The Sacrifices of Jesus

The Sunday night message in the Gettysburg United Methodist church.  July 30, 2023.  The Bible verses used are Mark 6:1-6.

            I’ve had several “home towns” in my life.  Maybe some of you have, too.  When I was growing up, Delmont was my home town.  I went to school in Vermillion of seven years, first to the business school, and then to law school, and that felt like my home town.  I lived in Pierre for six and a half years after that, and that was my home town.  We lived in Wessington Springs for seventeen years, and that was my home town.  Then we got our first United Methodist appointment in North Sioux City.  And then we came here, and Gettysburg and Onida, and even Agar, now feel like our home towns.

            For the divine Jesus, of course, there was no such thing as a home town on earth.  The home of the divine Jesus was in heaven.  But Jesus was also fully human, of course, and for the human Jesus, Nazareth was his home.  As far as we can tell, he grew up there.  He spent most of the first thirty years of his life there.

          Because there’s no evidence to the contrary, we assume that Jesus lived a pretty ordinary life there during that time.  He was a carpenter.  His earthly family was there--our Bible reading mentions his mother Mary; four brothers, James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon; and some unnamed sisters.  Presumably he had friends there, too, some of whom he’d probably known since he was a little kid.

            Our best guess, as far as I could find out, is that about a year and a half had passed since Jesus had started his traveling ministry.  Jesus had done a lot of things in that time.  He had healed people.  He had worked miracles.  He had preached to thousands of people.  And now, a year and a half later, after all that he had said and done, Jesus was coming home.

            I would think that thought would’ve made Jesus happy.  Seeing all these people he had not seen in quite a while.  Finding out what had happened to them.  Getting to eat Mom’s home cooking.  And, of course, being able to go to the synagogue and teach and do the things for his old friends and neighbors that he’d done for so many people in so many other places.

            Except, of course, it did not work out that way, did it?  We’re told that the people there were amazed by Jesus, but not in a good way.  They were resentful of him.  This Jesus was not the same person they had known.  He’d changed.  And the people of Nazareth did not like this new Jesus.  They were saying, what’s up with all this?  Here he is, up in the synagogue, teaching and working miracles like he’s really hot stuff or something.  Who does this Jesus think he is, anyway?  He’s just an ordinary person like we are.  What does he think, that he’s better than the rest of us now?  We’re told that the people of Nazareth were actually offended at Jesus teaching in the synagogue.

            When we think about the sacrifice Jesus made for us, we usually think of his death on the cross.  And we should think about that.  That was incredibly important, for a lot of reasons.  But that was not the only sacrifice Jesus made for us.  Jesus made lots of other sacrifices for us, too.

           One of them is simply being willing to come to earth at all.  I mean, think about it.  Jesus was in heaven.  The Divine Son.  God the Son.  In heaven with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit.  The trinity.  The three in one.  All of them together fully God and each of them fully God.  And we don’t know quite how that works, but just think about how awesome that would be for Jesus in heaven.

            And Jesus willingly gives that up.  He separates himself from the other two members of the holy trinity.  That’d be like giving up a part of yourself.  Can you even imagine that?  I don’t think I can.  All the time he was on earth he’d have felt incomplete, like a part of him was missing.  

That was a tremendous sacrifice Jesus made.  It must have been a really terrible feeling for him, to feel incomplete and separate in that way.  Maybe that’s why Jesus would sometimes go off by himself to pray.  Maybe, when he did that, he could get some measure of connection with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit and not feel so incomplete, at least for a while.

            And then, there was the sacrifice Jesus made by his ministry on earth.  Again, he had lived in Nazareth his whole earthly life.  He had family there.  He had friends there, old friends who’d known him all his earthly life.  He had a business there.  He had a home there.  He was living in the normal routines and rhythms of life that we all live in.

            When Jesus started his earthly ministry, he gave all that up.  He left his family behind.  He left his old friends behind.  He left his carpentry business behind.  He left his home behind.  He left behind his entire way of life, the way of life he’d been living ever since he was little.  Think about what that would be like, to leave behind the only life you’d ever known like that.

           And think of what he left it behind for.  A life of wandering.  No stability.  No home life.  No place to even call home.  As Jesus says, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”  A life of people constantly demanding things from him.  A life of people constantly criticizing him, trying to tell him what to do.  A life of people trying to trick him and trap him.  A life in which no one, not even his closest associates, really understood him or what he was trying to do.  That’s a tremendous sacrifice that Jesus made, when you think about it.  Jesus did not just sacrifice his life when he died on the cross.  Jesus sacrificed his entire earthly life when he started his ministry.

            Jesus knew what he was doing, of course.  When Jesus left home to start his ministry, he knew what that meant.  He knew it was what he had come to earth to do.  Jesus knew he had not come to earth to live a quiet life as a carpenter in Nazareth.  He knew he was the Savior, the Divine Son of God.  He knew what he needed to do, and he knew what was going to happen to him as a result.  Maybe not every last detail--we don’t know that--but he knew enough.  He knew everything he was giving up, both during his life and in his death.  But still, it was a sacrifice.  And Jesus made that sacrifice.  He made it for us.

            Why do you suppose, after a year and a half on the road, Jesus came home?  We’re not told.  Maybe Jesus never said.  Maybe the disciples themselves did not know.  It could be that he wanted to check on Mary and his earthly siblings, to see how they were doing.  It could be that he just wanted to rest and get away from things for a while.  It could be all kinds of reasons.

