I hope you have seen God in your life this week. Sunday we had a Spirit-filled time of experiencing God moments. We watch a clip from “O Brother Where Art Thou?” and the sermon was called, “Down to the River.”
Downlaod it here: http://www.mediafire.com/file/2cwfynmiwb3/Down to the River.mp3
or read the text below.
“Down to the River”
Brimfield Faith UMC
April 25, 2010
Acts 9:1-6; Ruth 1:16-18
INTRO – GOD MOMENTS
We are going to begin this morning by watching a movie clip from, “O Brother Where Art Thou?” The movie is loosely based on Homer’s The Odyssey, and is about three escaped convicts who set off in search of a buried treasure. In the scene we are going to watch, Everett, played by George Clooney, Delmar and Pete are on the run when they encounter a congregation going down to the river for baptism. Let’s watch now… [BAPTISM CLIP]
As we continue “Gone Country,” we turn to from country music to movies. The goal of “Gone Country” has been to find Christ in the culture and to talk about spiritual issues in non-spiritual ways. This baptism scene is one of my favorites in an excellent movie. It presents an obviously spiritual act in a creative and engaging way. This movie without being heavy handed, depicts what can happen when God is active in the world and when we become aware of God’s presence.
While the Holy Spirit is constantly active in the world, there are times when the Spirit seems to move in special ways. During these times when the Spirit chooses to break into our world, we have the opportunity to experience a God moment. A God moment happens when our spirits become tuned to God’s Spirit and we enter into the experience. These types of God moments happen all throughout the Scriptures: Moses and the burning bush, Jesus’ healing miracles, Pentecost, etc… These mountaintop experiences have the potential to radically change the trajectory of a person’s life. Several things happen as we enter into the God moment that I’d like to mention this morning.
THE WAYWARD
#1. Every God moments make us aware of our sinfulness.
The scene we watched shows the gang of three escaped convicts going about their business eating roasted gopher. As they are eating a congregation of believers dressed in white robes approaches the river singing. The atmosphere of the woods shifts. Once a refuge to fugitives the woods are transformed as they are invaded by the Spirit of God. As this happens, we see the stark contrast between the godliness of the congregation and the ungodliness of the gang.
As the gang watches the congregation begin the act of baptism, there arises an awareness of their sin. These are bad men. They have committed crimes. They have been in jail. They are not only are they criminals, but escaped criminals. Being in the midst of the congregation, they are fully aware of their transgressions and wayward ways. As they become aware of their sin, the gang’s God moment has begun.
In Acts 9, we encounter another God moment in the Scriptures. Acts 9:1 reads, “Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.” Paul, like the gang, was a bad dude. He was religious zealot, who had gone completely wayward. Not only did he fail to recognize Jesus as the messiah, he distorted his religion for personal gain. He persecuted, jailed and killed Christians for their beliefs.
On his way to Damascus to persecute the Christians, God’s Spirit breaks into his midst as well. “Suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” In this moment, Paul becomes aware of his sinfulness and his wayward ways. Paul’s God moment has begun.
Every God moment starts when the Spirit of God breaks into world. When people come in contact with the holiness of God, they become acutely aware of their unworthiness, their sinfulness, and their shortcomings. The reality of Romans 3:23 becomes self-evident: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” We don’t talk much about sin these days. In a pluralistic society, sin has become taboo. In a God-moment, we don’t have to talk about sin. Instead the presence of the Holy Spirit will bring an acute awareness of your sin. This awareness isn’t condemnation or judgment, it simply becomes a reality. We can feel nothing else except like dirty rags in the presence of pure holiness.
If we sense God’s Spirit has broken into a situation, this awareness of sin will shortly follow. As we embrace and acknowledge our own sinfulness, we are invited to fully enter into the God moment.
THE INVITATION TO REPSONSE
#2. Every God moment involves an invitation to respond.
As God breaks into a situation, there will always be an invitation to enter into the moment. God moments are never meant to simply be observed because God wants us to relate to him. God moments beacon us to take an active role in the work God is doing. The invitation demands that we respond to what God in doing in the situation.
The invitation in the movie is heard in the song that the congregation sings on their way to the river. “O sinners lets go down. Let’s go down, come on down. O sinners lets go down. Down in the river to pray.” As Delmar watches the event unfold, he gains a keen sense of God’s presence. The longer he watches, the strong the invitation gets, until he can no longer resist and leaps into the waters of forgiveness. Delmar and then Pete enter into the God moment by stepping into the waters and being baptized. In contrast, Everett witnesses the same events but doesn’t experience the God moment because he doesn’t respond to the invitation.
To return to the story of Paul in Acts 9 hears the invitation in the form of a question: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” Paul responds by asking, “Who are you, Lord?” In this response, Paul is acknowledging the presence of God. Then, “The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” Paul chooses to respond to invitation and enters fully into the God moment. He gets up, goes to Damascus, and waits for further guidance from God. He actively responds to the invitation and participates in the work of God in his life.
Every God moment, involves resistance to the response.
In Revelation 3:20 Jesus says: “Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me.” In every God moment, we have the choice as to whether we will open the door and dine with Jesus. There are a number of reasons that we don’t respond to the invitation. For some, we have been taught that religion is a passive pursuit. Others miss God moments because we heed to voices that discount the experience as it happens. The voices of the evil one will attempt to mislead and distract us during every God moment.
While the voice of the Lord invites us to engage in the experience of God, there will always be voices telling you to resist. In each of these situations, there was a choice as to whether they would participate in the event or not. Delmar could have stood on the side and mocked the people in their robes along with Everett. Instead, he rushes into the waters and engages with God’s Spirit. Paul in a similar way chooses to obey the voice of the Lord by going to Damascus and waiting for God. Instead, he could have listened to the religious leaders he was trying to gain favor with and ignored it.
The reality is that we must participate with God to create God moments. The voices are different for each of us. Although we don’t actively reject the invitation to enter into the God moment, we also don’t actively respond to it. As a result we miss the potential impact of the moment because we don’t act.
THE RESULT
When we choose to resist the voices of opposition and to actively enter into a God moment, our lives will be forever impacted. The invitation to respond to God is an invitation to a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ. Each time we choose to interact with God’s Spirit, we become more like him. For each person and for each experience something different happens. We might know his love deeper. We might experience his forgiveness more fully. We might be healed by his presence. We might be renewed in spirit. The possibly results of a God moment are truly endless.
God moments cannot be manufactured, but I prayed this morning might turn into a God moment for us. So instead of talking a bunch more about God moments, I want to pray and invite the Holy Spirit to show up in this place. The baptismal is placed up front. You are invited to come forward during and after the last song. Remember your baptism if you’ve been baptized. If you are so moved, kneel around the altar in prayer. Allow God to move in the moment and to touch your heart.
Let’s pray… COME HOLY SPIRIT!
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Git'n Thru
This week in Gone Country we talked about “Git’n Thru” the struggles we face in life. We learned that sometimes we make our struggles worse than they need to be. It is important to continue to seek God and to trust the Lord through all of life’s circumstances. If you missed the serrmon, follow this link to download the audio or read the text below.
http://www.mediafire.com/file/mdemhmm1gig/Git'n Thru - 2.mp3
For those of you with the study guide, the answers are in bold!
“Git’n Thru”
Brimfield Faith UMC
Jonah 2; Galatians 6:7-10
April 18, 2010
INTRO
Rob said to me at practice Wednesday night, “I can’t believe you are having me sing this song in church.” Some of you might be thinking that right now… I hope not, but understand that from a glance, “If You’re Going through Hell,” seems like a pretty secular song. After all, the language of this song isn’t exactly very spiritual. That’s one of the reasons I like it so much because the song uses non-spiritual language to talk about spiritual issues.
Talking about spiritual issues with non-spiritual language helps us to see God in a chaotic world. This series, “Gone Country” is an exercise in using non-spiritual language to identify spiritual things. Last week, we began with the song, “I Saw God Today,” and we talked about some keys to seeing God act in the world. The first key was to know the Scriptures and the second key was to slow down. I hope you have been able to recognize God in unlikely places and circumstances over the last week.
