Practice What He Preached

Posted by Chris on October 22, 2006 under Sermons

Read Matthew 7:13-29.

Jesus taught us not to judge each other. Besides we are not very good at judging others. It is rather hypocritical for us to try and evaluate and manage others lives when we have enough in our own lives to evaluate and manage.

Yes, Jesus taught us not to judge one another. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t judgment. Not at all, for God judges us all. Now that might come as a rather frightening or disturbing idea at first. After all it is only natural to compare it to the rather poor and inept judgments that most of us have received from people who are really no better at this than us. We need to receive and live within the judgment of God in a very different way. God’s judgment is more than the ruling of a judge. God’s judgment is more than a verdict – it is always a work in progress and it involves his mercy and wisdom.

As Jesus describes it, God’s judgment is given to us as a choice. God decrees that we have two options. We have two ways we can go. Even in this we begin to understand how the judgment of God is interactive – we are interacting with God’s spirit as we make these choices.

Jesus is teaching us what God has done since the beginning – he sets two ways before us…

It is in God’s law … “See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse – the blessing if you obey the commands of the LORD your God that I am giving you today; the curse if you disobey the commands of the LORD your God and turn from the way that I command you today.” – [Deuteronomy 11:25-28]

It is the proclamation of God’s prophets … “See, I am setting before you the way of life and the way of death.” – [Jeremiah 21:8]

And now the son of God, who did not come to abolish the Law and Prophets, but to live out the spirit of both, speaks of two ways and the judgment of God. We can take the broad way that will end up in ruin, or we can take the narrow way. We can follow teachings that yield bad fruit or we can follow teachings that result in good fruit.

Once again, this talk of judgment can make us anxious. The only two ways we seem ready to recognize is the way of grace OR the way of works. Traditionally, we don’t understand how these two can co-exist. We rightly resist the notion that we are saved by works. But just because we are saved by God’s grace doesn’t mean we are out of work. We are saved by works but we are saved for works. The narrow way Jesus directs us down is the way of discipleship as well as salvation. It is about believing and doing.

Yet, our misinformed notions of judgment make us ask “Have I done enough?” “Am I doing enough?” “Did I do this right?” And that’s our measuring stick and our judgment. But Jesus is describing a WAY. It is a way of life. It is the way to the kingdom. And the question we ought to be asking is “Are we faithfully following the way Jesus went?”

The way of Jesus is not only to believe what the Bible teaches, but also to live it out without arrogance and without concern for the way others may judge us or praise us. The way of Jesus is to resist the distraction and worries of this decaying world and to live as if the coming rule of God were in place right now and in every sense. The way of Jesus is to treat others with a neighborly kindness and love that we would want them to reciprocate – but even if they do not, we still share the love of God with everyone we meet along the way.

This is the way of Jesus. It’s not easy; it is a narrow way but it leads to the kingdom. What makes it so narrow is that calls upon us to do more than ride along on the “Believe it Bus.” We have to walk the path and every alternating step is “believing” and “doing.” Some will say things, but not live them out. They do not practice what they preach. But Jesus is teaching us to do more than practice what we preach. He is teaching us to practice what HE preaches. [Even that’s the judgment of God interacting with us: God is showing us the way through Jesus.]

When I preach a sermon I have high expectations – not because I am trying to be professional or because I want to be taken seriously. It is because I choose to believe in the possibility of a different way and a different world. It is because I choose to believe that we really can be hearers and doers of the world. And I am drawn to conclude this because I believe that when Jesus preached, he had such expectations. Jesus really does expect us to be a people who have a high standard of righteousness. He really does expect us to practice a righteousness that goes beyond written rules and to practice our righteousness undistracted by the approval of others and the anxieties of life.

Jesus ends his sermon – a sermon he really expects us to do – with a parable. You have a choice: Where shall you build your house. You can build it on the open plain, the sandy soil that may even be good gardening land. But when the torrential rains come you’ll find that you are living in a flood zone and the waters will wash your house away. But you have a choice, and you could build your house on higher ground. It may be rocky soil and the path to the house may be a little harder to get to, but when those storms comes and the flood waters come barreling down, that house is going to stand up to it.

When a storm hits, everyone’s house gets stormed on – but the wise builders’ house holds up. It has a solid foundation. We are wise builders if after hearing Jesus’ words, we put them into practice just a he expects us to. We are wise if we practice what he preached.

