How Deep Is God's Love

The Sunday morning message in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on January 28, 2024.  The Bible verses used are John 3:11-21.

            Today’s Bible reading includes one of the most popular Bible verses.  John Three, Sixteen.  “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

            Every time there’s a survey of favorite Bible verses, this one is at or near the top.  When I ask my confirmation classes to choose a favorite Bible verse, some of them always choose this one.  It’s one that almost everyone knows, and almost everyone loves.

            And it’s easy to see why.  We like hearing that God loves us.  We like hearing that God loves us so much that He would sacrifice the earthly life of the divine Son, Jesus Christ, for us.  We like hearing that if we believe in Jesus, we will have eternal life.

            And if we read a little farther, we really like the next verse, too.  “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”  We like hearing that Jesus did not come to condemn us.  We like hearing that Jesus came to save us.

            But too often, we stop there.  And that’s too bad.  I mean, all those things we’ve just said are awesome.  They’re great to hear, they’re great to know.  They’re all true.  But if we stop there, we cheat ourselves.  We don’t realize the true depth of the love God has for us.  And we don’t understand how awesome the salvation and eternal life we can get by that love really is.

            So let’s look at it.  Jesus said:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.  Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

“Whoever does not believe stands condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”  Think about what that really says.  Without the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, you and I and everyone would all be condemned.  None of us would be saved.  Not one.  Not the best, the most giving, the most caring person you can think of.  Not Mother Teresa.  Not Billy Graham.  Not Martin Luther King, Jr.  Not one of us would be saved if God did not love the world so much, that God gave his one and only Son.  If Jesus Christ had not died for our sins, each and every one of us would be condemned.

In fact, it’s not that each one of us would be condemned.  It’s that each of us is already condemned.  That’s what it says:  whoever does not believe stands condemned already.  But the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and our belief in Him as the Savior, takes away that condemnation.  We are people given a death sentence.  We’re just waiting for it to be carried out.  

And the thing is, it’s a death sentence we deserve.  Because none of us is good enough to get into heaven.  Maybe you say, well, but I know some really good people.  And you probably do.  Maybe you’re even one of them.  But to be good enough to get into heaven, we’d have to be as good as God.  And we cannot be as good as God, because God is perfect.  That’s what Jesus meant in Mark Ten, Eighteen when he said no one is good but God.  God is perfectly good.  You and I, no matter how hard we try and no matter how many good things we do, cannot be perfectly good.  And so none of us is good enough to go to heaven.  Again, we are condemned people, just waiting for that death sentence to be carried out.

And then, at the last minute, we’re given a pardon by God.  That pardon is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  Think of the love God has for us to do that.  To allow the divine Son to die, in a cruel and painful way, just to save each of us.  Each of us sinners.  Each of us undeserving people.

I mean, really think about that.  God did that just to allow each of us to get into heaven and have eternal life.  Why?  Why does God even want us in heaven?  Why does God want us fallen, bumbling, sinful, ungrateful people messing up heaven?  Why does God want us around at all?  We don’t belong there.  We don’t deserve to be there.  And yet, God wants us there.  God invites us in.  God is eager for us to come.  God is so eager for us to come that God sent His divine Son to die, to take the punishment we should get for our sins, so that you and I can go to heaven and have eternal life.  Why?

It’s love.  That’s the only answer there can be.  When we say, “God so loved the world”, what we’re really saying is God so loved you.  God loved you, and me, so much that he gave his one and only Son, that if we believe in Him we will not be condemned, even though we deserve to be.  Instead, we will have eternal life.  That’s amazing.  That’s an amazing love.  That’s how much God loves you.  And it’s how much God loves me.

In explaining this, Jesus said that we should look to him for salvation in the same way that looked at a snake that Moses lifted up in the wilderness.  That’s a story the people listening to Jesus would’ve known.  Maybe some of you know it, too, but maybe some of you don’t.  It’s a story from the book of Numbers, Chapter Twenty-one.  This is while the people of Israel are still out in the wilderness, before they get to the Promised Land.  The people of Israel are plagued by poisonous snakes.  A lot of them are dying.  Moses prays to God, and God answers.  

And in answering, God gives the people of Israel a way out.  God says, you know, the way the people of Israel have complained about me, the way they’ve rebelled against me, they really do deserve to die.  But, because the people of Israel are my chosen people, I will give them a chance to be saved.  So here’s what you do.  Make a bronze snake.  Put it on a pole.  When someone’s bitten by a snake, they should look at this bronze snake.  If they trust me enough to do that, they’ll live.  If they don’t, if they won’t put their faith in Me, then they’ll die.

Each one of us is dying, too.  Not right away, I hope, not the result of having been bitten by a poisonous snake.  But still, we know we’re all going to die at some point.  It’s just the way it is.

But God gives us a way out.  God says, I know that by the way you live, by the sins you commit, you really do deserve to die.  But because I love you, I will give you a chance to be saved.  So here’s what you do.  Look to Jesus.  Repent of your sins.  Ask for forgiveness.  Truly try to change.  And look to Jesus.  Have faith in Jesus.  Believe he is the Savior, the divine Son of God.  If you trust Me enough to do that, you’ll live.  If you don’t, if you won’t put your faith in Jesus, then you’ll die.  And you’ll die for eternity.

This is how much God loves us.  God loves us so much that God does not give us the death we deserve.  Instead, God gives us a way out.  God gives us the chance for salvation and eternal life, a chance that we do not deserve.  But God gives it to us anyway, because God loves us that much.

But, God does not force us to accept the way out that God offers.  God still gives us a choice.  The way out is there, if we’ll only take it.  But we have to make the decision to take it.  It’s our choice.

Do you suppose, back in Moses’ time, that there were people who were bitten by a poisonous snake, but refused to look at the bronze snake?  I suspect there were.  There were some people who probably thought that was stupid.  What, just looking at a bronze snake is going to make me all well again?  Yeah, right.  And so they died, because they did not trust God.  They did not have enough faith to take the way out God offered them.  

