Jesus:

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away;[a] and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 3 You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.

5 “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. 7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will[b] ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. 8 By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.

The highway of life is indeed lined with God’s redbud trees. Why? Because the highway of life is God’s driveway, leading you to God’s house, where you are invited to abide with God and Christ forever. Will you abide with Christ – or will you be a branch that is cut off and thrown into the fire and burned?

Every good home is known for the joyful meals that are served in that home. Christ is throwing a meal for you today. Served today is bread which Jesus said is His body which was broken for you, and the juice of grapes, which Jesus said was His blood which was shed for you. All who are friends or wish to be friends of Jesus are welcome at His table, but He asks two things of us before we eat.

First, He asks us to come to the table with a humble spirit, leaving our arrogance behind. Thus we will shortly pray a prayer of humbleness and ask forgiveness for the wrongs we have done. Secondly, Jesus asks us to be at peace with one another when we come to His table, and so we will shortly shake hands and hug each other, forgiving all who have harmed us and asking forgiveness for the harms we’ve done others.

When you receive the meal, you may pray at the altar by kneeling or standing. Any funds left on the altar rail will be used to help those in our community who are needy.

The Power of Agape

Acts 4:5-12; Psalm 23; 1 John 3:16-24: John 10:11-18

There are some times in this job when the sheer breath and depth and extent of misery in this world comes back to me and I feel overwhelmed. About two weeks ago, Saundra and I went to Crisis Intervention training, learning how to help people when sudden negative events happen such as a school shooting, a sudden death in the family, a house burning down, or some similar issue. Immediately upon coming home, we were called to the home of a family who had lost a son. Over the next few days, between our six churches, there were a total of four families that lost loved ones and another three are worried that they may get the call within days. And we are asked to bring strength and comfort to all of these families, families who are experiencing death which has either just arrived or will come soon. Some are concerned, some are frightened, some are being strong, some are angry, some have dissolved in tears. Most of you have experienced this in your own family at one time or another.

When we show up, a strange thing happens, though. Not through anything we do, but it is as though an embodied Hope walks through the door, for when people look to us, they remember the Loving God that we represent. We know it isn’t us, for we aren’t that special – it is not us that cheers someone up, it is simply the reminder that God and Christ love you that happens because you have seen and heard us speak so often of that love. In many cases, I have walked into a home, been introduced to family as “our preacher”, and even before I can say a word I’ve seen this effect happen with people whom I’ve never met before, so I know that it isn’t me. I am just a walking billboard that says, “God is here with you and there is hope!” It is an amazing, yet humbling experience.

And this is what keeps us going despite all the sadness we see, the tears that stain our shoulders, and the fact that we are recognized on sight by the triage nurse at the hospital. It is the amazing power of what simply remembering God’s love does for people. And all we have to do is to walk in the room and most people are reminded of that love. Oh, we say are few things, we listen to the stories, and we point people to some important parts of Christ’s ministry, but ultimately, we simply watch God’s love do its amazing work as people remember it.

And that is the amazing thing. There is tremendous power in simply remembering God’s love. Remind people of that love and watch the goodness happen.

God’s love is a different sort of love. It isn’t just that God’s love is far, far more intense than any emotion that we have ever felt, far deeper than the greatest love we have ever felt, far more compelling than our love for child or grandchild. God’s love is of a different sort. Let me explain.

In ancient Greek, the original language of the New Testament, there are four different words which we translate into English as “love”.

First, there is eros, the physical romantic love most commonly found between a man and a woman. This is the love that usually leads you to get married. Eros is possessive, you must HAVE the object of your love. It is a burning desire, and resembles hunger or thirst.

Second, there is phileo or brotherly love. This love is found between two good friends or two family members, a love where we have found someone we can count on, a reciprocating love – you help me and I help you, we work together and have fun together. Phileo is enjoying the companionship of a friend, even the love between a boy and his dog. Think of it as the appropriate love of two good friends for one another.

