No Cruise Control

This is the message given in the Sunday night service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on Sunday, July 25, 2021.  The Bible verses used are Joshua 24:2-15.

            How often, in the course of a normal day, do you think about God?

            I want you to really consider that question.  You don’t have to tell me the answer, and I’m not assuming what the answer is.  My point in asking this question is not to pass judgment on anyone.  But I want you to think about what your answer is.  How often, in the course of a normal day do you think about God?

            I tend to think about God fairly often, but that’s not because I’m so holy or such a great Christian or anything.  It’s because my job pretty much forces me to.  To write sermons, to lead youth group or confirmation class, to do a lot of the things I do, I have to think about God.  I could not avoid thinking about God even if I wanted to.  But as many of you know, I’m going on vacation tomorrow.  I’ll be out of the parish for about a week and a half.  How often will I think about God then, when I don’t have to?  I don’t know.

            But we need to.  We need to think about God.  Because if we don’t think about God, we’re not likely to have God impact our lives in any significant way.  We would say we believe in God, and to an extent we do.  We would say we believe in Jesus as the Savior, and to an extent we do.  But it’s a passive belief.  It’s a belief that just stays in the background of our lives.  It’s there, but that’s all it is--just there.  If our belief in God, and our belief in Jesus, does not affect our lives, if the things we say and the things we do are not noticeably different because of that belief, just how real is our belief?  

For our faith to have any meaning, it needs to change our lives.  It gets back to what we talked about last Sunday night--taking off the old self and putting on the new self.  If we say we believe, but we remain our same old selves, is our belief real?

But the thing is, it can be easy to just kind of go through life on cruise control.  We go day to day, we do what we do.  Life goes pretty much okay.  Not great, not terrible.  Sometimes we may wonder where it’s all headed, but we probably don’t think about it all that much.  We’re just living our lives, doing whatever we do.

Sometimes, we get a wake-up call.  It might be an accident.  It might be an illness.  It might be a loss of a job.  It might just be an important decision we have to make.  It might not even be something that happens to us personally--it might be something that happens to someone we care about.  But whatever it is, it shakes us up.  We realize that we can no longer live our lives on cruise control.  Our belief can no longer be a passive belief that just stays in the background.  We have to make a decision.  We have to choose.  Are we going to let our faith become active, become real?  Are we going to trust in God and rely on God?  Or are we going to give up on God and put our faith somewhere else, or nowhere at all?

But sometimes we don’t get that wake-up call.  Sometimes we stay in cruise control.  And we might think the people for whom that happens are the lucky ones, but really they’re not.  Because if they never get that wake-up call, they never make their choice.  And they never know if their faith is actually real.  And it’s kind of a scary thought that you or I could come to the day of judgment not knowing whether our faith is real.

That brings us to our Bible reading for tonight.  Joshua had been the leader of the Nation of Israel for a long time, ever since Moses died.  But Joshua was old now.  He knew he would not live a lot longer, and he would be able to lead Israel a lot longer.  

He knew this was going to be hard on the people.  Not because Joshua thought he was so great.  Joshua knew that anything he had accomplished was because God was with him.  But it’s hard to replace anyone who’s been a leader for a long time.  People get used to someone.  They get used to the way he’s done things.  They have a certain amount of respect for him.  They trust him.  Israel had its ups and downs under Joshua, but for the most part, when Joshua called on the people to serve God, they did, because they trusted him.

But now, Joshua was not going to be there.  The people would not just be able to rely on Joshua to keep their faith strong.  They were going to have to make their own decisions about what they were going to do.  Would Israel remain faithful to God?  Or would they go off after other gods?

Joshua reminds the people of all that God has done for them.  He goes back to the days of Abraham.  He goes back to the days of Moses and Aaron.  He reminds them of how God brought them out of slavery in Egypt, made a path for them through the Red Sea, and then closed the Red Sea back up to destroy the Egyptian army.  He reminds them of all the battles they fought against all kinds of neighboring nations, and how God gave them victory over all of them.  He reminds them of how God “gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not build” and that they eat from “vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant.”

And then, Joshua provides them with a choice.  “Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve.”  He tells them what he thinks they should do:  “Fear the Lord and serve Him with all faithfulness.”  But, he tells them, if that’s not what you want to do, then choose someone else to serve.  But, he says, “as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

The people of Israel had their wake-up call.  They knew they could no longer live on cruise control.  They would no longer have Joshua there to protect them, to bail them out.  They knew, now, it was up to them.  They would have to make a choice.  They were going to find out if their faith in God was real.  

But what about all the people who had lived and died before Joshua presented them with this choice?  Some of them probably stayed in cruise control.  Some of them never knew just how real their faith in God was.  What happened to them, when they came to the time of judgment?  We’ll never know.

We may not live long enough to get a wake-up call, either.  So the time to get out of cruise control is now.  The time to make our decision is now.  Because ultimately, as the old song says, you got to serve somebody.  If we don’t choose to serve the Lord, we’ll end up serving someone else.  

One of the best things we can do in making that decision is what Joshua did for the people of Israel.  Review all the things God has done for us in the past.  Think about all the times God has been there for us.  Remember all the times God helped us.  Think about times when it seemed like you were in an impossible situation, and somehow you got out of it.  That was God.  Think about all the battles you fought and won, sometimes against huge odds.  That was God.  Think about all the blessings you’ve gotten, even though you did not deserve them.  That was God.

If we’re really honest, we can all think of some of those times.  Maybe, at the time, we did not even realize God was there.  But now, we can see that He was.  God has been there for us time after time after time.  It’s important not to take those times for granted.  Because those are the times that can give us confidence in God.  Those are the times that have enabled us to live on cruise control for a while--because God was always there in the background, taking care of things for us.

  If God has been there for us in the past, we can be confident that God will be there in the future.  In fact, God wants to be there for us in the future.  But God leaves the choice to us.  Will we fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness?  Or will we choose other gods to serve?

We cannot stay in cruise control.  Society won’t let us.  And really, God won’t let us, either.  It’s time.  It’s time for us to stop being passive about our faith.  It’s time for us to decide to make our faith active and real.  It’s time for us to get our faith out of the background and make it front and center in our lives.  It’s time for us to let our faith in Jesus Christ affect every aspect of our lives.  