           But I wonder if, while Jesus was there, it ever crossed his mind to wonder what his life would have been like if he’d never left.  We don’t know that he did, but again, while he was on earth Jesus was fully human as well as fully divine.  A lot of us, as humans, look at our lives and wonder about what would’ve happened if we’d done things differently.  Maybe Jesus did, too.

          Maybe the human Jesus wondered, what would’ve happened if I’d just kept working in the carpenter shop?  He could’ve had a quiet, normal life.  Maybe he’d even have gotten married and raised a family.  Things would’ve been so much easier.  They’d have been so much simpler.  A nice house to come home to.  People who cared about him.  No one constantly trying to trick him or trap him or come up with a reason to throw him in prison.  There could have been a part of the human Jesus that thought that all sounded pretty good.

            But of course, Jesus did leave home, and he did start his ministry.  Because Jesus knew he was the divine Son of God.  And he knew that he had come to earth for specific reasons.  To teach us.  To heal us.  To provide an example for us.  To die, so that our sins could be forgiven.  Jesus knew that was why he had come to earth.  And he knew that he needed to do what he had been put on earth to do.  But still, he had to make that choice.  And he had to make the sacrifices necessary to do what he had been put on earth to do.

          But here’s the thing.  Jesus was not the only person who was put on earth for specific reasons.  You know who else was?  You.  And me.  Each one of us was put on earth for specific reasons.  No, none of us is the divine Son of God.  But each of us was put here to do certain things.  We’re put here to love God.  We’re put here to serve God.  We’re put here to love each other and serve each other.  We’re put here to make disciples of Jesus Christ.

And there will be times when doing those things complicates our life, just as it complicated Jesus’ life.  And there may be times when we’d rather not do them.  There may be times when we realize how much easier our lives would be, how much simpler our lives would be, if we did not do what God put us here to do.  And there are going to be times when, if we’re going to do what God put us here to do, we’re going to have to give some things up.  We’re going to need to make some sacrifices.  If we’re going to do the things God put us here to do, we’re not always going to be able to do the things we want to do.

And then we’re going to have to make a choice, just as Jesus had to make a choice.  Are we going to do what God put us on earth to do?  Are we going to love God and serve God with everything we do?  Are we going to love each other and serve each other at all times?  Are we going to go out and make disciples of Jesus Christ?  And are we going to do those things even when doing them means we have to give some things up and make some sacrifices, sacrifices that we might not really want to make?  Are we willing to give up a quiet, normal life, if that’s what’s necessary to do what God put us here to do?

Jesus was willing to give up his entire earthly life so that he could do what he was put on earth to do.  We need to be willing to do the same.  It’s not easy, just as it was not easy for Jesus.  But if it’s the only way we can do what God put us here to do, then we need to do it, just as Jesus did.

 

How to Love Sincerely

The Sunday morning message in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish.  July 30, 2023.  The Bible verses used are Romans 12:9-21.

            One of the things we’re all tempted to do is to read the Bible selectively.  What I mean is that we focus on the parts of the Bible we like.  The parts that make sense to us.  The parts we don’t have any trouble following, or at least we think we don’t.  We focus on those things.  The parts we don’t like, the parts that don’t make sense, the parts we don’t follow very well and don’t really want to–well, those we tend to just skip over.  We know they’re there, we acknowledge them, but–we just don’t think about them too much.  We go back to the parts of the Bible that feel safe.

            And that’s what I’m tempted to do with a passage like the one we read today.  Now don’t get me wrong here.  I agree with everything the Apostle Paul wrote here.  I agree that all these things he wrote are things we should do.  It’s just--how do we make ourselves 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.  As I said, we’re tempted to do that, but we cannot do that and still believe the Bible is the word of God.

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.

Take a Chance for God

The Sunday night message given in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on July 23, 2023.  The Bible verses used are Matthew 25:14-30.

Have you ever thought this story of Jesus’ is kind of unfair?  It seems that way to me sometimes.  Especially that line toward the end.  “For those who have will be given even more, and they will have an abundance.  As for those who do not have, even what they have will be taken from them.”  That does not seem right, does it?    

When we look at this, we need to remember the point of what Jesus was doing.  Jesus was not trying to teach us about economics.  Jesus was trying to teach us about faith.  This is not a lesson about money.  It’s a lesson about trust in God.

           The translation we used tonight is the New International Version.  That’s the version of the Bible we pretty much always use, and it’s a perfectly good translation.  What some of you may have noticed, though, is that you’ve heard this story differently in other translations.  What this version refers to as “bags of gold” in other translations is referred to as “talents”.

           Now a “talent” was a Greek term for money.  It was a lot of money:  one talent was roughly equal to twenty years of an average laborer’s wage.  Even so, I think that thinking of what these people were given as “talents” gives us a better handle on what Jesus was really trying to say.

          God gives each of us some kind of talent.  In fact, God usually gives each of us several talents.  God does not give us the same talents, and God does not give each of us the same amount of talents, but we all have some.  God expects us to use the talents we’ve been given to honor and glorify God.

           Now, I don’t doubt that each of us here does that to a certain extent.  My point is not to criticize or point fingers at anybody.  There’s something I think we need to notice about this story, though.

           The person who got five talents went and put all five of them to work.  He did not just put two of them to work and hide the other three.  The person who got two talents went and put both of them to work.  He did not just put one of them to work and hide the other one.  They both took every talent they had been given and put it to work for the master.

