The Linchpin

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday morning, July 21, 2019.  The Bible verses used are Colossians 1:15-28.

            When I say the name “Jesus”, what image comes to your mind?

            Maybe it’s the traditional picture of Jesus, a fairly good-looking man with a neatly-trimmed beard.  Maybe it’s the picture of a baby in a manger--if it was Christmastime, that would almost certainly be one of the images that came to mind.  Maybe it’s the picture of Jesus on the cross, dying for our sins.

            But the thing is, one of the great things about Jesus is that he truly was God in human form.  The divine Son--God the Son--part of the Trinity.  A God we could see, and hear, and touch.  A God who looks kind of like us.  A God we can relate to.  As Paul says in our reading for today, Jesus is “the image of the invisible God.”  

            And there’s nothing wrong with any of that.  That’s one of the reasons God the Son came to earth.  He truly was the fully divine and yet fully human Christ.  And the human side of Jesus is very important.  Jesus experienced all the things we experience as we go through life.  Joy and sorrow, pain and happiness, loneliness and friendship, courage and fear, faith and doubt, anxiety and peace.  Jesus went through all of that and more at various times in his life on earth.  And that can be a great comfort to us.  It can help us a lot to know that whatever we’re feeling, whatever we’re going through, there was a time when Jesus felt it and went through it, too.

            But while the human side of Jesus is very important, and can be a great comfort to us, it’s also possible for us to emphasize that human side too much.  We run the risk of diminishing Jesus.  We risk making him just this gentle, kindly man who told us that we should be nice to people and treat them well.  

But Jesus is so much more than that.  Again, Jesus is the divine Son of God.  He’s the one who could walk on water.  He could turn water into wine.  He could heal the sick.  He could feed five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish.  He could even raise people from the dead.  Jesus had incredible power while he was on earth.

            And Jesus has great power while he’s in heaven, too.  That’s what our reading from Colossians for today is about.  

            The Apostle Paul says of Jesus, “For in him all things were created:  things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.”  Think of the power that involves.  To have created everything on earth.  Everything we will ever see or hear or touch on earth was created by and through Jesus Christ.  That’s true even of man-made things, because it was in and through Christ that the materials were created with which we make them, and it’s in and through Christ that humans have the intelligence and ability to create them.

            And in fact, it’s not just the things we see and hear and touch that were created by and through Jesus Christ.  It’s the things we cannot see or hear or touch, too.  Remember, Paul says things “visible and invisible” were created in and through Jesus Christ.  That includes things like the wind, which we cannot see, but it includes other things, too.  Things like love.  Things like mercy.  Things like intelligence and wisdom.  Those things, too, were created in and through Jesus Christ.

            And here’s the thing we don’t think about:  it’s not just the things on earth that were created in and through Jesus Christ.  It’s not even just the things in the known universe that were created in and through Jesus Christ.  Paul says, that things in heaven were also created in and through Jesus Christ.  We never think about that, or at least I don’t.  I tend to have this idea that heaven just kind of always was.  But that’s not what the Bible says.  Remember Genesis says that God created the heavens and the earth.  And here, Paul says that all things in heaven were created by and through Jesus Christ.

            Think about the power of that.  To create everything on earth and everything in heaven.  Think of the awesomeness of that.  I mean, seriously, does that not just blow you away?  To think of the incredible power of Jesus Christ?

            But it’s not just raw power, as incredible as that is.  Listen to what else Paul says:  Jesus “is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

            In him all things hold together.  Jesus is the linchpin.  Jesus is the one that holds everything together.  Without Jesus, things fall apart.  Things fly off in every direction.  With Jesus, things can hold together.  With Jesus, our lives can hold together.

            That’s why, as Paul goes on to say, Jesus “is the head of the body, the church.”  It is only by putting Jesus in his rightful position as head of the church that the church will hold together.  That’s true whether we’re talking about the Christian church as a whole, whether we’re talking about a specific denomination like the United Methodist church, or whether we’re talking about a local church like the Gettysburg/Onida/Agar United Methodist church.  If Jesus is not the head of it, if Jesus is not the linchpin of the church, the church will fall apart.  Things will fly off in every direction.  It is only with Jesus that the church can hold together, too.