The cruise control is being taken off.  The time to choose is now.

Teach Your Children Well

 This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, July 25, 2021.  The Bible verses used are Proverbs 22:2-9.

           I very rarely preach on the Book of Proverbs.  It’s not because I don’t like it--Proverbs is a great book.  It’s what’s referred to as one of the “wisdom” books, and there certainly is a lot of wisdom in it.  It was written around seven hundred B. C., and yet it still has a lot of good, practical advice for living today.

         The reason I rarely preach on it is that, when you read it, it seems hard to find a section of the book of Proverbs that really hands together with a central theme.  You may have noticed that in our reading for today.  Each one of the verses has a good thought, but they don’t really seem to add up to anything.  They look like just sort of random thoughts--good thoughts, but random, going here and there and not really focusing on anything.

         At least, that’s what I’d always thought.  But as I was looking at the book of Proverbs recently, I realized that there are central themes that you can find.  It’s just that you have to read it a little differently.  Proverbs does not read like modern writing, where you have paragraphs that start with a topic sentence and then the sentences that follow develop that topic.  Proverbs uses a different style of writing--not better or worse, just different.  And you have to think about it to realize where the topic sentence actually is.

         The section we read today contains the familiar verse, “Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.”  Most of us have probably heard that one.  But what exactly is that way?  What are the concrete things that children need to know to get started off in the right direction?  The rest of our passage, both before and after that verse, tells us some of those things.  And what it comes down to, basically, is not listening to what the world says is important, and instead following God.

         It starts out with, “A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold.”  When we’re young, we have a hard time believing that.  We see people shading the truth or even outright lying to get ahead.  We see people taking advantage of others or outright cheating others to get ahead.  And in many cases, we see society approving of it.  Cheating and lying are considered clever, the way smart people advance themselves today.  And it’s very tempting, especially when we’re young to believe that.  The idea that doing things like that can hurt your reputation--well, that can be a hard sell sometimes.  A lot of times, young people either don’t believe that or don’t care.

          And so it’s not enough to tell young people they need to preserve their good name.  We need to show them.  Young people need adults in their lives--parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts, family friends--whose lives show that they believe a good name is more desirable than money.  They need to see adults who are honest in their dealings with people, even if it costs them money.  They need to see adults who will stand up for what they believe in, even if it makes them unpopular.  They need to see adults who will do the right thing--not because they think they’ll get something out of it, not because there’s some gain to them in doing it--but simply because it is the right thing.

         And that’s where you and I come into it.  Each of can be that adult for a young person.  Each of us needs to be that adult for a young person.  The example you and I set can be a huge influence in a young person’s life.  And we don’t even have to be that close to young people.  I can think of adults when I was growing up who had an influence in my life and probably never even knew it.  They were people of integrity, people who could be counted on to do the right thing, who would do whatever needed to be done.  They had no plan of doing it to influence me.  They were just living their lives the way they thought a person should live them.  But I and others saw them, and were influenced by them.  There are young people looking at you and me in that same way.  If we live our lives with integrity, they will see that.  And we will help those children live to be raised up in the way they should go.

         “Rich and poor have this in common; the Lord is the maker of them all.”  That’s important for young people to know, too.  Human society thinks wealth and fame and celebrity are everything.  But that’s not how God looks at it.  Bill Gates and Warren Buffett and Mark Zuckerberg are no more important than you or I are to God, and they are not loved any more than you or I are by God.  Every person that ever existed is equal to every other person in the eyes of God.  Money may gain us power and influence on earth, but it has exactly zero power and influence over God.  The only things God cares about are our faith, our trust, and our love.  There is no greater example of equality than the way God treats human beings.

         “The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is the slave to the lender.”  When we’re young--and when we’re older, too, but especially when we’re young--debt can be incredibly attractive.  Not because we want to owe a bunch of money, but because we see so many things we could get with that money.  And we see so many other people who have those things.  If they can have them, why can’t we?  Besides, society makes it sound so simple.  We can even get cash back on our credit card purchases.  See, we’re actually making money by going into debt!  

But then, we start struggling.  Reality hits.  The burden of that debt starts crushing us.  There are all kinds of things we cannot do, and all kinds of things we cannot have, because we have to pay that money back.  Just the interest on it can crush us.  And it starts to hurt our relationships.  Survey after survey has shown that the biggest thing that causes problems in marriages, or even in non-married committed relationships, is money.  

One of the rules of life is that the person who pays the money gets to call the shots.  When we owe someone money, we have to do whatever they want us to do.  Including, sometimes, things we don’t want to do, things we know we should not do.  The borrower truly is slave to the lender.  Society never mentions that part of it.  One of the best things we can do for a young person, something that will help them not just in their financial life but in their spiritual life, is to teach them how to handle money and avoid debt.

All these things that society, that the world, tells us to do, will lead to nothing but trouble.  What’s the solution?  “Humility is the fear of the Lord; its wages are riches and honor and life.”

Now, when we talk about “fear of the Lord”, we’re not talking about getting scared of God.  We’re not talking about thinking, “If I don’t do what God says God’s going to strike me down.”  What we’re talking about, really, is respect for the Lord.  We’re talking about recognizing the awesomeness of who God is--the righteous, holy, all-powerful, almighty, perfect God.  The God who created everything, including us.  The God who is worthy of our respect, our worship, our praise, everything.  The God whom we should want to serve and honor and glorify, not because we’re afraid of God, but because God deserves that.  God deserves everything we can ever give Him and more.

         When we think of who God is, we should be humble.  And so, to raise up a child in the way they should go, we need to make sure they know who God is.  They need to know how great and good and perfect God is, and how small and weak and imperfect we all are in comparison to God.  They need to know that all of us are totally insignificant compared to God.  And then they need to know that, as tiny and puny as we are compared to God, God cares about us.  And more than that, God loves us.  They need to know what an incredible, amazing, astounding thing it is that God loves us.  None of us can do thing number one for God, and yet God does everything for us.  God loves us so much that he sent the divine Son, Jesus Christ, to earth specifically to die, to take the punishment God would have every right to give us for our sins.  Young people need to know the incredible sacrifice Jesus made for us.  Knowing that should make all of us, young people and older people, incredibly humble.

