The One and Only

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday morning, September 22, 2019.  The Bible verses used are 1 Timothy 2:1-7.

            The Bible verses we read today are among the most important verses in the Bible.  As I thought about it, it’s surprising we don’t hear them talked about more often.  These verses really should be right up there with John Three, Sixteen and the Twenty-third Psalm as the most quoted verses in the Bible.  The Apostle Paul, writing to his young friend Timothy, sets out our most basic beliefs as Christians.  They are found right here, in these few verses.

            Let’s start with verse five.  “There is one God.”  That’s one of the most basic Christian beliefs there is, that there is one God.  Period.  There are not a variety of gods.  There are not different types of gods.  There is not a Christian god and a Jewish god and an Islamic god and a Hindu god.  There is one God.  Period.

            I understand that this is not how everybody sees it.  There are plenty of people who believe that all religions are equal and equally valid.  There are plenty of people who believe that it does not matter what you believe, as long as you are kind and treat people well.  If you believe that, well, your argument is not with me.  Your argument is with the Apostle Paul.  You can choose to believe him, or you can choose not to.  But I’m not going to tell you he did not say what he said.  Paul says there is one God.  Period.

            After establishing that there is one God, Paul says this, “and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus.”  A mediator, in this context, is a go-between.  Someone who can go to God on our behalf.  There’s only one mediator, and Jesus Christ is it.  The only way for humans to get to God is through faith in Jesus Christ.  Again, period.  That, too, is one of our most basic beliefs as Christians.  There are not several mediators.  There is not Jesus Christ or Mohammed or Buddha or anyone else.  There is one mediator between God and humans, and his name is Jesus Christ.  Period.

            And again, I understand that’s not how everybody sees it.  There are plenty of people who believe that there are lots of ways to get to God.  And again, if you believe that, your argument is not with me.  Your argument is with the Apostle Paul.  And again, you can choose to believe him, or you can choose not to, but I’m not going to tell you he did not say what he said.  Paul says there is one mediator between God and mankind, and that one mediator is Christ Jesus.  Period.

            There are also people who believe that, if Paul is right, this is not very fair of God.  Why would God limit us to only one mediator?  Why would God decide that the only way we could get to God is through Jesus Christ?  Why would God be so limiting and so exclusionary?  If God loves us so much, why would God not provide us lots of ways to get to God, rather than just one way?

            The thing to remember about that is that God did not have to provide any mediator at all.  God did not have to give us a go-between.  God did not have to give us a way to get to God.  God did not owe it to us to do that.  God could have just left us to deal with the consequences of our sinful nature.  The real question to ask is not why God would limit our ways to get to God.  The real question is, why would God give us a way to get to God at all?

And Paul gives us the answer to that, too.  Look at verse four.  Paul writes that “God wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.”  

It is because God wants us to be saved that God gave us Jesus Christ as our mediator.  The fact that God wants us to be saved, that God wants so much for us to be saved that God did provide a way for us to get to God, shows just how much God does love us.  Again, God was not obligated to give us the chance to be saved.  Salvation is not something that we have somehow earned.  God gives us the chance for salvation as a gift, and God gives us that gift because God loves us.

And Paul goes on to tell us how this works.  Paul says that Jesus “gave himself as a ransom for all people.”

It is because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ that he is able to be our mediator.  It is because Jesus accepted the punishment and paid the penalty for our sins that he can be our go-between.  We don’t have to be punished for our sins because Jesus already accepted that punishment on our behalf.  We don’t have to pay the penalty for our sins because Jesus already paid that penalty on our behalf.  

That’s why Jesus can act as our mediator.  That’s why Jesus can be our go-between in a way that no one else ever can.  Jesus, by taking the punishment that should go to us, has made it possible for our sins to be forgiven.  And in fact, more than forgiven, it’s like our sins never happened.  Our sins are washed away, wiped out.  You and I are made holy and perfect, even though we’re not, even though we’re not even close.  We’re made holy and perfect through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

That’s why Jesus can act as our mediator.  And it’s why no one else can.  Because no one else did what Jesus did.  No one else accepted the punishment and paid the penalty for our sins.  No one else died for us.  No one else was resurrected.  Jesus is the only one who did that.  And so Jesus is the only one who can be our mediator.  Jesus is the only one who can save us from the consequences of our sins.

All of those things are basic to our Christian faith.  There is only one God.  That one God wants us all to be saved, because that one God loves us.  And so, that one God sent the divine Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to take the punishment that should have gone to us.  Because Jesus did that, he, and he alone, can be our mediator before God, if we only accept him as our Savior.

For Christians, those things are pretty much non-negotiable.  We can disagree about a lot of things as Christians, but not those things.  A Christian who did not believe there was one God and that Jesus Christ is the Savior would be like a farmer who did not believe in growing crops or raising livestock.  It’s simply a contradiction in terms.  It does not work.

But there’s one other thing to note here.  We’ve mentioned it, but we did not fully discuss the implications.  It’s what Paul wrote in verse four.  God “wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.”

God wants all people to be saved.  If you and I follow God, then we need to want all people to be saved, too.  And that puts a responsibility on us.  If we want people to be saved, then we need to do what we can to let people know what we know.  We need to let them know how they can be saved.  We need to let people know that there is one God, that the one God does love us, that the one God sent the divine Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to save us.  And that if they believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior, they will be saved.  If we want people to be saved, as God does, then we need to do everything we can to spread that message to everyone we can.

