Against the Wind

The message given in the Sunday night worship service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church.  The Bible verses used are Mark 6:45-52.

            One of the things that can happen to us as Christians is that we sometimes get so used to saying certain words that we stop thinking about them.  They become just words that we use, without ever considering the real meaning behind them.  As you may have guessed from our Bible reading, and from the hymns we’ve used, one of those words, the word we’re going to look at today, is “faith”.

We use that word “faith” a lot.  We say that we are saved by faith, faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior.  When Jesus healed people, he would often say, “Your faith has made you well”.  We refer to our religion as a “Christian faith”.  So when we use that word “faith”, what is it that we actually mean?

Our reading from the letter to the Hebrews tells us a little about it.  It gives us what seems to me a really good definition of faith.  It says, “Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”

If you think about that, it makes perfect sense.  I don’t have to have faith that this pulpit exists.  I can see it.  I can feel it.  I don’t have to have faith that the keyboard is over there.  I can see it.  If our pianist bangs on the keys, I can hear it.  If I walked over there, I could touch it.  Those things don’t require any faith at all.

There are other mundane things that take a little bit of faith.  As I stand here right now, I cannot see my car.  It was out there when I walked in here this morning.  I think it’s probably still there.  But it might not be.  Someone could’ve stolen it.  It takes a little bit of faith to believe that my car is still there.

The same thing with the parsonage.  The parsonage was there when we left this morning.  All of our stuff was in it.  I don’t know that it’s still there.  But I have faith that it is, and that all of our stuff is there, too.

And of course, there are various things in our lives that require more faith.  I have faith that Wanda loves me.  I have faith that when I take a check to the bank, it’s going to go into my account.  I have faith that when I get here for church on Sunday, the lights will be on and someone will be there to play the piano and to run the power point and to act as ushers and to do all the other things that need to be done for us to have church today.  There are all sorts of things we do every day that require faith.

But of course, when we talk about faith in the church, we’re talking about something quite a bit more serious.  We’re talking about faith that God exists.  We’re talking about faith that God loves us.  We’re talking about faith that God knows what’s best for us and that we need to follow God, even when we have no idea what God’s up to and even when what God’s telling us may not make any sense to us..  

Our Bible reading addresses that.  It gives all kinds of examples of people in the Bible who had faith.  It starts out with the example that it is by faith that we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command.  It then talks about the faith of Abel, the faith of Enoch, the faith of Noah, the faith of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah--we’re given all kinds of examples of people who had faith.

But what does the letter to the Hebrews say about their faith?  It says their faith was shown by their actions.  We know that Abel had faith because of the offering he gave to God.  We know that Noah had faith because he built an ark, even though he was living in the desert and there was not a cloud in the sky.  We know Abraham had faith because he went to a strange place at God’s command, even though he knew nothing about it and knew no one there.  

That tells us two things about faith.  One is that faith must be revealed by our actions.  It’s no good to say we have faith in God if the way we live does not show that.  That may seem like kind of an obvious point, but think about it.  Think about how we live our lives.  Does the way you live your life show that you have faith in God?  Does the way I live my life show I have faith in God?  If someone did not know you, and just observed how you live, would that person be able to tell that you have faith in God?

That’s more important than we may think.  We tend to believe that in a little town like this everyone believes in God, but it’s not true.  There are people in our parish who do not believe in God.  There are people in our parish who do not accept Jesus as the Savior.  And they’re not likely to open up the Bible and change their minds.  You and I, as Christians, are representatives of God.  We’re representatives of Jesus Christ.  What people can observe of you and me is going to be what they think a Christian is.  It’s a big responsibility.  But it’s a responsibility God gives us.  If we have faith, our faith needs to be revealed by our actions, just as the faith of those Bible heroes our reading tells us about was revealed by their actions.

And another thing it tells us about faith is that faith requires us to follow God even when we don’t know what the outcome is going to be.  Faith requires us to follow God even when we don’t understand what’s going on.  Abel did not know what was going to happen when he made his offering to God.  I’m sure he hoped God would be pleased, but he did not know.  He gave the offering because he had faith.  Enoch did not know he was going to be able to escape death, and be taken directly to heaven, when he decided to follow God.  He followed God because he had faith.  Abraham had no idea what he was going to find when God sent him to a strange land.  He went because he had faith.

And those things together--having our faith revealed by our actions, and acting in faith even when we don’t know what will happen--show one more thing about faith.  They show that faith is incredibly powerful.  Jesus said that if we have even as much faith as a mustard seed--a very tiny seed--we can move mountains.  Again, when Jesus healed people, he would generally tell them, “Your faith has made you well.”  Faith--faith in God, faith in Jesus as the Savior--has incredible power.  Faith allows us to do things that we might think are impossible.  But they’re not, because as Jesus also said, with God, all things are possible.

And that’s important.  Because a lot of times, as human beings, and even as Christians, we feel like we don’t have much power.  That can be especially true in our situation, when we’re part of a small church in a small town.  We see all kinds of things happening, and we think, “I cannot do anything about that.  I cannot affect that.  There’s nothing I can do.”

It’s not true.  We may not be able to do everything, but there are things we can do.  Remember what I said a little while ago.  There are people in this parish who do not believe in God.  There are people in this parish who do not accept Jesus as the Savior.  It’s not good enough for us to say, “There’s nothing I can do about that.”  If we don’t do something about it, who will?  If we, as Christians, don’t reach those people who are our neighbors, who else will do it?  The answer is no one.  There is no one else.  Nobody is going to come to Gettysburg, or to Onida, and reach those people who don’t have faith.  It’s up to us.  There is no one else.

How do we do that?  Well, I’ll tell you--I don’t know.  I don’t have the magic bullet solution.  But we’ve got to try.  First, we should pray.  Ask God to show us how we can reach people.  And then, have the courage to try.  

There are all kinds of ways we can try.  We can talk to people about faith.  We can post things on facebook.  We can invite people to church.  Will those things work?  I don’t know.  Are there other things we can try?  I’m sure there are.  I don’t know if those other things will work either.  But here’s one thing I do know:  if we do nothing, nothing’s going to happen.  Those people who don’t believe now will continue to not believe.  And if we believe what Jesus said--that no one comes to the Father except through him--then there are people in our parish whose eternal life is in jeopardy.  I don’t like to think that there are people around me--people that I know--who may not be going to heaven.  And I don’t think you like to think that, either.

