Much More Surely
Sunday, February 24th, 2008
Third of Lent
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Romans 5:1-11
Theme: Assurance of salvation – the grace of God predisposed to reconnect with us

1Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. 3And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. 6For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. 8But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. 9Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. 10For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. 11But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”

Tomorrow is Caleb’s birthday. He’s going to be 10 years old. It’s hard to believe that an entire decade has gone by since we welcomed him into our family and into this world.

We celebrated his birthday yesterday. He had several friends over, along with his grandparents and Leslie’s brother Scott and HIS family. It was, all in all, a good day. Good play, lots of laughter, graciously generous gifts, and not TOO much getting on each others’ nerves.

Before getting too far into today’s message, a disclaimer needs to be made: Though this is not a Father’s Day message as such, I am going to be touching on issues of parenting – of Fathering – and the marks of a loving father, knowing full well that there may well be some of you hearing this whose point of reference for a loving father is not your biological father, but rather another male figure in your life: an Uncle, an older brother, a teacher, perhaps someone who did not come along until later years, but who filled that void in your life who took on the role of a father. It is to THAT person, to whom I would ask you to turn your thoughts in trying to put a face to the concept – to the idea and the ideal of a loving father or parent.

If you are still SEARCHING for that person in your life, I would encourage you to search patiently, diligently, prayerfully, with openness to who God might put in your path who could be that person for you.

On with the message:

I spent most of the time watching the proceedings of the party. Helped a LITTLE around the edges, took a few pictures, and threw away the wrapping paper as it came off the gifts, minor things. A couple of things came to mind during the party that I chose to tend to – a couple of short phone calls – one to take and the other to make, which took me away from the festivities.

I consider myself a loving father, for the MOST part. Not anywhere NEAR perfect, as you’ve heard me share from here or on one or another Wednesday evening Bible Study on occasion. I would much rather use myself as an example when things go wrong – because in my mind they so often DO – than to find an instance to point to someone else and say “That’s not the way to do it” – it goes back to having a plank in my own eye and trying to take a splinter out of someone else’s. It works better to work on the plank first.

But like I said, I think for the most part I’m a loving father – but even as such, there are times when I fall so far short of the mark – the goal – of fatherhood that I wonder about my fitness as one. That is usually in a particularly dark moment. I don’t have them very often, thankfully, but they come around on occasion, and I have to ask myself: will that that I just did – or didn’t do – be what Hannah and Caleb and Judson think of when they are asked to picture God as a loving parent at some point later in their lives, and will it stop them from being able to do that?

It’s a heavy burden to bear. A sobering realization that how I am with them is going to affect how they think about God. Maybe not their complete understanding of who God is, but on some level, perhaps not even on a conscious one – I will be in there. That goes for all of us who have interaction with children – whether our own or someone else’s, whether in a structured environment like school or Sunday School, or in random encounters around town or at ball games, at Wal-Mart or Food Lion, or Family Dollar.

Our faith and scriptures tell us to be kind to one another – even to our enemies, but especially so to children, to be gentle and loving, to be patient, to be willing to teach, and listen, to laugh and play. Don’t ask me to quote THOSE particular verses, but the overall thrust of the Gospel, as well as those places IN scripture where we SEE Jesus interacting with Children – it was in a welcoming manner – in contrast with how his disciples were apparently treating them.

We have this image of Jesus as welcoming, loving and accepting. By extension, and understanding Jesus to be God the Son -- God incarnate, we can apply THOSE same attributes to God the Father as well as God the Holy Spirit.

And here is where we get to the intersection of our text and our lives.

Kids will be kids. They will get distracted, they will be careless, they will forget something they’ve been told to do. It happens all the time. My family is no exception. I was no exception. I would venture to say that no one here went through their childhood without at least once goofing up. How did our parents respond? How did WE, as parents, respond?

Did we laugh it off, or did we fly off the handle? Did we yell, or did we gently remind for the 34th time in the last hour to do the same thing yet again? Did we threaten, or did we take the time and energy to correct, gently and perhaps with a little humor, and in the process create a lasting memory of how we would LIKE to be remembered as a parent?

You see, we’re all kids. We’ve all been there. We’ve all “goofed up.” We’ve all done what should not be done. We’ve wandered away. In some instances, we’ve actively RUN away – From God, from Jesus, from the gentle nudging of the Holy Spirit.

And our image of what might happen to us if and when we come back around to ask forgiveness for what we’ve done – or failed to do – is on some level based on our own experience in our own lives, or worse, on an image of a wrathful, vengeful, dispassionate God who would just as soon let us burn as come to faith and a relationship with him – a person that is divorced from the image and the person of Jesus Christ to the point of being someone entirely different.