That’s power, too, to hold things together like that.  But it’s not just raw power.  It’s power exercised in love.  The same love that led Jesus to die on the cross for us, so that our sins can be forgiven.  That’s what Paul writes about next.  He says that God was pleased, through Jesus, “to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through [Jesus’] blood, shed on the cross.”

            Think about what it took for Jesus to do that.  Jesus, through whom everything in heaven and on earth was created.  Jesus, who is the linchpin that holds everything together.  That same Jesus willingly died in the most horrible, painful way possible, on a cross.  And he did it for us, so that our sins could be forgiven and so that we could once again come into the presence of God.

            Think of the incredible love that took.  To have all that power and willingly give it up, even temporarily.  To come and live among these sinful, weak, ignorant human beings.  People who, as John the Baptist says, are not worthy to untie his sandals.  People like you and me.  To suffer the indignity, not just of his death, but of his life on earth.  Having to deal with these so-called disciples who did not seem to have a clue what he was doing no matter how hard he tried to tell them.  To have to argue with these “holy people” like the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the teachers of the law, people thought they were so great when in fact they were nothing at all compared to Jesus.  Having mere human beings patronize him, or insult him, or ignore him completely.  And to go through all that completely willingly and without complaint, in order to save these same sinful, weak, ignorant human beings, people like you and me.  What an incredible love that is.

            It is through that incredible love that, as Paul says, we are reconciled to God.  Our sins are forgiven and we can have salvation and eternal life.  We are presented to God, Paul says, “as holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation.”  If.  If we continue in our faith, “established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel.”

            Again, Jesus is the linchpin that holds it all together.  That salvation and eternal life only comes if we continue in our faith in Jesus, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel.

            This is why, again, it’s not enough to just say we have faith in Jesus Christ.  That’s a start, but Jesus needs to be at the center of our lives.  Our faith in Jesus needs to be involved in every aspect of our lives.  It’s not just something we acknowledge on Sunday morning and then forget about the rest of the week.  Again, that’s a start.  But our faith in Jesus needs to be something we carry with us every day

            The human Jesus is very important.  The human Jesus can help us relate to God, and we all need to be able to relate to God.  The human Jesus can give us great comfort, and we all have times when we need comfort.  The human Jesus gives us an example of how we should live our lives, and we all need that example to try to live up to.

            But we should not diminish Jesus by only focusing on the human Jesus.  Because the divine Jesus is very important, too.  Jesus has divine power, a power that goes far beyond any human power.  But Jesus also has divine love, a love that goes far beyond any human love.  A human could not give us the chance for salvation and eternal life.  Only the divine Jesus can do that.

            So let’s accept Jesus as the Savior, but let’s do more than that.  Let’s put our complete faith and trust in the fully human and yet fully divine Jesus Christ.  Let’s continue in our faith, established and firm.  Let’s not move from the hope held out in the gospel.  Let’s make Jesus the linchpin of our lives.  Then, our lives will hold together, both on earth and in heaven.

Your Best Is Good Enough

We talk a lot in church about how, as Christians, we need to love God and serve God and follow God.  But what does that really mean?  What does that look like in your life or in my life?

Here’s what I think.  I think God deserves our absolute best.  The Old Testament talks a lot about how God was to get the “first fruits” of people’s labor.  The first crops that were raised.  The first born of the animals.  God is deserves our first and our best, and God has every right to expect our first and our best.  No less.  But--and here’s the point--also no more.

What I mean is that sometimes we feel like our best is not very good.  We feel like we don’t know what to do.  We feel like we don’t know what we are doing.  We feel like we’ve messed up, like we’ve made all kinds of mistakes, like we’ve just totally fouled things up.  And sometimes, too, we feel like no matter what we do, it’s never enough.  It’s never right, it’s never good enough, it’s never what it should be.  Sometimes we feel like we’re just not capable of doing things right.  And it makes us feel unworthy, as if we really have nothing to offer God.

