3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5he predestined us to be adopted as his children through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 7In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace 8that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. 9And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. 11In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. 13And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession—to the praise of his glory.
In its original language of Greek, the scripture I just read is one long sentence. In fact, it is one of the longest sentences in the New Testament and it is not just a bunch of words that got thrown together randomly. It is a veritable theological smorgasbord.
One commentator said it well: “The entire passage is so highly compact that it is a challenge for both the preacher and the hearer. It has to do with a broad range of theological concepts, such as election, revelation, and more broadly, atonement. It even makes use of specific theological terms, such as "redemption" (1:7, 14) and "salvation" (1:13).
A sermon on this passage will have to be limited to a very few of these concepts at best. Moreover, in most parts of the country this text will be read on a rather warm, perhaps hot, day near the middle of July when hearers may not be very receptive to heavy theological terms.”
So, it is with that in mind and the fact that we would like be out of here before next Tuesday, I have chosen to focus on a single issue- a single word from our text - adoption.
Now, when I hear the word adoption, my mind automatically thinks of what I’ll call “conventional” adoption, where a husband and wife seek to adopt a child that they did not give birth to. Their reasoning may be that they were unable to have children or have already had theirs and now wish to adopt, adding to their family. I’m sure there are numerous heart- rending stories on this subject and worthy to be brought to our attention, but today/ tonight I want us to think about adoption in a different light. I found a really good definition of what adoption means in these terms:
Adoption (the new Geneva Study Bible)
Justification is the basic blessing on which adoption is founded; adoption is the crowning blessing for which justification clears the way. Adopted status belongs to all who receive Christ (John 1:12). In and through Christ God loves His adopted children as he loves His only begotten Son, and will share with them the glory that is Christ’s now (Romans 8:17, 38, 39).
Adoption and regeneration accompany each other as two aspects of the salvation that Christ brings (John 1:12-13) but they should be distinguished. Adoption results in a new relationship, while regeneration is a change of our moral nature. Yet the connection is clear. God wants His children whom He loves to have his character, and he takes action accordingly.
2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”
God said, “I’ll take him or I’ll take her” God chose each and every one of us to be his child- we are children of the King and we were chosen before the foundations of the world! Can you just stop and think on that for a moment? The creator of the universe chose you- chose me for this purpose to be His child! How can life be more than one big doxology? “Praise God from whom all blessings flow…” I mean, how can we keep from just saying “Thanks be to God” all the time? If we could just turn our focus from our temporal, dysfunctional, sinful lives for just a moment, seeing that God has chosen us!
We may not be able to understand why God chose me and you for adoption. Some may say, “OK, that’s all well and good for you, but you don’t know where I’ve been in my life. You don’t know what I’ve done, you don’t know the kind of upbringing I had. I mean, I’ve been through some rough stuff, some difficult times.” My reply to those statements is very simple, “It doesn’t matter”. I don’t mean that it doesn’t matter where you came from- it does and there are likely some very important and deep emotional issues that may need to be dealt with in some way. What I mean is that God took all of your emotional and spiritual wounds and said, “It doesn’t matter, I still want you to be my son or daughter. I mean, who, after all, had a normal childhood- anyone? Who hasn’t done things in his or her life that they aren’t proud of? But, you see, that’s not the point! The point is that we were chosen before all of that stuff happened! God was not surprised when you made a bad choice. God was not surprised when your family of origin turned out to be dysfunctional in some way. The question is- can you accept the adoption? Can you receive the adoption into God’s family? As I was thinking about this issue of receiving or accepting I was reminded of a situation that took place many times when I was younger. My parents and my brother and sister used to go out for dinner every now and then with my grandparents- my mom’s parents and when the time came for us to settle up with the server and the bill would get left at the table, there would be some spirited discussions between my dad and my grandpa as to who would pay the bill. Two grown men; stubborn and hard headed men- fought over who would pay the bill. The imagery of two bowling balls banging off of the other comes to mind, reminding me of the thickness of their heads! Neither of these men knew what it meant to accept someone doing something for someone else. My guess is that neither of them felt worthy of acceptance. Do you know people that have a hard time accepting a gracious favor from someone else?