Third, there is storgi, or affection. This is the love of a grandparent for your grandchildren, or of a parent for a child. It is also the love of the child for the parent or grandparent. Storgi is the love that the Queen of England has for her Corgi dogs (Storgi for Corgi's - get it?) , or the love of a woman for the deer that walk into her yard every morning. Storgi is close to a feeling of loving familiarity for the person or object that we feel storgi for.

And so we have the three human loves – Eros, which is romantic love. Philios, which is brotherly love, and storgi, which is affection. Each of these loves has a payback – Eros provides us with sexuality, Philios provides us with partnerships and friends to barter work with, and storgi establishes bonds which help us in our old age.

But God showed us another type of love, a love-word which really came into the Greek language through the letters and Gospels of the New Testament. Before the New Testament, this word barely existed. But it dominates New Testament writings about love.

The word is agape.

Agape love is a self-sacrificing, freely given love which has action. Agape is not content to just speak words of love to the recipient – Agape does, just as Christ did not just tell us He loved us, but took action to show this. Agape love is love that has action, like a group of North Carolina women who repair roofs for free. Let us look at some examples of Christ’s agape love for us.

First, while many people felt pity for the poor and some people felt pity for those who were forced into sinful ways such as prostitution, collecting taxes for the occupying Romans, or were captured by the addiction of alcohol, Jesus did not simply say: Isn’t it sad about these people.

No, Jesus sat down with them and ate with them, and brought the poor into the homes of the men who had stolen money for the Romans and shared supper together with both of them. He ate with those who were alcoholics and did not condemn them. He allowed prostitutes at his table and treated them as human beings instead of animals.

There was a cost for this. There were “good people” who thought this was not proper conduct for a rabbi, it was not dignified enough, it was not what a real rabbi should do and so they gossiped about Jesus. Yet Jesus cared enough for these people who were on the outside of society to bring His company to them, to teach them, and to help them make friends with each other, for social friendships are part of what gives people hope and strength and the power to improve their situations.

Second, Jesus healed many people, and did not charge for this service. There were some doctors who had some basic grasp of basic medicines, but they always charged for their services. Jesus gave His agape love medical treatments free of charge and even went so far as to sometimes tell the recipients of particularly powerful miracles to keep quiet and not tell anyone how they were healed. In return for this, Jesus was overwhelmed with people needing care.

Jesus even healed people who were outside of all normal bounds in society once again at the cost of poor press and gossiping about Him. He healed the daughter of a Roman centurion, a man who led 100 men into battle and was there to occupy the lands around Jerusalem. He healed lepers even though leprosy was a contagious disease and touching a leper was forbidden because it made you “dirty”.

There was no direct payback for Jesus’ agape love through His healing ministries and His friendships He developed with the outcasts.

And then, of course, He demonstrated the ultimate act of agape love. Knowing what was to happen, He walked to Jerusalem, goaded the authorities into arresting Him, and was executed, a great sacrifice in front of God to pay for all of our crimes against God. Jesus spoke of His upcoming sacrifice:

17 The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.

The Apostle John was much affected by Jesus’ sacrifice. It changed John’s life completely. In his Gospel, John referred to himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (egape). Many years later he wrote: 16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.

The word John used for love was agape. “This is how we know what agape is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.

John continues:

And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 17 If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

And so, with the teachings and example of Jesus, with this letter from John, the early Christians began to agape people not just with words or speech, but with actions and in truth. They built the first hospitals, they became known as peaceful, loving people. They worked together to save the world’s culture when Rome was sacked, with monks spending long days carefully copying old books by hand and making new copies for no direct benefit to themselves. Untold millions became priests and nuns and served God and other people in exchange for a life of poverty and no family. Many thousands of others left their homes and went in search of towns and villages who had never heard the Good News of Christ’s sacrifice and they became known as missionaries. As the hospitals grew, many Christians became doctors and nurses and worked for untold hours among misery and death.

