Why Love?

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, February 14, 2021.  The Bible verses used are Mark 12:28-34.

            It’s Valentine’s Day.  And it’s appropriate that Valentine’s Day falls on a Sunday, because for most of us, there’s nothing more essential to our Christian faith than love.

            Now of course, in our Christian context, when we talk about love we’re not talking about romantic love.  Not that there’s anything wrong with romantic love, but Jesus really did not talk much about that.  In fact, Jesus really did not talk about any kind of love very much.

            That’s surprising, don’t you think?  For all that we think of love as being what our Christian faith is all about, Jesus rarely talked about it.  In fact, our reading for today is the only time in the gospel of Mark in which Jesus is quoted as even uttering the word.

            And Jesus uses the word in a surprising context.  You know, we’ve heard this so much, that Jesus said the two most important commandments were to love God and love our neighbor, that we’ve kind of come to take it for granted.  We don’t think about it all that much.  “Well, of course the two most important things to do are to love God and love our neighbor.  That’s what our faith is all about.”  But that’s not what the people who first heard Jesus say this would’ve thought.  So let’s look at it.

            This is not something that Jesus just said out of the blue.  Jesus is talking with a bunch of Jewish religious leaders--Pharisees, Sadducees, a variety of others.  They’re trying to trick him, to trap him, to stump him, trying to do anything they can to discredit Jesus.  But of course, it does not work.  Jesus is able to answer every question, and in fact often turns the questions back on them.

            We don’t know how the others reacted, but at least one of them, a teacher of the law, had a mind that was open enough to be impressed.  So he asks Jesus a question.  And when you think about it, it’s a really good question.  “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

            It’d be a good question anyway, but remember how important the law was to the Jewish people.  They had all kinds of rules and laws they were supposed to follow.  So many, really, that it was very hard to follow them all.  So it would be helpful to know which was the most important, so you could really focus on at least following that one.

            Now, when you and I hear the word “commandment” in a religious context, a lot of us think right away about the Ten Commandments.  And people would’ve thought of that in Jesus’ time, too.  Yes, as I said, they had a lot of other rules and laws, but the Ten Commandments were considered foundational.  Following them was a given.  In fact, a lot of the other rules and laws came about as an attempt to give a more precise definition to the terms used in the Ten Commandments.

            But it’s interesting that Jesus does not cite any of the Ten Commandments in his answer.  And if we really look at the Ten Commandments, I think we can see why.  Because here’s the thing about those Ten Commandments.  This is a question I ask my confirmation students every time we study the Ten Commandments, and I don’t think any of them has ever gotten it right.  Let’s see if you do.  What one important concept, one that we consider essential to our Christian faith, is not even mentioned in the Ten Commandments?  Anybody know?

            It’s love.  Love is not mentioned in the Ten Commandments.  Not even love of God.  They say we should have no other gods.  They saw we should not worship anything or anyone but God.  But they do not say we should love God.

            The Ten Commandments do not say we should love our neighbor, either.  They do tell us we should not do certain bad things to our neighbors.  We should not kill them, for example.  We should not steal from them, we should not lie about them, and we should not be envious of them.  But they do not say we need to love them.

But Jesus does.  Listen again to what he says:   “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’  The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  There is no commandment greater than these.”

            Jesus agreed that we should have no other gods.  He agreed that we should only worship God.  He agreed that we should respect God and honor God and serve God.  But Jesus knew that, for us to really do those things properly, we need to love God.  

            And Jesus knew it was not enough for us to just not treat our neighbors badly.  We could do that by totally ignoring them.  But Jesus wants us to do more than that.  Jesus knew that we need each other.  We need to support each other and encourage each other and be there for each other.  And the only way we can do that is to love each other.

            Now, Jesus did not just pull his statements out of the air.  They did have a basis in the Old Testament.  The part about loving God came from Deuteronomy Chapter Six.  Moses is giving the law to the people of Israel, and one of the things he says is “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”  Jesus added to that that we should love the Lord with our minds as well.

            And we should not just skip over that addition.  Jesus did not just add that because he forgot the original commandment, nor was it a slip of the tongue or anything.  Jesus added this deliberately.  Jesus wanted us to know that it’s important to love the Lord with our minds, as well as with our hearts.  It’s important that we allow the Lord to guide our thoughts as well as our feelings.  Both our thoughts and our feelings need to work together if we’re going to truly love God the way God deserves.

            The part about loving your neighbor as yourself has a basis in the Old Testament.  It comes from Leviticus Chapter Nineteen.  God is telling Moses a bunch of things the people of Israel are supposed to obey, and among them is this:  “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.”