Now, we need to be a little careful about how we do that.  We don’t want to be annoying or contentious about it.  After all, our goal here is not to win an argument.  Our goal is to spread God’s message of salvation.  

And in doing that, I can think of no better example than that of Jesus himself.  When Jesus was spreading his message, how did he do it?  He did not get into arguments with people.  Yes, he’d sometimes argue with the Pharisees, but even then, he was usually just answering their questions.  They were the ones doing the arguing, trying to trick him or trap him in some way.  

But when Jesus was just talking with ordinary people, he did not argue with them.  He simply told them the truth.  He just said, “This is the way it is.”  And he allowed them to make up their own minds.  He allowed them to either accept the truth or reject it.

Jesus was sad when people rejected the truth.  But Jesus would not compromise the truth to get people to accept it.  Jesus did not change his message in the hope that people might change their minds.  Again, Jesus said, “This is the way it is.”  And he allowed people to either accept the truth or reject it.

            That’s our example.  Let people know the truth of God’s message of salvation.  Then allow them to make up their own minds.  Don’t argue with them, but also don’t compromise the truth to get them to accept it.  The truth is the truth.  It’s up to everyone, including us, to either accept it or reject it.

            There is only one God.  Period.  There is only one mediator between God and humans, and that’s Jesus Christ.  Period.  Jesus Christ is the one and only Savior.  We can either accept that or reject it.  But that’s the way it is.

Unity Through Peace

This is the message from the Sunday night service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on September 15, 2019.  The Bible verses used are Ephesians 2:1-22.

            You know how much I love sports.  Baseball particularly is my favorite, although I like lots of other sports, too.  I was never any good at playing any of them, but I’ve always loved to watch them, ever since I can remember.

            One of the things I love about sports is that sports are very black-and-white.  There are two things, and everything is either one or the other.  There’s your team and there’s the other team.  A team either wins or it loses.  A pitch is either a ball or a strike.  A runner is either safe or he’s out.  In football, a pass is either complete or incomplete.  In basketball, either a basket is good or it’s not.  It’s one thing or the other, period.

            Now that works well for sports.  It does not work as well when we put it into other areas of life.  We see it in our politics today.  It seems like everyone’s on one side or the other side, with no thought of trying to work together to compromise.  We even see it in our communities, sometimes, too, when something happens and it seems like everyone takes sides.  It’s not really a good thing in those contexts.  Dividing into two sides, with each side insisting that it needs to win, can keep us from working together and moving forward.

            It happens in the church, too, sometimes.  And it was happening nearly two thousand years ago, in the time of the Apostle Paul.  It was happening when he wrote his letter to the Galatians, which we read part of tonight.

            There were two sides in the church then, too.  There were the Christian Jews, the Jews who had accepted Jesus as the Savior, and there were the Christian Gentiles, who in this context were basically anyone who was not Jewish but had accepted Jesus as the Savior.  And those two sides did not always get along.  The Christian Jews--some of them, anyway--believed that the Savior had come specifically to save them.  And they did not want to accept non-Jewish people into their group.

            Paul says that’s not the way it’s supposed to be.  Paul says there are not and should not be two groups of Christians.  There is one group.  And he describes who they are.

            He says that all of us used to follow the ways of the world.  All of us followed our own selfish desires and thoughts.  And all of us were deserving of God’s anger and God’s punishment because of all the things we did.  That’s the one group Paul sees--sinners.  Sinners who were deserved punishment from God.

            But Paul goes on to say that God is not going to give them that punishment.  God, through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, has saved them from that punishment.  Paul goes out of his way to emphasize that this is a gift from God.  It’s not because of anything that anyone did.  It’s not something that anyone earns or deserves.  No person could ever be worthy of receiving salvation and eternal life.  But God offers it to us anyway, because God loves us that much.  It is God’s grace and love, and our acceptance of Jesus as the Savior, that saves us.  Nothing else.

            This one group--sinners in need of salvation--is what the church is.  And yet, we still have divisions in the church.  When you think about it, it’s because of what that one group is that we have divisions in the church.  That one group is sinners.  Our churches are made up of imperfect, human, sinful people.  And so, even though we should be and are united in our faith in Jesus Christ, we still have these things that divide us.

            And sometimes those things get in the way of making disciples of Jesus Christ.  One of the reasons people leave the church, or never come in the first place, is because of the disagreements we sometimes see in the church.  Now, I’m not saying that our United Methodist church here in Gettysburg is worse than any other church about those things.  But we’re only fooling ourselves if we think we’re immune from it.  This church is certainly better than some I’ve seen, but we’re still subject to having large disagreements over small matters.  It’s not because we’re bad people.  It’s because we’re people, and when people get together in groups, these things can happen.

            But what can we do about it?  Is there anything we can do about it?  Are we fated to always have division, not just in the church but in every aspect of human life, just because we’re people?  Or is there something we can do to bring about unity and peace?

            Paul gives us the answer, and the answer is Jesus Christ.  Listen to what Paul says about Jesus:

He himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility...His purpose was to create one new humanity out of two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God...He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who are near.  For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit...In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.  And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

            Where there is division within the church, Jesus can be our peace.  Where there is division in the world, Jesus can be our peace.  And where there is division in our own personal lives, Jesus can be our peace.  The peace of Jesus Christ can rule in our hearts and in our lives.  And that peace can do away with all the divisions that we have to deal with.

