2013 Gettysburg Homecoming

Good Enough

This is the message from the Oahe Manor Communion service Thursday, September 12, 2013.  The Bible verses are 1 Timothy 1:12-17.

One of the things that makes me kind of sad is when I hear people say things like, “I don't know if I'll go to heaven.  I just don't know if I've been good enough.”

Now, I'll bet that some of you have said that.  If you've not said it, I'll bet you've at least thought it.  If you have, I'm not criticizing you.  I'm not mad at you or anything.  It just makes me sad, because you're worrying about something you don't need to worry about.

Because the fact is that being “good enough” has nothing to do with it.  If we had to be “good enough” to get to heaven, none of us would get there.  I would not, you would not, nobody would.  Because there's no way any of us could possibly be as good as our perfect, all-good God.

That's one of the things the Apostle Paul is trying to say to Timothy in our Bible reading today.  Paul says, look at who I've been.  I've been an unbeliever.  I've actively persecuted Christians.  I've had them killed.  And yet, God has forgiven me.  Not only that, I've been allowed to serve God.

You know, there are a lot of times in Paul's writing where he makes a point of saying how bad he used to be.  There's been a lot of speculation on why he did that.  I don't claim to know the answer, but I think part of it was just that he was so amazed at what had happened to him.

Think about Paul's life.  He starts out as one of the top Christian persecutors.  And when he was doing that, he did not think he was doing anything against God.  He thought he was working for God.  He thought he was defending God.  In fact, he was sure of it.  He totally believed he was doing what God wanted him to do.

And then, all of a sudden, everything changed.  He had a conversion experience on the road to Damascus.  In a flash, he saw that everything he believed was wrong.  The things he thought he was doing to defend God were actually going exactly against God.

Can you imagine what that must feel like?  To suddenly find out that everything you've believed all your life is completely wrong?  And not only that, but to have a sincere, devout, religious belief, and to have been trying hard all your life to obey God, and then to find out that you've actually been doing the exact opposite of what God wanted you to do.  Paul had to be terrified.  He had to think God was going to strike him dead right there.

And then, look what happened.  Not only did God not strike him dead, God forgave him.  Not only did God forgive him, God allowed Paul to serve God.  Not only did God allow Paul to serve God, God helped Paul become the first and maybe still the greatest Christian evangelist there's ever been.

Paul had to be amazed by that.  And he continued to be amazed all his life.  That's why he kept making such a point of saying how bad he'd been.  What he was saying was that if God can forgive me, God can forgive anybody.  If Jesus can save me, Jesus can save anybody.  If I can have eternal life, then it's possible for anybody to have eternal life.

That is the essential message of Christianity.  It's possible for anybody to have eternal life.  It does not matter what we've done.  It does not matter how bad we've been.  God can forgive anybody.  Jesus can save anybody.  All we need to do is believe in him.  All we need to do is accept Jesus Christ as our Savior.

You know, sometimes when we think about following Christ, we seem to dwell on the negatives of it.  We talk about the things we have to give up to follow Christ.  We talk about the cost of following Christ.  And those things are real.  I'm not saying we should ignore them.  I think, though, that when we talk about that stuff too much, we're putting the emphasis in the wrong place.

Because those negatives are nothing compared to the positives.  Look at what Jesus offers us.  Jesus offers us forgiveness.  Jesus offers us salvation.  Jesus offers us eternal life.  What we have to give up temporarily on earth is nothing compared to that.

Jesus wants to take us to heaven.  We don't have to earn our way there.  We don't have to be “good enough” to go there.  All we need to do is have faith in God.  All we have to do is believe in Jesus as our Savior.  In other words, all we need to do to get to heaven is to follow Jesus there.  Jesus will take us to heaven if we'll only agree to go with him.

Paul knew he was not good enough to go to heaven.  I know I'm not good enough to go to heaven.  You know you're not good enough to go to heaven.  But the good news is that we don't have to be.  God forgave Paul.  God will forgive me.  And God will forgive you.  If we can just believe that, and trust it, we'll never have to worry about being good enough again.

The Lord's Prayers

This is the message given in the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, September 8, 2013.  The Bible verses used are John 17:1-25 and Luke 11:1-4.

Welcome to a new sermon series, “The Power of Prayer”.  We are going to talk about things like why it is that we pray, what our attitude should be when we pray, and what we expect to happen when we pray.

