The Sin That Cannot Be Forgiven

The message given in the Sunday night worship service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church.  The Bible verses used are Mark 3:20-30.

            God is forgiving.  That’s one of our favorite things about God, right?  That there’s nothing God won’t forgive.  No matter what we’ve done, if we turn to God and confess our sins and repent of them and ask for forgiveness, God will forgive us.  You’ve even heard me refer to God as “the all-forgiving God”.

            But if we believe that, what do we do with our Bible reading for today?  Because Jesus makes it clear that there is at least one thing God will not forgive.  He says it right out in verse twenty-nine.  “[W]hoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.”

            So, we need to look at this more closely.  What do we do with it?  If someone blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will they truly never, ever be forgiven?  Not for all eternity?  I mean, that seems kind of extreme, right?  No matter what someone did or said after that, no matter how much they repented and asked or even begged for forgiveness, God would not listen?  Someone who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit is just out?  Forever?  Did Jesus really mean that literally?

            Well, let’s look at it.  First, is it that Jesus said would be condemned?  What does it mean to “blaspheme against the Holy Spirit?”

            From what I’ve read, in this context, blaspheming the Holy Spirit, in this context, is beyond just not believing in the Holy Spirit.  It goes beyond being disrespectful or even insulting.  In this context, to blaspheme the Holy Spirit means to actually declare that the Holy Spirit is evil.

            Now, remember what’s going on in this Bible passage.  People are saying that Jesus is out of His mind.  They’re saying he’s possessed by demons.  They’re saying he has an impure spirit.  In short, some of the teachers of the law, and in fact some of Jesus’ own family, are saying that Jesus is evil.  He’s doing the work of demons.

            Jesus denies it, of course.  He tries to show the utter impossibility of what they’re saying.  He says, I’m driving out demons.  Why, or even how, could a demon drive out demons?  What sense would that make?  But then Jesus says this:  “Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.”

            It sounds to me like Jesus is saying, look, you can say anything you want about me.  If you want to say I’m evil, that I’m in league with the demons, go ahead.  There will be consequences, but if you eventually repent and ask for forgiveness for what you’ve said about me, you’ll get it.  But don’t say anything like that about the Holy Spirit.  If you do, you will never be forgiven.

            But that brings us back to where we were.  Why would Jesus say that?  Well, because it’s true, of course--Jesus would not say that if it was not true.  But why would it be true?  Why is blaspheming against the Holy Spirit an unforgivable sin?

            Well, let’s look at who the Holy Spirit is.  For one thing, the Holy Spirit is part of the trinity, right?  God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.  So, the Holy Spirit is God.  So, blaspheming the Holy Spirit is blaspheming God, and that’s obviously a seriously bad thing.  But still, we’re not told that blaspheming God the Father is an unforgivable sin.  And we’re not told that blaspheming God the Son is an unforgivable sin.  So why would someone who blasphemes God the Holy Spirit never be forgiven?

            Jesus does not say a lot about the Holy Spirit, but he does say a few things.  One of them is in the third chapter of John.  We talked about this one a few weeks ago in the Sunday night service.  In John Chapter Three, Jesus is talking with a Pharisee named Nicodemus.  And he tells Nicodemus, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again”  

Of course, Nicodemus has no idea what Jesus is talking about.  So Jesus explains it farther.  He says, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.  Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.  You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’  The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

            Jesus says that the only way we can go to heaven is if we’re born of the Holy Spirit.  Now, when we talk about being born again and being born of the Spirit, we’re not necessarily saying that this has to be some mountaintop experience, where the Holy Spirit comes to you all at once like Saul on the road to Damascus and you suddenly believe.  It does happen that way sometimes, to some people.  I’ve known some for whom it happened that way.  They describe it as an incredible, awesome experience, and I’m sure it must be.

            But as United Methodists we don’t believe being born of the Spirit has to happen that way.  We believe it can also be a process.  It can happen gradually, over a period of time.  Days, months, years, even decades.  And even for people for whom it does happen all at once, there’s still a process involved.  After all, when Saul was converted on the road to Damascus, he still had to go and study for three years before he started his ministry.  He believed, but he recognized that to be able to serve God, he needed to understand more about who it was he actually believed in.  

            But whether it happens suddenly or gradually, it does need to happen.  We do need to be born of the Spirit if we’re going to see the kingdom of God.  Jesus specifically said so.  Without the leading of God’s Holy Spirit, we are not going to be born of that Spirit and we are not going to get to heaven.

            So where does that leave us?  Well, we’ve said before that God will not force us to believe.  God will encourage us.  God will nudge us.  And sometimes God will do more than just give us a gentle nudge.  Sometimes God will do just about everything but slap us upside the head to get us to believe.  But still, God will not force us.  God leaves the choice of whether to believe up to us.

            But if we blaspheme against the Holy Spirit, if we declare the Holy Spirit to be evil, we’re not going to accept the guidance of God’s Holy Spirit, are we?  We’re going to shut the Holy Spirit out.  More than that, we’re going to oppose the Holy Spirit at every turn.  After all, that’s what the Pharisees did to Jesus, right?  They thought he was evil, and they fought him, and eventually they killed him.  That’s what we do when we’re convinced someone or something is evil.  We don’t accept evil.  We don’t compromise with evil.  We fight evil, in every way we can. 

            So, if that’s how we react to the Holy Spirit, we’re not going to see the kingdom of heaven.  That’s why someone who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.  Not because God refuses to forgive them, but because they will never ask for forgiveness.  They will never repent of their sins.  Because the only way we can turn to God and be born again is through God’s Holy Spirit.  When we shut God’s Holy Spirit out, it won’t happen.

            So, what’s the lesson here for us?  Well, for one thing, we can be assured that what we said at the beginning of this message is still true.  If we turn to God and confess our sins and repent of them and ask for forgiveness, God will give it to us.  God truly is the all-forgiving God.

            But what else can we get from this?  After all, you and I would never blaspheme against the Holy Spirit.  We’d never declare God’s Holy Spirit to be evil.  So this really has no application to us, right?