And there are people today who do the same thing.  There are people who think faith in God is stupid.  What, I believe in Jesus as the Savior, and that’s going to give me eternal life?  Even though I die here, I’m going to go to heaven and live with God forever?  Yeah, right.  And so they die.  They do not receive eternal life, because they do not have enough faith to take the way out God offers.  God allows them to make that choice.

Some people wonder why a loving God would allow people to make that choice.  If God loves us, why does God allow people to choose death over life?  But to me that shows just how much God really does love us.  Because true love does not force people to do things.

God does all kinds of things to try to persuade us to choose life.  God gave us His Holy Word, the Bible.  God gave us the divine Son, Jesus Christ.  God has given us prophets.  God’s Holy Spirit works in all kinds of ways, large and small.  God does any number of things to try to get us to turn to Him, to accept Jesus as the Savior, and choose eternal life.  

But God does not force us.  Love does not force people.  Love allows choices.  But of course, choices come with consequences.  God gives us the chance to choose eternal life.  But God allows us to not choose eternal life, and God allows us to accept the consequences of that choice.

John Three, Sixteen is a great verse.  But it’s more than just a nice, sweet verse that makes us feel good.  It’s a verse about the awesome love of God.  A love so strong that it gives us sinful, ungrateful, undeserving people a way to go to heaven and have eternal life.  Let’s make the right choice.  Let’s accept that way.  Let’s believe in the divine Son of God.  Let’s accept Him as the Savior.  And let’s be in awe of the incredible love of God that allows us to make that choice.

 

The Come to Jesus Moment

The Sunday night message in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on January 21, 2024.  The Bible verses used are John 1:29-51.

            Jesus is ready to start his ministry on earth.  He’s been baptized.  He had the Holy Spirit descend upon him like a dove.  A voice from heaven said, this is my Son, with Him I am well pleased.  All the preliminaries are done.  It’s time for Jesus to get started on what he came to earth to do.

            We generally think of Jesus starting by calling the disciples.  And you know, this shows how sometimes we really need to take a closer look at some of these Bible passages that we think we know.  Because we all have said it that way:  “Jesus called the disciples.”  I’ve said it that way, too.  But if you look at John’s account here, which is the first five of Jesus’ disciples being called, Jesus actually only called one of them.  He accepted them all, of course.  He wanted them all.  But he was not the one who initiated things with four of the first five disciples.

            Look at how this works.  John the Baptist is standing there with two of his disciples.  Jesus walks by.  John the Baptist says who Jesus is.  And immediately the two disciples leave John the Baptist and start following Jesus.

            Those are the first two of Jesus’ disciples.  We’re told that one of them is Andrew.  The other one is not named.  We assume it’s the disciple John, the one who wrote this gospel, and that he simply did not want to use his own name.  There are other places in the gospel of John where he avoids using his own name, so we assume that’s what’s going on here.  But the point is that these first two disciples were not chosen by Jesus.  They chose to follow Jesus, not the other way around.

           And the third disciple, Simon Peter, was not called by Jesus, either.  He’s Andrew’s brother.  We’re told that after Andrew decided to follow Jesus, the first thing he did was go find his brother Simon Peter and tell him they’d found the Messiah.  Then it says, “and he brought him to Jesus”.  Jesus did not go find Simon Peter.  Andrew brought Simon Peter to Jesus.

            The next disciple is the only one of the first five that Jesus calls.  It’s Philip.  We’re told that Jesus “found” Philip, and said to him “Follow me.”  But then, look at what happens.  Philip goes and finds Nathanael and tells him they’ve found the one Moses and the prophets wrote about.  Nathanael is skeptical, but Philip just says, “Come and see”, and he does.

            So four of the first five disciples were not called by Jesus at all.  Two of them came on their own, after hearing what John the Baptist said, and the other two came because someone they knew brought them to Jesus.  And maybe you’re thinking, “So what?”  What difference does it make how they got to Jesus as long as they got there?  And in one sense, you’re right.  As long as we get to Jesus it really does not matter how we get there.  But I think there are some lessons here for us.  Because I think the way these disciples found Jesus mirrors the way we find Jesus today.

            Some of us are like Philip.  Some of us are just kind of going about our business, living our lives, and suddenly Jesus comes along and speaks to us.  It could be through a direct contact, actually hearing the voice of Jesus or of an angel.  That may seem far-fetched to some of you, but I’ve talked to enough people and heard enough stories that I believe it does happen that way sometimes.  Or, it could be the Holy Spirit speaking directly to our hearts and souls somehow.  But that’s one way we find Jesus--through the Lord taking the initiative and speaking directly to us.

            But there was only one of the first five disciples who found Jesus that way.  It was not the way it happened for the majority.  And I think it’s not the way it happens for the majority of us, either.  It’s great when it does, don’t get me wrong.  But for most of us it happens in another way.

           One of the other ways it happens is the way it happened for Andrew and John.  They were already following John the Baptist.  They’d heard John the Baptist’s preaching about repentance and forgiveness.  They’d heard him tell them that he was preparing the way for when the Savior came.  What that means is that Andrew and John had a background in the faith.  They were open to the message of salvation.  And when they found Jesus, the one who could give them that salvation, they were ready to follow him right then.

            Some of us are like that.  Some of us have grown up in the church.  We’ve heard the word preached.  We’ve heard about repentance and forgiveness and God’s love.  We’re open to the message of salvation.  And when we find Jesus, the one who can give us that salvation, we’re ready to follow.

            But some of us are like Simon Peter and Nathanael.  Jesus did not send us a direct message.  We did not grow up in the church.  We were not looking for the message of salvation.  But then, someone came along and told us about it anyway.  And they brought us to Jesus.  Maybe some of us were like Simon Peter, who seems to have come right away when his brother went to get him.  But some of us are like Nathanael, openly skeptical of what we hear.  And someone says to us, “It’s okay if you’re skeptical.  But come and see.  Come and see for yourself.”

            What this shows, I think, is that God has all kinds of ways of calling people to him.  God gives some people a direct message.  And that’s awesome when it happens, but it’s not something in our control.  God either does that or God does not, based on whatever reasons God may have.