In starting this sermon series out, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at what Jesus said when he prayed.  And what I found out is that there are very few instances in which Jesus' prayers are recorded for us in the Bible.  The one we read today, from the gospel of John, is one of the few times we have one of Jesus' prayers written down.  Now, we know Jesus prayed.  In fact, we know Jesus prayed a lot.  But when we read about that, we usually read things like, “and Jesus went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.”  “Jesus withdrew to a lonely place and prayed.”  Jesus prayed, but he usually prayed by himself, not with a crowd.

And it struck me, too, that when we read the few public prayers Jesus prayed, like the one we read today, they read more like speeches than like prayers.  I think there's a reason for that.  I think Jesus knew that people were listening, that people would be paying attention, and that people would remember what he said.  That does not make Jesus' prayers invalid or anything.  Jesus was still praying to the Father.  It's just that he knew there was an additional audience.

I suspect—there's no way to know—that this may have altered the way he prayed.  Now, Jesus still meant everything he said, and he still wanted the Father to hear everything he said.  It's just that most of us pray differently when we pray in public than we do when we pray in private.  I know I do.  There's nothing wrong with that.  Our prayers in public are neither worse nor better than our prayers in private.  They're just different.  It's one thing to pray when we know others can hear us, and it's another to pray when we know whatever we say will stay between us and God.

There's no way to know what it is that Jesus said when he prayed in private.  There had to be something different about it, though, because we're told, in our reading from Luke, that the disciples went up to him and said, “Lord, teach us to pray.”

Now, the disciples had prayed before.  Some of them had been praying all their lives.  Religious Jews of that time had lots of prayers they were supposed to say on various occasions or sometimes just as their day went along.  It's not like praying was some sort of foreign concept to them.

And yet, they asked Jesus to teach them to pray.  Somehow, they must've known that when Jesus prayed, it was different.  There are lots of ways that could've happened.  It could be that they overheard Jesus praying sometimes, and wanted to be able to pray like that.  It could be that even though they couldn't hear Jesus praying, they could see him, and they saw some sort of change come over him when he prayed.  It could be that they neither heard nor saw Jesus pray, but when he came back from praying, they could see there was something different about him.  They could see that he had a sense of peace, or a sense of purpose, or something that had changed, and they wanted to have that, too.

Whatever it was that they saw, they could tell Jesus' prayers had power, a power that the prayers they'd said their whole lives did not have.  And they wanted that.  They wanted their prayers to have that same power Jesus' prayers had. So they asked him to teach them to pray.  And he did.  Now, the prayer that we've come to call the Lord's Prayer is not exactly the way Luke quotes it.  For one thing, Matthew has a slightly different version, and we've incorporated that.  We've also added a last line, a concluding sentence that was common to prayers back then.  Still, the prayer that we pray now is very much in the spirit of what Jesus told his disciples to pray.

We pray the Lord's Prayer every week.  It's a good prayer to pray.  Well, I mean, Jesus taught it to us.  What, I'm going to stand here and tell you it's not a good prayer?  Of course it's a good prayer.  We should pray it every week.  We should probably pray it every day.  And it can have a lot of power.

But here are a couple of things about the Lord's Prayer.  For one thing, it's really short.  Even in the longer version that we pray, it only takes about thirty seconds.  Now, that's not a bad thing.  After all, Jesus told us not to wear God out with a bunch of words.  It's not wrong to pray a short prayer.  Not at all.

The thing is, though, that because it's so short, and because we pray it so often, and because many of us have heard it and prayed it so many times that we know it by heart, a lot of times we don't really think about the Lord's Prayer.  Sometimes we do, but a lot of times we don't.  We pray it kind of a perfunctory way.  We say it by rote.  I know I do that sometimes.  We don't put any thought into it, and we don't put any effort into it.  And so, as good the Lord's Prayer is, there are times it does not do us much good to pray it.  There's not much power in prayer when our hearts are not into our prayers.

If we want our prayers to do us any good, if we want our prayers to have power, if we want them to have the effect on us that Jesus' prayers had on him, we need to put some effort into them.  We need to put some thought into them.  Not every time we pray, necessarily.  It's okay to pray some quick prayers, too, depending on the situation.  But sometimes we need to spend some time with God.  We need to spend enough time with God that we can get past the perfunctory platitudes that we're tempted to pray and really tell God what's in our minds and in our hearts.

I always go back to Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane.  We've talked about this before, but we're told Jesus was praying so hard that he was sweating.  And we're not just talking minor perspiration here, either.  We're told he was sweating so hard that his sweat fell to the ground in huge drops.