            Now, does that mean that there will never be any more disagreements about anything?  No.  We’re never going to all agree on everything all the time.  That’s true in the country, that’s true in our community, that’s true in our family.  And it’s true in the church, too.

            And that’s okay.  In fact, that’s a good thing.  It’s been said that if everyone’s thinking alike, someone’s not thinking.  No one has all the good ideas and all the right answers.  Many times it’s through the process of talking about things, and yes, sometimes disagreeing about things, that we find better ideas and better answers.

            And it’s also true that there are times when things cannot be compromised, when we have to make a decision to do one thing or another.  When the subject of building the addition to the church came up, we had to make a decision to either build it or not build it.  We could discuss and compromise on how to build it and how to raise the money for it and how much to spend, but we could not just kind of build an addition to the church.  At some point, we had to decide that we were going to do it or we were not.  There was no way we could compromise that decision.

            But even in the disagreement, and even in the times when decisions have to be made, we don’t have to allow those disagreements and decisions to divide us.  We can still move forward as one united body.  If we do one thing.  If we allow the peace of Jesus Christ to rule our hearts and our lives.

            That peace of Jesus Christ acts in a few different ways.  For one thing, it helps us remember that the people we disagree with are not terrible, evil people.  They’re not stupid, ignorant people, either.  They’re people who’ve looked at the same situation we’re looking at and have come to a different conclusion.  

They may come to that conclusion for a variety of reasons.  They may have had different influences on their lives that make them look at everything differently.  They may have knowledge and information that we don’t have, or we may have knowledge and information that we don’t have.  They may have had experiences that color that way they look at things.  All kinds of things affect our lives and our opinions about things.

But what the peace of Christ does for us is to help us remember that even in our disagreements, we are all on the same team.  The people who disagree with us, for the most part, want the same things we do.  They have the same goals.  They just disagree with us on the best way to achieve those goals.  If we keep the peace of Christ in our hearts, we’ll remember that.  And we’ll be able to disagree respectfully and with open minds.  And we won’t let that disagreement lead to division.

            And the peace of Christ also helps us remember what the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans Chapter Eight:  God can work all things for the good of those who love him.  Remembering that will help keep us from insisting we have to have our way and believing that everything will fall apart if we don’t.  Even if we’re fully convinced that we’re right, and even if in fact we are right, if the decision is made the other way, we can still handle it.  We will know that God will work the decision that was made for good, even if it does not look like it at first.

            In sports, one team wins and the other team loses.  But in the church, we’re all on the same team.  We’re all sinners in need of salvation.  And when we receive that salvation, when we feel the peace of Christ in our hearts, we can see that.  The divisions can go away, and the peace of Christ can prevail.

It's About God

The message given in the Sunday morning services in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish.  The Bible verses used are 1 Timothy 1:12-17.

            How do you see yourself?

            Now, if you’re a smart-aleck like me, you say, “Well, in a mirror, dummy, how else could I see myself?”  But seriously, how do you see yourself?  Do you think you’re a good person?  Do you think you’re smart?  Do you think you’re talented?  Do you think you’re a caring person?  Do you like the person you are?  And do you think God likes the person you are?

            Those are not just rhetorical questions.  I want you to really think about them.  Because the way we see ourselves, what we think of ourselves, affects the way we behave.  It affects our interactions with people.  And those things affect how well we’re able to serve God and show love to people the way God wants us to.

            We’ve talked before about the sin of arrogance, and the problems it can cause for us.  And we’ll probably talk about it again.  But there’s another problem here that we need to talk about as well.  Arrogance, having a higher opinion of ourselves that we should have, thinking we’re better than we really are, is definitely not a good thing.  But having low self-esteem, having a lower opinion of ourselves than we should have, thinking that we’re worse that we really are, is not a good thing, either.

            I called it a problem instead of a sin because I can’t find anywhere in the Bible where God says having low self-esteem is sinful.  But it’s not a good thing, either.  If we have a low opinion of ourselves, if we don’t think we’re very good or very smart, if we cannot do much of anything, that can keep us from going out and serving God.  We feel like we’d never be able to help anyone anyway, so there’s no point in trying.  And so we just keep to ourselves.

            It would be good, of course, if we had just the right opinion of ourselves.  Not higher than it should be, but not lower than it should be, either.  But that’s really hard to do.  And really, maybe we should not try.  We always talk about how we should not judge people, that we should leave judgment to God.  That can apply to judging ourselves, too.  Why should we think we’ll be any better at judging ourselves than we would be at judging someone else?  That’s a judgment we should leave to God, too.

            So how do we handle this?  Well, let’s look at our Bible reading for today, the words of the Apostle Paul that he wrote to Timothy.  Paul says that of all he sinners, he was the worst.  He had been a blasphemer, someone who refused to accept Jesus Christ as the Lord and Savior. He been a violent man.  He had persecuted Christians.  And yet, he says, Jesus has given him strength.  Jesus has considered him to be trustworthy.  The grace of Jesus Christ was poured out on him, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus, and Paul was appointed to Jesus’ service.

            Let’s think about that.  You know, a lot of times people talk about Paul as being an extremely self-confident man.  Not quite arrogant, but often coming close to that.  But this passage shows that Paul was not arrogant at all.  He was not even all that self-confident.  