If we claim to have faith, that faith has to be revealed by our actions.  We need to go where God sends us, to do what God asks us, to say what God tells us.  We need to do that even when we don’t know what’s going to happen.  That’s what faith is.  And when we act in faith, God will bless our efforts.  And then, all kinds of things can happen, things we never even dreamed of.  Because with God, all things are possible.

 

Faith

The message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, January 29, 2023.  The Bible verses used are Ephesians 4:22--5:2.

            One of the things that can happen to us as Christians is that we sometimes get so used to saying certain words that we stop thinking about them.  They become just words that we use, without ever considering the real meaning behind them.  As you may have guessed from our Bible reading, and from the hymns we’ve used, one of those words, the word we’re going to look at today, is “faith”.

We use that word “faith” a lot.  We say that we are saved by faith, faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior.  When Jesus healed people, he would often say, “Your faith has made you well”.  We refer to our religion as a “Christian faith”.  So when we use that word “faith”, what is it that we actually mean?

Our reading from the letter to the Hebrews tells us a little about it.  It gives us what seems to me a really good definition of faith.  It says, “Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”

If you think about that, it makes perfect sense.  I don’t have to have faith that this pulpit exists.  I can see it.  I can feel it.  I don’t have to have faith that the keyboard is over there.  I can see it.  If our pianist bangs on the keys, I can hear it.  If I walked over there, I could touch it.  Those things don’t require any faith at all.

There are other mundane things that take a little bit of faith.  As I stand here right now, I cannot see my car.  It was out there when I walked in here this morning.  I think it’s probably still there.  But it might not be.  Someone could’ve stolen it.  It takes a little bit of faith to believe that my car is still there.

The same thing with the parsonage.  The parsonage was there when we left this morning.  All of our stuff was in it.  I don’t know that it’s still there.  But I have faith that it is, and that all of our stuff is there, too.

And of course, there are various things in our lives that require more faith.  I have faith that Wanda loves me.  I have faith that when I take a check to the bank, it’s going to go into my account.  I have faith that when I get here for church on Sunday, the lights will be on and someone will be there to play the piano and to run the power point and to act as ushers and to do all the other things that need to be done for us to have church today.  There are all sorts of things we do every day that require faith.

But of course, when we talk about faith in the church, we’re talking about something quite a bit more serious.  We’re talking about faith that God exists.  We’re talking about faith that God loves us.  We’re talking about faith that God knows what’s best for us and that we need to follow God, even when we have no idea what God’s up to and even when what God’s telling us may not make any sense to us..  

Our Bible reading addresses that.  It gives all kinds of examples of people in the Bible who had faith.  It starts out with the example that it is by faith that we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command.  It then talks about the faith of Abel, the faith of Enoch, the faith of Noah, the faith of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah--we’re given all kinds of examples of people who had faith.

But what does the letter to the Hebrews say about their faith?  It says their faith was shown by their actions.  We know that Abel had faith because of the offering he gave to God.  We know that Noah had faith because he built an ark, even though he was living in the desert and there was not a cloud in the sky.  We know Abraham had faith because he went to a strange place at God’s command, even though he knew nothing about it and knew no one there.  

That tells us two things about faith.  One is that faith must be revealed by our actions.  It’s no good to say we have faith in God if the way we live does not show that.  That may seem like kind of an obvious point, but think about it.  Think about how we live our lives.  Does the way you live your life show that you have faith in God?  Does the way I live my life show I have faith in God?  If someone did not know you, and just observed how you live, would that person be able to tell that you have faith in God?

That’s more important than we may think.  We tend to believe that in a little town like this everyone believes in God, but it’s not true.  There are people in our parish who do not believe in God.  There are people in our parish who do not accept Jesus as the Savior.  And they’re not likely to open up the Bible and change their minds.  You and I, as Christians, are representatives of God.  We’re representatives of Jesus Christ.  What people can observe of you and me is going to be what they think a Christian is.  It’s a big responsibility.  But it’s a responsibility God gives us.  If we have faith, our faith needs to be revealed by our actions, just as the faith of those Bible heroes our reading tells us about was revealed by their actions.

And another thing it tells us about faith is that faith requires us to follow God even when we don’t know what the outcome is going to be.  Faith requires us to follow God even when we don’t understand what’s going on.  Abel did not know what was going to happen when he made his offering to God.  I’m sure he hoped God would be pleased, but he did not know.  He gave the offering because he had faith.  Enoch did not know he was going to be able to escape death, and be taken directly to heaven, when he decided to follow God.  He followed God because he had faith.  Abraham had no idea what he was going to find when God sent him to a strange land.  He went because he had faith.

And those things together--having our faith revealed by our actions, and acting in faith even when we don’t know what will happen--show one more thing about faith.  They show that faith is incredibly powerful.  Jesus said that if we have even as much faith as a mustard seed--a very tiny seed--we can move mountains.  Again, when Jesus healed people, he would generally tell them, “Your faith has made you well.”  Faith--faith in God, faith in Jesus as the Savior--has incredible power.  Faith allows us to do things that we might think are impossible.  But they’re not, because as Jesus also said, with God, all things are possible.

And that’s important.  Because a lot of times, as human beings, and even as Christians, we feel like we don’t have much power.  That can be especially true in our situation, when we’re part of a small church in a small town.  We see all kinds of things happening, and we think, “I cannot do anything about that.  I cannot affect that.  There’s nothing I can do.”

It’s not true.  We may not be able to do everything, but there are things we can do.  Remember what I said a little while ago.  There are people in this parish who do not believe in God.  There are people in this parish who do not accept Jesus as the Savior.  It’s not good enough for us to say, “There’s nothing I can do about that.”  If we don’t do something about it, who will?  If we, as Christians, don’t reach those people who are our neighbors, who else will do it?  The answer is no one.  There is no one else.  Nobody is going to come to Gettysburg, or to Onida, and reach those people who don’t have faith.  It’s up to us.  There is no one else.

How do we do that?  Well, I’ll tell you--I don’t know.  I don’t have the magic bullet solution.  But we’ve got to try.  First, we should pray.  Ask God to show us how we can reach people.  And then, have the courage to try.  

