This sermon was preached at Peace Hill Christian Fellowship on December 24th, 2017.

Based on the Gospel of John, Chapter One.

The incarnation is the greatest miracle and the most profound mystery in human history. Without the incarnation there is no point in even talking about the death and resurrection of Jesus. The resurrection of Jesus is not even all that unique without the incarnation – it is not the first rising from the dead in the Bible. But the incarnation is the momentous happening in history. All that we believe hangs on the incarnation. This morning, I want to make run at trying to understand, in a small way, something of the revelation and mystery of the incarnation.

The Incarnation Is Both Revealed and Mysterious.

There are Some Things About the Incarnation We Know:  When John begins to talk about the incarnation of Jesus Christ, in words that are far too familiar to us, he speaks in very metaphorical language. We are used to reading these metaphors and picking out the things that make sense to us.

• “In the beginning was the Word” – We understand that the world was created by Jesus.
• “The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.”  We understand that Jesus’ life, words, teaching, actions, death and resurrection give us a true understanding of God. Jesus is the clearest, central revelation of God in the Bible.
• ”The Word became flesh” – clearly means that Jesus, God’s Son, became human.

We also understand, from the Gospels, some of God’s choices about how to live…

• That Jesus chose to be born in humble circumstances.
• That Jesus taught the things God wanted to communicate to people.
• About what God is like
• About the Kingdom of God
• About our need for repentance and new life.

We understand, also, what God is like by looking at Jesus – God’s power and holiness and goodness, through Jesus’ compassion, his healing, his life and teachings, and his sacrificial death.

But There are Some Things About the Incarnation that are Mysterious:  John uses metaphors to describe something about the effect of the Incarnation.

• Metaphor of “light” used 6x in the first nine verses of John 1 – 25x in John’s Gospel.
• Metaphor of “dark” or “darkness” seven times throughout his gospel.

John’s use of the metaphor’s of light and darkness have to do with this idea of “glory” a word he uses in one form or another 22x in his Gospel – A major theme. What does it mean?

• True understanding and consequent belief?  Yes.
• Holy character?  Yes.

But “glory” means something more. Luke 2 is helpful in understanding…

• Glory means God is present: “An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.” (Lk.2:9).
• Glory displays the exalted nature of God: “Glory to God in the highest heaven” (Lk.2:14).
• Glory displays a particular beauty or praiseworthiness in God’s people: “…my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all nations: a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.” (Lk.2:30-32). Jesus is the one who makes Israel glorious.

We see all three of these in Jesus’ transfiguration (Lk.9:32).

The Greek Fathers, understood the coming and incarnation of Jesus to be the beginning of the restoration of human beings as “glorious” creatures… that the goal of salvation would be this transformation of darkened people into people who would display…

• God’s presence – through a kind of glory or “light of being” evident to those around them, and
• God’s praiseworthiness – through holy and honorable lives that would bless the world. Their understanding was that God became human in order to create a new kind of human being – a glorious kind.

Their conception of this came out of the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ. When Jesus went up on the mountain and began to radiate light, that, for the Greek Fathers, was Jesus’ display of what human beings were created to be. It gives a whole new meaning to Paul’s comment that “We have all fallen short of the glory of God” (Rom.3:23).

John is trying to express something of this glory in verse 14 – “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”  John is saying more here than just that Jesus shows us the right way to think about things – he is saying more – something mysterious and glorious about incarnation.

Our Response to the Incarnation is Both Revealed and Mysterious.

We Respond to What is Revealed:  How do we respond to the Incarnation of Jesus Christ?

• Jesus was born in humble circumstances – we respond by humbling ourselves.
• Jesus taught about God’s love and holiness and justice – we respond by loving even our enemies, and pursuing holy lives, and practicing justice.
• Jesus taught about the Kingdom of God – we respond by  giving our allegiance to God’s Kingdom.
• Jesus talked about repentance and healing from sin – we respond by repenting of sin.
• Jesus talked about not judging others, not serving money – we respond by following these teachings.

How we respond to the things Jesus taught and exemplified is a measure of how we follow Jesus. It makes no sense to say that we follow Jesus if we judge people, hate our enemies, don’t care about justice, or loving others, or repentance from sin in our lives, or forgiveness. Part of the point of the Incarnation is that God has come and told us what he intends us to be like – how to live. If we ignore the clear teaching of Jesus, as the Gospels say, we do so at our peril.

We Respond to the Mystery of Incarnation by Receiving and Becoming:  But there is another, more mysterious, aspect of responding to the Incarnation which has less to do with our active response to teaching and more to do with our openness to receive. This is the language that John uses – “to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become…”. 

• There is a glory (an inner light of peace) that we receive when we are willing to accept that God is present with us – graciously, lovingly, personally with us.
• There is a glory (a revelation of who we are and who God is) that we receive when we pay attention to and honor God. Exalting God for who God is.
• There is a glory (a kind of nobility and joy) that we receive when we accept the fact that, to God, we are God’s image, and God invests everything in us and delights in us.

This light can actually be seen in us at times. This is Incarnation – Jesus became something – fully God and fully human – so that we could also become something – “children of light” (1Jn.2:1) “children of God” (Jn.1:12), “the light of the world” (Matt.5:).

