The One Thing Needed

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday morning, October 23, 2022.  The Bible verses used are Luke 10:38-42.

            Mary and Martha.  It’s a story some of us have heard many times before.  Martha is running around, doing this, doing that.  Taking care of all sorts of things that need to be done.  Mary is just sitting at Jesus’ feet, listening to what He says.  Martha gets upset and tells Jesus to tell Mary to get off her rear end and do something to help.  Jesus, probably very much to the surprise of Martha, not only does not criticize Mary, he praises Mary.  And, by implication, criticizes Martha.  He says Mary has made the better choice.  In fact, Mary has made the best choice she could possibly have made.

            How many of us, when we hear that story, feel kind of sorry for Martha?  In fact, how many of us really kind of feel like Martha got a raw deal from Jesus?  

I mean, here’s Martha.  She’s working hard.  We’re not told exactly what she was doing, but we are told that she was working on “all the preparations that had to be made.”  So we can guess what she might have been doing.  Preparing food.  Cleaning the house.  Washing clothes.  Setting the table.  Making sure everyone had a place to sit.  The things you do when company is coming.  Especially when the company is someone as special and important as Jesus.

It’s a lot of work.  And of course, it was even more work back then, when everything was done by hand and you had to haul water in and all that.  And it’s not like Martha was going overboard to impress Jesus or something.  This was all work that needed to be done.

And so, Jesus comes.  And apparently, Martha’s not ready.  Maybe Jesus came earlier than she expected.  Maybe things took longer than Martha thought they would.  But Jesus comes, and Martha still has work to do.  And probably, Martha is a little embarrassed about the fact that she’s not ready.

And she looks over, and there’s her sister Mary, just sitting there, visiting with Jesus.  We don’t know what they were talking about.  Maybe Jesus was saying some really profound things.  Or maybe they were just chatting about the weather or something.  We have no idea what they were saying.  But Martha cannot believe her sister is just sitting there, yakking away, when there’s all this work to be done.

Have you ever been in a situation where you’re working as hard as you can, and then you look over and see someone–maybe a co-worker, maybe just a friend or relative, but someone who certainly could help you, and maybe even should be helping you–and they’re just sitting there visiting, or fiddling around on their phone, or watching TV or something?  How does that make you feel?  You’re probably kind of upset.  You probably feel just Martha did with Mary.  How can you just sit there doing nothing when there’s all this work to be done?

So why would Jesus respond the way he did?  Why would Jesus not just refuse to make Mary get up and help, but actually praise Mary for not helping?

Well, let’s look at it another way.  Last year, there was a survey taken of what people felt was most important to have a fulfilling, satisfying life.  The number one thing was having good friends.  Number two was having a job or career you enjoy.  Number three was being in a committed romantic relationship, followed by having children, being married, earning a lot of money, and having a lot of money.

Now, I’m not saying any of those things is unimportant.  But I hope it occurred to you what was left out of that.  God.  A relationship with God was not, by most people, considered one of the most important things necessary for living a fulfilling, satisfying life.

We look for satisfaction, we look for happiness, in so many places.  There are so many things that seem so important to us.  And some of those things do make us happy, for a while.  But they fade.  The happiness, the good feelings, they fade.  

The things people listed are good things.  It’s good to have friends–you’ve heard me say many times that life is too hard for us to go through alone, and God does not want us to try.  I can tell you from personal experience that having a career you enjoy is a wonderful thing.  We all want someone to love and a family.  And while I don’t know that having “a lot” of money is important, we all want to have enough that we can pay our bills and live comfortably, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

It’s not that any of that is bad.  It’s that none of it is enough.  You can have good friends, a wonderful job, a loving spouse and family, and plenty of money, and it still won’t be enough.  The only thing that makes it enough is having God in your life.  The only thing that makes it enough is having a relationship with Jesus Christ and knowing that Jesus is, in fact, the Savior.

            And so, we get back to Martha.  Again, I’m not saying Martha was doing anything wrong.  Jesus did not say she was doing anything wrong.  Martha was not sinning by doing the things she was doing.

            But the way it looks to me, Martha was trying to find fulfillment and satisfaction in the work she was doing.  Having a clean house, cooking wonderful meals, having a table that looked right, making sure the clothes were washed–all that was important to her.  She was trying to find fulfillment and satisfaction in her life from doing those things.

            And none of it was bad.  But none of it was enough.  And Martha could tell, somehow, that it was not enough.  And so, she wanted Jesus to get Mary to help.  She thought that if Mary did her part, the house would finally be clean enough, the food would be good enough, the table would look perfect, the clothes would be sparkling white, and she would finally find her fulfillment from the work she was doing.

            But Mary was not going to do her part.  It’s not necessarily that Mary thought those things were unimportant.  It’s just that none of those things would be enough unless she had a relationship with Jesus Christ.  And so, when Jesus was there, right in front of her, she was going to take advantage of that.  

            And that’s why Jesus approved of what Mary did.  It’s not that Jesus wanted Mary to get out of her work.  But there would be plenty of time to get the work done later.  I’ve always said that work is the most patient thing in the world–it always just sits there and waits for you to get to it.  The work would be there later–but Jesus might not be.  And the chance to have that relationship with Jesus might not be.  And so, when Mary had the chance to improve her relationship with Jesus Christ, she was going to grab that chance.  She knew that was that relationship was and always would be the most important thing in her life.  As Jesus himself said, “Few things are needed–indeed, only one.”  And Jesus wanted Mary to have that one thing that’s needed.

            Jesus wanted Martha to have it, too.  You know, we’re not told what Martha did after this conversation with Jesus.  The story is dropped there.  Luke moves on to the next topic, Jesus teaching the disciples to pray.

            What do you think Martha did?  Did she go on with her work?  Was she now upset with Jesus, just as she’d been upset with Mary?  After all, there were lots of people–and in fact there still are lots of people–who are upset with Jesus when Jesus does not do what they want Him to do or when Jesus does not tell them what they want to hear.  Maybe Martha was one of those people.

            But I hope–and I suspect Jesus hoped–that Martha stopped her work.  That she sat down, maybe next to Mary, and talked with Jesus.  That she listened to Jesus’ words, that she asked Him questions.  That she learned from Him.  That she strengthened her relationship with Him.  That she had that one thing that’s needed, just like Mary did.