The next step as I see it is learning how to live in the adoption as a child of God? What are we to do in response to what God has done for us?
We may not have “His eyes” or “His nose”, “His smile” or any other physical characteristics of our heavenly Father, but when we accept our adoption as God’s children we may not look like God from the outside (though we are commended to pursue righteousness as he is righteous) rather, we are to begin the process of looking like His son on the inside. Because you know, as they say, looks are only skin deep, but ugly is to the bone. I don’t think that’s in the scripture anyway. Remember back a month or so ago, when we committed our hands to the work of ministry? What did you say you would do? Have you done it? If so, has it drawn you closer to God? If you haven’t done anything yet, what are you waiting for? Do you remember the New Year’s resolution you made to spend more time in the Word? As Dr. Phil says, “How’s that working for ya?” Do you remember the last time you and your teenager didn’t quite see eye to eye on a few subjects and everyone stormed out of the room; maybe there were some slammed doors and some words said that you wish you could take back? These are real life situations that we find ourselves in on a regular basis.
The earthly journey that started when we came to Christ and will end when we go to be with Him is one filled with opportunities.
For growth- sometimes growth is painful.
For development of character-
For change- change can be scary
For depth- growing deeper in our knowledge of Jesus and what it means to live the Christian life
For service- to others and for others.
I heard one person say “Jesus did not suffer on the cross so we wouldn’t have to. He suffered on the cross so we could join him there.”
John 1:12 “But as many as received Him to them He gave the right to become children of God , to those who believe in his name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” NKJV
What God wants from us is holiness and blamelessness, which is spelled out not in terms of sterile morality, but love. We have not been abandoned; instead, we have been taken into the divine family through Christ (1:5). This is still the language of caring and nurture. Again we hear it is what God wanted and its goal was that we should be lovers of love, the love shown in Christ (1:6). This is all about ultimate values and the focus of our spirituality: appreciating love.
God’s goal for us is that we would become more like His Son.
Romans 8:29 “For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of His son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.”
We are not Jesus and we never will be Jesus nor do what he did. However, one person defined discipleship as: “Living my life as Jesus would live my life, if he were I.”
True children of God will bear the family likeness, both now, as our hope lends our lives a focused purity resembling His, and at the end, when “We shall be like Him.” Only then will our knowledge of Him be complete, but even now our knowledge that “he is righteous” will bring increasing righteousness to our own lives.
Where have you heard this scripture before? “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God” - baptism- the place where we symbolically display one’s belonging to the family of God. Whether you have been baptized or not is not the central issue. The issue is that if and when we make a decision that we cannot be the rulers of our own lives anymore and we need to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God through Jesus Christ- we’re in! What is left for us to do is to live our lives in such a way that others will see who’s family we belong to- to which family do we bear a striking resemblance? Let people say when they see our lives- I can see a family likeness.
Romans 8: 12-17- The Message
“This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a child-like “What’s next Papa?” God’s spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us- an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with him!”
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Monday, June 01, 2009
In the Spirit of the Lord
The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. 3 He asked me, "Son of man, can these bones live?"
I said, "O Sovereign LORD, you alone know."
4 Then he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones and say to them, 'Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! 5 This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath [a] enter you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.' "
7 So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8 I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.
9 Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.' “10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.
11 Then he said to me: "Son of man, these bones are the whole house of
When I started to prepare for this morning/ evening’s service, I had five texts to choose from as a basis for my sermon. There was the text in Acts chapter two, telling the story of the coming of the Holy Spirit to the believers in the early church. There was a Psalm; there was a gospel lesson and an epistle. Then there was the text that I chose and just read from Ezekiel chapter 37 vesres1-14-the vision of the Valley of the Dry Bones. The story is familiar to most of us, which can be a good thing or a bad thing. As I spent some time with the text there seemed to be two main ideas that kept presenting themselves as needing to be examined a little further. The first idea was that I kept asking myself, “What if I were Ezekiel? What if God had told me to prophesy to a pit filled with dried bones? Ezekiel’s exchange with God was rather direct. Basically, God told Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones and he did. God then told him to prophesy to the breath, Ezekiel obeyed. Notice that there is no room for Ezekiel to argue or to try and negotiate or search for excuses why he couldn’t do what the Lord had asked him to do. Why can’t life be as simple as that? Wouldn’t that be nice if God spoke to us as clearly and we just did what God told us to do?
