JAN192 A GREAT AND WONDERFUL NEW YEAR Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-18 At the beginning of a new year, a high school principal decided to post his teachers' new year's resolutions on the bulletin board. As the teachers gathered around the bulletin board, a great commotion started. One of the teachers was complaining. "Why weren't my resolutions posted?" She was throwing such a temper tantrum that the principal hurried to his office to see if he had overlooked her resolutions. Sure enough, he had mislaid them on his desk. As he read her resolutions he was astounded. This teacher's first resolution was not to let little things upset her in the new year. (1) I don't know how you are doing on your new year's resolutions. I do know something that is more important than resolutions, though. How do you see this new year? Is it one that you approach with anxiety or anticipation? Michael Bausch tells a great story about archaeologist Howard Carter. In 1922 Carter was completing nearly fifteen years of digging in the famous Valley of the Kings in Egypt. He was hoping to find the royal tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamen. Having found nothing, his days of digging were coming to an end. Money was running out. Then workers discovered sixteen stairs leading into the earth. Thousands of baskets filled with rocks and sand had to be carried away, but eventually a door was found at the end of a long passageway. Carter drilled a small hole in the door and stuck an iron-testing rod into a dark, blank space. He then inserted a candle into the hole and peered in. As his eyes grew accustomed to the light, details emerged into his view, and he saw strange animals, statues, and everywhere the glint of gold. He wrote of that moment, "For the moment, I was struck dumb with amazement." A partner asked, "Can you see anything?" And Carter's reply was, "Yes, wonderful things." (2) St. Paul gives us some reasons you and I can look into this New Year and see wonderful things. He gives us reasons why we can look forward with anticipation instead of anxiety. FIRST OF ALL, HE SAYS WE ARE BLESSED. He writes, "Praise 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...." Is there anyone in this room who does not feel blessed? A certain king had two servants. To the first he said, "I want you to travel for six months through my kingdom and bring back a sample of every weed you can find." To the second servant the king said, "I want you to travel through my kingdom for six months and bring back a sample of every flower you can find." Six months later, both servants stood before the king. To the first, the king asked, "Have you carried out my command?" The first servant answered, I have, and I was amazed to find there were so many weeds in the kingdom. In fact, there is nothing but weeds in this kingdom!" To the king's question the second servant also answered, "I have, and I am amazed how many beautiful flowers there are in the kingdom. In fact, there is nothing but beautiful flowers in this kingdom!" These two servants each found what they were looking for. So do we. Are there no blessings in your life? Do you have no one who loves you, no beauty outside your window, no strength left in your body, no mind to guide you to new pleasures and opportunities, no faith to bear you up when circumstance weighs you down? Are you really without any resources for making 1992 a wonderful year? Count your blessings, says the old hymn. In LEADERSHIP magazine Mark Tidd tells about an old man who came to the back door of a house some college kids were renting. The old man's eyes were glassy and his furrowed face glistened with silver stubble. He clutched a wicker basket holding a few unappealing vegetables. He bid the students a good morning and offered his produce for sale. They were uneasy. They made a quick purchase to alleviate both their pity and their fear. To their chagrin, he returned the next week, introducing himself as Mr. Roth, the man who lived in the shack down the road. As their fears subsided, they got close enough to realize it wasn't alcohol but cataracts that marbleized his eyes. On subsequent visits, he would shuffle in, wearing two mismatched right shoes, and pull out a harmonica. With glazed eyes set on a future glory, he'd puff out old gospel tunes between conversations about vegetables and religion. On one visit, he exclaimed, "The Lord is so good! I came out of my shack this morning and found a bag full of shoes and clothing on my porch." "That's wonderful, Mr. Roth!" the students said, "We're happy for you." "You know what's even more wonderful?" he asked. "Just yesterday I met some people that could use them." Count your blessings. We are blessed. Paul also says, WE ARE CHOSEN. "For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight." You and I have been chosen. Can you get your mind around an idea so powerful? You have been chosen. What a beautiful word that is--chosen. Can you remember the agony of not being chosen? Is there anybody in the room who was ever the last to be chosen for kickball? Anyone who did not make the cheerleading squad? Anyone ever sit on the bench while someone else got the glory? Well, this time you and I are not left out. We have been chosen. Several years ago, a California aerospace company hired a motivational consultant to examine and stimulate its work force. The consultant interviewed one of the senior vice presidents who told him about a particular section where production and performance were extremely high. Turnover and absenteeism in this department were the lowest in the company. Morale was very high. What seemed to puzzle the executive was that the work done there was mechanical and repetitive. This group of employees maintained the pipes in the plant. Their job was checking temperatures and pressures. The delicacy of the equipment meant that the pipes had to work within strict tolerances or there would be expensive damage. But why was morale so high? The consultant visited the department and the foreman took him on a tour. The consultant noticed that all the workers wore green surgical smocks. He asked the foreman about it. The foreman explained that he got them from his son, a cardiovascular surgeon. The consultant said, "Ah, so you wear them for comfort." "No, no!" the foreman said, "It's because we are surgeons. Just like my son. He takes care of the pipes of the body. We take care of the pipes of the plant! The plant isn't going to have any breakdowns as long as we're working on its arteries. We take care of these pipes exactly the way a doctor takes care of your heart." The consultant even noticed the stencils on their locker doors said, "Dr." and then the worker's name. (3) What was happening here? The workers in that maintenance department believed their work was important--just like a doctor's work is important. They felt privileged doing what they were doing. They felt chosen. It makes a difference in anybody's life if they feel chosen. This is why a parent should never, even in jest, give a child the idea that he or she was an "accident." Every child deserves to feel wanted, prized, chosen. Dr. Ruth Barbee, a well-known family-relations expert, once said that about 90 percent of so-called "naughtiness" in small children is simply their way of getting "noticed." When they cannot get the attention they want any other way, they do something guaranteed to drive their parents up the wall. Jean Green, in CATHOLIC DIGEST, tells of putting her young son to bed for the umpteenth time. Her patience was worn thin. When she heard him cry "Mama" again, she yelled to him, "If you call `Mama' one more time, I'll spank you!" After that there was quiet. Then, just as she sat down, she heard a wee whisper, "Mrs. Green, may I have a drink?" Was it really water her son was calling for or was it her attention? Every parent knows the answer. Criminologists say that many crimes, especially sensational ones, are performed by people who never had satisfied their craving for being noticed. The criminal goes out and does something spectacular which will make front- page headlines and says to himself, "Now, I guess the world will sit up and take notice of me." (4) Every now and then someone takes a poll of husbands and wives to see what are the most common complaints that spouses have against each other. Invariably, "not being noticed," in one form or another, heads the list. Many women particularly have had it with being taken for granted in the home and in the office and, perhaps, even in the church. Everyone in this world has a need to feel like he or she counts. Thus it is with great joy that we hear the words from the Scripture, "we are chosen!" FINALLY, ST. PAUL SAYS WE ARE PREDESTINED. "...He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will." We could trip all over that word "predestined." One pastor described the difference between Methodists and Presbyterians like this: "The Presbyterian church is Calvinistic. It believes in predestination, i.e., that everything which is going to happen was planned by the Almighty at the beginning of time, and that mankind cannot alter the divine plan. The Methodist church, on the contrary...rejects predestination. By this I mean the Methodists believe that when anything happens, the Almighty is just as surprised as anybody else." (5) I like that. Maybe we do surprise God sometimes. D. L. Moody tried to resolve the conflict between Paul's writings on predestination and human freedom like this: "I come to the door of salvation and see written over it `Whosoever will may come.' I enter the door, and look above it, and it says, `Chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.'" I have no magical answer to the question of predestination, but I have no question about God's ultimate will for us all and that is that we shall recognize ourselves to be members of His own family. And when we realize that we are predestined from the beginning of time to be members of that family we come to see ourselves as we really are--sons and daughters of the Divine. As Abraham Lincoln pointed out, "It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels he is worthy of himself and claims kindred to the great God who made him." As we look into this New Year, why shouldn't we see great and wonderful things? We have been blessed, we have been chosen, we have been predestined to be children of the most high God. ---------------------------- 1. Dr. John W. Keith, Oak Ridge, TN 2. Jim & Doris Morentz, MINISTER'S ANNUAL PREACHING IN 1989 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1988). 3. LAUGH CONNECTIONS, Vol. No. 3 Summer, 1991, P.4 4. Les Giblin, CONFIDENCE AND POWER (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1956). 5. Joseph B. Clower, Jr. Cited in Sam J. Ervin, Jr., HUMOR OF A COUNTRY LAWYER, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983). TOP> JAN292 A NEW LOOK FOR A NEW YEAR Isaiah 61:1-4 We all know that appearances matter. When officials at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachussets, wanted to advertise their college to high school students a couple years back, they found that they had a problem. It had been a snowless winter in Williamstown. However, the officials felt that snow would make their college look more inviting to prospective students. Hence, they imported 60 tons of manufactured snow and posed student models beside the "snowdrifts." A defensive director of admissions explained, "We're not faking anything. We are just hoping to get some good winter shots." It was, after all, real snow off real trucks. (1) Playwright Gore Vidal says that when his play THE BEST MAN was being cast back in 1959, Ronald Reagan was proposed for the lead role of the distinguished front-running Presidential candidate. He was rejected. It was decided that he lacked the "Presidential look." Appearances matter. I like the story of the woman who was out in the yard working when a moving van pulled up next door. She walked over to welcome the newcomers to the neighborhood wearing her dirty work clothes. The following week, the new neighbors invited her and her husband to a housewarming party. The woman wanted to make a better impression this time. She colored her hair, struggled into a girdle, painted her lips, applied eye shadow and false eyelashes, painted her fingernails, and popped in her contact lenses. She admired herself in the mirror and said to her husband, "Well, tonight they are going to see the real me!" Appearances matter. And God wants to give us all a new look for this new year. Turn with me if you will to chapter 61 of Isaiah. Jesus used the first part of this chapter to announce his ministry, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor..." Beautiful words, powerful words. But note the less familiar words that follow because they refer to our new look, "...and (to) provide for those who grieve in Zion--to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor." Isaiah is writing about those who are grieving over a fallen Israel. He is writing about folks who are feeling defeated, disappointed, down-hearted, and he is telling them that someday they will be called "oaks of righteousness...." That's quite a change of appearance--from defeated, disappointed, down- hearted to sturdy, erect and proud--like oaks. How would you like to have a new look for this new year? Well, here's the good news for the morning. It matters not how defeated we may be feeling, how down on ourselves or our world we may be. Christ offers us the opportunity to stand tall and proud and victorious. How does it happen? Isaiah tells us about the changes God would make in our appearance. FIRST OF ALL, HE SAYS THAT GOD WILL PROVIDE US WITH "A CROWN OF BEAUTY INSTEAD OF ASHES. " Ashes are the symbol of grieving, mourning, despair. During Lent people put ashes on their foreheads as a sign of contrition and repentance. There is a time for ashes, but according to Isaiah, God's yearning is to replace our ashes with a crown of beauty. One translation says a garland of beauty. The crown and the garland are symbols of victory not defeat. They say to the world, "Here is a winner." Can you imagine the change that would take place in our lives if you and I had that sense of confidence, poise, and self- worth--of knowing that we are winners? Imagine yourself right now wearing a crown or a garland of beauty. I was reading recently about former college and pro football star Pat Haden. When Pat played football in the pros, he was small by today's standards--only 5' 10-1/2". He was also light--only 173 pounds. Still, he had a gift--and I am not referring to his athletic ability. The gift was a voice inside his head that said, "Pat, you can do it." "You can do it, Pat," his two older brothers used to tell him when he was a little boy. "You can do it, Pat," they told him when his wobbly passes dropped to the ground. "You can do it, Pat," they told him when he was stuck on a school project. And they would encourage him to work harder. "You can do it, Pat. You can do it." "I ended up knowing that I could do anything I wanted to do," Pat remembered years later. And time after time Pat Haden beat the odds and proved the confidence of his older brothers to be correct, "You can do it, Pat." (2) Don't you wish you had an older brother like those two older brothers? The good news is you do. So do I. Christ came into this world to tell us that we can do it. We can be more than conquerors through him who loves us. If we have the faith even of a mustard seed, we can move mountains. All things are possible to those who believe. We can do it. Christ didn't come into our world that we might wear the ashes of defeat. He came into the world that we might wear the beautiful garland of victory. God has for each of us a crown of beauty. IN THE SECOND PLACE, GOD HAS FOR US "THE OIL OF GLADNESS INSTEAD OF MOURNING...." When Christ comes into our lives we receive an attitude adjustment--from sad to glad. Some followers of Jesus could use that kind of adjustment. Some saints must be a pain even for God to endure. It's like three women who arrived at the Pearly Gates at the same time. St. Peter came but said he had some pressing business and would they please wait. He was gone for a long time, but finally he came back and called one of the women in and asked her if she minded waiting. "No," she said, "I've looked forward to this for so long. I love God and can't wait to meet Jesus. I don't mind at all." St. Peter then said, "Well I have one more question. How do you spell `God?'" She said, "Capital-G-o-d." St. Peter said, "Go right on in." He went out and got one of the other women, told her to come on inside, and said, "Did you mind waiting?" She said, "Oh, no. I have been a Christian for fifty years, and I'll spend eternity here. I didn't mind at all." So St. Peter said, "Just one more thing. How do you spell `God?'" She said, "G-o-d. No, I mean capital-G." St. Peter said that was good and sent her on in to Heaven. He went back out and invited the third woman in and asked her if she minded waiting. "Yes, I did," she said huffily. "I've had to stand in line all my life--at the supermarket, when I went to school, when I registered my children for school, when I went to the movies--everywhere--and I resent having to wait in line for Heaven!" St. Peter said, "Well that's all right for you to feel that way. It won't be held against you, but there is just one more question. How do you spell `Czechoslovakia?'" (3) G. K. Chesterton once said, "Joy is the gigantic secret of the Christian." Not every Christian believes that. There are some Christians who believe if you are truly pious, you wear a perpetual frown. One of the greatest preachers the Christian faith ever produced was one of those who promoted a sour-faced faith. His name was Chrysostrom. Preaching at the end of the fourth century, he saw jollity as pagan. He declared that Christians must weep for their sins. He contended that God doesn't want his children to play. Chrysostrom believed if the devil can get people engaged in frivolity, he's won the day. What foolishness. Isaiah tells us that God will give us "the oil of gladness..." Chesterton is right. Joy is the gigantic secret of the Christian. It's like the old story of a man strolling through a social club. He is surprised to see three men and a dog playing cards. Pausing to watch, he asks, "Can that dog really play cards?" "You bet," answers one of the members. "That's incredible!" the man says. "Not really," another member shrugs. "He's really not that good. Whenever he gets a good hand, he wags his tail." Friends, you and I are holding a good hand. We are God's own elect. How can we help but show our happiness? He gives us a crown of beauty. He gives us the oil of gladness. FINALLY, ACCORDING TO ISAIAH, HE GIVES US A GARMENT OF PRAISE INSTEAD OF A SPIRIT OF DESPAIR. That's how He finishes our wardrobe. A crown of beauty, then oil of gladness, and finally, a robe of praise. I love to be around someone who is robed in a garment of praise, don't you? C. Ward Crampton, a noted gerontologist, lists five qualities of living which are necessary for healthy aging. One of these is praising God. There is something about praising God that is healthy for soul, mind and body. Of course, like any great gift of God, even praise can be abused. According to PARADE magazine, William Linkhaw, a North Carolina man, was convicted in 1873 of disrupting church services with his singing. His Methodist brethren said they had put up with him for years. Even when everyone else had stopped singing Linkhaw kept on. When Linkhaw was asked to be quiet, he refused, saying that singing was part of his duty to God. But the courts found him guilty of a misdemeanor and ordered him to keep quiet. However, when he appealed the conviction to the state supreme court it was overturned. (4) I don't know if brother Linkhaw had a garment of praise or simply was a show-off. I do remember George Buttrick telling about the head man in a village in Pakistan. He asked the members of a little Christian church in the village to move to the edge of town from next door to his house. He offered to work out an exchange of properties if they would do it. He was concerned his Muslim wives, hearing the joyful singing of the Christians, would be influenced. They might even become Christians. He had good cause to be threatened. If we truly came into this place of worship each week with a spirit of praise, the world would be trying to break down the walls to join us. And we would profit from the experience as well. Praise is to nourishment to our souls. It lifts us to higher ground. This then is the new look God would give us for this new year. We who once floundered in defeat and darkness can stand tall, proud and steadfast as "oaks of righteousness." He gives us "a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair." -------------------------------------------------- 1. "College Out to `Snow' Students," The Knoxville News-Sentinel (Feb. 22, 1989), Section A, p. 7. 