            And I hope that’s what you and I will do, too.  I’m not saying your work is unimportant.  Jesus did not say Martha’s work was unimportant.  But nothing in your life, and nothing in my life, will be really satisfying if we don’t have a strong relationship with Jesus Christ.  We’ll always be trying to do more, trying to work harder, trying to make everything perfect, thinking that if we do that, somehow we’ll finally be happy.  But it won’t work.  Not if we don’t first get a strong relationship with Jesus Christ.

            “Few things are needed–indeed, only one.”  This week, and every week, let’s work on that one thing that’s needed.  Let’s improve our relationship with Jesus Christ.  If we do that, I think we’ll find that everything else will fall into place.  And we’ll have that fulfilling, satisfying life that we all want.

 

Who Do We Say He Is?

The Sunday morning message in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish.  October 16, 2022.  The Bible verses are Matthew 16:13-20.

            One of the things that can be frustrating when we read the words of Jesus is the number of times that he seems to be almost deliberately mysterious about what he means.  Jesus would use parables.  He would use figures of speech.  He would make analogies.  Sometimes you’d like to be able to go to Jesus and say, “Would you just come out and say what you mean?”  

In fact, at one point, the disciples kind of did that.  In John Sixteen, when Jesus is making what has been called his Farewell Address to the disciples, right before he goes out to the Garden of Gethsemane to be arrested, the disciples say, “Now you are speaking clearly and without figures of speech.”  You can just hear the relief in their voices, that finally, after all this time, Jesus is just coming out and saying what he has to say.

            And yet, for all the figures of speech and parables and all the other things Jesus used, he could cut right to the heart of the matter when he wanted to.  That’s clear from our reading for today.  Jesus first asks his disciples who the public is saying he is.  And they tell him, some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, some say Jeremiah, some say one of the other prophets.

            And then Jesus asks the big question.  “What about you?...Who do you say I am?”

            That’s the big question.  It was the big question for the disciples.  It’s the big question for us.  Who do we say Jesus is?

            Now, we’d like to think, in a Christian church, that we would all say what Peter said.  Jesus is the Messiah.  The Savior.  The divine Son of the living God.  The one who can give us salvation and eternal life.

            And maybe all of us here today would say that.  Maybe everyone watching the livestream would say that, too.  I hope so.  But maybe not.  

            A recent survey of people who claim to be born again Christians--now again, these are not just people who claim a vague, general belief in God, these are people who claim to be born again Christians--a recent survey said that nearly seventy percent of those people say that belief in Jesus is not the only way to heaven.  They said that belief in Muhammed or in Buddha is just as valid a belief, and just as able to get you to heaven, as belief in Jesus Christ.

Well, if you believe that, then you don’t agree with Peter.  You don’t actually believe that Jesus is the Savior.  You don’t believe that Jesus is the divine Son of God.  Not because I say so, but because Jesus said so.  Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life.”  Jesus did not say “I am one of several ways.”  Jesus said “I am the way.”  Jesus did not say, “I am one of several truths.”  Jesus said, “I am the truth.”  Jesus did not say there are lots of people who can lead you to God the Father.  Jesus said, “No one can come to the Father except through Me.”

            People say, well, that sounds awfully exclusionary.  You’re saying that people who don’t believe in Jesus as the Savior don’t go to heaven.  Well, again, I’m not saying anything.  Jesus is the one who said that.  What I say makes no difference to anything.  I have no ability to get someone into heaven or to keep them out.  And I’m very glad of that, by the way.  All I’m doing is repeating what Jesus said.  People can believe it or not believe it.  It’s their choice.  But anyone who does not believe it does so at their peril.  And anyone who does not believe it does not agree with Peter about who Jesus is.

            Another recent survey said that slightly more than half of American Christians say that we get into heaven by our good deeds.  And again, if you believe that, you don’t agree with Peter.  You don’t actually believe that Jesus is the Savior.  Because if we could get into heaven by our good deeds, we would not need a Savior, right?  We could earn our way into heaven.  All we’d need to do is be good enough, do enough good things, and we’ll get to heaven.  We don’t need Jesus for it.  We can do it ourselves.

            People say, well, are you saying bad people can go to heaven?  Yes.  Yes I am.  In fact, those are the only people who can go to heaven.  Because, compared to God, there are no “good people”.  Jesus said that, too.  In Mark, Chapter Ten, someone referred to Jesus as “Good teacher” and Jesus said, “Why are you calling me good?  No one is good except God alone.”  

Only God is good.  Jesus said that even he is not good--unless you accept the fact that He is the divine Son of God.  So unless you know someone who’s as good as God--and I certainly don’t--there are no “good people” in heaven.  There are only bad people--sinners, who are saved by their belief in the divine Son of God as the Savior.

And again, none of this is true because I say it.  I’m just repeating what Jesus said.  And again, people can believe it or not believe it.  It’s their choice.  But again, anyone who does not believe it does so at their peril.  And anyone who does not believe it does not really agree with Peter about who Jesus is.

            So, I ask the question again.  Who do we say Jesus is?  Do we agree with Peter that Jesus is the Messiah, the divine Son of the living God?  Or do we believe Jesus is something or someone else?  Do we believe Jesus is who He said He is?  Or do we make Jesus whatever we want Him to be?

            It is tempting to make Jesus whatever we want Him to be.  Because if belief in Jesus is the only way to heaven, that means there are people I know, people I care about, who will not go to heaven.  That may be true for you, too.  I don’t like to think about that.  I don’t want those people to not go to heaven.  But if we believe what Jesus said, then unless those people change their minds and come to faith, that’s the way it’s going to be.  

            But the story does not end there.  Because after Peter says, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God,” Jesus says that Peter is the rock on which He will build His church, “and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.”

            Jesus did not say this because Peter was so smart, or so holy, or had such a great personality, or because of any of the things humans tend to think of as important.  Jesus said this because Peter had shown his faith in Jesus.  It was Peter’s faith that made him the strong rock on which Jesus could build His church.  It was Peter’s faith that would help make that church so strong that the gates of Hades would not overcome it.

            And that’s what our faith can do.  Our faith in Jesus can make us a strong rock as well.  You and I can be a rock Jesus can build on, just like Peter was.

            We hear that, and we think, well, but Peter was one of the greatest heroes of the Bible.  I could never be Peter.  My faith could never be that strong.

            But it can be.  Who was Peter?  He was an ordinary fisherman when he met Jesus.  He made all kinds of mistakes.  