There are all kinds of ways we can try.  We can talk to people about faith.  We can post things on facebook.  We can invite people to church.  Will those things work?  I don’t know.  Are there other things we can try?  I’m sure there are.  I don’t know if those other things will work either.  But here’s one thing I do know:  if we do nothing, nothing’s going to happen.  Those people who don’t believe now will continue to not believe.  And if we believe what Jesus said--that no one comes to the Father except through him--then there are people in our parish whose eternal life is in jeopardy.  I don’t like to think that there are people around me--people that I know--who may not be going to heaven.  And I don’t think you like to think that, either.

If we claim to have faith, that faith has to be revealed by our actions.  We need to go where God sends us, to do what God asks us, to say what God tells us.  We need to do that even when we don’t know what’s going to happen.  That’s what faith is.  And when we act in faith, God will bless our efforts.  And then, all kinds of things can happen, things we never even dreamed of.  Because with God, all things are possible.

 

Forgiving Jesus

The message given Sunday night, January 22, 2023, in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish.  The Bible verses used are Mark 3:20-35.

Jesus’ first miracle came at a wedding in Cana, when He turned water into wine.  This was a pretty unmistakable sign that it was time for Jesus to leave Nazareth and start his ministry on earth.

            Jesus’ leaving must have been hard on His mother, Mary.  She knew it had to be this way, of course.  She remembered what the angel Gabriel had told her.  She knew who Jesus was.  Still, it was hard.  Jesus had been a part of her life for thirty years, more or less.  And now, he was not there anymore.

            There probably was not a day that went by that she did not think of him.  She wondered where he was.  She wondered what he was doing.  She wondered if he was all right, if he was eating properly, if he was getting enough rest.  She wondered all the things that a mother wonders when her son is away from home, out on his own.

            Once in a while, of course, Jesus would come back to Nazareth.  And I’m sure he looked in on Mary, to see how she was doing.  It would sure be interesting to know how those conversations went, don’t you think?  Did Jesus tell Mary about all the things he’d done?  Did he tell her about being tempted in the desert?  Did he tell her about healing people?  Did he tell her about taking on demons?  If so, how would Mary react to that?  Would she be proud of Jesus?  Would she be worried about him?  Did she ever try to get him to come back home, to come back to the carpenter shop?

            Well, we don’t know any of that, of course.  But if she ever did try to get him to come back home, it did not work.  Jesus was never there very long.  He’d be there for a little while, and then he’d be gone again, back to his ministry.  And Mary would be alone again, left to wonder and worry about him.

            Obviously, communication back then was not what it is now.  It’s not like Jesus had a cell phone Mary could call.  She could not send him a text or an email.  She could not even contact him on facebook.  Still, though, I’m sure she heard things.  Probably lots of things.  Maybe she heard about the time he fed five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish.  Maybe she heard about the huge crowds he was drawing to hear him preach.  Maybe she even heard about him walking on the water and calming the storm.

            If she did, she must have been really proud of him.  I mean, think about it.  Think about if your son or your daughter could do stuff like that.  Most parents are proud of their children anyway, but this would be something really incredible right.  To think that your child was doing that.  It’d be incredible.

            But she probably heard some other things, too.  She probably heard about the times Jesus broke the Sabbath law.  She probably heard about the times he argued with the Pharisees.  She probably heard about the times he got into trouble with the authorities.  And you just know that there were some people eager to tell her about stuff like that, right?  After all, it’s not like gossip is a recent invention.  People did it back then, too.  There were probably people who just could not wait to tell Mary when they heard something critical of Jesus.

            So we come to our Bible reading for tonight.  We’re told that Jesus and his disciples go to a house, and there’s a huge crowd there, so big that Jesus could not even eat.  Then we’re told, “When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, ‘He is out of his mind.’”

            Now, we don’t know who this “family” was that thought Jesus was out of his mind.  Some people think it was not actually his family at all, at least not in the sense of blood relatives.  And that does kind of make sense, because people sometimes gave “family” a broader meaning back then.  People who were family friends were sometimes referred to as uncles or cousins, even though they were not actually related.  Whoever it was, though, it must not have been Mary, and it must not have been Jesus’ brothers, because we’re told later in the passage, “Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived.”

            And that’s the part I want to focus on.  Jesus is talking to the people, and he’s telling them things about God and about their faith.  And the things he’s telling them, the way he’s interpreting scripture and telling them who God is, are things they’ve never heard before.  They’ve certainly never heard them from the Pharisees.  And Jesus is saying it like he’s someone in authority, like he knows this stuff and has no doubt that it’s true.

            And because of that, some people think Jesus has gone nuts.  And other people think he’s possessed by demons.  And in the middle of all this chaos and confusion, Mary and Jesus’ brothers show up.  They cannot even get in the door because of the crowd.  So they send a message to Jesus to tell him that they’re there and want to talk to him.

            And here’s Jesus’ response.  He says, “Who are my mother and my brothers?”  Then he looks at the people around him, the people who believe in him and trust him, and he says, “Here are my mother and my brothers!  Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”

            Can you imagine Mary’s reaction, when she heard that response?  She was worried about Jesus.  She’d heard he might be in trouble.  She came down to check on him, to see if he could help.  And Jesus sends a response that basically is a rejection of both Mary and of his brothers.

            Now, I don’t think Jesus really intended it that way.  It’s hard for me to believe that Jesus would’ve deliberately hurt his mother.  I think he was more making a point about how we are all brothers and sisters if we follow God.  Or, he may have been afraid that Mary and his brothers were going to try to make him stop his ministry.  Or there may have been other reasons Jesus said what he said.  But still, think of this from Mary’s point of view.  Mary has come all this way because she loves Jesus and is worried about him, and Jesus refuses to even see her.  Can you imagine how she must have felt?

            We don’t know what happened after that.  Mark drops the story at that point and moves on to something else.  So do Matthew and Luke in their versions of the story.  We’d like to think, of course, that maybe after the meal was over and the people had left, Jesus went to see Mary and explained things to her.  But for all we know, that may not have happened until much later or it may not have happened at all.  For all we know, Mary and her sons may have simply turned around and gone home, feeling like Jesus did not even care about them anymore.