            But here’s the question we don’t ask often enough about all this:  why?  Why would Jesus say that the two most important commandments are that we love God and that we love our neighbor?  Why is it not enough that we just do what God wants us to do?  Why is it not enough that we just don’t treat our neighbors badly?  Why do we have to love God and love our neighbors?

            Well, here’s why.  Every once in a while, Wanda will ask me to do something.  And sometimes, I’ll do it right away and do it cheerfully and happily.  Other times, she’ll have to ask me several times, and I’ll do it grudgingly, making it clear that I really don’t want to.

            Now, either way, I’ve done what Wanda wanted me to do.  But which way is going to make her pleased with me?  Which way is more likely to feel love for me?  Well, it’s obvious, right?  The first of those ways shows love to Wanda.  The second does not.

            And there’s one other point.  If I do what Wanda asks right away, and I do it cheerfully and happily, I’m probably going to take the time to do it well.  If I do it grudgingly, making it clear that I don’t want to, I’m probably just going to do it to get it done.  I’ll do it as quickly as I can, and I won’t really pay attention to whether I’m doing it well or not.  I’m just doing it to get it over with.

            And in fact, there’s one more point.  If I do what Wanda asks right away, and I do it cheerfully and happily, she’s probably going to be a lot quicker to forgive me if I mess it up.  She’ll know I was doing my best, and she’ll be pleased with my effort, even if I make some mistakes.  But if I do it grudgingly, and I mess it up, she’s probably going to be upset with me.  She’ll know I did not give it my best effort, and she’ll know that’s why I did not do it right.

            The attitude I bring to the things Wanda wants me to do is, in many ways, more important than what I actually do.  And that’s how it is with God.  If we do what God wants us to do cheerfully and happily, and if we take the time to do our best--in other words, if we show love to God--God is likely to be pleased with us.  And we’ll probably do a good job of serving God.  If we do what God wants us to do grudgingly, if we make it clear that we really don’t want to, if we’re just going through the motions, God is probably not going to be as pleased.  And we’re probably not going to do a very good job of serving God.

            God wants our service.  But more than that, God wants our love.  Because, when you think about it, there’s nothing we can do for God that God could not do without us.  There’s nothing we can give God that God could not have without us.  Except for one thing.  The one thing we can give God is love.

            And the best way we can show God that we love Him is to love other people.  Because each and every person on earth was specifically created by God.  Each and every person is special and important to God.  God loves each and every person.  And when we show God that each person is special and important to us, too, when we show God that we love them, too, we are showing our love for God.

            On this Valentine’s Day, let’s renew our commitment to love.  To love God, and to love our neighbors.  It’s the one thing we can do for God.  And according to Jesus, it’s the most important thing we’ll ever do.

Chance Encounter

This is the message given in the Sunday night service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on February 7, 2021.  The Bible verses used are John 4:1-26.

            The story we read tonight 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 movies, where two people meet by accident and the meeting changes their lives forever.  Except that here, this chance meeting did not just 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 a 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 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 coffee shop.  Maybe you’ll see Him at the basketball 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 could.  So pay attention.  Something could happen on your ordinary Monday that will change your life.  And it might change a lot of other people’s lives, too.

 

The Sin That Cannot Be Forgiven

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday morning, February 7, 2021.  The Bible verses used are Mark 3:20-30.

            God is forgiving.  That’s one of our favorite things about God, right?  That there’s nothing God won’t forgive.  No matter what we’ve done, if we turn to God and confess our sins and repent of them and ask for forgiveness, God will forgive us.  You’ve even heard me refer to God as “the all-forgiving God”.

            But if we believe that, what do we do with our Bible reading for today?  Because Jesus makes it clear that there is at least one thing God will not forgive.  He says it right out in verse twenty-nine.  “[W]hoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.”

            So, we need to look at this more closely.  What do we do with it?  If someone blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will they truly never, ever be forgiven?  Not for all eternity?  I mean, that seems kind of extreme, right?  No matter what someone did or said after that, no matter how much they repented and asked or even begged for forgiveness, God would not listen?  Someone who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit is just out?  Forever?  Did Jesus really mean that literally?

            Well, let’s look at it.  First, is it that Jesus said would be condemned?  What does it mean to “blaspheme against the Holy Spirit.”

            From what I’ve read, in this context, blaspheming the Holy Spirit, in this context, is beyond just not believing in the Holy Spirit.  It goes beyond being disrespectful or even insulting.  In this context, to blaspheme the Holy Spirit means to actually declare that the Holy Spirit is evil.