In fact, the next thing that happens after the Bible verses we read tonight is that Peter starts arguing with Jesus and Jesus calls him Satan.  When Jesus was arrested, Peter three times denied knowing that he’d ever been with Jesus.  After Jesus was killed, Peter was so confused and scared that he decided to go fishing.

Jesus knew who Peter was, of course.  He knew Peter was far from a perfect person.  And yet, because Peter knew who Jesus was, Peter became the rock on which Jesus built his church. 

Jesus could deal with Peter’s failings because He knew Peter’s faith.  Jesus can deal with our failings because Jesus knows our faith.  It’s like a saying I read on facebook:  “When God put a calling on your life, He already factored in your stupidity.”  That’s funny, but it’s also true.  The Lord knows everything about us, the good and the bad.  And yet the Lord still calls you and me to serve Him, just as the Lord called Peter.  The Lord calls us, not because we’re so smart or so holy or have such great personalities, but because of our faith.

That faith can make you and me a rock Jesus can build on, just as Peter was a rock Jesus could build on.  But it all comes back to the question.  Who do we say Jesus is?  Do we say, as Peter said, that He is the Messiah, the Son of the living God?  Or do we say he’s something else, something a little more comfortable, something a little less exclusionary?  Do we say that Jesus is a Savior, but not the Savior?  Do we say that Jesus is one of many ways to heaven?  Or do we believe what Jesus said, that He is the way to eternal life, and that no one can come to the Father except through Him?  Will we be the solid rock Jesus can build on?  Or will we be, as the old hymn says, sinking sand, something that nothing solid could ever be built on?

Who do we say He is?  Our eternal life, and the eternal life of others, may depend on our answer.

 

The Difference It Makes

The message given in the Sunday night worship service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church October 9, 2022.  The Bible verses used are Luke 17:11-19.

Do you feel joy?  Would you like to?

I assume we’d all like to.  Joy is defined as a feeling of great happiness, and who would not want that?  I cannot imagine being in a situation where I’d say, “Nah, I don’t want joy.  I don’t want happiness.  And especially not great happiness.  I’d rather just feel mediocre.”

We all want to feel joy.  But the thing is that joy is just that, a feeling.  Joy is an emotion.  It's a wonderful emotion.  It's one that we all need to feel sometimes.  But the problem with emotions is that they change.  Emotions are momentary.  They are never permanent.  No matter how intense a feeling of joy is, there's going to come a time when that emotion fades.  So while it's great to feel joy, what we really want is not just a momentary feeling of joy.  What we really want is a feeling that we are one with God.  What we really want is a feeling that God is with us and that we are with God, and that there's no separation, no distance between us and God.  Because that’s a feeling that will give us more than joy.  That will give us a feeling of peace and contentment and love.

So let’s look at our Bible reading for tonight.  Ten people are suffering from leprosy, and Jesus heals them. 

Now, understand that leprosy is a very serious illness.  It’s an infectious disease that causes severe, disfiguring skin sores and nerve damage in the arms and legs.  It's not necessarily fatal, but what it would do is put you in a position where you could not do any physical work.  And because everything people did back then involved physical work of some kind, and since there were no welfare or disability payments at that time, if you could not work you either begged or died.  So, even though the disease itself was not fatal, it pretty much amounted to the same thing.  It was not a highly contagious disease, but people were scared to death of getting it because of what it would do to them. Because of that, people would have nothing to do with people who had leprosy.

So these ten people with leprosy approach Jesus, but they keep their distance.  They did not know how Jesus would react to them.  They also did not know how those with Jesus would react to them, either.  Still, they call out to Jesus, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”  Jesus responds, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.”

 We’re not told what the ten people expected Jesus to do, but I’d guess that this was not it.  I'd guess that they might have expected Jesus to lay hands on them, the way he did with other people.  And even if they thought Jesus would not touch them, because of the leprosy, they certainly hoped he would call on God or something.  But Jesus did not do any of that.  In fact, as far as they could tell, Jesus did not do anything.  He just said, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.”

They must have really been disappointed.  After all, Jesus was probably their last hope.  No doctor had been able to cure them.  No priest had been able to help them.  They were probably thinking, “Show ourselves to the priests?  The priests are the ones who declared us unclean in the first place.  They won’t even let us into the temple, because they’re afraid we’ll ruin it for everyone.  Show ourselves to the priests?  The priests won’t even talk to us.”

Still, they went off to show themselves to the priests.  Maybe they had faith in Jesus and believed that something was going to happen.  Maybe they just figured they had nothing to lose.  Whatever they thought, they did it.  And on the way to show themselves to the priests, they were healed.  We don't know how that happened.  We don't know how far they'd gone when it happened.  But at some point, on their way to the priests, they were healed.

And one of them came back to Jesus.  We’re told nothing about the one who came back, other than that he was a foreigner, a Samaritan.  He praised God with a loud voice and threw himself at Jesus’ feet, thanking Jesus for healing him.  Jesus tells him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”

We don’t know what happened to the other nine.  We’re told all ten were healed.  There's nothing in the Bible that says they paid any penalty for not coming back to thank Jesus.  Nothing says they got their leprosy back or anything.  Maybe the other nine went to the priests, were pronounced clean, and then went on to live their lives the way they wanted to.  We don't know.

So maybe you’re thinking, “Well, so what?  I mean, good for the one.  He did the right thing.  But what did it get him, really?  Did he get a gold star in heaven or something?  After all, the nine who did not thank God were healed just the same as he was.  Seems like they all got the same thing, the thing they wanted.  What difference did it really make that he thanked God?  It seems like this story says it does not matter whether we thank God or not.”

 Well, yes and no.  It’s true that all ten of them were healed from their leprosy.  In that sense, the same thing happened to each of them.  There was no physical difference at all.

There was no physical difference, and yet there was all the difference in the world.  Because when the Bible talks about what happened to the other nine, the scripture first says they were “cleansed”, and then that they were “healed”.  Jesus says the other nine were “cleansed”, too.  At the end of the verses, though, Jesus says to the one who came back, “Your faith has ‘made you well.’”

Your faith has ‘made you well.’  See, it’s one thing to have a physical healing.  That’s important, of course.  Anyone who’s suffering from a serious illness, or who ever has, or who has a loved one who is or has, knows how important physical healing is.  Almost every Sunday there are people for whom we ask God to bring about physical healing, and it’s important that we ask God to do that.