If you didn’t, you might not have been looking hard enough. This week at our council meeting, I heard incredible reports of God’s actions in the world. People are continuing to be healed as a result of our prayers. I even saw God in our parking lot this week. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but we are running out of space in our parking lot. That is something to rejoice about because it means we are reaching people with the message of Jesus Christ. It also provides us a challenge to create additional space to reach additional people. But nonetheless I was able to see God in the problem this week. God is working in powerful ways as people’s lives are being transformed.
GOING THROUGH HELL
This morning’s song, “If You’re Going through Hell,” guides us on a journey of faith and hardship. The song when heard through the lens of faith can provide some important insights into making it through hell and through the difficult periods of our lives.
#1. Verses 1 and 2 address the struggles of life.
The first verse sings about the struggles that we all find ourselves in from time to time. A harsh reality of life is that things are always easy. We will all encounter stresses, anxieties, challenges, and roadblocks throughout our lives. There will be days when wake up late, leave our lunch at home, hit every red light, and spill our coffee at the stop light. When those days or periods of our lives happen, we can relate to the first verse of the song. “I don’t mind if ya kick me, seems like everybody has. Things go from bad to worse, you’d think they can’t get worse than that and then they do.”
While the first verse recognizes the shared human struggle, the second verse gives us further insight into the source of those struggles. “You step off the straight and narrow and you don’t know where you are. Use the needle of your compass to sew up your broken heart. Ask directions from a genie in a bottle of Jim Beam and she lies to you.” While there will always be the random sickness, unexplained tragedy, or the catastrophic natural disaster, many of the struggles in life are self-inflicted. The song is speaking to the biblical proverb, “You reap what you sow.”
When times get tough, we have a way of making them tougher. Many times when we encounter hardship, we attempt to escape the stress instead of resolve the issue. As we try to escape our difficulties through bad habits, unhealthy behaviors and addictions. While these forms of escape may seem to help for a short period of time, eventually they will catch up with us. Each time we chose to engage in escapism, we sow into the temporary reliefs of the flesh. Galatians 6:7-8 also address the self-inflicted struggles of life, “Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow. If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh.”
When we live life in ways contrary to God’s, our poor choices eventually will come back to haunt us. We know we cannot find the answers to our struggles in the bad habits and unhealthy behaviors. Nonetheless many people remain trapped hardship, because one rough spot quickly spirals out of control and becomes a self-perpetuating cycle. Thankfully the cycle can be broken and the struggles overcome.
#2. Verse 3 calls us to break the self-destructive cycle.
Verses three of the song transitions us from finding direction through the bottle to finding direction from better sources. It begins, “Well I been deep down in that darkness, I been down to my last match, felt a hundred different demons breathing fire down my back. And I knew that if I stumbled I’d fall right into the trap they were laying.” If we are going to make it through hell, we need to recognize there are forces in the world that seek to bring us down. The reality is that those destructive forces only have as much power as we give them. When we chose destructive behaviors as a form of escape, we fall directly into the hands of the evil one. This magnifies our current struggles and perpetuates a self-destructive cycle.
This cycle will continue until we become aware of our poor choices. If we truly want to escape our present struggles, then we must resist the temptations and traps that lie before us. The escapism that we embraced in our past will never lead us to a better place. Instead we need to turn from these choices and turn back to God.
Earlier, Olivia read us a prayer of Jonah. In this prayer, Jonah, from the belly of a fish, seeks to break his own self-destructive cycle. “As my life was ebbing away, I remembered the LORD; and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple. Those who worship vain idols forsake their true loyalty. But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay. Deliverance belongs to the Lord!” 10 Then the Lord spoke to the fish, and it spewed Jonah out upon the dry land.” Breaking the cycle can be more difficult than we might think, but thankfully we aren’t left to do it alone.
#3. Verse 4 reveals God’s mercy in the struggles of life.
As Jonah turn to God in attempts to resolve his struggles, God pours out his mercy upon him by having the fish spew Jonah out upon the dry land. Verse four talks about the God’s mercy active in our lives. “But the good news is there’s angels everywhere out on the street. Holding out a hand to pull you back upon your feet. The one’s that you been dragging for so long, you’re on your knees, you might as well be free.” God’s presence continually surrounds us. As we learn to receive it, it helps to make us free. God’s mercy is all about God’s steadfast, continual love. It can be understood as not getting what we deserve. God’s mercy pulls us back to our feet. God’s mercy spit Jonah out of the fish. God’s mercy gives us a second chance at life.
It is God’s mercy that leads us back to God. In Romans 2:4 Paul asks, “Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?” God’s mercy brings us back from the place of brokenness and puts us back together. We see God’s mercy extended through the helping hands of humans and angels. Ministries like our food cupboard extend God’s mercy to people in their struggles. We have all been one the receiving end of a compassionate act of a stranger in times of need. It is important to support mercy ministries because it is God’s love and mercy that woo people back to the Lord.
MEANS OF GRACE
To conclude this morning, I want to focus that which brings us through the difficult times in life and touch on how the practices which sustain us. This bring us to the chorus of the song.
#4. The chorus extends God’s grace to sustain us.
Where God’s mercy woos us back, it is God’s grace sustains us through the struggles of life. God’s grace is about receiving gifts from God that we do not deserve. The ultimate gift of God is the gift of His presence. Through the strength of the Holy Spirit, we are able to make it through hell and back to God.
In the chorus of the song, we get a clear picture about how God’s Spirit can help us make it through hell in one piece. “If you’re going through hell, keep on going. Don’t slow down, if you’re scared don’t show it. You might get out before out before the devil even knows you’re there. Yeah, if you’re going through hell, keep on moving. Face that fire, walk right through it. You might get out before the devil even knows you’re there.” Although the advice doesn’t seem that spiritual, it definitely is valuable. The advice touches on what we, as Methodists, call means of grace, the spiritual practices that help us receiving the sustaining strength of the Holy Spirit. These practices provide the strength to make it through hell and back to God.
The first spiritual practice is to always seek God.
The chorus sings, “Don’t slow down…” and “keep on moving.” Often when we encounter struggles, we put life on hold. We stop doing the things that bring us life. When we get super stressed out, we don’t make time to fellowship with friends. We don’t sleep enough. We don’t eat right. We stop praying and reading our Scriptures. We cut out Sunday morning worship. We begin to shut down the good in our lives and resort back to the self-destructive behavior.
When we encounter struggles we need to continue to seek God. Galatians 6 says: “If you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit. 9 So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up.” While we will need to eliminate certain behaviors, our focus needs to remain fixed on God. We need to sow good things so that we can reap good things. Each step we take towards God is a step we take out of hell. As I listen to the words “down slow down…” and “keep on moving…” I am reminded to sow into goodness by seeking God above all else.
The second practice is to maintain a trust in the Lord.
The chorus also sings, “If you’re scared don’t show it…” and “Face that fire, walk right through it…” Romans 8:37-38 teaches that we can conquer the struggles of life and make it through hell. “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Since we can never be separated from the love of God, we are able to face the fire and overcome feelings of fear. The song never purports that we can somehow escape walking through hell at times. There will be times of struggle in life. If we can rely on the Lord, we can get through the fires. Trust is found through supportive friends. It is found by meditating on Scriptures like Romans 8. These practices give us the ability to trust the Lord and to the strength to push through the difficult times.
CONCLUSION
Getting through the struggles of life, walking through hell, and making it back to God can be challenging. At the end of the day, it is the one who created you, God Almighty, who enables us to make the journey. It is through his mercy and his grace that we are sustained and make whole. I want to conclude this morning by praying for those of you who need an extra bit of God’s mercy and grace this morning.
Let’s pray…
http://www.mediafire.com/file/mdemhmm1gig/Git'n Thru - 2.mp3
For those of you with the study guide, the answers are in bold!
