I began to wonder recently: What if we simply removed about 1800 years of Church History, which would put us about 167 years after the death of Christ, and about 170ish years before the church began to become the centralized religion of the Roman Empire? What if we erased all that we know about what humans have done to how Christians convene and act and live their lives? How would we know how to act and what to do?
Of course, we’d look at Christ wouldn’t we? We’d look to the Bible, to The Acts of the Apostles found in the Book of Acts, to the Gospels, and we’d hopefully consider these things to be the sort of blue print on which we build our actions, expectations, and understandings of the Christian lives. However, I suspect if we did this our model of doing “church” might come out radically different from what it is right now.
You see, what has happened in Church History is that the Church began by doing things the way the apostles set things up as they learned it from Christ. Then those taught by the apostles set up their “churches” the way the apostles taught them to, and so on and so on; but at some point we began to set things up according to the way “we’ve always done it”–that dreaded, Godless phrase that focuses more on a religion that starts with man than a theology that starts with God. I cannot help but wonder if we have diverged from the path and built a temple on a foundation of sand for a thousand years that is now beginning to show its weakness as the newest waves of history batter it?
Let me state my point clearly. What I am saying is that if we look to Christ and the actions of the Apostles, they did things differently than we do! We, in the established and centrally located Church, draw people out of their homes, often times out of their immediate communities and vicinities to come to our churches and to our worship services; and then we beg them to become a community together, to establish themselves as a community over the common bond of a worship service that they were attracted to because it was likely more entertaining than most and supplied them with the strength to withstand the unbelievable boredom and total lack of application and meaning that many people find themselves mired in on Sunday mornings between 8 am and 12 pm. We create a service, a worship service, in hopes that it would instigate community to be formed. We create “worshippers” hoping that it would create community and disciples of Christ. However, Christ did it quite differently, did He not? He didn’t invite the disciples to a worship service or to a church service, though they did go to “church” as we would call it. Still, the number of stories of Christ talking in a “church-like” atmosphere is quite low compared to the number of stories where the disciples were just living life with Christ. Christ did not create church in hopes of creating community, he did not create “worshippers” in hopes of creating disciples. Christ created disciples in hows of creating worshippers, he created a community in hopes to create a church! We are wrong, Christ was right.
The prodigal son didn’t return because of a philosophical and theological argument. No one spoke truth to Him about the truth of his Father’s house being the heart’s true home–after all, arguments only eliminate lies…experience is what reinforces truth. And the Prodigal did not return home because that was the way he had always done it–bleh, that phrase again. No, the Prodigal returned home because in a moment he remembered all that had transacted in the Father’s home and his heart remembered that it was where it belonged. It was the deeply transformational and experiential knowing that drew the boy back to the loving arms of His father, and the father did not disappoint did he? No, he didn’t. The Son returned home to find that what his heart yearned for was neither a lie or a mirage, it was truth, a very legitimate reality–one that his heart begged to return to from the wasteland of warmth and true love that it found itself immersed in out in the foreign land.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the Church may have been wrong for a thousand plus years, and do not think I do not understand the unbelievable audacity that one must have to insinuate such a thing. It’s not like I’m part of some denomination or sect of Christianity that thinks that Church History holds no weight in arguments–not that other denominations are dumb or anything, I’m just arguing that I don’t flippantly question church tradition without good reason. After all: Scripture + tradition + reason + experience. I just wonder if the flipping of the flow of “church making,” i.e. beginning with community formation and small groups and accountability, then moving into large scale corporate worship would create the warmth of the Father’s house that the Prodigal was so eager to return to. I wonder if we built corporate worship on the foundation of intimate community, and then through in the depths of church history’s more powerful creeds and rites if it would create a more spiritually healthy congregations that are a mile deep and perhaps even a mile wide instead of a mile wide and an inch deep?
If the Trinity is the perfect form of community, if God was a community before He was the God of humanity, doesn’t that mean that maybe we ought to give a bit more thought to community in the church instead of rock and roll church services that, in some ways, exalt entertainment over and above the worship of God? As the incredible Indian preacher Ravi Zacharias once said in a sermon, “In community we are unified -which does not necessarily mean uniform- and worship is difficult if not impossible without unity.”

Boker tov, Shabat Shalom my friends!  Or as the Muslims would say, “Salaam alicoum.” Hahaha.  Well, I successfully made it back to America it would seem.  I had no cavity searches; there were no wars that broke out as a result of any of my actions, I did get deathly ill in Egypt –thought I was going to die –, and I almost fell into the Sea of Galilee because I was horsing around on some big rocks next to it.  Haha, but other than all of that, it was a great experience yet again.

You know, sometimes people ask my why I travel and why I go to the Middle East.  My own parents support me in it, but I don’t know that they truly understand it.  The Middle East amazes me; it continues to amaze me every time I go there.  The culture, the food, the dress, the buildings…it’s a whole different world and way of living; but Israel is really what draws me there.  Israel blows me away more than any other place in the Middle East

It seems that every place you go in Israel, you can find a Biblical reference that talks about something historic that happened there.  I mean, you can just be driving down the road and drive over a beautiful little stream and someone says, “Oh this is the stream that God reduced Gideon’s army from thousands to a mere three hundred so the Israelites would realize that it’s God who fights for them and wins for them.”  Or you drive along a valley road and someone says, “Oh by the way, that’s Mount Carmel over there, where Elijah called down fire from heaven and blew an altar apart to show up the priests and prophets of the pagan God Baal.”  One day we were driving down the road and someone goes, “And on your right is the City of Capernaum, the city Jesus lived in for the three years he did ministry.”  Everywhere you go, you have an opportunity to experience the history of salvation and of God’s work in our world.

Dr. Tuttle, a professor at Asbury seminary in Orlando, a close friend of mine, and mentor, always talks about what he refers to as “thin spots” when I go there with him.  A thin spot is a place where, for whatever reason –perhaps your attitude at the time, or your personal walk with Christ, or the people with you, or perhaps it’s just how God orchestrated things –the distance between you and God, the separation between your heart and his heart seems to dissolve and disappear.  You find yourself free to mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and even physically feel the presence of God come over you.

The Jews, when you read the Torah, or pray, say that it is an “Aliah” or “ascension.”  They believe going to Jerusalem –the Holy City of God –is an and Aliah.  These thing spots are an Aliah, a time where conditions are right and God’s will is such that you seem to ascend to the throne room of grace and feel the very presence of the King.

It’s tough predict where these thin spots or Aliah’s will occur when you are in the Holy Land or over here for matter.  Last year my thin spots, probably due to where I was and what I was dealing with, revolved around the death of Christ and His Humanity.  I felt closest to God when I was in a place where Christ suffered most like I did –the mountain of Temptation, Golgotha –where he was murdered, place the Sermon on the Mount was –where he spoke plainly and frankly to us in our own language, and in His tomb where he was buried and resurrected.

This year, however, my thin spots were much different…which probably points to where I am now in life and with God.  We had the opportunity to go on a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee.  There were 41 Americans, 1 Ethiopian, 3 Jamaicans, 4 Argentineans, 2 Arab Israeli’s, and 1 Jewish Israeli.  We sailed out into the middle of the Sea and…had a church service.  We read scripture about the Sea of Galilee, and then they put worship music on and we together, this multinational multi-ethnical group began to worship together.  We had an Aliah, our boat took flight and ascended into heaven it seemed.

I sat for some time and observed what was taking place before me, I wrote in my journal and found myself in awe of the worship, the spontaneous in-breaking of deep joy that was occurring.  I watched people who had only known each other for a week, fall to their knees and confess deep deep darkness within their own hearts; and then I watched people listening to their confession, holding their hands and weeping with them as if they hurt for and with the people.  Then they stood up and both raised their hands to God and wept tears of joy and smiled the brightest smiles you’ll ever find.  There was deeply intimate but deeply public and corporate worship taking place there; and there was this feeling of deep deep over powering almost magical joy.

I’ve thought about that moment a lot over the past week or so, and how different that church service on that boat in the middle of the Sea of Galilee was than anything your average church goer experiences on Sunday morning.  I thought perhaps it was the music that caused it, but let me tell you, the music they played over the radio just wasn’t very good at all.  And then I thought, Perhaps it was the setting, being in Israel, having suffered through the wilderness of Egypt and Jordan, and literally coming into the promise land of the Jews.  Maybe it was beauty of the place we were in. But as I prayed and sat there worshipping and observing people worshipping it dawned on me that it was something far greater and for more profound than a simple geographical or musical coincidence.

David speaks of this joy in Psalm 16:11 when he wrote,

Psalm 16:9-11 my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices; my body also rests secure.  ¹⁰ For you do not give me up to Hell, or let your faithful one see death.  ¹¹ You show me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy.

The word there used for “fullness” literally translates as, “saturated,” as if the Psalmist was saying that in God’s presence we are soaking wet with Joy –somebody say Amen.  This sermon is going to much longer if you make me say all of my own Amens.

There was genuine rejoicing there on that boat, genuine celebration, genuine and real happiness that poured out from one another and soaked us in the Joy of God’s presence.  We had a joy that was far deeper than the meager emotional high that many people seek after in church services.  It was a joy that, when you stopped thinking about it, didn’t go away.  It was a joy that was not weak or fleeting at the first sign of change in the air or with the ending of music.  It wasn’t dependent on the setting and it was not dependent on the quality of the music.  It was a strong unassailable joy.

However, for me, this raised the inevitable question in my mind, “Why is this different than before?  What separates the joy I observed and myself experienced on that boat from what we experience from time to time at church here in America?”  What makes this joy ever present instead of fleeting, strong and reliable instead of weak and whimsical, predictable and definite instead of fickle and elusive, and not lasting?

I asked God this.  I said, “Father, why is this different?  What is it, precisely, that is different about this?  Tell me, please, I must understand.”  God said to me very plainly and simply, “This joy is educated, not ignorant.”  I responded, “What in the world does that mean?” And God brought to mind one passage that, admittedly, confused me and shook me to my core.  Let me read it to you, but I’m going to read it in the King James Version because it just sounds better:

Psalm 23

“The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.  ² He maketh me lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside still waters;^{1 3} he restores my soul.¹ He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.  ⁴ Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff — they comfort me.  ⁵ You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.  ⁶ Surely¹ goodness and mercy² shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD my whole life long.

Someone say Amen again. Wheeeew, if that don’t curl your toes, we need to talk.  I think that Psalm turns God on, Hahaha.  I think it just lights Him up like a Roman candle –I think Jesus liked that Psalm too, I can’t him not just soaking every word of that perfect Psalm in.

For a while I wasn’t sure about that Psalm and what it had to do with what I was experiencing that day, Monday January 11, 2010 on the Sea of Galilee.  And then God showed me.  He said, “Notice what my servant, my friend, my son, my lover…David…said.  He said, ‘Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.’ He does not write a song to God that says, ‘Lord please do not lead me through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.’”  We spend too much time avoiding the death of ourselves, the death of the way WE want to do things.  This creates a joy that is shallow and weak

But….