Still, it’s one thing to be healed physically.  It’s another thing to truly be made well.  To be well means to be healed in body, in mind, in soul, in spirit, all of it.  It means that things are pleasing, that they’re good.  It means that everything is in a proper and satisfactory situation.  In short, to be made well means that things are as they should be in every way.

That’s what Jesus was saying to the one who came back to say thank you.  When that one person came back to say thank you to Jesus, he showed that he had faith in Jesus as his Savior.  Jesus told him that because of his faith, he was not only physically healed, he was well.  He was well in every way:  physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually.  Everything about him was right.  He was who he was supposed to be, he was where he was supposed to be, and he was doing what he was supposed to do.

When the nine had their pain go away, when they were healed, I'm sure they felt joy.  It may have been the greatest joy they'd ever felt in their lives.  But eventually, that joy went away.  Eventually, the joy faded, and they had to figure out a new way to go on with their lives, to deal with whatever the rest of their life was going to hold for them.  And we have no idea what that was.  Would people have welcomed them back into society?  Would people still have held them at arm’s length, not trusting that they were really healed?  Would they have been able to find jobs?  Did they even know how to do anything, beyond just manual labor?  Once their joy faded, life might have been pretty tough for the nine.  Yeah, they were healed, and that was good, but life might still have been a really hard thing for them.

Now think about the one.  I'm sure the one who thanked Jesus felt joy, too.  But he felt more than joy.  And after the joy faded, he was still happy.  Because, when he felt thankfulness in his heart, he had been made well.  God was with him, and he was with God.  He was one with God.  His life might not have been all that great, either, but he did not have to worry about what the rest of life was going to hold for him.  He knew that, whatever it held, God would be with him.  He knew that, whatever life held for him, it would be all right.  He knew that because he had not just had his physical problem taken away.  He had been made well, in every possible way.

Have you ever felt that way?  Have you ever felt, even if just for a little while, that everything was right, that you were who God wanted you to be, that you were exactly where God wanted you to be, and that you were doing exactly what God wanted you to do?  It’s a pretty incredible feeling.  In fact, it’s pretty much the greatest feeling in the world.  To know, in that moment, that you are who God wants you to be, that you are exactly where God wants you to be, and to know you are doing exactly what God wants you to do.  There’s really nothing like it.

That’s what the one person who’d had leprosy felt when he came back and thanked Jesus.  And he did not just feel it for that moment, he felt it for the rest of his life.  He had been made well.  And we can be made well, too, if we truly live our lives giving thanks to God.

It's a great thing to have moments of joy in our lives.  I hope we all do, and I hope we have a lot of them.  But when we live our lives with the awareness of what God has done for us, and truly being thankful for it, we get something even better than joy.  We get a feeling of peace and contentment and love.  When we get that feeling, we know that we have been made well.  We know that, no matter what life holds for us, it will be all right.  Because we are one with the all-loving, all-caring God.

 

Dog Days

The message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday morning, October 9, 2022.  The Bible verses used are Luke 7:36-50.

            Everyone loves the underdog.  That’s what we always say, right?  Everyone roots for the underdog.

            We say that, but is it really true?  Nationwide, which baseball team has the most fans? It’s the New York Yankees, the team that’s won the most championships.  Who’s the most popular NFL team?  It’s the Green Bay Packers, the team that has won the most championships.  We may we root for the underdog in a particular game, but when it comes time to actually pick a favorite team, we tend to choose on one the top dogs.  Our favorite teams tend to be the teams that usually win.

            As Christians, of course, we’re supposed to love everyone.  Top dogs, underdogs, middle dogs, all dogs.  All people, in other words.  That’s what Jesus told us to do.  And that’s what Jesus did.

            And yet, Jesus did often stick up for the underdogs, rather than the top dogs.  Think about it.  Who were the top dogs of Jesus’ day?  They were the religious leaders, right?  They were the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the scribes and the teachers of the law.  And who did Jesus usually get into arguments with?  That’s right, the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the scribes and the teachers of the law.  Jesus did not try to flatter the top dogs.  He did not even try to get along with them.  Often, Jesus fought against them.

            Who were the underdogs of Jesus’ day?  That’s right, they were the “tax collectors and sinners”.  They were the sick and the blind and the deaf and the lame.  They were the people who were threatened with being stoned.  They were the people who were looked down on by “proper” society, sometimes because of what they’d done but sometimes through no fault of their own.  Those were the people Jesus spent time with.  Those were the people Jesus stuck up for.  Those were the people Jesus worked hardest to save.

            And we have an example of that in our story from the gospel of John.  Jesus, for a change, is spending some time with a top dog.  He’s been invited to have dinner with a Pharisee.  So Jesus is sitting there in the Pharisee’s house, and here comes a woman who, we’re told, “lived a sinful life”.  It sounds like she was not invited to the Pharisee’s house.  She found out that Jesus was going to be there and crashed the party.  She brought with her an expensive jar of perfume.

            She comes up to Jesus, and she’s overcome with emotion.  She starts crying.  She wets his feet with her tears, wipes them with her hair, kisses his feet, and pours the perfume on them.

            The Pharisee sees this, and he’s appalled.  He probably thought about kicking this woman out of the house.  But since Jesus does not seem to mind, the Pharisee does not do anything.  Still, he thinks, if this Jesus was all he’s cracked up to be, he’d know what kind of woman this person is and would not let her anywhere near him.

            Of course Jesus knew exactly who this woman was.  And Jesus knew who the Pharisee was, too.  But I want us to think about both of them.

First, the woman.  All we’re told about her is that she “lived a sinful life”.  That’s it.  We’re not given any more details than that.  We’re not told what it was about her life that made it sinful.  We could guess.  I think, though, that there’s a reason we’re not given any other details about this woman.

I think we’re not given any other details because what this woman’s sins were is irrelevant.  What’s important is that this woman was a sinner and she knew she was a sinner.  And that’s why she was so overcome with emotion in the presence of Jesus.

We don’t know how much she really understood about Jesus.  We don’t know if she understood that he was the divine Son of God.  We don’t even know if she’d have understood what that meant.  What she did know was that Jesus was someone special.  She knew that Jesus was greater than she was.  She knew that she did not deserve to be in Jesus’ presence.  But yet, she felt like she had to come.  She had to be there.  Even though she had no right to be there, even though she knew Jesus was far above and beyond what she was, she still needed to be there, in Jesus’ presence.