“Git’n Thru”
Brimfield Faith UMC
Jonah 2; Galatians 6:7-10
April 18, 2010
INTRO
Rob said to me at practice Wednesday night, “I can’t believe you are having me sing this song in church.” Some of you might be thinking that right now… I hope not, but understand that from a glance, “If You’re Going through Hell,” seems like a pretty secular song. After all, the language of this song isn’t exactly very spiritual. That’s one of the reasons I like it so much because the song uses non-spiritual language to talk about spiritual issues.
Talking about spiritual issues with non-spiritual language helps us to see God in a chaotic world. This series, “Gone Country” is an exercise in using non-spiritual language to identify spiritual things. Last week, we began with the song, “I Saw God Today,” and we talked about some keys to seeing God act in the world. The first key was to know the Scriptures and the second key was to slow down. I hope you have been able to recognize God in unlikely places and circumstances over the last week.
If you didn’t, you might not have been looking hard enough. This week at our council meeting, I heard incredible reports of God’s actions in the world. People are continuing to be healed as a result of our prayers. I even saw God in our parking lot this week. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but we are running out of space in our parking lot. That is something to rejoice about because it means we are reaching people with the message of Jesus Christ. It also provides us a challenge to create additional space to reach additional people. But nonetheless I was able to see God in the problem this week. God is working in powerful ways as people’s lives are being transformed.
GOING THROUGH HELL
This morning’s song, “If You’re Going through Hell,” guides us on a journey of faith and hardship. The song when heard through the lens of faith can provide some important insights into making it through hell and through the difficult periods of our lives.
#1. Verses 1 and 2 address the struggles of life.
The first verse sings about the struggles that we all find ourselves in from time to time. A harsh reality of life is that things are always easy. We will all encounter stresses, anxieties, challenges, and roadblocks throughout our lives. There will be days when wake up late, leave our lunch at home, hit every red light, and spill our coffee at the stop light. When those days or periods of our lives happen, we can relate to the first verse of the song. “I don’t mind if ya kick me, seems like everybody has. Things go from bad to worse, you’d think they can’t get worse than that and then they do.”
While the first verse recognizes the shared human struggle, the second verse gives us further insight into the source of those struggles. “You step off the straight and narrow and you don’t know where you are. Use the needle of your compass to sew up your broken heart. Ask directions from a genie in a bottle of Jim Beam and she lies to you.” While there will always be the random sickness, unexplained tragedy, or the catastrophic natural disaster, many of the struggles in life are self-inflicted. The song is speaking to the biblical proverb, “You reap what you sow.”
When times get tough, we have a way of making them tougher. Many times when we encounter hardship, we attempt to escape the stress instead of resolve the issue. As we try to escape our difficulties through bad habits, unhealthy behaviors and addictions. While these forms of escape may seem to help for a short period of time, eventually they will catch up with us. Each time we chose to engage in escapism, we sow into the temporary reliefs of the flesh. Galatians 6:7-8 also address the self-inflicted struggles of life, “Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow. If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh.”
When we live life in ways contrary to God’s, our poor choices eventually will come back to haunt us. We know we cannot find the answers to our struggles in the bad habits and unhealthy behaviors. Nonetheless many people remain trapped hardship, because one rough spot quickly spirals out of control and becomes a self-perpetuating cycle. Thankfully the cycle can be broken and the struggles overcome.
#2. Verse 3 calls us to break the self-destructive cycle.
Verses three of the song transitions us from finding direction through the bottle to finding direction from better sources. It begins, “Well I been deep down in that darkness, I been down to my last match, felt a hundred different demons breathing fire down my back. And I knew that if I stumbled I’d fall right into the trap they were laying.” If we are going to make it through hell, we need to recognize there are forces in the world that seek to bring us down. The reality is that those destructive forces only have as much power as we give them. When we chose destructive behaviors as a form of escape, we fall directly into the hands of the evil one. This magnifies our current struggles and perpetuates a self-destructive cycle.
This cycle will continue until we become aware of our poor choices. If we truly want to escape our present struggles, then we must resist the temptations and traps that lie before us. The escapism that we embraced in our past will never lead us to a better place. Instead we need to turn from these choices and turn back to God.
Earlier, Olivia read us a prayer of Jonah. In this prayer, Jonah, from the belly of a fish, seeks to break his own self-destructive cycle. “As my life was ebbing away, I remembered the LORD; and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple. Those who worship vain idols forsake their true loyalty. But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay. Deliverance belongs to the Lord!” 10 Then the Lord spoke to the fish, and it spewed Jonah out upon the dry land.” Breaking the cycle can be more difficult than we might think, but thankfully we aren’t left to do it alone.
#3. Verse 4 reveals God’s mercy in the struggles of life.
As Jonah turn to God in attempts to resolve his struggles, God pours out his mercy upon him by having the fish spew Jonah out upon the dry land. Verse four talks about the God’s mercy active in our lives. “But the good news is there’s angels everywhere out on the street. Holding out a hand to pull you back upon your feet. The one’s that you been dragging for so long, you’re on your knees, you might as well be free.” God’s presence continually surrounds us. As we learn to receive it, it helps to make us free. God’s mercy is all about God’s steadfast, continual love. It can be understood as not getting what we deserve. God’s mercy pulls us back to our feet. God’s mercy spit Jonah out of the fish. God’s mercy gives us a second chance at life.
It is God’s mercy that leads us back to God. In Romans 2:4 Paul asks, “Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?” God’s mercy brings us back from the place of brokenness and puts us back together. We see God’s mercy extended through the helping hands of humans and angels. Ministries like our food cupboard extend God’s mercy to people in their struggles. We have all been one the receiving end of a compassionate act of a stranger in times of need. It is important to support mercy ministries because it is God’s love and mercy that woo people back to the Lord.
MEANS OF GRACE
To conclude this morning, I want to focus that which brings us through the difficult times in life and touch on how the practices which sustain us. This bring us to the chorus of the song.
#4. The chorus extends God’s grace to sustain us.
Where God’s mercy woos us back, it is God’s grace sustains us through the struggles of life. God’s grace is about receiving gifts from God that we do not deserve. The ultimate gift of God is the gift of His presence. Through the strength of the Holy Spirit, we are able to make it through hell and back to God.
In the chorus of the song, we get a clear picture about how God’s Spirit can help us make it through hell in one piece. “If you’re going through hell, keep on going. Don’t slow down, if you’re scared don’t show it. You might get out before out before the devil even knows you’re there. Yeah, if you’re going through hell, keep on moving. Face that fire, walk right through it. You might get out before the devil even knows you’re there.” Although the advice doesn’t seem that spiritual, it definitely is valuable. The advice touches on what we, as Methodists, call means of grace, the spiritual practices that help us receiving the sustaining strength of the Holy Spirit. These practices provide the strength to make it through hell and back to God.
The first spiritual practice is to always seek God.
The chorus sings, “Don’t slow down…” and “keep on moving.” Often when we encounter struggles, we put life on hold. We stop doing the things that bring us life. When we get super stressed out, we don’t make time to fellowship with friends. We don’t sleep enough. We don’t eat right. We stop praying and reading our Scriptures. We cut out Sunday morning worship. We begin to shut down the good in our lives and resort back to the self-destructive behavior.
When we encounter struggles we need to continue to seek God. Galatians 6 says: “If you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit. 9 So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up.” While we will need to eliminate certain behaviors, our focus needs to remain fixed on God. We need to sow good things so that we can reap good things. Each step we take towards God is a step we take out of hell. As I listen to the words “down slow down…” and “keep on moving…” I am reminded to sow into goodness by seeking God above all else.
The second practice is to maintain a trust in the Lord.
The chorus also sings, “If you’re scared don’t show it…” and “Face that fire, walk right through it…” Romans 8:37-38 teaches that we can conquer the struggles of life and make it through hell. “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Since we can never be separated from the love of God, we are able to face the fire and overcome feelings of fear. The song never purports that we can somehow escape walking through hell at times. There will be times of struggle in life. If we can rely on the Lord, we can get through the fires. Trust is found through supportive friends. It is found by meditating on Scriptures like Romans 8. These practices give us the ability to trust the Lord and to the strength to push through the difficult times.