            Well, I hope not.  But let’s not be too sure.  After all, I’m pretty sure the Pharisees, the teachers of the law, all those people, would’ve said it had no application to them, either.  They’d have said, of course we’d never blaspheme against God’s Holy Spirit.  We’d never declare God’s Holy Spirit to be evil.  And yet, they saw Jesus healing people and casting out demons, using the power of the Holy Spirit, and they declared him to be evil and to be possessed by demons.  They were sure they’d never do something like that, but they still did it.

            So we need to be open to recognizing God’s Holy Spirit, even when the Spirit acts in ways we don’t expect.  In fact, especially when the Spirit acts in ways we don’t expect.  Remember, Jesus compared the Holy Spirit to the wind, and said, “The wind blows where it pleases...you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.”

            As we all know around here, the wind acts in unpredictable ways.  And so does God’s Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit does not take direction from us.  In fact, sometimes the Holy Spirit does things that make no sense whatsoever to us.  Just as what Jesus was doing, using the power of the Holy Spirit, made no sense to the Pharisees and the teachers of the law.

            There’s a lot happening in the world today that we don’t understand.  And some of it certainly is evil.  But let’s not be too quick to decide what’s evil and what’s not.  Let’s not decide that something must be evil just because it does not make sense to us.  Let’s exercise God’s love, and God’s grace.  And let’s use God’s love and God’s grace when we see these things.  There certainly is evil in the world.  But if we’re too quick to judge, and if we judge without using God’s grace and God’s love, we just might do what the Pharisees and the teachers of the law did.  And given how we all need God’s forgiveness, we most definitely do not want to do that.

 

Generous Giving

The message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, July 31, 2022.  The Bible verses used are 2 Corinthians 9:6-15.

            When you saw the sermon title, and you heard that Bible reading, some of you probably thought, “Oh, boy, here we go.  Here comes a sermon on giving.  The church must need money or something.”

            Well, yes and no.  The church does need money, of course.  That’s always true.  But that’s not what this sermon is going to be about.  Because that’s not what our Bible reading is about.  

In fact, it’s too bad that this passage is sometimes used that way, because doing so misses the point of the passage.  The Apostle Paul is not writing about giving to the church.  Paul does not say anything about the church.  But Paul does have a lot to say about giving in this passage.  Let’s look at it.

First, how much should you give?  Paul says, basically, that’s up to you.  He says each person should give whatever they decide to give.  And, he says, don’t give a certain amount just because you feel like you have to.  Don’t give a certain amount because you feel like you’re forced to or because you’ll feel guilty about it if you don’t give that much.  Give because you want to, and give the amount you want to.  As we’ve heard so many times, God loves a cheerful giver.

But Paul does say that there are reasons to give generously.  For one thing, he says, “Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.”  In other words, how much good do you want your giving to do?  Do you want it to just do a little good?  Then just give a little.  Do you want it to do a lot of good?  Then give a lot!  Give generously.  Give as much as you can afford to give.  The more you give, the more good you will do.

And, Paul says, when you’re thinking about “how much you can afford to give”, don’t be afraid.  Don’t think, oh, I cannot give very much, because I have to make sure I still have plenty.  Paul says that, when we’re figuring out how much we can afford to give, we need to make sure we trust God.

Paul says, “He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness.  You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion.”  In other words, when we step out in faith, when we have enough trust in God to sometimes give more than we’re sure we can afford, God will take care of us.  God will make sure that not only can we cover what we’ve promised to give, but we’ll have enough for ourselves, too.  And--this is Pastor Jeff talking now, not Paul--I can tell you that in my life, this has been true.  Every time I’ve increased my giving, God has given us enough money to take care of it.

That’s not to say it hasn’t been scary sometimes.  There have been times when I was very much afraid to increase my giving, because I did not know where the money was going to come from.  I’ve hesitated, out of fear that I would not have enough.  Sometimes I still do that.  So if you’re afraid of giving more, I understand.  It’s not easy.  It takes courage to trust God that much.  It takes faith to trust God that much.

But here’s the thing.  You don’t have to do this in one big leap.  Try taking a small step.  Just increase your giving a little bit.  See what happens.  See if God gives you enough to cover it.  And if, over time, you see that God is giving you enough, try increasing your giving a little bit more.  See if God gives you enough again.  Give God a chance to show you how faithful and trustworthy God is.  I think God will prove that He’s worthy of our faith and trust.

Now, in talking about giving, who should we give to?  Because again, Paul says nothing about giving to the church.  The church will accept it, of course, and we’ll try to use the money wisely.  But that’s not what Paul is talking about.  Paul specifically references two groups of people to give to, and they’re not mutually exclusive at all.  Paul quotes Psalm 112 and says, “They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor.”  And a few verses later, Paul writes about “supplying the needs of the Lord’s people.”

Give to the poor.  Give to the Lord’s people.  We could all be considered the Lord’s people, of course--God made all of us.  So, really, we are free to give to whomever we choose to give to.  But Paul put a special emphasis on giving to the poor.  And of course, they’re the ones who need our gifts the most.

Now, notice, Paul makes this a personal obligation.  Paul does not say, “Get the government to give to the poor.”  He does not say, “Form a nonprofit corporation to give to the poor.”  That’s not to say that either of those is a bad thing, but the point is that Paul does not allow us to push this responsibility onto someone else.  This is something each of us is supposed to do personally.

But why should we do this at all?  I mean, it’s a good thing to do, I suppose, but there are lots of good things to do.  Is that the only reason we’re supposed to do this, because it’s a good thing to do?

No.  Paul tells us why we need to do this.  He says “your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.”  And he goes on to make that point again.  “The service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of the Lord’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God.  Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, others will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else.”

That’s the point of our generosity.  It’s not just to do something nice for someone.  It’s to bring people to Christ.  Our generosity is aimed at leading people to praise God and give thanks to God.

That’s why we cannot do this through some organization.  When people receive something from the government, that’s not something that’s going to lead them to praise God and give thanks to God.  When people receive something from the United Way, that’s not something that’s going to lead them to praise God and give thanks to God.  And that’s not meant as a criticism of the government or the United Way.  But the point is, again, that as Christians, we don’t give just because it’s a good thing to do.  We give to lead people to Christ.  We give to lead people to praise God and give thanks to God.