Psalm 119 – The “D” Psalm
Daleth is the first letter in the Hebrew word for “Way”

A prayer for those who get tripped up on the way …

Asking, Seeking, Knocking

Posted by Chris on October 15, 2006 under Sermons

Read Matthew 7:1-12.

Jesus really does expect us to be a people who have a high standard of righteousness. He really does expect us to practice a righteousness that goes beyond written rules. He really does expect us to practice our righteousness undistracted by the approval of others and the anxieties of life. And now as you heard what Jesus said in the reading today – He really does want us to stop judging others. This is flipside of what Jesus has been teaching us. He has urged us to focus on God and his kingdom – to seek it first – and not be dismayed by the judgmental attitudes of others who bind the burden of legalism on us. Jesus has urged us to focus on God and his kingdom and not worry about what others think of us and not worry about our basic needs.

But now he flips the coin and says essentially: “It would be a real shame for you to take this teaching that comes to you with the blessings of heaven and turn it into a means of treating others as less than you.” It would be pretty ridiculous for you to assume that the teaching of Jesus is your calling to straighten up everyone else’s messes. This is like the poor phony who goes around trying to pick the speck of dirt out of the eyes of others when they have a 2 x 4 in their own eye.

Do you know someone like that? Don’t answer that! Because if you do, you fall into the trap. As soon as you take the teaching of Jesus and start to evaluate others rather than see to your own “eye care” you have fallen into the trap that Jesus is warning us about.

What is the trap? It’s the judgmental perspective that tries to develop a measuring stick that we use to evaluate others. (Last week our family went to ride go-karts, and there is a measuring stick that tells you that you cannot ride alone if you are not “this tall.”) That works for go-karts and roller coasters, but not the kingdom of heaven. Why? Go back to the beginning of the sermon and look at who Jesus is welcoming into the kingdom … the poor, the sad, the meek, the hungry and thirsty, the persecuted. Has Jesus just lowered the stick? Has he lowered the standard? Well that hardly makes sense when he says that our righteousness has got to surpass our ideas of high standards. This is a clue that Jesus is leading us in a different direction.

You see, Jesus is very aware of the problem that we might have if we think he is asking us to guard the entry point into the kingdom. We would build a little measuring stick and tell everyone, unless you are “this tall” you cannot get in. And our problem is that we would either set it way too high – and we would end up like the hypocrites with logs sticking in their eyes and would destroy ourselves with our own ridiculous standards; or we would set it way too low and end up like the well-meaning but unwise folk who give pearls to swine and holy things to dogs. Dogs and pigs are not interested in what you cherish and the dogs will just attack you.

So here we are at the gate of the kingdom. We are eager to make disciples for Jesus. We want to go into all the world preaching the gospel, baptizing and teaching. But we just aren’t sure where to set the measuring stick. Is there a happy medium that is not too high and not too low?

I have high expectations of a sermon. I think Jesus does too. And I think you do too. I think you would like to believe that this teaching of Jesus really describes the world and isn’t just a figure of speech or something we aren’t supposed to take literally. I am not content to take that way out and return to the dissatisfaction of the way things are. So, if it isn’t an option to be legalistic or to hand out cheap grace with our yardstick at the entrance, what shall we do?

Listen again to Jesus: ⁷“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. ⁸For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. ⁹Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? ¹⁰Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? ¹¹If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”

In response to our gate-keeper question, Jesus is telling us to get away from the gate. That’s not our business. Our business is to ask, seek and knock. We are interested in others entering into the kingdom. We are interested in others receiving it as we have. But do we ever stop to think that the way we do that is to pray. To ask, to seek, and to knock. God knows how to respond to our requests – even better than we do. Asking, seeking, and knocking is not an instruction on how to get God to shake loose the good things. It isn’t a formula for material abundance. It is a program for mission.

So if God doesn’t want us guarding the gate (he will take care of it) then how exactly are we supposed to relate to others who have not yet entered into God’s kingdom? That simple, says Jesus: In everything, do to others what you would want them to do to you.

You can sum up the whole content of the Law and the teaching of the Prophets in that phrase. And don’t make it more difficult than it is, because yes, Jesus really does expect us to live it out. If that seems to hard or too easy, step away from the gate with the measuring stick, get on your knees and ask, seek, and knock.

[End with prayer of asking, seeking, knocking.]