            God calls some people through their parents or others making sure they grow up in the church and have a background in the church.  And that’s a wonderful thing, too, when it happens.  But if you’re an adult now, you either grew up in the church or you did not.  We cannot go back and change the past, even if we’d like to.  However we grew up is how we grew up, for better or worse.

            But sometimes, God uses people to call other people.  God used Andrew to call Simon Peter.  God used Philip to call Nathanael.  And God can use you and me to call people to God, too.

            Now, notice, God did not have Andrew and Philip call complete strangers.  Andrew was Simon Peter’s brother.  Philip and Nathanael don’t appear to have been related, but from the way it’s written they clearly knew each other.  The people Andrew and Philip went to were people they already had a relationship with.  Simon Peter knew he could trust Andrew.  Nathanael knew he could trust Philip.  That relationship had already been established.

            And notice, too, that Andrew and Philip did not use any fancy words to persuade Simon Peter and Nathanael.  Andrew simply told Simon Peter, “We have found the Messiah”.  Philip uses a few more words, but he basically says the same thing.  “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote.”  And when Nathanael is skeptical, Philip does not argue with him.  He does not go into a big spiel to try to persuade him.  He simply says, “Come and see.”  See for yourself.  We’ll show you what we’ve found, and you can decide whether I’m right or not.

            That’s all God asks us to do.  We don’t have to go onto a street corner and confront strangers with the gospel.  All God asks us to do is to go to people we know, people we already have some sort of relationship with, people who know they can trust us.  Go to those people, and tell them what we’ve found.  Tell them what our faith means to us.  Tell them how important our faith is to us.  Tell them how our faith helps us.  Tell them what this church means to us, how important this church is to us, how this church helps us.  And if they’re skeptical, we don’t need to argue with them or go into a big spiel to persuade them.  All we need to do is say, as Philip did, “Come and see”.  See for yourself.  We’ll show you what we have here, and you can decide for yourself whether we’re right or not.

            We won’t always succeed.  For all we know, Andrew and Philip might not have always succeeded.  Maybe they went to some other people and got turned down, we don’t know.  But we’ll succeed sometimes.  And when we do, we’ll have done what Jesus told us to do.  We’ll have made disciples of Jesus Christ.

            We come to God in all kinds of ways.  Sometimes God brings people to himself directly.  But sometimes, God uses us to bring people to him.  May we always be open to sharing our faith.  And when people are skeptical, may we always invite them to come and see.

 

Chance Encounter

The Sunday morning message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on January 21, 2024.  The Bible verses used are John 4:1-26.

            The story we read today is one of my favorite stories in the Bible.  I mean, I suppose I have a lot of favorite stories in the Bible, but this is one of them.  And one of the things I love about it is the sheer randomness of it.

            Now, when I say randomness, I cannot say whether it was random from Jesus’ point of view.  It’s entirely possible that Jesus had this all planned out from the beginning.  Jesus may have known that there was this woman in Samaria who always went to this same well at the same time.  He may have deliberately timed his trip to Samaria so that he would get to the well just before the woman got there, so he could meet and talk to her.  I mean, after all, he’s Jesus.  He told Nathanael that he saw him while he was still sitting under a fig tree, before they’d ever met.  So Jesus can do stuff like this if he wants to.

            But that’s not the way John presents the story to us.  The way John presents the story, this was just a chance encounter.  It’s sort of like one of Wanda’s Hallmark Channel or Great movies, where two people meet by accident and the meeting changes their lives forever.  Except that here, this chance meeting did not just change a life.  It led to people receiving eternal life.

            And certainly, from the point of view of the Samaritan woman, it was a chance encounter.  She had no idea that she’d be meeting the Messiah, the Savior, on that day.  She probably did not expect to meet anyone.  For her, this was just another day.  A day like any other day.  She needed water, this was where the well was, so she went to get water.  Just like she probably did every day at about this time.

            She sees a man sitting there.  She can tell it’s not a Samaritan.  It’s a Jewish man.  As our reading says, Jews did not associate with Samaritans and vice versa.  I’m sure she was quite ready for this man to ignore her, and she was prepared to ignore him as well.  But then, amazingly enough, he speaks to her.  He asks her for a drink of water.  

            She could not believe it.  Why is this man, this stranger, this Jewish stranger, talking to her?  She asks him that.  And just to make sure he understands the situation, she goes out of her way to point out why he should not be speaking to her.  She says, “You are a Jew.  I am a Samaritan woman.  How can you ask me for a drink?”  Like, maybe this guy does not see very well or is just kind of stupid or something.  Maybe he does not realize I’m a Samaritan.  I’d better spell it out for him, so he does not get us both into trouble.

            And Jesus answers, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

            Do you think the Samaritan woman knew what that meant?  I doubt it.  But here’s the surprising thing.  She does not cut him off.  She does not walk away.  Even though she’s not supposed to be talking to a Jewish man, there’s something about this Jewish man that makes her stay and have a conversation with him.  She may not have understood what Jesus meant, but she knew he meant something, and it was something important.  She knew there was something different, something special, about this Jewish man.  And so she asks him, where are you going to get this living water from?  Are you greater than our great father, the Jacob of the Bible?

            And Jesus answers, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

            Do you think the Samaritan woman knew what that meant?  It seems obvious to me that she did not.  She’s still thinking of regular water, water to drink.  She thinks, man, I don’t know what that living water is, but I sure wish I had some.  To never be thirsty again?  To never have to come back to this stupid well and draw water every single day, the way I do now?  Boy, sign me up for that!  So, she asks Jesus for some living water.

            And Jesus says, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

            Now, really try to put yourself in this woman’s place here.  You’re talking to this strange Jewish man.  You can tell there’s something different about him, but you really don’t know what.  You don’t understand all this living water stuff, and for all you know it might not even exist.  It might just be a line this Jewish man is giving you.  He might just be trying to make fun of you.  But now, it’s starting to get personal.  He’s asking about your husband, and you don’t have one.

            But then you think, well, he does not know me.  He probably just assumed a woman my age would be married.  So you say, “I have no husband.”