Now let’s think about who the Pharisee was.  He was one of the religious leaders.  He was the one who defined Jewish religion for other people.  He did not think he had led a sinful life.  He did not know he was a sinner.  And so, he was not overcome with emotion in the presence of Jesus.  It would never have occurred to him to think he did not deserve to be in Jesus’ presence.  In fact, he probably thought he’d done Jesus a favor by allowing Jesus to come to his house.  He probably thought he’d been very generous by allowing Jesus to eat with him.  He did not think he needed to be in Jesus’ presence.  He thought Jesus was lucky to be allowed into his presence.

Now, this is a pretty clear case of an underdog and a top dog, right?  And it’s pretty clear which is which.  So, two questions.

First, which of these people do we think we are?  Do we think we’re the person who’s lived a sinful life?  Do we think of ourselves as the person who really has no right to come into the presence of Jesus at all, but simply feel like we need to be there anyway?  Or do we think of ourselves as the Pharisee, the person who feels like we’ve done Jesus a favor by allowing Jesus to come into our presence.

Now, we know what the answer is supposed to be.  We know we’re supposed to say that we’re all sinners.  We’re supposed to say that we’ve all fallen short of who we’re supposed to be and that it’s only by God’s grace that we’re allowed into God’s holy presence.

We know that’s what we’re supposed to say.  And maybe, in our minds, we know that’s true.  But do we really feel it?  Do we really identify with the lowest of the low?  I want you to think of the lowest of the low, and I’m not going to put a picture up here because who I think of as the lowest of the low might not be the same as who you think of.  But think of the lowest of the low.  Is that really who you identify with?  Is that really who I identify with?

Again, we know we’re supposed to.  The point is, do we?  Do you?  Do I?

I want you to think about that.  And then, I want you to get to the other question.

The other question is this:  If you were Jesus—if I was Jesus—which of these people would be our favorite?  Which one would we want to spend time with?  Would we want to hang out with the underdog, with the woman who apparently everyone knew had “led a sinful life”?  Or would we want to hang out with the top dog, the Pharisee, the guy everyone in town looked up to and wanted to be on the good side of?

Again, we know what the answer is supposed to be.  We’re supposed to say that we’d rather be with the underdog.  But is that really true?

I already asked you to think of the lowest of the low.  Now, I want you to also think of someone who represents the top dog to you.  And again, I’m not going to put a picture up here because who I think of may not be the same as who you think of.  And when you think of that top dog, don’t think of someone who lied or cheated their way to the top.  Think of someone you really admire and respect, someone who you think of as a good person.  Because that’s how people thought of the Pharisees.  We look down on the Pharisees now because we know Jesus looked down on them, but that’s not how it was at the time.  People looked up to the Pharisees.  People respected the Pharisees.

Have you got the two pictures in your head?  Okay.  Now, which one would you rather be with?  Which one would I rather be with?  Would you rather be with the underdog, or the top dog?  Would I rather be with the underdog, or the top dog?

The Pharisee did not want to be around the underdog.  He did not understand why Jesus did.  In fact, he thought Jesus must not know who this woman was, because there was no way Jesus would want to be around her if he did.

But Jesus wanted to be with the underdog.  He told the Pharisee that this woman had shown love to him and the Pharisee had not.  And Jesus told the woman that her sins were forgiven.

Who are the underdogs in our community?  Do you identify with them?  Do I?  Do you want to hang around with them?  Do I?

Jesus loved everyone.  And we’re supposed to love everyone, too.  And that includes the underdogs.  So let’s stick up for the underdogs.  Let’s spend time with the underdogs.  Let’s show love to the underdogs.  

And then, let’s realize that we are underdogs.  Let’s realize that we, too, are sinners in need of forgiveness.  Let’s realize that we do not deserve to be in Jesus’ presence any more than the woman in our Bible reading did.  But let’s realize that we need to be there anyway.  And let’s realize that we—you and I—need as much as anyone to hear Jesus tell us that our sins are forgiven.

 

Are We Listening?

The print version of the message given in the Sunday night worship service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church.  The Bible verses used are Luke 6:20-42.

            Jesus’ most famous speech is probably what we now know as The Sermon on the Mount.  Jesus goes up onto a mountainside and talks to all the assembled people.

            What we read tonight is not, technically, the Sermon on the Mount.  That’s in Matthew.  What we read is often called the sermon on the plain.  The ideas and themes are very similar.  Some people believe that Jesus probably gave similar messages more than once.  Matthew set down the version from the mountain, Luke set down the one from the plain.  We went with the version from Luke simply the version in Matthew runs for three chapters, and there would not have been time to read it all.

            Also, we’re not going to discuss everything Jesus said in this message, because there’s just too much.  So tonight, we’re going to do kind of an overview.

            Jesus starts out with what are called the beatitudes.  These are, as you heard, blessings for certain groups of people.  And it’s obvious that the way Jesus looks at blessings is different from the way you and I usually look at them.

            When you think of something that’s a blessing, what do you think of?  Your children or grandchildren, maybe.  Your spouse, if you have one.  Enough to eat.  Rain when we need it.  Some of us consider ourselves blessed to live in this country, and to live in this beautiful part of it.  Good friends can be a blessing.

            In other words, when we think of blessings, we think of things that make us happy.  We think of things that make our lives on earth go well.  Those are what we think of as blessings.

            That’s clearly not how Jesus looks at blessings.  Look at the people Jesus calls blessed.  The poor.  The hungry.  Those who weep.  Those who are hated and rejected.

            We would not consider those people blessed, would we?  The people I’ve known who were poor, or hungry, or sad, or hated and rejected, do not seem to consider themselves blessed, either.  So what is Jesus talking about?

            And look at who Jesus says are not blessed.  He says “woe” to the rich, to those who are well-fed, to those who laugh, to those who people speak well of.  

Those are the people most of us would like to be more like, right?  We may say we don’t want to be rich, but I doubt that there are very many of us who would turn down more money.  A lot of us, definitely including me, eat more than we should.  You know I love to laugh.  And we all like people to speak well of us.  Those are the people that most of us would consider to be blessed.  And yet, Jesus has no blessing for them at all.  In fact, in regard to those people, Jesus says “woe to you”.