           That’s what God wants us to do.  God wants us to take all the talents God has given us and use them to serve God.  God does not want us to just use a couple of them and hide the rest.  God wants us to use them all.

           That includes talents that we might not think we can use for God.  It even includes talents that we might not even think of as talents.  Let me give you an example of what I mean.

          You probably all know that I’m a big sports fan.  When I first felt called into ministry, I wondered if that was something I should give up, or at least cut back on.  After all, I spend a lot of time following sports.  I thought maybe that was time I could use for God better if I used it in other ways.

           After I thought about it, though, I decided that was not right.  I’ve been a sports fan ever since I can remember.  A love of sports is something that God put into me.  It’s a part of me.  To stop paying attention to sports would be for me to try to be someone I’m not.  That’s not what God wants us to do.

           God wants us to be who we are.  But God wants us to be the best we can be, and God wants us to use who we are in God’s service.  God wants me to use being a sports fan to serve God.

           Now, maybe you think, “How can being a sports fan serve God?”  But it can.  Because what it does is give me a connection to other sports fans.  Going to the local ball games gives people a chance to get to know me, and it gives me a chance to get to know them.  It helps people feel comfortable with me.  It especially helps me connect with younger people, because it gives us something in common to talk about.  And once in a while, once that connection is established, it can lead into other, deeper conversations that help bring people closer to God.

           Whenever God gives us a passion for something, it’s for a reason.  God wants us to use that passion in God’s service.  In fact, sometimes I think that what we call passion is really just shorthand for saying “something the Holy Spirit has put in our heart.”

           Anything we are passionate about can be used for God.  Anything.  Fishing.  Quilting.  Baking.  Music.  Gardening.  Anything.  If we’re passionate about it, it’s because the Holy Spirit put that passion into our heart.  It’s up to us to use that passion in God’s service.

          What keeps us from doing that?  Well, think about the person in Jesus’ story who only got the one talent, the one bag of gold.  What kept him from using what he’d been given the way the others did?

           Fear.  That’s the only reason.  He was not trying to do anything wrong.  He wanted to do right by his master.   But he was scared.  He thought, “What if something goes wrong?  What if I try to use this money for my master, and it does not work out?  What if I lose it all?  The master will be mad at me.  Who knows what might happen then?  I’d like to use this money for the master, but it’s just too risky.  It’s just a chance I cannot afford to take.  I’d better just keep this talent hidden, where it’ll be safe.”

           That’s one of the main things that keeps us from using our talents to serve God.  Fear.  We’re not trying to do anything wrong.  We want to do right by God.  But we get scared.  We think, “What if something goes wrong?  What if I try to use my talent for God, and it does not work out?  What if people make fun of me?  What if people laugh at me?  What if, instead of using this talent to bring people to God, I end up accidentally pushing them farther away?  I’ll be humiliated.  Even God might be mad at me.  Who knows what might happen then?  I’d like to use this talent for God, but it’s just too risky.  It’s just a chance I cannot afford to take.  I’d better just lay low and keep my talent hidden, so it’s safe.”

           What this story is telling us is that God wants us to take risks in God’s service.  We cannot make money without taking risks.  We cannot use our talents without taking risks.  And we cannot serve God without taking risks.

           Now, when we take a risk, there’s always a chance we might fail.  If we were guaranteed success, there would be no risk, right?  But you know what?  That’s okay.  You know, I was thinking about this, and it occurred to me that I cannot think of a time in the Bible where someone took a risk for God and God got mad at them for doing it.  I did not go through the whole Bible to check, but if there’s an example of something like that I cannot think of it.  In all the examples I can think of, when someone took a chance for God, God honored them for it.  They may not have succeeded, at least not in the way they would have defined success, but God still honored them for it.  Because God does not define success the way we do.  To God, success is being faithful to Him.  And when we do that, God is pleased with us, regardless of what the outcome in human terms might be.

           That brings us back to the line we started with.  “For those who have will be given more, and they will have an abundance.  As for those who do not have, even what they will have will be taken from them.”

           This is not some arbitrary policy by an unfair God.  It’s a statement to encourage us, to encourage us to take risks for God.  When we take chances and use the talents God has given us to honor God, God will reward us for that.  When we don’t, when instead we keep our talents hidden out of fear, we lose them.  Not because God is mean and takes them away from us, but because one of the rules of life is “use it or lose it.”  You’ve experienced that in your own lives.  Whenever we don’t use the talents we have, we eventually lose them.

           God has given you talents.  God has given you passions.  God’s Holy Spirit has put certain things into your heart.  God did those things for a reason.  God wants and expects you to use those things to serve God, just like God expects me to use the talents and passions and things God has put into my heart to serve God.

           If we don’t do that, there’s a price to be paid.  But if we do it, there’s an incredible payoff.  Is it risky?  Yes, it is.  But God will honor our efforts.  When we use the talents and passions and desires God has given us to serve God, we get rewarded in abundance.

 

Beautiful God

The Sunday morning message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on July 23, 2023.  The Bible verses used are Romans 11:33--12:2.

            From the time human beings were capable of thought, we have tried to understand God.  Who God is.  What God does.  Why God does what God does.  How God does what God does.  How God can possibly be all the things we say God is.  There have been, literally, millions of books written trying to answer those and other questions about God.  There have also been magazine articles, movies, TV shows, youtube videos, and any number of other things published in which humans have tried to understand God.

