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Sunday February 20, 2005 Second Sunday of Lent Sermon for Lay Ministers
Readings:
Genesis 12:1-4a
Psalm 33:18-22
Romans 4:1-7
John 3:1-17
I want to reflect today on three words. Faith, grace and trust. In Paul's Letter to the Romans, he explains that we are justified by faith, not by the work that we do.
Paul did not always believe this way. Paul was a Pharisee who was trying his best to persecute Christians. The first time we meet Paul, who was then known as Saul, he was participating in the stoning of Stephen. In Acts 7:54 to 8:1, it tells how Stephen was dragged out and stoned. Witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a man named Saul. At the end it says, "And Saul approved of their killing him."
As a Pharisee, Saul dedicated his life to following the law. The Pharisees believed they could work out their own salvation. All they had to do was obey the law. For example, the fourth commandment says to honour the Sabbath Day. One way to honour the Sabbath was to refrain from work. So they had to answer the question, "What is work?" Was walking on the Sabbath work? They even defined how far you could walk. Walk more than that distance, called a Sabbath Day's walk, and you were working and breaking the Law. The Pharisees created hundreds of rules about the Sabbath alone. Saul and the other Pharisees were trying to figure things out for themselves. They were trying to work out their own salvation.
Saul changed from working out his own salvation to having faith in Jesus. Chapter nine of Acts tells how Saul was converted. Saul knew about Jesus' miracles. He knew about his teaching, but he rejected Jesus. He persecuted Christians and was responsible for having them jailed and even killed. He was on his way to persecute more Christians, when he was literally blinded on the Road to Damascus. You have heard the expression, "He was touched by Jesus." or, "Jesus touched me." Saul wasn't just touched by Jesus, he was knocked to the ground.
From that day on, Saul, now known as Paul, turned from being a persecutor of Jesus to being his leading apostle to the Gentiles. This was not something Paul did for himself. He didn't sit down one day and say, "I am wrong. I am going to change my ways." Jesus did it. Jesus gave him the faith.
Paul reminds us over and over in his letters, faith comes from God. God gives us the faith to believe that Christ died for us. God gives us the faith to turn to him. How do we act on that faith? By reading the Bible in a new light. By turning to Jesus and asking, "What do you want me to do, Lord?" By attending and supporting His Church.
As we learn more about Jesus, we begin to discover the gift of grace. Grace is God's free gift of himself for us. This is what Jesus is trying to explain to another Pharisee, Nicodemus, in today's Gospel. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." That's the gift. Eternal life. How do we get it? Believe in him.
What do we have to do? Nothing! God will do it all, if we only let him.
Eternal life is not something we achieve when we die. It means to be eternally with Jesus, beginning now. Jesus promised He would be with us always. He is with us in the form of the Holy Spirit. Jesus' grace, his free gift of himself, helps us to live a better life now.
Jesus told Nicodemus that he had to be born again. As a typical Pharisee, Nicodemus had trouble understanding this. Nicodemus knew the Law. Being born again was not in his vocabulary; it was not part of what he was taught as a Pharisee, so he did not understand. The word that Jesus used implies not just being born again, but born from above. Nicodemus missed that, because he already had his own ideas about how to obey the laws and gain the kingdom of heaven. If we stubbornly stick to our own ideas, and do not listen to the words of Jesus, we too will miss the message. We will miss the kingdom.
To be born from above means to be recreated by God. It is God's action. How many of us are like the Pharisees? Most of us? All of us? We already have our own understanding of God, and the meaning of right and wrong. It is hard to change our minds. The problem is, we want to depend on our own reason.
God gave us our reason. He wants us to use it. We need our reason if we are going to understand the Bible and understand God's will for us. In the meantime, if we try to depend on our reason alone, we will get it wrong; just as Nicodemus did; just as Paul did at first.
The fact is, God's grace is not reasonable. It doesn't make sense. We have been disobeying God since the beginning of time. Why should He forgive us? Why should He send his Son to die for us? But it is true. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not parish but may have eternal life." The only way to really know that this is true is to live our lives as if it is true. It is at this point that trust comes in. To live in God's grace requires trust.
Verse 15 of today's Gospel says, "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believes in him may have eternal life." This means to trust in Jesus.
First you have to understand the reference to Moses and the serpent. The story is in Numbers 21:4-9.
From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. The people spoke against God and against Moses, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food." Then the LORD sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned by speaking against the LORD and against you; pray to the LORD to take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said to Moses, "Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live." So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.
The people were told by God that if they looked upon the serpent on the pole, they would live. They believed God, so they did live. They had to trust God.
Jesus is asking us to believe in Him in the same way. "So must the Son of man be lifted up." Jesus is asking us to trust Him. what does it mean to trust Jesus?
It means going into the hospital for an operation and being at peace, trusting in Jesus no matter what happens. Trusting that He is there to heal, and trusting He is there also when we die.
Trusting in God means giving to the work of his Church, knowing that no matter how much we give, we will not be in want, and trusting we will be blessed by God.