Ministry Fair 2006

Posted by Chris on October 8, 2006 under Sermons

Do you remember when TV’s had knobs and dials? What is sort of a relic now was high-tech once upon a time. There was typically two knobs on those manually adjusted sets that you will not find on most TV’s now – the vertical hold and the horizontal hold. Adjusting these two controls kept your picture in balance. The horizontal hold kept the picture adjusted from left to right and the vertical kept it adjusted from top to bottom.
In our life together as disciples of Jesus, we are balanced by two adjustments – a spiritual set of controls that keep us balanced vertically and horizontally. Two of our banners set before us the Scriptures that keep us aware of those two “holds” and how they shape the way we live and what we do.

Vertical Hold
The vertical hold is God’s involvement in what we do. As we think about our “ministries” – and we can use this to speak of the ministries we are involved in as individuals or as a church – ask “why are we involved in these possibilities?” Take a look at Ephesians 2:8-10.
⁸For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- ⁹not by works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

God has created you. He made you. Not only has he made us, but he has saved us. All of that effort on God’s part is to craft our lives into a beautiful and useful masterpiece to accomplish his purposes. When God called Jeremiah, he made it clear to him that he was made for his calling. When Mordecai encourages Esther to risk her life to save her people, he asks her to consider if her entire life had not led up to this very possibility. The vertical hold is the hold of God’s shaping and forming hand that not only saves us, but enables us to do the good works that he has prepared in advance for us to do.

These good works are not efforts on our part to win God’s favor. No, the good works are the outgrowth of the kind of people God wants us to be. He wants the people around us to witness these good works and recognize how God wants the whole world to live.
Have you seen how the Amish community in Nickel Mines has taught the world how to forgive? They are striving to live out the teaching of Jesus in their attitudes. One of their leaders has said, “We must not think evil of this man.” Other Amish have reached out to the family of the shooter. Daniel Esh is a member of the Amish community and he told the news that he hoped the family of the shooter would remain in the community “I hope they stay around here and they’ll have a lot of friends and a lot of support.”
How can we be so bold in doing the good works that God has prepared for us to do? We have to have the vertical hold of God’s spirit.

Horizontal Hold
Another of our banners comes from Hebrews 10:24. Listen to this text in its context … ¹⁹Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, ²⁰by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, ²¹and since we have a great priest over the house of God, ²²let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. ²³Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. ²⁴And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. ²⁵Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another-and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

Notice how the vertical hold of what God is doing in our lives and our life together flows into the horizontal hold of how we build up and encourage one another. The recipients of the Hebrew sermon had gotten weary. They needed to be encouraged. Maybe because of persecution or despair, they were missing their calling. That’s why we need the horizontal hold.
Thursday a friend called me out of the blue. For most of his professional life he had been a chemical engineer. But he went through a very difficult time a few years back in which he realized that his calling was to be in full-time ministry. I have always done my best to encourage him in the transition into ministry and in his continued efforts in that. Simply because I believe in him and I want him to serve God and others in the way that God has gifted him. Thursday he called me to give me a word of encouragement. At just the right time, too.
This is the horizontal hold. This is the way we spur one another on toward love and good deeds.

One other banner speaks of the blending of these two. Prepare for Works of Service to Build up His Body. ~ Ephesians 4:12. That’s what the Ministry Fair is all about. I hope as this day continues you will take the time to be prepared for Works of Service. Do a little tuning today. Adjust the vertical and horizontal holds in your spiritual calling. God has made you and saved you to do good works – good works that he has set up already for you to do. And we are all hear to spur one another on.

The Lord’s Prayer

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?

In God We Trust

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 …

1. 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).
   1. 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.
   2. Jesus says that when the light of the body goes dark, the whole person goes dark.
2. 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).
   1. 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.
3. 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.
   1. 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 …

4. 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 …
5. 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).
   1. 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.
6. 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).
7. 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.

Approved By God

Posted by Chris on September 24, 2006 under Sermons

Read Matthew 6:1-18.

We are the salt of the earth. We are the light of the world. We are a city on a hill that cannot be hidden. Our Lord has instructed us to let our light shine so that when people see our good deeds they will glorify our Father in heaven.

But now he is saying that we ought to be careful not to do our acts of righteousness before people. Instead we ought to do them in secret. Is he contradicting himself? Are we to let our light shine or cover it with a bushel?