Now that's praying.  That's a prayer that has power.  And that's what we need to do.  It's fine to pray the Lord's Prayer, but what we really need to do is follow the Lord's prayers.  We need to pray the way Jesus did.  Again, not every time.  We cannot do that every time, and we don't need to do it every time.  But there are times when we do.  There are times when we need to put all of ourselves into our prayers.  There are times when we need to completely open ourselves up to God.  There are times when we need to be completely honest and open with God.

We cannot do that in thirty seconds.  We may not be able to do it in thirty minutes.  We cannot do it by simply saying words we memorized when we were kids.  Just saying words without thinking about them, without paying attention to what the words mean, is not really praying at all.  The words are fine, they're good, but there's no magic in them.  They're just words unless we mean them.

You see, prayer involves being conscious of God's presence, of God's love, of God's direction, and of God's grace.  That's why Jesus went off by himself to pray.  That's why Jesus put all of himself into his prayers.  And that's why Jesus' prayers had power.

Again, it's not that we always have to do that.  It's okay to pray for thirty seconds, or even less, if that's all the time we have.  But sometimes we do need to do it.  Because we need to feel God's presence in our lives.  We need to feel God's love in our lives.  We need to feel God directing our lives.  And we need to feel God's grace in our lives.  And we need to take whatever times it takes, and however much effort it takes, in order to do that.

Jesus taught the disciples to pray by giving them words.  But Jesus also taught them to pray by giving them an example.  Jesus taught them to pray by showing them the power prayer can have, both on us and on others.

Jesus continues to teach us to pray.  It's good to use The Lord's prayer.  But it's even better to follow the example of the Lord's prayers.  When we do that, we've taken the first step toward unleashing the power of prayer.

Just Great

This is the message given Sunday, September 1, 2013.  The Bible verses used are Genesis 1:1-23; Romans 3:21-26; John 14:1-4.

Well, this is the conclusion of our Hymn Hysteria sermon series.  I've really enjoyed this series, and I hope you have, too.  It's been really interesting to me to find out more about these songs and the people who wrote them.  It's also been really interesting to me to really think about these songs, all of which I've been singing since I was a little kid, and to think about what the words mean and what we're actually saying when we sing them.

We're closing this series with our champion hymn, “How Great Thou Art”.  It took on some heavyweight hymns and it beat them all.  It defeated “Faith of Our Fathers”, “Nearer, My God, to Thee”, “God Will Take Care of You”, “Oh, How I Love Jesus”, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus”, and finally defeated “Amazing Grace” in the finals.

Our hymnal attributes the words and music of “How Great Thou Art” to Stuart K. Hine, but that's only partly true.  The words are based on a poem written in Sweden by Carl Boberg in 1885 and the tune is an old Swedish folk tune.  He wrote it in Swedish, of course, but it was eventually translated into a lot of other languages.  The first English translation was by E. Gustav Johnson in 1925.

The version we use now does owe much to Hine, though.  Stuart K. Hine was a British missionary.  He was born in 1899 and lived until March 14th of 1989.  He was working in the Ukraine when he heard a Russian translation of the song.  He loved it and started re-writing it and adding verses to fit the events where he was.  Hine adapted the first two verses of the song from Boberg's poem and wrote the third and fourth verses himself.  There are a variety of other versions and other verses, but the version in our hymnal is the commonly used version of “How Great Thou Art”.

As I was thinking of this song, it became clear to me why this song won our contest.  It also became clear to me why we don't sing the other verses or the other versions.  The version of the song we sing, with the verses that it has, tells us pretty much everything we need to know about God and about our faith.

The first two verses describe God's creation.  That's why we read the passage from Genesis today.  It's the story of creation.

The first verse describes the awesome power of God.  This is a God who can and did create worlds.  God created the stars and the planets and everything else.  When we see those stars and planets, when we hear the rolling thunder, we can hardly help but recognize the awesome power of God.

God is so powerful that God created all that just by speaking a word.  God said, “let it be” and it was.  Think about that.  God did not have to work hard to create the universe.  God did not have to strain to do it.  All God had to do was speak.  That's power, to be able to create the universe and do it with ease.  If God has that much power just by speaking, what do you suppose God could do if God actually used all the power God has?  It's kind of scary to think about.

But it does not have to be scary, because the second verse describes how God uses that awesome power.  God uses it to create beauty.  The beauty of the woods and the forests.  The birds that sing sweetly in the trees.  The lofty mountains.  The brooks.  The breezes.  All those things are beautiful, and all of them are created by God.