God has told Ezekiel to do some pretty drastic things, and they weren't in visions, as this is, to get his message across to the people. God has had Ezekiel draw a picture of Jerusalem on a clay tablet, and set up mini earthworks, and then lie on his left side for 390 days, and then on his right side for 40 days. No escape, no wriggling even! And in that time he's eaten siege rations, weighing the grains he uses to make bread, and measuring his water. He's shaved his head with a sword and scattered some of the hair around, and burnt some, to show what's going to happen to God's people. He's packed his bags, and carried them around the city, and in the evening he's dug a hole in the city wall and climbed out as if he's escaping and going into exile. One extra thing: God told him to cover his face once he was through the wall, so he couldn't see the land as he went. And he's seen his wife die, and - under God's instructions - carried on with his daily routine, not outwardly mourning her.
All of these odd things which Ezekiel has done have had a purpose. They have made the people around him think. People have said to him "Why are you doing this?" As God knew they would, so God has given Ezekiel an answer for them each time. God asks questions, he expects questions, he welcomes questions.
And he welcomes honest answers. "Can these bones live?" If you're not sure about something, then an honest "O Sovereign Lord, you alone know" is better than "No way!" If I were Ezekiel, I probably would have tried to engage God in a conversation as opposed to simple obedience. It may have sounded something like this:
“Lord, uh, you know that I have been a faithful servant of yours for some time now and well, uh, I’ve done some pretty bizarre things for you and now, not that I mind all of that. But do you realize what you are asking of me? Perhaps you didn’t get a real good look at those bones- they are dry. I mean drier than dry. Who knows how long they have been there? How about we try this; a compromise perhaps. You make the bones come back to life- you go ahead and put them back together, breathe your spirit into them and then I’ll take over saying, “Look what the Lord has done!” I won’t take any credit- really.” But that’s not the way the Lord works, is it? Jesus said, “Blessed is the one that has not seen and yet believes.” Hebrews 11 verse 1 says:
1Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
The second thing that got my attention about this text is that there have been times in my life that I felt as though I were covered up with a pile of dry bones. As if I was on the bottom of those bones and not only could I not see the light peeking through the bones, but the darkness covered me like a wet blanket. I wonder if any of you have felt that way. Abandoned? Forgotten? Left for dead?
My body may have remained intact, but I didn’t feel like I had any life in me. I would ask God “Why have I been forgotten? God, can’t you see that I’m struggling?”
That is exactly the place that the children of
Even our communities of faith take up regular residence in this valley. We see dwindling offerings, aging members, new challenges to the “old ways” of being church, and countless cultural affronts to mainstream Christianity. We are afraid of what we might lose, and we circle the proverbial wagons and hunker down to preserve what we have left. It becomes easy to ask “Can these bones live?” Can our congregation survive? Will our denomination fracture? Will we meet the budget this year? Who will be left to carry on? These are real questions; these are real fears. And so we turn to the scripture and read the rest of the story.
Verse 14 of our scripture says: “I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the LORD have spoken, and I have done it, declares the LORD.”
So it’s the spirit of the Lord that will bring us back to life. Many times we underestimate the power and the importance of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Jesus, when asked what the unpardonable sin was, responded with “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit”, which gives us a real good indication of the priority Jesus gave the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer.
But it takes more than just speaking to our brokenness, more than just commanding restoration and reconciliation, more than just saying that resurrection is possible. It requires the Spirit of the Lord moving in and among the bones; infusing us with new life, moving us to better ways of living and being. Restoration is possible, but true restoration will only occur when the spirit of the Lord moves and is put within the communities and circumstances that need it.