            It’s a natural human impulse.  We try to understand God for lots of reasons.  For one thing, we worship God, and we want to understand just who it is that we worship.  For another, we look at all the chaos and confusion, and we want to believe that it makes sense somehow, so we try to understand why God would allow things to be the way they are.  We also want to believe that God is going to use all this chaos and confusion for good in the end, and we try to understand how God is going to do that.  We want to know what happens after we die, and so we try to understand God so that we can understand what heaven will be like.  And on and on and on, all these reasons why we try to understand God.

            There’s nothing wrong with that, really.  It’s certainly not a sin.  As I said, it’s a natural human impulse.  But while there’s nothing wrong with it, it’s also not a very productive thing for us to do.  It’s really kind of pointless, because it’s impossible.  There is no way that any human being can ever understand God.  God is completely and totally beyond our understanding.

            As the Apostle Paul put it in our reading for today, “Oh the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable His judgments, and His paths beyond tracing out!  Who has known the mind of the Lord?  Or who has been His counselor?”

            The wisdom and knowledge of God are deeper than we can ever imagine.  We cannot know the mind of the Lord.  Not because God does not want us to know His mind, but because our minds are simply not well-enough developed to understand the mind of God.  It would be like trying to explain advanced calculus to a three-year-old.  Advanced calculus makes sense–if you’ve studied enough mathematics to understand it.  But if you have not, it makes no sense whatsoever.

            That’s how the mind of God is.  God makes perfect sense–if our minds were developed enough to understand God.  But they’re not.  The only one whose mind is well-enough developed to understand God is–God.  So God makes perfect sense to God.  God just does not always make sense to us, because we don’t know all the things God knows, we cannot see all the things God sees, and our minds are not developed enough to understand all the things God understands.

            But still we try.  We try to understand God.  And so we come up with all kinds of lists to describe who God is.  God is love.  God is mercy.  God is almighty.  God is all-powerful.  God is all-wise.  God is all-seeing.  God is everywhere.  God is grace.  God is holy.  Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

            But you know, there’s one thing God is that usually does not make those lists.  And it’s another reason we cannot understand God.  Our contemporary song this morning alluded to it.  God is beautiful.

            Have you ever thought of God that way?  I have to admit, I rarely do.  But I should.  We all should.  Because God is beautiful.

            In saying God is beautiful, I’m not talking about physical beauty.  God may be beautiful in that way, too.  In fact, I suspect God is.  God certainly understands physical beauty, because God created a world with so much of it.  And we are really fortunate to live in the part of the world we do, where there is so much physical beauty.  The beauty of the river.  The beauty of the sunrises and sunsets.  The beauty of the clouds.  The beauty of the animals and birds.  God created a lot of physical beauty, so it certainly is possible that God possesses physical beauty.  But since no one has seen God, we cannot say that for sure.

            But God is definitely beautiful in many other senses of the word.  Listen to the definition of the word beauty, according to dictionary.com, and I think you’ll agree that it all applies to God.  “Possessing qualities that give great pleasure to see, hear, or think about.  Delighting the senses of the mind.  Something extraordinary or incredible.”

            That all describes God, or at least it should.  It should give us great pleasure to hear about or think about God.  God should delight the senses of our minds.  And God certainly is extraordinary or incredible.  By the very definition of the word, God is beautiful.

            And the fact that God is beautiful is another reason why we cannot understand God.  You don’t understand beauty.  In fact, trying to understand beauty misses the point.  Beauty is not there to be understood.  Beauty is there to be appreciated.  Beauty is there to give us pleasure.  Beauty is about love, not understanding.

            Paul goes on to tell us how we should live in appreciation and love of God’s beauty.  He says, “Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God–this is your true and proper worship.  Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

            When Paul says “offer your bodies as a living sacrifice”, what he’s saying is that everything about our lives on earth should be dedicated to God.  Everything we do should be dedicated to God.  Everything we say should be dedicated to God.  And not just the public things we do, either.  Yes, we should love our neighbors and make our public acts dedicated to God, but it’s not just that.  Everything we do or say, even when no one else is around, even when no one else will ever know what we’ve done–those things, too, should be dedicated to God.  That’s the only way we can truly and properly worship God.

            And in fact, it goes deeper than that.  Not only should our actions and words be dedicated to God, our very thoughts and feelings should be dedicated to God.  That’s what Paul means when he says, “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”  Because that’s where our words and actions come from, right?  They come from our mind.  They come from what we think and how we feel.  

We cannot dedicate our words and actions to God unless we have dedicated our thoughts and feelings to God.  Yes, we can do the right thing, outwardly, for a while, even if our hearts and minds are not in it.  But eventually, our true self is going to come out.  Our true thoughts and feelings will make themselves known.  We cannot help it.  And if our true thoughts and feelings are not holy and pleasing to God, then our words and actions will not be holy and pleasing to God, either.

But our true thoughts and feelings will only be holy and pleasing to God if, as Paul says, we are transformed.  That transformation can only come through the power of the Holy Spirit.  We cannot transform ourselves.  We need to do our part, but we cannot transform ourselves just by an act of our own will.  We need to open ourselves up to God’s will.  We need to open ourselves up to the power of God’s Holy Spirit.

How do we do that?  By prayer.  I know that tends to be the pastor’s answer to everything, but I really mean it.  I believe prayer has great power.  I’ve seen that power in my own life.  Not that I’m perfect–I’m nowhere close to perfect.  But I think I’m better than I once was.  I don’t think my mind has been transformed–but I feel like I’ve at least taken a very few small steps down that road.  And however far I’ve gotten, it did not happen because of my own will.  It happened because I prayed for God’s Holy Spirit to help me be the person God wants me to be.