True Deep Joy, the Joy of the Lord is not whimsical and fleeting precisely because it has been forged and galvanized in the fires of the Valley of the Shadow of Death.  We are not called to avoid the Valley of Death, but rather to walk through it hand in hand with Christ, our good shepherd, and to be delivered to the other side up the valley walls to the mountain of God.

John Wesley wrote, “The one work we have to do is to return from the gates of death to perfect soundness; to have our diseases cured, our wounds healed, and our uncleanness done away with…to re-exchange the image of Satan for the image of God, bondage for freedom, and sickness for health.”

Jesus said… “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.” Christ said, “He who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” And again, he said, “He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it.”

There is a very clear biblical sense in which we must lose the life we have in order to gain the life that God has for us.  We must have the courage to walk out of Egypt, knowing we will be brought into the promise land.  However, we must first recognize, with a sober understanding, the true nature of our condition…that we are treading on the very dust of the valley of death, that we are dirty, wounded, diseased, sick, and in bondage.

This is hard, and a painful thing to do because it requires death to our way of life…What I experienced on that boat was a funeral, that’s why there were tears…that’s why there are tears at the alter many times…something inside of us is dying.  Funerals are always accompanied by pain because we can never again be the same.  But we cannot be hesitant to attend our own funerals, we cannot hesitate to allow God to destroy us so that we may build us up into the people who worship in spirit and in truth and who change the world.

However, the funeral is not the point.  Mourning is not the point.  Sadness and tears are not the point.  Dwelling in the Valley of the Shadow of Death is not the point.  These are simply the necessary roads we must take.  There are people, and I have lived as one of them, who truly believe that dwelling in a state of grief and suffering over our sins is the point of Christianity.  That we should have an ever present feeling of sadness over our lives and how we have betrayed God.  We cannot avoid this truths, we must face them and our brokenness head on; but they are not the POINT of Christianity.  The point of Christianity, the point of Christ’s death on the cross is joy, peace, hope…and most of God reconciliation with God.  We are to be brought back to the mountain of God and given the ability to, once again, hug His neck.  That is Christianity, healing for our sake, love for our sake, joy for our sake, and God…for our sake.  He doesn’t NEED us, we NEED Him…God is joy, God’s presence is joy…the point of Christianity is to be able to be in His unabated presence once again.  Do not let the valley of the shadow of death stop you from climbing the mountain of God on the other side.

Amen

Christmas as we are used to it Many families around the United States and around the world have the tradition of reading the Christmas story aloud to all of their children. Many families will sit in a home next to a fire place, with beautiful lights adorning a magnificent tree in the corner and they will, together, remember the story of the birth of Christ as a family. This is, actually, a very Jewish thing to do…very biblical. More times than not these sorts of customs –the Christmas cantatas, concerts, family readings –focus on the Christmas stories that we find in the three Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. These are the accounts of Christmas that our children act out in plays, that our choirs sing of on the Sundays leading up to Christmas, which Christmas songs speak of, and that decorations and traditions all call to memory. The Christmas story, as we are used to it in the Bible, is a very peaceful time with exotic visitors, angels singing in joy, and cute animals hovering over a sweet little infant who just happens to be God. It’s quaint, very memorable, and a wonderful moment that we find so much peace and calm in. God came so quietly and humbly into His creation, into our world, and we remember and love the story of it.

However, what if I told you that there was another Christmas story in the Bible, one that addressed things about Christmas that we often over look? What if I told you that there were not just the three accounts of Christmas that we get from the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. What if I told you that there was a fourth account of Christmas in the Bible –one that we are either unaware of or one that we don’t speak of, perhaps because of a lack of understanding? This forth account is an account that is much darker and more dangerous than the polite ones found in the Gospels. An account that whispers of angels and demons, wars, of humanity being confronted with the utmost evil. It is a story about a child that is threatened by a great red dragon; it is a story about the return of a king. What would you say to that? It sounds more like a C.S. Lewis or J.R.R. Tokien fantasy story than a Biblical narrative. The truth is that there is a fourth account of what took place at Christmas time in our Bible; but it is an account of what took place on a realm that is nearly always unseen to human eye and often forgotten. It is the account of Christmas that John of Patmos had revealed to him and that he recorded in the often misunderstood and avoided final book of the Bible –the Book of the Revelation of John; and it reveals to us the true nature of Christmas and the true nature of what God accomplished with the coming of Christ.

Prayer

When you think of ancient Israel, what type of governmental or ruling structure do you think of? Generally we think of a Kingdom or a Monarchy, and rightfully so. We think of King David, or Saul, or Solomon. We think of a man who rules over the country from throne, just like any monarchy. But it wasn’t always so. Israel as a Monarchy, with a man as King, was actually a relatively late development in nation’s life. In fact, the Old Testament indicate that God never really intended for Israel to be ruled by a man as a King. He foresaw it, I believe; but He did not want it to be that way.

If you think back to the first ruler that the nation of Israel really had, when it was a large group of people and not just a small family, it was who? Moses. Moses was really the first major leader of Israel. It was Moses that delivered the Israelites out of Egypt and to the very edge of the promise land. After Moses, Joshua took over the reigns of Israel, and led them on military conquests to eradicate their enemies in the promise, one of which you will remember was Jericho –where he led the Israelites in marching around the city blowing their horns and trumpets until the walls came tumbling down! After Joshua came what is called the Age of the Judges. The judges were individuals that God rose up during times of national crisis, when the whole of Israel, or one of her individual tribes were threatened from outside forces. During all this time, Israel was actually led spiritually by a series of prophets –Moses was actually the first of them – and most of the time those prophets showed up, as God led them to, and spoke into the lives of Israelites. The interesting thing about all of this though, is that it isn’t really an individual that is leading Israel, at least not human. You see, in reality, each and every ruler that Israel has up the formation of a Monarchy with a king serves simply as a middle man, or woman for that matter. Even Moses Himself did not rule over Israel. He, in essence, simply conveyed the will and words of God to Israel. It just appears as though he was ruling the nation. The fact was that God was ruling Israel through these different individuals.

God as King of Israel –Deuteronomy 32:8-9 Let me read something to you here that will shake you up a little bit –something that we often times don’t catch. I’m going to read this to you and I want you to just think about the implications of it: “8 When the Most High God1 apportioned the nations, when he divided humankind, he fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons gods; 2 9 the LORD’s own portion was his people, Jacob his allotted share.” This is Moses speaking here, and it is in the Bible…it’s not some fantasy novel that I’ve picked up; so we must take this very seriously. Moses indicates that God, at some point in history, separated the people of earth into nations and that He appointed a “Son of God” to the head of each nation. Now, whenever you see “Sons of God” in the Old Testament, it is almost always a reference to angels. Men would “Sons of Adam” or “Sons of Man,” and angels are “Sons of God” –hence the significance of Christ being referred being referred to as both. These “Sons of God” seem to have been appointed as the rulers of the heads of these nations, and had the duty of keeping the nations accountable to God. But the interesting thing is that God did not appoint one to be the head of Israel. He took Israel as His own. He was the personal King of the Jews –ehhh, ehh, are you seeing the connection yet?

Now remember though, Israel gets a king named Saul, and then one named David, and then Solomon, and so on and so on. But, I thought God was king. I thought God was King of the Jews? There seems to be a discrepancy. Let me clear it up for you. Turn to 1 Samuel 8 in your Bibles, if you want to follow along: “When Samuel became old, he made his sons judges [there’s that word again] over Israel…But his sons did not follow in his ways, but turned aside after gain; they took bribes and perverted justice. 4 Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah [a city], 5 and said to him, “You are old and your sons do not follow in your ways; appoint for us, then, a king to govern us, like other nations.” They wanted to be like other people around them, instead of how God wanted them to be. Hmmm, there’s a sermon in that, but perhaps for another day. Moving on 6 But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to govern us.” Samuel prayed to the LORD, 7 and the LORD said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. 8 Just as they have done to me,1 from the day I brought them up out of Egypt to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so also they are doing to you. 9 Now then, listen to their voice; only — you shall solemnly warn them, and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.” 10 So Samuel reported all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking him for a king. Samuel goes on to tell them, and essentially prophecy to them, about all the nasty nasty things that the kings of Israel would do: drafting their children into armies, taking many of their daughters for wives, taxing them, and taking their live stock and food. However they did not listen…picking up in 1 Samuel 8:19: “But the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel; they said, ‘No! We are determined to have a king over us, so that we also may be like other nations, and that our king may govern us and go out before us and fight our battles.” God was King of the Jews until they dethroned Him and demanded a man essentially take the position that belonged to God. Jews, being the classic example of humans, chose something or someone else over God for terrible reasons. They did not have faith that God would do for them what He said He would, and so they dethrone Him.

This is how Israel became a Kingdom of Men instead of a Kingdom of Heaven, a Kingdom lead by mortals and sinners instead of a Kingdom lead by the Most High God; but what does this have to do with Christmas? What does this have to do with the vision of the Dragon, the lady, and the child in Revelation chapter 12 that John of Patmos recorded?

The coming of the Christ Recall what the often forgotten story of Christmas in Revelation said of the male child that John saw being born in his vision. It said, “And she gave birth to a son, a male child who is to rule all the nations with an iron rod.” The word “rule,” in the Greek, is poimainoo, which means first and foremost “to lead, to tend, to look after, to watch over, to care for, to herd,…and to shepherd.” It was Christ that referred to himself as the “Good” what –The good shepherd. Christ is that child being born, He is the child who grew up and became a King. His contemporaries yearned desperately for the return of the King, the return of the shepherd, for the return of God to Earth to rule over Israel. And Christ was that God. He came to Earth to reclaim the throne of God, the throne of the world; but most importantly…most importantly, He came to reclaim the throne of the realm where everything was lost to begin with. It was in the heart that the sin was first committed that divorced us from God, and it is in the human heart that Christ must be crowned King. You see, as go our hearts, so go our actions. As go our actions, so goes our society. As goes our society, so goes our country. As go our countries, so goes our world. Christ came as a politically subversive force that is to be sure; but He came to reclaim the throne of God that is in our hearts. He came to be the King of your individual life. He came to break heaven into your heart so that His Father’s desires will be done in your heart as they are in heaven. He came so that the Kingdom of Heaven would live on inside of you, and because it lives on inside of you it lives on in your actions, your homes, your cities, your states, your countries, and your world. Where the Christian lives and where Christians are gathered, so should live the Kingdom of Heaven; a Kingdom characterized by love, forgiveness, deep inner healing, total and complete acceptance, mercy, grace, peace, joy, comfort. A kingdom characterized by a group of people who forsake all to follow the will of God, even if it means death…even if it means death on a cross.

Christ must be the King of our hearts before He’ll ever be able to be king over your actions and over your Church. Friends, this Church will not ever be a force to be reckoned with in this world and in the Spiritual realm until He becomes the King of it, until we lay down our rights and privileges, until we lay down our crowns before Him. Christmas is about the end of world. It is a look into heaven where what God says and desires is done. Where Christ is the King of your heart. You were created for this. The turmoil and chaos inside of us all is a heart meant to be ruled by God being ruled by men. When will you become like Israel, tired of the Kings that have failed you so miserably. When will you yearn for Christ to be King of your heart?