What We Become Shapes How We Respond to What is Revealed: Incarnation, then, is the beginning point. Before we can “do” or “act” or “live out” as children of light – we have to receive! 

This morning we will practice communion with this understanding. Jesus gave us his body, not simply to seal a legal agreement to get us off the hook for sin – but as a radical way of sealing our new identity as children of light – partakers in the divine nature. As you eat and drink this morning, choose to receive the gift – ask for the gift of grace that will enable you to become a child of light.

This sermon was preached at Peace Hill Christian Fellowship on December 3rd, 2017

In this first Sunday in Advent we long for God and for the promises of what we believe God will do. We hope for the return of Jesus Christ to judge evil, to heal the world and our mortality, to bring about the eternal Kingdom of God that makes all things new. And yet, we acknowledge that this has not happened yet, and so we celebrate this Sunday with a sense of longing and mourning.

Scripture intends to train and shape our longings. Isaiah 64 is a prayer, full of longing, from a person who is in Exile, far away from his home. He is someone who is living in a land where the God he has always known as the One True God is now just one deity among many. He is frustrated by the fact that even his fellow Jews seem to have forgotten God – and God seems to be absent.

O that you would rip open the heavens and come down, that the mountains would quake like boiling water and tremble like twigs consumed in the fire. Come down and make your name known to those who despise you, so that they tremble before you – just like you did before when you did amazing things we were not expecting. You came down and the mountains shook. Since the beginning of time no one has known of…  no rumor has been heard of… no one has seen any God like you. You act to help those who wait for you. You help those who want to do what is right and who pay attention to your ways.

But we have continued in our sin – and you have been angry with us. How then can we be saved? We have become disgusting (unclean) and every good thing we try to do is tainted – it shrivels up. Our failures and faults sweep us away and no one even calls on you for help anymore. This is happening because you have hidden yourself from us – and have let us waste away in our sin.

But you – you are our Father! You are the potter (the craftsman) and we are the clay to be shaped. You made us and we are the work of your hands – the product of what you are doing in the world. Do not be angry with us forever – beyond measure – without end. Look on us with compassion – because we are your people.   – Pete’s paraphrase

There is Great Benefit in Practicing the Absence of God.

The Absence of God Can Awaken Our Desire for God: This morning is communion. Communion is a sign of Christ’s presence with us. And yet, we should not lose sight of the fact that the presence of Christ, in the bread and wine, also accentuates the absence of Christ. Bread is bread and wine is wine.

And for many of us Jesus, though a familiar name, and a wise teacher, is a stranger. I was struck by this in a meditation this week in Mark, where Jesus came into a synagogue and began to teach with authority that none of those listening had ever heard before… where Jesus used that same authority to cast out a demon. I can read about that, and I can pray to Jesus, and study his life. But I have never shaken his hand, nor do I know what he really looked like, or what his human voice sounded like. He is here in Spirit… in the bread… in the actions and words of this community… but not in human body. We know Jesus, but we do not know Jesus. He is both present and absent.

This is what the writer of Isaiah 64 is experiencing. He is praying to God – but in his prayer, speaking to the Almighty and believing the Almighty can hear him, he is complaining that the Almighty is absent. You can hear his longing. He is pouring out his heart to God because God is absent.

What Does God’s Absence Awaken in You?

We talk about the presence of God and experiencing the presence of God as a way of knowing God and being changed. But there is no true understanding of the presence of God unless we first are aware of how un-present God is. We do not practice either presence or absence – we practice both together – and as we do so certain desires and questions emerge…

The Desire that God’s Name Should Be Known:  This, in essence, is the core of this prayer. The prophet says, “Come down and make your name known” and mourns that “No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you.”

When we practice the absence of God, we become aware of how invisible God is to people who do not know, do not care to know God’s love and healing for them – who seem completely unconcerned to lay hold of God. We become aware of the fact that most of humanity has no thought of the mighty God who made the world and will judge it – before whom we will all stand and given an account of how we have lived our lives. Even many Christians have no notion of the “great Day of the Lord” so often mentioned in Scripture. This is what the prophet longs for in his frustration –  “O that you would rip open the heavens and come down.”

The Question of God’s Hiddenness:  God’s hiddenness is a theme, even in the Gospels with Jesus. God, in a sense, hides himself. This is not to say that God doesn’t want to be known – but there is a sense that God must be sought out… “Seek and you will find, Ask and it will be given, Knock and the door will be opened.” This is why Jesus taught in parables – so that in order to understand people would have to think about and search out what he was saying.

This is part of the lament of the prophet, “… you have hidden your face from us and made us waste away because of our sins.” This question is also at the heart of this prayer – God, why don’t you rip the heavens open and let people see who you are? Even your own people are turning away and because you have hidden yourself. That’s not meant just to be an interesting fact – it’s a problem that begins back in Genesis 3 where God sends human beings out of his presence – and the result of God’s absence has been disastrous!

The Question: What are You Doing? The absence of God is practiced as we recognize how fallen, how broken this world is. We practice the absence of God when we realize that the great problem of our world – its persistent evil, violence, impurity, falsehood, greed, injustice, racism, hatred, and arrogance – has to do with the fact of the absence of God.