Jesus gives a reason for it, too.  He says that the people whom he says are blessed--the poor, the hungry, those who weep, those who are hated and rejected--will rejoice and receive their reward in heaven, because they’re being treated the way the prophets were.  And he says the people he’s has proclaimed woe to--the rich, the well-fed, those who laugh, those who are spoken well of--will have all that turned around on them, and will find out what’s it’s like to have all that taken away, because they’re being treated on earth the way the false prophets were.

The beatitudes are probably one of the best-loved parts of the Bible.  And yet, if we really look at them and think about what they say, they make us pretty uncomfortable.  We wonder what we’re supposed to do with them.  Are we supposed to try to become poor and hungry and sad and hated, just so we can have blessings in heaven?  That does not make any sense to us.  But what should we do?  How should we react to this?

I think the key to it might be in the next phrase.  Jesus says, “Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.”  And then his next words are, “But to you who are listening, I say:  Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”

We always skip right to the “Love your enemies” part, and that’s obviously really important.  But it’s the part right before that that I want to talk about right now.  Jesus says that he is saying these things “to you who are listening”.

I think what Jesus is saying is that those people he pronounced woe to--the rich, the well-fed, those who laugh, those who are spoken well of--are most likely not listening to anything he says anyway.  They don’t think they need to.  They have everything they want and everything they need.  And if they don’t, they think they know how to get it.  They’re not paying attention to Jesus.  They don’t think they need Jesus.  They don’t think they need God.  They think they can do it all themselves.

And on earth, maybe they can.  But not in heaven.  All this stuff they’ve accomplished on earth is not going to mean anything in heaven.  That’s why Jesus proclaims woe to them.  They think they have it all, and yet they’re missing the most important thing.  They’re missing faith in Jesus.  And because they’re missing that, they’re missing salvation.  And the saddest thing of all is that they don’t even know they’re missing it.

The people Jesus gave blessings to--the poor, the hungry, those who weep, those who are hated--those are the ones who are listening to Jesus.  In fact, they’re hanging on every word.  Because they know they need him.  They know they need what Jesus has to offer.  They know they cannot get through life without it.  They know they need unconditional love and salvation.  And they know they need to get it from Jesus, because there’s absolutely no other place, at least on earth, that they can get it from.

So where does that leave you?  And where does the leave me?  Are we hanging on every word Jesus says?  Do we know that we need what Jesus has to offer?  Or do we think we can make it on our own, without any help?

Well, we’re all here tonight.  That’s a start.  But it’s only a start.  After all, in Jesus’ day, a lot of rich people who were well thought of went to the synagogue regularly.  But they did not let anything said there impact their lives.  They came, they stayed for an hour--or however long synagogue took back then--and they went home.  They were there, but they were not listening to anything.  They certainly were not going to let the words of God change their lives in any significant way.

We’re here.  But are we listening?  Are we letting the words said here impact our lives?  And I don’t mean my words.  I mean Jesus’ words.  You can think whatever you like of my words.  Jesus’ words are the ones we need to pay attention to.

We all heard Jesus’ words.  We’ve heard them before.  Love your enemies.  Do good to those who hate you.  Bless those who curse you.  Pray for those who mistreat you.  Do to others, not as they do to you, but as you would like them to do to you.  Do not judge.  Do not condemn.  Forgive and you will be forgiven.  Give and it will be given to you.  Don’t focus on a speck in someone else’s eye when there’s a plank in your own.

Most of us have heard those words before.  But have we listened?  Are we listening now?  Are we doing what Jesus told us to do?  If not, are we going to?  Are we going to let the words of Jesus change our lives?  Or are we just going to come here, stay for an hour, and go home?

As I said, we may love the beatitudes in theory.  We may love the Sermon on the Mount in theory.  But when we really think about what Jesus said, it makes us pretty uncomfortable.  It makes me uncomfortable, too.  

The easy thing to do will be for us to sit here until the end of the service, shake hands, and then leave and go on about our business.  The easy thing to do will be to let Jesus’ words bounce off of us and keep living our lives the way we’ve been living them.  It will be easy for me to do that, too.  That will be the easy way.  But it won’t be the way that leads to God’s blessings.

Jesus has a blessing for people who they know they need him.  He has a blessing for people who know they need what Jesus has to offer.  He has a blessing for people who know they cannot get through life without him.  Jesus has a blessing for those who know they need unconditional love and salvation, and who know they need to get it from Jesus, because there’s absolutely no other place they can get it from.

If we are those people, Jesus will bless our lives.  He may or may not give us what we normally think of as a blessing.  But he will bless us with eternal life.

 

Follow Me

The print version of this morning's message in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish.  The Bible verses used are Luke 5:27-32.

            Our Bible reading for today gives us yet another example of an ordinary person, sitting around minding his own business, doing what he does every day.  And suddenly, the Lord comes along, and in a few seconds the Lord completely changes this man’s life.

            It’s amazing to me how often this happens in the Bible.  And it’s also amazing to me how matter-of-factly the Bible always tells these stories.  I mean, here’s Levi, changing his entire life to follow Jesus, and the Bible handles it in two verses.  “Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth.  ‘Follow me,’ Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything, and followed him.”

            That’s pretty incredible, don’t you think?  For someone to just immediately leave their entire way of life behind to follow Jesus?

            But you know, that seems to be how it worked with all of Jesus’ disciples, at least the ones we’re told about how they were called.  Jesus sees Peter and Andrew casting a net into the lake, fishing, and he says, “Come, follow me, and I will sent you out to fish for people.”  And we’re told, “At once they left their nets and followed him.”  Jesus sees James and John out in a boat with their father.  We’re told, “Jesus called them, and immediately they left their boat and their father and followed him.”

            Think about that in the context of Levi.  After all, who was Levi?  Levi was a tax collector.  Tax collectors were not popular people in Jesus’ time.  I don’t suppose tax collectors have ever been popular people, really.  But Levi was a wealthy man.  Most tax collectors were, because they were allowed to charge people as much as they wanted and keep any excess over what Rome wanted.  It was not necessarily an honest way to make a living, but it was a way to get rich.  

And Levi was rich.  You can tell that because he was able to pull off this huge banquet in Jesus’ honor at barely a moment’s notice.  He must have had servants and a large room and the money to pay for all this food and wine and everything.  Levi was leaving behind an awful lot of wealth to follow Jesus.

            I wonder if, when Jesus came along, Levi know who Jesus was.  Jesus had started his ministry by this time.  He’d healed a lot of people.  He was attracting crowds.  Levi certainly might have heard of him.  He might have even been curious about him.  