And in this and most things, I’m no better than anyone else.  If God’s Holy Spirit can help me, God’s Holy Spirit can help you, too.  So pray.  And I’m not just talking about a brief, five-second prayer.  I mean, if that’s all you need to get transformed by God’s Holy Spirit, then that’s great.  But for me, it takes time.  It takes repeatedly asking for God’s Holy Spirit to transform me.  Not because God needs to be reminded, but because I do.  I need to remind myself to make it a priority in my life to allow God’s Holy Spirit to transform my mind, to help me overcome my sinful nature, to help me have thoughts and feelings that are holy and pleasing to God, so that my words and actions can also be holy and pleasing to God.  

And again, I’m not saying I’ve gotten there yet.  I have a long way to go.  But as they say, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.  I may have nine hundred ninety-nine miles to go, but that’s still better than a thousand.  The point is not how far we’ve gone or how fast we’re moving.  The point is that we’re making progress.  The point is that we are dedicating ourselves to God, transforming ourselves, with God’s help, into the people God wants us to be.

We don’t have to understand God.  It’s impossible anyway.  God’s awesomeness and beauty cannot be understood by humans.  It can only be appreciated and loved and loved and worshiped.  So let’s do that.  Let’s ask God’s Holy Spirit to transform our minds, so we can dedicate our lives to God.  As Paul says, that is true and proper worship. 

 

Loving Alike

The Sunday night message in the Gettysburg United Methodist church.  July 16, 2023.  The Bible verses used are Romans 10:1-13.

One of the things that makes the United Methodist church different from a lot of other denominations is that we allow for a lot of differences of opinion.  We have very few things that you have to agree to in order to be a United Methodist.  The membership requirements for being a United Methodist are contained in one paragraph of the United Methodist Book of Discipline.  At the risk of boring you, I’m going to read it to you:

When persons unite as professing members with a local United Methodist church, they profess their faith in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth; in Jesus Christ his only Son, and in the Holy Spirit.  Thus, they make known their desire to live their daily lives as disciples of Jesus Christ.  They covenant together with God and with the members of the local church to keep the vows which are a part of the order of confirmation and reception into the Church.

And here’s what those vows are:

1.  To renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of the world, and repent of their sins;

2.  To accept the freedom and power God gives them to resist evil, injustice, and oppression;

3.  To confess Jesus Christ as Savior, put their whole trust in his grace, and promise to serve him as their Lord.

4.  To remain faithful members of Christ’s holy church and serve as Christ’s representatives in the world;

5.  To be loyal to The United Methodist Church and do all in their power to strengthen its ministries;

6.  To faithfully participate in its ministries by their prayers, their presence, their gifts, their service, and their witness;

7.  To receive and profess the Christian faith as contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.

That’s it.  That’s all you have to do to be a member of the United Methodist church.  We don’t have a lengthy catechism you have to memorize.  We don’t have a laundry list of things you have to agree to.  If you do agree to those things I just read, you can be a member of the United Methodist church.  It’s that simple.

            Now, that’s not to say the United Methodist church does not take stands on things.  It does.  It takes stands on all sorts of things.  It takes stands on theological issues, it takes stands on spiritual issues, it takes stands on social issues, sometimes it takes stands on political issues.  But the thing is, no one is required to agree with any of those stands to be a United Methodist.

            As I talk about why that is, I want to make one thing clear.  Nothing I’m saying here is intended to be a criticism of other denominations.  Other denominations have their own ways of doing things, and they have reasons why they do things that way.  I’m not trying to tell any other denomination what it should do.  I’m trying to explain why the United Methodist church does things the way it does.

            The reason we take this approach, the reason we don’t have a big laundry list of things you have to agree to in order to become a United Methodist, is because we think this is the approach Jesus took.  When Jesus went out to talk to people, what did he do?  He said, “Follow me”.  He did not give people a long list of things that had to believe before they could come and follow him.  He did not tell them they had to memorize a bunch of stuff before they could come and follow him.  He simply said, “Follow me.”

            Jesus was not interested in creating a bunch of people to study theology.  The world already had enough people studying theology.  They were called “Scribes” and “Pharisees” and “Teachers of the Law”.  There were enough people who knew how believers in God are supposed to live.  Jesus got into arguments with those people sometimes, but he really did not disagree all that much what the Scribes and the Pharisees and the Teachers of the Law said about scripture.  He just could not see that there were very many people actually living as if they believed it.

            So Jesus kept it simple:  “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”  Later on, Jesus said, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

            You could say, really, that Jesus’ laundry list had one item on it.  Love.  Love for God.  Love for each other.  The United Methodists add a couple of things, but the things we add are things that are related to love.  That’s all Jesus required.  Why should we require more?

            The Apostle Paul, in our Bible reading for tonight, took a similar approach.  “If you declare with your mouth ‘Jesus is Lord’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”  Paul’s laundry list had one item on it.  Belief.  Belief in Jesus Christ as the risen Savior.  That’s it.  Period.

            When John Wesley started the groups that eventually became United Methodism, he found a situation that was a little bit similar to the situation Jesus found among the Jewish people.  The world had plenty of people who’d studied theology.  They were called priests and bishops and so forth.  There were enough people who knew how believers in God are supposed to live.  Wesley did not disagree all that much with what the priests and bishops said.  He just could not see that there were very many people actually living as if they believed it.