            And Jesus says, “You are right when you say you have no husband.  The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

            Okay, that’s pretty freaky, right?  I mean, here’s this guy you’ve never met, and he knows all this stuff about you.  How’d he do that?  I mean, it’s not like he could’ve looked up your facebook profile.  Has he been to town and heard gossip?  Are people really talking about me all over town?  Doesn’t seem likely.  But how could he know all this?

            And she realizes there’s only one way.  He must be a prophet.  And so she asks him a question.

            Have you ever thought about what question you’d ask a prophet, if you could?  We could probably think of all kinds of questions.  After all, a prophet knows the will of God.  We’d all like to know the will of God, right?  And probably this woman would have, too. She probably had a lot of questions, too.  But she knows she probably does not have a lot of time, so she asks one question, a theological question about the proper place to worship God.  

            And Jesus answers, “You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.  Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”  And then, when the woman says someday the Messiah will come and explain it all, Jesus answers, “I am he.”

            That’s the end of the conversation, as far as we know from the Bible.  But then, what does this woman do?  She goes back to town, tells people what happened, a lot of them come out to see Jesus, and we’re told that many of them came to be believers.  Any number of lives were changed, just because of this one chance encounter between Jesus and a Samaritan woman.  This chance encounter that happened on what, up until the moment she met Jesus, seemed like just another ordinary day.

            So what’s the point?  Well, tomorrow morning, you’re going to get up.  You’re going to go to work, you’re going to go to school, you’re going to do whatever it is you do.  Maybe you have something special planned for tomorrow, but most of us probably don’t.  For most of us, tomorrow is going to be just another ordinary day.

            And maybe it will be.  But maybe it won’t.  Maybe something special is going to happen tomorrow.  Maybe something life-changing is going to happen tomorrow.  Maybe you’re going to meet Jesus tomorrow.  

            And maybe Jesus is going to come at a time and in a way you don’t expect him, just as he did for the Samaritan woman.  You probably won’t meet Him at a well.  But maybe you’ll see Him at the convenience store.  Maybe you’ll see Him at the cafe.  Maybe you’ll see Him at a ball game.  You could be minding your own business, just doing what you do every day, and all of a sudden, there He is.  

You may not recognize Him.  You may have no idea that He’s Jesus.  It may appear to be just a chance encounter with some random stranger.  You may wonder why He’s even talking to you.  You may wish He’d just mind His own business and quit bothering you.  You may even be tempted to ignore Him.

Don’t ignore Him.  See Him.  Talk to Him.  Hear what He has to say to you.  Trust it.  Believe it.  And tell others about it, so they can come and believe.

Does that sound far-fetched?  Well, maybe it is.  But it would’ve sounded far-fetched to the Samaritan woman, too.  She’d have thought there was no way she would ever meet the Messiah, the Savior.  And she’d have kept thinking that, right up until the moment it happened.

I’m not saying you will meet Jesus tomorrow.  But you know, with God, all things are possible.  So pay attention.  There’s always the chance that something could happen on your ordinary Monday that will change your life.  And it might change a lot of other people’s lives, too.

 

Encourage One Another

The message given in the Sunday night worship service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on January 14, 2024.  The Bible verses used are Hebrews 3:12-19.

            It’s not easy to be a Christian these days.  Society in general does not hold Christianity in very high regard.  We may not notice it here, living in a small town in north-central South Dakota.  But we see it when we watch the news.  And while we can pretend that it does not affect us here, it does.

            But you know, things were not that different for the early Christians.  In fact, things were worse.  They were subject to persecution.  They were subject to ridicule.  Things were not easy at all for the early Christians.

            And in fact, you could make the argument that things are not supposed to be easy for Christians.  A lot of the things Jesus told us to do go against our instinctive human nature.  “If your right eye causes you to stumble, gauge it out and throw it away.”  “If anyone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also.”  “If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them.”  “Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you.”  “Treat others the way you want them to treat you.”  No matter what the circumstances are, it’s not easy to live the life of a Christian.

            In our reading for tonight, the letter to the Hebrews gives us some encouragement to live that life.  Our reading starts this way:  “See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.  But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called ‘Today’, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.”

            Let’s look at that, because there’s a lot in it.  First of all, it gives us, as Christians, responsibility for each other.  “See to it…that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart.”  Don’t just see to it that you, personally, don't have a sinful, unbelieving heart.  See to it that none of you does.  Each of us is called to do whatever we can to make sure that none of the Christians around us drifts away.  We are responsible for each other’s faith.

            Now, I’m not saying that my lack of faith in Jesus can keep you out of heaven.  We’re responsible for ourselves, too.  But the point is that, as Christians, we need to keep an eye on the faith of our fellow believers.  If we see someone starting to waver, if we see someone starting to slip, we should not just sit back and allow it to happen.  We need to do something.  Not in a judgmental way, but in a loving way.  In an encouraging way.  And it’s not enough to just do this when we happen to notice it.  We need to pay attention to how others are doing, so we can step in and provide that love and encouragement.

            That’s not something that comes naturally to us.  We tend to think of faith as a private thing.  We don’t ask other people about their faith.  And I’m as guilty of that as anyone.  I mean, because I’m a pastor, once in a while someone will initiate a conversation about faith, and I’m happy to have that conversation.  But I don’t initiate it myself.  

It's just not something we do.  We don’t ask people how their faith is.  We don’t even ask, as John Wesley used to do, “How is it with your soul today?”  The closest we get is to say, “How’s it going?”  To which, nine times out of ten, people will respond “Fine”.  And on those rare occasions when someone really does tell us how it’s going, we’re kind of stunned.  We don’t know what to say.

But that’s not the way it’s supposed to be.  Faith is not supposed to be a private thing.  Faith is supposed to be a public thing.  We’re supposed to talk about our faith.  We’re especially supposed to talk about faith with our brothers and sisters in faith.  

And in fact, we’re not just supposed to do that, we need to do it.  And we need others to do it with us.  Because, what’s the next thing the letter says?  It says we are to encourage each other daily, as long as it is called “Today”.