But God understands.  God understands our limitations and our faults and our failures.  God understands them better than we do, because God created us.  God does not ask us to do things perfectly--God knows perfection is beyond us.  God just asks us to do our best.

Think of those “first fruits” from the Old Testament.  There must have been times when the first crops that were raised were not very good at all.  After all, they had droughts and storms and all that kind of stuff back then, too.  There must have been times when the people of Israel looked at their first fruits, the first crops that were raised, and thought, “Am I really supposed to offer this to God?  It’s not good enough!”

But if it was their best, it was good enough.  Even if it was not very good, it was good enough if it was the best they could do.

And that’s true for you and me, too.  If we’ve done our best, that’s all we have to do.  Do our best to serve God.  Do our best to follow God.  Do our best to show love to God.  There will be times when our best is not very good.  But if it’s truly our best, it will be acceptable to God.  In fact, it will be more than acceptable.  God will honor and cherish what we do, and God will bless what we do, as long as it’s our best.

Look at it this way.  Have you ever had a little kid give you a picture they’d made?  Was it really good?  Maybe, but I’m guessing it probably was not, at least not objectively.  But if that kid was you child, or grandchild, or great-grandchild, you would not have traded that picture for an original of the Mona Lisa.  It was something that someone you loved made for you, and that made it worth everything, even if someone who didn’t know you would’ve said it was worth nothing.

That’s how God looks at us.  If we give our best to God, it’s worth everything to God, even if someone else might think it’s worth nothing.  Because that’s how much God loves us.

So give God your best.  Make it truly your best.  But as long as it is your best, don’t worry about whether it’s good enough.  It is.  Because God loves us that much.

Using the Power of Prayer

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday morning, July 14, 2019.  The Bible verses used are Colossians 1:1-14.

            There’s a phrase you’ll hear people use from time to time.  Maybe you’ve even used it yourself.  It’s a phrase that’s almost become a cliché any more, and in fact it’s a phrase that’s actually become somewhat controversial.  That phrase is this:  “thoughts and prayers”.  Whenever there’s a time of sadness or tragedy, you’ll hear someone say, “Our thoughts and prayers are with you.”

            Now, it’s hard to see what could be wrong with that.  I mean, it’s hard to think of a basis for a Christian to object to the idea of praying for someone who’s going through a tough time.  Where the criticism comes, though, is that sometimes people will accuse Christians of using prayer as an excuse for not taking action.  They say, “Oh, sure, you’ll pray for these people or this situation, but you don’t want to actually do something to help them.”

            Now, if that’s truly our attitude, there is some validity to the criticism.  I mean, James wrote about that.  He says in James Chapter Two, “Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food.  If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, keep warm and well fed’, but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?”  As Christians, we are not supposed to use prayer as an excuse for failing to help people.

            But where the criticism fails, I think, is that it seems to imply that prayer has no power.  It implies that praying for someone is worthless, that praying is equal to doing nothing.  And I don’t think that’s true at all.  There are times when praying for someone is the most important thing we can do.  And that brings me to our reading for today from Paul’s letter to the Colossians.

            After the initial greeting, what’s the first thing Paul tells the Colossians?  He tells them that he, and the others with him, have been praying for them.  And he tells them what kind of a prayer it is.  It is a prayer of thanksgiving.  Paul tells the Colossians that he and the others always thank God when they pray for them.

            And that’s not the only time, in this short passage, that Paul tells the Colossians that he’s praying for them.  He says that, since the day he and his friends first heard about the Colossians, they have not stopped praying for them.

            Now, before we go any farther, let’s think about that.  When you pray for someone, what do you pray for?  Good health?  Safety from harm?  Reasonable financial security?  God’s protection over them?  That they will change somehow?  When you pray for other people, what do you pray for?

            Well, there’s nothing wrong with praying for any of those things.  I’ve prayed them, and I’ve had them prayed for me.  And I appreciate when they’re prayed for me.  But let’s look at the things Paul prays for in regard to the Colossians.  He prays that God will give them knowledge of God’s will.  He prays that they will have wisdom and understanding through the Holy Spirit.  He prays that they will live lives that are worthy of the Lord and are pleasing to God in every way.  He prays that God will give them strength, so they can have great endurance and patience.  