And note, we don’t lead them to Christ by trying to force the gospel on them.  Paul references two ways in which our giving leads people to Christ.  The first is “our confession of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”  Telling people about Jesus Christ.  Telling them who he is, telling them how he is the Savior and the way to eternal life.  And the second is “the service by which we have proved ourselves”, which accompanies what we say.  Our generosity in giving is what gives authority and credibility to what we say about Jesus.  It shows that we’re not just saying words, that we truly believe them and are truly trying to live by them.

And so, we return to where we started.  “Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.”  That’s not just saying that the more we give the more good we’ll do.  It’s saying that the more we give, the more effective our witness is.  The more we give, the more people will believe what we say.  The more we give, the more authority and credibility we will have with people when we share the gospel of Jesus Christ with them.  In other words, the more generously we give, the more we can do what Jesus told us to do:  make disciples of Jesus Christ.

And one more thing:  Note that nowhere in this passage does Paul mention the word “money”.  Money is one thing we can give, but it is not the only thing we can give.  We can give our time.  We can give our abilities and talents.  We can give our love and our care.  There are all kinds of things we can give.  Money is a good thing to give, and it’s always useful.  But there are many other things we can give, too.  And all of them, if we give them generously, will help us make disciples of Jesus Christ.

It’s up to each of us to decide what we will give and how much of it we will give.  I hope, whatever we give, we will give it cheerfully, because God does love a cheerful giver.  But I also hope we will give it generously, so we can reap a bountiful harvest of souls for Jesus Christ.

 

Love One Another Right Now

The message given at the Sunday night service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church July 24, 2022.  The Bible verses used are Romans 13:8-14.

            The definition of a Christian is someone who believes Jesus Christ is the Savior, the divine Son of God.  And you think, well, duh.  You really went out on a limb with that one, didn’t you, pastor?

            But here’s the thing.  If we truly believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior, as the divine Son of God, we need to do more than just make that statement.  We need to do what Jesus told us to do.  Jesus says that a couple of times in John, Chapter Fourteen.  “If you love me, keep my commands.”  “Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me.”  

The fact that Jesus is the Savior, that He allowed himself to be tortured and killed, that He took the punishment we should get for our sins, is an incredible thing.  The fact that we can have salvation and eternal life through faith in Jesus is an incredible thing.  If we truly believe that Jesus is the Savior, we should love Him for all that He did for us.  And the way that love for Jesus is shown is, again by doing what Jesus told us to do.

Jesus told us to do many things, of course, but the main things He told us to do have to do with love.  He said the two most important commandments are that we love God and that we love our neighbor as ourselves.  Jesus told us to love even our enemies.  The last time He spoke to the disciples before his arrest, He told them he was giving them a new commandment:  “love one another”.  They were to love others as Jesus loved them.

That’s a pretty high standard.  To love people as much as Jesus loves them.  Because Jesus loves completely and unconditionally.  That’s what we’re supposed to do, too.

We don’t, of course.  I mean, sometimes we do.  But a lot of times we don’t, too.  It’s hard.  And it’s not just a problem we have.  It’s a problem Jesus’ earliest followers had, too.  That’s why so many of Paul’s letters, and the other letters we have in the New Testament, talk about love so much:  because we have a very difficult time loving to the extent we should.

The Apostle Paul, in the part of his letter to the Romans that we read today, writes about love.  He says that all the commandments--“You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” all of them--can be summed up in the statement “love your neighbor as yourself”.  

Paul calls love a debt, a debt that’s always outstanding and can never be fully paid.  In other words, no matter how much love we give, we always owe more.  We never reach a time when we’ve loved enough, when we don’t need to give any more love.  Love is always owed to everyone.

But you know, you’ve heard all this before.  There’s certainly nothing new or profound about it.  Those of you who’ve gone to church for a long time, or even just watched services on TV or online, have heard any number of pastors talk about how we need to love each other.

Now, obviously, it’s right.  We probably all agree that we should love each other.  But, because we’ve heard it all before, there’s nothing new or exciting about it.  Nobody’s sitting out there going, “Hey!  Did you hear that!  Paul says we should love each other.  He says we should always give more love to everyone!  That’s amazing!”  The reaction, when we hear stuff like this, is more likely to be “yeah, yeah, yeah.  We get it.  We should love each other.  We know.”  It’s something we’ve heard over and over and over again. 

And that was true back in Paul’s time, too.  No one reading or hearing Paul’s letter to the Romans was thinking “What?  We should love each other?  What a concept!”  People knew that one of the main things about the followers of Jesus was that they were supposed to love each other.  There was nothing new about it then, either.

But what there was in Paul’s time is something there is in our time:  there’s a kind of complacency about it.  In theory, we might agree that we always owe more love than we can give, and so we should always try to love more and more.  In practice, though, I suspect most of us feel we love just about enough.  Now, that may not apply to everyone.  Maybe you are constantly trying to love more and more.  Maybe you are always trying to increase the love you give.  I hope so.  That’s an awesome thing to do.

But a lot of us are not really doing that.  And again, that was true in Paul’s time, too.  And so Paul tries to fight that sense of complacency.  He tries to create a sense of urgency about our need to give love.  He says we need to do this now.  Immediately.  Don’t wait.  Don’t think we’ve already done enough.  He says, “The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.”

Think about that.  “Our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.”

It seems to me there are a couple of ways we can think about that statement.  One of them is to believe that the time is near at which Jesus will come again.  And while I’m not making a prediction, Jesus said several times that we need to live with an awareness of that possibility.  He told us that we don’t know when the day will come, and so we need to be ready all the time.  And so, we need to increase the love we give now.  We need to love others more and better and more fully and more consistently now.  We should not be complacent about it.  We should not put it off until some later time.  We don’t know that a later time will come.  The time to keep working to pay that debt of love is now.

But you know, most of us are complacent about Jesus coming again, too.  Again, in theory, we agree that Jesus could come again at any time.  And some of us even think it could be soon.  But very few of have changed our lives in anticipation of that.  Very few of us have thought, “I’ve got to show more love to people.  I’ve got to love more fully and more consistently, because Jesus might come back at any time.”