The Weight of Glory (Luke 1:26-38)

I. Wisdom from a Wizard I suspect that God truly is in control and all powerful. I find it amazing what God can speak through and how He can teach us in subtle yet effective ways with the most unlikely resources at His disposal. His ability to take everything in our world and make it work for Him is supernatural. Everything, from love songs to country music, from disaster to joy, from sunshine to thunderstorms, it all seems to serve as a bridge that links us directly to the heart of the living God…if we dare to cross it to, of course. Paul himself spoke about this in his letter to the Romans when he wrote, “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him.” We can find inspiration and leadership from the one true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob…the God of and the God who was Jesus… in the most unlikely of ways. It seems God’s just has those kinds of skills. B. Order of the Phoenix A couple of years ago the movie Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire came out, and though it was and probably remains still terribly unlikely that I would suddenly find a divine truth from a movie, God taught me something in that movie. I gained wisdom from a wizard, so to speak. Now, I’ve used this quote before, but at the very end of the movie, Dumbledore makes a comment to Harry that I find speaks directly to the heart of Christian life. He remarks, “Dark and Difficult times lay ahead, Harry. Now is the time that we must choose between what is right, and what is easy.” This is the Weight of Glory. It is the sacrifice of that which is good for that which is best, the death of that which is easy so that which is right may live on. Family, friends, visitors of this church, allow me to echo to you Dumbledore’s comments today. Dark and difficult times lay ahead and the time is coming, the time has already come, when you are going to have to choose –perhaps for the first time in your life –between what is right and what is easy. Ironically, the decision between what is right and what is easy is infinitely more difficult than the choice between what is right and what is wrong. The lines that separate what is right from wrong are very easily seen and quite observable by the amateur. However those lines that separate right and easy, the lines that separate the good from the best…these lines are faint and not so easily observed. Bow your heads with me as we go to our Lord in prayer for wisdom. [4:00] II. Luke 1:26-38 A. Luke 1:26-38 “26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, 27 to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” 29 But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. 30 The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32 He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. 33 He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” 34 Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” 35 The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born1 will be holy; he will be called Son of God…For nothing will be impossible with God.” 38 Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.” B. Mary’s story in our Christmas A story that we often look past during Christmas and advent is the story of Mary the mother of Jesus. We as Protestants have a tendency to revolt against all catholic traditions. As such, we revolt against the veneration or reverence that the Catholic Church has for Mary. Now to be fair, we generally give lip service to her and her life in the Protestant churches; but we usually only do it in passing, as if she were simply a bridge to cross or a necessity in order for us to get to Jesus –who is of course the real story. This, however, is unfair to whom Mary was, because she was indeed a woman of paramount faith; but more importantly it also robs us of a very very deep understanding of God and how those closest to God seem to be forced to choose between what is easy and what is right. So today we talk about Mary. III. Mary, the News, and the Problem A. Introduction to Mary There seems to have been nothing outwardly spectacular about Mary or her life. She, in no way, is hinted to be anything more than your average woman who is to be wed to a simple carpenter other than the fact that she has found favor with God –an attribute which is not explain at all by the angel. However she finds herself in a very peculiar and terrifying position. Mary is approached by Gabriel one of the great archangels, one of the most powerful beings in existence. He is the angel that serves as the voice of God in our realm often times, the angel that serves as God’s personal messenger to humanity. It is only news of the utmost importance that Gabriel brings to humans, and he comes toMary, presumably from the throne room of God…from the side of God Himself with news that will change history. B. The news Now the news he bears is almost incomprehensible for us. The archangel of God tells this young, unspectacular woman that she is going to give birth to a baby and that this boy will be the Messiah. Mary’s society, in nearly every aspect, has been waiting since its creation for this Messiah to come take the throne of David and to rule for all eternity over Israel, setting them free from any and all spiritual, emotional, physical, mental and governmental bondage. This messenger comes to her and tells her that this is going to be her son’s fate and Mary is forced to comprehend the idea that she is going to be giving birth to God on Earth. Mary, being the woman of wit that I suspect she was and not terribly dull either asks the obvious question at this point –a question that shows her keeping a watchful eye on the cultural stigmatisms and rules set forth by her culture. She asks, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” It is at this point that this news from God becomes a bit of a problem for Mary. It is this problem and how the girl deals with it that I want to focus on today. You see Mary was a Jew. She was raised in a Jewish world, she was raised in the Jewish educational and familial system, she was raised under Jewish laws –as well as a few Roman ones –, and she was raised with Jewish traditions, customs, culture, and understanding of morality and marriage. Her life and her world view, the way she lived and how she understood things would have been distinctively and remarkably Jewish. So when the angel points out that it will not be Joseph’s baby, that the baby to be birthed by Mary will not be the biological son of the man she is to spend her life married to, it would present a problem in her understanding and in the understanding of her culture. In the minds of those around her it would indicate adultery. C. Adultery Adultery in ancient Israel was when a woman who is married or who is set to be married to someone engages in sexual intercourse with a different man, and having a baby would indicate sexual intercourse for any normal situation, obviously. Adultery is considered a supreme offense in the Jewish culture. It is one of the highest crimes in Judaism. You see, Judaism, like ancient but not modern Christianity, holds the family unit to be of paramount importance. It is through the family unit that the Jew finds his or her identity; it is through the family unit that the Jew finds their religion and education. It is through the family that they Jew finds their place in the world; it is through the family unit that so many laws and so many legal proceedings take place. The family unit is the basic unit of society in Jewish culture and adultery threatens this fundamental unit and thus threatens the foundation of society as a whole in Judaism. One rabbi refers to it as the ultimate crime against the family and thus against the entire culture, society, and finally against God. So severe is adultery that, in the Old Testament, the penalty for adultery is death by being stoned. 1. Stoning Now stoning, in the ancient Jewish culture, took one of two forms that are…hard…to deal with; but you need to understand them to understand Mary’s mindset. You see, the person found guilty of adultery would either be pushed from a very high platform onto a stone floor or rocks –as Jesus was once threatened with –or they would be put in a corner or on the ground and a group of people who hurl heavy rocks at them until they died from these impacts. It was a very horrible death, very painful, very difficult to watch, but it was very very common. 2. Mary would be stoned And this was the death that Mary could be faced with if God proceeded through with His plan. IV. The Dilemma A. The unique thing about Mary’s situation is that it is God’s fault. The laws concerning adultery and the penalty for Adultery were created and instituted by God Himself. It was God who set up the Jewish culture with Abraham and then more elaborately with the Levitical law at the base of Mount Sinai. It was God who set up the family unit as a foundational part of Jewish life, and it was God who indicated that adultery was, therefore, one of the supreme offenses against this family unit and against all of Judaism. Furthermore, it was God who came to Mary through Gabriel. It was God who decided that His Son would enter the world as baby through some young lady. And it was not a decision that was made on a whim. God planned it that way. Multiple places in the New Testament indicate that He had it planned like this before time began! The dilemma Mary finds herself faced with is one that God himself causes. Mary finds herself facing death at worst and at best she finds herself faced with the loss of a to be husband and the loss of life as she knows it…all because of the honor of bearing the child of God. “Dark and difficult times lay ahead Mary, times when you will have to choose between what is right and what is easy.” Wisdom from a wizard that breaks the bounds of film and fantasy and reaches into the heart of Christianity and the heart of following God. V. Following God means Death. Paul once wrote to a church in modern day Turkey, “And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh along with its passions and desires.” Oswald Chambers once wrote, “If we do not resolutely sacrifice the natural [man in us], the supernatural can never become natural.” True, deep, intimate Christianity that radically alters lives, that radically changes our world, and that heals the deepest of wounds is going to cost the natural man or woman in you everything, not just something. The problem with Christianity today is, as one Anglican Bishop put it, that it is a religion with a vague sense of tolerance instead of a deep understanding of forgiveness; a religion that asks for your commitment but demands no one to respond and to honor that commitment, that promises a change in your life and in your world, but offers only the same old drudgery that you could find anywhere. A relationship with God demands that you give up the way you wanted things to go and the way you always saw things going in your life give in to the way God wants things to go in your life. However, God does not expect us to do this out of shame or guilt or indebtedness to Him. We do it because God genuinely and truly wants your life to glow with joy and He is the only one that navigate that for you in such a dark world. Mary understood this. She understood, I’m sure, what the cultural fallout of her having a baby out wedlock would be. What was she going to do? Tell everyone, “Oh, it’s okay, it’s God’s baby…in fact it’s the Messiah, I’m not sinner for this.” Hahaha, I’m sure that would have gone over really well. No, Mary was willing to sacrifice all that was “good” in her life –a life with a man that loved her, a life as a carpenter’s wife, a life that was respectable, with a normal family, living in a beautiful town in one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen on this earth, and I’ve seen a lot of places and lived in some beautiful countries – she gave this up out of a faith that told her God would bring out the best in her life. She gave up her right to independence, to order her own steps, to make her own decision. She gave up her right to herself and she responded to the angel and to the call of God, “Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” VI. Closing Today, ask yourself do you have Mary’s faith in God? Do you trust Him enough to allow Him to wreck and kill the life you have for a better life, for a more difficult life perhaps, but one that is ultimately infinitely more satisfying on a deeper level than you ever thought you could be satisfied on? “It is,” one writer said, “not a question of giving up sin, but of giving up my right to myself.” Sometimes following God means defying culture and being face with the prospect of death; however, God protected Mary by sending the same angel he sent to her to her to be husband –the only man who could legally have her stoned. He told Joseph the truth and Joseph protected the girl. Remember, “To get something you’ve never had, you have to do something you’ve never done. When God takes something from your grasp, He’s not punishing you, but merely opening your hands to receive something better. The will of God will never tae you where the Grace of God will not protect you.” God will protect you, even when you choose to lump the weight of glory upon you, which is right, but not necessarily easy.