This should raise the same question for us that it raises for the prophet – “Yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand” – God, what are you doing? The problem we struggle with is not that God is out of control – the problem is that we believe God is in control. God is the one who shapes us and our lives and cares for us and loves us, and we are his people. Why do we experience the evil we experience? Why do we persist in struggling with sin? Why are so many people in this world starving? Why do evil dictators rule whole countries and do violence and seemingly go unpunished?

These are the questions that we ask in this first Sunday in Advent, as we prepare for God himself to rip open the heavens in order to be born into our same helplessness as a human infant.

This morning, as we prepare to come to the tables and receive communion, I want to encourage you to struggle with the absence of God as you experience the presence of Jesus in the bread and the wine.

1 Peter 5:5-7  –– Clothe Yourselves with Humility

This sermon was preached at Peace Hill Christian Fellowship on September 3rd, 2017.

I Spent time in Scotland thinking and praying about the Life of discipleship – Jesus begins Sermon on the Mount with the beatitudes. I began to see that engaging in the beatitudes merely by study would not do much to change the real issues I struggle with as a Christian – the desires of the heart. So I decided to take each of the beatitudes and develop a week long set of prayer-meditations on each. I took an hour each day, and prayed through the passage of scripture for the day. What I want to share with you this morning is the fruit of one of those meditations which was on being “poor in spirit” or on humility. My meditation comes from 1 Peter 5:5-7.

“All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’ Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”

This morning I want to ask two questions about these verses, which I wrestled with in prayer in my meditation.

What does it mean to “clothe ourselves” with humility?

How can we clothe ourselves with humility?

What does it mean when Jesus says it is blessed to be “poor in spirit?”  What are we to clothe ourselves with? Paul tells us two things in Phil.2:5-8 that help our understanding. Humility means…

to make ourselves nothing as Jesus did, and

to become obedient as Jesus did

I thought about this. There are a couple of things I know that I can do in order to be humble…

I can try to be a servant to people – in fact, I can try to serve people in secret ways – do things for people that bless them – but that they don’t notice or so that they don’t know that I am the one who served them. That takes some thought, but I can do that.

I can try not to do and say things which bring attention to myself – I can try not to get people to focus on me and admire me. I can try to do that.

I can also try to thank God when my will is crossed and when I don’t get my way. That is hard and unnatural – it hurts to do it – but I can try to do that.

So, now I have three practices – three ways to train myself in humility. I have to be intentional about these things, I have to train myself to them, to think about how I am doing with them. I have to be patient with myself and understand that my effort here is not earning God’s love – but rather that this is my way of responding to God’s love – of trying to be like the one who loves me. I have to be as patient with myself as God is with me as I clothe myself with humility.

But Here’s where I begin to have trouble. Not in understanding how to practice humility, but in accepting this call to humility. Honestly, I don’t want to make myself nothing – I want to be someone! someone important and interesting. I want to exalt myself – I don’t know if I trust God to “lift me up in due time,” as the ApostlePeter says he will.

While I was thinking about this, a verse from Luke 11, and Matthew 23 came into my mind. Jesus says the same thing two times but a little differently, and what came into my mind was a combination of the two sayings mixed together – so I took it as God speaking to me… Jesus’ words to the Pharisees: “Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup…  but inside you are full of robbery and self-indulgence… You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup… so that the outside of it may become clean also.” (Lk11:39-41, Matt.23:25-26).

I realized that I had been thinking about the outside of the cup/ life, and not the inside as well.

I began to think about what the inside of the cup was – in other words, I began to think about the motivations of my heart. Why don’t I want to humble myself? Why don’t I trust Jesus when he says that the poor in spirit are blessed?

The answer is that inside of me there is a great pit of desire for admiration. It is a pit that is always hungry but never full. The more I feed it by trying to get others to admire me, to look at the things I am proud of, the more empty it feels. This is the inside of the cup, and it is an inside that I feel helpless to change. I cannot talk myself out of this desire that is in the pit of my heart.

I don’t mean to suggest that receiving admiration is a wrong thing – but when a desire, or a fear, becomes this kind of never satisfied hunger – it takes control of the ways we live and how we react and respond to others, and leads us into all kinds of sinful living and pride – it is what the Bible calls an idol.

I think that at the center of all of us there is some kind of internal desire or demand that makes humility very difficult. How are we to deal with this? How can we truly become people who not only act with humility – but actually come to accept, and even want and cherish, the practice of humility?

I want to finish by saying two things…

We need the practice of humility – training in humility – the outside of the cup. Training in outward behavior is important and part of the way we learn and change. Jesus did not tell the Pharisees not to clean the outside of the cup. A verse later he says to them, “Woe to you Pharisees! For you pay tithe of mint and rue and every kind of garden herb, and het disregard justice and the love of God; but these things you should have done without neglecting the others.” We need training in the Christian life – but it needs to be done not as a way of earning God’s love, but of responding to God’s love.

But before, or maybe as, we begin to pay attention to externals in training ourselves in holiness, we also need to begin to address the inside of the cup. Hearts are not changed by human effort, but through prayer and dependence on God. I saw that if I was ever going to love humility, God must deal with the pit of admiration at the center of my heart. I saw that I was going to have to give this desire to God again and again and again, if I was ever going to see it change. The inside of the cup is God’s work. Our part is, with as much brutal honesty as we can muster, to bring the inside of the cup – the desires and fears of our hearts to God, and to trust God to do his work.