We need that.  We need to encourage each other.  But not just encourage each other in our daily lives.  We need to encourage each other in our faith.  Because, again, our society, our popular culture, discourage us in our faith.  Our popular culture mocks and makes fun of God.  Oh, they might, sometimes, pay lip service to the idea of serving God.  But even that is becoming less prevalent than it used to be, and usually it’s used to further some sort of political agenda.  Let someone actually take their faith seriously, let them actually go public with their faith, and see what happens.  They’re criticized if not totally ostracized.  And the rest of us see that, and it can make us even more reluctant to go public with our faith.

We need to encourage each other in our faith.  We need to support each other in our faith.  We need to be vocal about our faith with each other.  Not just assume that everyone is “fine”, but really encourage each other in our faith.  We need to know that, no matter what the popular culture says, we are there for each other and we can trust God to be there for us, too.

And look at the reason our reading gives for this.  We need to encourage each other “so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.”

Sin’s deceitfulness is out there.  It’s everywhere.  Again, it’s all over the popular culture.  And it can look very appealing to us.  If it did not, we would not be tempted by it.  

And one of the things that makes sin’s deceitfulness so appealing, and so tempting, is that we see people who are going along with sin appearing to succeed.  And not only do they appear to succeed, they get praised by society.  They’re held up as role models for us to look up to and to try to be like.

It is really tempting for us to, as they say, “go along to get along”.  If we see people of faith being mocked and criticized, and we see people who appear not to have faith lauded and rewarded, what are we tempted to do?  We’re tempted to go along with the behaviors that are rewarded.  We might not agree with them, but we keep our disagreement to ourselves.  Again, we keep our faith private, rather than being public about it.  And by keeping our faith private, we make it more likely that others–even our brothers and sisters in Christ–will fall for sin’s deceitfulness.  They won’t know that we disagree privately.  All they’ll see is that we’re going along with it publicly.

Again, we need to encourage each other.  We need to encourage our fellow believers.  We need to encourage our brothers and sisters in Christ.  And we need them to encourage us, too.  If we don’t, we may all fall for sin’s deceitfulness.

Our reading says that we have come to share in Christ, “if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end.”  That’s one of our goals as Christians–to stay firm in our faith until the very end.  To resist sin’s deceitfulness.  To not have the sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.

But as we said at the beginning, that’s not easy.  It never has been easy.  It’s not supposed to be easy.  It takes courage.  It takes determination.  It takes perseverance.  It takes reliance on God, of course.  But it also takes reliance on others.  Those of us in the church, those of us who are believers in Christ, need to encourage each other to stay strong in our faith.  If we do, it’s much more likely that we will all stay firm in our faith.  If we don’t, it’s much more likely that some of us–maybe all of us–will drift away.

Receiving encouragement from others to keep our faith strong will bring us closer to God.  And giving encouragement to others will keep their faith strong and bring them closer to God.  And if all of God’s people are closer to God, we might be able to bring others closer to God, too.  

It is not easy to be a Christian.  But it is worth it.  No matter how appealing sin’s deceitfulness may be, we have a reward that is greater.  If we hold our original conviction, our faith in Jesus Christ, firmly to the end, we will have salvation and eternal life.  And there can be nothing on earth that is better than that.

So let’s be more vocal about our faith.  Let’s be more public about our faith.  Let’s encourage each other and support each other.  Let’s resist sin’s deceitfulness and hold firm to our faith.  Let’s do all we can to make sure we all share in that reward of salvation and eternal life.

 

Wrath and Repentance

The Sunday morning worship service in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on January 14, 2024.  The Bible verses used are John 2:13-22.

            One of the things that shows up a lot in the Bible, but which is rarely talked about, is the wrath of God.  Even a lot of us pastors don’t like to talk about it very much.  Hearing about the wrath of God--or preaching about the wrath of God--makes us uncomfortable.  We like to think that God is love, that God is forgiveness, that God is mercy.  

And of course, that’s all true.  God is love.  God is forgiveness.  God is mercy.  But wrath is also a part of who God is.  If you look in the New International Version of the Bible, you’ll find God’s wrath mentioned one hundred eighty times.  So we cannot honestly deal with the Bible if we don’t talk about it.

            But we say, well, the wrath of God is an Old Testament concept.  That all changed when Jesus came.  Jesus has a gospel of love, of caring, of forgiveness, of mercy.  Jesus’ message was not a message of vengeful anger.  Jesus’ message was a message of love.

            And there is some truth in that.  Of those one hundred eighty mentions of God’s wrath, about a hundred fifty of them come in the Old Testament.  And it’s also true that Jesus did talk a lot about love and forgiveness.  But that does not allow us to just ignore the subject of God’s wrath, for a few reasons.

One is that the Old Testament is still part of the Bible.  It is still God’s word to us.  If we’re going to be honest about our faith, we cannot just ignore something on the grounds that it comes from the Old Testament.  

Another is that God does not change.  The Bible tells us that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  Therefore, it cannot be that God used to feel wrath but does not do so any more.  God does not change in that way.

But for me, the thing that clinches it is that Jesus showed he could feel anger.  Jesus, in our Bible reading for today, showed genuine wrath.  Jesus showed extreme anger.  It was a strong, vengeful anger.  It’s true that Jesus is love and forgiveness and mercy, but it’s clear from our reading for today that that’s not all Jesus is.  As the joke goes, when we ask “What would Jesus do?”, we need to remember that chasing people with a whip is one of the options.

Now, I don’t want to be misunderstood.  I don’t believe that God is an angry God.  I don’t think God sits in heaven in a bad mood, waiting for a chance to slam people.  The Bible also says God is slow to anger.  It says that several times, and often follows it by saying that God is abounding in love.  We do not worship an angry God.  An angry God would’ve wiped us out a long time ago, with all the stupid things we humans can get up to.  In fact, an angry God would’ve known how frustrating we humans would be and probably would not have created us in the first place.  An angry God would’ve stopped with dogs or something.