            So Wesley kept it simple, too:  “Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can.”  And also “An ounce of love is worth a pound of knowledge.”

            You could say that Wesley’s laundry list had very few items on it.  Love, have love for God and love for others, accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, and show that love by doing good.

            As long as we agree on our love for God and on our love for others, as long as we agree that we need to show that love by doing good, we can disagree on a lot of the other stuff.  Wesley said, “Think and let think.”  He said, “Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion? Without all doubt, we may. Herein all the children of God may unite, notwithstanding these smaller differences.” 

            Now, understand here, I am not saying “Don’t study the Bible”.  We should study the Bible.  We should think about God.  We should know what we believe and we should know why we believe what we believe.  The point, though, is that what we are allowed to disagree about the details.  We’re allowed to have different opinions on the finer points.  We’re even allowed to disagree with the official stands of the church.  It’s okay.  The most important things are that we love God, love others, accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, and show that love by doing good.

            There’s one other thing about this, too.  We allow people to have different views on things because we recognize that no human being is ever perfect.  We recognize that the official stands of the church, while they may be well-intentioned, can sometimes be wrong, because they are decided by human beings.  So, we don’t all have to agree with them.  In fact, as United Methodists, we should have no problem at all if someone does disagree.

            What it comes down to, really, is a recognition that the things we agree on are far more important than the things we don’t.  The important things are, one, love and acceptance of Jesus Christ as our Savior, and, two, going out and showing that love to as many people as we can.  When we let ourselves get hung up on other things, when we start worrying too much about our disagreements on issues and forget the things that unite us, we don’t show love.  And then we fail to be what the church is supposed to be.

            Love and acceptance of Jesus Christ as our Savior, and going out and showing that love to as many people as we can.  Those things are what following Jesus means.  They’re what Jesus asked people to do.  That’s what the Apostle Paul asked people to do.  They’re what Wesley asked people to do.  And it’s what we continue to be asked to do.

            Nobody can agree on everything.  So we should be thankful that, in the United Methodist church, we don’t all have to agree with everything.  We can think and let think, and we don’t have to think alike.  All we need to do is love alike.  That’s why we don’t have a catechism or a laundry list.  Jesus gave us the list.   “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’  ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  ‘A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.’  We may not always think alike, but we can always love alike.  And when we do, we can be God’s people, living in God’s world.

Accepted By God

The Sunday morning message in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish.  July 16, 2023.  The Bible verses used are Acts 10:34-48.

            I would guess that most of us here, maybe all of us here, are proud to be Americans.  Not that our country is perfect–we know that it’s not, it never has been, and it never will be.  The main reason for that is that Americans are people.  People are inherently imperfect, and anything people are involved in will be imperfect.

            But while we know our country is not perfect, we think it’s pretty darn good.  And it is.  Over the two hundred forty-seven years that this country has existed, it has been a force for good much more often than it has been for bad.  It has defended freedom around the world.  It has led economic booms and raised the standard of living for many, many people.  

            And one of the reasons for that has been that God has blessed our country.  God has blessed us in many ways.  He has blessed our country with great natural resources.  He has blessed our country with great beauty.  He has blessed our country with courageous, adventurous, independent people who have been willing to take chances and do whatever it takes to make this country a great country.

            Because God has blessed this country in so many ways, it’s tempting to believe that God will always bless this country.  It’s tempting to believe that the United States is somehow special in God’s eyes, that God has specifically chosen us because of how great and how wonderful we are.  It’s tempting, in short, to believe we have somehow earned God’s blessings, and therefore to take God’s blessings for granted and assume they’ll always be there.

            But anytime we start to take God for granted, we get in trouble.  Peter, in our reading for today, tells us we should not assume that we somehow have earned some sort of favor in God’s eyes.  Peter says, “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism, but accepts from every nation the one who fears Him and does what is right.”

            Now, it’s important that we understand the context here.  The story takes up a whole chapter in the book of Acts, which is why we did not read it all this morning.  But basically, Peter was at the home of a Roman centurion, a non-Jew, named Cornelius.  Cornelius had a vision from God that he was supposed to send for Peter.  He did, and Peter came.  And there were a lot of people there waiting for him.  Peter said to Cornelius, you know, it’s against our Jewish law for me to associate with someone like you.  Why did you send for me?  Cornelius tells Peter about his vision, thanks Peter for coming, and says, “Now we are all here in the presence of God to listen to everything the Lord has commanded you to tell us.”

            This had a tremendous impact on Peter.  Peter, was the leader of the apostles, but he was very much still very much in the mode that the Savior had come for the Jewish people.  God had been working on him, trying to widen his viewpoint.  Earlier in this chapter, God had given Peter a vision of various animals that Peter was allowed to eat, even though they were against Jewish dietary laws.  God said to him, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”  

It was shortly after that, that he went to the house of Cornelius.  And it shows he had heard what God said, because in explaining why he violated Jewish law to go there, he said, “God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean.”  That’s when he asked why Cornelius had sent for him.  After Cornelius answered, that’s when Peter said, “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism, but accepts from every nation the one who fears Him and does what is right.”

The Jewish people had taken it for granted that God would always bless them.  Even Peter had taken it for granted that when the Savior came, He would offer salvation to the Jews.  But he found out differently.  Peter now realized that God does not care what country or ethnic group someone is from.  What God cares about is whether someone is faithful to Him and does what God wants Him to do.

