Sermon Video: "Don't be afraid; just believe" - LUke 8:40-56

Following the trip back across the Sea of Galilee, Jesus is mobbed by an enthusiastic crowd eager to get close to him.  In that crowd are two people who both have a desperate need for the healing power of the Son of God.  Jairus is a father whose twelve year old daughter is dying, while he garners Jesus’ attention, a woman who had suffered for twelve years from feminine bleeding (thus making her “unclean” in the eyes of the Law) does something to demonstrate her faith in Jesus; she reaches out and touches the tassel of his cloak. 

            At this point, with Jairus anxious that Jesus will not arrive in time, and the crowd already slowing him down, Jesus stops to confront the woman who has just been healed by touching him.  Instead of condemning her for her presumption of touching him, Jesus turns to this woman who has held on to her faith in spite of twelve years of suffering and says, “Daughter, your faith has healed you.  Go in peace.”  What an amazing testament to God’s willingness to forgive anyone who approaches him in faith.

            Meanwhile, Jairus receives word that his daughter has died while waiting for Jesus to arrive.  What was just a heart-warming scene of prayer being answered has turned into a crushing scene of irony.  Jesus may be the Son of God, but he is still only one man, the crowd and the woman who touched him slowed Jesus down; he’s too late.  Rather than allow human limitations to thwart Jairus’ faith, Jesus continues on to his house and then tells him, “Don’t be afraid; just believe, and she will be healed.”  At this point, his own experience would have told Jairus that the situation is hopeless, but Jesus is asking him to trust in the promises of the same God who gives life to all.  Jesus then proceeds to return life to Jairus’ daughter as a further demonstration of who he is, and just as importantly, of the power of faith to overcome our own limitations.

            What insurmountable obstacles, what desperate situations, are you facing?  The answer is always to do our part, remember that both those helped by Jesus were willing to come to him, and then trust God to do his part.

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Sermon Video: "tell how much God has done for you" Luke 8:26-39

When Jesus and the disciples arrive on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee after their traumatic crossing due to the storm, they are met by a naked man who suffers from demon possession.  This man, inhabited by not just one demon but many, falls at Jesus’ feet where the demons beg Jesus not to send them into the Abyss.  Rather than focus on the idea of demons possession, or the topic of spiritual warfare, notice instead the reaction of the locals to Jesus’ miraculous healing of one of their own.  When they arrive on the scene, the locals are overcome with fear; not of the formerly demon possessed man, even though he had terrorized their town, but of the Jewish miracle worker and teacher who had healed him.  In a stunning twist, the locals ask Jesus to leave them alone and go away, and he does exactly that.

            At this point, this story is one of opportunity lost, of God offering to help humanity only to be told to take a hike.  Jesus doesn’t leave it at that, when the now healed man asks to follow Jesus he is told that he must stay behind.  Why?  So that he can, “tell how much God has done for you” to the same people who have just rejected Jesus.  God doesn’t give up on us just because we don’t want his help.  God’s love for humanity prompts him to try a 2^nd or a 3^rd time to reach us and save us from ourselves. 

            There are a lot of people who wouldn’t come to church if you asked them to, they’ve got too much bitterness or anger toward God or the Church to do that.  They wouldn’t listen to a preacher or read a Bible either.  But what if they met God in an unexpected way?  What if they interacted with someone whose life had been transformed by the saving power of Jesus, someone who demonstrated the love of God to them in person?  The laity will always be crucial to God’s efforts to save humanity, especially with those hard cases committed in their own minds to rejecting God.  Jesus didn’t give up, even when they told him to leave, we can do no less.

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Hobby Lobby ruling by the Supreme Court

Regarding the Hobby Lobby ruling...Why was Hobby Lobby able to successfully make their case before the Supreme Court?  Because the Green family had DEMONSTRATED their Christian beliefs clearly over time through the policies that their corporation enacted.  When's the last time a corporation was acknowledged as having clear moral values?  Hobby Lobby pays its employees twice the minimum wage, is closed on Sunday to give employees a day of rest and worship, has long provided health care in a business where most employers did not, and pays for full page advertisements at Christmas and Easter honoring Christ.  In case you're wondering, all of those decisions by the Green family cost them money, but because they were the right thing to do, they did them anyway.  Anyone who knows anything about Hobby Lobby knew they were run by a Christian family.  Can your business say the same, can your family? 
Being a Christian is not something for Sunday only, it should be obvious and clear to all that you are a follower of Jesus Christ, and not because you're loud or obnoxious about it, but because you show the love of Christ in how you live each and every day.  As Jesus told his disciples, "whoever acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man will also acknowledge him before the angels of God." (Luke 12:8)  What does it say about you if people who know you reasonably well would be surprised to learn that you're a Christian?  On the other hand, it says a lot about the love of God when people who don't even really know you still know that you're a Christian because you've built up a reputation for honor, integrity, charity, patience, kindness, etc.  The Supreme Court decided that family owned corporations don't have to pretend that they're not led by Christian values, what's keeping you from doing the same about your life and your family?

Sermon Video: "Where is your faith?", Luke 8:22-25

Today is a good day, things are fine, but there’s no guarantee it will end that way.  Life is like that, one moment you’re floating across a calm sea on a sunny day, the next you’re being battered by the winds and the waves and just hoping to live to see tomorrow.  For the disciples, that scenario literally played out as they went across the Sea of Galilee with Jesus as their boat was in danger of being swamped by a sudden storm.  The disciples, certain that death was imminent, awaken Jesus who rebukes the wind and the waves and saves their lives. 

As the storm subsides, Jesus asks them, “Where is your faith?”  Most preachers or commentators would then talk about how the disciples needed to have more faith, needed to ignore the danger and trust God.  While that is true, it doesn’t answer the difficult questions about our doubts and fears, nor does it tell us what to do while we wait for God to calm our particular storm, or what we should do if God chooses to let us endure through our trial, even if it costs us our life.

We know that God is capable of calming any storm, Jesus’ power over nature is only a glimpse at what God can do, but we also know that God chooses, from our perspective at least, to intervene only a minority of the time.  The explanation that we’ve been given for this discrepancy by Paul’s words in Romans 8:28-29 may partially explain some of the difficulties that we go through in life, (that they’re part of refining our character and helping us become Christ-like) but still leaves us with many unanswered questions.  Ultimately, the only answer that we can obtain in this life is the answer that God gave to Job, in essence, you’re not capable of understanding the answer to your question, you need to trust me.

What is the purpose of faith?  It isn’t to get my own way and protect me from all harm, nor is it to keep us from having to go through hardships and suffering.  The purpose of faith is to allow us to continue to trust in the love of God through the dark times so that we can hold on to the hope that God has promised those who love him.

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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?