This morning, we are celebrating communion. There could hardly be a more appropriate time, as you come to the tables this morning, to receive the love and forgiveness of God through the sacrifice of Jesus, and to honestly confess to God what is going on in the inside of the cup – of your life – regarding the call to humility, or any other issue with which you are wrestling.

SEPARATING THE SHEEP FROM THE GOATS – Pete Bauer

This sermon was preached at Peace Hill Christian Fellowship on June 14th, 2015.  To listen to the audio, just click on this link – Sheep & Goats.

The parable that Jesus tells about the Sheep and the Goats, is one of the most misunderstood parables in the Gospels.  One finds it difficult to read this parable without, in the end, feeling a sense of guilt or fear, and coming away feeling that we need to do more.

However, this parable is not about doing more.  Rather it is a parable about spiritual perception, and how who we are before God determines what we see and, consequently, how we then behave towards others and ultimately towards Jesus Christ.  This is a parable about spiritual discernment which repeats the phrase, “Lord, when did we see you…” four times, and calls us to be people of discernment who are able to separate out what truly matters in the spiritual life.

Sheep and Goats are Separated by What They Love.

The temptation is to read this parable and focus on ourselves.  However, the first section of this parable is a statement by Jesus about himself.  We tend to pass over this statement in our anxiety to get to the rest of the parable.  However, the truth about this parable is that the central figure is Jesus himself.  The fact is that Jesus is, in a sense, saying to his disciples-”You need to pay attention to me!”  This becomes clearer as the parable goes on.  Nevertheless, we need to stop, before we rush on, and look at what these first few verses say about Jesus.

The Son of Man Is Coming in Glory: Jesus makes very clear, here, that he understands himself as the King and Son of God — the Messiah — who has not yet been fully revealed, even to his disciples.  Jesus describes himself as

(1) coming in the glory of God, (2) attended by all God’s angels, (3) to sit on His glorious throne as a king! (4) with authority to judge all the nations who will be gathered before him.

Good News or Bad News for You? One of the questions we are confronted with as we see Jesus’ statements about his coming is whether this is good or bad news for us.  What does Jesus’ coming mean for us?  Do we long for the coming of the King, as those who have received his favor and who desire to live a new life–to love him back and please him.  Do we expect his coming to be the moment of our deliverance from sin and of freedom from the temptations and bondages of this world?  Or is the coming of the King bad news?  Is it the moment of confrontation by a harsh and demanding task master who intrudes in on our comfortable life?

Jesus began with these statements about his coming in order to confront his hearers with their response–the orientation of their hearts towards God.  Those who have not believed the gospel of grace and favor of Jesus Christ, are one group (goats), who dread his coming and hope to do enough good works to get by.  Those who have believed the gospel of grace and favor through Jesus Christ are another orientation (sheep), who look forward to his coming because they love him — and, as we will see — they love his people as well.

Sheep and Goats are Separated by Their Nature.

Sheep are Sheep and Goats are Goats – What You Are Determines What You Do:  The temptation, again, is to read this parable merely as a statement on the behavior of two separate groups.  However, the parable of the sheep and goats is not intended to say that who we are is determined by what we do.  That would be legalism.

Sheep are sheep because they have heard the shepherd’s call and received his favor. They are sheep because, in light of Christ’s love and favor, they have a changed heart and long to respond to the shepherd with love and obedience. Their acts of compassion are symptoms of the fact that they are sheep by faith!  Jesus is not abandoning the Gospel here to say that everything comes down to mere behavior.

Goats, on the other hand, are goats, not merely by virtue of what they did or did not do, but rather because Christ, for them, is someone to be appeased. This is the point of Jesus parable–Not that we are what we do–but that we do what we are–in accordance with what we believe.

Pay Attention to Your Heart!  The message of Jesus in this parable, does not primarily call us to focus on our deeds–but on our heart orientations.  Our actions point to what is already happening in our hearts.  What we love.  What we value.  What we care about and do not care about–these things come out in our behavior.  Our behavior can never change our hearts–as though we could work righteousness from the outside in.  Our hearts must be changed.  To do acts of compassion out of a heart that merely seeks to stack up good works is an empty, self-righteous offering to God.

Sheep and Goats are Separated by What They See. 

Seeing and Perceiving:   Four times the question is repeated, “When did we see you…”.  The righteous repeat the question, in astonishment, three times–the unrighteous only once.  Jesus uses this formula to contrast the desire and interest of the righteous to see Jesus against the dullness and disinterest of the unrighteous.  However, it is clear that neither group seems to have understood that they were seeing Jesus, and that fact draws us to pay attention to this very central idea.

What do the righteous see–ought the righteous to see?  What did they see, in a sense, without ever really seeing it?  They saw those who were hungry and thirsty.  They saw strangers.  They saw the naked and the sick.  They looked at people and responded to Jesus.  But the question is when did they look at these people and see Jesus?

When Do You See Him?  If one responded to this parable in fear and guilt, like a goat, one could go join a weekly or monthly ministry to make sure that they fill their quota of loving their neighbor.  This would be like a goat putting on a sheepskin once a week or month.  Certainly, those who respond to this parable know when they are fulfilling their law.