CONCLUSION
Getting through the struggles of life, walking through hell, and making it back to God can be challenging. At the end of the day, it is the one who created you, God Almighty, who enables us to make the journey. It is through his mercy and his grace that we are sustained and make whole. I want to conclude this morning by praying for those of you who need an extra bit of God’s mercy and grace this morning.
Let’s pray…
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Seeing God
This week we will listen to “I Saw God Today” by George Strait. It has a pertinent message for the first week of the Easter season: recognizing God in the midst of a chaotic world. Like the disciples on the Emmaus Road who didn’t recognize Jesus, God is often in our presence and we fail to see it. This week we will seek to have our eyes opened that we might see the Lord.
“Seeing God”
Brimfield Faith UMC
April 11, 2010
Genesis 28:10-17; Luke 24:13-35
INTRO – GONE COUNTRY
Growing up I would tell people I listened to pretty much all kinds of music, except country music It wasn’t until I met my wife and was forced to listen to country music that I began to realize that it wasn’t as bad as I had imagined. The twang wasn’t as thick and the lyrics weren’t as hokey as I had thought. While it didn’t become an instant favorite, I came to realize that country music has its merits. As I was preparing for this series, it gained a few more points when I discovered that country is the type of music Jesus would have listened to if he was living today. Think about it, what else would a blue collar, carpenter living from country side listen besides Rascal Flats, Tim McGraw, and Johnny Cash.
Of course, we have no idea what type of music Jesus would listen to today. Since this is a bit of an unusual sermon series, I want to explain why we’re doing it. First and foremost is that many of you listen to country music. I think it is important to connect real life issues to spiritual ones. This is why I use movie illustrations, discuss current events, and address real life dilemmas. Faith is meant to be an integral part of everyday life not simply a Sunday morning endeavor.
Instead of treating everything in life as spiritual, we often create a division between the secular and sacred. Country music frequently bridges that divide and helps us realize that there is no separation between the secular and the sacred. It is one of the few musical genres that frequently sing about spiritual things in non-spiritual ways. There is a song on the radio called “People are crazy” that demonstrates this perfectly. The chorus is “God is great. Beer is good. People are crazy.” To see the spiritual component of everyday life can be challenging at times and my primary aim for Gone Country to make this pursuit easier.
BRIDGING THE GAP
I chose to start this series with the song, “I Saw God Today,” because it speaks to these very issues of seeing God in a chaotic world, and of discovering the spiritual in everyday life. George Straight expresses the sentiment of many Americans in the chorus of the song. “I’ve been to church. I’ve read the book. I know He’s here, but I don’t look near as often as I should.” The truth is we don’t look for God in everyday life. In fact, much of culture teaches us not to look for God. Instead we embrace a false dichotomy between the secular and the sacred.
We functional have placed God in a box and think that God only speaks in certain ways and through certain means. We subconsciously practice this line of thinking without even realizing it. Thinking that praying must be done with our hands folded and eyes closed instead of driving in the care or throughout the day at work is an example of this dichotomy. We think we must carve out time for spiritual pursuits instead of integrating them into everyday life.
In the Old Testament and in the Israelite mind, there were no separations between sacred and secular. Functionally, all of life contained a vital spiritual component. This is one of the reasons there are pages upon pages in the book of Leviticus that detail dietary laws. The average American does not consider eating a spiritual act in the least. To the average Torah-keeping Israelite eating was a deeply spiritual endeavor. The Israelites weren’t perfect in this practice though and they too regularly separated the spiritual from everyday life.
JACOB AND THE HUMAN CONDITION
The primary reason that the Israelites and Americans isolate their spirituality from the rest of their lives is because it is part of the human condition. We are fallen, broken, and lost people. We live in broken relationship with our Creator and outside of our created purpose. The human condition results in spiritual blindness. We not only separate faith from life but we fail to see God moving, acting and speaking in our lives. The Scriptures are full of stories where everyday people who keep their faith compartmentalized and miss God as a result. The story of Jacob’s ladder is a great example of this.
To appreciate the story fully you need a few background details about Jacob. Jacob was the younger of a set of twins born to Rebecca and Isaac. Jacob received his name from the way he exited the womb, grabbing his brother Esau’s heel. Jacob literal translates ‘heal grabber’ and generally means deceiver. As you read Jacob’s story, a good bulk of it is characterized by deceitfulness. He swindled Esau out of his birthright as first born. Then he stole the Father’s blessing from Esau. It was this act that set’s Esau off into a rampage vowing to kill Jacob as revenge. Jacob, then, flees for his life. The dream of Jacob’s ladder comes shortly after Jacob has fled for his life. When waking from the dream Jacob declares, “Surely the Lord is in this place – and I did not know it!”
Jacob’s life had been characterized by deceiving and manipulating others. His efforts to pull the wool over other people’s eyes led to him becoming blind to the presence of the Lord in his own life. After the dream and the revelation of the Lord, Jacob’s life takes a turn towards being aware of God’s presence and serving the Lord. By the end of his life, Jacob becomes Israel and the Father of God’s chosen people.
While Jacob’s story is a prime example of the transformation that occurs when we learn to recognize God’s presence in the world, it doesn’t provide us with many tangible action steps. We can hope for a theophany, that is the Lord directly appearing to us, or we can rely on the wisdom and guidance found in other parts of Scripture. For the majority of you that aren’t banking on the dreams, I want to spend the rest of this morning devoted to looking at how we can see God in the world.
LESSONS FROM THE EMMAUS ROAD
To glean wisdom about seeing God in the world, I want to draw from one a story found in Luke 24. It is the story of two of Jesus’ disciples, who are walking home on the afternoon of Easter. They are dejected because they don’t fully comprehend the events of the past several days. They failed to recognize that Jesus needed to be crucified and resurrected to fulfill the Scriptures. As they are walking, a stranger joins them and along the way explains the Scriptures. Upon arrival at their home, they invite the stranger in for supper. At the table the strange man, breaks the bread and in the act the disciples realize that the stranger is Jesus. After a period of spiritual blindness, they, like Jacob, recognize they have been in the presence of the Lord. This story, I believe, touches on two keys to seeing God in the world.
#1. The first key to seeing God in the world is to know the Scriptures.
As the two disciples walked the road to Emmaus with the stranger, he explained the Scriptures to them. It wasn’t until after the Scriptures had been explained to them that they were able to see that God was in their midst. While nature can reveal certain things bout God, the Bible is the primary means through which God is revealed in the world. Without the Scriptures we are left guess as to what God is doing in the world.
In the song, “I Saw God Today,” Straight suggests he saw God in a variety of ways: “I saw a couple walking by they were holding hands…” A few lines later, “I stood there a minute takin’ in the sky, lost in that sunset…” Then he sings about, “My brand new baby girl, She’s a miracle…” In each of these cases, we take for granted that God is in them, but we cannot be sure in that without a knowledge of the Scriptures.
Take the first example of a couple holding hands. In some cultures holding hands in public, or any public display of affection, is considered obscene and offensive. Yet when we read Scripture, we learn about the importance of husbands and wives loving one another. In 1 John 4, we read: “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” So when we see a couple in a loving relationship, we can recognize the presence of God at work in their lives.
The same can be applied as we watch a sunset. If we watch a sunset through the eyes of a secular scientist, we might think about how the atmosphere refracts the beams of light to create a colorful sky. When we look at the sunset through a spiritual lens, we see the beauty of the God who created the entire universe. Even the birth of a child can been seen through a secular lens. Yet with Scripture, we recall the words of the psalmist in Psalm 139, “For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.”
Knowing the Scriptures enables us to recognize and reflect upon God’s presence in the world and in everyday events. Of course, simply having a through knowledge of the Scriptures will not ensure that you will see God. Memory verses don’t guarantee that you can see and appreciate the beauty of God. In the chorus of the song, Straight touches on this point: “I’ve been to church. I’ve read the book. I know He’s here, but I don’t look…”
#2. The second key to seeing God in the world is to tune your spirit to God’s Spirit.
