Posted by David on October 5, 2006 under Bulletin Articles
Jesus said twice in the same sermon: “You have heard that it was said, ?You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:43-48) “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 7:12) He said again in Matthew 22:39 that the second greatest command God has given is this: “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”
Paul said to a congregation in Rome: “Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. For this, ?You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,’ and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, ?You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” (Romans 13:8-10)
Peter said, “Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.” (1 Peter 2:1-3)
John said, “Beloved, I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word which you have heard. On the other hand, I am writing a new commandment to you, which is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining. The one who says he is in the Light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now. The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him. But the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes.” (1 John 2:7-11)
Very high on God’s priority list is loving people made in His image and likeness. Where does loving people come on your priority list?
Posted by Chris on October 1, 2006 under Sermons
Matthew 6:1-21. Notice what Jesus says:
1. Do not pray like the Pharisees – public display, to show their own piety and (self ) righteousness
2. Do not pray like Pagans – who babble on in an attempt to get what they want. God actually knows what we need before we pray – (so what’s the point of praying?) – Pray like this …
The Lord’s Prayer – at it’s heart is the phrase “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” This phrase reflects what is different about this prayer and the prayer of Pharisees and Pagans.
Praying Like Pagans
New Prayer – Sending Prayers to the Last Known Location of God. What is interesting is their assumptions about God and prayer:
“How can we know that our prayers are heard and that we are clearly sending our message to God? What do we know for sure about the location of God?”
So, the inventors of the New Prayer website have a radio transmitter aimed at the center of the universe. They assume that if God created the universe with a Big Bang, then God had to be there, so they beam prayers to God’s last known location. If your prayers haven’t been answered (they claim) you just haven’t been facing the right direction or you don’t have enough wattage.
The website is now defunct, but there is a report about it at www.religioustolerance.org/tnews_01oct.htm
2001-OCT-24 (approx): Pay-2-Pray: Send prayer to God. A new service is being provided by a web site at www.NewPrayer.com. At no cost, you can compose a prayer to God and send it to this web site. They have designed and built a directional radio transmitter which will then transmit your prayers to the last known location of God. They state: “We know that GOD was at the birth of His universe. We know how the universe began – with a ‘Big Bang’. We know where the oldest part of the universe is located. We can transmit radio messages to this precise location.”
They don’t guarantee a reply. One thing that they forgot to mention is that it will take billions of years for the message to travel from Earth to the oldest part of the universe.
We can easily reject their assumptions about the Big Bang and the last known location of God. We believe that God is with us – not away out in space. But the assumptions about prayer are not so easy to dismiss because we share in many of these assumptions.
1) The assumption that prayer is all about asking and getting.
2) The assumption that prayers done right get answered and prayers not done right “fail to transmit”
3) The assumption that prayer is our technique to change God.
Haddon Robinson tells a story that illustrates our tendency to pray for what we want. He says that when his children were small he played a game. He’d take coins in his fist and his children would sit in his lap work to open his fingers. Once a finger was opened – it had to stay opened. They would work at this until they got all the pennies in his hand. Then they would jump down and run away giggling and happy. Sometimes we come to God and all we want are the pennies in his hand. “Lord I need, … I need” We reach for the pennies and when God grants the request, we push away his hand. More important than the pennies in God’s hand is the hand of God himself.
Praying Like Pharisees
Many Pharisees were well-intentioned, but misguided. They thought that prayer was all about them. Sometimes we turn prayer into a chore and we forget the one to whom we pray. It sounds quite good to dedicate ourselves to more prayer (and perhaps fasting and contribution) but if the focus is not on the one to whom we pray, then the pbject of our prayers become our own special interest – the righteousness we seek is our own self-righteouness. Self-serving prayer becomes out divine sanction for our self-serving status quo – but what if that status needs to be changed? When this is the case, prayer does not put us in touch with God’s presence.
Isaiah 58:3 – The Lord desires mercy, not sacrifice. Our prayers and fasting and religious observance do not earn God’s favor. We can prayer without ceasing but if our prayers are inconsistent with our life, then we are not in step with God.
We have become self-righteous if our prayers express and reinforce our “own interests” rather than glorifying God and inviting submission to God’s will. If our prayers mirror our self-centered culture and are simply an expressing of our interest that it is no wonder that our ministries suffer, that we ache over conflicts in the church, that we divide into camps and our worship becomes the focus of offense and argument.
The language “THY will be done” and the admission that we need forgiveness and need to forgive others, the dependence on God for daily food assumes an attitude of repentance, not arrogance. Let us no longer focus on our will being done and attempt to impose our will upon the whole church or accuse others of trying to do so when we are frustrated.
Praying Like Jesus
The agenda for the Lord’s Prayer is not a formula that commands the God in the sky to give us what we’ve always wanted. The agenda for the Lord’s kind of praying is not to appease the Almighty with the right kind of religious talk or to demonstrate our religious ability.
The agenda of the prayer Jesus taught his disciples is to welcome God to reveal his will on earth – to make known his power and transform people and society. It anticipates God revealing his hand and making his power known over all the world. It longs for a spiritual shockwave that turns our world inside out and makes everything new and holy. Of course the epicenter of that shockwave is the church and the hearts of those faithful in prayer.