2. Contributed--source unknown. 3. The Rev. Patrick Napier in HOMETOWN HUMOR, U.S.A., Loyal Jones and Billy Edd Wheeler, eds, (Little Rock: August House Publishers, 1991). 4. J. B. Fowler, Jr., ILLUSTRATED SERMONS FOR SPECIAL OCCASIONS, (Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman Press, 1988). TOP> JAN392 ABOUT MIRACLES John 2:1-11 There is a time-honored story about a skeptic who was continually harassing the local pastor. His one delight in life seemed to be making the pastor appear inadequate intellectually. The pastor bore these challenges to his theology and faith with great restraint. One day the skeptic was heckling the pastor about his views on miracles. "Give me one concrete example of a miracle," the skeptic taunted. "One concrete example." Whereupon the pastor hauled off and kicked the skeptic furiously on the shin. The skeptic couldn't believe it! The pastor asked, "Did you feel that?" "Yes," the man said as he nursed his sore leg. "If you had not," said the pastor, "it would have been a miracle!" Jesus and his mother were attending a wedding feast in Cana when the wine ran out. Mary turned to her son. "They have no wine," she said. There was something in her voice that told Jesus she expected him to do something. Jesus' response in the original Aramaic is not nearly as abrupt or disrespectful as it may sound. It is evident, though, that he had something else on his mind. "Dear woman, why do you involve me?" Jesus replied. "My time has not yet come." Still, Jesus' heart went out to his hosts. He felt their embarrassment. He cared about their predicament. He wanted to do something to help. That is the first lesson we learn from this story. PEOPLE MATTER. G. A. Studdert-Kennedy was an English chaplain in World War I. He believed life's basic question is, "What is God like?" He visited a wounded soldier in a hospital. "What I want to know," said the officer, "is what is God like? I never thought about it much before the war," he continued. "I took it for granted. But now it is different. When I'm transferred into a new battalion, I want to know what the Colonel is like. He bosses the show, and it makes a lot of difference to me what sort of chap he is. Now I'm in the battalion of humanity. I want to know what the Colonel of this world is like." Jesus settled for us once and for all the question, what is God like. God is like a loving Parent. People matter to God. In COME SHARE THE BEING, Bob Benson writes of sending a son off to college. "Nearly a year ago Peg and I had a very hard week," Benson writes. "Sunday night we were home and (our son Mike) was 700 miles away...Now we have been through this before. Bob, Jr. had gone away to college and we had gathered ourselves together until we had gotten over it...So we thought we knew how to handle separation pretty well, but we came away lonely and blue. "Oh, our hearts were filled with pride at a fine young man and our minds were filled with memories from tricycles to commencements, but deep down inside somewhere we just ached with loneliness and pain. "Somebody said you still have three at home--three fine kids and there is still plenty of noise, plenty of ball games to go to, plenty of responsibilities, plenty of laughter, plenty of everything...EXCEPT MIKE. And in parental math five minus one just doesn't equal plenty." Then Bob Benson turns to the reader: "And I was thinking about God. He sure has plenty of children--plenty of artists, plenty of singers, and carpenters, and candlestick makers, and preachers, plenty of everybody ...EXCEPT YOU and all of them together can never take your place. "And there will always be an empty spot in His heart--and a vacant chair at His table when you're not home. And if once in a while it seems He's crowding you a bit--try to forgive Him. It may be one of those nights when He misses you so much He can hardly stand it." * People matter. You matter. I matter. The people at this wedding feast in Cana of Galilee mattered. Jesus cared that his hosts were in this predicament. Thus he went into action. You know the story. Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, "Fill the jars with water to the brim." Then he told them, "Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet." They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. Then he called the bridegroom aside. "Everyone brings out the choice wine first," he said. "Then they bring out the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now." This, John tells us, was the first of Jesus' miracles. Why did he perform it? Because people matter. This brings us to the second lesson from this story. MIRACLES HAPPEN. There's been a tendency over the last century or so to make miracles acceptable to the modern scientific mind and in doing so to soften them a bit. For example, the Children of Israel didn't go through the Red Sea according to this approach. They went through the Sea of Reeds, a shallow swamp-like area. It was no big deal, then, when the wind came and parted the waters. Jesus didn't feed the 5000 by some mysterious divine activity. He simply encouraged a young boy to share his fishes and loaves. The crowd was so inspired by this boy's example that everybody shared what they had brought with them. Like a covered dish supper, there was more than enough to feed them all. You've probably heard such explanations before. These attempts to explain the miracles scientifically are not a conspiracy to undermine our faith, as some may believe. They are merely an effort on the part of scholars to accommodate the Word to the mindset of our time. There are some of us, though, who have no difficulty with miracles. We see miraculous things all the time. And we conclude if a small wind could part the waters of the Sea of Reeds, why couldn't a funnel cloud come down and part the waters of the Red Sea? Stranger things have happened in this world. Besides, when you understand that the New Testament is founded upon the most awesome miracle of all, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the grave, then it becomes very, very difficult to dismiss the other miracles. Miracles happen. Now I'm not talking about frivolous miracles. A man was dressing to teach a Sunday School class. He was tying his shoestrings and one of them broke. This greatly disturbed him. He said to his wife, "I'll be standing up there in front of that class with one shoe without a string in it." His wife said, "Well, at least try looking in your top drawer." "I haven't bought shoe strings in years," he said. "It'll be a miracle if there are any shoe strings in that drawer." Lo and behold, there was a set of brown shoe strings in the top drawer. "It's a miracle!" he says. A pastor in Tennessee tells about a lady in his small church with a wonderful sense of humor and a marvelous perspective on life. One day, this lady called on the telephone. In a high-pitched voice she said, "Preacher! This is Amy." He answered, "Well, Amy! How are you?" She says, "Well, Preacher, I'm at Baptist Hospital." He said, "Amy, what are you doing at Baptist Hospital?" She said, "Well, I went out to my mailbox this morning and there was a letter from Oral Roberts. I opened that letter and I was reading it as I walked back up to the house. When I got to the part where it said, `Something good is going to happen to you,' I tripped over a log and broke my leg." There is a tendency to trivialize miracles. A little boy was telling his Sunday School class about Lot's wife. He said Lot's wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt, by day, and a ball of fire by night. There is also a tendency to look for miracles everywhere as a validation of our faith. A little boy sent this letter to his pastor: "Dear Pastor, I know God loves me, but I wish he would give me an A on my history test so I can be sure." Miracles are also a way of manipulating God. In one incident in the movie PATTON, the general was planning an attack on a German stronghold and he needed air support, which required good weather. He commanded his officer, "Get me the chaplain!" We tease about the minister being in charge of the weather at the church picnic, but we are kidding. In a world of devastating droughts and floods, I hope God has something better to do than to hear our prayers for good weather for our golf game. We have a tendency to trivialize miracles, to look to them to validate our faith, to seek to use them to manipulate God. And we miss the real significance of miracles. Miracles are rare acts of God for His glorification and our edification. Because they are rare and because we do not know all the laws of nature or the mind of God, we must be very careful about labeling anything that happens as a miracle. People have built their lives on events that they believed were miraculous. Example? A man prays that if God wants him to quit his job and move to a new town, God will provide him with an unmistakable sign. Almost immediately, something quite remarkable happens. A tornado roars through town. His garage is ripped away. His car is left without a scratch. The man takes this as a sign. He quits his job and moves to a new town. The fact that several people might have lost their homes--or even their lives--in that same tornado does not faze the man. God has given him a sign. Jesus warned against looking for signs and miracles. We cannot avoid the responsibility for making hard decisions by constantly looking to God for divine intervention. Besides, we do not live by knowledge. We live by faith. God does not give us absolute, infallible proof of His existence or His plan. In this world we see through a glass darkly. We can only say two things for certain. People matter. Miracles happen. And one more--JESUS CAN BE TRUSTED. By the same power by which he turned water into wine, Jesus can turn our lives--no matter how disappointing, sordid or desperate--into something beautiful and good. During the early hours of the Battle of Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln was pacing up and down, lonely and troubled. Battle reports were coming in. The fate of the Union was in the balance. Later on, he told friends how he went into his room, locked the door, knelt, and prayed. "I told God that I had done all that I could and that now the result was in His hands," Lincoln told his friends. "If this country was to be saved it was because He so willed it!" Then Lincoln added, "The burden rolled off my shoulders. My intense anxiety was relieved, and in its place came a great trustfulness." That is a trustfulness you and I can have as well. William Barclay once put it like this: "Jesus never met a sick man who asked, but what He performed a miracle and made him well. He never met a yielded sinner, but what He offered Him redeeming grace for his salvation. He never met a funeral, but what He broke it up by raising the dead one to life." We might add, he never went to a wedding feast that had an insufficient supply of wine that he did not solve the hosts' embarrassment by providing more than enough. People matter. Miracles Happen. Jesus can be trusted--with your needs and concerns, and with mine. -------------------------------------------------------- * from a sermon by Norm Lawson TOP> JAN492 JESUS AND THE LAKE WOBEGON EFFECT Luke 4: 14-21 A scandal is brewing in the hallowed halls of Academe. It has to do with test scores given to our young people. A West Virginia doctor noticed sometime back that all 50 states claim that their students score above average on standardized test scores. That, of course, is impossible--for everyone to be above average. Someone has even given this scandal a thoughtful name--the Lake Wobegon effect. Lake Wobegon is author Garrison Keillor's mythical town where "All the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average." Obviously, by definition it is impossible for everyone to be "above average." Average is what most people are. Nobody, though, wants to admit it. In a General Electric survey some years ago, the average person surveyed placed themselves in the 77th percentile. That is, their view was that their performance on the job exceeded that of 76 percent of their associates. In fact, only 2 percent of the respondents placed themselves as below average. Everybody is in the top half of the class. Everyone is a star. What has Jesus got to do with the Lake Wobegon effect? Just this. How can I look across this congregation--we who have so much, who are so well-fed, so well-clothed, so surrounded by the good things of life--how can I look across this congregation and tell you that Jesus came to save the poor, the captives, the blind and the oppressed? That's not us! We are winners. We are stars. We're all above average. This is one text we can skip over. It's for someone else. Still, it's there. Maybe we ought to listen. "The Spirit of the Lord is on me," says Christ, "because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." What, if anything, is Christ saying to you and me? MAYBE WE ARE POORER THAN WE THINK. Someone is silently saying, "You can say that again." One poor fellow said he's so heavily in debt that he's known as the "Leaning Tower of Visa." A secretary lunching in a local restaurant noticed a friend at a nearby table. Her friend was nibbling at a cottage cheese salad. "Trying to lose weight?" she asked. "No," the friend said, "I'm on a low salary diet." Some of us know about low salary diets. But we're not poor. Or are we? Mother Teresa thinks so. There was a beautiful article about her in TIME magazine. She was asked about the materialism of the West. She said, "The more you have, the more you are occupied," she contends. "But the less you have the more free you are. Poverty for us is a freedom. It is a joyful freedom. There is no television here, no this, no that. This is the only fan in the whole house...and it is for the guests. But we are happy. "I find the rich poorer," she continues. "Sometimes they are more lonely inside...The hunger for love is much more difficult to fill than the hunger for bread...The real poor know what is joy." When asked about her plans for the future, she replied, "I just take one day. Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not come. We have only today to love Jesus." Is there anyone in this room as rich as Mother Teresa? A lay leader of a large suburban church stood to give her testimony. "My husband and I had it all," she said, "all the good things that our society values. Good jobs, a nice home, vacations in the Bahamas. I now realize, though, how shallow and inadequate our faith was. I can remember when I picked out a church for us because it had beautiful chandeliers. Then it happened. Both of us lost our jobs. For over a year we struggled. It was during this time that we both came to know the goodness of God." Did you catch that? In the midst of their struggle they discovered the goodness of God? Surely, God's hand was more apparent during the times of plenty. That's not how it works, is it? That is why Jesus warned us of the dangers of wealth. Wealth deludes us into thinking that our strength is sufficient. At such times we are like General Custer at Little Bighorn. One of Custer's scouts warned him they were in for a fight. He estimated there were enough Sioux to keep them busy for 2 or 3 days. General Custer replied rather smugly, "I guess we'll get through with them in one day." He even declined help from the 7th Calvary or the aid of Gatling guns. Well, Custer was right about one thing. One day was all it took. So it is with us when we think that our resources can carry us through. We are poorer than we think. AND MAYBE WE ARE NOT AS FREE AS WE THINK. Bob Bartlett, an arctic explorer, tells about a summer expedition where he and his party gathered a selection of native birds. These birds were kept caged but well cared for during the long voyage across the ocean. One day a particularly restless bird escaped from its cage and took off in flight over the ocean. "Well, that bird is lost," thought the crew. But before the end of the day, much to their surprise, they saw that same bird flying back towards the ship at a rapid pace. Looking spent and breathless, the little bird dropped upon the deck of the ship and surrendered itself. It no longer saw the ship as a prison, but as a refuge. The ship was the only way to get across the deep wide ocean. (1) Freedom is a paradox. There comes that time in life when we want to throw off the chains that have so long bound us--chains of parental supervision, chains of religious instruction and guidance, chains of conventional moral behavior. We want to be free! That's part of the maturing process. Later, however, we notice a profound hunger for things that are lasting, things that are good, things that build us up rather than tear us down. And we exercise our greatest act of freedom--the freedom to go home. This is the story of the radicals of the sixties and seventies, but to a lesser extent, it is the story of us all. This is not to say that even at home there are not new boundaries to cross. There are. An ambitious forty-year-old executive from Nashville, Tennessee, sat in a seminar in Charlotte, North Carolina. The participants in the seminar were challenged to view life from a higher plain--to explore new ideas and to expand their horizons. The man was becoming increasingly agitated. He had come to learn some specific how-to's--not some abstract philosophy. By the end of the second day, he was ready to pack it in and chalk up the whole experience on the minus side of the ledger. But he didn't go. He went out for a jog instead. He felt he needed some exercise and some time away, to work out the tension. He chose a back road near the motel where he was staying. As he trotted along the back road, he suddenly heard a tremendous growl and barking. The hair on his neck stood on end! There, growling behind a thin wire fence about three feet high, was a huge, young, and hyper Doberman Pinscher, eyes blazing and teeth bared! The dog was about as high as the fence, and with hardly any effort at all, could have jumped the fence. The man knew he was in trouble and stood still for a moment to see how he could get away safely. Then, an amazing thing happened. The dog barked and barked, jumped up and down and growled, ran back and forth, but did not jump over the skimpy fence. In a flash of insight, the man realized that the dog had been conditioned to stay within the boundaries of the fence. Despite his capacity to run and jump for freedom, the dog stayed just where he was, gnashing his teeth and running back and forth in angry circles. The next day, the man raised his hand in the seminar and asked to say a few words. He told his story quietly and elegantly. "In that moment," he reported, "I knew I was just like that dog." The man from Nashville had come to see that each of us live behind self-imposed fences. He could not be free until he acknowledged that he was a captive. (2) Neither can we. We may be poorer than we think. We may not be as free as we think. AND MAYBE WE ARE BLIND AS WELL. Marcel Proust once said, "The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes." There was once a celebrated French writer named Colette. Colette attributed her success as a writer to two words, "Look, look!" Those were the words her mother constantly repeated to her as she did her farm chores. With those two words echoing in her ears, she developed her powers of observation. In 1954 Colette died in Paris during one of the worst thunderstorms the city had seen in a long while. As she lay on her deathbed, she pointed toward the window through which she could see the flashing lightning and torrential rain and said, "Look, look!" Jesus asked his disciples, "Having eyes, do you not see, and having ears do you not hear?" (Mark 8:18) The rich man did not see Lazarus at his gate. The Pharisees did not see that their attention to keeping the Law was separating them from the rest of God's children. Even Jesus' disciples did not see that the kingdom was not about power but about service. And there are many of us who do not see. Husbands and wives who do not see the needs of their spouses, parents who do not see the loneliness of their children, successful people who do not see that their success has been won at the cost of their values. Blind people everyone. Until that day when Christ comes into our lives and helps us see. We may be poorer than we think. We may not be as free as we think. Maybe we are blind as well. CERTAINLY, WE ARE OPPRESSED. We are oppressed by our inability to free ourselves from the burden of sin. Anyone who's ever struggled with a habit that resisted breaking, anyone who has left good resolutions unkept, anyone who's been cruel when they would have been kind, lazy when they would have been industrious, short-tempered when they should have been patient, knows the oppressive power of sin. And there is only one remedy for such oppression. And it is to accept the free gift of God's grace. "Come, every soul by sin oppressed," wrote the hymn writer, "there's mercy with the Lord..." You see, Christ's message is for us--for in a very real sense we are the poor, the captive, the blind and the oppressed. We are those for whom Christ gave his life. Deep in our hearts some of us have imagined that he must have died for someone else--the scum of the earth, perhaps, but not us. What do we need of a Savior? We're all in the upper half of the class. We're all above average. Maybe so, but it would be good for us to heed his message once more: "The Spirit of the Lord is on me," says Christ, "because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed...." Friends, that's us. And, thank God, he has come. ----------------------- 1. J. Wallace Hamilton, HORNS AND HALOS, (Fleming H. Revell, 1954). 2. Kenneth Wydro, THINK ON YOUR FEET, (New York: Prentice-Hall Press). TOP> JAN592 WHY CHANGE IS POSSIBLE  â€¢ OU Top â € ¢ AC  JFB  JFB Alt.  SRB Luke 19:1-10; Romans 12:1-3; Exodus 2:1-10 I want to think with you for a few moments on the idea of "Why Change is Possible." I want to think about the new beginnings and fresh commitments that these Bible lessons make possible. The new year can and should be a time when we grow spiritually by allowing the power of God to be fully operative in our lives to change those attitudes and actions in our lives that prevent our work and witness from having a greater impact for the kingdom of God. That brings up a significant question, perhaps one that I hear as a pastor more than any other. "Pastor, can things really be changed? Can people be changed? Can human nature really be transformed and made new?" We often talk and act as if change is not possible. So often I hear someone say, "He/she is just made that way. They are not going to change, so why should I waste my time and energy on a hopeless situation?" I am very careful of people who echo the words that change is not possible by saying, "After all, a leopard can't change his spots!" Well, a leopard may not be able to change his/her spots, but there is a BIG DIFFERENCE between a leopard and a human soul! A major component of the Gospel, which is the Good News, is that change is not only possible, but is the evidence that we have accepted faith in Jesus Christ as the only authentic possibility for human life before God. A famous preacher once said, "When people tell me that human nature cannot be changed, I am moved to reply that in light of my experience, human nature may well be the only thing that CAN BE CHANGED!" We cannot change the course of the moon or the sun. We cannot change the laws of the physical world. We cannot change the movement and flow of the ocean. We cannot change the stars in the skies and the course they move in. However, the Bible pulsates with pages of testimonies of the lives, purposes, events, and habits which have been changed and can be changed. In my opinion, that is what "new birth" and "new life in Christ" is all about. It means that: 1. evil things can be changed into good actions 2. bad habits can be replaced with good habits 3. painful defeats can be turned into joyous victories 4. weak and fainthearted persons can be transformed into persons of strength and courage to do God's bidding 5. destructive attitudes can be converted into healthy, positive and life-giving attitudes, that build the quality of life into something simply marvelous. A noted physician once said to his wife's pastor, "If you will explain to me the spiritual birth, I will change from a pagan and become a Christian." The pastor replied, "If you will explain to me all the mysteries of the natural birth process, then I will explain the spiritual birth to you." Both agreed: NEITHER WAS POSSIBLE. In both cases, we can observe and cooperate with certain processes, but we cannot explain the "why" apart from the sovereign power of God. I believe the same can be said of processes leading to change in our lives. Most of the time the element needed most to change is to simply admit you need to change and ask directions of the ONE who has the power to change you. A motorist was recently driving through the state of Pennsylvania and lost her way. She asked a certain gentleman how far it was to Phillipsburg, New Jersey. The gentleman replied, "Well, the way you are going it is 24,995 miles. However, if you will turn around and get back on Route 22 going East, it is about 5 miles." I want to share four insights for your further reflection today as you seek God's power to change attitudes, actions, and assumptions in your journey. WE ARE RESISTANT TO CHANGE. Human nature has always resisted change. Leith Anderson, in his book, DYING FOR CHANGE, shares the following letter written by Martin Van Buren, then the governor of New York to President Jackson, concerning an evil new business enterprise threatening our nation. It goes as follows: January 31, 1829 To President Jackson, The canal system of this country is being threatened by the spread of a new form of transportation known as "railroads". The federal government must preserve the canals for the following reasons: One. If canal boats are supplanted by "railroads", serious unemployment will result. Captains, cooks, drivers, hostlers, repairmen and lock tenders will be left without means of livelihood, not to mention the numerous farmers now employed in growing hay for the horses. Two. Boat builders would suffer, and towline, whip and harness makers would be left destitute. Three. Canal boats are absolutely essential to the defense of the United States. In the event of the expected trouble with England, the Erie Canal would be the only means by which we could ever move the supplies so vital to waging modern war. As you may well know, Mr. President, "railroad" carriages are pulled at the enormous speed of fifteen miles per hour by "engines" which, in addition to endangering life and limb of passengers, roar and snort their way through the countryside, setting fire to crops, scaring the livestock and frightening women and children. The Almighty certainly never intended that people should travel at such breakneck speed. Martin Van Buren Governor of New York Mark 8:8-9 (1) Recently, we took our children to the Hugh Moore Canal Park in Easton, Pa. In a space of a few minutes, the following things could be seen while resting on one of the park benches. 1. The Josiah White Canal Boat went past with a group of tourists on it, depicting life conditions of an era gone by. 2. Right across from the canal are the railroad tracks. An engine went past pulling about 25 cars, then the caboose. Years ago this would have happened four times a day; now only once a week. 3. Right across the railroad is Route 611. Just then two big tractor trailer trucks went rushing by, followed by cars who wanted to go even faster. 4. Then shortly after that, we heard a noise above our heads, and it was an airplane already beginning its descent for Newark Airport. Each one of these enterprises is or was in the transportation business. This business cannot be limited to the means by which it is accomplished at the moment. The Christian church is in the enterprise of leading men and women-- boys and girls--to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. However, we can't be relevant in ministry using as our launching pad something built 75 years ago before the automobile, working mothers, and oil costing $1.25 cents a gallon. We need to modernize, not our theology, but our methods for reaching people for Christ. Today, we admire and applaud the work of such men as John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist faith. However, I am afraid that he would fare no better with our denomination in 1991 than with the established church in 1741. Remember, the fields are white until harvest--but, oh, the need for laborers to gather the harvest! There are few United Methodists that welcome the changes he would bring to our institutions. The first stop to change is to admit how hard it is to do without God's power. GOD STILL WORKS IN HISTORY. In our Old Testament reading from Exodus 2:1-10, we see a mother who would not give in to the Egyptian order that all youngsters were to be killed. In order to control the population of Jewish babies, the midwives had been commanded to slaughter all babies soon after birth. The midwives resisted, so eventually professional soldiers had to be sent to perform this cruel, ugly deed. However, there was one determined mother, Jochebed, who did her best to be sure this wouldn't happen. She used all her creative, sly, deceptive methods to prevent the baby from being discovered. However, this task grew increasingly more difficult each day. Finally, in her last act of defiance, she began weaving a basket from materials around the village, that would not sink in the waters of the Nile. In a way, it functioned much like Noah's ark. Today, we know that child to be Moses, whose personhood loomed large over the landscape of the Old Testament. God was working in the midst of the tragic events to bring forth deliverance and victory for his people. Events can be redeemed. God often has a long-term plan for short-term actions we make in faith. GOD CHANGES INDIVIDUALS.  â€¢ OU Top â € ¢ AC  JFB  JFB Alt.  SRB A colleague in Portland, Oregon, recently shared in a sermon an excellent example of this activity of God. The story is about a gentleman named Bruce Kennedy. Bruce Kennedy was the CEO of a major corporation known as The Alaskan Air Group. At the tender age of 52, he is stepping down from the position. It was not because he was stepping down that my colleague noticed the story--it as the reason why. Bruce Kennedy shared "I am leaving my post so that my wife and I can devote more time to Christian service." My colleague said many will think: This is quite un-American to climb off the corporate ladder for the sake of Christian service. However, it is quite biblical. (2) The New Testament lesson from Luke 19:1-10 is the account of a greedy, guilty, money-grabbing tax collector who is transformed into a sharing, sensitive, saint of God by the forgiving power of Jesus Christ. Can and will you add your name to that list today? Do you remember the story of Bob Ingersol? He was a famous and learned unbeliever of the last century. He was riding on a train by the side of General Lew Wallace, who was the governor of New Mexico and who was also not a Christian. Ingersol said to Wallace, "Why do you not write a book that sets forth the truth about this deceiver, Jesus Christ?" Wallace said, "I had not thought of such a thing, but I believe I will." So he studied the life of our Lord, and became a great and devout Christian, and wrote one of the noblest books of faith of all time. It is called BEN HUR. Do you remember the subtitle? It is: BEN HUR (A Story of the Christ). CHANGE IS EVIDENCE OF THE PRESENCE OF GOD. According to the New Testament, when we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior our physical bodies actually become the temple of the Holy Spirit. This is always the foundation for us moving from selfish, sinful creatures to spirit-filled children of God who graciously share all that God has first shared with us. There is a story told about a beloved old physician who was retiring in a little French village. He had labored among them for decades in their humble village, birthing and blessing them. It was a poor village, so the mayor proposed that the folks set up a keg in the village square and everyone bring a pitcher of wine from their own cellar to pour into the keg. Then they would present the keg to the doctor as an expression of their love for all he had shared with them. On the appointed day, there was a steady stream of folks bringing a pitcher of wine to pour into the keg. That evening a presentation was made to the good doctor and the keg was taken home. The next evening as he sat around his fireplace, he decided to have a glass of wine. He drew himself a glass from the keg and took a sip. He couldn't believe it; he drew another glass. The same awful taste--water! He returned the keg back to the townspeople. The mayor was angry and he called for a town meeting to see what was wrong. Much to his disgust and the town's embarrassment, it was discovered that every family and person had brought water to pour into the keg thinking it would never be noticed, since everyone else was bringing wine. (3) When our lives are changed and are changing to reflect all the fullness of God that was revealed in Christ Jesus and our lives become a reflection of His--then others will see the power that is operative in our lives about the PRIORITIES we have selected for our life's journey. We belong to the Lord. Amen and amen. ---------------------------------------------------- 1. NET RESULTS Magazine, March l99l, Herb Miller, Editor, Lubbock, Texas. 2. Thanks to Laron Hall of Portland, Oregon, for this story. 