Paul is telling us in this passage of a God who is the opposite of that. He is telling us that God INITIATED the reconciliation that we are beneficiaries of before we were even in the picture – before we even LONGED for that reconciliation – before we even realized we were in NEED of that relationship – God as a loving creator and father made provision for us.

You see, the one thing that God does better than create is love. And he’s already done the creating – at least the INITIAL creation – God DOES engage in creation every day, minute and second of our lives – but God is working on teaching us to love – to love as he did while he was with us in the person of Jesus – and teaching to love like that is the work in progress. It was begun in the incarnation, and continues through Christ’s present body – the church.

So God has given us – has SHOWN us – how it is to love – to reconcile – especially when the one with whom you are trying to reconcile initially rejects you – or even kills you.

There is nothing to fear in God. There is nothing to fear in entering into relationship with Jesus Christ. There is everything to gain – everything to know, to feel, to experience, to find. God has saved a place for us – for all of us – at his table. The invitation is open.

Let’s Pray

Rest On Grace
Sunday, February 17th, 2008
Second of Lent
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Romans 4:1-17
Theme: The Grace of Salvation

1What then are we to say was gained by Abraham, our ancestor according to the flesh? 2For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3For what does the scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” 4Now to one who works, wages are not reckoned as a gift but as something due. 5But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness. 6So also David speaks of the blessedness of those to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works: 7“Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; 8blessed is the one against whom the Lord will not reckon sin.” 9Is this blessedness, then, pronounced only on the circumcised, or also on the uncircumcised? We say, “Faith was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness.” 10How then was it reckoned to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. 11He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the ancestor of all who believe without being circumcised and who thus have righteousness reckoned to them, 12and likewise the ancestor of the circumcised who are not only circumcised but who also follow the example of the faith that our ancestor Abraham had before he was circumcised. 13For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. 14If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. 15For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation. 16For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us, 17as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”) —in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. ”

It seems a little involved, doesn’t it?

I mean, HONESTLY, all this talk of Abraham before circumcision or after circumcision, righteousness or unrighteousness being reckoned here or reckoned there … this is, truthfully, one of those places in the Bible where people’s eyes start to glaze over pretty early in the reading.

I don’t blame you.

Mine did.

And yet, it’s there. As part of scripture, it is part of what we hold to be central to our faith, so we have to do something with it. We have to make a good-faith effort (no pun intended) to wrestle with it and try to understand it, trusting that the Holy Spirit with guide our thoughts and enlighten us along the way.

So we take a step back, and take a deep breath and dive in.

The issue Paul is discussing is, in simpler terms: How do we obtain salvation? WHEN do we ‘become eligible’, as it were?

His beginning point is, as was made abundantly clear in our reading this morning, the starting point for any good Hebrew: Abraham. It is critical to begin there because it is through and FROM Abraham that the Hebrew people base their understanding of the covenant between them and God. If it didn’t start with Abraham, it didn’t start. It IS not. It never WAS.

The reason Paul is going back to Abraham is even more precise, more definitive, more finely drawn.

He is asking his listeners at what point within Abraham’s life did he come to righteousness – or in something more like our words: a saving relationship with God?

If we can follow the argument, it goes something like this: Did Abraham have faith in God enough to be considered a child of God BEFORE he lost his foreskin or AFTER?

I don’t mean to be irreverent, I don’t mean to be flippant, and I’m not making light of the matter. But there you have it. When it boils down to it, it seems that that was what Paul spent a LOT of his time fighting against.

We’ve read it time after time. Paul against the Judaizers – those who held that to be fully CHRISTIAN meant that you had to first be fully JEWISH – that to include following the dietary laws, observing the Sabbath laws, and all the rest of the 326 laws, in order to be able to become a follower of Christ.

So Paul goes back to the very foundation of the Hebrew religion to argue his point. Was Abraham, the founding father of the faith, the one who laughed when God told him he would be the father of nations at the robust and fruitful age of … well, over ninety, at the very least – who left his home and traveled to a land he’d never seen before and established himself there based on God’s direction to him, who received the promise from God and entered into the covenant agreement WITH God that would extend even to today, was ABRAHAM in relationship with God BEFORE his circumcision or did he enter into relationship with God AFTER the circumcision?

Paul’s point is pretty clear. Abraham was already in relationship with God before he followed the instructions that God gave him so that anyone who cared to would be able to tell without asking that there was something different about this Abraham fellow – something important enough to make him mark himself in such a permanent way. Humans are not known for growing back parts that get cut off.