There’s no contradiction. We are the city set on a hill. As a church that is salt and light, we don not practice righteousness for our own sakes – we practice righteousness so that world might know God.

This is why there is no contradiction: In the teaching we just heard, Jesus is cautioning us not to do good deeds in order to gain approval from others. It’s all about the reward we expect. Our we letting our light shine so that the world will praise our Father (and come to know Him) or are we concerned with the approval and acceptance of others?

Jesus brings up the hypocrites. A hypocrite is an actor or performer. Jesus is using this term to colorfully describe the people whose acts of righteousness are aimed at getting public acceptance. They need to people to know their generosity. They need people to notice how carefully and accurately they can pray. They need people to see that they observe self-denial and are repentant. Hypocrites – their faith is on display for others to evaluate. That’s what Jesus meant with that term.

Of course, we have modified the term a bit. We’ve taken it out of its pedestrian usage and made it semi-religious. For us the hypocrite is a charlatan, a phony, someone with impure motives. It’s Elmer Gantry trying to bilk the good folk at the tent meeting. It’s the televangelist who asks for a seed offering and then he spends it on a house in Hawaii. It’s the false prophet who manipulates the church and the busybody who doesn’t practice what she preaches. (In our usage, a hypocrite is usually someone else) These are all problems, but that not what Jesus means by hypocrite.

In fact, a hypocrite does practice what he preaches. Notice that the “hypocrites” are gravely concerned about their acts of righteousness gaining the approval of others. They want to be “seen.” They need their reward from others. Jesus mentions three very individual acts of righteousness: giving, praying, fasting. These are three acts in which the individual (the singular “you”) participates in what all the community of the righteous should be doing.

The ones who seek the reward and approval of others is anxious for others to notice that what he or she gives is enough to make a difference. He doesn’t want to be shamed as someone who didn’t give his due. She doesn’t want to be thought of as someone who doesn’t contribute her part.

The ones who seek the reward and approval of others are anxious for others to notice that he or she prays often and prays correctly. He wants people to see how we ought to pray. She wants to pray at the proper times.The ones who seek the reward and approval of others are anxious for others to notice that – well, we don’t fast do we. Kind of hard to get a hold of that in our age of indulgence, eh? So the ones who seek the reward and approval of others are anxious are anxious to let others know when they have given up something important. They want some understanding and just the acknowledgement of their sacrifice.

It’s easy to describe those who seek the reward and approval of others and always think of them as someone else. So I want to tell you how I am complicit in the system of “being seen by others” and if you find yourself there too, then you can share with me in the journey of letting God change you too.

They say that ministers and their families live in a fishbowl. It means that everything we do is visible for all to see. I suppose the fishbowl would apply to a lot of leaders in the church. It would apply to so many of us really. I shared the metaphor of the fishbowl to a friend recently – someone who is not a church leader but is in a highly visible position in society – and he was impressed by the accuracy of the image. All of us feel like our deeds are being monitored. And it becomes natural that if we are “on display” we ought to at least hear what the audience thinks of our performance so far, right? “How am I doing?” as the once mayor of New York City, Ed Koch, used to say.

I get caught up in our habits that put a lot of emphasis on what others will think. Sometimes we as a church will do something simply because we are concerned about what others will think – and it may be something really good. I have sometimes taken satisfaction in doing something because it “looks good for the church.” And there are times we don’t do something because we are concerned about what people will think. I forget that sometimes it is risky to follow Jesus and sometimes people do get upset because I am trying to follow him.

Now on the one hand, our deeds must reflect the glory of God. As a community we are “on display” – we’re the city on the hill. But on the other hand, we cannot make the approval of others our aim. If we want that “Reward” we can get it – and we can get it easily. But the reward we are waiting on is the reward of our father. Our Father in heaven has a view much better than the spectators looking into the fishbowl. He sees what we do in secret. He is able to evaluate us on more than just our public display. Does that comfort you or scare you? If it scares you, then ask yourself what reward you are seeking. If it comforts you then keep focusing on what God wants you to do because of who you are.

Darlene grew up in a faith tradition that emphasized the quality of prayer. If you couldn’t pray right, she was told, then God will not answer your prayers. Darlene was intimidated and she just didn’t pray at church, or even at home. But then she found out she had cancer. She wasn’t sure if God heard her because she was told that her prayers were weak and were corrupted by the sin in her life. But she kept trying to pray anyway. Some friends put me and some of my elders in Texas in touch with Darlene. We visited with her. One of our elders assured her that God loves her. He mentioned that God’s Holy Spirit intercedes for us when we don’t know how to pray (Romans 8). I asked her, “Darlene, you say you’ve been praying. What do you pray.” She was reluctant to share it. Sort of humble and shy about it. Then she said, “I pray … Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever … And then I say, Lord it’s me again.”