If we are going to successfully recognize God’s presence in the world, we need to learn to sync are spirits to God’s Spirit. This is actually much easier than we might imagine because we have been created with build in God-radar. Inside of each of us, whether we realize it or not, is a little piece of God. We have been created with the image of God inside of us. When we come into the presence of God, the little piece of us alerts us to this reality.
We begin tune your spirits is by listen to your gut. I think the gut feeling we all get at certain times is God’s Spirit stirring inside of us. Often times, I believe it is trying to alert us that we are in the presence of God. The disciples on the road to Emmaus articulate this with the statement, “Were no our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening up the Scriptures to us?”
Our gut typically won’t tell us exactly how we are in God’s presence, but it alerts us like a metal detector alerts us to metal in the ground. We’ve all seen the old guy walking along the beach with the head set on waving the metal detector along the beach. Whenever the detector senses metal it makes a beeping noise. While the treasure hunter knows they are near metal, they must dig into the sand in order to discover what is below.
Many of us go through life ignoring the beeps from the metal detector. We become oblivious to our gut instinct, and subsequently, God’s activity in the world.
We continue to tune our spirits by slowing down. The song sings, “His fingerprints are everywhere, I’d just slow down to stop and stare, open my eyes and man I swear, I saw God today.” If you want to recognize God’s presence in the world, all of the clichés apply here. Slow down. Live in the moment. Stop and smell the roses. If we live life at breakneck speed, we will get whiplash every time to try to see God in the world. God moments can only be truly appreciated when we slow down our lives.
The practice of Sabbath can help significantly towards slowing life down and recognizing God’s presence in the world. Sabbath, originally, was the seventh day of the week and was intended to worship the Lord. God created us with a need to rest and be restored. To practice Sabbath of any sort you will need to fight for it. You will have to carve it out of your schedule. You might have to turn of cell phones, Blackberry’s and computers. When we practice a slowing down and a Sabbath we will be able to see God more clearly in the world.
CONCLUSION – ASK THE QUESTION
Hopefully, this morning has helped you to realize that recognizing God’s presence in the world isn’t as hard as it seems. It begins with acknowledging that everything in the world has a spiritual component to it. God is active in all facets of life. We simply need to learn how to see it. Most of this task can be accomplished by reflecting on one question each night before you go to bed: Where have I seen God?
When we stop to ask the question, we will be able to relate to the sentiment that “I Saw God Today” captures. I hope you will begin to ask the question. We will be asking the question corporately as we Go Country with Christ over the next several weeks. God’s presence can be seen in all aspects of life. There truly is no separation between the sacred and the secular. We will see that God’s Spirit can even be discovered in country music…
Let’s pray.
“Seeing God”
Brimfield Faith UMC
April 11, 2010
Genesis 28:10-17; Luke 24:13-35
INTRO – GONE COUNTRY
Growing up I would tell people I listened to pretty much all kinds of music, except country music It wasn’t until I met my wife and was forced to listen to country music that I began to realize that it wasn’t as bad as I had imagined. The twang wasn’t as thick and the lyrics weren’t as hokey as I had thought. While it didn’t become an instant favorite, I came to realize that country music has its merits. As I was preparing for this series, it gained a few more points when I discovered that country is the type of music Jesus would have listened to if he was living today. Think about it, what else would a blue collar, carpenter living from country side listen besides Rascal Flats, Tim McGraw, and Johnny Cash.
Of course, we have no idea what type of music Jesus would listen to today. Since this is a bit of an unusual sermon series, I want to explain why we’re doing it. First and foremost is that many of you listen to country music. I think it is important to connect real life issues to spiritual ones. This is why I use movie illustrations, discuss current events, and address real life dilemmas. Faith is meant to be an integral part of everyday life not simply a Sunday morning endeavor.
Instead of treating everything in life as spiritual, we often create a division between the secular and sacred. Country music frequently bridges that divide and helps us realize that there is no separation between the secular and the sacred. It is one of the few musical genres that frequently sing about spiritual things in non-spiritual ways. There is a song on the radio called “People are crazy” that demonstrates this perfectly. The chorus is “God is great. Beer is good. People are crazy.” To see the spiritual component of everyday life can be challenging at times and my primary aim for Gone Country to make this pursuit easier.
BRIDGING THE GAP
I chose to start this series with the song, “I Saw God Today,” because it speaks to these very issues of seeing God in a chaotic world, and of discovering the spiritual in everyday life. George Straight expresses the sentiment of many Americans in the chorus of the song. “I’ve been to church. I’ve read the book. I know He’s here, but I don’t look near as often as I should.” The truth is we don’t look for God in everyday life. In fact, much of culture teaches us not to look for God. Instead we embrace a false dichotomy between the secular and the sacred.
We functional have placed God in a box and think that God only speaks in certain ways and through certain means. We subconsciously practice this line of thinking without even realizing it. Thinking that praying must be done with our hands folded and eyes closed instead of driving in the care or throughout the day at work is an example of this dichotomy. We think we must carve out time for spiritual pursuits instead of integrating them into everyday life.
In the Old Testament and in the Israelite mind, there were no separations between sacred and secular. Functionally, all of life contained a vital spiritual component. This is one of the reasons there are pages upon pages in the book of Leviticus that detail dietary laws. The average American does not consider eating a spiritual act in the least. To the average Torah-keeping Israelite eating was a deeply spiritual endeavor. The Israelites weren’t perfect in this practice though and they too regularly separated the spiritual from everyday life.
JACOB AND THE HUMAN CONDITION
The primary reason that the Israelites and Americans isolate their spirituality from the rest of their lives is because it is part of the human condition. We are fallen, broken, and lost people. We live in broken relationship with our Creator and outside of our created purpose. The human condition results in spiritual blindness. We not only separate faith from life but we fail to see God moving, acting and speaking in our lives. The Scriptures are full of stories where everyday people who keep their faith compartmentalized and miss God as a result. The story of Jacob’s ladder is a great example of this.
To appreciate the story fully you need a few background details about Jacob. Jacob was the younger of a set of twins born to Rebecca and Isaac. Jacob received his name from the way he exited the womb, grabbing his brother Esau’s heel. Jacob literal translates ‘heal grabber’ and generally means deceiver. As you read Jacob’s story, a good bulk of it is characterized by deceitfulness. He swindled Esau out of his birthright as first born. Then he stole the Father’s blessing from Esau. It was this act that set’s Esau off into a rampage vowing to kill Jacob as revenge. Jacob, then, flees for his life. The dream of Jacob’s ladder comes shortly after Jacob has fled for his life. When waking from the dream Jacob declares, “Surely the Lord is in this place – and I did not know it!”
Jacob’s life had been characterized by deceiving and manipulating others. His efforts to pull the wool over other people’s eyes led to him becoming blind to the presence of the Lord in his own life. After the dream and the revelation of the Lord, Jacob’s life takes a turn towards being aware of God’s presence and serving the Lord. By the end of his life, Jacob becomes Israel and the Father of God’s chosen people.
While Jacob’s story is a prime example of the transformation that occurs when we learn to recognize God’s presence in the world, it doesn’t provide us with many tangible action steps. We can hope for a theophany, that is the Lord directly appearing to us, or we can rely on the wisdom and guidance found in other parts of Scripture. For the majority of you that aren’t banking on the dreams, I want to spend the rest of this morning devoted to looking at how we can see God in the world.
LESSONS FROM THE EMMAUS ROAD
To glean wisdom about seeing God in the world, I want to draw from one a story found in Luke 24. It is the story of two of Jesus’ disciples, who are walking home on the afternoon of Easter. They are dejected because they don’t fully comprehend the events of the past several days. They failed to recognize that Jesus needed to be crucified and resurrected to fulfill the Scriptures. As they are walking, a stranger joins them and along the way explains the Scriptures. Upon arrival at their home, they invite the stranger in for supper. At the table the strange man, breaks the bread and in the act the disciples realize that the stranger is Jesus. After a period of spiritual blindness, they, like Jacob, recognize they have been in the presence of the Lord. This story, I believe, touches on two keys to seeing God in the world.