            Have you ever had someone you love hurt you like that?  Have you ever felt rejected by someone you were really close to?  Someone you were just trying to help?  If so, then maybe you have some idea how Mary felt here.  To have her own son, a son whom she’d been through a lot to have and to raise, and who, after all, was supposed to be the Son of God, reject her, and in a really public way.  It had to hurt.

            But here’s the thing.  Somehow, Mary got over it.  Somehow, Mary got past the hurt.  I don’t suppose it was easy.  It probably took some time.  It probably took some prayer.  Maybe it took talking to Jesus at some point, we don’t know.  But somehow, Mary got over it.  We know she got over it because we see her with Jesus later in the gospels.  In fact, we see her at the cross when Jesus is dying, and we see her going to prepare Jesus’ body for burial. 

            In other words, Mary forgave Jesus.  Does that sound odd to you?  That Mary would forgive Jesus?  After all, Jesus is the divine Son.  Jesus is without sin.  And yet Mary forgave Jesus.  Did Jesus sin, that Mary had to forgive him?

            No, I don’t think so.  I believe that Jesus did not sin while he was on earth.  He was tempted to, but he did not.  But I still think that Mary forgave him.

            You see, I don’t think we have to sin, necessarily, to hurt people.  We can hurt people by accident.  We can hurt people with the best of intentions.  We can hurt people by things we say or do when we don’t even realize how they’re going to take what we say.

            And that can happen to us, too.  We can be hurt by people who have no intention of hurting us.  But despite their intentions, we’re still hurt.  And we have to find a way to get past it.  And that way past it is to forgive them.  We need to forgive them for hurting us even if they don’t know they hurt us.  We don’t forgive them to help them.  We forgive them to help us.

            I don’t think Jesus intended to hurt Mary.  But I suspect Mary was hurt.  And I suspect Mary needed to forgive Jesus.  Not because Jesus needed to receive forgiveness.  But because Mary needed to give it.  She needed to forgive Jesus so she could get past the hurt and have a relationship with her son again.

            Who do you need to forgive?  I suspect there’s someone.  I suspect we all have someone we need to forgive.  I’d encourage you to think about who it is.  I’d encourage you to pray about it.  And I’d encourage you to find a way to forgive them.  It won’t be easy.  It may take some time.  It may take lots of time and lots of prayer. 

            But keep trying.  Even if they don’t think they need forgiveness, keep trying.  Even if they’re not interested in receiving your forgiveness, keep trying.  Keep trying until you can do it.  Because you’re not forgiving them because they need to receive forgiveness.  You’re forgiving them because you need to give forgiveness.  You’re forgiving them so you can get past the hurt.  Because that’s the only way we can ever be free of it.  And it’s only when we’re free of that hurt that we can truly be the people God wants us to be.

 

The Sacrifice of Jesus Christ

The message given on Sunday morning, January 22, 2023, in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish.  The Bible verses used are Hebrews 10:11-25.

            One of the things I think about sometimes is how different it was to be a priest in Jesus’ time, compared to being a pastor today.  There were some similarities, of course.  You were expected to know the Bible, or at least as much of the Bible as they had at that time.  The New Testament, of course, had not been written yet.  And you were expected to talk about that Bible, and teach others what was in it.  But you had a lot of other duties, too.  And one of them, which is mentioned at the start of our reading for today, is sacrifices.

            Now, there were grain sacrifices and things like that, but when we think about sacrifices in this regard, we think of animal sacrifices.  Those were done by the priest.  The priest would slaughter the animal, burn some of it on the altar, and sprinkle the blood on the altar.  And this had to be done in a specific, ritualistic way.

            The purpose of this was to ask God for forgiveness for the sins of the people.  And this would have to be done repeatedly, over and over again.  “Day after day”, as our reading says.  And it was never enough.  As our reading also says, these sacrifices could never take away sins.

            And then Jesus came.  And it all changed.  Because, as our reading says, this priest–Jesus–”offered for all time one sacrifice for sins”.  Jesus made the only sacrifice that could truly take away sins.  Jesus sacrificed Himself.  

            The reason I’m going through this is that I think it’s tempting for us to take the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for granted.  Or maybe that’s not the right way to put it–maybe it’s just that we don’t fully understand and appreciate the incredible change that Jesus made by his sacrifice.  When Jesus sacrificed Himself, He changed everything.

            Listen to what our reading says happened as a result of Jesus’ sacrifice.  The Lord makes a new covenant–a new agreement, a new promise–to his people.  Here’s what God is going to do:  “I will put my laws in their hearts and I will write them on their minds…Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.  And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary.”  “By one sacrifice, he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”

            It’s not just that the sacrifice of Jesus made other sacrifices unnecessary.  That would’ve been enough of a change–it would’ve been unthinkable to a priest that he would not be making sacrifices for the people.  But the sacrifice of Jesus made much deeper changes than that.  The sacrifice of Jesus, for those who believe in Him, makes a fundamental change in people.

            In Jesus’ time, people were expected to follow all kinds of religious laws.  And they were to follow them to the letter.  And there were lots and lots of laws, more than anyone could even remember, much less follow.  If you took your faith seriously, you always had to be thinking about the laws, trying to remember the laws.  Every time you did something, you had to think, am I doing this right?  Am I doing this the way the law says I should?  You looked at life as following a bunch of rules.

            But the coming of Jesus means that those who believe in Him, those who follow Him, don’t have to look at life that way anymore.  Because again, God says, “I will put my laws in their hearts and I will write them on their minds.”  

            Now, that does not say we can ignore God’s laws.  It does not say, just follow your heart and everything will be fine.  What it says is that, if we are truly following Jesus, God’s Holy Spirit will come into our hearts.  We will want to do what’s right in God’s eyes, and we will do what’s right in God’s eyes.  Not because we’ve remembered some law that says we should.  But because we want to.  We want to please God.  We want to show love to our neighbors, the way Jesus told us to.  When God’s laws are in our hearts, we don’t have to look things up in a rule book.  God’s Holy Spirit will show us what to do.

            But that’s not all.  The sacrifice of Jesus did even more than that.  Not only does Jesus’ sacrifice make a fundamental change in people who believe in Him, it completely changes the relationship between human beings and God.