            Now, remember what’s going on in this Bible passage.  People are saying that Jesus is out of His mind.  They’re saying he’s possessed by demons.  They’re saying he has an impure spirit.  In short, some of the teachers of the law, and in fact some of Jesus’ own family, are saying that Jesus is evil.  He’s doing the work of demons.

            Jesus denies it, of course.  He tries to show the utter impossibility of what they’re saying.  He says, I’m driving out demons.  Why, or even how, could a demon drive out demons?  What sense would that make?  But then Jesus says this:  “Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.”

            It sounds to me like Jesus is saying, look, you can say anything you want about me.  If you want to say I’m evil, that I’m in league with the demons, go ahead.  There will be consequences, but if you eventually repent and ask for forgiveness for what you’ve said about me, you’ll get it.  But don’t say anything like that about the Holy Spirit.  If you do, you will never be forgiven.

            But that brings us back to where we were.  Why would Jesus say that.  Well, because it’s true, of course--Jesus would not say that if it was not true.  But why would it be true.  Why is blaspheming against the Holy Spirit an unforgivable sin?

            Well, let’s look at who the Holy Spirit is.  For one thing, the Holy Spirit is part of the trinity, right?  God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.  So, the Holy Spirit is God.  So, blaspheming the Holy Spirit is blaspheming God, and that’s obviously a seriously bad thing.  But still, we’re not told that blaspheming God the Father is an unforgivable sin.  And we’re not told that blaspheming God the Son is an unforgivable sin.  So why would someone who blasphemes God the Holy Spirit never be forgiven?

            Jesus does not say a lot about the Holy Spirit, but he does say a few things.  One of them is in the third chapter of John.  We talked about this one a few weeks ago in the Sunday night service.  In John Chapter Three, Jesus is talking with a Pharisee named Nicodemus.  And he tells Nicodemus, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again”  

Of course, Nicodemus has no idea what Jesus is talking about.  So Jesus explains it farther.  He says, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.  Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.  You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’  The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

            Jesus says that the only way we can go to heaven is if we’re born of the Holy Spirit.  Now, when we talk about being born again and being born of the Spirit, we’re not necessarily saying that this has to be some mountaintop experience, where the Holy Spirit comes to you all at once like Saul on the road to Damascus and you suddenly believe.  It does happen that way sometimes, to some people.  I’ve known some for whom it happened that way.  They describe it as an incredible, awesome experience, and I’m sure it must be.

            But as United Methodists we don’t believe being born of the Spirit has to happen that way.  We believe it can also be a process.  It can happen gradually, over a period of time.  Days, months, years, even decades.  And even for people for whom it does happen all at once, there’s still a process involved.  After all, when Saul was converted on the road to Damascus, he still had to go and study for three years before he started his ministry.  He believed, but he recognized that to be able to serve God, he needed to understand more about who it was he actually believed in.  

            But whether it happens suddenly or gradually, it does need to happen.  We do need to be born of the Spirit if we’re going to see the kingdom of God.  Jesus specifically said so.  Without the leading of God’s Holy Spirit, we are not going to be born of that Spirit and we are not going to get to heaven.

            So where does that leave us?  Well, we’ve said before that God will not force us to believe.  God will encourage us.  God will nudge us.  And sometimes God will do more than just give us a gentle nudge.  Sometimes God will do just about everything but slap us upside the head to get us to believe.  But still, God will not force us.  God leaves the choice of whether to believe up to us.

            But if we blaspheme against the Holy Spirit, if we declare the Holy Spirit to be evil, we’re not going to accept the guidance of God’s Holy Spirit, are we?  We’re going to shut the Holy Spirit out.  More than that, we’re going to oppose the Holy Spirit at every turn.  After all, that’s what the Pharisees did to Jesus, right?  They thought he was evil, and they fought him, and eventually they killed him.  That’s what we do when we’re convinced someone or something is evil.  We don’t accept evil.  We don’t compromise with evil.  We fight evil, in every way we can. 

            So, if that’s how we react to the Holy Spirit, we’re not going to see the kingdom of heaven.  That’s why someone who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.  Not because God refuses to forgive them, but because they will never ask for forgiveness.  They will never repent of their sins.  Because the only way we can turn to God and be born again is through God’s Holy Spirit.  When we shut God’s Holy Spirit out, it won’t happen.

            So, what’s the lesson here for us?  Well, for one thing, we can be assured that what we said at the beginning of this message is still true.  If we turn to God and confess our sins and repent of them and ask for forgiveness, God will give it to us.  God truly is the all-forgiving God.