I. Introduction A. Clarity and Opaqueness in the Bible The Bible is very clear on a couple of things, and God awfully gray and complicated on everything else. I had a wonderful young lady, a young lady so terribly broken inside, who has had abuse pilled upon abuse, pilled upon abuse and who is in such need God’s healing inside, ask me: “Carter why is God’s healing me have to be so complicated.” I told her that it wasn’t that God is or his healing is complicated, it’s actually quite simple. Really, it’s humanity that is complicated; it is her brokenness that is complicated. This is why the Bible seems to be so very complicated sometimes. It can perfect sense to me in one moment, and the next I can feel totally out of control and like I’ve never understood a thing. This is one of the great fights that Christians have on their hands –to allow God to make simple a very complicated situation. B. God’s love for you is Clear However, one of the things that the Bible is supremely clear on is that God loves you. This is a nonnegotiable truth for the Christian. It is the foundation on which everything else is built. If your belief that God loves you is faulty in the least, then your relationship with Him will be faulty. To degree that you understand and transformationally believe that God loves you, to that very same degree will your relationship with Him be able to deepen. The Bible is very clear on this topic. Everything that God does, every action he takes, every word He utters, every will that His has, and every thing He created has been done, said, thought, and formed out of love and nothing else. The sole motivating factor in God’s life in His mind is to love humanity back to Him. Everything hinges, every understanding of Christ banks on this truth alone. If God does not love you, then Christianity dies. Many denominations and sects within Christianity fail at this. They think God is angry, they think He is mad and vengeful and brings evils upon us. The oddity of this all is that those beliefs are closer to Islam than they are Christianity. Muslims believe that Satan, that evil are simply the long arm of the Justice of God. They believe that Satan is one of God’s minions that he has around to do his dirty work. They fail to recognize that God is above all other things, a lover. - The word “Love,” in its various forms occurs over 500 times in the entire Bible. - God says that husbands should love their wives as He loves us. - Christ says, that there is no greater love than to lay one’s life down for one’s friends. He then goes on to display that love by dieing for us. - Paul asks the question, “Who will separate us from the love of Christ?” And he responds, answering his own question, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” - The Bible says that the fact that Christ died for us while we were still sinners proves that He loves us. - Paul uses the word “beloved” in nearly every letter he writes to the different Christians across the European and Asian continents. The Bible is clear on the fact that God loved the world so dang much that He died for it, so that it may live. C. If God loves me, then why do I feel unloved? So I have just one question: If this is all true, if all the magnificence and glory of God’s love is true, if it is true that His love for us is so unimaginably unconditional, if He loves us despite the fact that we are sinners and responsible for the death of His son, if He created all this for us, and if He chooses to save us from ourselves and to lead us into eternal perfection, joy, happiness, and love with Him, if we are truly never ever alone, if we are truly never ever separate from His love, if what Paul says is true that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor kings, nor whatever is happening our world now, nor whatever is going to happen in our world, nor the power of Satan, nor the heights of joy or the depths of depression can separate from the Love of God, if it is true that NOTHING in ALL OF CREATION could ever part us from God’s love….then why do I still, so many times, perhaps even daily, feel so unloved by God? Why, in so many ways, do I feel devoid of any sort of notion or feeling other than head knowledge, that God loves me? If I cannot be separated from it, then why do I feel so separated from it right now? I have asked myself this question repeatedly over the past couple of weeks, months, and years. It is a question that hits at the very heart of the brokenness of humanity. In fact, it is in this area that sin was originally allowed into our world and our existence. When Satan entered into the Garden of Eden and tempted Adam and Eve, he did so by tempting them to doubt God’s love for them. Many people believe that it is pride that is at the foundation of all sin; but I’ve come to disagree with that. The crack in humanity that Sin has crept into was created by the impact of suddenly ceasing to believe that God loved us unconditionally. Love or the belief in a lack there of, is the key to everything in my mind. So today what I want to do is look at the Logic of God’s Love and to address why we may feel so unloved when the Bible clearly says that we are so very loved. II. John 4:7-11, 19 A. turning to the Bible To answer the question of why or how we could feel so incredibly unloved when we have such a clear declaration of God’s love for us by Him through His word, I want to turn to the book of 1 John. I turn to this book because of all the book in the New Testament, this book spends more time discussing God’s love than any of the others; and it is second in the entire Bible only to the Psalms in the number times love is mentioned. John Wesley said of this book, “How plain, how full, and how deep a [collection] of genuine Christianity.” This book reveals to us, in a very deep way, the flow of God’s love in our lives and in our world; and it is this that we turn to understand our dilemma. Now the section that I want to look at in the book is 1 John 4:7-11, and then also verse 19. This is a section that has historically been referred to as, “The Logic of the Love of God” precisely because it reveals to us the course of his love in our world, and how it is acquired, transferred, and received. What I want to do is try to hash out the author’s very complex logic so we can see how this love manifests itself, where it comes from, how to receive, and how it could be that we don’t feel loved sometimes. B. 1 John 4:11-7, 19 1. The author of 1 John begins this section by exhorting those to whom he is writing to love one another. He encourages his audience to love each and the reasoning behind, according to Him, is because love is from God. This seems kind of innocuous at first, a general statement with very little meaning to it; but there is more taking place under the surface of the words than meets the eye. I’ve told ya’ll many times that the original languages of Greek and Hebrew don’t translate well into English, the reality is that very few languages translate well into English. This is another example where full meaning is sort glossed over. What the author does here is he uses a grammatical construction that carries with it heavy implications. Greek doesn’t have the word “of” in it. It uses different ways to imply the word “of” or “from.” In this instance what the author does is use a construction that is called the “genitive of origin.” It is a construction used to imply where something finds its origin or source. The author uses this to tell us, though in subtle way, that the source of all love, the originating place of love in our world is found in God. He essentially says that love is birthed by God. 2. The reason, therefore, that loving one another is important is because it comes from God. The author supports this statement by reiterating it in a different way in verse 8. He states that those who do not love do not know God, for God is love. Literally what the author says is that those who do not love do not understand or comprehend God. 3. This is vitally important to our question we wish to have answered, “why don’t I feel loved by God when he says he loves me?” What the author is saying here is that Love, as we have already stated, originates in God and God births in humanity. In other words, humanity does not have the ability to muster, create, or generate love in any way. Those who have the capacity to love are given it by God because love, yet again, comes only from God. Now, if the ability to love comes from God, the when someone does not love, it means that they are, for some reason, not receiving that ability from God for whatever reason 4. This very point is restated two more times when the author says in verse 10, “not that we loved, but that he loved us,” and then in verse 19, “We loved because He first loved us.” The author of 1 John, who is identified simply as “The Elder,” is pounding home this truth: love flows from God, to us, and then from us to another person. Those who understand and comprehend God receive His love and then it flows from them to another person, to a group of people, or back to God. 5. The Love of God is like a river that originates on a mountain, for this passage is very clear that God’s love for us was revealed on a mountain, the mountain that Christ murdered on. The love of God pours down from that mountain, from that source, and it begins to fill the valleys and the different holes in our hearts. When we are filled with this love, it pours out onto others and then they pour it out onto others, and eventually the whole world is led to God by the love of God which was revealed on the cross, on a mountain. We become inundated with his love, saturated, and soaked to the point that it begins to spill out like a cup too full, and it soaks all that it is around. C. Now back to our Question Now back to our question. “Why and how can it be that as you sit there in this service, or as you lay down to sleep at night, or as you work that you could in a moment feel so unloved by the Father, by God?” The only viable answer is that something must be reducing God’s flow of love to you to a mere trickle or drip. We tend to think that people who are unloving or are feeling unloved are evil or truly unlovable; but is it possible that something is mentally, spiritually, or emotionally hindering their ability to receive God’s love? We know that it cannot be that God is holding back His love for us. He poured it out in mass with Christ’s death. Is it possible, however, that you resist His love somehow? There are many ways to resist God’s love; but one of the most profound is to think, somewhere down inside, that we are unlovable or disqualified from His love. Many times it is something as simple as, “I don’t feel like I’m pretty enough to love, or smart enough, or successful enough to love.” Sometimes we grow up in cultures or households that have perfectionism as their driving ambition. We learn to worship and love and understand that perfection is all that is lovable; but God clearly loves humanity, and we’re certainly not perfect. However, sometimes it is a deeper wound or a deeper problem that makes us feel unloved. I talked to a woman a while back who was raped multiple times a day her boyfriend and who had been divorced several times. The flow of the love of God to her was broken not because she had done anything wrong, but because she was so ashamed and felt so unlovable because what had been done to her. Then, sometimes, most of the time, we feel unlovable because of we have done. Perhaps you’ve sinned over and over and over and over again, crying and apologizing for the same sins day in and day out. You’ve decided that since you can’t stop the sin, you are unworthy to be loved. You’ve decided that since you can’t stop drinking, or doing drugs, or looking at porn, or committing adultery, or being lazy, or being angry all the time, that you are just not lovable. However the truth is that all of these things, all of these barriers come from one common mistake that humanity is awfully guilty of and has been through out history. We have the tendency of taking our problems and our brokenness and superimposing them onto God. David Benner, distinguished professor of Psychology and Spirituality and the Psychological Studies Institute in Atlanta, Georgia, writes, “We all tend to fashion a god who fits our falsity.” We think God has the same limitations that we have in the areas of grace, mercy, forgiveness…and particularly in the area of love We cannot imagine a God who could truly recognize murder, adultery, premarital sex, homosexuality, porn addictions, sex addictions, drug addictions, alcoholism, racism, vulgar speech, abortion, war, hate, genocide while still loving those guilty these acts. Why? Because we, ourselves, are incapable of loving people with these problems and who commit these acts. We assume God is like us; but He’s not. Your assumptions about how unlovable you are because you think you are unlovable are wrong to try push onto God. Stop it. But I must admit that my telling you this will not stop it. The barriers in your life to God’s love are something that you must explore. They are things, mindsets, tendencies, beliefs, opinions, and realities that God alone can challenge. This is something that must be done in the secret place, in the quiet air of prayer and contemplation. You must face your demons, your beliefs, your attitudes, and your sins; because it is only when you sit down and truly face the reasons you feel so inescapably unlovable, you will find in that in that dark painful place inside of you dwells the God of the Universe and He will say to you, “child, I’ve known this all along, and I’ve loved you still. All that needed to happen was that you needed to know how unlovable you were so that you could know how loved you are.” I must affix this with a warning label though. This process may well cause you more pain initially than feelings of joy and peace. It may stir up dark emotions and painful memories that you have supplanted for so many years. If you have the courage and have nothing more to lose, I challenge you to go there. Amen.

 

I. Introduction

So…Thanksgiving is over, black Friday has passed, and we find ourselves now faced with yet another Christmas season; but I have to admit that, I am…concerned…these days.  I am concerned about Christmas.  The more I learn about God, the more concerned I find myself.  The more I learn about what He has said to His people throughout history, the more concerned I am.  The more I realize what He desires for us, the life He is trying to free us to live, and the peace and healing He is trying to usher into our hearts, the more I am concerned for the supposedly Christian Holiday of Christmas… in the supposedly Christian nation of America.  I am concerned that our Christianity, that America as a Christian nation…is…dying.  I am concerned that the actual meaning of Christmas either is dying or has already passed away.

Our video clip pointed out that, statistically, Americans spend 450 Billion Dollars on Christmas each year and that to solve the leading cause of death in the world would require only 10 Billion Dollars.   That means that if we were to take 2 percent, if everyone in America were to take 2 percent of what you spend at Christmas, and if you gave it to a common fund, that common fund could stop the leading cause of death in the entire world.  Heh, and we wonder why people who are poor, who live in less fortunate situations, in countries like Afghanistan, the Congo, Mexico, and Iran hate us so badly.  Do not be so naïve as to think that it is simply religious difference.  Do not be so easily confused by Liberal AND Conservative American Media that says we are hated because we are “Christian,” and they are Muslim.  I’ve been there, I’ve lived in places like this.  We are hated because we Americans are nearly inhuman in our materialism and in our consumption of “stuff.”  We are hated because we could do something, but we do not.  And what is sad is that we are most inhuman during the time of year in which we gather together with our “church families” and celebrate the in breaking of God as a man so that we may be saved from these very tendencies and wretchedness such as this.