Not until the Spirit of the Lord breathed into the flesh and bones did they come to life! Without the Spirit of the Lord- we will perish! The apostle Paul told the believers in
Why does the church keep pouring out its little cup of water into the West Bank,
So we will take our stand beside Ezekiel and proclaim our hope to the dry bones, "Thus, says the Lord, I will cause breath to enter you and you shall live!" You who gave up hopes, who gave up dreaming -- who have settled for a comfortably routine life of work, bills and dirty laundry. You who think your best years are behind you. You who think the Lord God has forgotten all about your little life. To you, we say, "Arise!" Arise from the heap of discarded dreams. Arise to discover that the Holy Spirit is breathing life back into you. Arise to live with magnificent hope! Because the world is dying for you to believe God is not done.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
sermon
Thesis: If we try to add worldly wisdom to the gospel message, embodied in the cross, we will lessen its power to miraculously change lives.
1 Corinthians 1:18-25 (New International Version)
18For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19For it is written:
"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."[a]
20Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.
Although there is no scientific research to support the claim I am about to make, I can tell you from firsthand experience that the following statement is at least partially true. The organization that calls itself Alcoholics Anonymous with its twelve steps of recovery has played a significant role in saving millions of lives, marriages and families. I would even go so far as to say that AA has been at least as effective several secular and religious organizations. One of the reasons I can say this is because the sole purpose of AA is as define on Wikipedia:
Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is a worldwide fellowship of men and women who share a desire to stop drinking alcohol.[1]
Notice it said “the desire to stop drinking” ; seems pretty simple doesn’t it? The “program” as its members familiarly call it, is not complicated- at least not at first. “Don’t drink, read the big book (not the Bible) and go to meetings” the old timers say. “Fake it ‘til You Make It” is counsel given to those who don’t really believe they can live a life apart from drinking, “KISS- which stands for Keep it Simple Stupid”, “Stinkin’ Thinkin’”.
Now, I wouldn’t exactly call these pithy sayings great pieces of literature written by the likes of Shakespeare or Oliver Wendell Holmes or C.S. Lewis. These are most likely not even quotes from famous people, but these sayings that have kept millions of men and women from drinking themselves to death. These cute little pearls of wisdom have saved marriages- not all but a great number. These “lightweight” sayings from infamous people have taken families that were ripped apart by alcoholism and helped put them back together. There is a part of me that wishes these cute little pearls of wisdom were written by famous philosophers or some great theological minds; that the words he or she created could be dissected and torn apart, thought about until the cows came home. Analyzed, magnified and fill in the blank… until the end of time!
Sayings like “Let go and Let God”, “One Day at a Time” among others, were put to good use, if not created, by the two men that founded AA those many years ago. Two men, both down on their luck, both reaching for the last straw that life would offer them, came together and had one goal in mind: To help each other stay sober. That’s it- help each other stay sober. Everything else that may be accomplished in each of their lives had to follow the decision to stop drinking and everything else in the recovery process was to be built upon that foundation- the central message of a life restored to sanity. Well just as the road to recovery and sobriety starts with a decision; the road to Jesus starts with a decision. The decision is one to give up; to stop fighting; to admit that we need God’s help; that we must come to the cross.
Our scripture comes from the opening section of 1 Corinthians, chapter 1:18-25. Paul addresses a church divided and in conflict. Two parties seem to have developed. There were those who followed Paul and those who followed Apollos. Apollos was a "native of Alexandria... a learned man, with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures", Act.18:24-28. Paul had obviously come in for some heavy criticism, so he seeks to calm the dispute in the church while defending his role as an apostle and his gospel, so Paul develops a contrast touched on in verse 17. The contrast is between "words of human wisdom" and the gospel of the "cross of Christ." Paul argues that the gospel is not something that we need to improve by adding human wisdom to it. In fact, the message concerning the cross of Christ has no sense to it. As far as human reasoning is concerned, the gospel is foolishness. So, beware of testing it by human wisdom.