And later on, as governments stopped supporting the churches, ordinary people gave of their own money to support the churches, to support the missionaries, to support the hospitals and missions and food pantries and children’s camps and all sorts of aid programs as ordinary Christians learned to agape love with actions, sacrificing a new set of clothing for themselves so that others might have clothes, sacrificing a meal for themselves so that others would have a least one good meal, sacrificing time in the service so that others could hear the Word of God, sacrificing, sacrificing, sacrificing – showing agape love to others.

And the world was changed.

All because one man chose to die a gruesome, horrible death so you did not have to die. We all feel we owe Him everything – but He would have done it even if you never felt that way. He only asks – if this has changed your life for the better, go and show agape love to others.

Once while Saundra and I were in Atlanta, we had severe money problems. That evening, we heard a noise at the front door and found two friends trying to slip an envelope filled with money between our screen door and the inner door. Caught in the act, they admitted that they had felt that God was asking them to give the money to us. It made a real difference that week – both the money and the fact that we now knew someone cared about us enough to do that for us.

Another time we had to move from our rented home to another because our landlord had sold the property. Saundra was very pregnant, and I was covered up in our ink business and had no spare cash to pay movers or time to move us. And then we heard from our youth leader that the youth needed a project and wondered if they could help us move? That Saturday, about 40 youth and parents showed up, packed us, moved us, and largely unpacked us in about 8 hours. It was wonderful!

And then there was the time one of the Chinese students we mentored asked me a question which had been bothering him for some time. In China, as you know, Christianity is growing fast, but in many urban areas Christian ideas are still largely unknown or misunderstood. And so the concept of agape is not very widespread in China.

My friend asked me, “Why do American Christians want to adopt Chinese baby girls, even those with disabilities?”

In his world, without agape, this made no sense at all. You see, in China daughters are usually considered liabilities, because they marry and leave the family. It is the son who takes care of mother and father when they grow old, and so the “one-child” rule in some areas lets you have a second child if the first child is a daughter. But two strikes and you are out. And with some families, when the first child is a daughter and the second child is also a daughter, she ends up being discovered by someone else in the park, particularly if she was born with disabilities, and the authorities take her to an orphanage. And so, for my friend, he could not understand why anyone would want to adopt a child who was obviously going to be a financial burden.

And so I was given the opportunity to explain agape love to him.

And so I ask you: How much agape love do you have? How much like Christ are you?

Do you pity those in our county who are old and sick, or do you show agape love in action to them by visiting them, talking with them, praying with them, reading a Bible with them, fixing them lunch, or cleaning their houses?

Do you pity those in our county who are poor, or do you show agape love in action by visiting them, teaching them, fixing their homes, inviting them over for lunch?

Do you shy away from those who look or speak differently from us, or do you greet them and welcome them into the community, learn who they are, help them adjust to a new place, introduce them to your friends, share a meal with them?

Do you complain about those neighbors who do not take care of their homes, or do you mow their lawns for them because they are working three jobs and don’t have time, do you paint their fences, help them fix their cars, bring your pickup over and help them take that old sofa to the dump?

Agape love – the self-sacrificing love that Christ showed us – has changed the world for a better place. What agape love will you show and do that will change the world and the people around you?

For you see, agape love is what comes from God. As John wrote: 19 This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: 20 If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. 21 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22 and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. 23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. 24 The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them.

You see, when we see something in this world which needs to be set right and we do not act, our hearts will condemn us as the Holy Spirit speaks to us. But if we show agape love in these situations, we are following God’s commands and the Spirit lets us be at rest, secure in the knowledge that we have loved one another as Christ commanded us.

I read somewhere this week that Americans are the richest people on earth and are also those people who are least likely to see themselves as rich. Look at your riches – not only your bank accounts, but your appliances, your homes, your cars, your education, kitchen pantry, your land, your spare time, your knowledge, your skills, your wisdom, your standing in the community. What of those could you use to make life a little bit better for someone else?

Each of these riches has been a gift from God to you, a gift to you which you could give to another and tap into God’s power to create and change the world, the power for positive change which is agape love. What do you have to fear? God has blessed you many times in your life already. Won’t God bless you even more if you follow God’s will? Perhaps not financially – but perhaps in many, many other ways.