Trust doesn't come easily. It doesn't come automatically. It comes through faith. Faith comes from God. Paul said that Abraham's faith was reckoned as righteousness. Our faith will be reckoned as righteousness if we trust in Jesus.
Faith means to believe what is taught in the Bible. It comes from God. Grace is God's free gift of himself to those who have faith in him. We can not exercise our faith, or benefit from his grace unless we trust in Jesus Christ, our Lord.
FEBRUARY 20,2004
Loving and faithful father, we thank you for this day. We thank you for us being able to see and to hear this morning We are blessed because you are a forgiving God and an understanding God. You have done so much for us and you keep on blessing us Forgive us this day for everything we have done, said or thought that was not pleasing to you. We ask now for your forgiveness.
Please keep us safe from all danger and harm. Help us to start this day with a new attitude and plenty of gratitude. Let us make the best of each and every day to clear our minds so that we can hear from you. Please broaden our minds that when we are pushed beyond our limits we know that when we can't pray you listen to our heart.
Continue to use us to do your will. Continue to bless us that we may be a blessing to others. Keep us strong that we may help the weak. Keep us uplifted that we may have words of encouragement for others. We pray for those that are lost and can't find their way. We pray for those that are misjudged and misunderstood. We pray for those who don't know you intimately. We pray for those that don't believe. But we thank you that we believe. We believe that God changes people and God changes things.
God, we love you and we need you, Come into our hearts this day
May God Bless You!!
February 13, 2005 Lent 4
Genesis 2.15-17.3.1-7 Romans 5.12-19 Mathew 4.1-1
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin and so death spread to all because alI have sinned - (Rom 5.12)
Ever since man and woman first stood cowering in a shady corner of the garden, covering their nakedness, we humans have had to face up to the reality of our sinfulness and our personal separation from God. Our condition is clearly stated in 1 John 1.8, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us" and in the Prayer of Humble Access, "that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body." We recite these words when we worship together and prepare to receive the blessed sacrament. Such phrases are part of our traditional description of our human nature, but do we really comprehend the awful meaning in them? Do we accept such phrases as true for ourselves?
When we say that we are sinful, we admit that when choices are set before us, and we respond with absolute freedom of will, we choose not necessarily the bad instead of the good, not necessarily the wrong instead of the right, but invariably the self instead of God. "I am the Lord your God;
"You shalt have no other gods but me" the commandment reads. We break this commandment not by bowing down to gods of stone or gold, but by the worship of ourselves. we set ourselves up in God's place claiming an equality with him, even as did Adam and Eve. This is the state of original sin in which we all stand, setting ourselves up with God and challenging his authority over us. By breaking the first commandment, we break them all severing our tie to God and the relationship forged at creation. Such self seeking, self satisfaction and self worship leads to failures in our actions which are sins. But we must realize that these are only the outward and visible evidence of our unseen condition of rebellion against God in our fallen human state.
If we interpret sin only in terms of committed or omitted acts, we can come away feeling pretty good about ourselves, especially compared to the utter depravity we may see in others. Adultery fast becomes "sexual freedom" slanderous gossip becomes "telling it like it is." But, the forgotten word is sin - the rebellion of our natural, inner human self against God - and this condition lies deep within us. We hold that through our fallen nature we are indeed sinful which leads us to any number of sinful actions and omissions.
The word is sin. This is what Christians believe and know about themselves, their own parents, their children and every. human being, that is, except one; Jesus, who suffered and died as if he was the worst sinner ever. This is very hard to take! The doctrine of original sin is not popular. Yet, the word of God is clear today in St. Paul's Letter to the Romans, "Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned." The relationship of love to and with God is broken by sin. We are separated form God, estranged, divorced, and of ourselves and by ourselves there is no recourse. There is no price that we can pay, no bridge that we can build. But, unlike Adam and Eve who were cast out in sin without hope, and even though our original sin is the same and we reject God's will, God has found a way to temper justice with divine mercy. Although in judgement, we are raised out of bondage by God's act of deliverance in Christ our Savior.
Amidst our confession that we have sinned "in thought, word and deed" there is deliverance as we seek God's infinite mercy, seeking and imploring his grace for the sake of our Lord, Jesus Christ, who, when the
choice was placed before him, made himself accountable. humbled himself and was obedient, even unto death upon the cross. That is the Christian gospel; the good news that we celebrate in our worship together from season to season. We are delivered. We have a redeemer. We have a Savior who died for us sinners and he lives. His life, death and victory are ours!
We believe that God has redeemed us by the atoning blood of Christ, yet faith in this redeeming work does not preclude a conviction of sin. Only those who admit that they are sinful and lost will seek the One who saves. It is essential that we see and acknowledge our sin before God if we hope to receive the forgiveness given in bleeding grace upon the cross.
The word is sin. We must face up to the reality of it in our own lives. We must accept its consequences here and now and for eternity. Yet, in the midst of our sorrow and remorse, with repentant hearts, we lift our eyes to the cross where God's forgiving grace is freely offered to us all. Amen.