         But, the reward is incredible.  The wages of humility and fear of the Lord are “riches and honor and life.”  Not necessarily monetary riches, but a rich and satisfying life.  A life of inner peace.  And not just life on earth, but eternal life.  Our faith in Jesus Christ is the key to salvation and everlasting life with the Lord in heaven.  That’s the greatest reward there could ever be!

         How do we start children off in the way they should go?  By teaching them to ignore the temptations of the world and to put their faith in Jesus Christ.  Children will never learn anything more important than that.  

         All of us have a responsibility to teach them.  Parents, of course, have the primary responsibility, but all of us have children in our lives in some way.  May we all do whatever we can to raise them up in the way they should go.  It’s the most important thing we can ever do for a child.

A New Self

The message given in the Sunday night service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on July 18, 2021.  The Bible verses used are Ephesians 4:22-32.

            Jesus said, “No one can see the kingdom of heaven unless they are born again.”

            That phrase, “born again”, is one that gets tossed around a lot.  But rarely do we hear anyone actually define it.  And so, in a lot of people’s minds, to be “born again” is some sort of mystical, almost metaphysical sort of thing.  It becomes a hard thing for some people to relate to.

            But it does not have to be.  While Paul does not use that term in our reading for tonight from the letter to the Ephesians, that’s what he’s talking about:  being born again.  Paul phrases it as “taking of our old self” and “putting on our new self”.  

            For Paul, this is not a mystical, metaphysical sort of thing at all.  It’s a very real, practical thing.  There are specific behaviors of the old self that we need to get rid of.  And there are specific behaviors for the new self that we need to start practicing and make a habit of.

            But first Paul gives us some definitions, so we can tell the difference between those behaviors.  He says that the old self is “corrupted by deceitful desires”.  The new self, on the other hand, is created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

            And if we human beings only had it in ourselves to be completely honest with ourselves about who we are, that would probably be all we needed to know.  If we’re considering doing that’s been corrupted by deceitful desires, we should decide not to do it.  If we’re considering doing something that shows God righteousness and holiness, we should do it.  Simple, right?

            Well, it would be.  Except….human beings can be great rationalizers.  If we really want to do something we know we should not do, if we want to do something that’s been corrupted by deceitful desires, we can almost always come up with some “good reason” why it’s okay and we should do it.  It may be a very flimsy reason.  It might be a reason that no rational person would accept.  But we’re able to convince ourselves that it makes sense, for no reason other than that it’s something we really want to do.  That what makes it a “deceitful desire”, after all--we use our desire to do something to deceive ourselves into thinking it’s okay when we know it’s really not.

            Because Paul knew that, he went on to give examples of what these “deceitful desires” are, so we can fight them.  I’m sure Paul never thought of this as a complete list--when it comes to deceitful desires, we human being can be really creative.  But these are things Paul said to specifically watch out for.

            “Put off falsehood and speak truthfully.”  I don’t know if we think often enough about how important truth is to God.  As we said a couple of weeks ago, society these days looks at truth as a subjective thing.  There can be “your truth” and there can be “my truth”, and each of our “truths” is equally valid.  That’s not a Biblical concept.  God believes in “the truth”, objective truth.  In fact, Jesus said he is the truth:  he said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”  Part of being putting on our new self, our Christian self, is speaking the truth.

            Now, to be sure, you and I should not use the truth as something with which to deliberately hurt people.  But at the same time, speaking truthfully sometimes means telling people things they don’t want to hear.  That’s not necessarily a mean thing to do.  In fact, sometimes it’s a very loving thing to do.  I can look back at times in my life where I am very fortunate that somebody loved me enough to tell me the truth, even when I did not want to hear it.  I did not want to hear it, but I needed to hear it, because there were things in my life I needed to straighten out.  When we see someone going down a bad road, it is not showing love to them to let them keep going down that road.  The loving thing to do is to tell them they need to turn around, even if that’s not something they want to hear.

            But speaking truthfully to others is only part of it.  We also need to speak truthfully to ourselves.  And that can be very hard, because again, we human beings can be great rationalizers.  Part of putting on our new self is to stop lying to ourselves, to see ourselves as we really are, and to make the changes we need to make in our lives.

            But that’s why, in being born again, we need to be born by the Holy Spirit.  Because it’s so easy for us to lie to ourselves.  Sometimes those are the biggest lives we tell--the ones we tell ourselves.  It can be hard to stop doing it.  It takes God’s Holy Spirit acting within us to help us see ourselves as we truly are speak truthfully to ourselves.

            Paul goes on to write, “In your anger do not sin.  Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.”

            I find it interesting that Paul did not say “Don’t get angry.”  I suspect that Paul knew anger is a natural human emotion.  To say, “Don’t get angry” would be like saying “Don’t be sad”.  We’re all going to be sad sometimes, and we’re all going to get angry sometimes.  It’s inevitable.  And in fact, it’s not always a bad thing.  Jesus got angry at times.  Probably the most extreme example of Jesus’ anger is when he chased the money changers out of the temple with a whip, but Jesus got angry at other times as well.  Anger is not necessarily a bad thing for us to feel.

            But it is something to be careful about.  If we don’t control our anger, it can lead us to say and do all kinds of things that will be bad.  There’s an old saying that when we get angry, we’ll make the best speech we’ll ever regret.  Anger can lead us to say very hurtful things, things we might not even mean, but that we said in the heat of the moment.  Anger can lead us to do harmful things, harmful to others and harmful to ourselves, things we would never have done if we’d been in control of our emotions.  Paul says it’s okay to be angry, but it’s not okay to let our anger get the best of us.  

            It’s also not okay for us to stay angry too long.  “Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry.”  Don’t hold grudges.  Don’t dwell on our anger.  Don’t let our anger keep us from offering forgiveness--after all, Jesus said we will be forgiven to the extent we forgive others.  Don’t let our anger keep us from loving others--Jesus said to love even our enemies.  That’s why staying angry too long gives the devil a foothold--if we don’t find a way to get past our anger, it will keep us from doing the things Jesus told us to do.