I think we're blessed around here, because we have a lot better chance than most people to see that beauty.  We actually see the stars.  We actually can hear birds singing.  We have an abundance of wildlife.  And this time of year, we have the sunflowers.  Those beautiful gold blossoms shining against the green of the plant.  Those greens and golds are so beautiful that for a minute I even forget that those are the colors of the Green Bay Packers.  It's such a beautiful sight.

We have these things around us so much that sometimes we take them for granted.  That's understandable, and in fact it's a very human thing to do.  It's too bad, though.  We should never take beauty for granted.  And we should especially never take God's beauty for granted.

You know, God would not have had to create a beautiful world.  The way the world is is not the only way God would've had to create it.  God is God.  God could've created the world any way God wanted to.  God could've created a dull, colorless world.  God could've created a very flat, featureless world.  God could've created only a few types of animals and plants, instead of the incredible variety we have.  God chose to create a beautiful, colorful world of infinite variety.  We should appreciate that.

The third verse talks about our salvation.  That's why we read the passage from the Apostle Paul's letter to the Romans.  This God, who is all-powerful and created this incredible, beautiful world, sent the Son to die.  He bore our burdens on the cross.  He bled and died.  And he did it to take away our sins.

God did not have to do that, either.  God chose to do it.  God did not have to do anything to take away our sins.  Our sins are not God's fault, they're our fault.  God does not force us to sin.  God was under no obligation to give us a chance for forgiveness and salvation.  But God does it, just because God loves us.

And the fourth verse talks about Christ coming again, to take us home.  That's why we read the passage from the gospel of John.  Jesus promises to come back and take us to the place he has prepared for us if we accept him as our Savior.  In other words, he will take us to heaven if we'll only agree to go.

Each one of those verses leads perfectly to the chorus.  When we think of how powerful God is, when we think of how God uses that power to create beauty, when we think of how God loves us so much that God sent the Son to die to take away our sins, when we think of how Jesus will come back and take us to heaven if we'll only agree to go, we're overwhelmed.  At least we should be.  That's a power and a love that's beyond my comprehension.  I can describe it, but I cannot really understand it.

All I can do, all any of us can do, is what the song says.  We can bow in humble adoration, and proclaim “my God, how great Thou art!”  All we can do is sing praises to God for how great, how awesome, how incredible God is.

This song really has almost everything we need to know about God.  There are other things we'd like to know, other things it'd be interesting to know.  We're all curious about details and facts.  We all have stuff we'd like to ask God if we have the chance.  But this is pretty much everything we need to know.  God is great, God is all-powerful, God is the creator, God creates beauty, God sent the son to die for our sins, the Son will come again to take us home, and God is worthy of praise for that.  If we were trying to explain Christianity to someone who knew nothing about it, we could do a lot worse than to show them the words to this song.

We could do a lot worse than to show ourselves the words to this song, too.  Some of you probably have them memorized.  But think about them.  Think about them every day.  Carry them with you.  Because the world has a way of wearing us down.  The world has a way of distracting us.  The world has a way of taking our minds off of how great God is and encouraging us to think of all our problems and worries instead.

         When that starts to happen, pull out the words to this song again.  Sing this song to yourself, or just read the words.  Think about them.  Remember that God truly is great, so great that God offers us the chance to go to live with God in heaven.  If we really think about that, there will not be much we can do except bow in humble adoration and proclaim, “My God, how great Thou art!”

Courage

Below is the message at the WOW (Worship on Wednesday) service in Gettysburg August 28, 2013.  The Bible verses are Daniel 6:1-23.

In these Wednesday night services, we've been looking at Old Testament stories.  And those of you who've been coming regularly may have noticed a theme that goes through a lot of those stories:  courage.

Courage plays a big part in a lot of the stories we've looked at.  And when you think about what was going on at the time, it's easy to see why.  The people of Israel went through a lot of tough times.  There were times when they were in exile, unable to live in the land God had promised them.  There were times when they were made to be slaves.  And even when they were free and in their homeland, they still usually had all kinds of enemies around them, threatening them, wanting to take over.  So they needed these reminders to stay strong, to have courage, and to stay faithful to God.

We need those reminders, too, don't we?  We go through our share of tough times, too.  Life can be hard.  There are times when we feel like we have enemies threatening us, too.  Not necessarily physical enemies, although it certainly can be that.  But life makes demands on us, and those demands take their toll.  Sometimes they take a physical toll, and we deal with injury or disease.  Sometime they take a financial toll, and we wonder what's going to happen and whether we'll have enough.  Sometimes they take an emotional toll, and we deal with people who don't like us or who try to hurt us.  Sometimes they take a spiritual toll, as the culture around us tries to tell us to do things we know we should not do.  When those things or others come along, we need to remember to stay strong.  We need to remember to stay faithful to God and have courage.

