Take Time to Be Holy

This past Sunday we sang an old hymn, "Take Time to Be Holy", written by William Longstaff, that begins with this phrase in its second verse: "Take time to be holy, the world rushes on"  Those words stuck with me because they seem even more true today than when they were written.  Our world rushes on at a frantic pace.  We have things planned days, weeks, months, even years in advance; our calendar seems to fill up before we even get to each day.  On top of our general business, we’ve now added smart phones and social media that keep us connected to everyone 24/7 and fill up those moments that in the past may have enabled us to slow down and think about what we’re doing.  Time flows by and we’re too busy to see it passing, we may not stop to take a breath for weeks at a time.  How, in this sort of environment, can we be a holy people?  The hymn has it right, we need to “take time”.

What does it mean to “take time to be holy”?  Holiness doesn’t just happen on its own, it isn’t something that God does through us whether we’re part of it or not.  Holiness is deliberate and it needs considerable time and effort on our part.  To be holy means to be set apart for God’s use.  The tabernacle and the ark were holy because they only had on purpose, the worship of God.  Likewise, things like communion and baptism are holy because they are only used in our fellowship together and worship of God.  So, how can you or I, as individual followers of Jesus Christ (and part of the larger body of Christ) BE holy?  The only way that we can hope to accomplish this is to set aside parts of our lives for the use of the kingdom of God.  This includes time, resources, and talent, and it needs to be something that we consciously choose to do.  We all have commitments and responsibilities, God wants us to honor those, and we all need to take time to exercise and rest both our bodies and our minds, but we need to make sure that we’re not squeezing God in when we have a few extra minutes.  We need to take the time to be holy, make it a part of our lives, a regular and expected part, because it is the only way that we will be able to make progress in our mission of becoming like Christ.  Take a look at your calendar for the next week, the next month, where is the time in there for you to be holy?

Sermon Video: The Sower and the Seeds - Luke 8:4-21

The teachings of Jesus are far more difficult to live by than they are to understand.  When Jesus taught the parable of the Sower, he utilized an analogy about farming that his audience would have readily understood.  The focus of the parable is on the variable types of ground that the seed falls upon and how receptive it is to the seed.  There are four types of ground mentioned by Jesus: path, rocky, weeds, and good soil, only one of which is capable of nurturing the seed and allowing it to grow to maturity and produce a harvest.  The first three types of soil all have external or internal issues that are detrimental to the seed and thus fail to produce.  The fourth type is called “good” in that it actually multiplies the seed in the end by giving the farmer a harvest.

            Jesus explained this parable to his disciples and reminded them that not everyone who hears his message is actually listening to it.  This episode touches about a difficult subject for us: Why do some people accept the Gospel while others reject it?  On the surface one person may seem as likely as another, but one accepts the message and continues in it while another either fails to maintain that commitment or outright rejects it.  The parable gives reasons why the three types that rejected the offer of God’s grace did so, but in the end excuses won’t help because they all equally failed to reproduce the seed.

            What is our purpose as Christians?  How do we ensure that we are creating a bountiful harvest for God?  The conclusion to Jesus’ parable is contained in his response to the arrival of Mary, James, and his other half-brothers, “My mother and brothers are those who hear God’s word and put it into practice.”  The harvest that God requires is nothing new or surprising, it is simply obedience; to hear the word of God and obey it.  This is, we know, a process that can only be done by faith and the power of the Holy Spirit, but it must be accomplished.  If we are to be good soil, if we are to fulfill our purpose, we must obey the word of God.

To watch the video, click on the link below:

Sermon Video 

 

Sermon Video: Those Forgiven Much, Love Much - Luke 7:36-50

The intro and first 1/2 of the initial Scripture reading were inadvertently not taped, the message proceeds as usual from that point...Do you appreciate what you have?  Most people tend to do so only when they've had a taste of what it is like to do without.  In this passage from Luke, Jesus explains through a parable of two debtors that forgiveness from God is treated the same way by us.  Those of us who know how much we have been forgiven, because we realize the depth of our sins, have much to be grateful for, but those who consider themselves to be only minor sinners can be tempted to view the forgiveness they receive with scant appreciation, and perhaps even look upon those forgiven great amounts with scorn.  The woman of ill repute, who crashes the party of his host the well regarded Pharisee Simon, turns out to be the own approved of in the sight of God because she recognizes her sin, has sought the forgiveness of God, and has found it by faith.  Faith is always the answer, whether our sins be a hill or a mountain it doesn’t matter, our only hope to escape their cost is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ on our behalf.

To watch the video, click on the link below:

Sermon Video 

Sermon Video: The Limits of Apologetics, Luke 7:24-35

The term apologetics comes from the Greek word, apologia, which means “speaking in defense”.  The most famous Greek apologia was that of Plato who wrote in defense of his mentor Socrates in the famous, Apology.  Socrates was innocent, and if Plato’s retelling of the tale is accurate, his defense was brilliant, but the mob sentenced him to death by Hemlock anyway.  A well reasoned and delivered argument can work wonders, but it has limits.  Humanity cannot always be persuaded by the truth, even when it is well presented.

            Jesus explains this same truth in reference to the people who were willing to accept both John the Baptist’s message as well as his own, and those who had rejected John’s message and subsequently rejected Jesus as well.  The significance of this double acceptance and double rejection is made clear by Jesus when he recounts the objections that were made by those who rejected both messengers: They rejected John as being too fanatical, too serious, and at the same time rejected Jesus for being too friendly and open to the needs of the ‘sinners’.  The approaches of John and Jesus were nearly opposite in their style, yet they were both rejected by the same group of people with the excuse that style was the problem and not the substance.  Jesus is making it clear that it is the substance of the message that is being objected to, not the form.  The actual content of John’s message of repentance, and Jesus’ message of repentance, is the same.  It is not the messenger that is being rejected, but the message, and because both of these men were sent by God, it is ultimately God who is being rejected.