            That’s quite a prayer.  That kind of prayer cuts right to the heart of our lives, you know?  Again, there’s nothing wrong with praying for health or safety or God’s protection or any of those other things.  But the things Paul prayed for in regard to the Colossians are the things that are and should be most important to us as Christians.  

            And they’re the things we really should be talking about when we talk about the power of prayer.  It gets back, again, to Jesus’ statement to Peter about human concerns versus the concerns of God.  Health, safety, protection--those are human concerns.  They’re still important, don’t get me wrong.  But the things Paul prayed for are the concerns of God.  Knowledge of God’s will.  Wisdom and understanding.  Living a life worthy of God.  Strength from God, so we can have the patience and endurance we need in living that life.

            We cannot get those things on our own.  We can only get them through God’s Holy Spirit, and the way we get God’s Holy Spirit into our hearts and souls is through prayer.  If you’re not sure about that, let me ask you this:  have you ever tried to understand God’s will without praying?  Have you ever tried to live a life worthy of God without praying?  Have you ever tried to have the inner strength to have patience and endurance without praying, without asking for God’s help?

            If you have, let me ask you:  how did that work out for you?  Because it has sure never worked out for me.  In fact, not only have I never been able to get any of those things without prayer, when I’ve tried to do it without prayer I’ve made a mess of it.  Even if I had the best of intentions, even if I was trying to do everything right, it did not work if I did not make God part of the process.  I have always needed God to be involved if I was going to understand God’s will and live a life worthy of God.  I’m not saying it’s always worked even then, because I still make plenty of mistakes.  But if I make God part of it I at least have a chance of getting it right.  Without God, I have no chance.  And also, if I make God a part of it, sometimes things ultimately work out in a way I never intended.

            Now, Paul does not just tell the Colossians that he’s praying for them and leave it at that.  Paul goes on to tell them all sorts of things.  There are four chapters in Colossians, after all.  He tells them about the power and awesomeness of God.  He tells them about the reconciliation and grace that can come through the life and death of Jesus Christ, if we will just accept him as the Savior.  He tells them about the forgiveness and freedom that can come from accepting Jesus.   He also gives them some warnings:  warnings about falling back into slavery under the law, warnings about things to watch out for, warnings about ways that people tend to stray from following God.  But for Paul, it all starts with prayer.

            And in fact, it ends with prayer, too.  In the last chapter of Colossians, before he gives some final greetings to some specific people, Paul tells the Colossians this:  “Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.  And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message...Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should.”  

            Paul was probably the most active evangelist of his time.  He traveled all over the known world, trying to spread the gospel.  And yet, he thought the most important thing he could do for people was pray.  And he thought the most important thing anyone could do for him was pray, too.

            So I encourage each of us to examine his or her prayer life.  And please don’t hear that as a criticism.  I know some of you pray a lot.  I know some of you pray for me and for Wanda.  And we appreciate that very much.  When I say “examine your prayer life”, I’m not assuming that you need to make changes.  Maybe you don’t.  I don’t know.

            But what I know is that it’s rare for a human being to do anything perfectly.  And of course, that includes prayer.  So again, I encourage each of us to examine his or her prayer life.  And I encourage each of us to do that using what Paul says here as our model and our example.  

            Paul says we should pray frequently.  In fact, Paul uses the word “continually”.  Prayer should be a constant part of our lives.  Prayer should not just be something we do when we’re in a tough spot, or before we go to bed at night, or even before meals.  There’s nothing wrong with praying then, of course.  But we should not restrict our prayers to certain times.  We should pray frequently as we go through the day.

            And what should we pray for?  Knowledge of God’s will.  Wisdom and understanding from God’s Holy Spirit.  Living a life worthy of the Lord and pleasing to the Lord.  Strength from God so that we can have patience and endurance.  