            But what else can we get from this?  After all, you and I would never blaspheme against the Holy Spirit.  We’d never declare God’s Holy Spirit to be evil.  So this really has no application to us, right?

            Well, I hope not.  But let’s not be too sure.  After all, I’m pretty sure the Pharisees, the teachers of the law, all those people, would’ve said it had no application to them, either.  They’d have said, of course we’d never blaspheme against God’s Holy Spirit.  We’d never declare God’s Holy Spirit to be evil.  And yet, they saw Jesus healing people and casting out demons, using the power of the Holy Spirit, and they declared him to be evil and to be possessed by demons.  They were sure they’d never do something like that, but they still did it.

            So we need to be open to recognizing God’s Holy Spirit, even when the Spirit acts in ways we don’t expect.  In fact, especially when the Spirit acts in ways we don’t expect.  Remember, Jesus compared the Holy Spirit to the wind, and said, “The wind blows where it pleases...you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.”

            As we all know around here, the wind acts in unpredictable ways.  And so does God’s Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit does not take direction from us.  In fact, sometimes the Holy Spirit does things that make no sense whatsoever to us.  Just as what Jesus was doing, using the power of the Holy Spirit, made no sense to the Pharisees and the teachers of the law.

            There’s a lot happening in the world today that we don’t understand.  And some of it certainly is evil.  But let’s not be too quick to decide what’s evil and what’s not.  Let’s not decide that something must be evil just because it does not make sense to us.  Let’s exercise God’s love, and God’s grace.  And let’s use God’s love and God’s grace when we see these things.  There certainly is evil in the world.  But if we’re too quick to judge, and if we judge without using God’s grace and God’s love, we just might do what the Pharisees and the teachers of the law did.  And given how we all need God’s forgiveness, we most definitely do not want to do that.

 

How Deep Is God's Love

This is the message given in the Sunday night service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church.  The Bible verses used are John 3:11-21.

Our reading for tonight contains 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 asked the confirmation classes to choose a favorite Bible verse, a few of them chose 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 Rules

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, January 31, 2021.  The Bible verses used are Mark 2:23--3:6.

One of the most important Bible passages to most of us is the Ten Commandments.  We study them in Sunday school.  We study them in confirmation class.  There are Bible studies based on them.  I suspect some of you had to memorize them at some point.  Maybe you still can recite them.  My Mom can.

            The Ten Commandments were even more important to the Jewish people of Jesus’ time.  Those people did not just study them.  They did not just memorize them.  They were expected to live them.  And they were expected to live them to the letter.  The Ten Commandments were supposed to govern every aspect of your everyday life.

            One of those Ten Commandments, of course, is this one:        

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.  Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.  On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns.

And in our Bible reading for today, we have to examples of Jesus breaking the Sabbath law.  In one of them, Jesus and the disciples started picking crops and eating them on the Sabbath.  In the other, Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath.

To the religious leaders of the time, especially the Pharisees, that sort of thing was Just Not Done.  You were not supposed to do any work on the Sabbath.  Period.  That was a law that went back to the time of Moses, when God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses.  God had said you are not to do any work on the Sabbath, not you, not your kids, not your servants, not your animals.  Nobody.  Now they did, out of practicality, have to make some exceptions.  For example, you were allowed to feed and water your animals.  You could leave your house, as long as you did not go very far.  They had all kinds of rules about what did and did not constitute work.  Some of them got kind of technical.  But everyone knew that picking crops was work, and that healing was work, and so you could not do those things on the Sabbath, because God said so.

And here was Jesus, this person who people called the Son of God, this person who had been raised in a Jewish home, this person who surely had to know better, doing those things.  And so were his disciples.  The Pharisees could not believe it.

Jesus acknowledged that they were not following the rules, but he explained it.  And here are his reasons.  First, he cites Biblical precedent.  He cites the story, found in First Samuel, of King David being allowed to take some consecrated bread, which only priests were allowed to eat.  Not only was David, who was not a priest, allowed to eat some of that consecrated bread, but so were his soldiers.  So, Jesus says, there are precedents for breaking some of these religious laws when the situation requires it.

But Jesus’ reasoning is more than just, “We had to break the Sabbath laws because we were hungry.”  That would’ve just been an excuse.  His real reason is this:  “The Sabbath was made for people, not people for the Sabbath.”

Think of the implications of that statement.  Again, we’re not just talking about any old rule here.  We’re talking about one of the Ten Commandments.  We’re talking about laws that came to Moses directly from the mouth of God.