But the righteous do not know when they have done this because the righteous have not made an event out of it.  Instead the righteous respond to those they see throughout the day with love–and they do so, not to do their good deed for the day or week, but because they have received the love of God for and into themselves, and their desire is to respond with that same faithfulness, sacrifice and brotherliness (Biblical definitions of love), to whoever they see in front of them.  The goats, on their way to do their good deeds, push out of their way the “least of these” that Jesus is talking about–speak cruelly to them–ignore the need of the familiar needy in order to fulfill their official charge.

Sheep look at the “least of these” and see Jesus because the love of God has changed their hearts–and they have taken on the family likeness – the love of God.  Goats do not see with love because they themselves have not received love, and so they care only for themselves.  Goats can only parrot love, and they soon grow weary because love is always external to them.

Jesus Came to Make Sheep:  Jesus did not tell this parable to condemn,  but to both warn and to call.  The tragedy of the parable of the sheep and goats is that the goats, in the end, depart, never having known the love freely offered to them by the King–never having been changed by that love.  They depart from the King, who frightens and threatens them.  But the righteous enter eternal life having been loved by God, and having lived a life returning that love to God and others.

What Will You Be/Become?  The sheep and goats have not already been determined.  Jesus confronts us this morning, calling attention to the state of our hearts.

• What is your response to the coming of the King?
  • Do you long for the King who has loved, forgiven and favored you?
  • Or do you fear the King’s coming as one who will intrude and disrupt your life in this world?
• How do you respond to the people who are in front of you every day – your family, your neighbor, your co-workers?
  • Would they describe you as someone who loves faithfully, caringly, sacrificially?
  • Would they describe you as someone who is short-tempered, dismissive or unforgiving?

To answer these questions is to truly confront the heart of this parable. God’s grace is freely offered.  This morning, God is calling you to receive his grace, his love–to seek it until you find it, and receive his favor–to become a sheep.

WAITING FOR THE DAY,  Pete Bauer

This sermon for the 5th Sunday in Lent, was preached at Peace Hill Christian Fellowship on March 22nd, 2015.  To listen to the audio, just click on this link – Lent#5.

We Love This Fearful Half-Life.

Something is Not Right!   Maybe you recognize the words of Miss Clavelle in the story of Madeline.   She wakes in the middle of the night with a sense that something in her little girls school is terribly wrong, and she finds that Madeline is ill.

That moment in the story of Madeline touches on something that I think is a universal kind of experience.  Whether you have woken up in the night in fear, or felt a longing in a quiet afternoon (it is  an experience that tends to be brought on by quiet), I think that most of us have had that sense that life is passing away… that what we love and value may be lost.  Sometimes it can come on as a moment of panic, and sometimes as a sad longing, but we all know, with Miss Clavelle, that something is not right.

Life does not turn out the way we plan.  As we age this becomes increasingly clear as every successive stage of life brings changes and losses. You can’t go back to the irresponsibility of childhood, to the energy and strength of youth, though we often try to.  Even the competency and ability of adulthood fades.

Let’s be honest, even though our lives have not turned out to be what we planned, even though life has often been beset with pain and disappointment and frustration, we still long to hold onto what we know– to construct our “best life” the way we want it to be and stay there.

Why Do We Hold On to Half-Life:  Paul says something important and profound about this life we know and love, to the Corinthians:  “… brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does corruption inherit incorruption.”  Paul describes this life as “corruption.”  The Greek word means, “to destroy,” and carries the idea of something that is corrosive.  This corruption, Paul tells us, is what is wrong.  In this life we destroy and we are destroyed.  Corruption pervades our lives, creeping into our families, our relationships, our work, our government, our churches, our minds and bodies.  Even when we mean to do well, corruption is there.

Our desire to hold onto this half-life, this destructive and corrupt life of ours, makes us like the child who, having found the half-eaten cookie in the parking lot, pulls and resists agains his parent who is trying to take him to the State Fair.  We cling to what we know because we do not know better.

But We Need a Change.

We Will Be Changed:  The next words that Paul writes are some of the most dramatic and exciting words in all of scripture.  “Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed, in an instant, in the blink of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”

This is the great hope of the believer in Jesus Christ–the hope that we will be changed.  We long for this change.  The longer we, who have had our eyes opened by Jesus Christ, live, the more we become aware of our need to be changed.

• Healed from the ravages of our own folly and sin.
• Healed from the wounds of being sinned against.
• Healed from the tendency to bring trouble on ourselves and our inability to make things right in our lives.
• Healed from the idolatry and covetousness and discontentment of our hearts.
• Healed from the coldness of our desire for God and the distance we sometimes feel.
• Healed from the pain of loss and  the pain of being mortal and living in a broken world.

We Need to Be Clothed:   But we need more than to be changed away from the destructive, corrosive effects of sin.  We need to be changed in a positive way.  Paul describes it as being dressed–maybe it makes sense to think of it as an upgrade.  ”For that which is corruptible must clothe itself with incorruptibility, and that which is mortal must clothe itself with immortality.”  We, ourselves will be clothed with the beauty of the character of Christ.  We will become the persons we were created to be–recognizable to those who knew us, on the one hand, yet profoundly changed in every way to be ourselves and yet like Christ.