The point we would do well to remember this morning is that it was not – and never HAS been – about DOING something to GET to the point of salvation; it is about DOING something BECAUSE of having BEEN GIVEN THE GIFT of salvation. Beginning in verse 13, Paul says,

13For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. 14If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. 15For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation. 16For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham…”

Those are startling words, freeing words, blessing words, but they are words that, insofar as they empower us with the truth they speak of how we enter into relationship with God, they also call us out of an almost-natural sense of entitlement to salvation – by virtue of what we’ve given, or what we’ve suffered, or how much we’ve been involved in church, or how much TIME we spend in Bible study, or prayer, or in committee meetings, or in associational meetings, or on mission trips, or listening to missionaries speak, or preparing and delivering meals to the community, or shut-ins, or any of that – don’t think I’m saying DON’T do those things – DO do those things—JUST BE CLEAR ON WHY we do them.

WE DO NOT DO THEM IN ORDER TO OBTAIN SALVATION. WE DO THEM IN GRATITUDE FOR THE GRACE BY WHICH WE HAVE BEEN SAVED.

We do them in obedience to God’s command to care for each other. We do them in response to God’s call to be in relationship with each other – and to have that relationship be called a loving one. We do those things as a way of showing our loving response to God because it is THROUGH those things that we draw closer to God and hopefully get to know God better.

So what does it all mean for us here at Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

It means that we acknowledge, we understand, we wrestle against the urge to live in a mindset that says ‘I did this – whatever ‘this’ is, therefore I deserve salvation’ about ANYTHING in our lives. It is truly faith that came first, not action; faith in what God’s promise means to us, for it is the promise of relationship – and not just any relationship, but a relationship with the maker of the universe, who knit us together in our mother’s womb – who knew us before we were born, and who loves us beyond measure.

God God’s self is inviting us to rest on grace. Can we take God at God’s word?

Let’s Pray

Changed by His Glory
Sunday, February 3rd, 2008
Last of Epiphany/Transfiguration Sunday
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Matthew 17:1-9
Theme: The transforming power of the Lordship of Christ

1Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. 2And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. 3Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. 4Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 5While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” 6When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. 7But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” 8And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone. 9As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

This is a safe place to come, isn’t it?

When you walk in the door on Sunday mornings, or Wednesday evenings, on some level you breathe sigh of relief and relax … because … you’re home, you’re among family, you are with people you care about and who care about you. You are where you know what to expect, right?

After all, the whole “worship, church, Sunday school” atmosphere – they’ve been a part of our lives in most cases … our ENTIRE lives. We have a Sunday morning routine, and if we stick to it, it helps us mark our days. We have some sense of the passage of time, even if it involves becoming aware of how others in our family of faith are wrestling – as we have at one point or another – with the frailty of the human body. That has been made patently clear to us in the last week and weeks through the experiences of our brother Elwood, and our sisters Jean and Doris Jean.

So we come to church to seek some sense of reassurance that we are on the right path, that we are heading in the right direction, that whatever may have happened in the intervening 6 days, we are still, to a greater or lesser extent, heading TOWARDS God and not AWAY from God.

As a college student, for a couple of years I took a break from the familiar and visited unfamiliar churches – attended services that were to a degree similar to what I’d grown up with, but were equally different. On several occasions I and my roommates visited the Assembly of God Church in town. One of my roommates had been … smitten … and I don’t mean that in any negative sense – by the charismatic movement that was sweeping through American Christendom in the late 70’s and early 80’s. They were opportunities to explore the different expressions of faith that we enjoy here in the States.

It also happened to coincide with an exploration that was taking place internally in MY life – my pilgrimage of faith – where I was able to study, not in an academic sense, but in more of an experiential sense – how I wanted my faith to impact my life – or indeed if I even WANTED it to.

What I came away with from those services in the charismatic tradition was … exhaustion, to be honest. To one who was unaccustomed to the level of emotionalism and spiritual ecstasy that you are capable of experiencing in a charismatic worship service, I was usually completely wrung OUT by the time the service was over. The emotion, the energy, the life-changing decisions that took place in those services were draining in the best sense of the word … but I wondered how one could maintain that level of engagement over a protracted – an extended – period of time. There are only so many times that you can fall on your face, lay prone on the floor, and ask God to forgive your wretched lack of self-control before it too becomes more of a performance than a true expression of repentance.

That, I suppose, is what has, in the long run, drawn me to the more liturgical expressions of faith. There is a measuredness about it. A sense of pacing yourself, I suppose. Though even in that, I sometimes miss the sense of abandon that comes with the emotional release I found in a charismatic service – chaotic as it may have been, there was a catharsis – a transformation, a change – that took place that I have only rarely found outside that experience.

So I wonder what it must’ve been like for Peter, James and John on top of that mountain – and after. There was evidently an awareness of the significance of the event – Peter offered to build dwelling places for Jesus and Moses and Elijah. He wanted them to hang out together. They were his ultimate role models, I guess.