What Jesus said about the law about not working on the Sabbath, and by implication what Jesus is saying about all of the other Ten Commandments, is, look, God did not give you these laws to make your lives harder.  God gave them to you to make your lives easier.  God did not intend these laws to make your lives miserable.  God intended them to make your lives better.  God did not give you the Ten Commandments to create burdens for you.  God gave them to you to ease your burdens.

And that’s demonstrated further when Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath.  Jesus says to the Pharisees, look, the way you’re interpreting these rules is making life hard for people.  You’re telling me that I cannot heal this man because it’s the Sabbath.  Does that really make sense to you?  Do you really think God wants this man to continue to suffer, even if it’s just for one more day?  Would God really rather I walked away and let this guy continue to live in pain and misery rather than help him, just because it’s the Sabbath?

We read that, or hear it, and of course it makes perfect sense to us.  We wonder why in the world the Pharisees could not see it, when it seems so obvious.  And yet…

You know, the Pharisees were not trying to be evil or bad or anything.  They were trying to get it right, just as much as anyone else.  They just had fallen into a trap, and it’s a trap that it’s really easy for us to fall into, too.

What God had done in the Ten Commandments, and in a lot of the other Old Testament laws God gave the people of Israel, is lay down some basic principles for living.  And they’re really good principles.  All of us, including me, would be a lot better off if we lived the way God told us to live.  

But what the Pharisees did was turn those basic principles into a bunch of inflexible rules.  Do this.  Don’t do that.  Doing this is right, doing that is wrong.  If you do this, you’ll go to heaven.  If you do that, you’ll go to hell.  The Rules are The Rules.  Period.  No exceptions.

The thing is, as human beings, we like rules.  I mean, we get frustrated with them sometimes, but by and large, we like them.  That’s why we make so many of them.  Rules make things simple.  If we have a rule, we don’t have to take circumstances into account.  If we have a rule, we don’t have to use our judgment all the time.  We just find out what the rule is and follow it.  It saves a lot of time and effort to just have rules.

But what Jesus is telling us is that God does not look at it that way.  And we should not look at it that way, either.  Because if we do, the rules can get in our way.  They can get in the way of doing good.  They can get in the way of following God.  They can get in the way of loving people the way Jesus told us to.

Now don’t get me wrong here.  I’m not saying that there’s no such thing as sin.  There is.  I’m also not saying we should just casually ignore all of God’s principles and do anything we want to do. Jesus did not say any of those things, either.  Jesus did not tell the Pharisees, “throw out all your rules and do anything you please.”  As I said, God’s principles for living are really good principles, and all of us, including me, would be better off if we lived the way God told us to live.

But what Jesus was saying is that a slavish adherence to rules can get in our way, just like it got in the Pharisees’ way.  As I said, the Pharisees were trying to get it right.  They thought that, by slavishly following the rules, they were doing what God wanted them to do.  They could not see that, sometimes, their strict adherence to the rules was keeping them from loving people and helping people.  They could not see that, sometimes, following the rules to the letter could lead them to do the exact opposite of what God wanted them to do.

It’s something for us to think about.  Because all of us have rules, whether we realize it or not.  We have rules for what we do when we get up in the morning.  We have rules for how we spend our days.  We have rules for how we do our jobs.  We have rules for how we live our lives.  We have rules for how we treat people.  We have rules for who we like and who we don’t like.  We have rules for who we care about and who we ignore.  And we have rules for what’s right and what’s wrong, who’s good and who’s bad.  A lot of the time, we may not even have realized that we made these rules, much less that we’re living by them.  But we have, and we are.

The rules we have are not necessarily bad or wrong.  Sometimes they may be exactly the same as the principles God laid out for us.  But we need to take a look at them.  We need to know what rules we have.  And we need to make sure our adherence to those rules is not getting in the way of serving God and loving the people God created.  We need to make sure we have not fallen into the trap the Pharisees did, where following the rules was leading them to do the exact opposite of what God wanted them to do.

So let’s take a look at our rules.  Let’s understand where they came from and why we have them.  And let’s understand that, even if they’re good rules, we still need to make sure they’re not getting in the way of what Jesus said are the two most important rules:  to love God and to love other people.  If they are, we need to change them.  Because ultimately, the rule of love is the standard by which every rule we have needs to be measured.

Born By the Wind

This is the message given in the Sunday night service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on Sunday, January 24, 2021.  The Bible verses used are John 3:1-10.

One of the things about human beings is that we always try to understand things.  We want to know how things work.  We want to know why things are the way they are.  If there’s something we don’t understand, we keep asking questions until we do.