#1. The first key to seeing God in the world is to know the Scriptures.
As the two disciples walked the road to Emmaus with the stranger, he explained the Scriptures to them. It wasn’t until after the Scriptures had been explained to them that they were able to see that God was in their midst. While nature can reveal certain things bout God, the Bible is the primary means through which God is revealed in the world. Without the Scriptures we are left guess as to what God is doing in the world.
In the song, “I Saw God Today,” Straight suggests he saw God in a variety of ways: “I saw a couple walking by they were holding hands…” A few lines later, “I stood there a minute takin’ in the sky, lost in that sunset…” Then he sings about, “My brand new baby girl, She’s a miracle…” In each of these cases, we take for granted that God is in them, but we cannot be sure in that without a knowledge of the Scriptures.
Take the first example of a couple holding hands. In some cultures holding hands in public, or any public display of affection, is considered obscene and offensive. Yet when we read Scripture, we learn about the importance of husbands and wives loving one another. In 1 John 4, we read: “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” So when we see a couple in a loving relationship, we can recognize the presence of God at work in their lives.
The same can be applied as we watch a sunset. If we watch a sunset through the eyes of a secular scientist, we might think about how the atmosphere refracts the beams of light to create a colorful sky. When we look at the sunset through a spiritual lens, we see the beauty of the God who created the entire universe. Even the birth of a child can been seen through a secular lens. Yet with Scripture, we recall the words of the psalmist in Psalm 139, “For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.”
Knowing the Scriptures enables us to recognize and reflect upon God’s presence in the world and in everyday events. Of course, simply having a through knowledge of the Scriptures will not ensure that you will see God. Memory verses don’t guarantee that you can see and appreciate the beauty of God. In the chorus of the song, Straight touches on this point: “I’ve been to church. I’ve read the book. I know He’s here, but I don’t look…”
#2. The second key to seeing God in the world is to tune your spirit to God’s Spirit.
If we are going to successfully recognize God’s presence in the world, we need to learn to sync are spirits to God’s Spirit. This is actually much easier than we might imagine because we have been created with build in God-radar. Inside of each of us, whether we realize it or not, is a little piece of God. We have been created with the image of God inside of us. When we come into the presence of God, the little piece of us alerts us to this reality.
We begin tune your spirits is by listen to your gut. I think the gut feeling we all get at certain times is God’s Spirit stirring inside of us. Often times, I believe it is trying to alert us that we are in the presence of God. The disciples on the road to Emmaus articulate this with the statement, “Were no our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening up the Scriptures to us?”
Our gut typically won’t tell us exactly how we are in God’s presence, but it alerts us like a metal detector alerts us to metal in the ground. We’ve all seen the old guy walking along the beach with the head set on waving the metal detector along the beach. Whenever the detector senses metal it makes a beeping noise. While the treasure hunter knows they are near metal, they must dig into the sand in order to discover what is below.
Many of us go through life ignoring the beeps from the metal detector. We become oblivious to our gut instinct, and subsequently, God’s activity in the world.
We continue to tune our spirits by slowing down. The song sings, “His fingerprints are everywhere, I’d just slow down to stop and stare, open my eyes and man I swear, I saw God today.” If you want to recognize God’s presence in the world, all of the clichés apply here. Slow down. Live in the moment. Stop and smell the roses. If we live life at breakneck speed, we will get whiplash every time to try to see God in the world. God moments can only be truly appreciated when we slow down our lives.
The practice of Sabbath can help significantly towards slowing life down and recognizing God’s presence in the world. Sabbath, originally, was the seventh day of the week and was intended to worship the Lord. God created us with a need to rest and be restored. To practice Sabbath of any sort you will need to fight for it. You will have to carve it out of your schedule. You might have to turn of cell phones, Blackberry’s and computers. When we practice a slowing down and a Sabbath we will be able to see God more clearly in the world.
CONCLUSION – ASK THE QUESTION
Hopefully, this morning has helped you to realize that recognizing God’s presence in the world isn’t as hard as it seems. It begins with acknowledging that everything in the world has a spiritual component to it. God is active in all facets of life. We simply need to learn how to see it. Most of this task can be accomplished by reflecting on one question each night before you go to bed: Where have I seen God?
When we stop to ask the question, we will be able to relate to the sentiment that “I Saw God Today” captures. I hope you will begin to ask the question. We will be asking the question corporately as we Go Country with Christ over the next several weeks. God’s presence can be seen in all aspects of life. There truly is no separation between the sacred and the secular. We will see that God’s Spirit can even be discovered in country music…
Let’s pray.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
DISCOVER Easter
I hope you were able to discover Easter in a fresh way this year. As you peered in the empty tomb, I hope you were able to proclaim, “Jesus is risen!” Easter begins with the discovery that Jesus is alive but it continues with the proclamations that Jesus is messiah and Jesus is Lord. You can listen to the message at http://www.mediafire.com/file/vlwnyujnmej/Discover Easter 2.mp3 or read the text below.
The journey of Easter continues this week as we look for God and God’s activities in the world. Join us as listen to the country favorite, “I Saw God Today” and hear several stories from Scripture. We can discover God in this crazy world if we learn to look. Have a blessed week and we’ll see you Sunday!
“Discover Easter”
Brimfield Faith UMC
April 4, 2010
Luke 24:1-12
INTRO - DISCOVER
Easter Eggs got me thinking this week about the age old question: which came first the chicken or the egg? This is of course an unanswerable question. Some argue the chicken, others the egg. I have a similar question that can be answered this morning in regards to the sermon. See we distributed 1000 fliers over the past couple of weeks with a picture of a little girl looking at an Easter Egg with the word discover across the front. You will also notice that the title of the sermon this morning is “Discover Easter!” An inquisitive mind might wonder which came first the sermon or the flier. Well, I have to confess that the flier came first. I was looking through choices and I liked this one so I picked it.
As I began to prepare for the message this morning, I began to think about this word, discover and I decided I really like it. Discover isn’t a word that we use a whole lot these days. We live in an age where it feels like almost everything has been discovered. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, explorers were some of the most famous people in the world. Our history books as kids were filled with accounts of explorers. Names like Columbus, Cortes, Pizarro, and Balboa captured our imagination as we read accounts of them discovering new countries, new people, and new treasures. They were in the business of discovery. Their lives were driven by the desire to discover.
In recent years, I think the draw of discovery has lost its charm. Going on the internet and looking for something on Google, just doesn’t have the mystic that sailing across the sea to discover a new land has. Many of us might think that everything in the world has already been discovered. Thankfully, this is not the case. There are indeed always new things to discover. When it comes to a life of faith, discovery, and not only discovery but personal discovery, is a key word. When it comes to faith we can read something on Wikipedia, but it doesn’t mean we really know it. To know something in terms of faith, we must discover it. We must invest ourselves into the pursuit. Just as the explorers of old, we must commit our entire selves to the journey of discovery. Personal discovers of faith never end. They continue to lead us and compel us to a deeper place in God.
So this morning, I want to invite you on the journey of discovery. Today’s journey takes place around two thousand years in the past in the area in and around Jerusalem. It is the journey of the first Easter. Typically on Easter we focus on the first events of the morning, primary the empty tomb. Today we are going to briefly explore the entire day’s activities. In Luke 24, Luke tells three stories that are interrelated and seem to happen on that first Easter. Therefore, instead of simply focusing only on the discovery of the empty tomb, I would like to explore each of the stories in hopes of making some personal discoveries.