And that brings us back to this country.  For a long time, the vast majority of people in the United States tried to be faithful to God and tried to do what God wanted them to do.  Again, not perfectly–this country has made plenty of mistakes.  But the goal, however imperfectly approached, of the vast majority of people in this country was to follow God and to do what was right.

That is no longer the case.  The most recent poll I could find was from a couple of years ago, and it showed that the percentage of Americans who call themselves Christians is down to sixty-three percent.  That’s down significantly from what it was just ten years ago.  And of course, there are a lot of people who call themselves Christians who don’t let their supposed belief affect their daily lives in any significant way.  They are what we might call Christians in Name Only.  Only forty-one percent of people who call themselves Christian attend church even once a month.  And that’s self-reported, so that figure might even be overstated.  And yes, one can be a strong Christian without attending church regularly, but that’s still at least one gauge of how seriously people take their Christian faith.

I do not pretend to speak for God.  But it seems to me that God is not likely to continue blessing a nation that does not continue to follow Him.  God is not likely to continue to bless a nation that is not faithful to Him.  God stopped blessing the nation of Israel when it abandoned Him.  It seems to me that God would apply that same standard to the United States.

But at the same time, I do not want you to despair.  All is not lost.  I say that for two reasons.  One of them is that, in the Old Testament, when things got bad for the nation of Israel, they turned back to God.  And when they did, God blessed them again.  They still had to deal with the consequences of what they’d done, but God did bless them again.  If this country turns back to God, we have every reason to think God will bless us again, too.

But you and I, much as we might like to, probably do not have the power to turn this country back to God.  So that brings me to the other reason for hope.  Remember what Peter said.  “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism, but accepts from every nation the one who fears Him and does what is right.”

That means that, no matter what this country does, you and I can still be accepted by God.  All we need to do is stay faithful to God.  All we need to do is follow God.  All we need to do is do what Jesus told us to do.  Serve God.  Show love to God.  Show love to others.  Keep a strong faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior.  If we do that, God will accept us, no matter what anyone else chooses to do.

That’s where we need to keep our focus.  That may mean that we need to turn away from society, to a certain extent.  Now, I’m not suggesting that we become monks and wall ourselves off from society.  But if this country continues to turn away from God, it will become harder and harder to stay faithful to God.  Where faith in Jesus Christ used to be considered a positive thing, it will start to become a negative thing.  In some places in this country, it already is.  People will be looked down upon for being Christians.  Some business owners have already been sued because they refused to do things that violated their Christian faith.  If present trends continue, that’s only going to get worse.  For most of us, it has been relatively easy to be open about our Christian faith.  But if things keep going the way they are, it’s going to get harder.

But you know what?  It was not easy for Peter and the other early Christians to be open about their Christian faith, either.  They were persecuted.  Some of them were jailed.  Some of them were killed–you may remember the story of the stoning of Stephen, for example.  For most of the last two thousand years, being a Christian has not been easy.

But while it’s not easy, it’s worth it.  The payoff is tremendous.  The payoff is salvation and eternal life in heaven, by our faith in Jesus Christ and by God’s love and grace and mercy.  And when you think about how long eternity is, well, it’s worth having to put up with some stuff while we’re on earth.

I don’t know what the future holds for this country.  Maybe we will return to God.  Maybe God will continue to bless us.  But I know that, regardless of what the future holds for the country, God will accept the one who is faithful to Him and does what is right.  So let’s do that.  Let’s be faithful to God.  Let’s serve God.  Let’s love God.  Let’s love others.  Let’s keep our faith in Jesus Christ strong.  If we do, God will accept us.  And we will have eternal life with Him in heaven.

 

The Faith of Ananias

The Sunday evening message given in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on July 9, 2023.  The Bible verses used are Acts 9:1-19.

            The story of Saul’s conversion is one of the most remarkable stories in the Bible.  And that’s saying something, because the Bible has a lot of remarkable stories in it.  But think about it.  Here’s Saul.  He’s a Pharisee.  One of the group that saw to it that Jesus was killed.  One of the group that, once Jesus was killed, tried to get rid of all of Jesus’ followers, too.

            And Saul was not just an ordinary Pharisee.  Saul was one of the most zealous Pharisees there was.  He was there to help at the stoning of Stephen.  He went house to house in Jerusalem, dragging off both men and women and putting them in prison for being Christians.  And then, suddenly, he meets Jesus.  And he eventually becomes possibly the most important Christian there has ever been.

            But tonight, I don’t want to focus on Saul.  I want to focus on another person in this story.  I want to focus on Ananias.

            This is the only time this Ananias is mentioned in the Bible.  There are a couple of other Ananiases, both of whom we find in the books of Acts.  Maybe Ananias was a common name in that area at this time, I don’t know.  One of them is in Acts chapter Five, when someone named Ananias is struck down for lying to the Holy Spirit.  The other is in Acts Twenty-three and Twenty-four, a high priest before whom Saul, by then called Paul, is brought to stand trial.

            But this is the only time we meet this Ananias.  And so, as you’d expect, we don’t know a whole lot about him.  We know he lived in Damascus, which was where Saul was headed when he met Jesus.

            And so that leads us to a question right off the bat.  Did Jesus choose this moment to show Himself to Saul, this moment when Saul was headed to Damascus, because Ananias lived there?  After all, I assume Jesus could’ve appeared to Saul at any time.  He could’ve appeared to Saul while Saul was still in Jerusalem.  He could’ve appeared to Saul after Saul left Damascus and went on to some other city.  Was one of the reasons Jesus chose this time the fact that Ananias lived there, and Jesus specifically wanted Ananias to be the one to go to Saul when Saul lost his sight?