So, that leads us to the other way to think about Paul’s statement.  We may believe that Jesus won’t come for hundreds of years, but none of us is going to live that long.  If Jesus does not come in our lifetime, all that means is that the day will come when we go to meet him.  And we need to be ready for that day, too.

None of us knows when that day will come.  And sometimes we try to be complacent about that, too.  Especially when we’re young.  We think, well, yes, of course, I’m going to die someday.  But it’s not going to happen any time soon.  I’ve got plenty of time.

But we don’t know that.  Every day there are young people who die, sometimes without warning.  My first boss, when I worked in Pierre, died suddenly at age thirty.  The day after tomorrow I’m going to be doing a funeral for a good friend about my age who suddenly died.  It happens.  In fact, it seems to be happening more now.  They’ve even given it a name:  Sudden Adult Death Syndrome.  Every day someone, somewhere, goes to bed with all kinds of plans for the next day and simply does not wake up again, at least not on earth.  

I’m not saying that anyone should be obsessed with the idea of death.  But we do need to live our lives with an awareness of it.  We need to recognize that we are going to die, and that we need to have our life in order before we do.  And the most important thing about getting our life in order is to get our relationship with Jesus Christ in order.  So if, as Jesus said, the way to our faith in him is to keep his commands, and if his main command is that we love each other as he loves us, then we’d better get to work on loving others now.

And I say get to work on it because it’s not an easy thing to do.  Loving fully and consistently is not something that comes naturally to us.  Love is a part of human nature, no question about it.  But so are things like selfishness and arrogance and pride.  We have it in us to love as Jesus loved.  But it’s not always easy to bring it out.

How do we do it?  By staying as close to Jesus as possible.  Or, as Paul put it, “clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ.”  Spend some time every day thinking about Jesus.  Whether that’s through prayer, or through reading the Bible, or through taking some quiet time to focus on Jesus, or however we do it, we need to do it.  There are lots of ways to do it, and any way that works for you is a good way.  But we need to do it.  

And we need to do it consistently, every day.  If we’re going to love fully and consistently, we need to stay close to Jesus fully and consistently.  We cannot do this by ourselves.  But if we stay close to Jesus, if we feel God’s Holy Spirit in our hearts, we can.  Not perfectly, because humans never do anything perfectly.  But we can do it.  Jesus would not have told us to do something that was impossible.  With Jesus’ help, we can do this.

But the time to do it is now.  As Paul says, the hour has come for us to wake up from our slumber.  The time to love fully and completely and consistently is now.

Let’s show our love for Jesus by keeping his command to love one another.  And you know what?  If enough of us do that, we just might make the world a lot better place.

 

Keep the Sabbath Holy

The Sunday morning message in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish.  The Bible verses used are Mark 2:23--3:5.

            As I’m sure you noticed, our Bible readings are about times when Jesus did things on the Sabbath.  In doing so, of course, He violated Jewish law and got the religious authorities upset with Him.  And we’ll talk about that, but first, there’s a more fundamental question we need to talk about.  What, exactly, is the Sabbath?  When we talk about the Sabbath–when the Bible talks about the Sabbath–what, exactly, are we talking about?

            The first thing we probably think of is that, well, it’s Sunday.  And that’s true, as far as it goes.  Of course, it was not Sunday in Jesus’ time.  For Jesus, the Sabbath was Saturday, the seventh day.  It comes from the creation story in Genesis, where God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh day.  The seventh day of the week was Saturday, so that’s when Jewish people would celebrate the Sabbath, and Jesus was Jewish.  Christians changed it to Sunday to commemorate the day when people found out Jesus had been raised from the dead.  That day, of course, was Sunday–Easter Sunday.

            So that tells us what day the Sabbath is on.  But it does not really answer the question.  What is the Sabbath?  Why was it important to people in Jesus’ time?  Why is it important now?  Or is it?  Is the Sabbath still important, or is it just a relic of a bygone time?  Something that people made a big deal of when Jesus was around, but something that really does not have anything to do with our lives today?

            When we look at society, we don’t seem to be considering the Sabbath to be very important, do we?  What do most people do on the Sabbath day?  They go to the river.  Or they go camping.  Or they go golfing.  Or they watch a ball game.  Or they sleep in.  Or they have a family day.  Or, some people work.  

            Now, none of those things is an inherently bad thing to do.  I like to watch ball games myself.  And it’s good to have family time.  And there are some jobs that need to be done, whether it’s the Sabbath day or not.  But none of it has much to do with keeping the Sabbath, does it?

            In Jesus’ time, they did take the Sabbath day seriously.  It was, first and foremost, a day of rest.  It was a day on which no work was to be done.

            Now, there were some exceptions made, out of necessity.  For example, the cattle did not understand that it was the Sabbath day, and they needed to be fed and watered on that day just like they did on any other day.  But even within the exceptions, there were rules about what you could and could not do.  You could do what was absolutely necessary, but that was all you could do.  Any more than that put you in violation of the Sabbath law.

            That, of course, is what got Jesus in trouble.  He was doing things that were not, in the view of the religious leaders, absolutely necessary.  He was doing things that were considered work on the Sabbath day, and that was not supposed to be done.  The Sabbath day was a day of rest.  Period.

            And to the extent we recognize the Sabbath day at all anymore, that’s how we recognize it.  As a day of rest.  Now, of course, we think of “rest” and “work” differently from the way the religious leaders of Jesus’ time did.  When we think of “a day of rest”, what we really mean is a day when you don’t do your normal job.  Going fishing, going camping, going tubing, going golfing–all those things would’ve been considered “work” in Jesus’ time.  Not that people played golf in Jesus’ time, but you know what I mean.  None of those things would’ve been permitted under the Sabbath law of Jesus’ time.  They would all have been considered work.

            But even looking at the Sabbath as a day of rest really does not cover what the Sabbath is supposed to be.  I said the idea of the Sabbath comes from the creation story, and that’s true.  But the Sabbath law had its root in the Ten Commandments.  It’s the fourth commandment, and it does say a lot of stuff about not doing work on the Sabbath day.  But here’s the part the religious leaders of Jesus’ time left out.  To the extent that we think about the Sabbath today, it’s the part that we leave out, too.  The fourth commandment starts with the words, “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.”

            Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.  Not remember the Sabbath day by having a fun day.  Not even remember the Sabbath day by not doing any work.  After all, if I stayed in bed all day, I would not be doing any work.  If I sat in front of the TV all day and watched ball games, I would not be doing any work.  But I would not be obeying the fourth commandment.  We are not supposed to just sit around doing nothing on the Sabbath day.  We are to remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

            The purpose of the Sabbath day is not just to give people a day off.  The purpose of the Sabbath day is to give people a chance to connect with God.  The purpose of the Sabbath day is to help people feel God’s holy presence more strongly.  The purpose of the Sabbath day is to help us stay faithful to God and serve God.  The purpose of the Sabbath day is to help us feel love for God and to demonstrate that love by showing love to others.

            That’s what Jesus was talking about when he said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”  God did not tell us to remember the Sabbath day as a punishment.  God did not tell us to remember the Sabbath day so that we’d have to follow a bunch of rules, and to get us into trouble if we broke one of the rules.  And God certainly did not tell us to remember the Sabbath day to prevent us from helping people and showing love to people.  

            That’s why Jesus was so distressed, as our reading says, at the hearts of the religious leaders when He healed a man on the Sabbath day.  The religious leaders had so completely misunderstood the purpose of the Sabbath day that they thought that helping someone in need, showing love to someone who needed love, should be forbidden.  And they had somehow convinced themselves that God would want that to be forbidden.

            So, what are we doing today–what do we do most Sundays–to keep the Sabbath day holy?  Now, in asking that question, I don’t mean to imply that no one does anything.  In fact, just the fact that you’re here in church, or that you’re watching the livestream, is a good start.  Not that sitting in a church pew is the automatic ticket to heaven, but I know you well enough to know there is no one here who just came here to impress people.  There’s no one here who came here because they think they’re better than everyone else.  You came here this morning to worship God.  You came here to make that connection with God that we talked about.  You came here to feel God’s holy presence more strongly.  You came here to have your faith in God strengthened, so that you can better serve God and show love to God and show love to others.

            It’s a good start.  But of course, that’s all it is–a start.  If we walk out of the church today and we don’t think about God again until next Sunday, nothing will have happened here.  We will not have kept the Sabbath day holy.  All we’ll have done is make ourselves feel good for forty-five minutes to an hour.

            “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”  What Jesus was saying is that the Sabbath day is a gift to us.  It’s a gift from God.  It’s not a gift because we get a day off from work.  It’s a gift because it gives us a chance to get closer to God.  It gives us a chance to feel God’s Holy Spirit at work in our lives.  It’s a gift because it allows us to feel God leading us and guiding us through our lives.  The Sabbath day is a gift to us, given out of God’s great love for us.

            I don’t know what you plan to do the rest of the day.  I don’t know what you plan to do next Sunday, or the Sunday after that.  But whatever we do, let’s be sure to make God part of it.  Let’s accept God’s gift of the Sabbath.  Let’s make that connection with God, and let’s keep that connection strong all week.  Then, we’ll be able to stay faithful to God.  We’ll be able to serve God, and love God, and show love to others.  And we truly will be keeping the Sabbath day holy, the way God wants us to.

 

How to Love Sincerely

The message given in the Sunday night worship service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church Sunday, July 17, 2022.  The Bible verses used are Romans 12:9-21.

            You know, if I’m really honest with you, I have a problem with the Bible passage we read today.  Don’t get me wrong, I agree with it.  I agree that these are things we should do.  It’s just--how do you make yourself do them?  

I mean, let’s start with the very first sentence.  “Love must be sincere.”  Okay, sure.  That makes sense.  I certainly would not expect the Bible to encourage insincere love.  We know we’re supposed to love everyone, and of course, our love should be sincere.

But--what about the people we don’t feel love for?  We may know we should love them but--we don’t.  How do we change that?  How do we make ourselves feel sincere love for someone whom we don’t currently feel love for?  How do we make ourselves feel something we don’t feel?

It’s a tough thing.  It’s something I’ve struggled with.  Maybe you have, too.  I feel guilty about it, sometimes, but feeling guilty doesn’t change anything.  It just adds guilt to what I’m already struggling with.  So, what do we do?

Well, as I was thinking about this, I was reminded of something I’ve been told before--sometimes you have to read the Bible differently from the way you read modern writing.  Remember, this is something that was written two thousand years ago or more.  Times have changed.  Writing styles have changed.  Thought patterns have changed.  

Now, in saying “read the Bible differently”, I am not saying that we should change the meaning of the Bible to suit our purposes.  The Bible is still the word of God, and it still contains timeless truths, just as it always has.  We’re not allowed to ignore parts of it, to read in other meanings, or to do anything that changes what the Bible says.

But here’s what I mean.  Suppose, instead of starting with “love must be sincere”, we end with that.  And suppose we look at the rest of the passage as helping us figure out how to feel sincere love for people.  Maybe that will help us actually put this passage into practice.

So let’s start with “Live in harmony with one another...If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.”  

Okay, that sounds doable.  Basically, that’s “live and let live”, right?  And we can do that.  Don’t go around stirring up trouble.  If people disagree with us, that’s fine.  They have a right to their opinions, even if we think they’re wrong.  Try to find common ground with people.  Try to find ways to get along.  Maybe there are even things we can work together on.  And if someone says or does something to upset you, just let it go.  Live in peace and harmony.  That actually sounds pretty good.  So maybe that’s our first step right there.

Now notice, it says, to live in peace with everyone “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you.”  The Apostle Paul, in writing this, recognized that sometimes people will simply not allow us to live in peace with them, no matter how much we might want to.  And it tells us what to do in those situations.  “Do not repay anyone evil for evil...Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written, ‘It is mine to avenge, I will repay,’ says the Lord.”

If someone refuses to allow us to get along with them, we still don’t have to attack them.  We don’t even need to hold a grudge against them.  We can simply leave it in God’s hands.  We can trust God to take care of it.  We can let it go.  That sounds pretty good, too.  It seems like, so far, these are things that will help us live a lot better and a lot more peaceful lives.