            The reason the priest had to make all these sacrifices is that he was making sacrifices on behalf of all the people of Israel.  The priest was the intermediary between human beings and God.  The priest could enter into the Holy Place, the place where God was, and the priest could communicate with God.  An ordinary person, someone who was not a priest, could not enter into the Holy Place.  They could not approach God.  It never even occurred to them that they might approach God.  Why would God want to have something to do with them?  The priest, because of who he was, could enter the Holy Place and communicate with God, but not just an ordinary person.  It was unthinkable.  And because of that, there was a distance between human beings and God.  

            But with the sacrifice of Jesus, that changed.  There was no longer that distance between human beings and God.  Jesus did away with that distance.  Listen again to our reading:  “Brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Holy Place by the blood of Jesus…let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.”

            Because of the sacrifice of Jesus, you and I can do what human beings of Jesus’ time never thought they could do.  You and I can draw near to God.  

            And think of this:  we don’t have to draw near hesitantly.  We don’t have to draw near fearfully.  We don’t have to wonder, as we approach God, whether God will want to have anything to do with us.  We can draw near to God confidently.  We can draw near to God knowing that God wants us to draw near to Him.

            Again, such a thing would’ve been unthinkable to people in Jesus’ time.  Even the priests approached God nervously.  They had all these rituals, and they had to make sure that got them right, for fear that God would be angry with them if they did not.  To approach God confidently, to approach God without fear, was an idea that just would not have made sense to them.

            But you and I can do that.  We can do it because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  Again to quote our reading, Jesus opened the curtain that kept people away from the Holy Place.  The curtain is now open.  We can walk right in.  We can walk right in and draw near to God.

            Again, we do that because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  It’s not because of anything we’ve done.  We’re not any better than the people who lived in Jesus’ time.  The fact that we now have cell phones and wi-fi does not make us better people than the people who wrote on scrolls with reeds.  We are allowed to draw near to God because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  If we have faith in Jesus, God allows us into His holy presence, even though by our own merits we don’t belong there.

            But there’s one more thing.  It’s a sentence I mentioned earlier, but I kind of skipped over it.  Here it is:  “For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are made holy.”

            By Jesus’ sacrifice, Jesus made those of us who have faith in Him perfect.  If you have faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior, you are perfect.  Do you believe that?

            Now, notice, it does not say we make ourselves perfect.  Jesus makes us perfect by his sacrifice.  But still, if you have faith in Jesus, you are perfect.  So again, do you believe that?

            It’s hard to believe.  Because as much as we might want to be perfect, we know we are not.  We know we never will be.  We are sinners.  We are among those who, as the Apostle Paul says, have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  So how can we be perfect?

            Well, think of it this way.  When you see a newborn baby, what do you say?  Well, you might say a lot of things, but one of the things people say is “He (or she) is perfect.”

            Now, when we say that, we don’t mean that this child will never do anything wrong.  We don’t mean that they will live a perfect, sinful life.  We mean that this child is exactly who he or she is supposed to be.  This child is loved and will always be loved.  This child is perfect because this child is a child of God.

            That’s how you and I are perfect, through the sacrifice Jesus made for us and through our faith in Him as the Savior.  It’s not that we will never do anything wrong again.  It’s not that we will live a perfect, sinful life from this day forward.  It’s that, when we accept Jesus as the Savior, we are who we are supposed to be.  That’s what being “born again” is about.  It’s not that we have some mystical experience.  It’s not that we will never sin again.  We are perfect, not because of what we do or don’t do, but because of the sacrifice Jesus made.  That sacrifice makes you and me children of God.  And as God’s children, we are made perfect, even though in human terms we are definitely not.

            The sacrifice of Jesus Christ changed everything.  It put God’s laws in our hearts and gave us the desire to please God.  It gave us the ability to approach God, to have a relationship with God, to draw near to God and enter into His holy presence.  And it made us perfect in God’s eyes, no matter how flawed and sinful we may be, if we have faith in Him as the Savior.

            So let’s never take the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for granted.  That sacrifice changed everything for us.  Let’s do our best to please God, to draw near to God, and to thank God for the incredible sacrifice Jesus made for us.

 

The Rules

The message given in the Sunday night worship service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church.  The Bible verses used are Mark 2:23--3:6.

One of the most important Bible passages to most of us is the Ten Commandments.  We study them in Sunday school.  We study them in confirmation class.  There are Bible studies based on them.  I suspect some of you had to memorize them at some point.  Maybe you still can recite them.  My Mom can.

            The Ten Commandments were even more important to the Jewish people of Jesus’ time.  Those people did not just study them.  They did not just memorize them.  They were expected to live them.  And they were expected to live them to the letter.  The Ten Commandments were supposed to govern every aspect of your everyday life.

            One of those Ten Commandments, of course, is this one:        

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.  Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.  On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns.

And in our Bible reading for today, we have to examples of Jesus breaking the Sabbath law.  In one of them, Jesus and the disciples started picking crops and eating them on the Sabbath.  In the other, Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath.

To the religious leaders of the time, especially the Pharisees, that sort of thing was Just Not Done.  You were not supposed to do any work on the Sabbath.  Period.  That was a law that went back to the time of Moses, when God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses.  God had said you are not to do any work on the Sabbath, not you, not your kids, not your servants, not your animals.  Nobody.  Now they did, out of practicality, have to make some exceptions.  For example, you were allowed to feed and water your animals.  You could leave your house, as long as you did not go very far.  They had all kinds of rules about what did and did not constitute work.  Some of them got kind of technical.  But everyone knew that picking crops was work, and that healing was work, and so you could not do those things on the Sabbath, because God said so.

And here was Jesus, this person who people called the Son of God, this person who had been raised in a Jewish home, this person who surely had to know better, doing those things.  And so were his disciples.  The Pharisees could not believe it.

Jesus acknowledged that they were not following the rules, but he explained it.  And here are his reasons.  First, he cites Biblical precedent.  He cites the story, found in First Samuel, of King David being allowed to take some consecrated bread, which only priests were allowed to eat.  Not only was David, who was not a priest, allowed to eat some of that consecrated bread, but so were his soldiers.  So, Jesus says, there are precedents for breaking some of these religious laws when the situation requires it.

But Jesus’ reasoning is more than just, “We had to break the Sabbath laws because we were hungry.”  That would’ve just been an excuse.  His real reason is this:  “The Sabbath was made for people, not people for the Sabbath.”