Why?  What will happen in that day that will so affect us?  We will not only be healed free of the corrupting desires and tendencies of our mortal bodies–but we will also, finally, be in the presence of God.  We were made to live and interact with God.  Our separation from God has left us incomplete in every way (mortal, sinful, socially broken, spiritually dead, psychologically confused).  But we will be clothed with God’s presence.

The Day is Coming:   “And when this which is corruptible clothes itself with incorruptibility and this which is mortal clothes itself with immortality, then the word that is written shall come about: “Death is swallowed up in victory.  Where, O death, is your victory?   Where, O death, is your sting?”  The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.  But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

What Paul describes here is not just about our own personal redemption.  He speaks of these things as part of a larger picture, where death itself is swallowed up, and Jesus Christ celebrates his victory over all of creation.  All things will be made new.

To believe these things and to be a follower of Jesus Christ is to enter into this program of renewal–to be part of what God is bringing about.  We who believe, believe not merely that Jesus Christ exists, but that, by his death and resurrection, he has overcome this corrosive world, and that all of history is now moving towards the day when the victory of Jesus will create a new heavens and earth, a new world order of peace and justice, a new people who know and love and worship God in all that they do.

Look Forward to the Day.

How do we respond to these things by faith?  Paul gives two words of advice as he ends…

First: Be Firm and Unmovable:  What will it mean for us to believe in and wait for the day of the Lord? First, it means that we must develop a firm conviction regarding the day of the Lord…

• that it is a day we who are in Christ need not fear because we belong to Jesus and our judgement is passed.
• that it is a day of great joy, the renewal of all things, the healing of the nations, the complete healing of relationships in a way we have never known–a great reunion of joy.
• that it is a wedding day in which we will, with all believers, be united with God and finally made fully alive.

If we believe these things, then they should challenge our commitment to this half-life.  We should begin to see the insubstantial and shakeable pleasantness of this world.  And yet, this requires  God’s gracious help.  We should not expect become firm and unmovable just because we have information.  Rather, to look forward to the day involves a process of prayer, in which we are learning to trust God, to let go of what often feels like life, but what cannot be held onto, controlled or maintained.

Second: Be Devoted to the Work of the Lord:  There is a reason that Paul ended 1Corinthians with the issue of the resurrection.  Paul wanted the Corinthians to see that their work together to love one another, to worship together, to be unified, to confront evil (the different pastoral issues he wrote about in this letter), was all part of the work of the Lord–part of this great movement of redemption–the same movement that will end with death being swallowed up in Christ’s victory.

Because Your Labor is Not in Vain!  Something is being made right!  Jesus said that we are living salt in this world.  Despite the corruption in this world, our work now is actually connected, in some mysterious way, to how God is making this world better.

Like the plant that grows up and dies and becomes the fertilizer that enriches the soil and helps other plants to grow, so our lives–as we live them out as part of this great movement of Christ’s victory–will enrich this world.  They will be a true testimony of God’s work in this world.  They will bring about redemptive living and situations in this world.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO CHANGE YOUR STORY?  —  Pete Bauer

This sermon was preached at Peace Hill Christian Fellowship on February 15th, 2015.  To listen to the audio, just click on this link – Gen 4.

Cain and Abel:  The story of Cain and Abel is a story of two brothers (a younger and an older) in competition.  Cain decides to bring a gift (offering) to the Lord, and Abel, the younger brother, then outdoes Cain’s offering with his fat portions.  The story sets up a situation in which Cain must turn from the temptation to do evil–or fall into “sin” (a word which is mentioned for the first time in Genesis 4:7).  This morning we want to look at this primal story of temptation and to listen to the counsel that God gives to Cain and God’s call to face and overcome temptation.

God is Calling Us to Listen to the Stories We Tell Ourselves.

“Why are you so upset? Why has your face fallen?”

We Tell Ourselves Stories:  Stories are selective. When we tell stories we focus or attention on certain things and ignore other things.  A story requires a frame of reference–a unifying idea or theme. We tell ourselves stories all the time, about the things that happen to us.  Our stories are different from the stories of people around us.  If both of us saw the same accident on the highway, chances are we would tell different stories, from different points of view, emphasizing different things.

Temptation is always part of a story with a theme–a frame of reference.  God does not say to Cain, “Stop being angry,” but rather, God asks a frame of reference question, “Why are you angry?”  In essence God says to Cain, “What’s the story?  Explain to me what is making you angry.”

Stories Grow Feelings:  Cain was telling himself a story about the offering and about God rejecting his offering that made him angry rather than reflective, repentant or concerned.  Rather than coming to God to ask why his offering was disregarded, Cain told himself a particular story that caused him to become angry.   He chose a point of view–he built a story on that point of view– he practiced that story.  Cain’s feelings, his upset and anger, his hostility towards Abel, were the result of the story he was telling himself.

We respond to situations by telling ourselves stories. The temptation to say the things we say and to do the things we do and to feel the ways we feel–grows out of the stories we tell.

• We tell stories about what we need–what we cannot live without–although other people live without the same things. Our stories convince us that we must have our desires, our own particular “Must Haves.”
• We tell stories about the meanings of people’s actions and words–stories which focus on ourselves  and what people think of us, what we deserve–often without regard to the story of the one who acted or spoke.  We become filled with hate or fear or desire or competition.
• We tell stories about ourselves and our own lives and the meaning of what has happened to us.  Our stories put us at the center of the world or make our lives empty and meaningless.