Those names Paul calls himself--blasphemer, persecutor, a violent man--those names were all true.  In the aftermath of Jesus’ crucifixion, in the early days of the Christian church, Paul was about the worst enemy Christians had.  He had been very self-confident in those days.  Paul was convinced that he was doing God’s work by persecuting the Christians and trying to stamp out the Christian church.  It was not until Jesus himself intervened, speaking to Paul on the road to Damascus, that Paul saw that he was actually fighting against God.

Paul recognized all the terrible things he’d done.  And I’m sure he deeply regretted having done them.  But he did not let those things he’d done in his past keep him from serving God now.  Why not?

Because Paul realized that this was not about him.  Paul knew that, on his own, he could never serve God.  Not being who he was.  But Paul knew that he was not on his own.  He was using the power of God.  His ability to serve God had nothing to do with who he was.  It had everything to do with who God is.

And that’s the thing you and I always need to remember.  Our ability to serve God has nothing to do with who we are.  It has everything to do with who God is.  We don’t accomplish anything for God by ourselves.  We only accomplish things for God when God acts in us and through us.

And so, in the final analysis, what we think of ourselves should not matter.  What we think of our abilities and talents should not matter.  Because, when it comes to serving God, we should not be thinking about ourselves.  We should be thinking about God.  No matter how good we think we are, we cannot serve God by relying on our own talents and abilities.  We can only serve God by relying on God.  And no matter how bad we think we are, we can still serve God, because we are not relying on our own talents and abilities.  We can still serve God because we’re relying on God.

And in fact, Paul says that the fact that he was such a sinner--that he was a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man--has made him better able to serve God.  Again, not because anything about that has made him better.  But because God was able to use him as an example.  Paul is basically saying, look, if God can forgive me, after all I’ve done, then God can forgive anybody.  If God’s love and grace and forgiveness are available to me, the worst sinner you ever saw, then God’s love and grace and forgiveness are available to everybody.  If God can use me, even me, to serve God, then God can use anybody to serve God.  Including you.  And including me.

What it comes down to, really, is a matter of trust and faith.  Do we trust God enough, do we have enough faith in God, to believe that God can use us?  Do we trust God enough, do we have enough faith in God, to believe that God will use us?  Do we trust God enough, do we have enough faith in God, to allow God to use us?

Those are not easy questions to answer.  I mean, we all know what the answer should be.  We know we’re supposed to trust God that much.  We know we’re supposed to have that much faith in God.  We know what the “right” answers are.

But the things is that ultimately, the answers to those questions are not going to come out of our mouths.  They’re going to be shown by our actions.  The things we do, the way we live our lives, that’s what’s going to show how much faith and trust we have in God.  The times we’re willing to step out of our comfort zone to serve God.  The times we’re willing to take risks to serve God.  The times we’re willing to try to do something that we don’t know that we can do because we think God wants us to.  Those are the things that will give our answers to those questions.  Those are the things that will show whether we believe God can and will use us, and those are things that will show whether we’re willing to allow God to use us.

Having said that, let me say one other thing--I know this is not always easy.  In fact, there are many times when it’s not easy.  It’s easy to say.  It’s not always easy to do.  It’s not always easy for us to step out of our comfort zone, to take risks, to try things we don’t know whether we can do.  Stepping out in faith can be a hard thing to do.  Sometimes it’s hard for me.  And I’m sure I’m not the only one.

If it is hard for you, here’s something that may help.  Think of times when you have taken those steps in faith.  Think of times when you have stepped out of your comfort zone, times when you have taken some risks to serve God.  What happened?

And when I ask “what happened”, I’m not asking “Did it work?”  I’m asking, “Did you feel God with you?  Did you feel God helping you?  Did you feel that you were doing what God wanted you to do?”

Those are the important questions.  Because there will be times when what we do does not appear to work.  There are times when, to human eyes, it will look like we failed.  But God does not define success or failure the way humans do.  God defines success by our trust and by our faith.  If we trust God enough to do what God wants us to do, if we have enough faith to take some risks, we will have succeeded no matter what happens.  God does not define success by results.  God tells us to trust and stay faithful, and to leave the results up to God.

Whether our opinion of ourselves is high or low or somewhere in-between, we can all be used by God.  And God wants to use us.  God wants to use you.  And God can use you.  Don’t worry about whether you’re good enough.  It’s not about how good you are.  It’s about how great God is.  We can do all things with God.

Short-Term Humans, Long-Term God.

This is the message given in the Gettysburg United Methodist church's Sunday night service Sunday, September 8.  The Bible verses used are Psalm 81.

            Have you ever seen someone you care about, maybe even someone you love, about to make a bad decision?  I’m not talking about something small here, either.  I’m talking about watching someone you care about getting ready to do something that you know is really going to cause them some major problems.  And you try to talk to them, and they don’t want to listen.  You try to point out all the dangers, and they just won’t hear it.  And finally, there’s nothing more you can say.  You have to let them do what they’re determined to do, even though you know it’s not going to work.  And not only is it not going to work, it’s going to haunt them for years to come.  You feel sad about it, but there’s just nothing you can do to stop them.