Paul says, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”  When we hear that phrase, “unwholesome talk”, we may first think of swearing.  And that’s included in unwholesome talk, but the phrase goes a lot deeper than that.  “Unwholesome talk” means gossiping about people and talking behind their backs.  “Unwholesome talk” means making sarcastic, cutting remarks to people.  “Unwholesome talk” means putting people down.  “Unwholesome talk” can mean all kinds of things.  Basically, it’s the opposite of the kind of talk Paul says we should engage in:  talk that is “helpful for building others up”, talk that will “benefit those who listen.”

            I suspect that almost all of us engage in unwholesome talk sometimes.  I have.  I’m not proud of it, but getting back to that truth thing, if I’m truthful, I have to admit that I’ve done it.  It’s really easy to do.  Sometimes we do it without even thinking about it.  Again, this is why we need to be born of God’s Holy Spirit.  It’s something that’s very difficult for us to stop doing by ourselves.  We need God’s help to stop with the unwholesome talk and instead stick with wholesome talk, that talk that builds others up and benefits those who listen.

            A lot of what Paul has been saying is what we should not do.  That’s putting off the old self.  But Paul knew that we cannot put off the old self without having something to replace it with.  In other words, it’s not enough to just put off the old self.  We need to put on the new self.  So Paul closes this section of his letter by saying, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”

            What would our community look like, if everyone was kind and compassionate to each other, and if everyone forgave each other?  What would our country look like, if everyone was kind and compassionate to each other, and if everyone forgave each other?  What would our world look like, if everyone was kind and compassionate to each other, and if everyone forgave each other?  That would be pretty close to heaven on earth, would it not?  I’m not saying it would literally be heaven on earth, but I think it would be about as close as human beings can come to it.

            And it maybe it sounds like a dream, a fantasy, to think that everyone could be kind and compassionate to each other and that everyone could forgive each other.  And maybe it is.  But if it’s ever going to happen, it has to start somewhere.  And maybe, just maybe, it could start with you and me.

            I cannot say that you and I being kind and compassionate to everyone and forgiving everyone will change the world.  But it might.  And if it does not, it might at least change our little part of the world.  And it also might change us.  It might mean that we truly have put on that new self, that we truly are born again.  

            And it might mean that you and I will see the kingdom of heaven.  That would be pretty cool, don’t you think?

 

Let's Be Childish

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, July 18, 2021.  The Bible verses used are Matthew 18:1-10.

            Have you ever had someone tell you you’re being childish?

            We take that as an insult, right?  No adult wants to be thought of as childish.  We want to be thought of as mature, as being responsible, as being someone who’s respected.  Being called childish is the opposite of all that.

            When you think about it, we don’t even really want to be thought of as childish when we’re children.  One of the things we always want as children is to become older.  We think there are so many more things we’ll be able to do then.  We won’t have to ask people to help us.  We won’t have to get permission to do things.  Even when we’re kids, we want people to think we’re mature, that we’re responsible, to treat us with respect.  We don’t want to be thought of as childish.

            But in our reading for today, Jesus is talking to a group of adults--the disciples.  The people Jesus had hand-picked to be his closest friends and followers.  If ever there was a group of people who thought of themselves as mature and responsible, it was probably the disciples.  

            But what does Jesus tell them?  Jesus tells them, “Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

            The disciples must have been stunned.  Little children had almost no status in society at that time.  They were a burden.  Once they got older, and could help with the work, then they might have some value.  But when they were little?  They were just another mouth to feed.  But here’s Jesus telling the disciples that the only way they can enter the kingdom of heaven is by becoming like little children.

            What did Jesus mean?  How are we supposed to become like little children, and why is that the only way we can enter the kingdom of heaven?

            Well, let’s look at little children and how they are.  For one thing, little children are totally dependent, right?  They cannot take care of themselves.  Little children are totally dependent on their parents, or at least some adult, to provide for their needs--food, clothing, shelter, all of it.  Little children cannot survive if they don’t have someone providing those things for them.

            As adults, and especially around here, we don’t like to think we’re dependent on anybody.  We like to think we can do things ourselves.  We take pride in being able to provide for ourselves.  

            And that’s where the problem comes in--our pride.  We’re so proud of our ability to take care of ourselves that we forget that ability comes from God.  We’re so proud of what we have that we forget that we only have it because God provided it.  We’re so proud of all the things we can do that we forget that we can do nothing without God.

            That pride is a dangerous thing.  It leads us to drift away from God.  Not intentionally, a lot of the time.  Many times we don’t even realize we’re doing it.  But the more we think we can depend on ourselves, the less we think we need to depend on God.  And when we don’t think we need to depend on God, we spend less time talking to God.  We spend less time thinking about God.  God becomes less and less a part of our lives.  We say we still believe in God, we say we still believe in Jesus as the Savior, and in a sense we do.  But that belief no longer has any impact on our lives.  There’s nothing different about our lives because of our faith, because we really don’t think we need God anymore.

            And that’s the point at which things will fall apart for us.  Not because God’s going to do something to us.  Not because God’s going to punish us.  But because our pride will lead us to make mistakes.  Our pride will lead us to get into trouble.  And when that happens, we won’t have that relationship to God to fall back on.  God will still be there for us, of course.  But when our pride keeps us from having that close relationship with God, we won’t do the things God wants us to do to get out of our trouble.  And a lot of times, it’s only when we hit rock bottom that we can get rid of our pride and allow God to help us get back on track.

            Like little children, we are dependent on God.  If we realize that, we will be closer to entering the kingdom of heaven.

            Another thing about little children is that they tend to be trusting.  They trust that the adults in their lives love them and will take care of them.  That does not always turn out to be true, unfortunately, but little children trust that adults have their best interests at heart.  They don’t expect the adults in their lives to let them down.

            When we get older, we lose that trust.  There are reasons why, of course.  We run into too many situations in which people have turned out not to be worthy of our trust.  We run into too many situations in which we trusted someone only to be let down by them, or even betrayed by them.  And that hurts.  It hurts a lot.  Once we’ve been betrayed, it can be very hard to trust again, because we don’t want to go through that hurt again.