However, I do not want to be so hard on you because many of the things that we do and think are conditioned in our minds.  My generation and all of the generations represented here today are in a difficult spot because we do not know any better.  How can be we held at fault if we’ve never learned any different.  You see, we do not do things without instigation usually.  Just as terribly wrong beliefs about the Bible or God are generally formed around a small kernel of accurate beliefs and then distorted, so, often times, our terribly wrong practices are formed around and learned from a kernel of good practice.

 

[Transition: And so I began to wonder what good practice the act of giving gifts at Christmas in such disgusting excess came from.  Why do we seem to act like Christmas is our birthday when it is clearly not and is instead Christ’s?]

 

II. The Tradition of Giving Gifts.

The Tradition of Gift Giving –Esther to the Wise men

Where do we get our tradition of giving gifts today at Christmas?  Does anybody know?  I’ve asked around and I’ve heard all kinds of reasons, from the tradition that developed among the Jews WAAAY back when Esther was around to St. Nick, Father Christmas, the Dutch Sinter Klaas –or Santa Clause –and so many other people in Europe who gave out presents to the poor and to the children.  My own understanding, as well as many Christian’s understanding, of why we give presents to people during Christmas has always derived from the fact that the Wise Men from the East came bearing gifts to Christ.  So I began to look into the story more, deeper, to figure out just what was going on here and what we derived our understandings from.

B. Let’s remind ourselves of the story

Matthew 2:1-12 In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men¹ from the East came to Jerusalem,  ² asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising,¹ and have come to pay him homage.”  ³ When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him;  ⁴ and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah¹ was to be born.  ⁵ They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:  ⁶ ‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd¹ my people Israel.’”  ⁷ Then Herod secretly called for the wise men¹ and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared.  ⁸ Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.”  ⁹ When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising,¹ until it stopped over the place where the child was.  ¹⁰ When they saw that the star had stopped,¹ they were overwhelmed with joy.  ¹¹ On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.  ¹² And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

 

 

III. The story retold

A. The Magi

So the story goes that while a man named Herod was king of Judea, three wise men from the east saw a great astronomical anomaly in the sky.  Now of course they would have called it a star, but it really could have been anything from a comet to a star or perhaps even a UFO –okay I’m just kidding it wasn’t a UFO, that would really mess up some understandings of the Bible I feel like, haha.  Regardless of what it was, there was something of quite a bit of interest burning in the sky –the Star of David many people call it.  And these men from the East were not just your average fellas.  The New Testament calls them, Magoi, or Magi.  It’s from this word that we get the term “magician,” though we tend to mean it in a negative way these days.

The fact was that these men were probably very, very well educated and very well read.  Magoi was a term used to refer to people who were involved in arts or occupations or knew things that the general population did not.  This would include priests, scorers, philosophers, and astronomers.  They were from the East and most likely dwelt in Persia, modern day Iran and Iraq, or Arabia, modern day Saudi Arabia.  It’s likely that they did not come from beyond Himalayas though and that they were the very same people who would have been held in high esteem to the kings and emperors of the Babylonian, Assyrian, and Persian Empires.  They would have been healers and people who were considered in connection with the God’s or God, and they had seen something that tipped them off to something very very important in the history of the world.  So convinced of this were they, that they packed very expensive gifts and took off across a very dangerous and risky land.

Eventually the three wise men or magicians arrive in Jerusalem, where they run a, suffice it to say, very crotchety and temperamental King Herod, and then they go on to Bethlehem and the inn over which the star rests.

 

[Transition: This brings us to the verse I want to tear apart here and learn from –Verse 11.]

IV. The Actions of the Magi

A. Arrival

The Bible says that the Magi entered into the home.  Now, this brings up the question that many people struggle with of whether or not the Magi came here to the manger Christ was born in, or not.  The problem is that the Magi had a wicked long distance to travel and probably arrived either weeks, months, or even years AFTER the birth of Christ.  None-the-less, their actions are what is important to our understanding, not what condition they found the boy in or where he laid.

B. “Knelt”

The scriptures say that upon entering the home, they saw Mary and Jesus and they knelt.  This doesn’t seem all that important really, but the scripture actually says is that they “collapsed.”  What is literally implied is that they fell down, they collapsed, and  that they were destroyed in a sign and act of devotion to the child.  The wording implies that they were at a very high level, but in the presence and face of God they were ruined to a lower level.  They became invalids and unworthy to be there.  These wise men, with all of their knowledge, success, and their riches were reduced, by a baby, to three grown men on their faces on the floor.  Wrap your mind around that for a minute.

C. “Paid him Homage”

You have to understand that, in all likelihood, these men were not Christians or “Jews.”  They were not of the Jewish faith; but the Bible says that they ‘paid him homage.’  They, ‘worshipped’ him.  In fact, it says that they “became worshippers.”  They were, before, not worshippers; but upon seeing the child and seeing the confirmation of all these signs and wonders, they were converted.  They were men who were likely to have, at least in some ways, been worshipped by those around them because of all that they knew and the mystical understandings they seemed to have; but on that night two thousand years ago the first three people in the world were wood and captivated by the love and presence of God, as a baby.  As Rob Bell said, “I hear the music, and I find it captivating.”  They heard the music and they found it oh so captivating.

 

[Transition: Now what these captivated men do next is what I bears interesting commentary about our discussion on giving at Christmas, buying huge TV’s, unneeded toys, unnecessary clothing, and spending 450 Billion Dollars.

D. Gifts

The men do what next, according to the Bible?  The scriptures that they open up their storehouses or their treasure chests and give, to Christ and his mother, gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.  The question here is not, “Did they indeed give gifts?”  Clearly they did, the right question to ask at this point is, “Why did they give gifts?”

So, I ask you, “Why did the wise men give Christ gifts?  What were they doing when they did it?”  Any guesses?

The truth is that the giving of gifts by the wise men was done as an act of worship.  They were giving them to Christ as an act of worship.  The original “giving” of gifts at “Christmas time” was done in worship for God.  Why are you giving gifts this Christmas?  Are you following in the footsteps of the Magi, giving gifts as an act of devotion to and love for the Most High God, or are you using Christmas as an excuse to justify your gluttony and your excess spending?

Listen, I have no problem with giving gifts.  I will not argue with one of you if you decide to by me a 40 inch LCD TV or an Xbox 360 with the game “Call of Duty 4” in it.  Just don’t do it and claim to be doing in the name of Christ!  Don’t you dare do it and claim to be doing it in the Christmas Spirit.

I had a relative recently who bought asked me what I wanted for Christmas, and I gave her the name of two books I wanted that she could find real on Amazon.com.  Her response was, “That’s my kind of Christmas shopping: point, click, and buy.”  It made me sad and kind of hurt my feelings.  She, she didn’t really care for me enough to want to spend time looking for a gift for me.  She didn’t want to be put out of her way anymore than she had to.  She wanted it quick and easy.  She was not worshipping God with those gifts to me, even though the books were about God and I am very thankful for them.

The wise men were so moved by God that they were ruined.  God wrecked their lives as they knew it, and they were captivated –to the point that they worshipped by giving some very expensive things back to God.

 

V. It begins with Worship

Christmas began with worship.  It began with all of heaven splitting open and worshipping God before an audience of sheep and shepherds.  It began with mules and pigs and horses and cows standing as the vanguard over God.  It began with those filthy shepherds coming to the baby and worshipping.  It began with men traveling across a continent only to be converted to a new religion and find themselves in worship.  It began with worship, it begins with worship.

We worship because God has come for you, he is coming for you, he will come for you.  He comes to free you from all that holds you in bondage all the chains in your life that keep you from being truly free and truly joyful.  That is what Advent is, this is why we worship…listen to the music of God’s story to you, find it captivating, and worship.  Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“In the Meantime”

 

I.  Introduction

A. “In the Meantime”

I have decided that I am going to write a book one day.  Actually, I must admit that I’ve known that I would write a book for some time now.  I discovered this one day when I was on my knees in my college dorm room crying my eyes out.  You see, I had become a Christian about a year prior to this and the excitement of Christianity had worn off.  I found myself sitting there begging God for help in my life, guidance, purpose.  I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing.  I thought that all I was supposed to do was not sin; but life that life seemed hollow and pointless.

The Christianity that I had learned in church –though not from my parents –had taught me that Christianity was a religion and a life of simply living until you die while trying to avoid sinning as much as possible.  I had learned, as many of you have, that the sole task of the Christian between new life at salvation and death is to be as sinless as possible –to forsake all in an attempt to be some spiritual guru who never does anything wrong; and I, quite frankly, was fed up with this.

I looked at this understanding of Christianity and I told God that I was sick of it; that, if this is why Jesus Christ came to die, then I had no need for this religion.  I was convinced that there had to be more or that Christianity was beneath my giving my life and my attention to it.  That night I sat there in my dorm and begged God to show me what to do “In the Meantime,” I begged to be shown and told what life was to be between life and death.  This is going to be the name of my book one day, “In the meantime: life between life and death.”

B. A common question

This is not an uncommon question in our lives, “what do we do in the meantime?”  It’s a question that many people have no answer for; however I believe that John Wesley hit the nail on the head when he articulated what we refer to as the Three Wesleyan Graces: Prevenient Grace, Justifying Grace, Sanctifying Grace.  I believe he accurately articulated not only what is life about, but what is God doing in our individual lives here and now, not only before we become Christians, but while we are Christians.  And so, today what I want to do is look at these graces; however I want to look at them through the lens of Christ’s greatest parable, the summit and the pinnacle of Christ’s peculiar but quite effective way of teaching by weaving our present reality with heavenly truth to give us divine understanding.

 

 

Transition to Prayer: But first, let us pray for the wisdom and the revelation to understand these things –as we know that without God helping us, we stand no chance of ascending to the throne room of heavenly understanding.

 

 

Read: Luke 15:11-32

 

 

 

II. The story of Humanity from the beginning

A. Original Sin

Our story opens with a father who has two sons that live and work with him in all that he owns and does.  As the story goes, one day the younger son comes to his father and demands his inheritance.  Now, there is no real explanation as to why the son would make such a disrespectful gesture, but we get a sense in the progression of the story that the son seems to be tired of living under his father’s authority and seeks to live a life of his own choosing.  The father, although most certainly broken hearted and aware that decision the son was making was absolutely not in the boy’s best interest, respects the son as a person and as having free will.  He allows the son to go off and choose the life that he wants, even if it is a life that will destroy him.  And so, after receiving his share of the inheritance, the son packs his stuff and leaves to live the life he wants to live.

Transition: We think, often times, that we are drastically different then the situations portrayed in the Bible’s parables; but humanity’s life is jarringly similar to that of the son’s; and I think Christ probably intended it that way. 

B.  Humanity in the Parable

For us, I suspect, the parable begins just after God has created humanity and placed us in the Garden.  Humanity dwelled in the family of God, in a home that God created for us, in our home with the Father.  However, eventually doubt was cast on the nature of God by the serpent.  The serpent crept into the garden and tempted humanity not simply to disobey our God, but to doubt the infinite love and the goodness of God’s character –to doubt that the life God had for us was the best life.  Unfortunately, we believed Him, we believed the serpent.