Paul says, “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.”  That one’s a little tougher, but it seems doable, too.  Be faithful in prayer?  We can do that.  We know we should pray regularly.  And most of us, I think, would agree that it helps us when we do pray regularly.  Be joyful in hope?  That sometimes takes a little effort--it’s always easier to be a pessimist than to be an optimist--but if we truly have faith in God, and if we truly believe God is good, we should be able to have hope.  Be patient in affliction?  Well, that can be hard, no question about it.  But it also goes along with what we just talked about--letting things go, leaving things in God’s hands, and trusting God to take care of things.  So, while it may be a little harder, we can probably handle this one, too.

But the things we’ve talked about so far really are all just about attitude.  Our attitude is important, no question about it.  But some of these other things Paul says actually require us to do things.  Let’s look at some of those.

“Share with the Lord’s people who are in need.  Practice hospitality.”  At this point, I start to think, you know, maybe these things are not so hard after all.  Because most of us do share with people who are in need.  Most of us do practice hospitality.  Not as often or to the extent we should, probably.  It’s probably something we could all work on and get better at.  But at least we’re not starting from zero.  We just need to do more of what we’re already doing.  We just need to work on being more generous and trusting God more.  That’s not to say it’s an easy one--it can be hard to trust God that much--but we can work on it, and we can get better.

 But then come the hard ones.  “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.”  Yeah, I don’t know about that one.  It was one thing when Paul said just not to do evil to our enemies, to let God take care of them.  It’s another thing when Paul says we need to actively do good things for our enemies.  We need to actually take care of them.  In short, we need to act in loving ways toward our enemies.  Do you want to do that?  Because, to be honest, I don’t.  

But listen to what Paul goes on to say.  “In doing this, you will heap burning coals on [your enemy’s] head.  Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

If we act in loving ways toward our enemies, what will happen?  Well, let’s be honest.  Some of them will take advantage of us.  Some of them will remain our enemies and will treat us even worse.  Life is not one of those cute little children’s Sunday school stories I learned as a kid, where when the hero was nice to the bully the bully always reformed.  I wish life worked that way, but it does not.  At least much of the time it does not.

But it’s not a foregone conclusion that our enemies will take advantage of us.  At least sometimes--once in a while--our enemies might think, why is this person being nice to me?  Why is this person helping me?  Maybe, possibly, there’s a chance that, by doing this, we can reach them for Christ. 

And you know, that’s an awesome feeling, to reach someone for Christ.  For a Christian, it’s about the best feeling we can have.  I mean, it’s rare when anyone leads someone to Christ all by themselves, and obviously the Lord is always involved in that process.  But to feel that you’ve at least played a part in leading someone to Christ, to leading them to salvation and eternal life, that’s about the most awesome feeling there is.  And that just might be enough incentive for us to treat even our enemies, even people we don’t like very much, in loving ways.

And treating people that way just might be the key to what we started out talking about--loving everyone, and making that love sincere.  Maybe if we treat people in loving ways, we’ll actually start to feel love for them.

I’m reminded of a time when John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, was having a crisis of faith.  He was preaching about faith in Christ, but he was not sure he felt it himself.  He asked a friend, Peter Bohler, what he should do.  Bohler replied, “Preach faith until you have it, and then, because you have it, you will preach faith.”

Maybe that sort of thing can work for us.  Maybe we can treat people in loving ways until we feel love, and then, because we feel love, we will treat them in loving ways.  Because, while we cannot always control our feelings, we can control our actions.  And our actions influence our feelings.  So if we act in loving ways, and treat people in loving ways, our actions just might make us actually feel the love we know we’re supposed to feel, and feel it sincerely.

It’s certainly worth a try.  Because we cannot just ignore the things the Bible tells us to do just because they can be hard.  That’s one of the ways Satan attacks us--by telling us that our faith should be easy, that we should never have to do hard things, that if we follow Christ all will be sweetness and light.  It’s not true.  Earthly life was certainly not all sweetness and light for Jesus.  It was not all sweetness and light for the Apostle Paul, either.

Jesus told us to do a lot of hard things.  But Jesus would never tell us to do anything we cannot do.  And he would never tell us to do anything that he, himself, was not willing to do.

Sincerely loving everyone, even our enemies, is hard.  But if we act in loving ways toward them, God’s Holy Spirit will enable us to feel that sincere love we’re told to feel.  And we will be the people God wants us to be.

 

More Than Healing

The message given in the Sunday morning service in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on July 17, 2022.  The Bible verses used are Mark 1:40--2:12.

            When Jesus was on earth, he appeared to be fully human.  I mean, he looked like everyone else.  He sounded like everyone else.  As we found out on the cross, he bled like everyone else, too.

            But the thing is, Jesus was not like everyone else.  He was the divine Son of God.  And that meant a few things.  It meant that Jesus had power that no one else had, and we can see examples of that in our reading for today.  But it also meant that Jesus had a way of looking at things that no one else had, and we can see examples of that in our reading for today, too.

            Let’s look at it.  It starts out with a man with leprosy coming to Jesus.  He falls on his knees in front of Jesus and begs Jesus to heal him.  He says, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”

            That’s sounds perfectly reasonable and understandable, right?  Leprosy was a very serious disease.  It was also a very contagious disease with no cure.  There was nothing any doctor could do about it.

            But Jesus could.  Jesus had already healed a lot of people.  The stories of Jesus healing power had spread.  And this man knew, or at least believed, that Jesus could do what no one else could.  Jesus could heal him and allow him to live a normal life again.  And so he begs Jesus to do just that.

            But Jesus’ response is not what you’d have expected.  At least, it’s not what I’d have expected.  This man comes to Jesus humbly, on his knees.  He does not demand.  He is not disrespectful.  He says to Jesus, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”  And we’re told that, when this man said this, “Jesus was indignant.”

            Why would that be?  Why would Jesus be indignant?  That word, by the way, means to show anger or annoyance.  Why would Jesus be angry at this?  Why would he even be annoyed by what it seems like is a perfectly reasonable request?

            Well, there are a couple of possibilities.  One could be that Jesus was upset that this man thought that he would be unwilling to heal him.  He could’ve been thinking, hey, I’m Jesus.  I love people.  Of course I’ll be willing to heal you.  Why would you doubt that?