            But God will never betray us.  God will never let us down.  It may feel like it sometimes.  We have probably all had times when we asked God for something, and God did not give us what we asked for.  But usually, once time goes by and we get the perspective that time gives us, we can see that we’re better off because God did not give us what we asked for.  God did not let us down.  God simply knew better than we did.  God knew that what we asked for would not be best for us, and so God was acting out of love by not giving it to us.

            God loves us.  God will take care of us.  God has our best interests at heart.  Like little children, we need to trust God.  When we do, we will be closer to entering the kingdom of heaven.

            Another thing about little children is that they have a spirit of joy.  Little kids can have fun with almost anything.  Blowing leaves can bring them joy.  Puddles can bring them joy.  Making silly noises can bring them joy.  When you’re a little kid, the world is there for you to enjoy, and you appreciate all of it.

            Somehow, when we become adults, we lose that.  We don’t appreciate those simple pleasures anymore.  The world becomes a serious place.  We’re dealing with important things.  We’re dealing with major issues.  Even when we do manage to have a little fun, we plan it out and we schedule it in.  We still might have fun, but we often don’t have that same spirit of joy.

            When it comes to dealing with life on earth, of course, we sometimes have to be serious.  But when it comes to dealing with God, we should feel joy.  We should feel the joy of living in this beautiful world that God has given us.  We should feel the joy of knowing God loves us, even though we don’t deserve it.  We should feel the joy of knowing that salvation and eternal life are available to us through faith in Jesus Christ, even though we don’t deserve that, either.  We should feel the joy of God’s Holy Spirit acting in our lives.  

Our dealings with God should be nothing but joy.  Like little children, we need to feel joy with God.  When we do, we will be closer to entering the kingdom of heaven.

We could go on and on about all the qualities of little children, and we’d make this an hour-long sermon if we did.  But there’s one more thing about little children I want to address.  Little children feel love.  And they are not afraid to show love.  Little kids show love spontaneously.  They show love without hesitation.  They show love without wondering what anyone else will think about it.  Little children feel love, and little children show love.

Somewhere along the line, as we get older, we tend to lose that.  Maybe it goes back to the trust thing--we’ve felt love and shown love and we’ve gotten burned, and so it makes us hesitant to love again.  Maybe we start thinking about what others will think of us.  Maybe we start worrying about whether someone is really worthy of our love.  It could be lots of things, but for some reason, as we get older, we become more hesitant to really show love.

We need to get back to it.  We need to get back to showing love the way little kids do.  We need to show love spontaneously.  We need to show love without hesitation.  We need to show love without worrying about getting hurt.  We need to show love without wondering what other people think.  After all, that’s the kind of love God gives us.  We need to give that love back to God, and we need to give it to others.  When we do, we will be closer to entering the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus said that unless we change and become like little children, we will never enter the kingdom of heaven.  I think we all want to enter the kingdom of heaven.  So let’s become more like little children.  Let’s depend on God.  Let’s trust God.  Let’s feel joy with God.  Let’s show love--show love to God, and show love to others.

If doing that means we’re childish, then let’s be childish.  And let’s be with Jesus in the kingdom of heaven.

 

The Humility to Follow God

The message given in the Sunday night service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church.  The Bible verses used are 1 Corinthians 3:6-23.

            One of the biggest sins that we rarely talk about is the sin of arrogance.  Whether it comes from conceit, pride, ego, or whatever, arrogance is quite often one of the major sins we human beings commit.

            The Bible does talk about it a lot.  It might be the sin the Old Testament discusses the most.  Arrogance is a recurring theme in almost all of the books of the prophets.  And if we look at the more historical books, such as First and Second Chronicles and First Second Kings, we see arrogance showing up over and over again.  The people of Israel become arrogant and turn away from God.  God stops helping them, and they run into trouble.  The people of Israel humble themselves, turn back to God, and ask for forgiveness.  God forgives them and the nation of Israel prospers.  The people become arrogant and turn away from God again.  And round and round it goes, over and over and over.

            Arrogance is still with us today, of course, and it takes a lot of forms.  Arrogance, really, is one of the biggest things that keeps us from God’s Word.  It’s really kind of amazing how many times we hear about some supposed scholar who has suddenly discovered something in the Bible, some new interpretation of the Scriptures, that no one had ever realized before was there.  I mean, the Bible has not changed in nearly two thousand years, but somehow, someone manages to find something in it that all the greatest Bible scholars in history had missed.  In fact, there’s a book out now by a prominent United Methodist pastor that claims “unpack what the Ten Commandments mean today.”  I’m not sure what part of “thou shalt not” needs to be “unpacked”, but there it is.

            But think of the arrogance involved in these things.  To think that you, at a distance of two thousand years or more, could suddenly find something in the Bible that none of the millions and millions of people who’ve read and studied the Bible had ever been able to see.  That kind of arrogance is incredible, really.

            The Ten Commandments say what they say.  The Bible says what it says.  And while parts of it can be hard to understand, I always go back to the Mark Twain quote.  “It’s not the parts of the Bible I don’t understand that bother me.  It’s the parts that I do understand.”

            That’s what bothers a lot of us.  The problem is not that we don’t understand what the Bible says.  The problem is that, sometimes, we don’t like what the Bible says.  Sometimes the Bible tells us not to do things we really want to do.  And sometimes the Bible tells us to do things we really don’t want to do.

            When that happens, we have a choice to make.  We can, in humility, submit to God, doing what God has told us to do in God’s Holy Word.  Or, we can, in our arrogance, “re-interpret” the Bible, “unpack” it, find some way to make it say what we want it to say.  We can find some “new meaning” in the Bible that allows us to do the things we want to do and excuses us from doing the things we don’t want to do.

            And of course, if we choose that second way, we don’t admit that’s what we’re doing.  We don’t even admit it to ourselves.  We tell ourselves, just as these supposed scholars do, that we’ve come up with the “true” meaning of God’s word.  But in fact, what we’re doing is exercising our arrogance.  We’re claiming we know better than God.  We’re fooling ourselves into believing we’re following God, when in fact we’re doing what we want to do and pretending God approves.