And that’s true of our faith, too.  There are a lot of things we don’t understand about our faith.  And so we ask questions.  We try to figure things out.  We want to know how our Christian faith actually works.  We want to know why things are the way they are.  And tonight, we tackle two of the biggest things about faith we struggle to understand.  The concept of being “born again”, and the concept of the Holy Spirit.

In our Bible reading, a rabbi named Nicodemus comes to Jesus.  He tells Jesus that he can tell, by listening to Jesus, that Jesus comes from God.  

I think that impressed Jesus.  I mean, obviously Jesus knew he had come from God.  But that a rabbi, one of the official Jewish leaders, would acknowledge that was something.  After all, most of the Jewish leaders were opposed to Jesus.  So Jesus responds by giving Nicodemus more information, probably more than he bargained for.  Jesus tells Nicodemus “No one can see the kingdom of God without being born again.”

            That term, “born again”, is kind of a loaded one to use these days.  It probably was not when Jesus used it.  In fact, it looks like Jesus invented the term.  It does not appear anywhere in the Bible before Jesus used it.    

Another thing that makes us think Jesus invented the term is that Nicodemus, a rabbi, did not understand it.  He took it literally, asking how a person can go back into their mother’s womb and be born a second time.

A lot of times we don’t really understand it, either.  There are some people for whom being “born again” is the most important thing about being a Christian.  They believe that being “born again” is something that has to happen in an instant.  They believe there has to be a specific time and place that one is born again, just like there’s a specific time and place that one is born on earth in the first place.  And if you don’t have that, they would say that you have not truly been born again.

            I do believe there are people for whom it does happen that way.  There are people who can tell you a specific time and place where the Holy Spirit came to them and they were born again.  Maybe that’s happened to some of you, and if it has, that’s wonderful.  That has to be an awesome thing to experience.

            But as United Methodists, we don’t believe that it has to happen that way.  We believe the Holy Spirit can come to us gradually, over a period of time.  And it can happen in a variety of ways.  But having said that, we need to not ignore being “born again” and not consider it important at all.  Jesus did say it, and he meant something by it.  There needs to be some way in which our faith in Jesus Christ makes us different.  There needs to be some way in which we do feel the Holy Spirit at work in our lives.  If our faith in Jesus never made any difference to us, if we never felt anything because of it, if we never acted any differently because of it, then our faith would be pretty meaningless.

            Jesus told Nicodemus, and he tells us, that we should not be surprised when he says we must be born again.  Jesus explains it this way:  “The wind blows wherever it pleases.  You hear it’s sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.  So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

            And Nicodemus basically responds, “Huh?”

            That may be how you and I respond, too.  Does it ever bother you that there seem to be so many times when Jesus does stuff like this?  I mean, seriously, it seems like there are so many times when Jesus used figures of speech and parables and things like that to make his point.  Don’t you wonder sometimes, why does Jesus not just come out and say what he means?

            Well, when you read what people have to say on the subject, you get lots of different explanations.  But think of it this way.  What was one of the titles Jesus was given by the people around him?  In fact, Nicodemus uses it in this passage.  It’s teacher, right?  Jesus was called “Teacher”.

            What does a good teacher do?  Good teachers don’t just give the students all the answers, do they?  Good teachers want to teach their students to think.  Good teachers want to teach their students how to come up with the answers themselves.  They don’t just want their students to know what the answer is.  They want their students to know why the answer is that.  They want their students to be able to think for themselves, so when they come across other problems, they’ll be able to solve them for themselves.

            I think that’s at least part of what Jesus was trying to do.  It’s what we try to do in our confirmation class. The point is not just to memorize a bunch of facts.  The point is to understand our faith.  The point is to know, not just what we believe, but why we believe it.  That way, when our faith is challenged, we’ll be less likely to fall away.  We’ll be able to meet the challenges, because we don’t just have faith, we know why we have faith.

            So let’s look at what Jesus says.  Again, “The wind blows wherever it pleases.  You hear it’s sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.  So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

Here, as in other places in the Bible, the Holy Spirit is compared to the wind.  Wind is something we understand around here, right?  The wind blows almost all the time.  Thinking about the Holy Spirit in terms of wind should give us some good clues about what the Holy Spirit is and how the Holy Spirit works.  

So, what are some attributes of the wind?  Well, we cannot control the wind, right?  It blows wherever and whenever it pleases.  Sometimes, it’s from the north, sometimes it’s from the south.  Sometimes it’s strong, sometimes it’s barely noticeable.  But you and I have no say over any of that.  We might wish we did sometimes, but we don’t.  God is the only one who controls the wind.  