God is Calling Us to Recognize the Effects Our Stories Are Having.

God has already noted that Cain’s face has fallen.  Now he confronts Cain… “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?” or, more literally, “If you intend good, bear it aloft”  The Hebrew here is obscure.  God seems to be saying, “If you intend good lift up your face”–or “show me your face.”  This would contrast with the idea that Cain’s face had “fallen” because he was upset. It may be the equivalent of a parent who says, “Look me in the eye,” although it is expressed more gently than that.  God knows that Cain has created his own story and version of events, and that this story is having a toxic effect on Cain.

Our Toxic Stories Cause Withdrawal:  Cain’s face is turned away–cast down.  In a sense, Cain is doing what Adam and Eve did in Genesis 3–he is hiding–he is withdrawing.  The more Cain tells his story about how Abel has wronged him, the angrier he feels about the situation, the more he does not want to be in the presence of God, the more his face is turned away.

Our toxic stories affect us in the same way.  We withdrawal from people because we become angry with them.  We do not want to make things right.  We do not want to have peace.  We would rather grumble and rehearse our stories.

OurToxic Stories Delude Us:  One of the really startling aspects of this story is Cain’s response when God disregards his offering. His response is to murder Abel.  That is an over the top response.  If we had never read or heard this story, we would not have anticipated that it would turn out this way.

How did Cain get from a rejected offering (his problem with God) to murdering his brother?  He did it by telling a story that was completely deluded.  Cain’s story centered around the idea that real problem was not his offering but Abel.  Rather than taking responsibility for his own offering, Cain created a story about how Abel had wronged him.

We tell ourselves deluded stories which relieve us of responsibility and justify our hatred, our desire to control, our falsehoods, our greed, lust, wicked speech, and our irresponsibility.

God Is Calling Us to Confront and Rule Over Our Stories.

Cain is clearly given a choice here, and it is a choice that all of us have–a choice of what to do about this toxic story that he is telling himself.  Cain can either give himself to his toxic story, or he can master it.  God warns him that, if he gives himself to his toxic story, “…  then sin is a crouching demon at your door…”  However, God also says, “… but you can master him.”

Turn from What Can Become Demonic:  Sin is described, here, as a crouching demon, lying in wait for Cain’s soul.  Understand that sin is not going to take Cain over without his consent.  Rather God is saying something like, If you continue to tell yourself this story and give yourself to this story, it will take control of you.  God is calling Cain to stop listening to this evil story.

This is the nature of the stories we tell ourselves.  We rehearse the wrongs others have done us, the things we deserve, the desires we cannot live without, the fears that we dread, until they feel so much a part of us that our reactions to people and situations feel automatic–not like a choice, but inevitable.  We give ourselves to stories and they take us over.

“Rule Over” Your Story:  But God calls us to choose to stop our toxic, false stories in their tracks.  God tells Cain that there is another possibility–that he can “rule over,” take control of, the sinful story that is feeding him with anger.  When God tells Cain that sin is crouching at the door, but he can rule over it, he is calling Cain to action.  Cain needed to take himself in hand.  He needed to ask himself some hard questions…

• What am I assuming about what I need or deserve?
• What have I chosen to believe about Abel, about God?
• What about this situation am I emphasizing or ignoring?
• Why am I really angry?

Ruling over sin and temptation–confronting our stories–is never passive–it never just happens. Ruling over our stories requires that we question ourselves, face the falsehoods and self-justifications in our stories, and lift up our faces to God to ask for repentance,help and forgiveness.

Join Your Story to The Larger Story of Redemption in Jesus:  We all have toxic, sinful, false stories that we live by, that are revealed in the sinful disposition of our hearts, actions and words.

However, God is telling another story–the true story about our lives.  It is the story that tells the truth about who we really are and what we are truly like.  How we were made by God to be joyful, loving, upright  people–to love God.  How we have all been deluded by sin and fallen short of being the holy people God created us to be.  How God sent his Son Jesus to rescue us–to lift our faces to God not in angry confrontation, but in forgiveness and love.

God will not force his story on us, but when we are willing to join ourselves to his story, it changes us.  We become people who are able to be honest about the lies in our stories because we no longer need them to be true–they are no longer our only story.  Instead God has given us a story in which we, forgiven sinners, are now being changed into the likeness of Jesus–redeemed, made new, looking forward to eternal life in the presence of God.

THE TWO SONS — Pete Bauer

This sermon was preached at Peace Hill Christian Fellowship on January 25, 2015.  To listen to the audio, just click on this link – Lk15.

This morning we want to look at a very familiar parable about repentance.  The difficulty with the very familiar parts of scripture is that they tend to become flat for us because we feel that we already know what they are about.  Our tendency towards this parable, often referred to as “The Prodigal Son,” is to think that we already know what it is all about–wonderful forgiveness, offered to the extremely rebellious.  Certainly, that is true, however, the parable is actually about two sons, and the call to both of them to repent, and turn from their rebellious lives.

Some of Us Relate to the Father Like The Younger Son.