3. Thanks to Earl C. Davis, First Baptist Pulpit, February 3, l99l, Memphis, Tennessee. TOP> FEB192 THREE DEADLY WORDS Jeremiah 1:4-10 I'd like to tell you the story of two children. The parents of the first child were somewhat mismatched. His father was unemployed with no formal schooling. His mother was a teacher. This child, born in Port Huron, Michigan, was estimated to have an IQ of 81. He was withdrawn from school after three months--and was considered backward by school officials. The child enrolled in school two years late due to scarlet fever and respiratory infections. And he was going deaf. His emotional health was poor. He was stubborn, aloof, and showed very little emotion. He liked mechanics. He also liked to play with fire and burned down his father's barn. He showed some manual dexterity, but used very poor grammar. But he did want to be a scientist or a railroad mechanic. The second child showed not much more promise either. This child was born of an alcoholic father. As a child she was sickly, bedridden, and often hospitalized. She was considered erratic and withdrawn. She would bite her nails and had numerous phobias. She wore a backbrace from a spinal defect and would constantly seek attention. She was a daydreamer with no vocational goals, although she expressed a desire to help the elderly and the poor. Who were these two children? The boy from Port Huron became one of the world's greatest inventors- -Thomas A. Edison. And the awkward and sickly young girl became a champion of the oppressed--Eleanor Roosevelt. (1) Would you have voted either one of these children, "most likely to succeed?" Probably not. Geologists tell us that only 3 percent of the earth's fresh water is on the surface in the form of rivers and lakes. The other 97 percent remains as a huge subterranean reservoir down below. The potentials of human personality are much the same--only 3 percent on the surface and 97 percent below. (2) How do we tap the infinite reservoir unseen? How do we bring to the surface the powers and possibilities the Creator has placed within each of us? One thing we can do is to rid our vocabularies of three deadly words. They were the words spoken by a young man long ago by the name of Jeremiah. God came to Jeremiah and said to him, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations." "But, LORD," Jeremiah said, "I do not know how to speak." Then Jeremiah spoke those three deadly words, "I AM ONLY...." In Jeremiah's case, he said, "I am only a youth." Jeremiah would become one of the greatest prophets that God called, but first of all God had to deal with those three deadly words, "I am only..." MANY OF US ARE LIMITED BY THOSE THREE WORDS AS WELL. If God came to some people in this room today, someone would say, "But Lord, I'm only a senior citizen. I'm too old to be of much use to the kingdom." There was a story in the WALL STREET JOURNAL about Harry Lipsig. Lipsig, at age eighty-eight, decided to leave the New York law firm he had spent most of sixty years building up. He decided to open a new firm. So at an age when many people have given up on life, Mr. Lipsig decided to try his first case in some time. Here was the situation. A lady was suing the city of New York because a drunken police officer had struck and killed her seventy-one-year-old husband with his patrol car. She argued that the city had deprived her of her husband's future earnings potential. The city argued that at age 71, he had little earnings potential. They thought they had a pretty clever defense until they realized that this lady's argument about her husband's future earning power was being advanced by a vigorous eight-eight-year-old attorney. The city settled the case for $1.25 million. What if Harry Lipsig had said, "I'm only a senior citizen?" Someone else might answer, "But Lord, I'm only a woman." You may have heard the story about three men walking down a beach who came across a lamp buried in the sand. They picked it up and began wiping it off. A genie popped out and told them, "I'll grant each of you one wish." The first man rubbed the lamp and whispered, "I wish I were ten times smarter." "You are now ten times smarter," announced the genie. The second guy took the lamp and rubbed it and murmured, "I wish I were a hundred times smarter." "You are now a hundred times smarter," the genie mandated. The third man rubbed the lamp and said, "I wish I were a thousand times smarter." The genie pointed at him and declared, "You are now a woman." I hope there is no one in this church who still believes that women cannot compete with men. The two highest IQs ever recorded (on a standard test) both belonged to women. It is not intelligence or ability or competence that have held women back. It is these three deadly words, "I am only..." One little girl prayed earnestly: "Dear God, are little boys really better than little girls?" After a brief pause, as if waiting for an answer, she added, "I know you are one, but please be fair." In a hundred different ways we have told our little girls they are not as capable as little boys. And that is wrong! Of course, we are making progress. We know that by contrasting the status of American women with women world wide. For example, when they first started showing the television show, "Laverne and Shirley" in Thailand, there was a stark conflict of cultures. The idea of independent, unmarried young women living apart from their families goes against Thai culture. For that reason, the government television network preceded each episode with a slide informing the public that the series was about two women who had escaped from a lunatic asylum. We've got a long way to go, but progress is being made. You may have heard about a man and a woman who were chatting. "Yes," she said. "I'm the kind of woman who spends a lot of time talking to my plants. Let's see--there's my computer plant in Chicago, my textile plant in North Carolina...." Every child is this world--male or female, black or white, yellow or brown--should grow up believing two things about themselves: they are loved and they are capable. Let's get rid of the "I am only's..." I am only the child of a coal miner, I am only a person with a handicapping condition, I am only a member of a minority group. You and I can be anything God calls us to be. And God is calling everyone of us just as he called Jeremiah. God came to Jeremiah and said to him, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations." "But, LORD," Jeremiah said, "I do not know how to speak. I am only a youth." See what God does next. He says to Jeremiah, "Do not say, `I am only a youth.' You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you," declares the LORD. Then the LORD reaches out His hand and touches Jeremiah's mouth and says to him, "Now, I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant." God had great plans for Jeremiah, but first of all He had to get those three deadly words off of Jeremiah's lips, "I am only..." And, my friends, God has great plans for your life and my life as well. Norman Vincent Peale tells about a young man named Mike. Mike's school attendance and grades were worsening, and he was developing a surly disposition....He was exhorted, lectured, and punished, but to no avail. Finally, he landed in the superintendent's office with the teacher's recommendation that he be expelled from school as unreachable and therefore unteachable. The superintendent talked to Mike but was obviously getting nowhere. To Mike's surprise the superintendent said, "Mike, hold out your hands....Mike, you've got wonderful hands, long and slender but strong, which is surprising for your stocky build. Boy, you've got the hands of a surgeon. Maybe that's what you are intended to be. Get going, Mike, and good luck." He said nothing about punishment, let alone expulsion. It was genuine motivation, esteem, admiration. Mike became, in the words of the superintendent, "one of the best surgeons" in the land. (3) All Mike needed was someone to offer a word of encouragement--to tell him what he might be. Many of us need that same kind of encouragement. We need a friend who will say to us, "Don't say, `I'm only this' or `I'm only that.' I've got great plans for you." We have such a friend in God. He sees possibilities within us we never dreamed possible. If we believe in Him and if we believe in His dream for our lives, we can accomplish more than we ever dreamed possible. In art class some children were working with plasticine, a clay-like substance that can be used over and over because it does not harden. A girl had made a very nice model of a creature with wings. She held it up and said to everyone, "See the angel!" There were exclamations of delight from the class and teacher. Then the girl quickly molded the angel back into a ball and asked everyone, "Okay, now. What's this?" Nobody could answer--except to say, "a ball?" "Nope," said the girl, "it's a hiding angel." The next day when the children came into art class, they were accompanied by a visitor. Another child pointed at the ball of plasticine and said to the visitor, "You know what that is? It's a hiding angel." (4) Some of us have within us hiding angels just waiting to be released. And they can be released when, like Jeremiah, we discover that rather than only a youth, or only a senior citizen, or only a woman, or only a child of poverty, we can say, "I am a child of God. Before I was formed in the womb God knew me. Before I was born I was set apart for something good and beautiful and noble." To believe that about ourselves is to unleash a host of powers and possibilities. Like Thomas Edison and Eleanor Roosevelt, those two young people for whom no one would have predicted extraordinary success--our lives can become something beautiful and good. Let God touch your lips this day and take off from them those words that hold you back. Say rather, "I am a child of God." ------------------------------------------ 1. Vital Speeches 2. Frederick G. Harmon and Garry Jacobs, THE VITAL DIFFERENCE (New York: AMACOM, 1985). 3. THIS INCREDIBLE CENTURY, pp. 208-209. 4. Eric W. Johnson, A TREASURY OF HUMOR (New York: Ivy Books, 1989). TOP> FEB292 HOW DO YOU ACT IN THE PRESENCE OF THE QUEEN?  â€¢ OU Top â € ¢ AC  JFB  JFB Alt.  SRB Isaiah 6:1-8; Luke 5:1-11 Associated Press, Dateline, Washington, D.C.: A woman in our nation's capitol welcomed Queen Elizabeth II into her home in a warm and beautiful way. She gave her a hug. This simple act made headlines around the world because British protocol forbids commoners from touching a monarch. The queen, accompanied by first lady Barbara Bush and Washington Mayor Sharon Pratt Dixon, visited 67-year-old retiree Alice Frazier's home in an area formerly plagued by drugs and crime but now rehabilitated. It was on this occasion that Frazier shocked British sensibilities with her effusive hospitality. Frazier was simply showing her happiness at being visited by royalty. No one had explained to her that you don't hug a queen. I was reminded of this incident when I came to our Old Testament and Gospel texts for the day. In Isaiah, we read about one of the most notable confrontations with God in recorded history. Isaiah writes: "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: `Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.' At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. `Woe to me!' I cried. `I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.'" (NIV) In our lesson from the Gospels Jesus is speaking to Simon Peter, "Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch." Simon answered, "Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets." They did let down the nets and caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. They signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. Soon both boats were so full that they began to sink. And it began to dawn on Simon Peter that this carpenter from Nazareth was more than just a man. He fell at Jesus' knees and said, "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!" How you act in the presence of a queen is one thing. How you act in the presence of God is quite another. Suppose God appeared to us in this hour in this place. How would you react? SOME FOLKS PROBABLY WOULDN'T KNOW HOW TO BEHAVE IN THE PRESENCE OF GOD. They haven't had that much experience. King Duncan, editor of DYNAMIC PREACHING, had an experience that brought this truth home to him in a memorable way. Let him tell it in his own words: "I was getting dressed one Sunday morning to speak at old First Church--a high-steeple church with a rich history. The radio was on. The early morning service from a fast growing Pentecostal church was being broadcast. I knew the pastor. He is not a great preacher--a little too emotional for my liking. But he knows how to reach people no one else can reach. "As I straightened my tie, I heard him say, `Before we begin this morning, I want to say a couple of things to you. First of all, I want to say that there is far too much moving around in the service while I am preaching. It's distracting.' I thought that was a rather amusing thing for him to say on radio. Then he added, `And another thing. I would appreciate it if you would wait till after the service is over to go out to the restroom.' I thought to myself, `Is he really saying this on radio?' Then to make matters worse he added, `I have to wait till the service is over to go to the restroom and so can you!' I let out a hearty laugh. That's not the sort of thing most of us would broadcast as part of a worship service. Smugly I finished tying my tie and laughed inwardly about this unsophisticated messenger of the Gospel. "Then the voice of God spoke to my heart. `King,' God said, `the reason that pastor has to tell his people how to behave in church is that a year ago many of them were not in a church. Some of them were having serious problems with alcohol and drugs. Some of them were going through painful divorces. A few were even in jail. That's why they don't know how to act in church. They haven't been in church very long.' Then God said, `Don't worry, King, you won't have that difficulty at old First Church.'" And I thought to myself, `God help us, we won't. Everybody at old First church will know how to behave in church.' And I couldn't help thinking that might be the most tragic thing that can be said about any congregation.'" Some people may not know how to behave in the presence of God because they have not had much experience with God. BUT THERE IS ANOTHER REASON WHY SOME OF US MAY NOT MAINTAIN A PROPER DECORUM IN GOD'S PRESENCE. IT HAS TO DO WITH THE PICTURE JESUS GAVE US OF GOD. Once there was a church in Holland which felt strictly bound to obey God's commandment to keep the Sabbath holy. On a certain Sunday the area was threatened by wind and waves. If the dikes were not strengthened, the people would not survive. The police notified the pastor of the danger. He was faced with the decision of whether to call off the services and urge his people to work on the dikes. Unable to make the decision, he called a meeting of his church council. They concluded that God, being omnipotent, can always perform a miracle with the wind and waves. Their duty was to keep the commandment not to work on the Sabbath. The pastor tried one last argument: Did not Jesus himself break the commandment and declare that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath? Then an old man stood up and said, "I have always been troubled, Pastor, by something I have never ventured to say publicly. Now I must say it. I have always had the feeling that our Lord Jesus was just a bit of a liberal." Jesus was a bit of a liberal--particularly when it comes to how we approach God. How can we maintain a proper distance from God--how can we maintain the stern, cold, stained-glass demeanor often associated with worship when Jesus teaches us to address God as "Daddy?" A young boy burst into the great throne chambers of a medieval king. The boy was skipping and singing as children do. He was completely oblivious to the regal sobriety of his surroundings. Suddenly, he was intercepted by an armored solider. "Have you no respect, lad?" hissed the soldier. "Don't you know that the man on the throne is your king?" The boy wriggled out of the soldier's grasp. Dancing away, he laughed and said, "He is your king but he is my father!" And the boy bounced up to the throne and leaped into the king's lap. Some people could never approach God with such freedom. They feel that religion must be painful if it is authentic. When anesthesia was first used to diminish the pains of childbirth in the late 1840s, churchmen (all males) objected. After all Eve was told, "in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children," as one of the punishments for eating the forbidden fruit. In 1853, however, Queen Victoria allowed herself to be chloroformed while giving birth to her seventh child, and all criticism stopped. None of the churchmen had the nerve to criticize the Queen. Some Christians have that attitude toward worship. They do not have the freedom of Jesus. Indeed, they see him as a bit of a liberal in how he approached God. He was also a bit of a liberal in the kind of people he brought into God's presence. Suppose Jesus filled the front row of our church this morning. Suppose he were the pew captain in a fill-the-pew campaign. Can't you just see what we might be in for? There next to the aisle sits a man with a serene expression on his face. Rumor has it that just a few months ago he was running naked among the stones at the town cemetery, cutting himself with rocks and screaming at passersby. Next to him sits a man named Bartimaeus. He's a nice enough fellow, but I wish he wouldn't get quite so carried away with the hymns. Particularly when we're singing "Amazing Grace" and he comes to that part about "I once was blind, but now I see..." Really, that kind of emotional expression is out of place here. Next to Bartimaeus sits a woman. Her clothes are a little too gaudy. She could use some lessons in good taste. I don't mean to gossip, but I understand that sometime back she was caught in the very act of adultery. Jesus had to protect her from a mob. Really, she should know better than to show up here. And so the story goes. Some people don't know how to act in the presence of God. Jesus may be partly responsible for that. He was a bit liberal, you see. But there's one thing more to be said. MAYBE NONE OF US KNOW EXACTLY HOW TO ACT IN GOD'S PRESENCE. Maybe that's why worship does not affect us more. Imagine if we came into this room with the feeling that God really is in this place. There would be no