            Does form and style matter in evangelism, outreach, and worship?  Of course it does, we should always strive to be the best version of the Church and individual Christians that we can be in order to showcase the Truth of the Gospel, but we must also realize that these things have limits.  To those willing to listen to God, the Truth will speak in a variety of settings and styles, but to those whose hearts and minds are close to God, it won’t matter how many different church styles they try, the substance is being rejected behind all of them.  In the end, it is the grace of God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, that is necessary to break through the barrier of a hard heart and melt away the resistance to the Gospel.  We must do our part, God will do his.

To watch the video, click on the link below:

Sermon Video 

Are the End Times near?

This past Sunday morning as I was eating my breakfast I did something I don’t normally do, I turned the channel to catch a few minutes of a well known TV preacher.  If SportsCenter hadn’t been talking about auto racing this never would have happened, but they were, and it did.  It turns out that the whole series that this message comes from is about the End Times and how it somehow, in his opinion, relates to the recent financial crisis that began in the US several years ago.  It only took a few minutes of watching for this preacher to proclaim that he sees the signs described by Jesus in the Gospels happening in our world today.  This “insight” culminated in his prediction that he feels confident that he will be alive long enough to see Christ return.  If there is one cardinal sin of interpretation of apocalyptic literature it is erroneously concluding that the events described are being fulfilled in one’s own lifetime.  This same error has been committed again and again throughout Church history, notably at the arrival of the first millennium, and again as the year 1,500 approached.

            There are several things wrong with anyone who claims to know when Christ is going to return, most obviously that Jesus himself declared that “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Matthew 24:36).  If Jesus doesn’t know when the Father will bring the Church Age to an end and begin the End Times, how can anyone living here on Earth think that he/she has somehow cracked the code and recognized the signs?

            This predictive folly is dangerous on several fronts: it discourages Christians from investing in the future and allows them to take a guilty pleasure in the misfortunes of our world as they seem like signs that Christ is coming soon.  For that reason alone, such pronouncements need to be countered by preachers everywhere who takes Jesus’ warning that it will indeed be a surprise seriously.  {I don’t have time to get into the Dispensational assumptions that this preacher is using as he interprets the Bible, these too are coloring the conclusion and have him looking for evidence of decline and ignoring evidence of revival.}

            On another level, this sort of thing bothers me personally because of the assumptions that underpin it.  Two primary assumptions that I believe are both false are part of this assessment  that the End Times are near: #1 The United States is in the midst of a moral decline.  #2 The Church in the US is the primary focus of God’s work in our world.  Is there evidence that the U.S. is in some unprecedented moral decline that will end in the ruination of the Church in America?  No, but there are plenty of negative statistics and anecdotes for those looking for such evidence.  This entire line of thinking about America isn’t based on factual analysis anyway, but rather upon a mistaken identification of the US as the new Israel in God’s plans (relates to #2).  People who takes this view are always talking about how good things used to be in some past near-utopia before the current group that is bothering them the most supposedly ruined the country.  That such a prior time of super-virtue never existed is hard to point out when memory is rose colored.  As a student of history, I know that nations as well as institutions like the Church have life cycles; that like a pendulum they swing back and forth from highs to lows.  Are we in a period of decline?  Maybe, maybe not, but I don’t see it; everywhere I turn I see Churches fighting in the trenches, working together as never before, with capable leadership and committed lay people.  Even if decline happens, why can’t God send a revival?  God blessed America with the First AND Second Great Awakenings, why can’t God do something like that in this generation?  The pessimism of those who insist that our days are numbered is certainly not helping the kingdom of God.  I have fought against those who are intent upon a pessimistic view of our nation’s future, but it seems like I’m talking to a wall; instead, I’ll simply keep working for that future by the grace of God.

            The second assumption has pride and racism mixed in with it.  If, and in my mind that’s a big if, America is in decline, doesn’t the rest of the world count in God’s evaluation of humanity too?  Even if America becomes a godless land (which it won’t, but follow me on this), does that necessarily mean the End must be near?  What if God’s work in the Church in South America, Africa, and Asia vastly overshadows the decline in the West?  Here’s some real truth that those hoping for the End Times won’t want to hear: it already does.  The growth of the Church in the Third World, among poor non-white peoples, has greatly overcome the losses in Europe and America that the Church as a whole has experienced in the past few decades.  The balance of “power” for the Church is shifting, much as the global political and economic balance of power has shifted somewhat away from the West toward the rest of the world.  According to God Word, God doesn’t value a white American believer more than a poor African.  How much of the pessimism of those who bemoan the future of the Church is really just misplaced American pride and a bit of latent racism?

            I shouldn’t have starting watching a TV preacher, I know better, 9/10 it just makes me angry; but maybe my insight here will help some of you realize that the future of America is not set, the work we here today do for the kingdom of God will help determine what the next generation of Christians have to work with.  If we screw it up, and leave them a Church that is weaker than the one left to us, it still doesn’t preclude God’s ability to send revival and restore his Church.  Likewise, the growth of the Church in the rest of the world is a cause of celebration in Heaven, as new souls come to accept the saving power of Jesus Christ, this is after all what the missionaries who set out from England and America had hoped and dreamed to see realized.  Is the End near?  I have absolutely no idea, and anyone who says otherwise is full of it.