In that moment humanity chose to leave home, we chose to live a life of our own choosing, to demand our inheritance and to be our own Gods.  Though not surprised by this decision (see Ephesians 1:4; 1 Peter 1:20), God never wanted this to happen.  Still, in infinite love and respect for us, the God of the universe consented.  God respected our free will, did not stop us from sinning, and humanity found itself –it finds itself now – ‘aliens in a foreign land.”

II. Prevenient Grace

A. In this foreign land the boy, which is again certainly a representation of fallen humanity, squanders everything and finds himself at the bottom of existence without help, without food, and without the ability nor the power to change his life.  The world seems to be working against him and he finds himself toiling to make ends meet, envying the food of pigs –which would have been rock bottom for those in the Jewish culture.  The son says to himself, “Even those that are not part of my father’s family, but simply work for him, eat better than I do.  I was wrong to leave there and I will return.” In that moment the son realizes that he has made a terrible mistake by leaving the safety and love of his Father’s house.  He realizes that the life he has chosen is not a satisfying or fulfilling life.

B. Suffering as prevenient grace

Now, I find it particularly intriguing what it is that calls the boy back to the Father.  It’s the fall out of all the decisions the boy makes, is it not?  It’s all of the suffering and the pain he endures, and all of the loneliness he feels…they all work together to draw the son back to the father.  It’s as if everything around him seems to speak to him that a life outside of the father’s life for him is not right, not best.

Romans 1:19-20 remarks that all of creation, everything, testifies and broadcasts the divine nature and will of God the Father.  Everything in creation serves as a messenger of God’s love to God’s people.  God uses everything to draw us back to a relationship with Him.  This is precisely what John Wesley said was the first Amazing Grace of God.  Wesley knew that humanity had chosen to leave the Father’s house, and he also recognized that Christ clearly indicated (John 6:44) that unless the Father drew humanity back to a relationship, they would never come.  So Wesley developed the term prevenient grace to describe God’s work in everyday life and in the lives of every person, to draw us back to this once lost relationship, to draw us back home.

Wesley believed that even sin itself has been enslaved to serve God to bring us to the point that the son came to, to the point of realizing that our actions, our words, and our lives apart from the Father are not what He has intended for us.  All of these things work together in a divine symphony to draw us back home, back to the Father’s side, and show us that there is something better, there is a life and a love far greater and far deeper than we currently live in or are experiencing.  This is the Prevenient Grace: that while we were still rebellious arrogant children in a foreign land, God would choose to draw us through all of existence and through the death of Christ to return back to a relationship with the Father.

 

[Transition: And so the son does return, he begins the long difficult walk of repentance.  Just as we do]

III. From Prevenient to Justifying Grace

A. Returning Home

As the son walks this lonely road, his Father sees him returning and runs to meet him on the road before he ever actually arrives at home.  The son finds himself enveloped in the father’s love and joy at his return to home  The father does not accuse the boy, he does not rail against him, he does not demand him to apologize anymore than his coming back home has done, he does not demand the son take on the yoke of a slave, and he does not say, “You’re not worthy to return here” –though it would be true if he did.  Instead he is elated at the rebirth of a son he once lost to…sin.  As author Madeline L’Engle puts it, the son’s sinfulness, his shame, his filth, and his unworthiness was nothing more than a “live coal in the sea” of God’s love.  His guilt never stood a chance.

B.  Justifying Grace

Here we see that the son came to the point of the second amazing grace of God –justifying grace.  God our Father draws us to return home; but long before we have fully returned, the Father meets us on the road of repentance and takes us into His arms, accepting us home again.  Justifying Grace is the grace that that says we are forgiven and pardoned of those mistakes we’ve made and the decision to leave home, though not by our own efforts or the works of our own hands.  Rather it is a grace that pardons us by the works of Christ alone, namely His sacrifice.  This is a grace that, as John Wesley wrote in his sermon On The Wedding Garment, “saved [us] from guilt.”

C.  Imbued or Imparted Righteousness?

Now, I have to point out here that unfortunately many people have come to believe that God’s justifying grace is based on the fact that God sees Christ instead of you, and therefore is obligated to let you into heaven, to save, you, to bring you back into the family.  But this leads us from the deepest blessing of God’s love and forgiveness, which is that God does not negate our guilt; He, in fact, acknowledges our guilt fully, but pardons it still.  He knows you fully and loves you fully.  As one song writer puts it, God says to us, “You bring your history and I’ll bring the bread and wine.”

John Wesley quoted one of his favorite commentator’s when he wrote, “‘we certainly shall need a better righteousness than our own, wherein to stand at the bar of God in the Day of Judgment.’”  Justifying Grace is the impartation of that better righteousness –the righteous of Christ.

Transition: This is, however, not the end of God’s work in our lives, though many believe it to be.  God’s work is not complete and all that God wishes to do for us in the way of healing, transformation, change, and guidance is not finished in that moment that we receive justifying grace, when we are “saved.”  The parable gives us a glimpse at what God wishes to continue to do in our lives.”

 

IV. Sanctifying Grace

A.  Restored by Grace

As the boy stands there, hearing all of this coming from his father’s mouth, he finds himself in a position that he never thought he would find himself in again.  His father has his servants put a robe on him and he puts ring on the boy’s finger.  Piece by piece the father restores the boy back to the place of a son.  The boy was no longer a child lost in a foreign land, he was reinstated as a son of the Father, living in the home of the father, and welcomed back into the family.  He was and was being“sanctified.”

The father could have simply pardoned the son essentially delivering the boy from the penalty of his sin.  However, the Father’s nature is such that he chooses to do more than simply “save” the boy from his deserved penalty and punishment.  The father also delivers the boy from the plague of his decision to leave and his decisions made in the foreign land.  He begins the process of returning the boy to his former glory as a beloved child of the father.

B.  Sanctifying Grace

This brings us to the last of the great graces that Wesley believed the Bible showed us –Sanctifying Grace.  God remarked to the people of Israel, through the prophet Ezekiel, “Then I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean: From all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.  I will also save you from all you un-cleanliness” (Ezekiel 36:25, 29).  Paul writes to the church at Philippi, “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.”  In other words, the one who began the good work in you, first by Prevenient Grace, then by Justifying Grace, will also see this grace in you through to the end, to sanctification.

Sanctification is the process by which we spend our lives growing ever closer to God as a husband and wife grow, or should grow, ever closer to one another.  Sanctification is the trek upward and inward into the heart of God as Aslan would say.  Sanctifying Grace is the Grace that sees you through to the end of your recovery, to make your joy complete in God.  This grace seeks to restore you to total and complete trust in the Father and in the Father’s love for you.  Sanctifying grace seeks to heal the wounds of a life experienced without a personal and deep relationship with God.

 

V. So what about in the meantime?

So what, then, can we say about the meantime?  What then am I supposed to do with my life?  What am I supposed to be, what am I supposed to do? In light of the three fold view of the grace of God that Wesley articulated for us, what should we then say we are to do “in the meantime?”  I am convinced that we are to be washed in God’s love and healing.  To have all of the emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual wounds and baggage that we have sustained in life cleared and healed.

Wesley wrote of our lives that  “Our one great business is to raise out of our souls the likeness of our destroyer, and to be born again, to be formed anew after the likeness of our creator.  It is our one concern to shake off this servile bondage and to regain our native freedom…the one work we have to do is to return from the gates of death [of hell] to perfect soundness; to have our diseases cured, our wounds healed, and our uncleanness done away [with.]”

So many people do not believe me when I say this is what I truly believe the point to be, what I truly believe God’s desire for us to be; but I wonder, do they fail to believe it because it’s not true or because they see it as impossible?  They see it as impossible because they just don’t believe God would or could do it.  But God promises us, through the prophet Zechariah, that this is quite true.

“They shall be my people and I will be their God, in faithfulness and in righteousness…[so]Let your hands be strong…I will bring them back because I have compassion on them…for I am the Lord their God and I will answer them…I will make them strong in [me] and they shall walk in [my] name…In those days ten men from the nations of every language shall take hold of the Jew [or perhaps we should say, the Christian], grasping his garment and saying, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.’” Oddly enough one of Christ’s nicknames, for lack of a better word, was Emmanuel or “God with us.”  And then get this, God remarks, “Even though it seems impossible to the remnant of this people in these days, should it also seem impossible to me?”

 

In the meantime we are to be the healed and the healing people of God.  He wishes us to take part in his work on this earth –the work of healing and the work of reconciling the world back to him.  We are to take up the great work and the business of our Father –to, by the power of the stripes and the suffering of Christ, usher the same healing that we’ve had in our lives into the lives of the individuals, communities, and world around us.  This is the point; this is what we do in the meantime.  Amen

Matthew 9:18-22

Now, here you have Jesus, after preaching, headed to a man’s house to raise a child from the dead. Clearly, as indicated by the actions of Christ, the Son of God fully intended on doing just that…on resurrecting the girl. Surely He would not have just shown up and remarked, “I am too late, there is nothing I can do.” No…Christ stood up with intentions to liberate the young girl from the darkness of a premature death; but what we see here is that this mission Christ sets off on is abruptly interrupted by a woman who is has been living in an absolutely cursed state for twelve years.

However, to understand the truth revealed in this passage, we must first understand the gravity of the condition of the woman who has approached Jesus, and been healed.  The woman’s condition A. So what was the nature of the woman’s condition? Between the books of Matthew, Mark, and Luke we find that the woman had been bleeding for twelve years. For twelve years she has bled, for twelve years she has sought to have this healed in some manner, and for twelve years she has failed and doctors have failed. Luke tells us that, “for twelve years she could not be healed by anyone.” However, it was not simply a physical misery that the woman would have dwelt in. Oh no, her pain and agony was far greater and far more…encompassing than a simple bleeding for twelve years. You see, the Law of Moses states that, “When a woman has a discharge, her discharge being blood from her body, she shall remain in her impurity seven days; whoever touches her shall be unclean until evening. Anything that she lies on during her impurity shall be unclean; and anything that she sits on shall be unclean. Anyone who touches her bedding shall wash his clothes, bathe in water, and remain unclean until evening; and anyone who touches any object on which she has sat shall wash his clothes, bathe in water, and remain unclean until evening. Be it the bedding or be it the object on which she has sat, on touching it he shall be unclean until evening. And if a man lies with her, her impurity is communicated to him; he shall be unclean seven days, and any bedding on which he lies shall be unclean. This was a big deal; it was a big deal for her to be so completely unclean.