The story of Daniel, which we're talking about tonight, is a story of courage.  It took great courage for Daniel to do what he did.  But that courage was not necessarily shown in the way we might think.

Daniel was living in Babylon.  That was not his homeland, but it was where he was living, and he was serving the king there, King Darius.  Most people in Babylon did not worship God.  They had their own “gods” that they worshiped.  But Daniel stayed faithful to God.

As you heard, Daniel was not real popular among some of the high officials in Babylon.  The king liked him, but a lot of the others did not.  So, they got the king to sign a decree that for thirty days, if anyone prayed to anyone other than the king, they should be thrown into the lions' den.

Now, try to put yourself in Daniel's place at this point.  You're a foreigner, but you've earned your way into a high position in government.  That's good, but you know there are people who don't like you and are out to get you.  But you trust God, and believe God will take care of you.  Then, you hear about this decree from the king, who you thought was your friend, that says if you pray to God, you'll be thrown into the lions' den, which of course means certain death.

I have to think Daniel was really scared.  He knows that he's supposed to stay faithful to God.  He knows he's supposed to pray to God and no one else.  But he also knows that if he prays to God he'll be killed.

Daniel had to be afraid.  And yet, somehow, Daniel found it in him to pray to God.  He gave thanks to God and he asked God for help.  And he did it at the same time and at the same place he always did, knowing that people would see or hear him, knowing that everyone would know what he was doing.

And think about this.  He did it not knowing whether God was going to protect him if he did it.  God did not make any promise to Daniel, at least not one that we know about.  God did not say, “Daniel, if you stay faithful to me, I'll protect you and you'll survive the lions' den.”  We know, because we've heard the story before, that God protected Daniel, but Daniel had not heard the story before.  We're not told that Daniel thought God would protect him and he'd survive the lions' den.  He may well have thought that he was going to be die there.  And yet, he did prayed to God anyway.

That took an incredible amount of courage.  Daniel could've come up with all kinds of reasons not to do what he did.  He could've come up with all kinds of rationalizations for why not praying to God was okay.  He could've said, “If I pray to God now, they'll kill me.  That'd be almost like committing suicide.  God certainly does not want me to do that, so I'll stop praying until this thirty day period is over.”  Or, he could've said, “I'll pray to God, but I'll do it secretly and silently.  Nobody will ever know about it.  That way God'll know I'm still faithful, but I'll be safe.”  There are all kinds of things Daniel could've done to keep himself safe and avoid what happened to him.

This is why I say the courage Daniel showed was not necessarily shown in the way some of us might think.  Going into the lions' den really did not take a lot of courage.  He did not have any choice about that.  The Bible does not say he walked into the lions' den.  It says he was thrown into the lions' den.  He had to go in there, whether he wanted to or not.

The way Daniel showed courage was in praying in the same place and in the same way he always did.  The way Daniel showed courage was to pray in a way and in a place where he knew people would find out.  That was the part he had a choice about.  That was the part where he had to choose whether he was going to stay faithful to God, regardless of what the consequences might be.  To put it bluntly, that was the part where he had to decide whether he truly believed in God or not.

When we're going through our tough times, when our lives are hard, when we feel like there are things threatening us, that's the decision we have to make, too.  It's not hard for me to stay faithful to God when things are going the way I want them to go.  It's not hard for me to stay faithful to God when I'm not facing any penalty for staying faithful, and when in fact I'm likely to be praised for it.  That's pretty easy.

What's hard is to keep praying and stay faithful to God when we our a loved one of ours has a serious injury or disease and none of our prayers seem to make any difference.  What's hard is to keep praying and stay faithful to God when people around us criticize us or make fun of us for our faith.  What's hard is to keep praying and stay faithful to God when the culture around us mocks our faith and our sense of right and wrong.

When those things happen, we make a choice.  Whether we think of it that way or not, we make a choice.  We can come up with all kinds of reasons for why not praying to God and not staying faithful to God is okay.  We can come up with all kinds of rationalizations for why it's okay for us to just keep our prayers and our faith secret and silent, so nobody knows about it.  Or, we can stay faithful to God by making our prayers and our faith known, regardless of what the consequences may be.