And of course, that’s true of the Holy Spirit, too.  We have no control over what the Holy Spirit does.  God is the only one who controls the Holy Spirit, because of course the Holy Spirit is God.  The Holy Spirit is one of the persons of the trinity:  the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  And no human being can control God.

We cannot control the wind.  We cannot even see the wind.  But we can see what it does.  We can see the effects of the wind on the things around us.  We can see it blow the flag.  We can see it blow the leaves and the trees.  On a windy day, we can feel its effect on us as soon as we walk outside.  The wind can be a gentle breeze, or it can be a strong, powerful force.  When the wind blows, it changes things.

And that’s true of the Holy Spirit, too.  We cannot control the Holy Spirit.  We cannot see the Holy Spirit.  But we can see what it does.  We can see the effects of the Holy Spirit.  We can see its effects on others, when the Holy spirits act in and through them.  And we can feel its effects on us, as soon as the Holy Spirit acts in and through us.  Sometimes the Holy Spirit works gently and sometimes the Holy Spirit works powerfully.  But when the Holy Spirit works, it changes things.  And when the Holy Spirit acts in and through us, it changes us.

I think that’s at least part of what Jesus was trying to get across when he said we need to be born again.  We need to feel the Holy Spirit acting in and through us.  We need to have the Holy Spirit change us.  Sometimes that change happens suddenly and powerfully, like a strong wind.  Sometimes that change happens gradually, like a gentle breeze, nudging us along.  But if the Holy Spirit is acting in and through us, it will change us.  It will make us different from the way we were before the Holy Spirit came.

We are saved by our faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior.  But if we our faith is real, that faith has to affect us in some way.  If we truly have faith, we will ask the Holy Spirit to come into our hearts.  And the Holy Spirit will change us.  The change may come quickly or it may come slowly, but it will come.  And when it does, we will truly be born again.

 

The Righteous and the Sinners

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday morning, January 24, 2021.  The Bible verses used are Mark 2:13-17.

            Who did Jesus come to save?

            Well, it’s a silly question, right?  Jesus came to save everybody.  That’s one of the basic beliefs we have as Christians.  John Three Sixteen tells us that whoever believes in Jesus shall have salvation and eternal life.  And that thought appears all throughout the New Testament.  Salvation and eternal life are available to everyone who believes in Jesus Christ as the Savior.

            But with that in mind, let’s look at our Bible reading for today.  Jesus is walking along the lake.  There’s a crowd there, and Jesus is talking to them, teaching them as he walks along.  Eventually, they come near a booth.  It’s the booth of a man named Levi, who’s a tax collector.

Now, we’ve talked about this in the past, but it’s important that we remember what a tax collector was back then.  The Roman government’s tax system was completely different from the tax season we’re familiar with in the United States.

            The way it worked is that, if you were hired as a tax collector, the Roman government told you that you were responsible for turning X dollars over the Roman government.  That was all.  The Romans did not care where you got the money.  They did not care how you got the money.  They just cared that you turned the right amount over to them when you were supposed to.  As long as you did that, the Roman government did not care about anything else.

            And the Roman government did not pay you for doing this.  The way you got paid is, whatever you could collect over the amount the Roman government wanted was yours to keep.    So, obviously, tax collectors had a reason to try to collect as much money as they could.  And because the Romans did not care where they got the money, there were literally no legal boundaries to what tax collectors could do.  They would take as much money as they could, and they were not concerned about fairness or morality or anything else.  All this meant that tax collectors were, by and large, quite rich.  But it also meant that tax collectors were, by and large, very much disliked by the people.

            So that’s who Levi was.  That’s the guy Jesus saw at the tax collection booth.  And the way it’s written, Jesus says to words to him.  “Follow me”.  And were told that Levi got up and followed him.

            That’s an amazing thing, don’t you think?  It’s amazing on two levels.  One of them is that Jesus would choose to call this man, Levi, a man who had gotten rich by taking other people’s money, with no regard to fairness or morality, to follow him.  And the other is that Levi, this man who had gotten rich by taking other people’s money, with no regard to fairness or morality, would actually get up and follow Jesus.

            And then, listen to this next sentence.  This is an amazing thing, too.  “While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him.”

            In other words, Levi was not a fluke.  Levi was not the one remarkable tax collector who had a change of heart and followed Jesus.  There were a whole bunch of tax collectors who followed.  All these people, who again had gotten rich by taking other people’s money with no regard to fairness or morality, all started following Jesus.  That’s incredible.

