First Service

This is the message given in the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, September 29, 2013.  The Bible verses used are Joshua 24:14-22 and Matthew 6:19-34.

We're about half-way through our sermon series on the power of prayer.  We've talked about how prayer helps create a close relationship between us and God, and we've talked about how that relationship can help us be open to God's leading and God's guidance.  Today, we take the next step.  Today, we're going to talk about how prayer can give us chances to serve God.

Now, in talking about that, the first thing we need to do is decide whether we actually want to serve God.  I assume that most of us, since we call ourselves Christians, since we call ourselves followers of Christ, would say that we want to serve God.  But do we really?

Last week, we talked about how we wish we could see God's entire plan for our lives, and how one of the reasons God does not let us see that is that we might be scared of some of the things God has planned for us.  We also talked about how, even if we are doing what God wants us to do right now, that may not be what God wants us to do in the future.  So, it's a question we all need to ask ourselves.  Are we really ready for everything it means, for all the changes we might need to make in our lives, if we truly decide to serve God?

That's the question Joshua asked the people in our reading from the Old Testament today.  Joshua has led the nation of Israel ever since Moses died.  Now, Joshua is near the end of his life.  And he challenges the people.  He says to them, look, you folks need to decide who you're going to serve.  You can serve God, or you can serve someone else.  My family and I are going to serve God.  How about you?

And all the people say, yup, we will, too.  We're going to serve God.  Absolutely.  No question about it.  That's what we want to do.

And Joshua says, no, you don't.  You may think you do.  You may be serious when you say it.  You may really mean it when you say this.  But you're not going to be able to do it.  You'll get distracted.  You'll get impatient.  Stuff will happen.  You'll start serving other gods.

You and I, an awful lot of the time, are like those people Joshua was talking to.  We say, yup, we're going to serve God.  Absolutely.  No question about it.  That's what we want to do.  And we're serious when we say it.  We really mean it when we say it.  But we get distracted.  We get impatient.  Stuff happens.  And we start serving other gods.

One of those gods, one Jesus warned us about in our New Testament reading, is money.  Jesus says we cannot serve both God and money.

Now, I want you to notice that Jesus did not say that if we have a lot of money, we're going to go to hell.  You cannot find that in the Bible anywhere.  It's not a question of how much money we have.  It's a question of what our attitude toward money is.  If we allow money to become our master, if we live our lives in the service of money, we cannot serve God the way we're supposed to.

Again, it's not a question of how much money we have.  It's a question of what our attitude toward money is.  We can have very little money, we can have no money at all, and still allow money to become our master.  If the goal of our lives becomes to acquire more money, we're living our lives in the service of money, whether we actually have any of it or not.  And if we do that, we cannot serve God the way we're supposed to.

That's why we included the paragraph that comes after that.  We've talked before about how we need to read Bible verses in context, how we need to look at what comes before them and what comes after them.  Right after telling people not to serve money, Jesus goes on to tell people not to worry about what they're going to eat or drink or wear.  That tells me that Jesus is not aiming this message at the rich.  He's aiming it at the people who don't have much money, the people who you and I would say have every reason to worry about what they're going to eat or drink or wear.  And Jesus tells them not to worry about that, to instead seek the kingdom of God.  Any of us, no matter how much or how little money we have, is in danger of living our lives in the service of money.  And that means any of us, no matter how much or how little money we have, is in danger of not serving God.

It's not just money that can keep us from serving God, of course.  All kinds of things can.  We can get selfish about our time.  We can get lazy.  As we've talked before, we can get distracted even by things that we'd often think of as good things—doing our jobs well, supporting community projects, spending time with our families, things like that.  Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad thing to do our jobs well.  There's nothing wrong with supporting community projects.  There's certainly nothing wrong with spending time with our families.  But again, it's a question of what our attitude is.  Nothing, not even good things, should get in the way of putting God first.  Our first priority should always be to serve God.

And the way we can keep serving God our first priority is through prayer.  It's through having that relationship with God.  It's through opening ourselves up through God's guidance.  It's by going to God without any agenda of our own.  It's by going to God and simply saying, “God, here I am.  Show me where you want me to go.  Show me what you want me to do.  Whatever it is, I'll do it.”

But think about how hard that is.  To go to God without any agenda of our own.  How many times do we actually do that?  I don't know about you, but I don't do it nearly as often as I should.  I might say the words, but it's awfully hard to mean them.

Let's face it.  Most of the time, when we ask God to take control, we have a specific way in mind that we want God to do that.  I may say, “God, show me where you want to go,” but inside, I'm thinking, “God, please don't send me to any of these places.  Send me over here instead.”  I may say, “God, show me what you want me to do,” but inside, I'm thinking, “God, please don't ask me to do anything that's too hard or too uncomfortable.  Give me something simple and easy to do, something that won't make me do anything I don't want to do.”

I'll give you an example.  I've talked about the mission trip that some other United Methodist pastors and I are making to the Bakken oil field.  There's a part of me that really does not want to do that.  In fact, there's a part of me that, even now, is kind of hoping something will happen so I don't have to go.  I mean, I don't want anyone to die or anything, but if there'd be some lesser situation come up, something that was not real serious but was just serious enough that I could have a legitimate excuse to stay home, I'd be okay with that.  This is something that is taking me outside of my comfort zone, and I'd love to have a legitimate excuse not to do it.

But you see, that's the thing.  We talk about how powerful prayer is, but sometimes that has consequences we don't think about.  One of the consequences of a prayer that has power is that God will answer it.  If we go to God and honestly say, “God, here I am.  Show me where you want me to go and what you want me to do and I'll do it,” God will answer that prayer.  But when God answers that prayer, it's very likely that God will take us places we would never have gone on our own and ask us to do things we'd never have done on our own.  When we ask God to give us chances to serve, God will give us those chances every time.

So, we come back to where we started.  We come back to what Joshua told the people of Israel.  We need to decide who we're going to serve.  If we really mean it when we say we'll serve God, then we need to open ourselves up to God's guidance.  We need to go to God without any agenda of our own.  We need to go to God and honestly say, “Here I am.  Show me where you want me to go.  Show me what you want me to do.”  And then, when God answers that prayer, we need to have the courage and the faith and the trust in God to actually go there and do it.

If we can, then we'll truly start to feel the power of prayer.