DISCOVER THE EMPTY TOMB
The first discovery of Easter was the empty tomb. It happened early in the morning when some of Jesus’ female followers took prepared spices to tend to his body. His body had been quickly placed in a tomb before the Sabbath began and they needed to treat the body. When they arrived at the tomb, the stone had been rolled away. While they were probably confused at this, the true shock came when they found the tomb empty. Upon seeing an empty tomb, their initial response was probably confused, upset, and broken hearted. The officials had already killed their Rabbi and now they couldn’t even give him a proper burial. Things couldn’t get any worse. It was all over. Everything they had devoted their lives seemed to be gone in an instant.
That was about to change as they peered deeper into the empty tomb and saw two men that gleamed like lightning. The men announced, “Jesus is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’” As the women heard these words, they remember. As they remember his words, they were able to proclaim that indeed, “Jesus is risen.” What had begun as a tragic discovery of an empty tomb was transformed into a glorious proclamation.
The journey to church this morning is similar to the journey the women went on to the tomb. They were filled with an array of emotions. They weren’t sure what they’d find. They weren’t sure how they’d feel. Regardless of when we last made the journey here, whether it was last week, last month, or last year, we have to opportunity to discover something new. The yearly celebration of Easter gives us the opportunity to discover the empty tomb and to proclaim Jesus is risen. As we have sang and prayed and praised God this morning, will you peer into the tomb and discover it empty once more? And as you discover the empty tomb, will you join me in proclaiming, “Jesus is risen!”?
DISCOVER THE SCRIPTURES
The second discovery of Easter was the Scriptures concerning the Messiah. Later in the day, the word has spread the Jesus is risen, but the full ramifications of it haven’t set in. Two of Jesus’ followers who had been in Jerusalem for the Passover and had witnessed Jesus’ death are heading home. They are depressed, dejected, and downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, explains to a random traveler that Jesus was killed. Jesus had been their hope to redeem Israel. While the women had found the tomb empty and two angels proclaim that Jesus was alive, it didn’t cheer them up. The two men didn’t understand the Scriptures.
That was all about to change. The random stranger is Jesus and he is going to explain the Scriptures about the messiah. At the end of the seven mile journey, the men invite the strange teacher into their home to have a snack. In the breaking of the bread, they discover the truth of the Scriptures and they discover Jesus. As they discover the Scriptures and ultimately Jesus, they proclaim, “Jesus is Messiah.”
The proclamation that Jesus is messiah is a significant one. Jesus had showed them what the Scriptures actually said about what the Jewish messiah would be. The received a fresh understanding of their sinfulness and their need for forgiveness. They learn about how Jesus made the path clear for them to have a personal relationship with God. They understood how Jesus would redeem them spiritually and not just physically. Jesus’ teachings began to take a different shape now that they had discovered Jesus alive and the Scriptures concerning the messiah. They can proclaim both that Jesus is risen and that Jesus is the Messiah.
We have already made the proclamation that Jesus is risen, but without a further understand that proclamation is empty words. We need to discover the truth of the Scriptures and understand how Jesus works in the world and in our lives. This discovery of the Scriptures reveals to us our own fallen nature and sinful ways. It demonstrates the truth that “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” It also shows us that “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” This is what it means to discover the Scriptures concerning the messiah and to proclaim that “Jesus is Messiah.” Just as we proclaimed Jesus is risen, let us also proclaim together that “Jesus is Messiah.”
DISCOVER PURPOSE AND POWER
The third and final discover of Easter was purpose and power. As the first Easter day, has unfolded, the disciples have gathered together to discuss the events of the weekend and of the day. Were the women to be believed? What to make of Cleopas’ account of Jesus teaching them on the road to Emmaus? If Jesus was really alive, did that mean things were back to normal? There was turmoil, anxiety and confusion among the disciples. They were tired and distraught, and then they thought they saw a ghost that looked a lot like Jesus. Jesus sensing their uneasiness said touch me. Then he asked for some food.
In these moments, the disciples rediscovered the empty tomb and began to understand the Scriptures. They were able to proclaim both that Jesus is risen and Jesus is the messiah. The disciples discovered a third thing in that moment. They discovered their purpose and God’s power. Jesus said to them: “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.” Jesus’ didn’t just rise from the dead in order to save the disciples from sin and death, but he rose to give them a purpose and power.
As they discovered their purpose and God’s power, they proclaim “Jesus is Lord.” It is this final statement that radically and forever changes their lives. To proclaim Jesus is Lord was to surrender their entire lives to service of God. It was to acknowledge that Jesus was God’s only son, God in the flesh. With that surrendering, they receive an abundance of gifts from God. They will receive the Holy Spirit some fifty days later at Pentecost and start a movement that would chang the face of the world. There were called to carry on the teachings of Christ. They were called to make disciples of the entire world. They were called to baptize and to teach.
JESUS IS LORD
Jesus is Lord is the most life altering statement a person can make in their life. The first proclamation is Jesus is risen. To proclaim that Jesus is risen and alive is to acknowledge the evidence of that first Easter. It makes no claims on your life. It is a simple admission of fact.
To proclaim Jesus is the Messiah begins to make claims on our lives. It is an admission of your sin and guilt. It is to acknowledge a need for a savior. The statement Jesus is messiah can functional work like fire insurance. Many people will say Jesus is their savior in order to get into heaven, but the belief doesn’t radically change their lives.
The statement that Jesus is Lord radically changes your life. We see how it directed and dictated the lives of the disciples. To make the statement Jesus is Lord comes with a cost but it comes with great reward. When you proclaim Jesus is Lord, you receive a power from on high. You are able to perform miracles, to gain insights, to live life with heavenly authority. When you proclaim Jesus is Lord, you are called to a higher purpose. Your life has new meaning. You have a fresh calling. These are just some of the things that Jesus calls us to as we proclaim Jesus is Lord.
CONCLUSION
The first Easter day was a day full of many discoveries and important proclamations. While the proclamation that Jesus is Lord is the most radical, it cannot be made without the first two. Notice that only one of the discoveries of Easter was made in the morning. The other two were later in the day and centered around meals. As you leave this morning, the journey of faith and the discoveries of Easter are just beginning. I believe that you will make additional discoveries of faith later in this day. Perhaps around a meal as the two in Emmaus did. Regardless of whether you discover Jesus is Messiah and Lord this morning, later today, or next week, they are some of the most important, life altering proclamations that you can make.
Luke ends the chapter and the Gospel with one final Easter scene. The disciples go to Bethany and Jesus blesses them. As he blesses them, he ascends to heaven and they continue to worship him. As we conclude this morning, I want to give you one last opportunity to proclaim that which you have discovered along your faith journey.
If you discovered the empty tomb, proclaim “Jesus is risen!”
If you discovered the Scriptures concerning the messiah, proclaim, “Jesus is Messiah!”
If you discovered purpose and power, proclaim, “Jesus is Lord!”
The journey of Easter continues this week as we look for God and God’s activities in the world. Join us as listen to the country favorite, “I Saw God Today” and hear several stories from Scripture. We can discover God in this crazy world if we learn to look. Have a blessed week and we’ll see you Sunday!
“Discover Easter”
Brimfield Faith UMC
April 4, 2010
Luke 24:1-12
INTRO - DISCOVER
Easter Eggs got me thinking this week about the age old question: which came first the chicken or the egg? This is of course an unanswerable question. Some argue the chicken, others the egg. I have a similar question that can be answered this morning in regards to the sermon. See we distributed 1000 fliers over the past couple of weeks with a picture of a little girl looking at an Easter Egg with the word discover across the front. You will also notice that the title of the sermon this morning is “Discover Easter!” An inquisitive mind might wonder which came first the sermon or the flier. Well, I have to confess that the flier came first. I was looking through choices and I liked this one so I picked it.
As I began to prepare for the message this morning, I began to think about this word, discover and I decided I really like it. Discover isn’t a word that we use a whole lot these days. We live in an age where it feels like almost everything has been discovered. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, explorers were some of the most famous people in the world. Our history books as kids were filled with accounts of explorers. Names like Columbus, Cortes, Pizarro, and Balboa captured our imagination as we read accounts of them discovering new countries, new people, and new treasures. They were in the business of discovery. Their lives were driven by the desire to discover.