So for twelve, long years she existed and lived in a state of utter disgrace, total disrespect, and profound isolation and disconnection. She is viewed as being remarkably filthy. If she had been in the wilderness with the Israelites, she would have been driven outside of the camp. Those who see her coming in the streets of Jerusalem or cities in Galilee would have been wearied and burdened by her approach. If she touched them they would have to clean their garments, take a bath, and remain in a state of uncleanness until evening. If she came into someone’s house or passed by someone’s shop and sat on any thing, it had to be thrown out. If someone even touched a chair that she had sat on, the bed she slept on, or the bench she rested on, the person would become unclean and have to bathe and wash their clothes. Furthermore, and most importantly, if a person was unclean, for whatever reason, they were not allowed to worship in any of the local synagogues; they were not allowed to perform any of the rituals in their own homes, they were not allowed to observe the festivals on the Jewish calendar, and most notably…they were disallowed access to Temple. For twelve long years she remained a burden to those around her. For twelve long years….she lived separated from any intimate community and separated from God’s TANGIBLE presence in the Temple. Worst of all, all that has become her, all that has condemned her, all that judged her as a disgrace had come from the very mouth of the God of the universe. God the Father, through Israel’s greatest prophet to date, had declared this woman dirty and unworthy. For Twelve Horrible Years she was, as it seems, the incarnation of Grief.

I think now we can begin to understand the situation of this woman.

The approach, touch, and press It’s understandable that the woman was timid in her approach of Christ. Everything in her life had told her that she was filthy and unclean; but none-the-less, she reached forth toward Christ with incredible boldness. It is important, however, to understand the difference between her action of touching Christ and the crowd’s touching Christ. The Greek in the passage indicates that the crowd simply pressed against Jesus. They touched Him, yes, but their touch was due to incidental contact. They were simply physically near to the Christ…bumping into Him. However, the woman did not just “bump” into Jesus. Oh no…her touch was much more calculated, it was intentional. The language in the passage implies that she, in fact, apprehended or claimed Christ and thus she apprehended or claimed healing. There’s a total difference between bumping into Christ, and making a calculated effort to reach for and claim Christ out of an awareness of one’s need.

The Tassel Scholars all agree that, yes, she did reach for the fringe of the garment of Christ; but they all but unanimously agree that what she was specifically reaching for is one of the tassels that would have hung from the “fringe” or “corners” of Christ’s garment.

Tassel Now what was the significance of the Tassel? This tassel was required by Numbers 15:38 and Deuteronomy 22:12 as a reminder to the Levites and to all of Israel of Yahweh’s mighty acts. These tassels represented freedom from the oppression of slavery in Egypt, it represented deliverance from a villainous evil that had suppressed the Israelites for hundreds of years, that had chased them through the desert. The Tassels represent the miraculous plagues, the unbelievable parting of the red sea. They hung as reminders of every single act of deliverance that had taken place in the history of Israel up to this point. The tassels served as reminders that God was here, God was present, and God acted on behalf of His people to save and secure them for all of eternity. This is what the woman reached for…this is what she grasped for.

Wings Even the word “fringe” of the garment that the Tassel hung on would also have evoked images to her. The Hebrew word for “fringe” also means “wings;” and in Malachi 4:2, God speaks through the prophet and says, “And you who fear my name the sun of righteousness will rise, with healing in its wings.” C. So you see So you see, the woman was not just reaching for Jesus. She was, quite literally reaching for liberation, for freedom, for salvation, and for healing that she was clearly convinced dwelt in the wings of Jesus.

So, we see that this woman had immense faith…right? She had a faith that seems to surpass understanding and dwell in the realm of near magic and superstition. I suspect it is fair to say that she may well have had a greater faith in the healing power of God and the healing power of Jesus than the majority of the people walking there with Jesus.

However, St. Chrysostom asks an interesting question at this juncture. He asks: “Wherefore did she not approach Him boldly?” Why did she not just walk up to the Son of God and ask for healing? Jarius did, so many others did before an after. Why was she not so bold? We claim that she was bold in her reaching out for the garment of Christ, but a bold approach would have been to walk right up to Jesus, face to face and ask for the healing that she seemed to be so convinced He was capable of.

But St. Chyrsostom goes on: “She was ashamed on account of her affliction, accounting herself to be unclean. For if the menstruous woman was judged not to be clean, much more would she have the same thought, who was afflicted with such a disease… Therefore she lies hidden, and conceals herself. For neither had she as yet the proper and correct opinion concerning Him: else she would not have thought to be concealed.” He says, of course she did not approach him, she was filthy in the eyes of the Law of Moses, the priests, the scribes, the culture, and most assuredly one who seemed to be sent from God. If she was too bold and touched him just right, he would have become unclean too. She would have thought, “I don’t want to dare defile a healer from God!!” I agree with her, it makes perfect sense! Not only is she dirty, she’s a woman! You don’t do that if you are a woman!

However, St. Chrysostom offers a devastating critique of the woman. He remarks: “For neither had she as yet the proper and correct opinion concerning Him: else she would not have thought to be concealed.” St. Chrysostom says, the woman was right in her assessment of her own unclean state. She was right in judging herself to be unworthy to approach Jesus, she was right in her interpretation of the Torah and in understanding its judgment of her. However, where she was incorrect was in her assessment of the nature of God. Of course she probably did not know that Jesus was the long awaited Messiah, the Son of God who was the physical manifestation of the character and nature of Yahweh. However, if she had know the nature and character of Christ that we now can gladly know through the Word, she would have known that she did not have to timidly approach only the garment of His cloak. No, she would have been able to rest in the fact that The nature of God, the nature of His Kingdom, the nature of the Spirit of God, and the Nature of His Son all testify that she, while unbelievably unworthy, had every right to draw close to the Son with confidence and not with a spirit of timidity.

One of the things that I have come to understand over the past year and a half is that the vast majority of my sins, the darkness in my heart, the pain and brokenness in my being that seems so unbelievably unavoidable is because I, as we all do, have an incorrect and a broken view of who Jesus Christ the Son, The Father, and the Holy HOLY Spirit are. I have heard so many people say that they just want to be “used” by God, to just be an “instrument” for God’s use; and while I think God praises such a noble and potentially selfless attitude, I also think He mourns such a view. God does not wish to, nor did he create you to be an impersonal tool or agent for His behalf. He cares about you, He cares about who you are and what you feel and how you feel. You are now as lovable and as loved as you will ever be and have ever been in God’s eyes. Nothing you do or say will ever change the level of complete infatuation that the Spirit, the Son, and the Father have for you! No matter if you are in the depths of a dark sinful act, or on the wings of a heavenly miracle in life, you are loved always and forever the same. God does not love you for what you do, what you can say, how you act, or your faithfulness to Him. He does not even love you for who you are or how you worship Him –as if your meager and unworthy worship entitled you to love from a God. Love does not take into account wrongs, and dare I say that the love of God does not even take into account our rights. I believe that if you ask God why he loves you, He would say to you…. “Just because…I just do.” It’s because God’s love for us is fundamental and foundational. He does not love you because of who you are, He loves you because you are. The woman who grabbed the fringe of His garment did not understand this when she reached. Amen

This is an incomplete sermon that was filled in by the Spirit in a time of need.  I cannot fill in the holes because I cannot pretend to know what God said through me on this day.

C. S. Lewis once wrote, in an essay called Efficacy of Prayer,

Does God then forsake just those who serve Him best?  Well, He who served Him best of all said, near His tortured death, “Why has thou forsaken me?”  When God becomes man, that Man, of all others, is least comforted by God, at his greatest need.  There is a mystery here which, even if I had the power, I might not have the courage to explore.  Meanwhile, little people like you and me, if our prayers are sometimes granted, beyond all hope and probability, had better not draw hasty conclusions to our own advantage.  If we were stronger, we might be less tenderly treated.  If we were braver, we might be sent, with far less help, to defend far more desperate posts in the great battle.

There are a great many mysteries in our faith, like the one that C.S. Lewis ponders in this paragraph.  They are dangerous mysteries -mysteries that find their answers not in the shallows of cultural one hour a week on Sunday morning Christianity.  Rather they are mysteries that are solved only in the depths of God, and as such they are mysteries that many of us will never seek the courage needed to find answers for.

One of these mysteries has come to my attention as I sat around on my toilet hugging my trash can for the better part of a week.  You see every one of the major biblical characters that we seem to stand in awe of have one thing in common.  Well, they have many things in common; but they have one thing in common that I am not particularly fond of.  From Abraham to Paul, Moses to Elijah, and King David to King Jesus –king of all that has ever been created –each one of these Biblical characters that really allowed God to get a hold of their lives and run their lives has spent significant time in the desert alone.  In fact, the entire Israelite nation spent time in the desert secluded from the rest of the world.

Abraham was led out of modern day Iraq into the promise land, Paul was lead from Israel into Arabia, Moses fled Egypt and went into the wilderness of Sinai and perhaps even Arabia, Elijah lived in a ravine by himself as he fled death, and Jesus was led into the desert where he fasted 40 days and resisted the temptations of the devil.

Indeed there seems to be some sort of uncomfortable connection between life changing, world changing, deep relationship with God and time in the desert.

 

So I have two questions for you today:

Firstly, are you in the wilderness?  Many times we find ourselves in the midst of a very difficult spiritual and/or physical wilderness.  It can be caused by the loss of a loved one due to divorce or death.  We may move to a different place where we know absolutely no one.  It can be caused by the loss of friends or the separation of a church.  Or perhaps it is simply caused by an internal struggle with our own sins that we must, ourselves, come to deal with.  Whatever the cave you find yourself dwelling in, whatever the desert dunes you find yourself trekking across, know that God is with you.  But know that the desert is not a time to think “God has forsaken me.”  Rather, it is a time to think, “nothing else can fulfill me but God, I must give myself to him.”

The wilderness is not something to avoid, it is something to embrace, because the reality is that often times we do not understand that what we think is the desert is actually a wonderful oasis in the midst of a world that is a desert.  The presence of God in your life is all that will truly bring you out of the long dark trek through the wilderness.

Secondly, if you are not in the wilderness, are you fighting entering it?  One of the great problems with modern American Christianity is that we seek only to be made happy.  We think that coming to church is about being told that we are pretty, that we are living good Christian lives, that we are doing exactly what God would want to do, that Christianity is the fuzzy warm relationship with God that has no demands on our lives and requires no discomfort for us to be optimistic about our future.  However, that is shallow Christianity.  Depth in a relationship with God will require you, on a very deep level, to sacrifice your life and let Him lead you.  This often times means going into the desert.

I beg you not to fight against this.  Sometimes the hands that hold your face when you are in the desert are not trying to get you to look at the tragedy of your life.  Rather, they are trying to get you to look at the love in God’s eyes.  Don’t fight the hands that are holding you.

Communion

Today we celebrate the oldest of the Christian rituals in existence.  A ritual that God Himself started the night of the Passover.  It is the service of the Lord’s Supper.  It is an act of worship when this world can seem to melt away and we can very much live in a Holy Moment of God.  My good friend and mentor Dr. Bob Tuttle, a professor of Evangelism at Asbury Theological Seminary calls the Holy Ritual of Holy Communion a thin place in our universe.  It can be for us, a place where the layers of division and separation between us and heaven can be made particularly thin.  It is a moment in which we can and do, whether you are aware of it or not, experience the supreme healing power of God through the sacrifice of Christ, by the presence and influence of the Holy Spirit.