            I suspect this is something that parents, especially, can relate to.  Because as kids grow, they make choices, and sometimes they make bad choices.  Not always--they make good choices, too, sometimes.  But sometimes they make bad choices, and sometimes the more you try to tell them they’ve made bad choices the more determined they are to keep making them.  And there’s nothing you can do but just let them do it their way, continue to love them, and be ready to help pick up the pieces when things fall apart.  You feel sad about it, because no parent wants to see their children get themselves into trouble.  But there’s just nothing you can do to stop them.  That’s got to be one of the hardest things a parent ever has to do.

            So now, imagine how God must feel when you and I make bad choices like that.  God gave us free will.  God gave us the ability to make choices about our lives.  God also gave us the ability to either accept Him or reject Him.  God gave us the ability to decide that we’re going to love God, rely on God, trust God and do our best to be faithful to God and serve God.  God also gave us the ability to decide that we’re not going to do those things.  God gave us the ability to decide that we’re going to love some other sort of god, to rely on some other sort of god, and to serve some other sort of god.  God also gave us the ability to decide that there’s no god at all, and to decide to serve ourselves and trust ourselves.

            God gave us the ability to make those choices, and God will not interfere with the choices we make.  God could, you know.  God could force us to rely on Him, to trust Him, to serve Him.  I mean, God is God.  God can do anything God chooses to do.  But God does not force us.  God may give us some nudges once in a while.  God may do some things to try to lead us in the right direction.  But God does not force us.  God allows us to go our own way, to do our own thing, and to make the choices we want to make.

            But I think God is sad when we make those bad choices.  And I think that sadness comes through in Psalm 81.  

            God, speaking through the author of the psalm, reminds us of all God has done for us.  God says, “I removed the burden from their shoulders; their hands were set free from the basket.  In your distress you called and I rescued you.  I answered you...Hear, my people, and I will warn you--if you would only listen to me...I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt.  Open wide your mouth and I will fill it.”

            God is pleading with the people.  God is pleading with us, really.  God is saying, look, I’ve always taken care of you.  I’ve always made things easier for you.  I’ll do it again.  All you need to do is trust me and listen to me.  Your life would go so much easier if you would just do things My way.

            But the people of that time would not listen, just as we so often don’t listen.  God goes on to say, “But my people would not listen to me.  [They] would not submit to me.  So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own desires.”

            I just think you can hear the sadness in God’s voice when God says that.  It sounds to me like God really does not like allowing us to make those bad choices.  God does not like allowing us to follow our own desires.  Not because God wants to be a dictator and make us do things God’s way, but because God knows it’s not going to go well for us if we follow our own desires rather than listening to God.  But again, God has given us the ability to make choices and God is not going to take that ability away from us.  So, God allows us to do what we want to do.  God allows us to follow our own desires.

            God lets us know the good things we’re missing out on.  God says, “If my people would only listen to me...how quickly I would subdue their enemies...you would be fed with the finest of wheat; with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”

            God wants to give us so many good things.  I’m not saying that faith in God guarantees us an easy, carefree life.  The Bible does not promise that.  But God does that God’s ways will work out better for us than our ways ever will.  Maybe not in the short-term.  There are times when we need to give up certain short-term pleasures in order to serve God and be faithful to God.  But in the long-term, it will be worth it.  And in the eternal term, it will be worth it all the more.

            But that’s the problem.  Human beings tend not to be eternal-term thinkers.  We’re not even long-term thinkers, really.  And that’s why we tend to fall away from God and chase after other things.  We like things that will make us happy now.  We like things that will bring us pleasure now.  We like things that will help us achieve our goals now.  And if God does not give us those things now, then we tend to go off on our own.  We follow our own desires, rather than following God.

            So, what do we do?  Well, as I was thinking about this, a Bible verse came to my mind.  It’s actually just a part of a verse.  In fact, it’s just three words.  But they may be three of the most important words in the Bible.

            Are you familiar with First Corinthians Chapter Thirteen?  It’s called the love chapter.  It gets used a lot at weddings.  It’s the one that talks about it doesn’t matter if we can speak in tongues, or if we’re great prophets, or if we’re incredibly generous, or anything else.  It says if we don’t have love, none of it matters.  And then come the three words that may help with this.  Those words are these:  “love is patient.”

            Love is patient.  Think about how patient God is with you and me.  That’s why God continues to allow us to have free will, despite all the times we misuse it and make bad decisions.  Because God is patient with us.  God believes in us.  God believes in you, and God believes in me.  And so God will allow us to go our own way.  God will patiently keep working with us.  God will keep trying to get our attention.  God will keep nudging us.  God will keep trying to influence us to trust Him, to be faithful to Him, to rely on Him.  God will be patient with us, because God loves us.

            And sometimes we need to be patient with God, too.  Not that God ever makes bad decisions, of course.  But we need to be patient with God when we feel like we’re doing our best to serve God, and to be faithful to God, and it seems like nothing is happening.  We need to be patient with God when we feel like we’re following God and yet it seems like things are getting worse instead of better.  We need to be patient and trust that God is at work even when we cannot see that God is doing anything.  We need to be patient and trust God when we’re tempted to take short-cuts and try to make things happen on our time schedule, rather than on God’s schedule.  If we love God, we will be patient with God and allow things to happen in God’s way and in God’s time.  And we will trust that God’s ways and God’s timing are always better than ours.