In recent years, I think the draw of discovery has lost its charm. Going on the internet and looking for something on Google, just doesn’t have the mystic that sailing across the sea to discover a new land has. Many of us might think that everything in the world has already been discovered. Thankfully, this is not the case. There are indeed always new things to discover. When it comes to a life of faith, discovery, and not only discovery but personal discovery, is a key word. When it comes to faith we can read something on Wikipedia, but it doesn’t mean we really know it. To know something in terms of faith, we must discover it. We must invest ourselves into the pursuit. Just as the explorers of old, we must commit our entire selves to the journey of discovery. Personal discovers of faith never end. They continue to lead us and compel us to a deeper place in God.
So this morning, I want to invite you on the journey of discovery. Today’s journey takes place around two thousand years in the past in the area in and around Jerusalem. It is the journey of the first Easter. Typically on Easter we focus on the first events of the morning, primary the empty tomb. Today we are going to briefly explore the entire day’s activities. In Luke 24, Luke tells three stories that are interrelated and seem to happen on that first Easter. Therefore, instead of simply focusing only on the discovery of the empty tomb, I would like to explore each of the stories in hopes of making some personal discoveries.
DISCOVER THE EMPTY TOMB
The first discovery of Easter was the empty tomb. It happened early in the morning when some of Jesus’ female followers took prepared spices to tend to his body. His body had been quickly placed in a tomb before the Sabbath began and they needed to treat the body. When they arrived at the tomb, the stone had been rolled away. While they were probably confused at this, the true shock came when they found the tomb empty. Upon seeing an empty tomb, their initial response was probably confused, upset, and broken hearted. The officials had already killed their Rabbi and now they couldn’t even give him a proper burial. Things couldn’t get any worse. It was all over. Everything they had devoted their lives seemed to be gone in an instant.
That was about to change as they peered deeper into the empty tomb and saw two men that gleamed like lightning. The men announced, “Jesus is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’” As the women heard these words, they remember. As they remember his words, they were able to proclaim that indeed, “Jesus is risen.” What had begun as a tragic discovery of an empty tomb was transformed into a glorious proclamation.
The journey to church this morning is similar to the journey the women went on to the tomb. They were filled with an array of emotions. They weren’t sure what they’d find. They weren’t sure how they’d feel. Regardless of when we last made the journey here, whether it was last week, last month, or last year, we have to opportunity to discover something new. The yearly celebration of Easter gives us the opportunity to discover the empty tomb and to proclaim Jesus is risen. As we have sang and prayed and praised God this morning, will you peer into the tomb and discover it empty once more? And as you discover the empty tomb, will you join me in proclaiming, “Jesus is risen!”?
DISCOVER THE SCRIPTURES
The second discovery of Easter was the Scriptures concerning the Messiah. Later in the day, the word has spread the Jesus is risen, but the full ramifications of it haven’t set in. Two of Jesus’ followers who had been in Jerusalem for the Passover and had witnessed Jesus’ death are heading home. They are depressed, dejected, and downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, explains to a random traveler that Jesus was killed. Jesus had been their hope to redeem Israel. While the women had found the tomb empty and two angels proclaim that Jesus was alive, it didn’t cheer them up. The two men didn’t understand the Scriptures.
That was all about to change. The random stranger is Jesus and he is going to explain the Scriptures about the messiah. At the end of the seven mile journey, the men invite the strange teacher into their home to have a snack. In the breaking of the bread, they discover the truth of the Scriptures and they discover Jesus. As they discover the Scriptures and ultimately Jesus, they proclaim, “Jesus is Messiah.”
The proclamation that Jesus is messiah is a significant one. Jesus had showed them what the Scriptures actually said about what the Jewish messiah would be. The received a fresh understanding of their sinfulness and their need for forgiveness. They learn about how Jesus made the path clear for them to have a personal relationship with God. They understood how Jesus would redeem them spiritually and not just physically. Jesus’ teachings began to take a different shape now that they had discovered Jesus alive and the Scriptures concerning the messiah. They can proclaim both that Jesus is risen and that Jesus is the Messiah.
We have already made the proclamation that Jesus is risen, but without a further understand that proclamation is empty words. We need to discover the truth of the Scriptures and understand how Jesus works in the world and in our lives. This discovery of the Scriptures reveals to us our own fallen nature and sinful ways. It demonstrates the truth that “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” It also shows us that “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” This is what it means to discover the Scriptures concerning the messiah and to proclaim that “Jesus is Messiah.” Just as we proclaimed Jesus is risen, let us also proclaim together that “Jesus is Messiah.”
DISCOVER PURPOSE AND POWER
The third and final discover of Easter was purpose and power. As the first Easter day, has unfolded, the disciples have gathered together to discuss the events of the weekend and of the day. Were the women to be believed? What to make of Cleopas’ account of Jesus teaching them on the road to Emmaus? If Jesus was really alive, did that mean things were back to normal? There was turmoil, anxiety and confusion among the disciples. They were tired and distraught, and then they thought they saw a ghost that looked a lot like Jesus. Jesus sensing their uneasiness said touch me. Then he asked for some food.
In these moments, the disciples rediscovered the empty tomb and began to understand the Scriptures. They were able to proclaim both that Jesus is risen and Jesus is the messiah. The disciples discovered a third thing in that moment. They discovered their purpose and God’s power. Jesus said to them: “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.” Jesus’ didn’t just rise from the dead in order to save the disciples from sin and death, but he rose to give them a purpose and power.
As they discovered their purpose and God’s power, they proclaim “Jesus is Lord.” It is this final statement that radically and forever changes their lives. To proclaim Jesus is Lord was to surrender their entire lives to service of God. It was to acknowledge that Jesus was God’s only son, God in the flesh. With that surrendering, they receive an abundance of gifts from God. They will receive the Holy Spirit some fifty days later at Pentecost and start a movement that would chang the face of the world. There were called to carry on the teachings of Christ. They were called to make disciples of the entire world. They were called to baptize and to teach.
JESUS IS LORD
Jesus is Lord is the most life altering statement a person can make in their life. The first proclamation is Jesus is risen. To proclaim that Jesus is risen and alive is to acknowledge the evidence of that first Easter. It makes no claims on your life. It is a simple admission of fact.
To proclaim Jesus is the Messiah begins to make claims on our lives. It is an admission of your sin and guilt. It is to acknowledge a need for a savior. The statement Jesus is messiah can functional work like fire insurance. Many people will say Jesus is their savior in order to get into heaven, but the belief doesn’t radically change their lives.
The statement that Jesus is Lord radically changes your life. We see how it directed and dictated the lives of the disciples. To make the statement Jesus is Lord comes with a cost but it comes with great reward. When you proclaim Jesus is Lord, you receive a power from on high. You are able to perform miracles, to gain insights, to live life with heavenly authority. When you proclaim Jesus is Lord, you are called to a higher purpose. Your life has new meaning. You have a fresh calling. These are just some of the things that Jesus calls us to as we proclaim Jesus is Lord.
CONCLUSION
The first Easter day was a day full of many discoveries and important proclamations. While the proclamation that Jesus is Lord is the most radical, it cannot be made without the first two. Notice that only one of the discoveries of Easter was made in the morning. The other two were later in the day and centered around meals. As you leave this morning, the journey of faith and the discoveries of Easter are just beginning. I believe that you will make additional discoveries of faith later in this day. Perhaps around a meal as the two in Emmaus did. Regardless of whether you discover Jesus is Messiah and Lord this morning, later today, or next week, they are some of the most important, life altering proclamations that you can make.
Luke ends the chapter and the Gospel with one final Easter scene. The disciples go to Bethany and Jesus blesses them. As he blesses them, he ascends to heaven and they continue to worship him. As we conclude this morning, I want to give you one last opportunity to proclaim that which you have discovered along your faith journey.
If you discovered the empty tomb, proclaim “Jesus is risen!”
If you discovered the Scriptures concerning the messiah, proclaim, “Jesus is Messiah!”
If you discovered purpose and power, proclaim, “Jesus is Lord!”
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