But God can get angry.  And Jesus could get angry.  Look at what our Bible reading says.  Jesus wanders into the temple courts shortly before Passover.  He sees people in the temple courts selling cattle, sheep, and doves.  The reason they were doing that was because those were things people needed to make sacrifices in the temple.  Jesus also sees people sitting at tables exchanging money.  The reason they were doing that was because you could only buy the animals for the sacrifices with a certain type of money, and not many people had that type of money.  So, they needed to exchange it.

And the thing is, in both of those instances, the sellers had a captive market.  You could only use animals bought in the temple courts for sacrifices, and you could only buy those animals with the money you got from the money changers in the temple courts.  That meant that, to make a sacrifice to God, you’d have to pay whatever the people in the temple courts required you to pay.  Saying it was too much and walking away was not really an option, either, because these were sacrifices they were required to make under Jewish law.

That was what got Jesus so upset.  The people who were in charge of the temple were religious leaders.  These were people who knew the scriptures backward and forward.  They knew what God wanted.  These were people who claimed to be representing God.  They claimed to be serving God.  And all they were doing was serving themselves.  They knowingly and deliberately disobeyed God for their own selfish desires.

When you read the Bible, that’s the sort of thing that gets God angry.  That’s what provokes God’s wrath.  It’s not our mistakes.  God knows we’re going to make mistakes.  It’s not our weakness.  God knows how weak we are.  It’s not even our sins, necessarily.  God knows how prone to sin we are.  After all, the Bible says that we’re all sinners.  If our sin was going to make God angry, God would spend all of His time being angry.  And again, our God is not an angry God.

God knows all about our mistakes and our weaknesses and our sinful nature.  God knows more about that than we do.  After all, God created us, and when you create something you see the flaws in it better than anyone else.  The fact that God knows everything about us, and loves us anyway, shows that God is not an angry God.  

None of those things provokes God’s wrath.  What provokes God’s wrath is when we make a conscious decision to do something we know God does not want.  What provokes God’s wrath is when we understand perfectly well what God wants us to do and how God wants us to live, and yet we still go ahead and disobey God anyway.  And what provokes God’s wrath is when we do that not out of fear of what could happen, and not out of a failure to sufficiently trust God, but simply to fulfill our own selfish desires.

Our Bible reading for today shows that God’s wrath is real, and that even Jesus could display it.  He overturned the tables and chased people with a whip.  That’s a pretty powerful wrath for someone who’s known as the Prince of Peace.

But here’s the good news.  Even in God’s wrath, there is always the chance for forgiveness.  Because those other things we said about God are all true.  God is a God of love and forgiveness and mercy.  Because in all those hundred and eighty times that the Bible mentions God’s wrath, there’s always more to the story.  That more is that people sincerely repent of their sin.  They go to God humbly, and they ask for forgiveness.  And God forgives them.  And God blesses them and gives them another chance.  It happens every single time.

So what does that mean for our lives?  Well, take a look at your life.  And I’ll take a look at my life.  Is there a time when you made a conscious decision to do something that you knew God did not want?  Is there a time when you understood what God wanted you to do and how God wanted you to live, and yet went ahead and disobeyed God anyway?  And is there a time when you did that just to fulfill your own selfish desires?   And I have to answer those questions, too, and ask if there are times when I’ve done those things.

Maybe you have not.  I don’t know.  It’s not my job to judge you.  Judgment is God’s job, not mine, and I’m quite content to leave it in God’s hands.  God knows a lot more about it than I do.  But I encourage you to ask those questions.  And I encourage you to do it seriously.  And I need to do it seriously, too.  Because here’s the thing:  God already knows the answers to those questions.  We may be able to fool other people.  We may even be able to fool ourselves, if we want to badly enough.  But we cannot fool God.  We can never fool God.

So we need to seriously ask those questions of ourselves.  And we need to answer them as honestly as we can.  And if we have any inkling that the answer to any of them might be yes, we need to do something about that.  We need to go to God.  We need to go humbly and sincerely.  We need to repent of our sins, and we need to ask God for forgiveness.  If we do, we know God will give us that forgiveness.  God will bless us and God will give us another chance.

And remember, too, that Jesus told us something else.  Jesus said there is incredible rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents.  So there’s no need for the idea of repentance to scare us.  If you need to repent--if I need to repent--let’s do it now.  Let’s give heaven a chance to throw a party for us today.  Because after all, a party in our honor beats getting chased with a whip every time.

 

The Most Important Person in the World

The Sunday night message given in the Gettysburg United Methodist church.  The Bible verses used are John 9:1-41.

            When you look at Jesus’ miracles, it’s amazing to me how many of them don’t seem to have been planned out ahead of time.  Think about it.  Jesus just goes to a wedding as a guest, and the next thing we know he’s turning water into wine.  Jesus is trying to get off by himself, but a bunch of people follow him, he speaks to them, and the next thing we know he’s feeding five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish.  Those are just a couple of examples where Jesus was really just kind of minding his own business, and all of a sudden circumstances prompt him to work a miracle.

            And our story today is another one.  Jesus is walking down the road, sees a blind man, and decides to heal him.  The way it’s written, it does not sound like Jesus set out that day to heal a blind man.  It does not sound like Jesus had any particular plan, really.  It just says “as he was walking along, he saw a man who was blind since birth.”  The disciples ask him whose fault it was that this many had been born blind, and Jesus says, “This happened so that the works of God might be displayed through him.”

            You know, as I read this, I have all kinds of questions.  First, how did the disciples know this man had been born blind?  I mean, I can see how they could’ve figured out that he was blind, but how did they know he was born that way?  Was he somebody they knew?  Did Jesus tell them?  

            And then, I wonder how the blind man felt when he heard this conversation between Jesus and the disciples about whose fault it was that he’d been born blind.  I mean, the way it sounds, and they’re having this conversation right in front of him.  Have you ever had that happen, to have people talk about you like you were not even there, even though you are right there, right in front of them?  Talk about feeling insignificant.  This guy might just as well have been a rock by the side of the road, for all the disciples noticed him.

            But then, he’d have heard Jesus say that bit about him being blind “so that the works of God might be displayed through him.”  What must he have thought about that?  He was pretty confused, probably.  We don’t even know if he knew who Jesus was.  He’d have heard the disciples call him “Rabbi”, so he’d have known that much.  But did he know Jesus could work miracles?  