yawns as we made our way through the service--no bored, glassy-eyed stares. Instead, we would react just like Isaiah and Simon Peter. FIRST, WE WOULD BE CONSCIOUS OF OUR SINFULNESS. Isaiah said, "Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips." Peter said, "Depart from me Lord, for I am a sinful man." Such a consciousness of our inadequacy is necessary for any real change to take place in our lives. Lillian Roth was a superb entertainer who drowned her career in a sea of booze. Her struggle with alcohol was told in a motion picture starring Susan Hayward titled I'LL CRY TOMORROW. Lillian Roth confessed that she was absolutely powerless in trying to overcome her problem with alcohol until she was finally able to utter three little words: "I need help!" In the presence of the Divine, Isaiah and Peter suddenly realized they were sinners and needed help. Such an acknowledgement is necessary if we are to be all God means for us to be. They also discovered something else. THEY DISCOVERED THEY HAD A MISSION. Isaiah heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And Isaiah said, "Here am I. Send me!" Peter heard Jesus say, "Don't be afraid; from now on you will catch men." If we truly felt ourselves in the presence of God this morning, we too would realize we have a mission. That mission would be to go out from this place to live the Jesus life--to reach out in love not only to those who are "our kind of people," but also to take Christ's love to folks who wouldn't know how to behave in our church. And now, the good news for the day. God is here. He is seeking to make Himself known to each of us. Do you not sense His presence? Are you not aware of your own inadequacy? Do you not feel a call to His service? In 1922 Max Flack of the Chicago Cubs and Cliff Heathcote of the St. Louis Cardinals were traded for each other. This is not unusual except that they were traded after the first game of a double-header between the two teams. During the second game both men played in different uniforms. I am asking you this morning, if you really sense God's presence in this place, to accept a change of uniforms. How do you act in the presence of a queen? Protocol says you do not hug her. How do you act in the presence of God? First, don't be afraid. He's your Daddy. Secondly, confess your need. Finally, heed His call. ---------------------------------------------- 1. Kasemannin, JESUS MEANS FREEDOM 2. Ron Lee Davis, COURAGE TO BEGIN AGAIN (Oregon: Harvest House Publishers, 1988). TOP> FEB392 WHAT ARE YOU SITTING ON? Jeremiah 17:5-10 Robert Fulghum tells about meeting a young American traveler in the airport in Hong Kong. She was tensely occupying a chair next to his. Her backpack bore the scars and dirt of some hard traveling. It bulged with mysterious souvenirs of seeing the world. When the tears began to drip from her chin, he imagined some lost love or the sorrow of giving up adventure for college classes. But then she began to sob--a veritable flood of tears. She was not quite ready to go home, she said. She had run out of money. She had spent two days waiting in the airport standby with little to eat and too much pride to beg. Her plane was about to go and she had lost her ticket. "She had been sitting in this one spot for three hours, sinking into the cold sea of despair like some torpedoed freighter." Fulghum and a nice older couple from Chicago, dried her tears. They offered to take her to lunch and to talk to the powers that be at the airlines about some remedy. She stood up to go with them, turned around to pick up her belongings. And SCREAMED. They thought something terrible had happened to her but no...it was her ticket. She found her ticket. She had been sitting on it for three hours. "Like a sinner saved from the very jaws of hell," writes Fulghum, "she laughed and cried and hugged us all and was suddenly gone. Off to catch a plane for home and what next. Leaving most of the passenger lounge deliriously limp from being part of her drama." (1) She had been sitting on her ticket the whole time. The story is told of a farmer and his wife in the dusty panhandle of Texas. They had eked out a meager living for 30 years. One day an impeccably dressed man driving a fancy car came to their door. He told the farmer that he had good reason to believe there was a reservoir of oil underneath his property. If the farmer would allow the gentleman the right to drill, perhaps the farmer would become a wealthy man. The farmer stated emphatically he didn't want anyone messing up his property and asked the gentleman to leave. The next year about the same time the gentleman returned with his nice clothes and another fancy car. The oilman pleaded with the farmer, and again the farmer said no. This same experience went on for the next eight years. During those eight years the farmer and his wife struggled to make ends meet. Nine years after the first visit from the oilman, the farmer came down with a disease that put him in the hospital. When the gentleman arrived to plead his case for oil, he spoke to the farmer's wife. Reluctantly, she gave permission to drill. Within a week huge oil rigs were beginning the process of drilling for oil. The first day nothing happened. The second day brought only disappointment and dust. But on the third day, right about noon, black bubbly liquid began to squirt up in the air. The oilman had found "black gold," and the farmer and his wife were instantly millionaires. They had been sitting on a reservoir of wealth while they struggled to make a living. (2) A century and a half ago there was a poor man out of work living in Hingham, Massachusetts. He lounged around the house until one day his wife told him to get out and work. He sat down on the shore of the bay, and whittled a soaked shingle into a wooden chain. His children that evening quarreled over it. He whittled a second one to keep peace. While he was whittling the second one a neighbor came in and said, "Why don't you whittle toys and sell them? You could make money at that." "Oh," he said, "I would not know what to make." "Why don't you ask your own children what to make?" He acted upon the hint, and the next morning when Mary came down the stairway, he asked, "What do you want for a toy?" She began to tell him she would like a doll's bed, a doll's washstand, a doll's carriage, and she went on with a list of things that would take him a lifetime to supply. So, consulting his own children, he took the firewood, for he had no money to buy lumber, and whittled. Soon those strong, unpainted Hingham toys became known all over the world. (3) I guess we could say this man had been sitting on his hands, for his hands were where his fortune lay. What is it you are sitting on? In this grand world of opportunity, do you have possibilities and potentials which are lying unused? Let's begin here. GOD'S WILL FOR HIS CHILDREN IS TO BE SUCCESSFUL. Now, someone is silently saying, "Hold on, pastor. Is this that prosperity Gospel I've been hearing so much about--where if you believe the right things and do the right things God is going to make you rich?" Not at all. Let's approach the question from the other side. Do you believe it is God's will for His children to live in squalor and poverty, ignorance and fear? Do you believe it is God's will for His children to live cold, bitter lives of defeat? None of us believe that. If that were true, why would Jeremiah have written, "Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord...."? Blessed means happy. It means contented, at peace with yourself. That is God's will for your life and mine. If we are not at peace with ourselves right now, it may be because we are sitting on some gift, some opportunity, some potential blessing to ourself and to the world. Admittedly, each of us would have our own definition of success. Some would say, if I raise my children to be responsible citizens, I will be a success. Others say, if I can write a piece of music, paint a picture, write a book, I will be a success. Others say, if I can just hold on till retirement, that's all the success I'll need. Each of us has our own dreams, our own definition of success. Unfortunately, statistics show that only 10 percent of us actually "succeed" at what we set out to accomplish. Another 10 percent accept defeat and turn to alcohol, drugs, and even suicide to deal with our despair. The other 80 percent simply "endure." It is not God's will that we should endure "lives of quiet desperation" as the poet expressed it. God's will is for life abundant. God's will is that we have dreams and that we achieve those dreams. This is not to say that sometimes our dreams do not have to be adjusted. They do. Ex-president Jimmy Carter dared to dream he could become president of the United States. He achieved that dream, but world events turned against him. Carter had to repair his dreams, and he did. He dedicated his time to helping the poor through Habitat for Humanity, building low-cost housing. He and Rosalyn teach Sunday School, and they have written six books since 1981. Rosalyn wrote, "If we have not achieved our early dreams, we must either find new ones or see what we can salvage from the old...There is clearly much left to be done, and whatever else we are going to do, we had better get on with it." (4) This brings us to the second thing to be said, GOD HAS PROVIDED US MEANS BY WHICH OUR DREAMS CAN BE ACHIEVED. God did not create us to wallow in despair and self-pity. I am always amazed at how many bright, talented, energetic people thwart their dreams by self-defeating attitudes. They are doomed not by forces on the outside but forces within. They see only their limitations, not their possibilities. Let me tell you about a couple who do not have many of the opportunities that many of us have. Intellectually they would probably be considered borderline retarded. Both are from less fortunate families financially. All they had in the world when they married was their love for each other and their faith in God. What kind of opportunities were available to such a couple? Would they become wards of the state? Not on your life. They heard about a church that was looking for a part-time janitor. The church paid $100.00 per week. They discovered that working hard and working together, they could do all the church required in one day. The pastor was most pleased with their work. They were dependable and had a great attitude. He was happy to write them a letter of recommendation. Soon they had four other small churches that they also cleaned one day a week. They now had an annual income of over $20,000, which at the time was quite a respectable sum of money. They were essentially their own bosses, they enjoyed one another's company and they took pride in doing their work to the best of their ability. They took the skills they had and applied them to the opportunities at hand. God has so constructed His world that there is a niche for everyone of us. That is why each of us has our own respective talents and abilities. But many of us are sitting on our opportunities. And this brings us to the last thing to be said. THE SECRET IS TRUST IN GOD. "Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord," writes Jeremiah, "whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream...." The crucial ingredient in achieving our dreams is confidence. Some people keep their dreams bottled up inside. They would make a difference. They would right wrongs, create beauty, make the world a better place to live. But something holds them back. That something is fear. As Erma Bombeck once wrote in one of her columns, "It takes a lot of courage to show your dream to someone else. They might laugh. They might not understand. Worse, they might take it out of the box and drop it and where would you get another one? Dreams are fragile, you know. Some people in desperation give up on dreams... "I understand the fears and apprehensions of the closet dreamers, but, oh, how I admire the Mother Teresas...the Samantha Smiths, the Christa McAuliffes, the Helen Kellers and, yes, the Sarahs who write poetry on the kitchen table at night. "Are they winners? Winning is not what they're all about...What is special about them is they're dreamers who put it on the line. They had the courage to admit that what they wanted was just beyond their reach, but if they wanted it badly enough...anything was possible. "They gambled. And for the risk, they were all rewarded with a legacy for others to follow...." Where do you get the courage to reach for your dreams? For many of us, it comes from our faith in God. We believe that it is God's will that we live successful lives, however we might define success. We believe He has given us everything we need to achieve our dreams. All we have to do is trust Him and venture out boldly to live the kind of lives He has called us to live. No more sitting on our tickets. No more sitting on our fortunes. No more sitting on our hands. We are "like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit." That can be a description of each of us. Following our dreams. Trusting in God to supply our needs. No longer bottling up our hopes and ambitions, but achieving all God has given us the opportunity to achieve. -------------------------------------------- 1. Robert Fulghum, IT WAS ON FIRE WHEN I LAY DOWN ON IT, (New York: Ivy Books, 1988). 2. Source unknown 3. Russell Conwell 4. Francis Littauer, DARE TO DREAM, (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1991). TOP> FEB492 THE SECRETS OF HIS SUCCESS Genesis 45:3-15 This morning we are beginning at the climax of one of the best known and best loved stories of the Bible and working our way backwards. Joseph is the second most powerful man in all of Egypt. In front of him stand the very brothers who sold him into slavery years before. They are terrified that a brother whom they treated so unjustly now has the power of life and death over them. But Joseph says to his brothers, "Come close to me." When they are gathered around him he says to them, "Don't be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me into slavery. It was to save lives that God sent me here. For two years now there has been famine in the land, with five more such years to follow. But God sent me here to preserve life. So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God." Joseph was surely one of the most successful men who ever lived. He rose from lowly slave to become the second most powerful man in the Egyptian empire. His story has inspired millions of people through the centuries. What made him such a stunning success? What did he have that you and I need today if we are to be successful as well? FIRST OF ALL, JOSEPH WAS A MAN OF CHARACTER. He had been his father's favorite. That will sometimes make a child hard to live with. One could tell by his new coat--a designer jacket of many colors--that he was his father's pet. No wonder his brothers resented him. The writer of Genesis tells us they "could not speak a kind word to him." The final straw was his telling them his strange dream of sheaves of wheat. In his dream his brothers' sheaves were bowing to his. "Do you really expect to rule over us?" they asked with bitterness. And they plotted how they might rid themselves of this arrogant dreamer. At first his brothers schemed to kill him, but finally they decided to sell him into slavery to some Midianite traders who were passing by. Then they took Joseph's colorful designer jacket, slaughtered a goat and dipped the jacket in the blood. They took the jacket back to their father and said, "We found this. Examine it to see whether it is Joseph's." The old man recognized it immediately. "Some ferocious animal has devoured him," he said. "Joseph has surely been torn to pieces." Then Jacob tore his own clothes, put on sackcloth and mourned. Meanwhile, the slave traders who had purchased Joseph sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh's officials, the captain of the guard. Potiphar recognized immediately that Joseph was someone who could be trusted. He put him in charge of everything he owned. Things went extremely well at first. However, in a scene that could have come from DALLAS, DYNASTY or DAYS OF OUR LIVES, Potiphar's wife, a wealthy lady with too much time on her hands, sought to lure Joseph to her bed. Joseph is described in Genesis, by the way, as "handsome and well-built." Joseph's response to her attempted seduction is indicative of the kind of person he was. "With me in charge," he told her, "my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care...My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?" (NIV) Joseph was a person of character. Joseph was a person who could be trusted with his master's possessions--even with his master's wife. How such people of character are needed today. Time after time we have seen the sorry spectacle of some of the most powerful and influential people in our land brought low over the issue of character. People today want to know, can he or she be trusted? We've seen too much shoddiness in this world. We want leaders who can say, "No." Certainly that is true in business. A study of the most successful leaders in corporate America found three universal characteristics: a high level of energy, a definite plan for personal success, and a high level of personal integrity. Indeed, integrity is one of the hottest words in business today. Companies want leaders as well as workers who can be trusted! Integrity is just another word for character. Joseph was a person of character. JOSEPH WAS ALSO A PERSON OF EXTRAORDINARY COMMITMENT. I say extraordinary because Joseph's life took so many strange twists and turns. Once he was sold into slavery--then into prison. Potiphar's wife became fixated with her desire to have Joseph. Day after day she badgered him to submit to her charms, but he refused. One day she actually grabbed his cloak. He turned and fled, leaving his cloak behind. The spurned wife of the rich man plotted her revenge. She accused him of attempted rape. Thus Joseph found himself in prison. Twice now at a young age he had been gravely wronged--first by his brothers, now by his master's wife. Any one of us would probably have let such adversity get to us. We would have asked in a whiny voice, "Why me?" Many of us would allow such injustices to affect our relationship with God. We would have found ample justification to stray from God's plan for our lives. But not Joseph. His character and his commitment to his God kept shining through even in prison. The warden of the prison was so impressed by him he placed him in charge of the entire prison. Like cream, no matter how hard you shook Joseph, he kept rising to the top. He was committed to doing right. He was committed to serving God. A recent article in SMITHSONIAN magazine describes the history of some of Russia's magnificent cathedrals and religious art. During the 1930s Joseph Stalin in his fanatical devotion to atheistic communism blew up and demolished some of the most beautiful, ancient houses of worship. Today Russia is seeking to save and repair reminders of that religious culture that Stalin and his cronies earlier tried to destroy. Ironically, some of the same officials who once helped bring down churches are now working to preserve them. However, some of them admit that they do what they do not out of conviction, but because tolerance for religion and preservation of the past are currently in vogue. The impression is that if the political winds were to change, many of those same officials could happily go back to the business of destroying what they are now salvaging.