            God created everything in life, including you and me.  That means God knows more about life than we do.  And that means that God knows the best ways for us to live our lives.  It also means that God wants what’s best for us, and that God wants to give us what’s best for us.  But God won’t force us to follow God.  God will allow us to go our own way, to follow our own desires, if that’s what we choose to do.

            God loves us, and so God is patient with us.  Let’s love God, and let’s show that love by being patient with God.  Let’s wait for God to act in God’s way and in God’s time.  Let’s trust that, if we do, God will be there for us.  God is a long-term God.  Let’s be long-term Christians.

The Potter and the Clay

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, September 8, 2019.  The Bible verses used are Jeremiah 18:1-11.

            Have you ever wondered what it would be like to get a message from God?

            Maybe some of you have gotten messages from God.  There are times when I’ve thought I have.  Now, I’ve never heard a voice thundering from heaven, the way it happens in the movies.  But there have been times when I thought God was giving me a message in one way or another.

            Because that’s the thing.  God has all kinds of ways of giving us messages.  Sometimes it can be a voice, either an external voice or a voice inside our heads.  Sometimes it can be an inner feeling, a sense that God’s Holy Spirit is prompting us to do something.  Sometimes God uses other people to give us a message.  God’s ways of giving us messages are limited only by God’s creativity, and God’s creativity is completely unlimited.  So God can give us a message in any way God chooses.  And it’s up to us to be alert and recognize the message God gives us.

            In our reading for today, God has a message for Jeremiah.  Now, God had given Jeremiah messages before.  God had spoken directly to Jeremiah.  But this time, God says, I don’t want to just use words to give you my message.  I want to give you a demonstration.  So go down to the potter’s house.

            Now, the potter’s house was simply the place where someone, a potter, created pottery.  Pots, cups, bowls, whatever.  Have you ever watched a potter at work?  If not in person, you may have seen a video someplace.  It’s really pretty fascinating.  They start out with just this blob of clay.  It does not look like anything.  And they work with it, and they put it on a wheel, and they spin the wheel, and they shape it, and they keep working with it, and eventually this formless lump of clay becomes something useful.  And in fact, sometimes, it becomes something beautiful.

            God sends Jeremiah down to watch the potter at work.  And God says to Jeremiah, here’s the deal.  The potter, that’s Me.  The clay, that’s the people of Israel.  So what you need to know, and what you need to make sure the people of Israel know, is that I can make of the people of Israel anything I choose to, because I’m God.

            Now God gave this message to Jeremiah as a warning to the people of Israel.  The people of Israel had come to think of themselves as God’s Chosen People.  And there was truth in that, but they had come to believe that this meant they could do no wrong.  They thought that they could do anything they wanted, that God would protect them no matter what, because they were God’s Chosen People.  God wanted to remind them that God was not obligated to protect them no matter what.  They would only be God’s Chosen People if they continued to honor God and follow God.  If they abandoned God, God would be free to choose someone else.  God had created them, just as a potter creates something out of clay, and God could destroy them if God chose.

            But as I was thinking about this passage this week, it seems to me that there are message for us that go beyond that.  This analogy of God to a potter and to us as the clay works on at least a couple more levels for us.

            For one thing, it reminds us that God is the Creator.  Just like a potter has a plan for what he’s going to create when he starts creating, God has a plan when God creates each of us.  God knows what it is that God wants each one of us to be.  And as we go through our lives, God keeps working on us.  God keeps molding us, keeps shaping us. God keeps working to make us into what God had in mind for us to be when God created us.

            Now, of course, the analogy breaks down a little bit, because the clay has no power to resist what the potter does.  You and I do have the power to resist God.  Now don’t take that the wrong way.  You and I are not more powerful than God.  But God allows us to resist God if we so choose.  God will keep working with us.  God will keep trying to mold us and shape us.  Even when we’ve gotten all wobbly and unsightly, God will keep trying to bring us back to what God wants us to be.  But, unlike the potter with the clay, God refuses to force us.  God will allow us to resist if that’s what we choose to do.

            But there’s one other thing about God being the potter and us being the clay.  A potter is a skilled craftsman.  And one of the things that’s fascinating about watching a potter at work is that no two pieces of pottery are exactly alike.  They may be similar, but they are not the same.  And in fact, the potter does not even have the goal of making two pieces of pottery that are exactly alike.  The potter wants each piece of pottery to be different and special and unique.  The potter sees the differences even when the lumps of clay are still just lumps of clay.  To you and me, a lump of clay just looks like a lump of clay.  But not to a master craftsman like a potter.  To a master potter, each lump of clay looks a little bit different.  

A potter can look at that lump of clay and see things in it that no one else can see.  The potter knows things about that lump of clay that no one else knows.  And before the potter even starts to work on it, the potter can see exactly what that lump of clay should be.  All of the ways it’s the same as the others, and all of the ways it’s different.  All the things that make that lump of clay unique.  And all the time the potter is working on that lump of clay, all the time the potter is shaping it and molding it, the potter keeps that vision in mind.

That’s how it is with us and God.  God never creates any two people to be the same.  We may be similar in some ways, but no two people are exactly the same.  God does not want us to be the same.  God wants each of us to different and special and unique.  After all, God had told Jeremiah earlier, at Jeremiah Chapter One Verse Five, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

God had a plan for Jeremiah before Jeremiah was even conceived.  Before Jeremiah was even beginning to be formed in the womb, God saw exactly what Jeremiah should be.  God saw all the ways Jeremiah would be like everyone else, but God also saw the ways Jeremiah would be different.  And all through Jeremiah’s life, as God was molding and shaping Jeremiah, God kept that vision in mind, so that Jeremiah could be what God had planned him to be.