Now God will enact his will whether we invite or not, he doesn’t need our prayers to make it happen. So, our prayers must have something to do with us entering into that kingdom agenda! Prayer changes us.
Prayer that glorifies God is transforming. Why? Because we are not focused on our needs, but the one who meets those needs. Why? Because we are not focused on the healing, but the healer. Why? Because we are not focused on the gifts, but the gift-giver.
Prayer properly involves the profession that God rules the world, that God claims our individual and communal lives. God’s rule is characterized by attributes such as righteousness, mercy, and justice. So, those who acknowledge God’s claim to rule the world in such a way will also have to be righteous, merciful and just. One cannot pray “Thy will be done” with no intention of ever wanting to be like God. When God’s people acknowledge that he rules the world, they will become like God! It is an invitation to set aside our own interest and to offer ourselves and our church for the sake of the world just as God offers himself for the sake of the world.
Challenge: Faithful in Prayer
Internet and TV offers promise diets and fitness that can change your body and health in less than 6 weeks. 10 weeks to this, 12 weeks to that. New life and new opportunities are just a few weeks away.
Prayer is not a technique that manipulates God, and prayer is something we are always supposed to do – not just at special times. But how many of us have daily routines of prayer? Jesus set aside 40 days to pray and fast so that he might be prepared for his mission. Prayer was not optional, it was transformational and essential.
Now just imagine what YOU might be like if you prayed for 40 days. How different would you be? How differently would you come to God? Who would you forgive? How would your relationships change?
Now imagine what WE might be like if we prayed like this for 40 days. How would the church be changed if some of us prayed for one another for 40 days? How would our focus change? How different would our worship and fellowship change if we prayed for one another often? How would our ministry and mission be different? How would the world change if a church prayed for 40 days? How would they impact their community? Who would be affected?
The answer to all these is what could God do with a people who are humble and submissive to him for 40 days? What could God’s spirit do with a people who for just five weeks were faithful in prayer?
How would God’s kingdom come? How might his will be done on earth as it is in heaven?
Posted by Chris on under Sermons
Read Matthew 6:19-34.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. If the poor have the kingdom of heaven, then what do the not-so-poor have? Well, those who certainly aren’t poor have treasure on earth. A trust fund. Something to keep us secure. Savings for the future.
Jesus has warned his disciples of a couple of pitfalls to living out the kingdom righteousness. One is legalism: When we equate righteousness with keeping the rules, we fail to live out the spirit of the law. Legalism is not the sort of “salt and light,” kingdom righteousness that surpasses the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees.
The second pitfall is approval from others: When we equate righteousness with the judgment of others, custom, tradition, or “the way we’ve always done it,” then we fail to be content with God’s approval. We give up God’s reward for the reward of being approved by others. Instead of an excellent righteousness, we settle with a mediocre righteousness.
And now Jesus warns us of a third pitfall: distraction. Those who originally heard this teaching were distracted by the lack of material things. They were anxious about having enough to eat, having fresh water to drink, having basic goods. That’s not most of us. For most of us we are distracted by having too many material things … or we are distracted by our desire for more material things. Whether the problem is not enough, too much, or desire the source of the distraction in every case is treasure on earth. The problem is the false God of money.
We cannot serve two masters. We cannot serve God and Money at the same time. Trying to pledge allegiance to two masters is distracting. A master, by definition, requires complete loyalty. The disciples of Jesus cannot be distracted, especially not if they are anticipating the kingdom of heaven.
Simple message, but let’s be honest; there’s so much about our life together and our life in this world that has to do with money. It seems that church has a lot to do with money. We collect an offering every Sunday. We have a business management team. We hire staff. We pay bills. Who are we serving? God or Money? How can we know the difference? Are we distracted or are we disciples?
Giving at West-Ark has increased. But our church budget is just a small part of the significance here. As a church, do we make our decisions based on trust in money or based on trust in God? That’s important because the answer reveals our true master.
- When God determines our economic decisions we are using money. We are storing up treasure in heaven and using money for the sake of others and the kingdom. Our eyes are clear and we are not anxious about money or the future. We trust in God
- When money determines our economic decisions we are serving money. We are storing up treasures on earth (where they are vulnerable and insecure). Our eyes are clouded. We are anxious about money and the future. We trust in stuff and self.
When we truly say “in God we trust” and when we are not just reading it off of our money, we begin to see money differently. Instead of naively assuming that money is a neutral substance, we begin to understand how money and material things become a power and force not only in our own lives, but in our life together – in our society. Rather than a neutral substance it can actually determine what decisions we make and it can burden us with anxieties and drive us into serving it.
When we truly say that it is in God that we trust, we begin to realize that money and things can distract us, but we also learn that there is a difference between Using Money and Serving Money – Money, like all forces and powers, must be redeemed to serve God. The key to knowing if we are distracted by another master is for us to answer this question: Do we use money or do we serve money?