* Unfortunately, that same pattern is common to many of us. We obey God intermittently--just long enough to straighten out the last mess we created in our life. We pursue things that are wrong because we feel like doing so-- and all the time we know that we will later have to change course and pay the consequences. Many of us simply lack the conviction and determination, the commitment, to live lives that don't see-saw with popular opinion and our momentary desire. As a result, we invest a lifetime destroying and then rebuilding the same things over and over. Not Joseph. His commitment was steady. He was a person of character. He was a person of commitment. FINALLY, JOSEPH NEVER LOST CONFIDENCE IN THE GOODNESS OF GOD. Joseph's life kept taking strange twists and turns. In prison he became known as an interpreter of dreams. He even interpreted a dream for Pharaoh's cupbearer who was temporarily out of Pharaoh's favor. As Joseph predicted, however, the cupbearer was returned to his post. Two years later Pharaoh has a strange and disturbing dream. In the dream he is standing by the Nile, when out of the river there come up seven cows, sleek and fat, and they graze among the reeds. After them, seven other cows, ugly and gaunt, come up out of the Nile and stand beside the sleek and fat cows on the riverbank. The cows that are ugly and gaunt eat up the seven sleek, fat cows. Waking, Pharaoh wonders about the meaning of his dream. He falls asleep again and has a second dream. Seven heads of grain, healthy and good, are growing on a single stalk. After them, seven other heads of grain sprout--thin and scorched by the east wind. The thin heads of grain swallow up the seven healthy, full heads. Pharaoh knew that these dreams were important. He begins asking about an interpreter. His cupbearer remembers the young Hebrew who had so successfully interpreted dreams in prison. He recommends Joseph to Pharaoh. "God has revealed to Pharaoh what he is about to do," Joseph explains to the Pharaoh. "The seven good cows...and the seven good heads of grain are seven years...The seven lean, ugly cows that came up afterward are seven years, and so are the seven worthless heads of grain scorched by the east wind: They are seven years of famine...Seven years of great abundance are coming throughout the land of Egypt, but seven years of famine will follow them. Then all the abundance in Egypt will be forgotten, and the famine will ravage the land. The abundance in the land will not be remembered, because the famine that follows it will be so severe." Then Joseph recommends that Pharaoh appoint someone to be in charge of food stocks to prepare for the coming famine. Pharaoh is no fool. He can tell in a moment that there is no one in his empire quite like this young Hebrew--a young man of such character, such commitment, such confidence in his God. He asks Joseph to take this important job. Indeed, he makes Joseph the second most-powerful man in all the empire. Now Joseph's brothers stand before him--the very ones who had sold him into slavery years before. They have been sent by their father to Egypt to buy food, for the famine has reached their land as well. There they stand, hat in hand, asking for assistance. The story here is too involved to tell in detail. It is a beautiful and moving story. Joseph creates some mischief for his brothers and tricks them into bringing his younger brother Benjamin down to meet him. Joseph is overcome with emotion at seeing his younger brother. He has to leave the room to compose himself. When he returns he decides the charade has gone on long enough. "I am Joseph your brother," he announces to them. "Don't be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. For two years now there has been famine in the land, and for the next five years there will not be plowing and reaping. But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God." After all he has been through, Joseph has not lost his confidence in the goodness of the Lord. "It was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you," he says to his brothers. "...It was not you who sent me here, but God." What more needs to be said? Here was an extraordinary man who made an enormous success of his life against all odds--from slave to second in command in the greatest empire of its time. What was his secret? It was not his intelligence or his talent or any special skills. It was his character, his commitment, his confidence in God. There are few stories in all of literature more important for our lives than this one. Why? Because following his example, we can live successful lives, too. It requires no special talents or gifts. Be a person who can be trusted. Be forever true to your values. Trust in the goodness of God. And no matter what twists or turns your life may take, I can assure you that when the final record is written of your life, yours too will be a life of success. ------------------------------------------ * James H. Billington, "Keeping the Faith in the USSR after a Thousand Years," SMITHSONIAN (April, 1989), pp. 131-142. TOP> FEBBONUS VISIONING OR VANISHING? Proverbs 29:18; Habakkuk 2:1-4; Matthew 25:14-30</a> by Reverend Eric S. Ritz Off the coast of Maine lies an island so small that the surrounding ocean can be seen from any point on the island. A visitor had the impulse to start a Sunday school class on the island, so he gathered the children around him for their first lesson. "How many of you," he asked, "have ever seen the Atlantic Ocean?" To his surprise, not a single hand went up. There is such a thing as being so much a part of one's environment that we're simply not aware of it. It's the old story of not seeing the forest for the trees. Father John Colbein said we don't know for sure who discovered water, but we're pretty sure it wasn't the fish. Those Sunday school children saw the water--they just didn't know it was the Atlantic Ocean. If they'd had a chance to sail on it or fly across it, they would have a deepened appreciation for it. And so with all of us. Whatever our present vision is, it's limited and needs extension. (1) The scriptures say that where there is no vision, the people perish. That old proverb is as true this morning, as it was when it was written many years ago for the covenant community of Israel. Our visions shape us. Our visions control us. Our visions are determining factors in who and what we become. Our vision of how we want to look determines the clothing we buy, the barber to whom we go and the accessories that we wear. Our vision of what it means to be a parent or a mate or a friend largely determines the relationship that we will have with other people. Our vision of what is a family is a determining factor of what our families become. Our vision of what is marriage is a determining factor in what our marriages become. Likewise, visions shape the nations, movements, institutions and the church of Jesus Christ. Our visions or lack of "vision" determines our interests, our directions, our finances, and affects the totality of the human experience. No part is left untouched by its influence. Unless a church has a shared VISION, in due time, it will be forced to close it doors and cease to exist. A sad thought indeed. Those first Christians were always moved by and with a VISION from God. Christianity emerged because a few devout people were converted from "dead living" to a God-centered and empowered VISION to claim some territory for the King of Kings. Zig Ziglar puts it succinctly: "One person with CONVICTION is worth more than one hundred with only an interest." As John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, once declared, "Give me a hundred men who love nothing but God and hate nothing but sin, and I will shake the whole world for Christ." We must employ the process of "visioning," or mainline Protestantism of which our church is an integral part will continue its vanishing act and become like the dinosaurs of old. In 1968, the United Methodist Church numbered 13 million members. Today it is now under 9 million and still shrinking. Sad to say, many other denominations have experienced the same downward trend. We can no longer live in the past or live off its memories. We can no longer blame our problems on others that God has called to address those problems. We must focus on God's power and purpose for the church. We must now FOCUS on the vision God is calling us to claim, rather than complaining about the lack of one for the past twenty years. Anybody can curse the darkness, but people of faith light candles to defy the darkness. Charles Dickens, in his classic book A TALE OF TWO CITIES, perhaps describes best the paradox that the Church is facing when he wrote, "It was the BEST of times, it was the WORST of times." I deeply encourage us to CLAIM THE VISION, in order that we keep our perspectives balanced, focused. Let me share the spirit of the lesson from the prophet Habakkuk as it pertains to us. If there is no VISION for the campus, there will be no ministry at hundreds of Universities which is a "field white unto harvest". If there is no VISION for ethnic persons, our ministry will be limited to white anglo-saxon protestants, and that would be tragic and also sinful. If there is no VISION for the hungry, homeless, and hopeless, our church and ministry will be limited to those who are filled, and we become a worship club, not the body of Christ at work in the world. If there is no VISION for the single person, our ministry will only help the traditional family. If there is no VISION for divorced persons, our ministry will only serve the married population. If there is no VISION for justice, there will only be cries of anguish and powerlessness to transform injustice in our area. We have the greatest platform for social justice in the world. If there is no VISION for faith development and dynamic discipleship, then the JOY of growing and moving forward in the faith will never be experienced. If there is no VISION for world evangelism, then the church becomes a museum rather than a launching pad to reach the lost and unsaved for Christ. If we believe that in the shining face of Jesus Christ we have our truth about God, the truth about the world, the truth about ourselves, then we must share him. Quite frankly, our present vision is limited and needs extension. It always is unless we focus on the Cross and its horizontal and vertical dimensions. There was a time when the center of Christian evangelism and missions was Jerusalem. Is there anyone today who would argue that Jerusalem is the center of Christian evangelism and missions? There was a time when the center of Christian evangelism and missions was in Syria and Turkey and in such cities as Ephesus and Antioch. Is there anyone today who would argue that the center of Christian evangelism and missions is in Syria and Turkey? There was a time when the center of Christian evangelism and missions was in Rome. How many will argue today that that is true? There was a time when the center of Christian evangelism and missions was Europe. Would you want to argue that one? There was a time when the center of Christian evangelism and missions was the United States of America. How many will honestly argue that today? They might want to look at other places such as Korea and the Third World. The message is clear. If you don't use it, you will lose it. God is going to find someone who will. IF YOU DON'T USE IT, YOU LOSE IT. (2) You have a strong right arm, but for some reason unexplainable to anyone you tie that arm to your side for five years. What will happen when you untie the arm after five years? You won't be lifting anything for a while! The same is true with the Church. If we don't use our VISION, we as a church will have a weakened capacity for love, warmth, compassion, kindness, goodness and encouragement towards others. When it comes to Evangelism perhaps the Bo Jackson motto is most succinct. Just do it! Use it or lose it! The author John Naisbitt ends his best selling book MEGATRENDS with this optimistic statement: "My God, what a fantastic time to be alive." I am thankful that our denomination has sought to be a headlight and thermostat in some of the major social issues of our time rather than a tail-light and thermometer. Evangelism and social action are the two sides of a whole Gospel. Without vision--we will lose both. A CHURCH THAT HAS A VISION OR SEEKS TO BE CLAIMED BY A VISION, WILL NOT ASK FOR TASKS EQUAL TO ITS POWER, BUT FOR POWER EQUAL TO ITS TASKS. What a difference in attitude and position these two ideas represent! Mark Twain would say that it is "the difference between lighting and a lightening bug." We must not ask for tasks equal to our power but for power EQUAL TO THE TASKS THAT CHRIST ASSIGNS US. John Wesley's fear was not that the people called Methodists would cease to exist, but that they would have the "form of religion - without the POWER of the HOLY SPIRIT. I am hoping and praying that churches all across the world will overcome the timidity, tentativeness, and misuse of religion so prevalent at this time. In World War I a French General was asked, "Which side will win?" His reply is worth remembering: "The side that advances." (3) George Lyon of Scotland was 68 when he finally proposed to Catherine MacDonald, age 60. They had been dating 44 years. When asked why George waited so long, Catherine replied, "He is a bit shy, you know." (4) Herb Miller, in his book FISHING ON THE ASPHALT, shares that the average church member has listened to 6,000 sermons, heard 8,000 prayers, sung 20,000 hymns over and over, and asked ZERO persons to accept Christ as personal Lord and Saviour. (5) G. Campbell Morgan states: "I believe one of the reasons for the condition of the church is the aloofness of Christians from sinning men and women. We still build our sanctuaries, set up our standards, make our arrangements, and say to the sinning ones, `If you come to us, we will help you!' But the way of the Lord is to go and sit where they sit, without looking down on them. We may run great risks if we will dare to do it, because someone will say that we are consorting with sinning men and that we are in moral and spiritual peril. I am afraid, however, that the church is not often criticized for this." He further shares that a doctor takes personal risks when he tends the sick. But they need his help. You have what the world needs--the good news of sin forgiven. But it's good news to those outside the church only if they hear and accept it. It's the cure only if they know they are terminally ill. House calls may be a thing of the past for family doctors. But in God's program they are never out of date. Make one, and you'll find out why! Consider what your life would be like if Jesus had not come and you could not know Him. Then ask God to give you boldness and opportunity to seek out those who do not know Him. Thank God in advance that He will give you the courage to face criticism that might come your way. The limitations of the Christian Church are not a lack of talent or brain- power. In spite of the financial recession we are currently in, it is not money. It is not lack of ability--but availability. We are not putting ourselves at God's disposal. What hampers and keeps the church from being the church that Jesus Christ is calling it to be, is a lack of a bold and courageous vision--the kind of a dream that Christ wants us to dream in this place. Just like those children who lived on the island off the coast of Maine, being surrounded by water in every direction, we also often miss the VISIONS that are often right in front of our eyes if we would only take the time to really look. We not only need sight, but insight which only the Holy Spirit can impart to us to claim the "Vision" God wants us to claim. One of the wonderful Lincoln stories concerns an incident that took place in his White House years during the Civil War. He didn't go to church regularly on Sunday because his presence was rather disruptive, but he often went to the Wednesday night service at the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church. He usually sat in the pastor's study with the door open so that he could hear the service in relative seclusion. On one such night, he brought a White House aide with him. Walking back home, the aide asked the president how he liked the sermon. "I thought it was well-thought through, powerfully delivered and very eloquent," was Lincoln's reply. "Oh," continued the aide, "you thought it was a great sermon." "No," the president said, "it failed. It failed because Dr. Gurley did not ask us to do something great." (6) As John Naisbitt declares: MY GOD, WHAT A FANTASTIC TIME TO BE ALIVE. What a fantastic time it is to be used by God for something GREAT. Amen and Amen. -------------------------------------------------------- 1. Robert Holmes of Helena, Montana, in "Catch The Spirit" booklet published by the United Methodist Committee on Communications. 2. Thanks to Gary Carver of Chattanooga, TN, for this illustration (this is my adaption of it.) 3. Herb Miller, FISHING ON THE ASPHALT, (St. Louis: CBP Press, 1987), pg. 49. 4. IBID, pg. 158. 