            It’s really tempting to do that.  We’re all really good and finding ways to excuse our own behavior--I know I am.  And sometimes we honestly do not understand what would be so wrong about what we want to do, and we don’t understand why God said not to do it.  And so we try to come up with some way, some reason, to think that God must not have meant what the Bible says He said, and that what we want to do is really okay.

            And what also makes this so tempting is that society approves of it.  All these “re-interpretations” of the Bible, allowing us to do things God has said we should not do and telling us not to do things we should do, are applauded by our current society.  These books that “re-interpret” and “unpack” the Bible get rave reviews.  A book that says, “The Bible means what it says and we should follow it” is not going to get that kind of a review.

            The Apostle Paul captures our attitude perfectly.  He says, “Do not deceive yourselves.  If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become ‘fools’ so that you may become wise.  For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight.  As it is written:  ‘He catches the wise in their craftiness’, and again ‘The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.’”

            When we try to re-interpret the Bible, to make it say what we wish it said rather than what it actually says, that’s exactly what we’re doing.  We are trying to be wise by the standards of this age.  And that so-called “wisdom” is foolishness in God’s sight.

            Paul, of course, was the first great Christian evangelist.  He traveled all over the world, or at least as much of the world as he knew about, spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ.  But Paul knew that nothing he did would come to anything if it did not have its foundation in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

            Paul uses the analogy of a building.  Now, I am definitely not a builder, but there’s one thing I know about buildings.  If you don’t lay a good foundation, your building is going to fall down.  It does not matter how much money you spend on the upper parts of it, it does not matter how much time you spend, how much care you take with the rest of the building.  If the foundation is not done right, the whole thing is going to collapse.

            Paul says that we are God’s building.  And as God’s building, each one of us has to start with Jesus Christ as our foundation.  That’s the only way we are going to be able to stand firm in our faith.  If our faith is built on the foundation of Jesus Christ, it can withstand anything.  If it’s not, it will fall.  It does not matter how much fancy stuff we put on top of that foundation.  We can put all the things the world values on that foundation.  Gold.  Silver.  Costly stones.  It does not matter how fancy the building of our faith looks on the outside.  If it’s not built on the foundation of Jesus Christ, it will fall.

            But that foundation of Jesus Christ means following the word of God.  And that gets us back to where we started, because again, the word of God sometimes tells us to do things we don’t want to do, and sometimes tells us not to do things we do want to do.  

And so, again, we get back to the choice we have to make.  Do we have the humility to submit to God and God’s Word, even when we wish God’s Word was different from what it is?  Are we willing to trust that God knows better than we do, even when that means doing some hard things?  Are we willing to live our lives God’s way, even when that means giving up some things we really want to do?  Or are we, in our arrogance, going to find ways to “re-interpret” God’s Word, so that we can pretend it does not say what it says and pretend that it says what it does not say?

Paul tells us not to be wise by the standards of the world.  In fact, he tells us that it is only by become fools by the standards of the world that we can truly be wise.  That takes humility, too.  Our egos want the world to think of us as wise.  Our pride wants us to have the world praise us.  I don’t know anyone who wants people to think he’s a fool.  And yet, that what Paul tells us to do.

And again, what that takes is humility.  It takes humility to follow God, even when the world tells us not to.  It takes humility to do trust in God and God’s Word, and to obey it, no matter what the cost.  It takes humility to do the things the Lord said to do even when we don’t want to.  And it humility to not do the things the Lord said not to do, even when we really do want to do them and even when we don’t see what would be so wrong about doing them. 

Human arrogance says we can re-interpret the Bible to say what we wish it said.  Humility says we should trust in God and in God’s Word.  Human arrogance says we should be seen as wise by the standards of the world.  Humility says we should be willing to be seen as fools if that’s what following God requires.  

            We cannot deceive God.  So let’s not deceive ourselves.  Let’s put aside our arrogance, and in all humility follow God and God’s Word.  It won’t always be easy.  But it will always be worth it.

 

Where's Your Focus?

The message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, July 11, 2021.  The Bible verses used are Matthew 22:15-22.

            When we think about Jesus, one of the things we don’t think about often enough is just how smart Jesus was.  I don’t just mean wise, although Jesus obviously was very wise.  I mean smart.  Intelligent.  He knew a lot about a lot of things.

            Think about it.  He knew a trade--we’re told that he was a carpenter.  He knew the scriptures--over and over again, no matter what the subject was, no matter what was going on, Jesus could come up with a scripture quote that perfectly covered the situation.  He was an excellent judge of character.  He could accurately size up people very quickly.  When someone claimed to want to follow him, he knew whether they really would or whether they were just caught up in the moment.  When someone asked him a question, he could tell whether they really wanted to know the answer or whether they had some other reason to be asking.  I mean, yes, Jesus had an advantage, being the divine Son of God and all, but still, it’s clear that Jesus was a very intelligent man.

            But above all, Jesus had a clear sense of purpose.  Jesus knew who he was.  He knew why he was here.  Jesus did not waver in his purpose.  He did not allow himself to get distracted from his purpose.  Jesus was going to do what he had been sent here to do, and nothing was going to take him away from that.

            The Pharisees tried to.  One of the ways the Pharisees tried to distract Jesus was to get him to take sides on the various “hot-button” issues of the day, knowing that whatever side Jesus took would get him into trouble with the other side.  We have an example of that in our reading for today.  The hot-button issue they asked Jesus was “Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar, or not.”

Now, understand what the imperial tax was.  First, it was a tax imposed by the government.  It was not a religious tax.  It did not go to the Pharisees or the priests or to upkeep of the temple or anything like that.  This was a tax that was paid to the Roman government.

            And it was not a tax imposed on everyone.  This was a tax imposed on people the Roman government had conquered.  In other words, if you were a Roman citizen, you did not have to pay this tax.  But if you were a citizen of Israel, or any of the other countries Rome had defeated and taken over, then you did have to pay it.

            So, this was a controversial issue, for a few reasons.  One, Israel still had hopes of regaining its independence from Rome.  In fact, a few times they had gained it, although never for long.  So, in the eyes of some, paying this imperial tax was an admission that Israel no longer had a right to independence, that it was just a province of Rome.  They did not want to admit that.  