God has a plan for you, too.  And God has a plan for me.  Before any of us was even formed in the womb, God had a plan for each of us.  God sees all the ways were like other people, but God also sees all the ways were different.  And all through our lives, as God molds us and shapes us, God keeps that vision in mind, so we can be what God has planned us to be.

Now, that all sounds really good.  But here’s the question:  do you believe it?

Take a look at your life.  Can you see God at work?  Can you see God molding you and shaping you?  Can you see God working to make you into the person God has planned you to be?  Can you see that your life is following God’s plan?  Do you even believe that God has a plan for your life?

As I look at my life, there have been times when I thought God was at work in my life, and there have been times when I did not.  I can tell you that it’s a lot easier for me to see God’s plan for my life now, when I’m sixty, than it was when I was sixteen, or when I was twenty-six, or even when I was forty-six.  There have been plenty of times when I wondered what God was doing in my life, or if God was even doing anything at all.  I can look back on it now, now that I’ve seen how some of the things I was dealing with turned out, and see that God was at work, that God was still molding me and shaping me.  I can see it now, but I often could not see it at the time.

If that’s you, I want to encourage you to hang in there.  Spend some time in prayer.  Try to stay alert and see if God might be giving you a message in some way.  But until you get that message, don’t give up.  Keep doing the best you can to love God and to follow God and to serve God.  Be patient.  God is often at work in ways we don’t realize at the time.  Keep trying, keep praying, and don’t give up on God.

But here’s the other thing.  It’s true that, at age sixty, I’ve been able to see how some things have turned out.  But not all of them.  There are things that have not turned out yet.  God is still at work on me.  God is still molding me and shaping me.  God is not finished with me yet.  And God is not finished with you yet, either.  God continues to work on us all our lives.

For over twenty years, I was a lawyer.  For about thirteen years now, I’ve been a pastor.  Does God have something else in mind for me?  I don’t know.  There’s nothing else in my plan.  But there may be something else in God’s plan.  The one thing I know is that as long as we’re here on this earth, God has reasons for us to be here.  God never stops molding us and shaping us as long as we’re here.

I asked you to take a look at your life.  As you do, keep that in mind.  God is not finished with you yet.  God is continuing to work on you.  Maybe you have something else in your plan.  Maybe you don’t.  But our plans are not what’s important.  God’s plans are.  God is still molding you and shaping you, and God will continue to do that as long as you’re here on earth.

If there’s something else God wants you to do, God will let you know.  Be alert, so you can hear God’s message when it comes.  But if it does not come, keep doing your best to serve God, to love God, and to stay faithful to God.  God knew you before you were even born.  God knows everything you’ve done.  God knows you now.  And God will know you in the future.  God created you to be special and unique, and God has a special and unique plan for you and for your life.  And God is still working on you, so that you can be exactly who God has created you to be.

Humbly Different

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, September 1, 2019.  The Bible verses used are Hebrews 13:1-16.

We’ve talked before about how, as Christians, we’re supposed to be part of the world, and yet not be influenced by the world.  In other words, as Christians, we are not supposed to just wall ourselves off from the rest of society.  We need to be engaged with other people, including people who are not Christians.  We need to be engaged with society as a whole.  After all, Jesus told us to go and make disciples, and we cannot make disciples by staying to ourselves.  The only way we can make new disciples is to associate with people who are not already Christians.

           But, of course, there’s a danger in that.  Our purpose in engaging with society is to try to change society.  But the danger is that, instead, society may change us.  It’s easier for that to happen than you may think.

            You see, the thing is, most of us want to be liked.  We want to have friends.  We want the people around us to think well of us.  And the easiest way for us to be liked, and to have friends, and to have people think well of us, is to fit in.  To go along with the crowd.  To do what the people around us do.  It’s really easy for that to happen.  It can happen without us making a conscious decision for it to happen.  It can happen without us even realizing it has happened.  Sometimes, we even rationalize it.  We tell ourselves that we’re just getting to know people, that we’re learning how to relate to them, that we’re trying to earn their trust.  But we cannot be witnesses for Christ if people cannot see that our Christianity has made any difference in our lives.  And so, while we may start out by wanting to change society, we instead allow society has changed us.

            This is not a new problem.  It was going on when the letter to the Hebrews was written.  That’s why the letter contains the things we read for today.  The Hebrews of that time were tempted to go along with the crowd, too, just like we are.  And so this letter was written to remind them that, as Christians, they and we are supposed to be different.

            Let’s look at some of the examples our reading gives for how we’re supposed to be different.  Love one another as brothers and sisters.  We’d like to think we do that, but do we, really?  I suspect many of us fall short.  I know I do.  I’ll do things for family that I would not do for other people.  I certainly will do things for family that I would not do for people I don’t know very well.  And I’m guessing I’m not the only one.