We have talked at great length about what Holiness is.  We have talked a great deal about Holiness and what is entailed in it.  I told you that the worship of God and the Divinely guided pursuit of holiness is what changed the Israelites at the base of mount Sinai from a group of disorganized, undisciplined slaves into a military nation led and healed by the one God of all the universe.  The Bible tells us that Holiness means being cut from your sins, being cut away from the ways of this world and made holy unto God.  It means being totally and completely radically abandoned to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit who jointly, as three in one, created us and then died for us so that you can stand up and say, “I’m a drug addict,” “I’m a sex addict,” “I’m depressed,” “I have anxiety problems,” “I hate my body,” “I don’t feel loved,” “I’m an alcoholic,” “I feel dissatisfied and aimless in life… Father, help me be whole and healed.”

John Wesley wrote, in his sermon The Duty of Constant Communion,

“It is the Duty of every Christian to receive the Lord’s Supper as often as he or she can…it is a plain command of Christ.  The benefits of doing it are so great to all that do it in obedience to him; namely, the forgiveness of our past sins and the present strengthening and refreshing of our souls…The grace of God herein confirms to us the pardon of our sins by enabling us to leave them.  As our bodies are strengthened by bread and wine, so are our souls by these tokens of the body and blood of Christ.  This is the food of our souls: this gives strength to perform our duty, and leads us on to perfection.”

(This is just a vague manuscript of my sermons, so expect some holes!)

It came to me during a rather abnormal prayer time once. A normal time of prayer for me usually goes like this: When I sit down to really spend sometime with God, I will sit down and give myself and God about 15 or 20 minutes to just…”wheeeww” and to be. I prefer to sit there with my Bible close, my journal open and a pen in my hand, on the floor, in a dark room lit by candles in the most absolute silence I can find, and I just…sit, and exist, with God. I don’t seek Him out, I don’t go searching for His will, I don’t demand He come to me, I don’t try to figure anything out, and I don’t try to apologize for my sins or anything like that at first. I just sit, in that moment and let God, as He desires, come to me and wrap himself around me like a thick blanket on a dark, cold winter night.

Then, usually, when the time is right, the Spirit just speaks softly into me. It’s not audible, and most of the time it’s not profound…it’s just, usually, a soft, “I am here my love.” And then I begin to pray how I feel lead. Sometimes I will read my Bible, journal about my thoughts, cry, ask God for help; but the most important thing to me is to not TRY to find God, but rather to tarry and to wait for God to come to me on His terms, not on mine. I try to let God talk about whatever He wishes to talk about, not what I necessarily want to talk about. I tell Him He can speak about any thing in my life and I will listen.

However, one day it didn’t quite go as planned. I went to Asbury Seminary’s 24 hour a day prayer chapel and did what I normally do; but at the end of that time of quiet I felt God say to me, “What would you like to talk about today?” I’m not kidding. It really happened. I remember opening my eyes and laughing out loud and going, “what? Heh…for serious?” And God said, “yes, for serious.”

Now I had been given a free pass into the mystery of the universe. I could ask anything of the God of the universe. One would think that you would ask of the great infinite wisdom God in Christ, or of the future. Many of us would inquire as how God would end things, what heaven would be like, what our grandparents and parents look like now in glory. Some of us would inquire as to what God himself looked like; but I had a far more profoundly elusive question to ask Almighty. In a moment of improbable mental radiance I posed to God perhaps the most confounding and impenetrable question man could ask:

“God…why women? What in the name of…well you…possessed you to create women?”

I know, I know…it’s remarkable. It had to have been a moment of such mystifyingly divine revelatory magnificence that the sky above that building must have opened up and the Spirit of God may well have descended upon that the building as it glowed in the dark night sky.

You know what God said to me though? He said, “I don’t know! They started talking to snakes and eating apples and it’s all been downhill since then!” Haha, no I’m just kidding, he didn’t say that to me. What he said was, “Why don’t you look at the creation account if you want to know so badly?”

Created to be loved

I remember the night that God directed me to sit and mull over Genesis two with Him. He very clearly spoke to me and said,

“Carter the first thing that you need to understand about this whole situation is just how much I loved Adam, just how much I love humanity.” He said, “I love humanity with such a fiercely infinite love that you cannot even begin to wrap your mind around it. I created humans…I created Adam to be loved by Me. Everything that I did in creation, everything that I formed was done out of a passionate desire to love people.”

You see, we very rarely contemplate why God created creation; but the truth of the matter is that it was created to convey God’s divine character and nature, which is a character and nature totally made up of love. Paul, in Romans 1:20, remarks that, “Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made.”

All of the stars in the sky, the moon, the color of blue birds, the taste of fresh water, the sound of thunder, the smell of flowers, the feeling of the wind, and the way the sunsets…everything in creation, everything that God created was created to serve as an instrument through which God would convey His love for Adam and ultimately for humanity. All of nature was created to be, and still serves –albeit in a broken way due to sin – as a display of God’s unmatched and unfathomable love for humanity.

III. Genesis 2

Now, as we look at the creation account, particularly in Genesis 1, we see that after each stage of creation, each day –however long you desire for that day to be – the writer conveys to us that God believed that it was, “good.” Literally, in Hebrew, the word means “pleasant” or “agreeable.” To God it was pleasant. However, after He creates Adam in Genesis 2, having not yet created animals or Eve, God sees that it is “not good” or “Unpleasant” for Adam to be alone. However, “alone” does not really capture what is being said here.

The Hebrew word or notion for being alone really carries with it much more baggage and meaning than simply alone. It means existing in a state of separation; but even more than that, it can be used to describe to a single limb of the body –like just your arm or just a leg. This consequently has all kinds of fall out when we consider the passage about us being the “body of Christ.” The word can also refer to a particular piece of a garment, or a piece of cloth that belongs to a greater piece of cloth. For example, a priestly vestment or outfit, would have multiple parts to it: a hat, chestplate, the robe itself, pants, shoes, underwear, rings, etc. The Hebrew word for “alone” could be use to refer to one of these particular pieces of the garment when it was separated from the greater outfit. The single piece wouldn’t be bad, it just…it just belonged to a greater symphony or orchestra of pieces. It wasn’t complete by itself.

C. A Helper as His Partner

God, in His wisdom and love for Adam, saw that Adam was yet to be complete by himself. He was a stray piece of cloth that needed to be with a greater outfit; and so God said that he would create for Adam a “helper.” Literally, God says that He will create for Adam one who provides assistance, relief, or aide.

Now let me take a moment here and pause and say that there are a lot of denominations out there that really are hard and firm on their beliefs that women should not be allowed to lead a church or to serve in the “priestly” role. Ironically, the word that God uses here, the word “helper,” is Ezer which comes from the same family of words as the word Ezra –like the book in the Bible –which means “priest.” God is saying that He will create a “priest” for Adam, a person who will be consecrated to provide him aid, relief, and ministry like nothing else ever could, and it would be a partner.

So what does God do? He creates the animals! Hahaha.

IV. Animals Created

Now God creates all of the animals in the world and goes on to sit Adam down and train them by him. I heard a comedian say one time that you know which animals were named first because they had the best names. I can imagine God sitting Adam down on a stump or a rock some where and taking the animals by him one by one. “That’s a crocodile…that’s a…hippopotamus. Ooooo, that’s an orangutan.” By as time went by and Adam began to run out of words to name the animals with, the names became progressively less impressive, “Cat…Dog…Pig.” And then they began to get names based on what they were doing: “Fly…cause they fly. Grasshoppers, cause…well they hop in grass.”

But at the end of this tremendous revelation of creation, Genesis tells us that, “for Adam, a helper was not found that was fit for him, or adequate for him.” Literally it says, “In Adam’s opinion,” or “according to Adam.” You see, it wasn’t necessarily in God’s opinion that a helper was not found fit for Adam in all of the animals, though I have a feeling he shared the sentiment. No, Adam just didn’t find anything that really rung his bell in those animals.

V. Eve is Made

And so God put Adam into a deep deep sleep. In fact, the wording here indicates a sleep that is divine in its cause. God removes a rib from Adam and forms Eve. I always imagined that God woke up Adam, led him back to the stump or rock he named all the animals from and then walked Eve by Adam just nekked as she could be. Hahaha, Adam flips out…I mean, it. His reaction is totally different to Eve than all of the other animals. I pictured him getting up and being like, “heeeeyyyy baaabbbyyyy…what’s youuuur name? oh, I have to name you still…well call me, give me a ring…we don’t actually have cell phones yet, give it a couple of thousand years…”

Adam is utterly stunned by Eve’s arrival. He is floored by it, and in that moment he declares, “this time at last…finally, this is something that floats my boat.” He says this is bone of my bone. In other words, this is something that is as I am, that is made like I am made, and that functions and thinks and acts and ticks like I tick. As Jerry Macguire would say, “You complete me.”

VI. So now let us ask again, “Why did God create women?”

So, considering all that we now know, what is the answer to the question, “God why did you create women?”

The simple answer is, “Because He loved Adam and Eve was the best possible way, the most magnificent way for God to display that love for Adam. She was gift from heaven, a princess of God’s reign in universe just as Adam was the prince of God’s reign. She was, short of Christ and his death for us, the most magnificent way for God to shower his love and blessing on Adam.

John says in 1 John, “we love because God first loved us.” I’ve said it already, but I’ll say it again: everything in creation was created as display of God’s love for humanity. Everything He created was created to convey his love for us, and consequently to enable us to love Him back. For Adam, Eve was the pinnacle, the peak, the summit, the apex of God’s love. But, for Eve, Adam was also that summit of God’s love.

VII. How does this change us here and now?

I remember when God revealed this to me. I wept, not out of desire for a woman, or the desire to be married, but because God gave me a glimpse into the deep love he felt for me, for all of us. After I sat there, awe struck by God and His love, I began my stuff up and head back to my dorm room; but God stopped me. He said, “Hold on there my boy, we’re not done yet. I have one question to ask you: ‘How does this change how you treat women? However, not just women, but men as well.”

It is a question that I now ask of you. If all that we’ve discovered is true, if all that God said in the Bible about the magnificence of Adam and Eve. If God was serious when he claimed He sought to create a divine helper, a divine priestess for Adam and priest for Eve. If in creating them for one another He was creating the most elaborate, brilliant, and glorious way to show each of them that he loved them with a passion and ferocity that was unmatched and completely out of this world, how does this change how you treat one another. Not just within your own marriages and perhaps friendships. How does this change how you treat perfect strangers or people who hurt you? If it is true that every human that walks this planet was, perhaps, originally intended to be the greatest display of God’s love for another person, what things in your life, what words, what actions, what attitudes need be changed by you so that you do not damage the gift of God to another person? The truth of the matter is, by emotionally, mentally, physically, or spiritually hurting another person, you hurt the one they were intended for. You also hurt every single person that they have the opportunity to minister to in their lives. How dare you be so arrogant as to think you have the right to hurt another. If it doesn’t uplift them, display God’s love –albeit sometimes it needs to be tough love –, if it doesn’t help reconcile them and those touched by them to God…then keep your mouth shut.

God loooves you and He is trying to show you that. Let Him, and you will be able to love others and Him in return. That’s why He created women, to love and to be loved by Adam. That’s the simple truth.

Amen.