            That could be what’s going on here, but it’s not what I think.  I think there’s another reason for Jesus being indignant.

            We’ll come back to that.  After Jesus heals the man, the scene shifts.  Jesus is preaching to a packed house.  It’s standing room only.  No more people can get in.  

            These four guys are carrying a paralyzed man.  They want to get him to Jesus because, just like the man with leprosy, they believe Jesus can heal him.  Their hearts must have sunk when they got there and saw there was no way to get in.  But they did not give up.  One of them got the idea to go up on the roof, cut a hole in the roof, and lower their friend down somehow, to get him in front of Jesus.  And they do.

            Can you imagine this scene?  Jesus is talking, preaching.  All of a sudden, people hear some noises coming from the roof.  Some debris starts to come down.  All of a sudden, there’s a hole in the roof.  And the next thing they know, there’s this man, lying on a mat, being slowly lowered down right in front of Jesus.

            Jesus sees all this too, of course.  Jesus waits until the guy is on the ground and the crowd has quieted down.  Then, Jesus responds.

            And again, Jesus response is not what you’d expect.  At least, it’s not what I’d expect.  I doubt it was what the paralyzed man expected, either.  The man does not say anything, or at least nothing that’s recorded.  But Jesus has to know he wants to be healed.  What else could he possibly want?  But Jesus does not heal him, not right away, anyway.  He says, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

            Everyone had to be stunned.  The man had to be stunned because, hey, what do you mean ‘my sins are forgiven’?  I did not come here to get my sins forgiven.  I came here so I could be healed.  I came here so I could walk again.

            The teachers of the law were stunned, too.  They’re thinking, what does he mean, his sins are forgiven?  Only God can forgive sins.  Who does this guy think he is, anyway?  Does he think he’s God?

            Well, of course, Jesus did think he was God, because in fact he was God, God the Son.  And because he was God, he knew what the teachers of the law were thinking.  And he says, “Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’?  But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.”  So he said to the man, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.”  And of course, the man did.

            This is what I meant when I said Jesus had a way of looking at things that no one else had.  For Jesus, healing this man physically, allowing him to be able to walk, was pretty much an afterthought.  It was not the most important thing.  It was the thing that impressed people, yes.  It was the thing that people remembered.  It may even have been the most important thing in this man’s mind.  But for Jesus, healing this man was not the most important thing.  The most important thing for Jesus was for this man to know his sins were forgiven.

            I think that’s why Jesus was indignant with the man who had leprosy.  Jesus was annoyed because this man did not realize what was important.  Jesus was thinking, you’ve got the divine Son of God in front of you, and all you can think about is being healed physically?  Yes, I can do that, and I am willing to do it.  But I could do so much more for you.  I could forgive your sins.  I could give you salvation and eternal life.  And instead, all you can think of is your physical life on earth.  

            As human beings, we tend to think of our physical health as the most important thing in our lives.  The old saying is that as long as you’ve got your health, you’ve got everything.  We do everything we can to preserve our physical health.  And when we don’t have good physical health, we do everything we can to get it back.  And of course, we pray for physical healing all the time.  And I do it, too--I do it pretty much every week in church, and I do it at other times, too.  

Now, I’m not saying it’s wrong to pray for physical healing.  Jesus did not say it was wrong, either.  It’s a good thing to pray for physical healing.  Our physical health is important.  God has things for us to do while we’re on earth, and we may not be able to do some of them if we’re not physically healthy.  Now don’t take that the wrong way, either.  People who have health problems are still able to serve God.  But as a general rule, the better our physical health is, the more things we can do, and the more we’ll be able to serve God.  And so we need to do what we can to be as physically healthy as we can.

But Jesus wants us to know that there are things that are more important than our physical health.  Because no matter how healthy we keep ourselves, we are not going to live forever.  At some point, no matter how much we exercise, no matter how hard we try to eat right, no matter how many precautions we take, our physical health is going to deteriorate.  And at some point, we are going to die.  Each one of us.  That’s just how it is.

            And so, as important as our physical health is, it’s not the most important thing.  And it’s not the most important thing for us to pray for, either.  The most important thing is that we have faith in Jesus as the Savior.  The most important thing is that we repent of our sins.  The most important thing is that we ask for the Lord’s forgiveness for those sins.  Because those are the things that are going to give us salvation and eternal life.  Our lives on earth are going to end at some point, no matter what we do.  But through Christ, we can have another life in heaven, a life that is eternal.

            God can heal us on earth, if God is willing.  But God can do so much more for us.  God can give us forgiveness and salvation and eternal life.

            Let’s keep that in mind when we pray.  Let’s keep in mind who God is.  When we go God we are going to someone who is holy and righteous and perfect.  We are going to someone who is all-knowing, all-seeing, all-wise, all-powerful, and almighty.  We are going to someone who also all-loving, all-caring, all-compassionate, all-forgiving, and all-merciful.  So when we go to God, let’s not limit ourselves to praying about physical health.  And let’s not limit ourselves to praying about other things that affect our earthly lives, either.  Again, it’s all right to pray for them.  But let’s pray for more than that.  Let’s repent of our sins.  Let’s ask God for forgiveness.  Let’s ask God for salvation and eternal life.  And then, let’s ask God to show us how we can spread God’s message, so that other can also have salvation and eternal life.

            God offers us so much more than physical healing.  Let’s accept all that God offers.

 

God's Amazing Love

The message given in the Sunday night worship service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church July 10, 2022.  The Bible verses used are Romans 8:26-39.

            God is love.  We say that all the time, right?  God is love.

            And of course, it’s a true statement.  God is love.  God is lots of other things, too, of course, and we need to be aware of those other things.  But if there was only one thing that we could know about God, that’s probably the one we should know, the one that’s most important:  That God is love.

            But while we say that, and we know it, I think sometimes that we take it for granted.  I think sometimes I take it for granted.  We don’t think enough about how incredible and how awesome God’s love for us really is.

            We should.  Because it really is amazing how much God loves us.  When you think of all God has done for us, and continues to do for us, it really is almost beyond belief.