Think of the implications of that statement.  Again, we’re not just talking about any old rule here.  We’re talking about one of the Ten Commandments.  We’re talking about laws that came to Moses directly from the mouth of God.

What Jesus said about the law about not working on the Sabbath, and by implication what Jesus is saying about all of the other Ten Commandments, is, look, God did not give you these laws to make your lives harder.  God gave them to you to make your lives easier.  God did not intend these laws to make your lives miserable.  God intended them to make your lives better.  God did not give you the Ten Commandments to create burdens for you.  God gave them to you to ease your burdens.

And that’s demonstrated further when Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath.  Jesus says to the Pharisees, look, the way you’re interpreting these rules is making life hard for people.  You’re telling me that I cannot heal this man because it’s the Sabbath.  Does that really make sense to you?  Do you really think God wants this man to continue to suffer, even if it’s just for one more day?  Would God really rather I walked away and let this guy continue to live in pain and misery rather than help him, just because it’s the Sabbath?

We read that, or hear it, and of course it makes perfect sense to us.  We wonder why in the world the Pharisees could not see it, when it seems so obvious.  And yet…

You know, the Pharisees were not trying to be evil or bad or anything.  They were trying to get it right, just as much as anyone else.  They just had fallen into a trap, and it’s a trap that it’s really easy for us to fall into, too.

What God had done in the Ten Commandments, and in a lot of the other Old Testament laws God gave the people of Israel, is lay down some basic principles for living.  And they’re really good principles.  All of us, including me, would be a lot better off if we lived the way God told us to live.  

But what the Pharisees did was turn those basic principles into a bunch of inflexible rules.  Do this.  Don’t do that.  Doing this is right, doing that is wrong.  If you do this, you’ll go to heaven.  If you do that, you’ll go to hell.  The Rules are The Rules.  Period.  No exceptions.

The thing is, as human beings, we like rules.  I mean, we get frustrated with them sometimes, but by and large, we like them.  That’s why we make so many of them.  Rules make things simple.  If we have a rule, we don’t have to take circumstances into account.  If we have a rule, we don’t have to use our judgment all the time.  We just find out what the rule is and follow it.  It saves a lot of time and effort to just have rules.

But what Jesus is telling us is that God does not look at it that way.  And we should not look at it that way, either.  Because if we do, the rules can get in our way.  They can get in the way of doing good.  They can get in the way of following God.  They can get in the way of loving people the way Jesus told us to.

Now don’t get me wrong here.  I’m not saying that there’s no such thing as sin.  There is.  I’m also not saying we should just casually ignore all of God’s principles and do anything we want to do. Jesus did not say any of those things, either.  Jesus did not tell the Pharisees, “throw out all your rules and do anything you please.”  As I said, God’s principles for living are really good principles, and all of us, including me, would be better off if we lived the way God told us to live.

But what Jesus was saying is that a slavish adherence to rules can get in our way, just like it got in the Pharisees’ way.  As I said, the Pharisees were trying to get it right.  They thought that, by slavishly following the rules, they were doing what God wanted them to do.  They could not see that, sometimes, their strict adherence to the rules was keeping them from loving people and helping people.  They could not see that, sometimes, following the rules to the letter could lead them to do the exact opposite of what God wanted them to do.

It’s something for us to think about.  Because all of us have rules, whether we realize it or not.  We have rules for what we do when we get up in the morning.  We have rules for how we spend our days.  We have rules for how we do our jobs.  We have rules for how we live our lives.  We have rules for how we treat people.  We have rules for who we like and who we don’t like.  We have rules for who we care about and who we ignore.  And we have rules for what’s right and what’s wrong, who’s good and who’s bad.  A lot of the time, we may not even have realized that we made these rules, much less that we’re living by them.  But we have, and we are.

The rules we have are not necessarily bad or wrong.  Sometimes they may be exactly the same as the principles God laid out for us.  But we need to take a look at them.  We need to know what rules we have.  And we need to make sure our adherence to those rules is not getting in the way of serving God and loving the people God created.  We need to make sure we have not fallen into the trap the Pharisees did, where following the rules was leading them to do the exact opposite of what God wanted them to do.

So let’s take a look at our rules.  Let’s understand where they came from and why we have them.  And let’s understand that, even if they’re good rules, we still need to make sure they’re not getting in the way of what Jesus said are the two most important rules:  to love God and to love other people.  If they are, we need to change them.  Because ultimately, the rule of love is the standard by which every rule we have needs to be measured.

God's Amazing Grace

The message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish Sunday morning, January 15, 2023.  The Bible verses used are Ephesians 2:1-10.

One of the things we talk about in church all the time is grace.  The word “grace” is all over the Apostle Paul’s letters.  One of our favorite hymns is “Amazing Grace”, which we sang a little while ago.  When we say a prayer before a meal, we call it “saying grace”.  We say that we are saved by “God’s grace”.  Grace, grace, grace--we hear the word over and over again in church.

            But you know, for all that we talk about grace in church, we almost never define the term, do we?  We never say just what it is that we mean when we’re talking about grace.  Maybe we assume everyone knows.  Or, maybe we’re not sure ourselves.  

            That could be it, you know.  I looked in my theological dictionary to see what the actual, theological definition of grace is, and you know what I found?  I found twenty-five different theological definitions of grace.  There’s prevenient grace.  There’s justifying grace.  There’s sanctifying grace.  There’s saving grace.  There’s free grace.  There’s common grace.  On and on and on, all these different types of grace and different definitions of grace.  So it’s reasonable to ask, when we start telling someone about God’s grace, are they going to have any idea what we’re talking about?  In fact, are we going to have any idea what we’re talking about?

            Well, so that you can at least have some idea what I’m talking about, here’s the definition of grace I’m going to use.  It’s the first one in my theological dictionary, and it seems to me like it’s the most general one.  Grace is unmerited favor.  God’s grace, God’s unmerited favor, is extended to sinful humanity--that’s you and me--in providing salvation and forgiveness through Jesus Christ that is not deserved, and withholding the judgment that is deserved.

            That pretty well fits in with what Paul wrote in our reading from Ephesians for today, right?  Paul starts out by talking about how we, as Christians, start out like everyone else.  We “gratify the cravings of the flesh”.  We do what we want to do when we want to do it.  We focus on the things of this world.  And Paul says that because of that, we are by nature deserving of God’s wrath.  We are part of that “sinful humanity”.  