            And who should we pray for?  Everyone that we care about.  Including ourselves.  And we should not hesitate to ask others to pray for us, too.  Because we need those things just as much as anyone else does.  

            It’s okay to pray for human concerns.  It’s okay to pray for good health and safety and so forth.  It’s especially okay to pray for those things when we or someone we love is facing a particularly tough time.  God hears those prayers.  God understands why we pray them.  God wants us to pray them.  God wants us to tell him anything and everything that’s on our minds.  I don’t mean anything I’ve said to be putting restrictions on what we can pray about.  After all, you and I are made in God’s image.  If something is important to us, it’s important to God, too.

            But we need to remember to pray for the concerns of God, too.  Because those are the things that will lead us to live a life centered on Jesus Christ.  They’re the things that will lead us to live lives pleasing to God.  And if we do that, we’ll have shown the love for God and love for others that Jesus told us to show. 

Leaving It In God's Hands

You may have noticed that I write about the weather a lot.  Well, there are reasons.  For one thing, the weather changes a lot around here, so it always gives us something to talk about.  I don’t know how people open conversations when they live in San Diego or Honolulu or someplace where the weather is almost always the same.  For another thing, the weather is pretty important around here.  As an agricultural community, a lot of people’s livelihoods depend on the right amount of rain coming at the right time, the right amount of warmth coming at the right time, and a lot of other factors.  And as a rural community, we always have to be mindful of the weather when we travel, looking out for snowstorms in the winter and watching out for thunderstorms or even tornadoes in the summer.

The weather is pretty important to us, for a lot of reasons.  And yet, there is absolutely nothing we can do about it.  The cliché is “everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it”, and yet there’s no way that we can do anything about it.  I cannot make it rain, and I cannot make it stop raining.  I cannot bring about a snowstorm, and I cannot stop a snowstorm from coming.  I can pray about these things, and sometimes I do.  And there’s nothing wrong with that, but of course God does not always make the weather do what I want it to do.  If God did, it would always be about eighty degrees and sunny, with a very light breeze, and of course that rarely happens around here.

It’s probably a good thing that we cannot do anything about the weather, though.  After all, it’s rare that we all want the same things.  If human beings ever got the ability to control the weather, we’d probably have the biggest arguments anyone had ever seen.  There would always be some people who want it to rain and some people who don’t.  There’d be some people who want it warmer and some people who want it cooler.  There’d be some people who wanted some wind and other people who want it calm.  There’d be no pleasing everyone, no matter how hard anybody tried.

And so, we’re really better off leaving the weather in God’s hands.  And that’s true of a lot of things in life, when you think about it.  We love to think we know best, but there are an awful lot of times that we don’t.  In fact, there are an awful lot of times when it seems like we don’t know anything.  That’s probably why Jesus told us, in the Lord’s Prayer, to pray, “Thy will be done.”  Not “my will be done.”  Not someone else’s will be done, either.  “Thy will be done.”  Our own will is likely to wrong a lot of the time, even when we have the best of intentions.  God’s will is always true and right and perfect.

So the weather will do what it will, and we’ll all find a way to deal with it.  And a lot of other things will be what they are, too, and we’ll all find a way to deal with them as well.  If we just do our best and turn things over to God, we’ll probably find out that, in the end, things will work out all right.

Sharing the Load

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday morning, July 7, 2019.  The Bible verses used are Galatians 6:1-16.

            As Christians, we are supposed to live our lives in a way that can lead to tension and contradiction.  What I mean is this:  we are supposed to live our lives in the world.  After all, we’re supposed to love others and we’re supposed to go and make disciples, and the only way we can do that is to be a part of the world.  And yet, as Christians, we are not supposed to follow the ways of the world.  We’re supposed to keep our hearts and minds focused on God.  To focus on the concerns of God, rather than human concerns, as Jesus said to Peter in Mark Chapter Eight.

            That’s not always an easy thing to do.  In fact, it seems kind of contradictory, really.  How can we be part of the world and yet not be influenced by the world?  How can we live in the world and yet not let the things of the world affect how we live.  