We can show the courage that Daniel showed, the courage that shows up in story after story in both the Old Testament and the New Testament.  We can show the courage that says, “I am a Christian.  I worship the Lord, and I have accepted Jesus as my Savior.  Therefore, I am going to do what a Christian is supposed to do, and I am going to live the way a Christian is supposed to live.  And whatever happens is what's going to happen.”

That does not involved being obnoxious or getting in people's faces about our faith, of course.  Daniel did not do that.  He did not go out into the middle of the street and make a big show of praying so everyone could see him.  But he did not hide his faith, either.  He had the courage to do what he knew God wanted him to do, to live the way God wanted him to live, and let happen whatever was going to happen.

That's real courage.  That's the courage Daniel had.  It's the courage God wants you and me to have, too.

Grace Is Amazing

Below is the message given in the Wheatland Parish Sunday, August 25, 2013.  The Bible verses used are Ephesians 1:17-2:10.

We're nearing the end of our Hymn Hysteria sermon series, looking at the top hymns from the tournament we held earlier this year.  Today we look at the number two hymn in the tournament, “Amazing Grace.”

Frankly, I thought when we started this that Amazing Grace would win.  It defeated “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty”, “Blessed Assurance”, “Precious Lord, Take My Hand”, “Because He Lives”, and “He Touched Me” before losing to the champion “How Great Thou Art”, which is the song we'll look at next week.

The tune of Amazing Grace is a nineteenth century American melody.  We don't know who wrote it.  The words, however, were written by John Newton in 1779.

Many of you know the story of John Newton.  There was a movie made about it a few years ago.  He was born in 1725, was a sailor, was later a tax collector, eventually became an evangelist, and in 1757 applied to become ordained as a priest in the Church of England.  He would not be accepted until 1764.  In 1784 he became an outspoken advocate for the abolition of slavery.  In addition to “Amazing Grace”, Newton also wrote the words to the hymn “Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken”, which is also in our hymnal.

God's grace truly is amazing.  I think on some level most of us realize that, which is probably one reason this hymn is so popular.  I wonder, though, if we think often enough about just how amazing God's grace is.

Here's what I mean.  Whenever something bad happens, what questions do we ask?  “Where was God?”  “Why did God let this happen?”  And a lot of times, what we're asking is “Why did God let this happen to me?”  “I don't deserve this.  Why did God let this happen to me?”

Now, if you've asked that question, or if you're asking it now, that's okay.  I'm not criticizing you.  I've asked it, too.  I think most of us probably have.  It's a pretty natural question for us to ask.  That's what almost the whole book of Job is—Job asking God why God let all these things happen to him.  God understands why we ask that question, and God does not get mad at us when we do.

I think, though, that when we ask that question, we're looking at things the wrong way.  The question is not why God allows bad things to happen to us.  The question, really, is why sometimes God has good things happen to us.

Think about it.  I'm guessing that everyone here has had some good things happen to them that they did not earn and do not deserve.  I know I have.  I've had lots of them, way more than I have time to talk about this morning.  If I tried to tell you about all the good things I've had happen to me that were none of my doing and that I did not earn and did not deserve, we'd be here all day and you'd get really mad, because you want to go down and have dinner.  And so do I, so I won't do it.

Most of the time, though, we take those things for granted.  When good things happen that we don't deserve, we don't ask, “Why did God let this happen to me?”  We don't say, “I don't deserve this.”  Oh, once in a while we do, if it's something really big or something that bails us out when we're really in trouble.  But even then, that feeling usually does not last.  We're grateful for a while, but then we go on about our business.

The thing is, when something bad happens and we ask that question, “Why did God let this happen to me?” what we're really implying is that God owes something to us.  We don't come right out and say it, but what we're really implying is that God owes it to us to give us good things.  We think giving us good things is what God's supposed to do, and so we don't think anything about it when God does it. That's why we take it for granted when we get those good things.  We think we're owed them.

The fact is, though, that God does not owe us anything.  Why would God owe us anything?  No matter how good we are, can we really do anything that will impress the almighty, all-good God?  Is there anything we can ever do for God that God could not do without us?  In fact, God could probably do it a lot easier and faster without us.  A lot of the time, we just get in God's way and slow God down.

In fact, if we think about it, the real question is why should God ever let anything good happen to us?  Why should God do anything for, as the song says, “a wretch like me”?  I cannot do anything to deserve it.  I mean, I'm not saying I'm this terrible, horrible person or anything, but no matter how good we are, can we really do anything that will impress the almighty, all-good God?  None of us can.  That's why grace is so amazing.  We cannot earn it.  We will never deserve it.  God has no reason to give it to us.  And yet, God gives us grace anyway.  It's such an incredible, amazing thing.