            Also, the tax could be quite high.  We’ve talked before about how tax collectors were not really bound by law on how much they could demand from people.  They could take as much as they liked, as long as they sent Rome its share.  So this tax could be really hard for people to pay.  And of course, this tax was in addition to all the various offerings and tithes the people of Israel were supposed to pay at the temple.  People could handle the temple offerings and fees, because those, at least in theory, went to God.  But to have to pay still more to Rome?  That got them upset.

            So, if Jesus said people should pay the imperial tax, it could get him into a lot of trouble.  But if he said they should not pay it, that could get him into trouble, too.  Rome, for the most part, did not care what the people of Israel did, but one thing they did care about was money.  And Jesus was an important person at this point.  If he told people not to pay taxes to Rome, Rome might very well arrest him.

            And so, the Pharisees thought the trap was set.  No matter what Jesus said, no matter which side he chose, he would get into trouble.  A perfect situation for them.

            But Jesus was too smart for them.  Jesus refused to take a side.  He looked at Caesar’s picture on one of the Roman coins, and famously said, “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and give to God what is God’s.”  And of course, the Pharisees were stunned.  Their trap had failed.

            But Jesus did not just say this to avoid falling into a trap.  We talked last week about how Jesus is the truth.  Jesus would not say anything he did not mean.  What Jesus said was completely consistent with his purpose.  It was totally consistent with why he had come to earth.  Jesus did not come to earth to choose sides.  Jesus did not come to earth to settle political questions.  Jesus came to earth to bring salvation and eternal life.

            And that’s the point Jesus was making when he said, “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and give to God what is God’s.”  Jesus was saying, these earthly political issues are not important to me.  I did not come to tell you whether you should pay taxes to Rome.  I came to take the punishment you should get for your sins.  I came so that whoever believes in me should have salvation and eternal life.  Jesus was saying, you need to stop focusing on these narrow political issues.  You need to focus on God.

            It’s the same point Jesus made to Peter earlier in the gospel of Matthew, at Matthew Chapter Sixteen, Verse Twenty-three.  Jesus said to Peter, “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

            That’s an important lesson for us.  Our human concerns always seem so important to us.  And it’s understandable because, after all, we’re human.  And any more, those human concerns usually become political concerns.  It sometimes seems like all anyone wants to focus on is political concerns.  In fact, it seems like we cannot think of anything that is not political.  Sports have become political.  Diseases have become political.  Soda pop has become political.  

            And as Christians, we all tend to have opinions on those political issues.  And that’s okay.  After all, we do have to live in the world.  But the problem is that if, as Christians, we put our main focus on political issues, we will tend to put our main focus on finding political solutions.  When an issue comes up, we will look to the government to take care of it.  

            Now, certainly, government has a role to play in human society.  But the focus of a Christian should not be on government.  The focus of a Christian should be on God.

            As Christians, our first loyalty, our only loyalty, is to God through faith in Jesus Christ.  The government can make it easier or harder to express that loyalty.  It can do things that make it easier or harder to show our faith in Jesus.  It can also do things that make our lives on earth easier or harder.  But nothing the government does changes what we believe or who we believe in.  And nothing the government does changes our duty to serve God, to be faithful to God, to show love to God, and to show love to others.

            Now, maybe that makes sense to you, and maybe it does not.  But what happens, at this point, is that we start thinking about the “what abouts”.  But what about this issue?  What about that issue?  Those are important issues.  They affect a lot of people.  They can affect people’s entire lives.  In fact, they can determine whether someone has life.  God certainly must care about that, right?  And if God cares about it, then God certainly wants me to be involved in it, so the government does what God wants it to do, right?

            Well, maybe.  I’m not saying that Christians can never get involved in political issues or should never be part of the government.  But I do think it can be a slippery slope.  Remember, there were a lot of important political issues in Jesus’ time, too.  They affected a lot of people.  They affected people’s entire lives.  They determined whether someone even had life.  But Jesus did not get involved in those political issues.  In fact, as with our reading for today, he specifically refused to get involved in them.

            It must have been tempting.  After all, Jesus could see how the Roman government was treating people, especially the people of Israel.  He could see when they treated people badly, when they abused them, when they cheated them.  And of course, Jesus had the power to do something about it.  It had to be very tempting for him to use that power to change the government.  But he did not.  Because Jesus’ purpose was not to cure all the problems of life on earth.  His purpose was to offer people the chance for salvation and eternal life.

            But Jesus did help people in their lives on earth, didn’t he?  Well, yes, he did.  But he did not do that through the government.  When Jesus saw someone who needed help, he did not go to the governor and tell him to start a program to help that person.  Jesus went to the person and helped them.  And that’s what Jesus told us to do, too.  

            The government is an important part of life on earth.  It always has been.  But as Christians, our primary focus is not on influencing the government.  Our primary focus is to help people whenever we can.  Help them with their lives on earth, but also let them know about the salvation and eternal life that’s available to them through faith in Jesus Christ.  

            The issues of life on earth, however important they may seem, are only temporary.  Salvation is for eternity.  Offering that salvation was Jesus’ main purpose.  As Christians, it should be our main purpose, too.

 

True Freedom

The message given in the Sunday night service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church.  The Bible verses used are Galatians 5:13-26.

            It’s the night of the Fourth of July.  I hope you’ve enjoyed your holiday.  If you’re planning to shoot off any fireworks tonight, please be careful.  It is really dry around here, and the last thing we need is to have a fire.  Fireworks can be beautiful, but we’d sure hate to have this most American of holidays end with a tragedy.

            This is the day we celebrate our freedom as Americans.  We have a lot of freedoms in our society.  We tend to take those freedoms for granted, and we should not.  There are many people in the world who do not live in the freedom that we do.  We need to remember to thank God for the freedoms we have living here in the United States.

            As Americans, you and I can, for the most part, live in any way we choose to live.  There are certain restrictions, of course, and there have to be.  But as long as we’re not hurting someone else, we can pretty much live the way we want to.  We can live where we want to live, and we can do what we want to do.  If someone else thinks the way we’re living is stupid, well, they can think that, but we don’t need to pay any attention to them.  As Americans, we can still live the way we choose to live and do what we want to do.