Now what does God think about that prayer? The Lord’s Prayer keeps us focused on God. Whose approval do we seek?

• Do we seek the some sort of reward from others for the gifts we give, or is it enough to be rewarded by Our Father who gives us our daily bread?
• Do we seek some sort of reward from others when we engage in personal repentance, or is it enough to be rewarded by the one who forgives us as we forgive others?
• Do we seek some sort of reward when we pray for or with others, or is it enough to be rewarded by Our Father and to be satisfied that his will is done on earth as it is in heaven?

Whose will is the focus of our discipleship? Your own, or the will of your Father.

[Quote: Danny Mercer] If we are praying for God’s will and God’s reign in our lives and this church, but aren’t carrying it out, then we are merely actors on a stage who have received our reward already, the approval that quickly fades.

Do you want to get it right … or do you want to be righteous?

Trying To Be Perfect (part 2)

Posted by Chris on September 10, 2006 under Sermons

Read Matthew 5:27-37

So when is the last time you made an oath? When is the last time you witnessed someone taking an oath? Presidents and other leaders are sworn into office. A witness in a court is sworn to tell the truth. A bride and groom make a vow, which is a special kind of oath. But what exactly is an oath?

An oath (from Old Saxon eoth) is either a promise or a statement of fact calling upon God as a witness to the binding nature of the promise or the truth of the statement of fact. Technically, to swear is to make a promises that invokes God to hold you accountable to that promise.

Jesus knows about oaths. He also knows how they are abused. Since an oath calls upon God and it just seems sort of pretentious to summon God to witness our business, some would swear not by God, but by heaven. That seems a little nicer. Of course the convenience of swearing by heaven is that this isn’t as binding as swearing by God, so maybe it wasn’t really an oath to being with since an oath technically invokes God.

But Jesus knows the difference and he teaches his disciples differently: Instead of reserving the truth for special occasions like an oath, Jesus’ disciples always tell the truth because we are always in the presence of God.

The same way with vows and covenants. Vows are special oaths that represent covenants between people. Like the covenant between a man and woman in marriage. Jesus knows about vows and covenants. He also knows how they are abused. Moses required the men of Israel to write out a bill of divorce if they were going to get rid of their wives. It was an effort to limit divorce so that the men would practice some sort of self-control and not abuse the women they put out on their own. But in later times the men of Israel developed a process of “scriptural divorce” and created a loophole in the covenant that allowed them to wrap their lust up in legality so they wouldn’t break any rules.

But Jesus knows the difference and he teaches his disciples differently: It isn’t enough to “not commit adultery” or to “stay married to one person.” Not breaking any rules isn’t the same thing as purity of heart. And Jesus did not say “Blessed are the rule-keepers, for they shall stay out of trouble.” No, he said “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God!”

Lust and adultery are not a problem simply because they break the rules. That’s an immature and imperfect way to view it. The real problem with lust (of any sort, not just sexual) is that it is unbelief. It trades the unseen promises of God for the tangible object of a moment’s desire. We become Esau giving up our birthright for a bowl of soup.

A report on the news yesterday told of the struggle of women in Lebanon and other Arab countries to obtain certain basic rights. In Lebanon there are eighteen legal courts designed to deal with different cultural and religious beliefs about women in society. But what all of the courts have in common is that women are objects – they are subordinate to men.
In America it is very different. Women have rights. In fact, a woman has the right to “make herself” nothing more than an object to be used by a man – but the woman may be fulfilling her own desires. Now which is better, America’s way or Lebanon’s way. If we are only concerned with individual rights, we should say America. But if we understand the teaching of Jesus, then we should say that Americans and Lebanese have the same problem – they are exchanging the unseen promises of God for the tangible. We each have our ways of reducing people to objects for our own benefit rather than seeing people as God’s children.

According to Jesus, lust becomes a problem not because it breaks a rule, but because it distracts us from the purity of heart that his disciples have when they follow him. The instruction to poke out our eyes our cut off our hand is meant to underline how serious this is. It is better to save your whole body than to sacrifice it for the momentary pleasures of the eye or the hand. Likewise, it isn’t worth losing your whole body for those same lusts. When the eye becomes clouded with lust, we can no longer see God.