            And if that was the end of the story, we’d be in a lot of trouble.  I mean, if by nature we are deserving of God’s wrath, there’s nothing we can do about that.  We cannot overcome our basic human nature.  No one can.  We can fight it, and we can succeed for a while, but if something is part of our nature, we can never truly overcome it.

But that’s not the end of the story.  It’s just the beginning.  We cannot overcome our sinful nature, but we don’t have to.  Listen to what Paul says next, “God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved.”

            That’s what grace is.  Even though we deserve God’s wrath, that’s not what we get.  We get new life.  We are made alive with Christ.

            And that’s not all.  Listen to the next thing Paul says, “God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms.”  God takes us sinful human beings, people who by our very nature deserve God’s wrath, and puts us right next to Jesus Christ himself in heaven.  We are not just made alive with Christ here on earth.  We’re made alive with Jesus Christ in heaven.

            We cannot overcome our sinful human nature.  But God can.  And Paul says it’s better that way.  Paul says, “It is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no one can boast.”

            If we could save ourselves, if we could overcome our nature by ourselves, what we do?  We’d brag about it, right?  We’d make sure everyone knew how great we were, that we’d been able to overcome our sinful nature on our own.  Those other people might not be able to do it, but we can, because we’re so much better than they are.  Basically, we’d be like the Pharisee in Jesus’ story in Luke Eighteen.  Remember that story?  Jesus tells about a Pharisee and a tax collector who go to the temple to pray.  And the Pharisee says, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.”  That’s about how we’d sound if we could overcome our sinful human nature by ourselves.

            We are saved by grace.  It is a gift of God.  But that raises the question:  why?  Why does God give us this incredible gift of grace?  It’s not because we deserve it, obviously.  But what is the reason?  Well, Paul gives us the answer.  He says it’s “because of God’s great love for us.”

            But that raises a question we’ve talked about before:  why does God love us?  I mean, I’m glad that God does.  We’d all be in big trouble if God did not love us.  But think about it.  Why does God love us?  What logical reason could there be for God to love us?  One answer might be, “Because God created us”, but that just raises another question:  why did God create us?  Why did God first create us, and then love us?

            Well, think of someone you love.  Maybe it’s a spouse, maybe it’s your kids, maybe it’s your parents, maybe it’s brothers or sisters, a friend, whoever.  If someone asked you why you love them, what would you say?  What logical reason could you give for why you love them?

Well, maybe you could list their good qualities.  You could list things you like about them and that make you think favorably of them.  But lots of people have good qualities.  Lots of people have more good qualities than the people we love, if we’re honest about it.  I mean, there’s a huge number of people in this world who are better than I am in lots and lots of ways, and yet Wanda loves me.  Why?  What good, logical reason could there be for that?

Well, the answer is that that’s the wrong question.  When we look for logical reasons to love someone, we’re looking at the question in the wrong way.  Love is an emotion, and emotions don’t always follow logic.

I said earlier that we cannot overcome human nature, and that sin is part of our human nature.  But you know what?  Love is also part of our human nature.  We all have a desire to be loved by someone.  And we all have a desire to love someone.  It’s part of who we are.

And of course, as we’ve said many times, God is love.  So if God is love, and if we are made in the image of God, then it seems likely that, God, too, has a desire to love someone.  And so, maybe, God created us because God wanted to have someone to love.  There might not be a good, logical reason for God to love us.  There might not be a good, logical reason for God to have created us in the first place.  But there does not have to be.  Maybe God did not create us because of logic.  Maybe God created us out of love.

            And if that’s so, then it makes sense, really, that God gives us grace.  Remember what we said grace is:   Grace is unmerited favor.  God’s unmerited favor, extended to sinful humanity--that’s you and me--in providing salvation and forgiveness through Jesus Christ that is not deserved, and withholding the judgment that is deserved.  God loves us so much that God does not give us what we, as sinners, deserve.  Instead, God sent the divine Son, Jesus Christ, to earth to take the punishment that we deserve.  And God offers us this incredible gift of grace--unmerited, undeserved favor--providing us forgiveness and salvation and eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ.  That’s how much God loves you.  And that’s how much God loves me.

            From our perspective, God’s grace truly is amazing.  We know we don’t deserve it.  We know we don’t come anywhere close to deserving it.  And yet God gives it to us anyway.  What an amazing thing that is.

            But from God’s perspective, I suspect it may not be so amazing after all.  God may look at us and say, “Why are you so amazed at My grace?  I’ve told you I love you.  I’ve told you that over and over again.  That’s why I give you My grace.  That’s why I do all kinds of things for you.  Because I love you.  There’s nothing amazing about My grace.  This is what love is.  This is what love does.”

            It is what love does.  It’s what God does.  Maybe to God, it’s not that amazing.  But it’s amazing to me.  And I think it should be amazing to all of us.  So may we truly be grateful to God for the grace and the love that God gives us.

 

Problem Solved

The message given in the Sunday night worship service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church.  The Bible verses used are John 2:1-12.

            Jesus has just gathered his disciples.  We don’t know whether he had all twelve of them at this point or not.  John has described the gathering of five of the twelve disciples, but that’s all.  In fact, the gospel of John never does tell us about Jesus gathering the other seven.  And since the gospel of John is the only one that tells us the story of the wedding at Cana, that means we don’t know how many disciples Jesus actually had at this point.

            But we are told that Jesus and his disciples are there at this wedding, and of course Jesus’ mother, Mary, was there, too.  And as we read this story, it seems to me that there are at least a couple of lessons we can learn from it, depending on whether we look at the story from the point of view of Mary or of Jesus.

We’re told that they run out of wine.  And Mary takes it upon herself to get involved in that.  We don’t know why.  Was Mary in charge of the wine?  Were these good friends of hers, and she felt obligated to help them?  We don’t know, but for whatever reason, Mary took it upon herself to get involved.  And she takes it upon herself to get Jesus involved, too.

We don’t know why she did that, either.  She knew something about who Jesus was, obviously.  But I wonder, what was it that she expected Jesus to do?  Did she really expect him to work a miracle?  Did she expect Jesus to find some more wine someplace?  Or did she not have any specific expectation, but just have confidence that somehow, Jesus would figure out something?