            Start with just the fact that we’re even here, that we even exist, that God even created us at all.  Just life itself is an incredible gift.  And too often we take that gift for granted, too.  After all, how many times do we say thank you to God for our lives?  Now, maybe you do–I don’t know what you do–but I know I don’t say it nearly enough.  A lot of us, including me, spend far too much of our time complaining about our lives, and not anywhere near enough time being thankful for them.  

            And then, think about the beautiful world God has given us to live in.  We should especially think about that here, when we’re privileged to live in such a beautiful part of God’s world.  The variety of animals and birds and fish.  The variety of plants and crops.  The incredible colors of the sunrises and sunsets.  And I could go on and on.

            And we take that for granted, too, don’t we?  I mean, yes, we might take a few minutes to appreciate a particularly beautiful sunset.  We might even post a picture of it on facebook.  But here’s what we don’t think about enough:  God made a deliberate choice to make a world with all that variety and color.

            Think about it.  God did not have to create the world the way He did.  God could have created a world where there were only a half-dozen types of animals, a handful of kinds of birds, just a few types of fish.  God could’ve created a world without vibrant colors, where everything was just in shades of grey.  And that world could’ve been a perfectly functional world.  And if it was all we’d ever known, we’d never have noticed the difference.

            But that world would’ve been a world with less beauty, and a world with less joy.  And God wanted to create a world with beauty and joy.  So, God created the world the way He did.  That’s a gift, too.  That’s a gift to you, and to me, and everyone, to live in this beautiful world God created.

            But to me, the greatest thing about God’s love is this:  God loves us so much that God takes an active part in our lives.  God did not just create this world, plop us into it, and say, “Good luck!  You’re on your own now!”  God is actively involved in our lives.  And I don’t mean just that God is involved in the life of the world generally.  God is actively involved in each of our lives.  Personally.  God is actively involved in your life.  And God is actively involved in my life.  

            Our Bible reading talks about that.  In verse thirty-one, the Apostle Paul writes, “If God is for us, who can be against us?”  When we read that, we sometimes jump to the last part–that no one can be against us.  And that’s important, but let’s not hurry past the first part.  “God is for us.”

            I want you to think about that.  I want you to always remember that.  “God is for us.”  God is not against us.  God is not neutral where we are concerned.  God is for us.  God is in favor of us.  And God is actively working in favor of us.  God is actively working for our benefit.

            Verse twenty-eight says, “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”  Think about what an awesome statement that is.  “In all things God works for the good of those who love him.”  That’s a statement of how active God is in our lives.  It’s also a statement of the incredible power God has, and how God uses that power in our favor.  God is so strongly for us that God can and will take anything and everything that happens and use it for our good.

            We say that, but we have trouble really believing it sometimes, don’t we?  Because every person here, and every person watching the livestream, has had some really bad things happen to them.  You’ve lost someone you love.  You’ve had serious health problems.  You’ve had serious financial problems.  You’ve been hurt or betrayed by someone close to you.  I may not know what it is, but everyone hearing my voice has had something really bad happen to them.  Maybe you’re going through it now.  But when it happens, it’s really hard to believe that God is going to take that terrible thing that’s happened and use it for good.  

            And God understands that.  God would love it if we could just trust Him in all circumstances, if we could just believe that God is going to use all those things for good, but God understands why that’s a hard thing for us to do.

            When we’re going through hard times, when we have trouble believing God is going to use it for good, God won’t be upset with us for that.  God just asks that we do one thing in that situation–go to Him.  Go to God.  Take the situation to God.  Talk to Him about it.  Tell God everything you’re feeling.  Tell God your hurts, your anger, your sadness, everything.  Give it all to God.  

And if you have a hard time putting it into words, if you’re struggling with what to say, go to God anyway.  Verse twenty-six of our reading says, “We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.  And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.”

God loves us so much that God knows how we feel even when we cannot express it.  As long as we just allow God’s Holy Spirit into our hearts, God’s Holy Spirit can understand our feelings perfectly.  Even if we’re not sure ourselves just exactly how to understand our feelings, God’s Holy Spirit will know.  And God’s Holy Spirit intercedes.  Again, the Holy Spirit intercedes “for us”, because God is “for us”.

God understands when we go through hard times because God has been through hard times.  Does that sound strange to you, to say that God has been through hard times?  Maybe so.  But think about this:  As verse thirty-two says, God did not spare His own son, but gave Him up for us all.

You think that was not hard for God?  It had to be.  To watch His beloved Son, Jesus Christ, be mocked, and tortured, and killed in an incredibly painful way?  To know that Jesus had done nothing to deserve that, but was willing to do it anyway?  It had to be incredibly hard for God to see that.  It had to be incredibly hard for Jesus to do it, too.  But they did it.  And they worked it for the good of those who love Him.  It’s only because of that sacrifice that we are able to have salvation and eternal life.  

And that’s the greatest gift of all.  None of us is good enough to go to heaven.  We are not righteous, or holy, or even good, compared to God.  As Jesus Himself said, no one is good except God alone.  But God loves us so much that, if we believe in His divine Son, He allows us into heaven.  Not only does God allow us into heaven, God invites us into heaven.  God is eager for us to go to heaven.  What an incredible love that is.

God’s love for us is so amazing.  It’s a love so strong that there is absolutely nothing that can separate us from that love.  As verse thirty-eight says, not even death can separate us from that love.  In fact, for those who believe in Jesus Christ, I suspect death only makes us feel God’s love even more.  Because in heaven, there is literally nothing separating us from God’s love.  We are in the actual presence of God, and we feel God’s love in a more powerful way than we can ever feel it while we’re on earth.

God loves us so much.  God has given us the gift of life.  God has given us a beautiful world to live that life in.  And God actively works for us in that life, working all things, even things we think of as terrible things, for our good.  God is for us, with a love so strong that nothing can separate us from that love.  And God loves us so much that God gives us the chance for salvation and eternal life, even though we don’t deserve that gift.

God is awesome.  God’s love is awesome.  Let’s not take that love for granted.  Let’s be thankful for the gifts God has given us and continues to give us.  And let’s always remember that, no matter how things may look, God is for us.  And if God is for us, who can be against us?