They’d all spent enough time with Jesus to begin to understand that he WAS who he was telling them he was. They were finally beginning to understand the full implication of what it meant to have God say to them in this vision – LISTEN TO HIM. In case you are wondering, the phrase is in the imperative form. It’s not a suggestion or a recommendation from God. It’s a commandment. “Imperative” comes from the same root as Empire or Emperor.

Peter and James and John KNEW they’d experienced something terribly significant in the ministry of Jesus. They KNEW they wanted to mark it. They knew it was a turning point in THEIR lives – as well as Jesus’ life. It wasn’t until later that they realized the full implication of the vision.

How long has it been since you experienced a life-changing encounter with God?

To be truthful, there is a part of me that has to wonder how HEALTHY it is to repeatedly live through these tremendously moving and seemingly life-changing events. From an emotional perspective, I know that as humans, we can accustom our bodies to a constant barrage of almost anything. Some young men become addicted to the adrenalin rush they get from engaging in extreme sports – jumping off bridges or skyscrapers attached to bungee chords or parachutes – others become addicted to the attention that is garnered from having some crisis going on in their lives each day or every other day – at least once a week. There are babies that can only go to sleep in the middle of a raucous party – music blaring, lights flashing, people yelling. We had our very own example of that up here in the choir a few minutes ago, courtesy of Chloe Garner. Here she was in her grandmother’s arms, surrounded by the whole choir singing their hearts out, and she was fast asleep. Not that I’m hoping that will be the case LATER in life, but there you have it. There is no end to what we can adjust to if we see no alternative to it.

Is it any wonder that we seek solace, seek comfort, seek PREDICTABILITY when we come through those doors on Sunday mornings? Our lives are, even here, in rural Virginia, bombarded with change – changing demographics – our neighbors don’t look like they used to – changing mores – what we hear on the radio or see on television isn’t the same as what it used to be – changing values – whether we like it or not, the children and grandchildren of those people we grew up with have to varying degrees walked away from any semblance of what had been, up until a few years ago, the accepted norms of society. We are faced with what seems to us a downward shift in all aspects of life – moral, spiritual and ethical.

I was speaking to a man yesterday who was one of the earliest members of Thalia Lynn Baptist Church, if not a founding member, who shared with me of his burden for a lifelong friend – a fishing buddy, he called him, who was 87 years old and had yet to ask Jesus to be Lord of his life. I asked if this man attended church anywhere. My friend replied that he did – that he attended Thalia Lynn Baptist Church. His wife was a member, but he had never taken that step of asking Jesus to be the Lord of his life. I was almost overwhelmed with the sadness of the situation. Though I don’t know who my friend was talking about, I am pretty sure that I would know the man he was talking about if he named him. And I wondered if I would have ever asked myself if he had given his life to Christ if I had known his name.

You see, there’s this thing that goes on – especially in American Christianity – but not only. And it is that idea of … guilty by association. Not in the negative sense here – but in the sense that … if I move around close enough to where the action is, I should be able to blend in and be considered part of it.

The problem with that is, it doesn’t work like that. Jesus tells us we HAVE to engage. We HAVE to believe. We HAVE to trust, and have faith, and proclaim and LIVE every day as though it were the day that he will come looking for us in order for it to be effective for us.

And even that part – the “effective for us” part of it is secondary. It’s a side-effect. Salvation is secondary to obedience. We are here primarily to help break in the Kingdom of God. And the Kingdom of God is risky. That’s why we include the phrase ‘risk something big for something good’ in our benediction and commissioning. There is nothing better to risk than that which will break in the Kingdom. And how does that look? It is as close as the person sitting next to you or in front of you or behind you. There are certain spaces empty this morning, but that’s okay. Even in the existence of these spaces, we are faced with what we can do to break in the Kingdom. I’m not saying that a full sanctuary equals breaking in the Kingdom, but it is a starting point. And it is a challenge.

We come to church seeking comfort and safety, but we need to understand that whenever we are in the presence of God, we must redefine what it means to be “safe”. Being in the presence of God is the … CAN be the LEAST comforting place TO be, and still want to be there … does that make sense?

God is about changing us. Changing the way we see the world, changing the way we see ourselves, changing the way we act and talk, and live. And that is risky.

So the hope and the prayer is that, whenever we come together, and understand ourselves to have been in the presence of God, that we will come away from this event with the knowledge that God has changed us. Maybe a lot, maybe a little, but God HAS changed us. We are more than we were when we came in and we are less than we will be tomorrow, and yet we are in that pilgrimage, and as unsafe and as risky and as uncomfortable as it may be, there is no safer place to be than holding God’s hand, because he’s got HIS hand outstretched to us, to walk alongside, and to guide.

Let’s Pray