To be honest, that’s the explanation I kind of lean to.  You’re free to disagree, and I certainly cannot prove that I’m right.  But think about Mary’s situation.  Joseph, as far as we can tell, is out of the picture at this point.  We’re not specifically told that he’s not there, but he’s never mentioned after the incident at the temple when Jesus was twelve.  If Joseph is gone, then Jesus, as Mary’s oldest son, would’ve taken over responsibility for the family.  And so it makes sense to me that, when she needed something or when something went wrong, Mary would turn to Jesus and just expect him to take control of the situation.

Jesus, of course, does not want to act.  He says, “My hour has not yet come.”  But Mary basically ignores him.  She tells the servants that Jesus is in charge now, and they should do whatever Jesus says.  Now again, we don’t know what authority Mary had to tell the servants what to do, but they apparently listened to her.  And of course, Jesus told them to fill the jars with water, and when they took the water out it had been turned into wine, the best wine they had.  And we’re told that this “was the first of the signs through which Jesus revealed his glory; and his disciples put their faith in him.”

I said that there are at least a couple of lessons we can take from this, depending on whether we look at this from Mary’s point of view or Jesus’ point of view.  Let’s look at it from Jesus’ point of view first.  Remember, this is not long after Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness.  And we said that part of what he was doing during that time was praying and trying to work out just what he was supposed to do, what God the Father wanted him to do, how he was supposed to really be the divine Son of God.

So, at the end of that, he must have had a plan.  The first step in that plan was to gather some people around him, the disciples.  The next step--well, we don’t know what the next step in that plan was.  But we know that it was not to go to Cana and work a miracle by turning water into wine.  Jesus had no intention of doing that.  In fact, he really does not appear to have wanted to do it or to have thought it was the right thing to do.

You and I make a lot of plans, too.  We make them as individuals, we make them as families, we make them as a church.  And that’s a good thing to do--it’s not really very smart to go through life without having any idea what you might do next.  And I hope that, in making those plans, we spend some time praying and trying to work out just what we’re supposed to do, what God wants us to do, how we’re supposed to be the people God wants us to be.

But the thing is, once we’ve made a plan, it’s easy to get too tied to that plan.  It’s easy to get so focused on our plan that we ignore the needs of people around us.  That does not mean our plans are bad plans.  But we need to be ready to abandon, or at least modify, our plans when the circumstances around us require us to.

Jesus had a plan.  It was a plan he thought he’d worked out through prayer with the help of God the Father.  And now, here comes Mary, wanting him to change that plan.  And when I hear Jesus’ response--”Woman, why do you involve me?  My hour has not yet come.”--I hear some frustration in his voice.  Mom, you don’t understand.  I just spent forty days in the wilderness working out what I’m going to do.  I got tempted by Satan, the real Satan, for crying out loud.  I know what I need to do and how I need to do it.  And darn it, Mom, this is not it.

What might have happened if Jesus had refused?  What if Jesus had stuck to his guns, stuck to his plan?  What if he’d said, “Sorry, Mom, this is not the way it’s supposed to go.  You’re going to have to figure out something else”?  We’ll never know.  Because Jesus did not refuse.  He did what Mary wanted, and we’re told that “his disciples put their faith in him”.

So that’s a lesson from Jesus’ perspective.  We need to spend some time with God and make plans.  We need to do that as individuals, as families, and as a church.  But we also need to be ready to change those plans when God puts things we did not expect in our path.  We need to be ready to change those plans when the needs of others require us to.

But I said there’s also a lesson we can learn when we look at the story from Mary’s point of view.  Mary has a problem.  We don’t know why or how it became her problem, but somehow it did.  And she had no idea what she could do about it.  In fact, she did not think she could do anything about it.

But she knew who could.  She knew that Jesus could do something about it.  And so she went to Jesus.  And it’s interesting--I said earlier that Mary may not have known what she expected Jesus to do, but she knew he would do something.  But when you really look at it, Mary does not even specifically ask Jesus to do anything.  She just goes to Jesus and says Jesus, here’s the problem.

That’s pretty amazing faith, when you think about it.  How many times do we ever do that?  I mean, I suspect a lot of us go to God with our problems, but I suspect that most of the time we also tell God what we want God to do about them.  Even if we don’t specifically say “God, do this” or “God do that”, we probably at least say, “God, I need you to do something.  I need you to take care of this deal somehow.”  I know I do that.  I don’t think I’m the only one.

Mary does not do that.  Mary just says Jesus, here’s the problem.  And even when it sounds like Jesus is not going to do anything, Mary continues to believe that he will.  No, more than believes--she expects that he will.  She has no doubt about it.  She tells the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”  Mary is completely confident.  After all, she has told Jesus the problem, so she knows--she knows--not only that Jesus can do something about it, but Jesus will do something about it.  She does not know what Jesus is going to do, but she knows he’s going to take care of the situation.  And so Mary just walks away.  As far as Mary is concerned, the problem is already solved, before Jesus even does anything.

That’s the lesson I think we can learn from Mary’s perspective.  When we have a problem, all we need to do is go to God with it.  We don’t have to beg and plead with God.  We don’t have to tell God what to do.  All we need to do is say, “God, here’s the problem”.  And then we need to trust that God will do something.  Even if, at first, it looks like God is not doing anything, we need to continue to believe that God will.  In fact, we need to do more than believe--we need to expect that God will do something.  We can be completely confident.  After all, we’ve told God the problem, so we can know that not only can God do something about it, God will do something about it.  We may not know what God is going to do, and in fact what God does may not be what we had in mind at all.  But we can know God is going to take care of the situation.  And so, we can walk away.  We can be confident that the problem is solved, even before God does anything.

We all need to make plans.  We need to make them as individuals, as families, and as churches.  And we need to spend some time in prayer when we make those plans, so our plans follow God’s will.  But even so, we need to be ready to change our plans when God puts things in our path that we did not expect.  We need to be ready to change our plans when the needs of others require us to.

            But sometimes, no matter how carefully we’ve made our plans and no matter how much we’ve prayed about them, problems come up that we cannot handle.  When that happens, we need to go to God and give the problem to God.  And once we have, we can walk away, because we know God will take care of it.  We can be confident that the problem is solved, even before God does anything.  And then, we can be like the disciples.  We can put our complete faith in God.