When our hearts are clouded and impure, we live by lies we tell ourselves. The little stories we make up that justify our fears or our lusts. When our hearts are clouded are impure, something as important as marriage can become a means to satisfy our own selfish desires. But Christ consecrates the marriage of disciples and sanctifies it. He sets it on a stronger foundation than mutual satisfaction and makes it into a covenant of love and selflessness that enables us to practice reconciling forgiveness.

The problem we have with oaths and covenants today is that we apply them only to individuals. They are regarded as nothing more than a personal ethic. When a single person no longer accepts the oath or the covenant, he or she abandons it for personal desires.

But oaths and covenants are based on more than a personal moral code. We are all stakeholders in the oath and covenant. This is simply because we are all accountable to the truth. Truth is something larger than all of us. Not any version of the truth, but God’s truth and God’s will. God’s truth becomes the oath and covenant that binds us to one another in such a way that it is truly the only way we can all live together in any way at all.

The only way we can become perfect is as a people, not as individuals. Jesus never intended his sermon to be practiced by hermits. He is preaching to a crowd. He is preaching to churches. His “you” is plural.

We are going to be perfect together – and this is where church discipline and accountability come in: We tend to think that church discipline means “someone is getting in trouble.” That’s a rather elementary school concept of it. The discipline is always an attempt to help people do better – never to punish. Church discipline is the children of God working together trying to be perfect as our father in heaven is perfect.

Forgiveness and reconciliation are the practice and process of a people living out perfection. Through the process of forgiveness and reconciliation we become more than what we could be if we had simply followed our own desires. We actually improve – we mature and become perfect – when we confront our own lusts, our own desires, our own tendency to wiggle away from God’s charges. And the only way we make any progress is through forgiveness and reconciliation. God’s forgiveness and the forgiveness of others.

What’s great about marriage is that we are constantly in need of forgiveness and reconciliation. There is no way we can live so intimately with another and find ourselves in need of either being forgiving or extending forgiveness. That’s reconciliation. Any marriage counselor will tell you that she would rather deal with a couple who start by owning their own problems than with a couple who blame each other. Confession and forgiveness lead to reconciliation, and the awareness of our weaknesses leads to perfection.

In our effort to be disciples, to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect we must go to the cross. One of the values that our elders have encouraged us to undertake as disciples is to “daily focus on Jesus and the cross.” That’s so important, for beneath the cross of Jesus, we are all accountable to one another.

• The cross rips away every lie we tell ourselves, to say nothing of lies we may tell.
• The cross exposes the lusts of our hearts and reveals the cost of living only for our own desires (or fears).
• The cross reveals the stark truth about ourselves and about God. Shameful sin is met with faithful love.
• So, beneath the cross we truly become one body washed in the blood.

The 10,000 Foot View

Posted by Chris on September 3, 2006 under Sermons

1. Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12)
2. Discipleship (Matthew 5:13-7:12)
3. Two Ways (Matthew 7:13-27)

BEATITUDES

Trying To Be Perfect (part 1)

Posted by Chris on under Sermons

Read Matthew 5:21-48

“Making Disciples for Jesus Who Are Eager to Serve Others.” That’s our mission statement for the West-Ark family. We have decided that it is important enough to emblazon on a banner in our worship center. Do we believe it? Are we really ready to accept it? If we are going to make disciples for Jesus, then must be disciples for Jesus.

Jesus is ringing up the cost of discipleship in his sermon on the mount. His vision for his community of disciples is nothing less than salt of the earth and light of the world. Being a disciple of Jesus means following Christ; not just following the rules. But don’t think for a moment that this implies that following Jesus is a sloppy righteousness. He isn’t playing fast and loose with the law, rather he is intensifying it. Following Jesus isn’t less strict than “following the rules.” In fact, Jesus’ disciples must have a righteousness that is much better than the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees – and they were the ultimate rule-keepers.But what does this Christ-focused, Pharisee-surpassing rigtheousness look like? How do we go “beyond” the law in our discipleship? This is what Jesus fleshes out in the part of his sermon that we just heard. The righteousness of his disciples goes beyond anger and insult, it goes beyond contracted relationship, it goes beyond technicalities in truthtelling, it goes beyond rights and revenge. Jesus sums it all up by saying that we are to be perfect.