Younger Brothers Feel Constrained by the Father:  “the younger son said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of your estate that should come to me.’”   Inheritance, at this time, involved land and animals, divided up after the death of the father. Two-thirds would go to the older son, the rest to the younger.  To ask for the inheritance was to ask the father to sell off land or animals, to take away from his livelihood, and was a way of severing all ties.  It was a cruel, disrespectful, hateful thing to do.  Why did the younger son do such a thing?  He did it because he believed that the father was constraining him, holding him back from life.   Consequently, “After a few days, the younger son collected all his belongings and set off to a distant country where he squandered his inheritance on a life of dissipation.”  

Some of us are like the younger son.  We feel constrained by God and we long for a life that is exciting.  We tend to be driving by our passions and to feel restless.  God seems to be like a parent who commands us to be quiet and behave.

This is how the younger son felt about his father.  However, what is startling about the story is the Father’s willingness to give the younger son what he asks for.  There is clearly a disconnect between what the younger son believes, and the freedom and generosity with which he is treated.  However, he does not see the generosity and graciousness of the father, and he leaves.

Life Beats Younger Brothers Up:  “When he had freely spent everything, a severe famine struck that country, and he found himself in dire need.  So he hired himself out to one of the local citizens who sent him to his farm to tend the swine.  And he longed to eat his fill of the pods on which the swine fed, but nobody gave him any.”

It is hardly surprising that the younger son finds himself out of money and in difficulty.  We all know about these kinds of stories–some of us have lived them to one degree or another.  He is led by his passions, without wisdom, unsupported by his father.  He finds himself at the mercy of a bad situation and without anyone willing to help him.

Younger Brothers Expect Slavery:  “Coming to his senses he thought, ‘How many of my father’s hired workers have more than enough food to eat, but here am I, dying from hunger.  I shall get up and go to my father and I shall say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to be called your son; treat me as you would treat one of your hired workers.’”

The thoughts of the prodigal son reveal what is in his heart.  He left his father because he felt like a slave–constrained, unable to live.  He wanted  to experience life.   Now, as he returns, he expects to be a slave–treated as one of the hired men.  But when the son returns, he is treated as a highly favored son–not a slave.

This is how some of us relate to God–like the younger son.  We have longings and passions, and interests, but we think of God as a master who wants to own and control us rather than as a father who wants to love us and show us life.

Some of Us Relate to The Father Like the Older Brother.

Older Brothers Are Dutiful and Want Preferment:  “Now the older son had been out in the field and, on his way back, as he neared the house, he heard the sound of music and dancing.  He called one of the servants and asked what this might mean.  The servant said to him, ‘Your brother has returned and your father has slaughtered the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’  He became angry”

Some of us feel like the older brother.  We are where we are supposed to be, doing what we are supposed to be doing, and we find it irritating when the prodigal waltzes in and gets celebrated, despite all.   We wonder when anyone is going to notice our dutifulness.  We feel angry when someone who hasn’t been doing what they should be doing, seems to glide along while we are sweating it out in the field. Our lives should be going better than those who seem to be the eternal screw ups–but our lives often don’t seem to go better.  We expect to be blessed by God more than those who run off and do as they please–and we resent it when the duties and difficulties of life seem to overtake us, while the prodigal does as he or she pleases.

Older Brothers Live Like, and Think of Themselves as, Slaves:  “When he refused to enter the house, his father came out and pleaded with him. He said to his father in reply, ‘Look, all these years I served you and not once did I disobey your orders; yet you never gave me even a young goat to feast on with my friends. But when your son returns who swallowed up your property with prostitutes, for him you slaughter the fattened calf.’”

Here is the son who has stayed home with the father–and yet the irony is that he is living like a hired man or a slave.  He expects the very same things as the returning prodigal.  He expects that, through years of service, because he has never disobeyed orders, that he has earned something–maybe a young goat (some small reward–not a fatted calf).  These words reveal what is in the older brother’s heart–he is a slave. The older brother stayed with his father for the same reason the younger son left–he felt like a slave.  His obedience was not love, but slavery. There are many Christians who live a life of duty towards God and yet, to whom, the thought that God loves them, has never occurred.

However the father responds to the older brother as a son.  His response to the older brother (who has just spoken quite disrespectfully to him), is the same kind of response of love and welcome that he has offered the younger brother, “He [the Father] said to him, ‘My son, you are here with me always; everything I have is yours.”

The Father Wants to Relate to Us as Favored Children.

The Father Is Calling Us to Join the Celebration: “But now we must celebrate and rejoice, because your brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.’”

What is it that the father is asking the older brother to do?  He is asking him to come into the house and celebrate.  This celebration is what the Father wants for his children.  God is not looking for slaves–he is looking for sons.  Through this parable, Jesus welcomed both the Tax Collectors and sinners, and the angry Pharisees and Scribes, to receive God’s love.

For those of us who are like the younger son, God is calling us, not in order to constrain and control us, but to show us what life is.  To those who have wandered, following their passions, and who have, in consequence, hurt those around us and been beat up by life, God is calling you–not to enslave you, but to bring you into the family of his people and celebrate over you.  God welcomes the wayward back with honor and celebration.

For those of us who are like the older son, God is calling you out of slavery and into celebration–to believe that everything he has to give is yours already, and that all you have to do is to come into the house and recognize that your father loves you.