And how was his being blind going to let the works of God be displayed.  What works of God, anyway?  Was Jesus saying his blindness was a work of God?  He must have really wondered what was going on.

So Jesus spits on the ground, makes some mud, and rubs it on the guy’s eyes.  He tells him “Go, wash in the Pool of Siloam.”

As the story comes to us, that’s the only thing Jesus said.  He did not explain who he was.  He did not explain what he was doing.  He did not say what, if anything, would happen after this guy washed in the Pool of Siloam.  He just said to do it.

And the guy did it!  That’s pretty amazing, really.  Again, we don’t know that he had any idea who Jesus was.  We don’t know that he had any idea that Jesus had special healing powers.  When he was going to the Pool of Siloam, what was he thinking?  After all, he was blind.  Going to the Pool of Siloam, even if it was not far away, would not have been easy for a blind man.  And the Bible does not say anything about him having any help.

So what do you think he was thinking?  Did he really believe he was going to be healed by washing in the Pool of Siloam?  Or did he think, well, what have I got to lose, really?  

And it worked!  Can you imagine how he must have felt?  Can you imagine what that would be like?  To have been born blind, to never have seen anything, to not even really understand what it meant to see something.  And then, all of a sudden, you can see!  I mean, that had to feel incredible.

And then come the questions.  First from his neighbors.  Now, you really cannot blame them for having questions.  I mean, they’d known this guy for years, they knew he was blind, and now he can see?  How’s that work?  How’s it even possible?

But then the Pharisees question him.  He tells them the story, and they refuse to believe it.  So they ask him again.  And he tells them again.  This keeps happening, over and over and over.  The Pharisees keep asking him questions, he keeps answering them, and they keep refusing to believe it.

But here’s the thing.  Think about this.  The day before this--in fact, earlier that same day--the Pharisees would not have had any interest in this guy at all.  They would’ve walked right past him.  I mean, he was a blind man.  He was a beggar.  In their world, he was being punished by God, either because of his own sins or his parents’ sins.  He was essentially a non-person in the eyes of the Pharisees.  They would’ve ignored him.  They would not have given him the time of day.  They’d have had zero interest in anything he had to say.

And now, just a few hours later, this guy is the most important person around.  The Pharisees pretty much demand to talk to him.  And they keep talking to him, questioning him.  And as you look at the answers he gives to the Pharisees, it sounds like this formerly blind man loves the attention he’s getting, and you cannot blame him.  It also sounds like he gives no deference to the Pharisees, and you cannot blame him for that, either.  He tells the Pharisees Jesus is a prophet.  He asks them if they want to be Jesus’ disciples.  He tells them that Jesus could not do what he’d done if he was not from God.  This guy has to know he’s making the Pharisees mad, but he does not care.  And there’s no reason he should care, because he knows he’s telling the truth.  If the Pharisees don’t want to accept it, that’s their problem.  But he’s going to praise God, and praise this prophet who has cured him of his blindness, because he knows what happened.  He knows the truth.

Think about what Jesus did for this man.  When you think about it, Jesus really worked two miracles first man.  Jesus cured him of his blindness, of course, and it would’ve been awesome enough if Jesus had just stopped there.  But Jesus did more than that.  Jesus elevated this man from essentially being a non-person to being the most important person around.  He went from being someone who people ignored to someone people could not stop talking to. That had to feel almost as good, maybe even better, as being able to see.  

In the end, of course, the Pharisees threw him out.  But it looks like he did not care, and why should he?  He did not need them anymore.  He did not need anyone.  Except for one person.  He needed Jesus.  When Jesus caught up with him again, he said to Jesus, tell me who the Son of Man is, so I can believe in him.  And when Jesus told him, he worshiped Jesus.

You see, that’s what makes Jesus the great healer.  It’s not just because of his physical healing.  That’s what we always think of, the miraculous physical healing he gave so many people.  That’s important, but it’s not the most important way Jesus heals us.  Jesus provides spiritual healing.  He can take us from feeling like we’re lost, feeling like we’re not important, feeling like no one cares about us, to feeling like we’re the most important person around.  Because in Jesus’ eyes, we are.  Each one of us, to Jesus, is the most important person around.  No matter who insignificant or helpless we feel, each one of us is incredibly important to Jesus.

We’re living in an uncertain world right now.  Some might say it’s a scary world.  It’s a world that seems to be changing every day.  Many things we used to depend on are not there anymore.  There are all kinds of new things that we don’t fully understand.  Sometimes we feel kind of lost.  We feel unimportant.  We feel like we have no control over anything.  That’s one of the reasons people sometimes start to hoard things--it’s an attempt to have control over some aspect, any aspect, of our lives in a world that seems totally out of control.

But it’s not.  The world is not out of control.  God is still there.  Nothing happens that God does not allow.  And Jesus is still there, and Jesus is still the great healer.  Jesus can heal us physically, and that’s very important.  But Jesus can also heal us spiritually.  In a world where we feel totally insignificant, Jesus can come and make us feel like the most important person around.  Jesus will do that, if we put our faith and trust in him.  If we worship him, like the blind man worshiped him.  Because then we will know the truth, just like the blind man knew the truth.

You and I are not insignificant.  We are not unimportant.  When we experience Jesus’ healing, we’ll know that.  Because then, we will know the truth.

 

Worthy of Our Calling

The Sunday morning message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on January 7, 2024.  The Bible verses used are Ephesians 4:1-16.

            We talk sometimes about how we should live our lives the way the Lord told us to.  Not because we’re trying to earn our way into heaven, but because God deserves that from us.  As I was reading the Bible this week, I realized that the Apostle Paul had said that much better and much shorter than I do.  He said, “live a life worthy of the calling you have received.”

            That’s an awesome phrase:  “a life worthy of the calling you have received”.  You know, pastors love to talk about how they’re called to be pastors.  In fact, one of the things you have to do to become a pastor is to write your “call statement”, a statement of when and how you felt God calling you to be a pastor.  Actually, you have to write it, and discuss it, several times, for several different groups of people.  You write it so many times that, after a while, you start to wonder if it’s even real.  It starts to feel like someone else’s call statement, rather than your own, just because you’ve had to go over it so many times.