            Our reading from Galatians for today tells us something about that.  And it does so with two seemingly contradictory statements.  Did you catch them?  I don’t know that I ever have until I was looking at this passage this week.  In verse two, Paul says, “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”  But then, in verse five, Paul says, “for each one should carry their own load.”

            Well, which is it?  Are we supposed to carry each other’s burdens?  Or are we supposed to carry our own load?

            I think the answer is:  Both.  As Christians, we are supposed to carry our own load.  We’re not supposed to expect other people to do everything for us.  Paul himself took pride in the fact that he had a trade, that he was a tentmaker.  That meant he could support himself and did not have to rely on the Christians in the towns to which he traveled to support him.  

And of course, Paul’s statement about carrying our own load was not limited to finances.  He makes some other statements in this passage that add up to the same thing:  each of us is responsible for who we are and what we do.  He says, “Each one should test their own actions.  Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else.”  He says, “If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves.”  Paul is telling us that each of us is responsible for our own actions and for our own faith.  When need to be honest with ourselves about who we are and what we are.  Each of us is responsible for our own load and how we carry it.  And when we fail, we need to own up to that.  It’s no good to try to blame anyone but ourselves.

But, we are also supposed to be there to help others.  We are, as Paul says, supposed to carry each other’s burdens.  That truly does fulfill the law of Christ.  And Paul also says this, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

And this is one of the things that can make Christianity hard.  We are responsible for carrying our own load AND carrying each other’s burdens.  

That can feel like a lot to carry sometimes.  It’s all very well for Paul to say, “let us not become weary in doing good”, but there are times when we do.  There are times when just carrying our own load seems like more than we can manage, and yet we’re supposed to help others carry their burdens, too.  It seems like that’s quite a bit to ask of us.

And that’s where we get back to living in the world but not following the ways of the world.  Because there are times when the world will tell us the exact opposite.  The world will tell us, hey, don’t worry about carrying your load.  Make someone else do it.  You’re not responsible for taking care of yourself.  Other people should be taking care of you.  And the world will also tell us, hey, you don’t need to help anyone else.  If they cannot take care of themselves, that’s their problem, not your problem.  Let somebody else take care of them.  Let the government take care of them.  It’s none of your concern.

And you know, there are times when what the world tells us starts to make sense.  And that’s especially true when what the world tells us is something we want to hear.  There are times we’d really like to not be responsible for ourselves.  We’d like to be able to just do whatever we want and let someone else take care of things.  And there are times when we’d like to just be able to focus on ourselves and not have to deal with other people’s problems.  It’s a message that can be very appealing to us sometimes.

It can be tempting to give in to the message of the world.  That’s why Paul says, “watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted.”  It’s tempting, but it’s a dangerous temptation.  Look at verse eight:  “Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.”

That’s the choice we have.  And of course, we know what we should do.  I mean, if someone came up to you and asked, “Would you rather have destruction or eternal life?”, it’s pretty obvious what the right choice is.  And it’s not that we don’t want to make the right choice.  It’s just that, well, the right choice can be hard sometimes.  Sometimes it feels like a heavy load, and we do get tired.  Whether that’s good or bad, right or wrong, it’s just the truth.

Jesus never promised that being a Christian would be easy, of course.  In fact, he often promised the exact opposite.  That’s why, after Paul tells us not to become weary in doing good, he tells us this:  “As we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.”

Did you catch that last part?  We should do good for everyone whenever we can, of course.  But Paul says we should especially do good to those who belong to the family of believers.  Why would Paul say that?  I mean, we hear all the time that we should be focused on outreach, on reaching those people who are not part of a church and are not believers.  And Paul does not contradict that.  In fact, it was a main focus of Paul’s ministry to spread the gospel far and wide.  But still, Paul goes out of his way to tell us to especially do good to our fellow Christians.  Why would Paul do that?

I think the reason Paul says that is because Paul knows just how heavy that load can get.  When you think about it, Paul had a really unique perspective on just how heavy the load can be.  You remember, he started out as one of the leading persecutors of Christians.  He was one of the people making the load heavy.  And then, after he converted to Christianity, he became a target of the persecution.  He was one of the people carrying the load.  And as one of the leaders of this new movement of people called Christians, he had one of the heaviest loads of anyone.