Place yourself in the church at Corinth. These folks were proud of what they knew about philosophy. They prided themselves on being smarter than the average Greek. The Jewish community of Corinth wasn’t much better. One commentator said:
“They (the Jews) clamored for miraculous demonstrations and the Greeks went in for philosophical wisdom.” “The Corinthian church gloried in the superficially impressive human wisdom of the age. They boasted about their own possession of wisdom and rhetorical eloquence.”
Does that sound familiar?
He goes on…
“God however, has revealed in Christ another kind of wisdom that radically subverts the wisdom of this world. God has chosen to save the world through the cross, through the shameful and powerful death of the crucified Messiah.”
This makes sense because the Jewish experience, up to that point, taught them that God worked in some strange, unusual and even miraculous ways. (Think about the parting of the Red Sea, the burning bush and so forth.) Paul told the church gathered at Corinth: “Folks, if we stay focused on the primary mission of Christ- the gospel of Christ- then everything else will take care of itself. We don’t have to add anything to the Cross, it is enough; it is sufficient. That doesn’t mean we can’t grow in the knowledge and wisdom of Christ. It’s just that we must remember that the “wisdom” of this world is foolishness to those who are perishing.”
So, is Paul saying that we should stop trying to learn about God? No, that isn’t what he’s saying. Paul is telling the Corinthian Church to not put all of their eggs in one basket. Basically, he said, “Don’t seek to learn just for the sake of accumulating knowledge so that somehow, you might simply get their “cards punched”. You may think that once you learn enough or know enough about the Christian life- that’s when I’ll … . That sounds like works salvation- “If I could just do more. If I could just out hustle other Christians, I’d be satisfied- God would be satisfied. Can you and I embrace the paradox of being fools for Christ? I’m not talking about a willingness to be embarrassed or ashamed of the Gospel. The Bible says that, if we are to become Disciples of Christ we must take up our cross, and this is one of the ways we can do that. The world tells us that getting ahead is simply being able to outsmart our competition. The Christian life is not about winning or losing. It is not a competition. It’s about following Jesus, even if the world says we’re “losing!” But Paul said, “No, my Corinthian brothers and sisters, we must become willing to throw conventional knowledge out the window-we must become willing to turn conventional knowledge on its ear when it comes to following Christ, because following Christ is about one thing and one thing only- the cross.
Dietrich Bonheoffer said “It is no small thing that God “allowed himself to be pushed out of the world on a cross.”
You see, if not for the cross- there would have been no defeat. But if not for the cross there wouldn’t have been victory over the grave! If not for the cross, all of our destinies would not have such peaceful endings. If not for the cross- we would never have known what sacrificial love is all about.
Don’t be discouraged during this season of Lent. Because if not for the cross- a sign of defeat- is also a sign if victory.
Conclusion:
The cross of Christ has the power to and has, in fact, changed people’s lives ever since Jesus died on it some two thousand years ago. And even though it is unlikely that we will ever witness anything as tragic or traumatic or as triumphant as seeing someone, but not just anyone-but one who was called “to take away the sin of the world” suffer the worst type of death- embarrassing, humiliating, and agonizing- death on the cross.
We are called to believe that which we may not be able to understand. We are called to- not just believe, but to live the great paradox of the Christian Faith: Our powerlessness is made perfect in his power! When we are powerless- we are given God’s power through Jesus Christ.
When life gets hard- Christ on the cross
When money gets tight- Christ on the Cross
When a loved one is taken from you unexpectedly, Christ on the Cross
During this season of Lent when we find ourselves reflecting and contemplating our lives and in relationship with God, will you really be surprised come Easter morning? The feeling of surprise should come for Christians because of the scandal and seeming insanity of the Cross. After all, me might be found saying, “God you’ve done some mighty miracles, you’ve raised Lazarus from the dead. You’ve given sight to the blind and now… now you’re allowing the crucifixion. You’re not going to stop it? Can’t you see what people will think of the Christ hanging on the cross? People might think he’s not worth following if he can’t save himself! This is foolishness!
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