            But the truth is that calling is not just for pastors.  Each one of us is called by God to do something.  Probably a variety of things, as we go through our lives.

            Sometimes we get a little scared of that idea.  We think, what if God calls me to do something I cannot do, or something I don’t like doing?  But it’s not likely that God would do that, because God knows us better than we know ourselves.  God was not going to call me to be a professional basketball player, because God knows I have no talent for that.  God was not going to call me to be an airline pilot, because God knows I don’t like to fly.  God was not going to call me to go and be a missionary in Africa, because God knows I would be no good at that.  

Now, God may sometimes call us to stretch ourselves a little bit, to take some risks and try different things.  But if God is calling us to do something, God will provide us with the means and the ability to actually do it.  God would not call us to do something we simply are not capable of doing.

But God will sometimes call us to do things we don’t realize we’re capable of doing.  Because the only way we can really find out whether we can do something is to try it.  I did not know if I could be a pastor until I became one.  They teach you some things in seminary, and they’re good things to know, but the fact is that the only way to learn how to be a pastor is to be one.  To jump in, make some mistakes, hopefully learn from them, and hopefully make fewer mistakes, or at least different mistakes, as time goes on.

But the point is that each of us is called to do something.  That’s true for all of us, no matter who we are and no matter what age we are.  Everyone, from kids in school to people in the nursing home to everyone in-between, is called to do something.  What it is may change over the course of our lives, but everyone is called to do something.  If God did not have a purpose for us to be on earth, we would not be.  As long as we’re here, there is a reason for us to be here.

And when you think about it, that’s a pretty awesome thing.  To think that God, the almighty, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-seeing, all-everything God, would call on us–puny, weak, little old us–to do things for Him.  

Because, when you think about it, there is nothing we can do for God that God could not do without us.  In fact, God could probably do things easier without us.  God allows us to “help”, but the truth is that you and I are probably no help at all for God.  Most of the time, we probably just get in the way and make things harder and more complicated than they need to be.

When we think of it that way, we realize what an honor it is that God would call us to do anything.  It is a privilege to be allowed to serve God in some way.  We really should be kind of  humbled to realize that God, as powerful and awesome as God is, would love us enough to let us serve Him, and in fact would love us enough to call us to serve Him.

But while a calling is an honor, and a privilege, it is also a responsibility.  Obviously, we have a responsibility to do what God has called us to do, and to do it to the best of our ability.  But we also have a responsibility to, as Paul says, live a life that is worthy of the calling we have received.

How do we do that?  Paul tells us that, too.  He says, “be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.  Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.”

That sounds good, of course.  We probably agree with it.  But agreeing with it is one thing.  Doing it is something else.

The world is in a lot of conflict right now.  Our country is in a lot of conflict right now.  In fact, sometimes it seems like everywhere we look, we see conflict.

And when there is conflict, you have people who are one side and people who are on the other side.  And that’s not inherently wrong–it’s okay to have opinions.  But when we’re dealing with conflict–when we’re dealing with people who disagree with us, sometimes quite loudly and strongly–it can be very hard to do Paul tells us to do.  It can be hard to be humble, and gentle, and patient.  It can be hard to bear with others in love.  It can be very hard to keep any unity of Spirit through the bond of peace, especially when it seems like the people on the other side have no interest in having unity or peace with you.  Our instinct, when we’re challenged, is to fight back.  Our instinct is to give as good as we get.  Our instinct is to treat others, not as we would like them to treat us, but as they actually do treat us.

Paul understands that, but he does not give us an excuse for it.  What he says, basically, is that that’s what children do.  Kids are ruled by their emotions, “tossed by the waves, blown here and there by every wind.”  

Paul tells us that, if we want to live lives worthy of our calling, we need to grow up.  And how do we do that?  By speaking the truth in love.  If we do that, not only do we grow up, we become like Christ.  Paul says, “speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of Him who is the head, that is, Christ.”

Speaking the truth in love.  That has two components to it, you know.  The first is to speak the truth.  Paul does not say that we should compromise in order to get along with people.  We are to keep the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace, but not at the price of truth.  And when we speak about truth, in this context, we’re talking about God’s truth.  The truth that Jesus Christ is the Savior.  The truth that Jesus is the divine Son of God.  The truth that Jesus is the only way to heaven, that we cannot come to God except through Him.  Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”  We cannot compromise the truth of Jesus Christ.  If we are to live lives worthy of our calling, we must speak that truth.

But how we speak that truth is what makes the difference.  If we follow our basic human instincts, if we fight back when we’re challenged, if we give as good as we get and treat people the way they’ve treated us, rather than the way we’d like them to treat us, we’re probably not going to be patient, or gentle, or humble.  And we’re probably not likely to speak the truth in love, the way Paul told us to.

So, if we’re going to do this, we need to overcome our basic human instincts.  We need to not respond like children, ruled by our emotions.  We need to respond as the mature body of Christ.  Speak the truth, yes–again, we do no one any favors when we compromise the truth.  But speak the truth in love.

How do we do that?  I think we need to focus on it.  We need to put some thought and effort into it.  And we need to do that ahead of time.  If we wait until we’re in a conflict situation, it’ll probably be too late.  The only way we can overcome our basic human instincts is to prepare and get ready ahead of time.

And for me, that means calling on God’s help.  If you can do this without God’s help, more power to you, but I know I cannot.  My emotions will get in my way.  I need God to help me focus on this.  I need God to take control.  I need God to show me how I can respond patiently, and gently, and humbly.  Again, still speaking the truth.  But speaking it in a patient, gentle, humble way that shows the maturity of someone who is at least trying to be worthy of  the calling God has given them.

God has given each of us a calling.  And God wants us to live lives worthy of the calling God has given us.  So let’s focus on that.  Let’s ask God to help us be humble, and gentle, and patient.  Let’s ask God to help us speak the truth in love.  Then we can, as Paul says, “become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”