We are to be perfect just as our Father in heaven is perfect. Perfection, according to Jesus, means living out the spirit of law. It means incorporating the spirit of the law-giver into us. If we are going to be perfect we cannot afford a choice between loving God and loving other people. The cost of discipleship includes both. The kingdom righteousness Jesus preaches asks us to go beyond anger and contempt and demanding our rights …

Quote Bonhoeffer: “Every idle word which we think so little of betrays our lack of respect for our neighbor, and shows that we place ourselves on a pinnacle above him and value our own lives higher than his. The angry word is a blow struck at our brother, a stab at his heart: it seeks to hit, to hurt, and to destroy. A deliberate insult is even worse, for we are then openly disgracing our brother in the eyes of the world, and causing others to despise him. With our hearts burning with hatred we seek to annihilate his moral and material existence. We are passing judgment on him, and that is murder. And the murderer will himself be judged.”

Our culture divides people into innocent persecuted and relentless persecuters. We are either the wronged or we are doing wrong. But the cycle of anger, hatred, and revenge is cyclical. It feeds on itself and those who were once done wrong are often corrupted themselves with anger and hatred … [personal story about hate toward “PR”]

Whether we are victim or victimizers, no one is exempt from the cost of discipleship. Part of that cost is to give up the bitterness, the fear, the contempt, that causes us to act or feel hatefully and badly toward another. It rings up as part of what we pay for the blessedness of following Jesus. We shall not give in to anger, contempt, bitterness, or insult. We shall not demand our rights or revenge ourselves. We will love others. Not just those we like, but those who hate us. Anyone can love people they like, but to love an enemy is a kingdom characteristic.

All of this doesn’t mean we are passive. Quite the opposite – the disciple of Jesus actively persues peace and reconciliation. That’s what it means to be a disciple – that’s what it means to be perfect. Jesus instructs us on how to actively pursue righteousness and peace …

1. We have to go to others. After the experience with PR, I began to reflect on how I may have hurt others. That’s how I overcame much of what I felt. But whoever reconciles – victim or victimizers/accused or accuser/injured or injurer – the end result is the same: reconciliation. Jesus tells us to settle out of court. Reconcile that debt right away. Now, while we are still on the way to court. And we are all on our way to meet the judge. Settle the matter!

2. In fact, this is so important that Jesus says just get it taken care of even if it disrupts worship. God wants reconciliation because the business of brothers and sisters reconciling is not nearly as disruptive to worship as hatred, anger, and unresolved dispute. As far back as the creation worship of God has been disrupted by the sin of hatred and all of the associated problems. Cain’s problem with Abel started where? In worship!
3. What tends to come up in dispute however, is protection of rights. We ask, “Don’t I have my rights? What protection do we have?” We live in an age and culture of vindication. There’s always someone to be sued. In the days of Jesus people sued the poor. They really did try to get blood from a turnip. And what’s Jesus’ solution to the unfair, unjust practice? He says: “Give them what they ask for – and more!” If they want your jacket, give them the shirt of your back to and walk out of the court in your skivvies! And watch the whole system come crumbling down! But – Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

I remember driving to Houston one day with one of the elders of my congregation in Texas. He was included in a class action group suing an asbestos company and the law firm in Houston wanted his deposition. He really didn’t want any part of it, but he was made to feel obligated to go. I drove him to Houston and waited for an hour while he gave his deposition. When we left the office the law clerks gave him a ball cap with the law firm’s name on it. And he talked them into giving me one too. On the way out he smiled at me and said laughingly, “Those two hats and a check for $23 is probably the most I’ll ever get from this!” My old friend had taught me a valuable lesson. He wasn’t concerned about his rights. He didn’t let it bother him. And in his grin and the matching ball caps we wore I saw the entire culture of everyone demanding their rights come crumbling down. Sort of the same way I am sure it did everytime someone cheerfully carried another’s person’s load another mile – not because they had to, but because they chose to.

Everytime we offer to let a violent person hit us again because we are not afraid, the whole system of self-righteous protection of our own interests comes crumbling down. My dear friend Carolyn was only nine when the Civil Rights movement the 1960’s was at its peak. She and her parents were walking into a store in their Georgia town and a prim and proper white-skinned woman put her cigarette out on Carolyn’s cheek. The woman expressed her rage “uppity blacks demanding their rights.” How did you or your family, how did any decent human present not want to arrest that woman, I asked Carolyn. She said, “I remembered how our preacher told us to turn the other cheek.” And a system of violence came crumbling down – not because Carolyn fought back, but because it was exposed for all its ugliness.