When we trust in CASH, we tend to think that God only cares about his cut – his 10 %. As long as he gets his due he’s fine with us. But God actually has an opinion about the other 90% as well. Why? Because he knows what this stuff and money can do to us …
- It will corrupt our vision. Our eyes become dark. We start to see everything as a problem that can be solved with money. Or we start to see everything as a problem about money. (We become Marxists – communists and capitalists make good Marxists, because it is all about money).
- We start to see people in terms of what they are “worth.” They are either commodity that we can own or sell. Or they are people that we trade with.
- Jesus says that when the light of the body goes dark, the whole person goes dark.
- We invest in earth rather than heaven. That’s an investment in a company destined to fail. Faith becomes a transaction. God does X and we do Y. It is part of the contract and barter. We pay for services. We shop for churches. We are sold out and invested in religion. (Other material/financial language we use for faith).
- Jesus warns us that treasures on earth are very unreliable. They are vulnerable to decay and theft. When Jesus returns to claim his disciples is he going to be looking at the balance of our checking account? Will he inquire about the church ledger? Asking for “his money?” No, the only currency that will matter is treasure in heaven.
- We will become enslaved to a false god that will consume us. And this false God loves to make people RUN. It loves to send us running after the basic necessities of life. Run for your food – get there quick before it goes away. Run for your clothing – run don’t walk to the weekend sidewalk sale, one day only! We are enslaved with the chains of anxiety.
- But Jesus says that the pagans run after all these things. His disciples are not anxious and worried. They don’t run, they walk in righteousness.
What about your money, your resources, your securities? Are you using them? Are they using you? Are you tired of running anxiously. Are you weary of being a consumer consumed with worry?
Today when you look around you are going to see the world that God runs. We are a bit past the blooming of flowers, but you will see the master’s artistry in the fall colors – colors that inspire the great fashion houses. You will have to pay thousands of dollars for designer clothing. The trees pay nothing for God’s care.You will see birds building their houses and collecting food. You and I may ring up a hefty bill for lunch and get anxious if the meal isn’t ready in fifteen minutes. But the birds pay nothing for God’s care.
Who is your master? Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
If we are to establish a life of simplicity this week among pagans who run after all these things, we should also do a bit of self-evaluation today about how much of our energy we devote to worrying in general. Ours is a society that nurtures worry as though it were a virtue. When we worry, we hold back those areas of our lives from God. Worry-I prefer Robert Guelich’s definition to any I have heard-is “an anxious endeavor to secure one’s needs.”
I would take that a step farther and say that worry is an anxious endeavor to secure one’s needs and wants and how we think the world should be.
Here is your opportunity this morning to come bring your worrying to the foot of the cross and leave it here. Sometimes in our prayers in worship we ask God to help us leave the cares of the world outside. I am saying this morning that it should be just the opposite. This morning, bring all of your worries into this room, and leave them here. That’s not to say that you will not think about them any more. It is to say, however, that you are bringing these things to God that you worry about too much, and that you acknowledge on this day that you need to hand those over to God.
If it is money, you cannot serve money if you want to serve God. The acquisition of stuff is not is not a part of the world imagined in the Sermon on the Mount. But it is just as foreign to the life God wants for us when we try to walk alongside Christ without handing everything over to him.
Lay your burdens down, every care you carry. Bring them all today into the presence of God. Be a follower of God today. Do that, and let tomorrow take care of itself.
Our worries are not rooted in having too little, our worries are in having too much. And having an abundance forms us into people that trust in ourselves. And the more we trust in ourselves for these daily needs the more we trust in ourselves for the deeper needs of security and value. One characteristic of the incarnation that has always intrigued me is the fact that God made himself vulnerable. Look at all our new babies. They need constant care. They depend entirely on the people around them. God came and made himself as vulnerable as a new born baby. Jesus actually lives his life relying on the Father and others. He is not consumed with security.
When we make our economic decisions because we trust in God, or when we use money for God rather than serve it …
- We tend to think that God only cares about his cut – his 10 %. As long as he gets his due he’s fine with us. But God actually has an opinion about the other 90% as well. Why? Because he knows what this stuff and money can do to us …
- It will corrupt our vision. Our eyes become dark. We start to see everything as a problem that can be solved with money. Or we start to see everything as a problem about money. (We become Marxists – communists and capitalists make good Marxists, because it is all about money).
- We start to see people in terms of what they are “worth.” They are either commodity that we can own or sell. Or they are people that we trade with.
- We invest in earth rather than heaven. That’s an investment in a company destined to fail. Faith becomes a transaction. God does X and we do Y. It is part of the contract and barter. We pay for services. We shop for churches. We are sold out and invested in religion. (Other material/financial language we use for faith).
- We will become enslaved to a false god that will consume us. And the tragedy of it is that the false God “mammon” wears a God-like mask. That mask slips and we see its true face only as it begins to consume us. We are enslaved with the chains of anxiety. And this false God loves to make people RUN. It loves to send us running after the basic necessities of life. Run for your food – get there quick before it goes away. Run for your clothing – run don’t walk to the weekend sidewalk sale, one day only! But Jesus says that the pagans run after all these things. His disciples are not anxious and worried. They don’t run, they walk in righteousness.