            And maybe, Levi knew he needed to change his life.  We’re into speculation now, but again, think about how Levi was.  A wealthy man, but not popular.  Maybe friendless.  Maybe Levi had looked at his life and said, you know, I have all this money, but what’s it getting me?  What good is it all?  

            I wonder, too, if Jesus knew Levi before this.  I mean, as the divine Son of God, I’m sure Jesus knew who Levi was when he called him.  But had Jesus seen Levi before?  Did He know Levi had his tax collector booth in this spot?  Did He deliberately go there that day for the purpose of calling Levi?  Or was he just walking by, when suddenly He got the divine inspiration that Levi needed to be one of the twelve disciples?  

            And that makes me wonder, were the twelve disciples the first twelve people Jesus called?  Again, of those disciples that we’re given a call story for, Jesus comes up to them, says “Follow me”, and they immediately follow.  Were there people Jesus came up to, said, “Follow me”, and they said no?

            We’re not told that, but it seems like there could’ve been.  After all, in John Chapter Six, we’re told about a lot of people who had followed Jesus, and then stopped, because he was saying things that were too hard for them to accept.  In Luke Chapter Nine, we’re told about people who said they would follow Jesus, but they had to do other things first.  It seems to me that it’s at least possible that the disciples we know as the Twelve may not have been the first Twelve Jesus called.  They may have just been the first Twelve who said yes.

            What the twelve disciples did was not easy.  They left everything behind to follow Jesus.  You know, we talk sometimes about how Jesus came for the poor, but the disciples for whom we know something about their background don’t seem to have been poor.  We talk of James and John, and Simon and Andrew, as fishermen, but it’s not like they were just fishing for pleasure or for sport.  This was their business.  They were commercial fishermen.  I don’t know how good their business was, but it was good enough that they could afford the boat and nets and all that.  

            And not only that, they walked away from their families, too.  James and John left their father behind.  We know that Simon, at least, was married, so he apparently left his wife behind, too.  The twelve disciples walked away from everything to follow Jesus.  It’s not everybody who could do that.

            Now, it’s certainly possible that Jesus knew the twelve would say yes before he asked them.  But I think it’s possible that He asked some others and they said no.  Or, it’s also possible that there are some others Jesus would like to have asked, but He knew they would say no, so He did not bother to ask them.

            So you probably know where this is going.  You and I would probably consider ourselves ordinary people.  Suppose that tomorrow we’re just going about our business, doing whatever we do every day.  Maybe we’re at work.  Maybe we’re at school.  Maybe we’re out doing errands.  Whatever it is.  And all of a sudden, Jesus comes along.  And Jesus says two words:  “follow me”.

            What do we do?  Do we follow?  

            We’d like to think we would.  But would we really?  Would we walk away from everything we own?  Would we walk away even from our own family?  Would we leave everything behind, the way the twelve disciples did, to follow Jesus?

            It’s a hard question to answer.  Because the truth is that when we hear a question like that, we think of it as just theoretical.  We don’t really believe Jesus is going to come along and ask us to leave everything behind to follow Him.  And so, while we might give an answer to the question, we don’t really know what the answer is.  And we cannot really know what our answer is unless and until we’re faced with the situation, which we don’t really expect to be.

            But I still think it’s worth thinking about.  We talked last week about the kingdom of heaven being worth more than everything else in the world.  A situation like this is where we would find out if we really believe that.  I mean, we may say we believe it, and maybe we do.  But Simon and Andrew, James and John, Levi–they proved it.  They actually did give up everything to follow Jesus.

            And they did that, not really knowing all that much about Jesus.  We don’t know how much they knew, but Jesus was just starting his ministry when he called these men.  They had no idea what they were in for.  They had no idea what they were going to see.  They did not know the tremendous power Jesus had.  They did not know they were going to see Jesus do miraculous healing, feed five thousand people, and even raise someone from the dead.  They did not know they were going to hear Jesus arguing with the Pharisees and the other religious leaders and make them look like fools.  And they certainly did not know that Jesus was going to die so that they and all of us who believe in Him can have salvation and eternal life.

            You and I know a lot more about Jesus than the first disciples did.  We have the advantage of being able to read the end of the book, so to speak.  We may not know everything we’d like to know about Jesus, but we know all we need to know.  We know that He was and is the divine Son of God.  We know that faith in Him truly does lead to salvation and eternal life.  We know that the day will come when Jesus will come again, even if we don’t know when that day will be.  We know that, no matter what the world might look like right now, in the end, Jesus will win.  And we know that, if we stay faithful to Him and serve Him and love Him, we will win, too.

            Jesus calls each of us to follow Him.  What that looks like may be different for each of us, but Jesus does call each of us to follow Him.  We don’t expect Jesus to ask us to leave everything to follow Him, and maybe He won’t.  But those first disciples probably were not expecting Jesus to ask them to leave everything to follow him, either.  And He did.

            And when He did, those first disciples were able to say yes.  I don’t know whether I could say yes.  I’d really rather Jesus did not ask me to.  But if He does, my prayer is that all of us will be able to say yes.  It won’t be easy.  But it will be worth it.

 

Trust

The print version of the Sunday night message in the Gettysburg United Methodist church.  The Bible verses used are Luke 4:31-37.

            The events we read about tonight took place early in Jesus’ ministry.  He did not have a big reputation yet.  A lot of people had not heard about him, and those who had heard about him did not know a lot about him.

            And so, when Jesus did the things he did, people were amazed.  In fact, when people heard Jesus teach, we’re told, “They were amazed at his teaching, because his words had authority.”  And when Jesus got a demon to come out of man, we’re told people said, “What words these are!  With power and authority he gives orders to impure spirits and they come out!”  People were impressed.  They were more than impressed, they were astounded.  They’d never heard anyone teach the way Jesus taught, and they’d never seen anyone who could do the things Jesus could do.

            You and I, of course, are familiar with some of the things Jesus did.  Most of us know the basics of Jesus’ teaching–love God, love others, pray for your enemies, things like that.  And most of know that Jesus could cast out demons while he was on earth.  And we know other incredible things Jesus did–healing the sick, curing the lame, giving sight to the blind, even raising someone from the dead.  And of course, we know that Jesus himself was raised from the dead, appeared to the disciples, and eventually ascended back to heaven.