There's a lot more in this hymn than I can address in one message.  We could do a whole sermon series based on it, and maybe someday we will.  But for now, there's just one other thing I want to talk about that shows up in this hymn:  fear.

Fear can be such a paralyzing thing.  It plagues us all our lives.  When we're in school, fear can keep us from trying out for sports or music or drama.  We think, “What if the other kids don't think it's cool?  What if I'm no good at it?  What if everybody laughs at me?  What if the teacher makes fun of me?”  And so we don't try, and we never find out if we could've been any good or not.

It continues when we're adults.  Maybe we have a dream of getting a different job, or of starting our own business.  But we think, “What if it does not work out?  What if I mess it up?  What if I fail?  What if I get fired or go out of business?  What will everyone think of me?”  And so we don't try, and we never find out if our dream could've come true.

And it applies to our faith, too.  I assume that pretty much everyone here would call himself or herself a Christian.  But how often do we ever talk about that outside of this building?  How often do we bring up our faith in conversation with others?  How often do we invite someone to come to church with us?  I'm not saying we never do, but a lot of times we could and we don't.  Why not?  Fear.  We think, “What if they don't want to hear about my faith?  What if they think I'm some sort of Jesus freak or something?  What if me talking about my faith messes up our relationship or our being able to work together?  What if they make fun of me for my faith?”  And so we don't try, and we'll never know how many people we might've been able to help come to God or have a stronger faith.

What makes it so sad is that most of those times, our fears never come true.  And even if the things we're scared of happen, it's really not that big a deal.  What if we do find out we're not good at sports or music or drama?  So what?  We'll find something else we are good at.  What if we do fail at our dream?  So what?  Even in this economy, a person who's willing to work hard can always find a job somewhere and get back on their feet.

And what if someone does not want to hear about our faith?  So what?  They're not going to hate us for it, unless we get obnoxious about it.  I'm fifty-four years old, and I've lived in six different places, and I've met a lot of people, and I've never once had someone dislike me because I'm a Christian.  They've disliked me for other reasons, but not that one.  I'm not saying it could not happen, but around here, especially, it's pretty unlikely.

I have lots of relationships with people who don't go to church.  Some of them don't believe in God at all.  So we talk about other things.  Maybe, some day, when they see how a Christian lives, and see the joy our faith gives us, they'll get curious about it and want to know more.  Maybe they won't.  But we can still be friends.

        As Christians, we don't have to be afraid.  God has seen us through many dangers, toils, and snares.  And God will keep doing that.  So let's do what God wants us to do, and let's do it without fear.  God's grace has brought us safe thus far.  And God's grace will lead us home.

Not Just a Fish Story

This is the message from the WOW (Worship on Wednesday) service in Gettysburg August 21. 2013.  The Bible verses used are Jonah 1:1-2:1, 2:10-4:1, 4:5-11.

Jonah's story is another one of those stories that almost everybody knows, at least a little bit.  It's one of those cute Sunday school stories a lot of us heard when we were kids.  We think we know Jonah got swallowed by a whale, although the actual term is “big fish” rather than “whale”.  We know he was in there for three days and then got out.

What got Jonah in trouble, of course, is that God told him to do something and he did not want to do it.  Can you relate to that?  Have you ever felt like God was telling you to do something that you did not want to do?  I'll bet there are some people here who have.  I have.  How did you respond?  Did you do it anyway?  Did you run away?  Did you just try to put God off?  What did you do?

Well, we know what Jonah did.  Jonah ran away.  He got on a boat that was headed in the opposite direction.  He thought he could get away from God.  And, of course, God did not let him do it.

Now, as I've said with other Old Testament stories, I don't want to get into whether we're supposed to believe this story is literally true.  To me, the interesting question is, why is this story in the Bible?  What are we supposed to learn from it?

As with most of the stories in the Bible, there are lots of things we can learn.  I'm not going to guarantee that I'll him all of them tonight.  Here, though, are some of the things we can learn from this story.

One of them is that when God calls someone, God does not necessarily call the great and the powerful.  A lot of times, God calls ordinary people.

We're not told that there was anything special about Jonah that made him the only person who could give this message to Ninevah.  We're not told that there was anything special about Jonah at all.  As far as we know, he was not known as a great prophet.  He was not anything.  All we know about him is that he was the “son of Amittai”.  And Amittai was no big deal, either.  The only thing we know about him from the Bible is that he was Jonah's father.  