5. IBID, pg. 158. 6. Thanks to Bill Schwein for this story. TOP> MAR192 FLIES ON THE CEILING OF THE SISTINE CHAPEL  â€¢ OU Top â € ¢ AC  JFB  JFB Alt.  SRB Luke 9:28-36 Dr. Paul Pearsall and his wife were attending a meeting in Rome, Italy. Their first stop was a tour of Vatican City. Michelangelo's work in the Sistine Chapel had just been renovated. Dr. Pearsall and his wife waited for hours in line for a glimpse of this remarkable feat. At a distance the paintings did not look all that impressive. People chattered and joked about a paint-by-number replica of Michelangelo's work for their own ceilings. When they drew closer, however, they were overwhelmed. The paintings seemed to engulf them. Everyone became quiet. Necks ached with the effort to keep looking up. Now they were seeing the paintings as Michelangelo intended for them to be seen. The impact was unforgettable. Then Dr. Pearsall noticed a fly crawling across the paintings. He thought, "What a shame. That fly is right up there where I would love to be. He's right on top of it...but he just can't see it." Then Dr. Pearsall remembered reading the words of philosopher William Irwin Thompson: "We are like flies crawling across the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. We cannot see what angels and gods lie underneath the threshold of our perceptions...." (1) Flies on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Our lesson from Luke's gospel is like a series of magnificent paintings. The setting for each of the paintings is a mountaintop. In the first, we see Jesus and his inner circle of disciples-- Peter, James and John. Jesus is praying. The disciples are sleeping. In the second, we see the result of Jesus' prayer. The appearance of his face is changed, and his clothes are as bright as a flash of lightning. Two men, Moses and Elijah, appear with him. Peter and his companions, once asleep, are now fully awake. Peter is saying to Christ, "Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters--one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah." Luke tells us that poor Peter does not know what he was saying. In the third painting a cloud has appeared and enveloped these men. The disciples, hidden by the cloud, are afraid. A voice is coming from the cloud, saying, "This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him." In the final painting the voice is now silent, the cloud is gone and so are Moses and Elijah. Jesus and his three disciples are alone once more. But there is a strange and mysterious look on the disciples' faces. Luke tells us that they "kept this to themselves, and told no one at that time what they had seen." How shall we deal with these four memorable paintings from the Mount of the Transfiguration? Shall we but peruse them briefly and marvel at the hand of the artist--then move on to other notable paintings with no thought to what the artist is trying to say? Worse, shall we be like flies on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel who see such works of art as momentary resting places, but have no powers to discern their ultimate worth? Or shall we look for some deeper meaning--some relevant truth about our lives and about our destinies? Actually, the entire essence of Christian faith is wrapped up in these four paintings. They speak to the very heart of everything we believe about life, about God and about our reason for being. Let me sum up what these paintings say to us. FIRST OF ALL, THEY SAY THAT THERE IS MORE TO REALITY THAN WHAT WE CAN HEAR, SEE, TOUCH, TASTE OR SMELL. This experience on the Mount of Transfiguration was no ordinary mountaintop experience. It was not simply a matter of Peter, James and John being moved by the beauty of creation as we sometimes are on a church retreat. Oh, we cherish such experiences to be sure. In the German classic, FAUST, the writer Goethe describes a pact that Dr. Faust makes with the devil. The pact allows Faust to satisfy his every human want and desire except one. Never, never under any circumstances, is he ever to stop and say to the passing moment, "Wait, you are so beautiful!" This world is so beautiful--so intricate--so perfect. Scientists tell us that the slant of the earth, for example, tilted at an angle of 23 degrees, produces our seasons. If the earth had not been tilted exactly as it is, vapors from the oceans would move both north and south, piling up continents of ice. If the moon were only 50,000 miles away from earth, instead of 200,000 miles away, the tides might be so enormous that all continents would be submerged in water. If the crust of the earth had been only ten feet thicker, there would be no oxygen, and without it all animal life would die. (2) On and on the story goes. This world is mystical, magical, magnificent. It overwhelms our senses to contemplate the glory of creation. However, the Mount of Transfiguration says to us that when we take the sum total of every beautiful and wonderful thing that we have ever experienced through our five senses--sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell--when we add up every good feeling we have ever had about friends, family, health and hope--when we include everything this world has to offer us for happiness, joy and peace--there is still more. There is a reality that our scientific instruments cannot measure, our best philosophical minds cannot fathom, our most sophisticated rockets cannot reach. It is the realm of the spiritual. It is the reality of the living God. There is more to reality than what our senses can detect. AND THERE IS MORE TO LIVING THAN DYING. What sad, meaningless lives most people in our secular world live. We can hear it in the rhetoric of debate that goes on about the great issues of our time. Never is the question raised about ultimate values, the will of God, or eternal consequences. Why? Because most people live with the expectation that life really does end at the grave. Our whole attitude toward death has undergone a radical change in this brave, new world. There was an interesting story in the newspapers recently. It was about mail that comes into the White House in Washington. Workers and volunteers there handle, on average, 50,000 to 60,000 pieces of mail a week. Even first-dog Millie gets mail. One of the volunteers does nothing but answer Millie's mail. Each reply is stamped with a paw print. Perhaps the strangest piece of mail, however, was one President Bush once received. It was a letter inviting him to the funeral of a man described as "a hard-working, patriotic American." The man, however, wasn't dead. His family explained that he was hooked to a life-support machine, and they could pull the plug any time to suit Bush's schedule. (3) Death on demand. Death with dignity. Code words in our time. For the Christian, however, there is a more pressing issue. Death has been defeated! There on the Mount of Transfiguration the disciples see Jesus and Moses and Elijah. How long had Moses and Elijah been dead? Five hundred years, a thousand? No matter. In the spiritual realm there is no measure of time. "God is the God of the living," Jesus proclaimed. There is more to living than dying. A beautiful story appeared in FOCUS ON THE FAMILY magazine. It was titled "A Letter For Luke." It was about an eleven-year- old young man named Landon who stood in front of his Mom one day and said, "I wish I could write a letter to Luke." The mother could see the tears her son was trying not to shed. Nine months before, Landon's friend Luke had died suddenly of a brain hemorrhage. Landon's grief was deep, unreachable. His mother longed to ease his pain, though she could do nothing except hold him as he wept. Maybe, she thought, writing a letter was a good idea. She handed Landon paper and colored pencils. "Tell Luke how much you miss him and how much you love him. Tell him you haven't forgotten him." Landon wrote the letter. A long one. The completed paper was a work of art. He wrote each line in a different color and carefully drew an elaborate border around the edge. It was a love letter...a message from earth to heaven. Landon folded the paper carefully, and together they asked God to give Luke its message. But that was not enough. "What I really want to do is tie my letter to a balloon," said Landon. "I know it can't really get to heaven, but..." He left the sentence unfinished. His mother drove him to the store. There, Landon chose a neon pink helium balloon to carry his letter. Then they drove up a steep butte at the edge of town. It was peaceful on top, offering an endless view of high desert and mountains. A gentle breeze was blowing, and when Landon released the balloon, it instantly danced away from his fingers. They watched it silently. Up, up, up. It climbed quickly as if it knew the importance of the mission. "I wish something would happen so I could know God got the letter," Landon said. His mother, too, wished something would happen, but her practical side spoke, assuring Landon God would give Luke the message regardless of what happened to the balloon. "I know, but I still wish I could see something..." Landon said. The sky was covered with thick, heavy clouds, and the balloon grew smaller and smaller as they watched. Then suddenly, just as the balloon was leaving their vision, an opening appeared in the clouds. The balloon sailed through. They stood there speechless. "Did you see that, Mom?" Landon whispered reverently. "God got my balloon." And as they drove back down the butte, his mother knew the message indeed had been delivered. She felt what Peter, James and John must have felt as the cloud enveloped them on the Mount of Transfiguration. There is more to life than our senses can detect. There is more to living than dying. (4) There is one thing more to be said from these paintings. THERE'S MORE TO CHRISTIAN COMMITMENT THAN GOING TO THE MOUNTAINTOP. There should be a fifth painting of the Transfiguration experience. It would show Jesus and these three disciples down from the mountain ministering to the needs of people. Peter suggests they build three booths and stay on the mountain, but he doesn't know what he is saying. Followers of Jesus who believe there is a spiritual realm and who believe that death has been defeated, are not given the luxury of twiddling their thumbs and idly reveling in those great truths. We are called to seek out the least and the lowest and minister to them in Jesus' name. Jay Adams tells about a friend who went as a missionary to New Guinea. After some years of service in what is called the Fly River region, he returned. He came to see Adams. Adams said, "Tell me what you found at your station in New Guinea." "Found!" said his friend. "I found something that looked more hopeless than if I had been sent into the jungle to a lot of tigers." "What do you mean?" asked Adams. "Why, those people were...utterly devoid of moral sense," said his friend. "They were worse than beasts. If a mother were carrying her little baby, and the baby began to cry, she would throw it into the ditch and let it die. If a man saw his father break his leg, he would leave him upon the roadside to die. They had no compassion whatever. They did not know what it meant." "Well, what did you do for people like that? Did you preach to them?" Adams asked. "Preach! No, I lived!" his friend replied. "Lived? How did you live?" Adams asked. "When I saw a forsaken baby crying," his friend answered, "I comforted it. When I saw a man with a broken leg, I mended it. When I saw people in distress, I took them in and pitied them. I took care of them. I lived that way. And those people began to come to me and say, `What does this mean? What are you doing this for?' Then I had my chance and I preached the Gospel." "Did you succeed?" Adams asked. "When I left," said his friend, "I left a church." (5) That's the test of every mountaintop experience, is it not? Does it motivate us to reach out to our neighbor? Does it motivate us to reach down to the least and the lowliest? There is no staying on the mountaintop for those who love Jesus. He always calls us to go down to the valley. How about you? How do you feel about these portraits that Luke has given us of Christ's transfiguration? Are you like the art critic who views them with cool detachment and moves on? Worse still, are you like a fly on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel with no awareness that there is anything great here? Or are you ready to leave the mountain and head toward the valley? ----------------------------------------------------- 1. Paul Pearsall, Ph.D., MAKING MIRACLES (New York: Prentice Hall Press, 1991.) 2. Brennan Manning, THE RAGAMUFFIN GOSPEL (Portland, OR: Multnomah 1990). 3. Associated Press, Frederick, MD. 4. Mayo Mathers, November, 1991 5. A CONSUMER'S GUIDE TO PREACHING (Wheaton, Illinois: Victor Books, 1991). TOP> MAR292 SEARCHING FOR A LOST GOD Romans 10:8-13 A woman had two little boys who were driving her to the edge of despair. They were into everything, non-stop. And they were mischievous as well. One day she decided to take them to her pastor. Maybe he could succeed where she had failed. The pastor wanted to see the older boy first. The younger one sat outside. The older boy was frightened. The minister looked so austere in his black robe each Sunday. What would he be like one-on-one? The minster, a kindly man, looked at the young fellow somberly, then asked, "Young man, where is God?" The boy had no idea what to say, so he sat in silence. The minister repeated the question, "Young man, where is God?" The boy still said nothing. The pastor thundered one last time, "Young man, I said, `Where is God?'" The boy jumped out of the chair, ran from the room, grabbed his little brother and raced from the church. He shouted, "Bobby, they've lost God and they're trying to pin it on us." We live in a world that has lost God, and we're not even sure where to pin the blame. Consider our treatment of the Christian Sabbath. Once there were laws that businesses could not open on Sunday. Those laws have long since been repealed. Then businesses began opening at one p.m., leaving time for their employees to worship if they so please. In many communities that option is no more. In most metropolitan areas stores are beginning to make no distinction between Sunday and the rest of the week. Check out television on Sunday morning. There was a time when most television stations carried at least a Sunday morning worship hour--at their own expense. The FCC required public service programming, and some of that was devoted to religious programming. But no more. In some communities you can see as many as 50 channels on Sunday morning on a cable system, but no Sunday morning worship service. Some of that we can credit to our friends the TV evangelists, but not all of it. God simply does not exist as far as most TV programmers are concerned. Check out the content of most television prime-time programs. If religion is ever mentioned at all, it is usually in derision. As when Bart Simpson--in a program aimed at millions of America's young--is asked to say grace and he says, "Dear God, we paid for all this stuff ourselves, so thanks for nothing." If you don't think that is the attitude of America's media moguls toward religious faith, you have your head buried in the sand. I know, we live in a pluralistic society. America is a free land. As good citizens of this land, we must respect the rights of those who do not serve the same God we serve. That is as it should be. But must God now be a stranger to this land? Someday we may learn, as did the rulers of the U.S.S.R., that when you kill off God, you also kill off a society's values. People cannot live by bread alone. It was not socialism that destroyed the Soviet Union. It was the absence of God. If it is true that we have lost God, how shall we find Him? More to the point, how shall we help our society and our world find God? IF GOD IS KNOWN IN OUR LAND IT WILL BE BECAUSE THERE ARE PERSONS WHO CONFESS WITH THEIR LIPS THAT JESUS IS LORD. If someone must be blamed for the loss of God in our society, it must not be the humanists, or the atheists or the media. The blame lies squarely on us. Somehow we are going to have to make it fashionable in Christian circles for people to be able to talk about religious things without embarrassment. Some of us nowadays have no difficulty talking about sex, politics or money, but we get tongue-tied when it comes to talking about our faith in Christ. We are like the Kallima butterflies. Kallima butterflies are often called "dead-leaf butterflies." The upper sides of their wings are brilliantly colored but the under sides are a drab grey-brown. While in flight, their color is very visible, able to be picked by friend or foe; but when the butterfly lands the colors disappear as it folds its wings, and it appears as a dead leaf. Many of us are brilliantly colored on Sunday mornings. People seeing us walking in the church door would deduce very quickly that we once made a commitment to Christ. But in the world outside these walls we have learned to fold up our wings and blend in with the rest of society. We are so successful at becoming as dead leaves that when Gallup takes his polls, he finds no appreciable difference between the average Christian and the rest of society. How sad. In World War II, one of the boldest and most dramatic decisions in all naval warfare was made by Admiral Marc Mitscher in the Battle of the Philippine Sea. Late in the afternoon of June 20, 1944, Mitscher had dispatched a late afternoon bombing mission against the fleeing Japanese fleet. It was pitch dark when the first of the flyers began returning to their carriers. But with the fleet under strict wartime blackout regulations and the pilots' fuel supplies running dangerously low, many of the flyers would never find their way back to their carriers. Admiral Mitscher took a calculated risk. He turned on the lights. One returning flyer described the scene as a "Hollywood premier, Chinese New Year's, and Fourth of July all rolled into one." For two hours the planes landed. Some 80 pilots, weary and out of gas, ditched in the sea but relatively few were lost. To a community where many still are in spiritual darkness, to a country and world where many likewise are still unaware or unconcerned about Christ's love and forgiveness, or consider it irrelevant or unnecessary, let us dedicate ourselves