            Jesus had tremendous power.  And of course, Jesus was always clear about the fact that this power was not His own.  Jesus was using the power of God the Father.  Jesus said in John Chapter Five, Verse Thirty, “By myself I can do nothing.”  Jesus did what he did by the power of God.

            And of course, we know God has tremendous power.  God has so much power that He was able to create the entire universe and everything in it out of nothing.  And God has so much power that He was able to do that just by saying a word.  God did not have to work hard to create the universe and everything in it.  God did not have to exert Himself at all.  He just spoke a word, and boom, there it is.  Incredible power.

            Now, I realize, I have not told you anything you don’t already know.  In fact, you know more.  You know that God is good.  You know God loves you.  And God loves me.  And God loves everyone else.  And you know that God can work all things for good.  All of this stuff is stuff you know and have known for a long time.

            So here’s the question.  If we know God is good, and we know God loves us, and we know God has tremendous power–why are we so hesitant to trust God?  Why do we worry so much about how things are going to go?  Why do we always feel like we have to take care of everything ourselves, rather than just doing our best and trusting God to take care of things?

            Now, maybe those questions don’t apply to you.  Maybe you do trust God with everything.  Maybe you never worry about anything.  Maybe you have complete and total peace in your life, just doing your best and trusting God with the results.

            I hope you do.  If you do, that’s wonderful, because you really are living an awesome life.  But for a lot of us, it’s hard.  And a lot of us don’t do it.  Or, a lot of us are able to do it once in a while, but not very often, and not for very long.

            Why not?  And here’s the other thing:  on the rare occasions when we do trust God, when we do just do our best and trust God to take care of things, and God actually comes through for us–we’re amazed, just like the people in Capernaum were.  We’re astounded.  It’s like we’re thinking, wow, this God really does have the power He says he does.  He really does love us the way we’ve always heard.  God really is good after all.  It’s like a revelation to us.  We’re blown away by God actually being who we’ve always heard God is.

            Now, don’t get me wrong here.  I don’t think it’s a sin when we have trouble trusting God the way we should.  As I’ve said before God understands us better than we understand ourselves, because God made us.  God knows our faults and our failings better than we do.  I don’t think God’s going to send us to hell for this or anything.  

But I do think maybe God’s a little disappointed in us, that after all He’s done for us we still have trouble trusting Him.  And I also think it makes God a little bit sad.  God sees us putting ourselves through all this worry, all this anxiety, all this distress.  God sees us trying so frantically to do things by ourselves.  And God knows all this stuff we’re putting ourselves through is so unnecessary.  God knows we’d all be so much happier, so much more at peace in our lives, if we would just do our best and trust Him with the results.  And yet, we won’t do it.

And you know, that’s not really the right way to say it, either.  Because saying “we won’t do it” implies that we’ve made a conscious decision that we’re not going to trust God.  And that’s not true, at least no for most of us.  It’s not that we refuse to trust God.  It’s not even that we don’t want to trust God.  It’s just that, well, trusting God can be really hard sometimes.

Why is it hard?  I think it comes down to two very human traits:  arrogance and impatience.  

When I say arrogance, I don’t necessarily mean it the way we usually think of arrogance.  It’s not necessarily that we think we’re better than everyone else.  It might be that, but a lot of times, it’s not.  It’s that we think we know how things should go.  We think we know what’s best and what’s right.  And a lot of times, we don’t think that in a selfish way.  It’s just that, well, we convince ourselves that what we want is the best, not for ourselves, but for everyone involved.  We cannot see a possible downside for anyone.  And so, when things don’t go the way we’ve convinced ourselves that they should, we feel like, well, God’s not getting this done.  I’ve got to make it happen myself.  I’ve got to force it to happen.  This has to be what God wants, so I’ve got to do whatever I’ve got to do to bring it about.

It’s a lack of trust in God, of course.  But the point is that, at the time, we often don’t see it that way.  We’ve convinced ourselves that we’re doing what God wants us to do.  It simply does not occur to us that we’ve become arrogant about it, and that God has a different plan from our supposedly “perfect” plan.

And the other thing, of course, is our impatience.  We want God to act right now.  We don’t want to wait.  We don’t even want to wait until tomorrow, much less next year or next month or even next week.  And so, again, when God does not act when we think God should, we try to force the issue.  We try to make it happen right now.  And again, we convince ourselves that we’re doing what God wants us to do, that we need to be the ones that make things happen, rather than waiting for God’s timing.

Again, God understands all this.  I don’t think God’s mad at us for it.  But God knows that our lives would be so much better, that we’d have so much more peace in our lives, if we simply did our best and trusted Him to take care of things.

So what should we do?  Well, pray, for one thing.  And yes, I know, that’s always the pastor’s answer for everything.  But the thing is, it really is at least part of the answer for pretty much everything.  We need to ask for God’s help.  We need to ask God to help us trust Him, even when it seems to us like things are not going the way they should or that God is not acting when we think God should.  We need to ask God to help us trust in His wisdom and His timing.

But it also might help us to look through the Bible and look at all the times God used His power, and all the times He used it to help people.  From the creation of the universe to the parting of the Red Sea to Jesus’ miracles to everything in-between.  Over and over, God uses His power for the good of those who love Him.

And if that does not help, I have one more suggestion.  Think of all the times God has been there for you in your life.  Because if you really think about it, I suspect there have been several of them.  Times when you were not sure how things could possibly work out, but somehow they did.  Times when you did not think you could possibly get everything done that you needed to do, but somehow you did.  Times when you thought a relationship could not be repaired, but somehow it was.  Times when you were in trouble, and you could not see a way out, and somehow a way out appeared.  And that’s just a few examples–we could go on and on.

            When that happened, that was God using His power to help you.  Maybe you did not realize it at the time.  Maybe you’ve never thought about it that way.  But it was.  It was God using His power to help you.  If you look back at your life honestly, I suspect you can see time after time when God was there for you and helped you.  

            If God has helped you before, God will help you again.  The God of the universe, the God of Israel, the God through whom Jesus worked His miracles, will be there for you.  The God who loves you, the God who uses His power for good, will be there for you and will help you through whatever it is you need to be helped through.

            We should never take God’s power or God’s love for granted, but we should not be surprised by it, either.  Time and time again, God has shown that we can trust Him.  So lets put our worries and our fears and our anxiety aside.  Let’s do our best, put our trust in God, and be at peace.