Because of that, Paul knew that there’s only one way we, as Christians, can do what we’re supposed to do.  There’s only one way in which we, as Christians, can both carry our own load and reach out to carry the burdens of others.  And that’s if we support each other.  If we encourage each other.  If we are there for each other.  If we love each other.

That’s why it’s so important for us, as Christians, to be part of a church.  Can someone love God and believe in Jesus and not be part of a church?  Of course they can.  But they’ll be missing something.  They’ll be missing that support system.  They’ll be missing that help in carrying the load.  They’ll be missing that group of believers who can encourage each other and love each other and be there for each other.  They’ll be missing that group of people who, in Paul’s words, do good to each other.

That’s not to say that in the church we always do that perfectly.  Of course we don’t.  Churches are not perfect.  They’re made up of people who are not perfect and they have pastors who are not perfect.  But we try.  In our flawed, bumbling, imperfect way, we try.  We fail more times than we’d like to admit, but we try.  We try to be there for each other, and support each other, and encourage each other.  We try to carry each other’s burdens, so that no one’s load becomes heavier than they can carry.

            As Christians, we live in the world.  But, as Christians, we are not supposed to follow the ways of the world.  We are to fulfill the laws of Christ.  That means we need to carry our own load AND carry each other’s burdens.  It’s not easy.  But if we will keep trying, and if we keep helping each other, we can do this together.  We can fulfill the laws of Christ.  And we can be the people God has called us to be.

Courage and Faith

Yesterday was Independence Day.  We tend to refer to it as “the fourth of July”, and of course it is, but we need to remember that we’re not just celebrating because it’s the middle of summer.  It truly is Independence Day. 

I’m sure people celebrated in various ways.  There were the usual fireworks, or course.  Some places had parades.  A lot of people went to the river, camping or fishing or swimming or boating or whatever.  A lot of people, if they could, probably took today off and made it a four-day weekend. And all that’s fine.  I’m not saying a word against any of it. 

I hope, though, that everyone took some time to think about what Independence Day really is.  If you didn’t, I hope you will do that now.  It’s the celebration of what was really a huge gamble.  In 1776, the United States was not the huge, sprawling country that it is now.  It was not actually a country at all.  It was a loose collection of states, or colonies, that were taking on the biggest empire in the world.  A bunch of under-trained, under-funded, under-supplied volunteers fighting against what may have been the best-trained, best-funded, best-supplied army in the world.

Think of the courage it took to do that.  Had the United States lost, the leaders of the revolution would have lost everything, quite possibly including their lives.  Some of the signers of the Declaration of Independence believed that they might be signing their own death warrants.  And yet, they did it.  They did it willingly.  Think of the courage that took.

How did they get that courage?  They had faith.  They had faith in each other.  They had faith in their fellow Americans.  And they had faith in God.  They believed that this was what God wanted them to do.  And so, they were willing to do it.

You see, that’s the thing.  When you have faith in God, you can take chances.  When you believe you’re doing what God wants you to do, you’re willing to take risks.  And if you truly have faith, and you truly believe, you’ll be willing risk everything.  Even death. 

You’re willing to do that because you know that, for a Christian, death never gets the last word.  Never.  In fact, as the Apostle Paul said, we will not die.  We will simply be changed.  We will leave our earthly bodies behind and put on our heavenly bodies.  We will go to be in the presence of God in heaven.

That does not detract from the courage it took for those first patriots to face death.  It does not detract from the courage it takes for anyone to face death.  Death is a hard thing to deal with, no matter how strong our faith is.  If you have some fears about it, don’t feel bad.  Most people do, and it’s okay.  God understands how you feel.  It does not mean that you’re not a good Christian or anything.

But as we think about Independence Day, maybe the courage of the founders of the country can help us, too.  Maybe thinking of their courage can give us more courage.  Maybe it can help us keep our faith strong.  Maybe it can inspire us to take risks to do what God wants us to do, too.