But God chose Jonah.  We don't know why God chose Jonah, but God chose Jonah.  And God told Jonah, “Here's what I want you to do.”

But that leads to another lesson, and that is that we do have free will.  We can refuse to do what God wants us to do.  We can choose to run away from God.  God does not force us to do anything.  God could.  I mean, God is God.  God is all-powerful.  God could force us to do things.  God could've forced Jonah.  God could've given Jonah no choice but to go to Ninevah.  But that's not what God did.  God gave Jonah a choice.  And Jonah refused to do what God wanted him to do.  He ran away.

A third lesson we can learn, though, is that when we do refuse to do what God wants us to do, that refusal has consequences.  It does not just have consequences for us.  It has consequences for everyone we come in contact with.

Think about all the things that happened as a result of Jonah not doing what God wanted him to do.  Think of what he put all those sailors on the boat through.  They went through a terrible storm.  It was so bad they thought the ship was going to break up.  They probably all thought they were going to die.  They had done nothing wrong.  They had done nothing to make God upset with them.  But they were with Jonah, and Jonah's refusal to do what God wanted him to do put their lives in jeopardy.

The fourth lesson we can learn is that, when we refuse to do what God wants us to do, it has consequences for us, too.  In Jonah's case, they were pretty serious consequences.  He must have thought he was going to die a few of times.  He probably thought he'd die in the storm.  When he survived that, he probably thought he'd drown.  When the fish swallowed him, he must have surely thought that was the end.

But it wasn't.  And that brings us to the fifth lesson we can learn from this story:  God loves us, but God sometimes makes us deal with the consequences of our actions.  That's the tough love we talked about when we talked about the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.  God would not have had to make Jonah go through all the things he did.  God could've not given him any consequences at all.  Or, God could've rescued Jonah sooner than he did.  But if God had done that, Jonah would not have learned anything.  Jonah would not have come back to God.  Jonah would've just kept running, going here, going there, going anywhere he had to go to get away from the Lord.  And that would not have been good for Jonah or anyone else.

But here's the good news, in the sixth lesson we can learn from this story:  God never gives up on us.  God could've just let Jonah go.  God could've found someone else to deliver God's message to Ninevah.  But God was not going to just let Jonah go, just like God does not just let any of us go, when we refuse to do what God wants us to do.  God loves us too much to do that.  God keeps after us.  God does whatever is necessary to get our attention and to get us to turn around and ask for forgiveness and follow God.

And there's a seventh lesson we can learn from this.  God's love and forgiveness does not just extend to us.  It extends to everyone.  It extends even to people we don't like very much.  And God expects us to give everyone love and forgiveness, too.  And we're also supposed to extend that love and forgiveness to people we don't like very much.

Think about it.  If there was ever someone who should've been grateful to God for God's love and God's forgiveness, it would've been Jonah, right?   But look what happened.  Jonah finally went to Ninevah and delivered God's message.  And the people of Ninevah repented and asked God's forgiveness.  And God gave it to them and did not destroy them.  And who was upset about that?  Jonah!

We don't know what Jonah had against the people of Ninevah, but he obviously had something.  He was really mad at God when God did not destroy Ninevah.  In fact, Jonah says to God, “See?  I knew this would happen.  I knew if I told the people of Ninevah you were going to destroy them, they'd repent and you'd never go through with it.”  Jonah was happy to receive God's love and forgiveness, but he was not willing to extend that same love and forgiveness to the people of Ninevah, and he did not want God doing it, either.

So how do we apply this to our lives?  Well, let's go back to the questions I asked at the beginning.  Have you ever felt like God was telling you to do something you did not want to do?  If so, how did you respond?

Because I will guarantee that there is something God wants each one of us to do.  Maybe we're already doing it.  Maybe we're not.  But there is something God wants each one of us to do.  God calls ordinary people to do God's work.

God will not force us to obey, but if we don't, there will be consequences.  Those consequences don't just affect us, they affect others, too.  God will make us deal with those consequences, but God does not give up on us.  God still keeps after us, doing whatever is necessary to get us to turn around and ask for forgiveness and follow God.  When we ask for God's love and forgiveness God will give it to us.  But God expects us to give that same love and forgiveness to others.

The story of Jonah is not just a cute kids' story about a guy who got swallowed by a fish.  It's a story about our relationship with God.  So the next time we feel God telling us to do something, let's remember this story.  And let's go ahead and do what God wants us to do.