            Well, we don’t know the answer to that.  But whether because of Ananias, or because of some other reason, or just by coincidence, it was when Saul was on the road to Damascus that Jesus appeared to him.  And Ananias was the one chosen by the Lord to go to Saul and restore his sight.

            Why Ananias, I wonder?  We’re told he was a disciple of Jesus, which we would certainly expect.  But he cannot have been the only disciple of Jesus in Damascus.  After all, Saul was going there specifically to persecute the Christians there.  It would hardly have been worth Saul’s time to go there to persecute one guy.  There have to have been lots of disciples of Jesus living in Damascus, or Saul would not have been going there.  So, why not one of the others?  Why Ananias?

            Only God knows the answer to that, obviously.  But let’s take a look at Ananias and see if we can find some of the reasons the Lord might have chosen him.

            For one thing, Ananias has courage.  After all, Ananias knows all about Saul.  He knows exactly who Saul is and why he has come to Damascus.  He knows what Saul has done to the Christians in other places.  In fact, he tells all that to the Lord.  He says, “Lord, I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to Your holy people in Jerusalem.  And he has come here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on Your name.”

            So Ananias has reasons to fear Saul.  And that’s not all.  We’re told Saul’s companions have taken Saul to a house in Damascus.  Now, we don’t know anything about that house, other than that it’s referred to as “the house of Judas.”  That’s not a reference to the Judas who betrayed Jesus–there were lots of people named Judas back then, too.  We don’t know if Ananias knew of this house or the people in it.  But it stands to reason that Saul’s companions were just as eager to persecute the Christians as Saul was, and that if they took him to someone’s house, the people in that house were probably on Saul’s side, too, and were also eager to persecute Christians.  

If those people knew who Ananias was, that he was a follower of Jesus, they might kill him before he even got in the door.  And yet, when the Lord told him to go there, he went.  That took a lot of courage.

            It took a lot of faith, too.  Ananias needed to trust the Lord.  He had to trust the Lord in at least two ways.  One, he had to trust that the Lord would, in fact, protect him when he went to this house.  But he also had to trust that the Lord would give him the power and ability to do what the Lord told him to do.

            The Lord told Ananias to place his hands on Saul and restore his sight.  Had Ananias ever done anything like that before?  We don’t know, but there’s nothing in the Bible to indicate that he had.  There are not a lot of people in the Bible who were told had the power to heal someone just by laying hands on them.  A few of the twelve disciples, like Peter, had that power after the Holy Spirit came on them.  But Ananias was not one of the twelve disciples.

            What if that was you?  What if the Lord told you that you could place your hands on someone and restore their sight?  Would you go do it?  Would you even believe that you could?  I mean, yes, you’d received this vision and all, but still.  Would you be confident that you could actually do this?  And even if you were, would the people at the house believe you?  Would Saul believe you?  Would Saul even let you place your hands on him?  It took a lot of faith, as well as a lot of courage, for Ananias to walk over to that house and do what the Lord told him to do.

            So what’s the point?  The point is that, as far as we know, there was nothing special about Ananias.  Yes, he was a follower of Jesus, but there were lots of followers of Jesus in Damascus.  There was no obvious reason, from a human perspective, for Ananias to stand out among them.  And yet, the Lord specifically chose Ananias to do this thing that took great faith and great courage.  This thing that played an important part in turning Saul into Paul, one of the most important Christians in history.

            Most of us would probably say there’s nothing special about us.  Yes, we’re followers of Jesus, but there are lots of followers of Jesus.  There’s no obvious reason for any of us to stand out among those followers.  Yet, there are things the Lord has chosen you to do, too.  Things that take faith and courage, just as the things Ananias did took faith and courage.

            I don’t know what those things are for you.  It will be something different for each of us.  Some of us, like Saul, are chosen to do great things that change the course of history.  Others of us, like Ananias, are chosen to play a small but important part in great things.  Still others of us, like the many, many followers of Jesus who are not named in the Bible, are chosen to do things that no one will ever know about, but that play a part in bringing one or more people to Christ.

            And what an awesome thing that is, don’t you think?  To be called to do something that plays a part in bringing someone to Christ?  After all, it’s faith in Jesus Christ that gives us salvation and eternal life.  Wouldn’t it be great to know that you played even a small part in helping someone receive eternal life?  I don’t think it could get any better than that.  There’s nothing better we could ever do for anyone than to help them receive eternal life.  That’s as good as it could possibly get.

            And there’s one more thing about that.  I said some of us are chosen to do things that no one will ever know about.  That’s not really true.  Because God will know about them.  God will know about them, and God will care about them.  Nothing we ever do for God goes unnoticed.  And certainly, nothing we ever do to help bring someone to Christ goes unnoticed.  God notices, and God cares.

            So let Ananias serve as an inspiration to you.  Whatever you may be chosen to do, do it with the courage and faith of Ananias.  Don’t worry about what someone’s reaction may be–trust God to protect you.  Don’t worry about whether you actually can do what God has chosen you to do–trust that God will give you the power and ability to do what God has chosen you to do.

            You may think there’s nothing special about you.  Ananias probably thought there was nothing special about him, too.  But Ananias was special to God, and so are you.  And you can do whatever God has chosen you to do, just as Ananias did.