            Show hospitality to strangers.  Again, we’d like to think we do.  And in some situations, maybe we do.  But how many times do we walk right by a stranger and not even take any notice of them.  It probably happens less when we’re here in town, because there are not that many people who would truly be strangers to us.  But when we’re out of town, do we even notice people around us?  If we walked by someone, and it looked like they were hurting or it looked like they were sad or it looked like they needed help, would we even see that?  Because if we don’t see it, we’re not going to do anything about it.

            Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison.  That does not mean that we all have to go into prison ministry or something.  But I suspect most of us have known people who were in prison.  I have.  Did we take the time to send them a card or a letter?  Did we make any effort to let them know we were thinking of them?  Did we do something to let their families know we were there for them?  And again, I’m not saying I do this and you don’t.  There are times I have, but there are many times I have not.    

And sometimes, we’re tempted to think, well, it’s their own fault they’re in prison.  And maybe it is.  But the letter to the Hebrews does not say “remember those in prison if they were wrongly imprisoned.”  It does not say anything about right or wrong.  It says to remember them and be there for them.  Because the fact that our troubles are our own fault does not make the troubles easier to deal with.  In fact, it can make them harder, because we have no one to blame for them but ourselves.  And those times, when people are at a really low point, are the times when people need us more than ever.

Honor marriage, because God will judge the adulterer and the sexually immoral.  I don’t need to tell you that our society does not honor marriage like it used to.  You know the statistics on divorce and on people cheating on their spouses.  And I’m not here to judge anyone, don’t get me wrong.  Our reading says God will judge, not the pastor will judge.  Divorces happen for a lot of reasons, and there are a lot of circumstances involved.  But still, as Christians, we are supposed to honor marriage in a way that society does not.

Keep yourself free from the love of money.  Be content with what you have.  That might be the hardest one of all.  How many of us would not like more money?  I would.  Probably you would, too.  We may not love money, but we do like it, right?  And I’m not saying that it’s unchristian to have money.  But it’s easy to fall into the trap of chasing too hard after money.  We need to trust that, whether we have a lot or a little, God will take care of us and give us what we need.

Our reading from Hebrews does not give us a comprehensive list, of course.  But it does give us a lot of important things to work on.  It gives us a lot of important ways that, as Christians, we are not supposed to go along with the values of society.  As Christians, you and I are supposed to be different.

But you know, there’s one other thing we need to be aware of, and it’s one we don’t talk about a whole lot.  When we make that decision that we are going to be different from society, and when we then try to follow through on that decision, it’s really easy for us to start thinking we’re better than other people.  It’s really easy for us to start feeling superior, to look down on the rest of the people.  The people who are not quite as “holy” as we are, you know.  And again, a lot of times that’s not something we intend to do.  We may not even realize we’re doing it.  And it’s not necessarily wrong to feel good about ourselves when we resist temptation.  But it is wrong when we allow that good feeling to slide into arrogance.

Because arrogance is a sin, too.  And it’s one that God has a lot to say about.  God’s words against arrogance are all over the Old Testament.  Almost every one of the Old Testament prophets talked about how arrogance was the root of the people’s sin, and that God was not going to let that arrogance go unpunished.  It was arrogance that led them to go against God.  It was arrogance that led them to trust in themselves rather than trusting God.  Isaiah says, “The arrogance of man will be brought low and human pride humbled.”  Hosea says, “Israel’s arrogance testifies against them.”  

And it does not change when we go to the New Testament.  Remember Jesus’ story about the Pharisees who goes to the temple and thanks God that he’s better than other people?  That was one of the main things Jesus had against the Pharisees--that they were arrogant, and that their arrogance had led them to love their own rules more than they loved God.

So what do we do?  How do we refuse to go along with society’s values, how do we resist the temptation to go along, and yet not start feeling that we’re better than other people for doing it?  

I think our reading from Hebrews gives us an answer.  In verse fifteen, it says, “Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise--the fruit of lips that openly profess his name.”

“A sacrifice of praise”.  Think about that phrase.  Right before that, our reading talks about the animal sacrifices that the priests made.  But that’s not the sacrifice God wants.  God wants the sacrifice of our hearts.  God wants hearts that are dedicated to God.  God wants hearts that praise God and show gratitude to God and are eager to serve God.

Hearts like that will be able to resist the temptation to go along with society’s values.  But they will also be able to resist the temptation to be arrogant.  Because they will be hearts that realize that everything that have, and everything they are, comes from God.  And they will be hearts that are eager to acknowledge that, both to God and to each other.  

You know, sometimes people wonder why the Bible tells us so many times that we should praise God.  Well, this is one of the reasons why.  We cannot praise God and be arrogant at the same time.  Not if our praise is sincere, anyway.  If we believe, and acknowledge, that everything we have and everything we are comes from God, we will not be able to give ourselves credit for anything.  If we give God that sacrifice of praise, we will not need to worry about falling into the sin of arrognace, because we will know, in our minds and in our hearts, that God deserves credit for everything.

            

            As Christians, you and I are supposed to be different from the rest of society.  And if we’re going to be witness for Christ, people need to see that our Christianity makes us different.  But we should not be arrogant about it, and we don’t need to be.  We just need to keep making those sacrifices of praise to God.  We need to have hearts that are totally dedicated to serving God, and that acknowledge that everything we have and everything we are comes from God.  It’s not always easy, and we may fail sometimes.  But if we keep trying, and keep trusting God, and keep praising God, you and I will succeed more often than we’ll fail.  And we will be the witnesses for Jesus Christ that God has called us to be.