Disciples of Jesus have got to be different, not just for our sake but for the sake of the world. If–and this may be a big if–we can do this, we just might be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. And if we can be this kind of alternative society, then perhaps the other society can be blessed and reconciled back to its creative design.

The good news is that we are still on the way to court. There’s still time to reconcile. There’s still time to go another mile. We can turn the other cheek. We can give away freely what has been given to us.Get right with your brother or sister! Get right with God!

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God. God is calling his children to the dinner table.

Back To School Blessing

Posted by Chris on August 27, 2006 under Sermons

[Congregation encouraged to take home magnets with names of students and/or teachers. Pray for them every day this school year.]

This is the third year for the Back to School Blessing at West-Ark. I am so thankful that we take the time for this event. I appreciate the fact that students and teachers and school workers report that they feel blessed not only from this event, but from knowing that someone is praying for them all year long. I have been impressed that many of you have asked if we can offer a service blessing for other groups as we do for students and teachers. (The answer is yes, I just need your help to organize it).
In the weeks leading up to this event I have been pondering the question: Why do we do this?

1. I think we do the Back to School Blessing because words of blessing are so rare in our times. In our society we often give awards; we praise achievement and accomplishment. But that is not the same as a blessing. A blessing pronounces God’s favor on another simply for the sake of the other.

Jesus opened his sermon on the mount by proclaiming blessings on those who certainly didn’t earn the blessing of God. They hadn’t accomplished great things. In fact some were the objects of scorn and persecution. Some might even be those considered cursed because of their poverty and losses. But the blessing of God is gracious and abundant, it is for those who need it and available even to those who think they do not.

2. I think we do the Back to School Blessing because words of criticism and cursing are too common in our society. Cursing is more than saying bad words. It is much more serious than that. Cursing is the opposite of blessing. It seeks the downfall and promotes the harm of another. Sometimes the purpose of the curse is to humiliate or condemn another. Curses are spoken out of anxiety, fear, and anger – not the grace of God. The people of God are called to be a source of blessing, not curses. Of lesser harm than cursing is criticism and blame. Sometimes we are just too negative and cynical. We are always looking for problems and seeking to blame someone. Even we are well-intentioned, constant disparagement leads to a bitter and unhealthy outlook than doesn’t solve problems but actually creates more problems! It is a vicious cycle.

So, one of the areas were we can be a source of blessing is for our students and teachers in all of our schools – public, private, home schools. It isn’t easy to be a student; and it isn’t easy to work in schools – and it gets harder all the time. But instead of finding someone to blame, let’s pronounce blessings.
As I was contemplating this question, I came across an article in the Southwest Times Record (Aug. 16, 2006). What first attracted my attention was the headline that Benny had taken on the role of a cheerleader. I thought, “Do they really need the superintendent on the cheerleading squad.” But Dr. Gooden’s cheerleading is not for athletes – its for teachers who work at some of the most demanding schools in our region. He and Gordon Floyd, the assistant superintendent for instruction, are encouraging teachers and trying to help them understand that they are valuable.
Gordon Floyd said in the article, “A number of teachers who work in so-called ‘low-performing’ schools see their work their as a mission and they like being there.” When I read that I thought about the reasons we do this Back to School Blessing. We definitely need to support those who have a mission. And I think Dr. Floyd’s statement applies to teachers and workers in all schools. I doubt that there are very few people involved in education who are only in it for the pay. They are trying to bless students, and so it is right that we not only add our blessing to theirs – but we need to bless them as well.

Blessing of Students [prayer by an elder]

Blessing of Teachers/School Workers [prayer by an elder]

Jesus ended his sermon that started with blessings by inviting us to live out his words. If you put his teaching into practice you are like the person who built his house on a rock. The alternative is the person who built a house on shifting, loose sand. But there’s one thing common to both houses – they are each hit with storms. Even the house built on solid rock is hit with storms. The difference is that it stands.
The greatest blessing you can receive is the foundation to support you in times of distress and storm. Put the teaching of Jesus into practice and live within the blessings of God’s in-breaking kingdom.