            And of course, it was noticed.  Among those who noticed was the teachers of the law, who were also Pharisees.  And they asked about it.  Now, notice, they apparently did not have the courage to go to Jesus directly and ask him about it.  No, they went to the disciples.  And they asked the disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

            And by the way, this was not just an innocent question.  They were not just asking for information.  The Pharisees were already opposed to Jesus.  They already looked at him as an enemy.  They thought this was a put down.  They thought they could give Jesus a bad reputation.  They were going for guilt by association.  “Look at the kind of people Jesus spends time with.  What does that say about him, that he spends time with these lowlifes?  After all, a man is known by the company he keeps, right?  If Jesus hangs out with that kind of person, well, I guess we know what kind of person he is.”

            Jesus hears what they’re saying, of course.  And he answers them, even though they did not ask him directly.  And what does he say?  “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

            That response must have stunned the Pharisees.  I mean, they considered themselves “the righteous”.  And they had no doubt about that, either.  And they were sure that if and when the Messiah came, they’d be the ones he came to.  The righteous Pharisees.  Not these riffraff.  Not these thieves and cheaters.  Not the “tax collectors and sinners”.  The Messiah would come to the best of the best.  And of course, that’s who the Pharisees thought they were.

            So, which do you think you are?  And which do I think I am?  Are we among the righteous?  Or are we among the “tax collectors and sinners”?

            Now, let’s not answer this right away.  Let’s think about it a little.  Because the easy answer, the churchy answer, is to quote Romans Three, Twenty-three and say “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  We say, therefore, that we’re all sinners.

            And that’s true, of course.  We all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  But here’s the thing.  Do we really believe that?

            I know we say it.  And I know that, in our heads, we know it’s true.  But do we really believe it in our hearts?  Do we really believe it in a way that affects the way we think and speak and live our lives?

            Each of us has to answer that for himself or herself.  I cannot answer it for you.  I would not presume to try.  It’s not my place to judge you.  But I ask you to really think about it.  In fact, I ask you to pray about it.  Do you consider yourself among the righteous?  Or do you consider yourself one of the “tax collectors and sinners”?

            The reason I ask you to really think about it, and to pray about it, is that I know how easy it is for us human beings to justify ourselves to ourselves.  It’s human nature.  We can excuse almost anything we do if we want to badly enough.  In fact, we can convince ourselves that almost anything we do is good, is right, is exactly what we should be doing, if we want to badly enough.

            And you know another thing we human beings are good at?  We’re really good at not thinking about things we don’t want to think about.  That’s human nature, too.  We’re really good at doing something and just not allowing ourselves to think about the consequences of it.  We just don’t think about how what we’ve done affects other people.  We compartmentalize it and ignore it and pretend that it did not even happen.

            And there’s one other thing we human beings are good at.  We compare ourselves to other people.  We may realize we’re not perfect, but we think, well, I’m not all that bad.  Look at all these other people.  I’m a lot better than they are.  So, I must be pretty good.

            And because of all this, it’s very easy for us to excuse our sins.  It’s very easy for us to pretend that our sins are not really sins.  It’s very easy for us to think that we’re better than someone else, and so we must be okay.  In fact, we’re better than okay.  We’re just fine.  Maybe we’re not perfect, but we really don’t need to change much of anything, either.

            Again, this is not aimed at anyone in particular.  This is simply human nature.  I’m as subject to it as anyone.  The reason I can talk about all these things is because I do all these things.  And I do them repeatedly.  That’s why I can talk about them--I’m intimately acquainted with all these things.

            Because of all this, even though we say we’re all sinners, it is very easy for us to consider ourselves among the righteous.  And so, we come back to Jesus’ statement.  “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

            That does not mean that what we said at the start of this message was wrong.  Jesus did come to save everybody.  But we cannot hear Jesus’ call, we cannot truly accept it, if we consider ourselves righteous.  We can only hear Jesus’ call, and we can only truly accept the salvation that Jesus offers, if we truly realize we are sinners.  Not just realize it in our heads.  Not just say the words.  But know it in our hearts.

            The reason for that is that we can only accept salvation by repenting of our sins and asking for forgiveness.  And we can only do that if we truly know, in our hearts, that we are sinners.  We can only do that if we stop justifying ourselves to ourselves.  We can only do that if we acknowledge and understand how the things we do affect other people.  We can only do that if we stop comparing ourselves to others and start comparing ourselves to Jesus.  Because if we truly compare ourselves to Jesus, we’ll understand what sinners we really are.

            When we understand that, we can come to Jesus humbly.  We can come to Jesus repenting of our sins and asking forgiveness.  And when we come to Jesus that way, we can hear Jesus say to us, as he did to Levi, “Follow me.”  

And we can follow, knowing that our sins are forgiven and that we truly do have salvation and eternal life.