            As Christians, we also celebrate our freedom.  But the freedom we celebrate as Christians is not the freedom to do what we want to do.  It’s the freedom to do what God wants us to do.  It’s not the freedom to live the way we want to live.  It’s the freedom to live the way God wants us to live.

            The Apostle Paul says that Christ has set us free.  Free from sin.  Including our own sinful desires.  But, Paul says, we cannot just take that freedom for granted.  We have to stand firm, so we don’t fall back into the slavery of sin.

            It’s a constant battle.  Freedom in Christ versus the slavery of sin.  You and I have to fight that battle every day.  Jesus will help us.  In fact, Jesus will be there and will fight the battle right alongside us.  But you and I still have to do our part.

            Paul puts the battle in pretty stark terms.  He says, “Walk by the spirit, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh.  For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh.”

            In other words, we must choose one or the other.  We either walk by the spirit, or we gratify the desires of the flesh.  We cannot do both.  We cannot compromise.  We cannot walk by the Spirit some of the time, and gratify the desires of the flesh some of the time.  In other words, we cannot be slaves to sin some of the time, and be free some of the time.  

            Because that’s what sin tries to convince us of.  Sin tries to convince us that we can give in to the desires of the flesh once in a while, and then go back and walk by the spirit as if nothing had happened.  But it does not work that way.  The more we give in to sin, the easier it gets to sin.  After a while, we don’t even think about it anymore.

            Let me give you an example.  I have, a couple of times in my life, been on a low-carb diet.  Basically, on a low-carb diet, what you do is give up eating potatoes, breads, some fruits, and pretty much all desserts.  What you can eat is meat, most vegetables, some fruits, and a limited amount of dairy products.  Now, it’s more complicated than that, and if you’re thinking about going on a low-carb diet I urge you to do more research on it rather than just going by what I said here.

            But the point is that it works.  Both times I’ve tried it, I’ve lost weight.  And at first, I do pretty well on it.  Because, as I said, you get to eat all the meat, and I really like meat.  So that satisfies me.  For a while.

            But after a while, I start remembering how much I like ice cream.  And chocolate chip cookies.  And chocolate brownies.  And so, I cheat on my diet.  Just once.  I won’t do it again.  In fact, I feel kind of guilty about having done it once.  

But then, after a few days, maybe a week, I start thinking about how good the blizzards at Dairy Queen are.  And so, I do “do it again”.  I cheat again.  And again, I feel kind of guilty about it.  But not quite as guilty as I felt the first time.  And so, a few days later, I cheat again.  And this time, I don’t feel much of anything about it.  And pretty soon, I’m off that low-carb diet completely, and I’m not even really thinking about it anymore.

Now, I’m not saying that eating ice cream and cookies is sinful (although there certainly are Bible passages that talk about gluttony).  But the point is that what Paul calls “the desires of the flesh”--sin--works exactly that same way.  The first time we do it, we probably feel guilty about it.  The second time, not quite so much.  The third time, we don’t feel much of anything.  And pretty soon we’re constantly giving in those desires of the flesh, and we’re not even really thinking much about it anymore.  

That’s why Paul says “the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh.  They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.”  It’s why Paul tells us to walk by the Spirit, so that we will not gratify the desires of the flesh.  We have to choose, one way or the other.  That’s not to say we’ll be perfect.  We’ve said before that perfection is not possible for human beings.  But that’s why I said we have fight the battle every day.  We cannot just make the choice once and be done with it.  Those sinful desires of the flesh will keep coming back at us, trying to enslave us.  We need to keep fighting them, day after day after day.

But we’ve been talking in abstract terms.  What are those desires of the flesh?  Paul lists some of them, although he says it’s not a complete list.  Sexual immorality.  Impurity.  Debauchery.  Idolatry.  Witchcraft.  Hatred.  Discord.  Jealousy.  Fits of rage.  Selfish ambition.  Dissention.  Factions.  Envy.  Drunkenness.  Orgies.  All of those won’t apply to all of us, of course.  But I’m pretty sure each one of us has at least one of them that applies to us.  We may not always give in to it, but we have to keep fighting it.  I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone--including myself--who was not subject to some of those things sometimes.

We need to fight those things, and we need to ask Jesus for help.  But here’s the thing.  There’s an old saying that you cannot defeat something with nothing.  If our entire focus is on the things we should not do, we will probably fail.  We cannot spend our lives just avoiding negative things.  We need to fill our lives with positive things, the fruit of the Spirit.

What’s the fruit of the Spirit?  Paul lists that, too.  Love.  Joy.  Peace.  Forbearance.  Kindness.  Goodness.  Faithfulness.  Gentleness.  Self-control.  Those are the things we need to focus on.  Those are the things we need to spend our lives trying to do.  If we do those positive things, we won’t have time to focus on the negative things.  We will defeat the desires of the flesh, simply because we don’t have time for them.

It’s not as easy as that sounds, of course.  As the old saying goes, if it was easy, everybody would do it.  We cannot do it by ourselves.  We can only do this with the help of Jesus.  Jesus helps us ignore the desires of the flesh and focus on the fruits of the Spirit.  In fact, it’s more than that.  As Paul says, Jesus sets us free from the desires of the flesh.  We are no longer enslaved by them.  

Living in the United States, we have the freedom to choose how we want to live.  We can choose to live in slavery to the desires of the flesh.  In fact, society often encourages us to.  How many times have you heard things like, “Follow the desires of your heart” or “Do whatever makes you happy”.  That sounds good.  But our hearts are unreliable guides.  There are a lot of sinful things that will make us happy--in the short term.  But they have consequences, and those consequences will come back to bite us in the end.  And we will end up in slavery to the desires of the flesh, and we’ll find that we’re neither happy nor free.

But we can also choose to live by the Holy Spirit.  We can follow the desires of God’s heart.  We can do things that make God happy.  And God’s heart is a reliable guide.  And the fruit of the Spirit will make us happy in the long term.  And we will find that we are both happy and free.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the fourth of July.  I hope you’ve been able to celebrate the freedom we have as Americans.  But let’s use our freedom to live by God’s Holy Spirit.  Then we will have the ultimate freedom--freedom from slavery to sin.  When we have that freedom, we are truly free.