to "Turn on the lights"--the saving light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (1) If God is known in our land it will be because there are persons who confess with their lips that Jesus is Lord. IF THERE ARE PERSONS WHO CONFESS WITH THEIR LIPS THAT JESUS IS LORD, HOWEVER, IT MUST BE BECAUSE THEY FIRST BELIEVE WITH THEIR HEARTS. May I say this without sounding awfully judgmental? There are some Christians who profess Jesus with their lips but who would not know him if they bumped into him in the hallway after the service this morning! They no more have the Spirit of Christ in their heart than the man in the moon. And yet they are some of the most vocal advocates of the Christian faith. Most of you know what I am talking about. The German philosopher Nietzsche once said, "I will not believe in the Redeemer of Christians until they show me they are redeemed." We can appreciate his concern. What does it mean to "believe with your heart"? Is it not different than believing with your mind? Doesn't believing with your heart imply we have the same loving, the same accepting, the same non-condemning heart that Jesus had? Some of the worse bigots in this world call themselves Christians. Some of the phoniest, shabbiest, unethical people in this world claim to be soldiers of the cross. We ought not let them get away with that. For the world today will not be fooled. Our neighbors are looking for us to be genuine representatives of the mind and heart of Christ, and nothing else will do. Herb Miller tells about a trial that was beginning many years ago at the courthouse in a small county-seat town. When officials prepared to swear in the first witness, they could not find the old Bible they had used for years. A quick search of the courthouse revealed nothing. Finally, the judge called the bailiff forward and whispered in his ear. "Go down to the county clerk's office and get Ed," he said. Ed had been an elder in a local church longer than anyone could remember. He was a shining example of what the Christian faith is all about. In a few minutes, the bailiff approached the bench with Ed in tow. The judge said, "Ed, you have communicated more of the Bible to more people than most of the Bibles in this town. You will make a good substitute for the one we can't find." And so the first witness placed his hand on Ed's head, swore the oath, and the trial began. (2) "Lord, I want to be a Christian," says the old spiritual. That ought to be our prayer. "Lord, I want to be more loving...Lord, I want to be more holy...Lord, I want to be like Jesus...in my heart." Is that your prayer? You may know the story of Malcolm Muggeridge's conversion. At age 79, this British atheist found the Lord. Asked to explain his conversion, Muggeridge said he could resist all the great books and all the great sermons. But when he saw Mother Teresa in Calcutta with the poor, he said, "If this is it, I've got to have it!" That is the only kind of evangelism that will work in today's world. This brings us to the last thing to be said this morning. IT FOLLOWS AS NIGHT FOLLOWS DAY THAT IF WE TRULY BELIEVE WITH OUR HEARTS THAT JESUS IS LORD, WE WILL WANT EVERYONE ELSE TO BELIEVE, TOO. When you find something that brings pleasure into your life, you want to share it. A new place to eat, a neat place to buy clothes, an excellent movie. We share with our friends that which improves our lives. So it is with our faith. When we have the love, joy and peace of Christ residing in our heart, we want to share it. And that is how the Christian community continues to expand. Word-of-mouth. We can do all the advertising in the world, but research shows that two-thirds to three- fourths of all new church members in this country responded because a friend or family member invited them. In fast growing churches, the range is two-thirds to seven-eighths, and in very rapidly growing churches invitations from friends or family members account for more than 90 percent of new members. (3) What does that say about the life of our church? It says that the most urgent challenge we have is to make this church such a warm, joyous, loving place to be that each of us will go to friends and family members and say, "My church means so much to me. The people are so caring. The services are so joyful. I believe you would enjoy it, too. How about coming with me next Sunday?" When people are willing to profess with their lips what they have discovered in their hearts, their witness is irresistible. In Wauconda, Illinois, (population 6,500) they have placed two large illuminated crosses on the city water towers every Christmas for 43 years! Sometime back the council received a threat of legal suit on the grounds of separation of church and state, and grudgingly took them down. But the people of Wauconda, Illinois, took the matter in their own hands. They said to themselves, "We can put up whatever we want on our own property." So all over that little community, up went crosses and nativity stars and creches and lights. That little community had never dazzled like it dazzled that Christmas! You could see Wauconda, Illinois, from the Interstate Freeway! You could see Wauconda, Illinois, a hundred miles away. All night it was as bright as day in Wauconda, Illinois, because the people decided to turn on the lights. (4) That's what's needed in our community today. We need to turn on our lights. We need to profess with our lips the Lord who has brought so much love, peace and joy into our hearts. When we do that the whole world will be a better place to live--for the world will have found God. ----------------------------------------------------- 1. Les Messerschmidt, Emmanuel Lutheran Church, Hampton, VA. 2. Herb Miller, ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN VERBS (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989.) 3. (Schaller, September 3, 1975). --George G. Hunter, III, TO SPREAD THE POWER, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1987). 4. From a sermon by Norm Lawson. TOP> MAR392 WHERE IS YOUR CITIZENSHIP? Philippians 3:17-4:1 Mark Twain once categorized people into three groups: commonplace, remarkable, and lunatics. I don't know about you, but I can think of people who belong in all three groups. St. Paul, though, says there are only two kinds of people-- citizens of the world and citizens of heaven. And the contrasts between the two are stark. Here is how St. Paul describes citizens of the world. FIRST OF ALL, HE SAYS THEIR DESTINY IS DESTRUCTION. Recent wire reports carried the story of a motorist who stole $9 worth of gasoline and died in a fiery wreck while making his getaway. The speeding car exploded when it hit a tree. Police said the unidentified motorist had filled up at a gas station without paying. Station manager Gary Adams, 35, drove after him, honking, waving his arms and yelling as the cars raced through a residential area. After the crash, the driver struggled to pull himself out a window of the burning car. The station manager tried to rescue him. "He tried to pull him out. It got too hot. He gave up," said Corporal John McLain. "He died a very painful death for $9 of gas," said Vince Sullivan, a witness who tried to douse the flames with a fire extinguisher. How very, very sad. Rarely when we do wrong do we see what the end result can be. The Bible does not pull punches. The wages of sin is death. Comedienne Paula Poundstone says in one of her routines that the wages of sin are death, but by the time taxes are taken out, it's just sort of a tired feeling. We wish her little gag was accurate, but that is not the Biblical testimony. Paul says of the citizens of this world their destiny is destruction. HE ALSO SAYS THEIR GOD IS THEIR STOMACH. In other words, all their pleasures are pleasures of the flesh. They are captive to their physical drives. Not all slavery is involuntary. There was a story in the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC sometime back that illustrates that truth. A reporter in Peru found that many of the workers received unusual pay. The foreman would provide the workers with liquor and coca leaves (from which cocaine is produced) an agreed upon number of times a day. The workers then chewed the leaves and drank as they worked. Their foreman observed that, "They'd rather have coca than food." (1) That is a good picture of what St. Paul means when he speaks of those whose god is their stomach. What begins as a moral compromise to satisfy our desires usually ends by becoming a controlling urge. FINALLY, HE SAYS, THEIR GLORY IS IN THEIR SHAME. In other words, they live in active rebellion against the things of God. Have you ever known anyone who could not have fun unless he or she was doing something naughty? Have you ever known anyone who could not express their feelings without the use of an obscenity? Even worse, perhaps, are those who flaunt moral law with no consciousness of any wrongdoing. Last fall two stories jumped from the sports sections to the front pages of newspapers all over this land. One was the revelation from Magic Johnson that he is infected with the AIDS virus. Johnson indeed should have the sympathy of every one of us. He is a warm man with a tremendous personality who has given basketball fans many years of pleasure. We would not want to demean in any way the courage he showed in sharing his problem with the public. However, the only lesson he had to share with young people from his own tragedy is "practice safe sex." Later, after a rather strong public outcry he admitted that abstinence is the only sure preventive of AIDS. About the same time Magic was making his sad announcement, former basketball great Wilt Chamberlain was hawking his new book in which he boasts of 20,000 sexual conquests. Neither Magic or Chamberlain showed any awareness of the possibility that their whole approach to sex might be perverted. They showed no consciousness that perhaps the creator God has a different plan in mind for our sexual nature than a series of one-night stands. How much pain will it take for our society to acknowledge that the whole foundation of the so-called "Playboy philosophy" of sex is in fundamental error? Sex can only be recreational when it is relational. God intends sex as an expression of oneness between a man and a woman who have made a commitment before God and society that they will uphold and support one another until death do they part. This is not to devalue sex as a source of pleasure. Studies show, in contrast to the propaganda of the mass media, that married people are far more sexually active than unmarried people and that they derive more long-lasting satisfaction. Any other approach to sex is misguided. "Their destiny is destruction," says St. Paul, "their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things." That is one kind of lifestyle. Perhaps it is the predominant lifestyle in our society. But there is another. St. Paul continues: "But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body." Have you noticed how much emphasis our society is putting on the body? And why not? Our body is a gift from God. It should be taken care of. Our body is the vehicle by which our soul gets around. It is therefore holy. But an obsession with the body is one sign of a citizen of the world. TIME magazine recently devoted almost an entire issue to the state of California. Since Californians are notorious trendsetters, TIME wanted to find out what is hot in California and what is not. One of the "hots" they listed is an obsession with the body. Now it is men who are having silicone implants, according to this article. Men are undergoing the plastic surgeon's scalpel in order to have chiseled pectorals, firm derrieres, bulging calves and strong chins. (2) If it's happening in California, will it soon be happening in Kalamazoo? Such silliness will go on wherever there are people who are only citizens of the world. Citizens of heaven are much more fortunate, says St. Paul. They can look forward to the day when their imperfect bodies will be transformed by Christ into glorious new bodies. Wow! Muscle Beach, eat your heart out! There is an alternative lifestyle. That's what we need to see. It is a life of discipline and devotion. It is a life of faith and faithfulness. It is a life of conscience and commitment. Does that mean that citizens of heaven are superior to citizens of the world? No, for citizens of heaven hold dual citizenship. We are still of this world even while heaven is in our hearts. That means we still have feet of clay. We still stumble and sometimes fall. But at least WE HAVE THE ADVANTAGE OF KNOWING THAT THERE IS SOMETHING BETTER. Perhaps you saw the movie FIELD OF DREAMS. It is a beautiful story about a young farmer who hears a voice in his cornfield. The voice says to him, "If you build it, he will come." Build what? he wants to know. A ball park, he learns. Who will come? Shoeless Joe Jackson, the great star of the Chicago White Sox. So the farmer plows under his corn and builds a ball diamond. It seems like a foolish exercise. A cornfield is real. It is something you can touch, something you can enjoy here and now--but a ball field and a ball player long since gone from the scene? What an absurd dream. Sure enough, though, one day Shoeless Joe Jackson walks out of the cornfield and begins to play ball. So do seven other White Sox players, and then some old New York Giants. It is a tender story, and it probably sounds crazy if you haven't seen it, but it almost invariably gives people's spirits a life. "IF YOU WILL BUILD IT, HE WILL COME." (3) Christians are people who are both citizens of this world but also live in a world of dreams. We believe that someday he will come. As St. Paul puts it, "...our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ..." Thus we are able to resist the temptation to live our lives desperately seeking cheap thrills and momentary happiness. Our sights are set on something much bigger and exceedingly greater. We have the advantage of knowing there is something better. AND WE HAVE THE ASSURANCE OF KNOWING THAT THE ONE WHO CREATED US WILL TAKE US UNTO HIMSELF. That is the chief advantage of the person of faith. We know that the universe is ultimately friendly. We know that a life of discipline and devotion, of faith and faithfulness, of conscience and commitment, will one day be rewarded. And even though we are far from perfect people, we know that the One who created us will accept us just as we are and will take us unto Himself. It is somewhat like the story of a very wealthy young man who had all that a person could want--materially. However, he was born with a deformity which left him with a very ugly face. Because of this one flaw he would stay in his house and walk around in his garden, which was closed in by a high wall. However, in the evening he would leave his walled-in garden and walk down by the seashore. One night he heard beautiful music. He hid himself in the shadows, and there he saw a young girl playing a violin. Each night he would leave his house, walk down to the seashore and listen to the young lady play the beautiful music. However, because of his ugliness he would hide in the shadows, hoping not to be seen. Later, the young man told his servant, "Take this money and give it to the lady with the violin, in order that she may go to the best school of music in Europe and master the beautiful music." After years of study, she returned home and was taken to the house of the man who paid for her education. He was standing in his garden. The gate was opened for her and she came up behind him, threw her arms around his waist and cried, "I love you! I love you!" He said, "No, it's impossible for you to love me." All the more she cried, "I love you." The young man turned around and said, "How can you love me when you see much ugliness in my face?" She replied, "You see, sir, I'm blind." So it is with those of us who are citizens of heaven. We are not perfect people, but because of what Christ has done in our behalf, God, too, is blind to the ugliness of our sin. (4) Two kinds of people. Citizens of the world, citizens of heaven. You and I have a choice to make, don't we? D. L. Moody told a story about two men who, under the influence of liquor, found their way to the dock where their boat was tied. The two men wanted to return home, so they got in the boat and began to row. Though they rowed hard all night, they did not reach the other side of the bay. When the gray dawn of the morning broke, they were in exactly the same spot from which they started. They had neglected to loosen the mooring-line and raise the anchor! Mr. Moody used this story as an analogy of the way in which many people are thwarted in their striving for heaven because they are tied to this world. "Cut the cord! Cut the cord!" he would admonish. "Set yourself free from the clogging weight of earthly things, and you will be headed toward heaven." (5) Perhaps that is Christ's word to some of us this morning. Cut the cord! Get rid of any encumbrance that might slow your progress toward heaven. ----------------------------------------------------- 1. Peter J. White, "Coca--An Ancient Herb turns Deadly," NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC (January, 1989), p. 16. 2. TIME, November 18, 1991. 3. Thanks to Dr. Eric S. Ritz for this illustration. 4. Thanks to Ed Harper, Burlington, NC, for this illustration. 5. Stephen F. Olford. TOP> MAR492 RESISTING THE POWER OF TEMPTATION I Corinthians 10:1-13 A silly story has been going around about a young man who was hitchhiking through one of our Southern states. A farmer driving an old pickup truck stopped to give him a lift. As they rode along, they got to talking about the local moonshine whiskey. The young man said he didn't drink very much. Moonshine would probably be too strong for his tastes. "Nonsense!" said the farmer. "You gotta try some." He fished around behind him and finally produced a small jug. "Here," he said, handing the jar to the lad. "Take a drink!" "Oh, no thanks," said the young man. "I really don't think I care for any." "No, I insist," pressed the farmer. "Have some." "No, thanks--really," said the young man. The farmer wasn't going to take no for an answer. He stopped the truck and grabbed his shotgun from the rack in back. He pointed the gun at the lad and roared, "I said, take a drink!" "Okay! Okay!" said the young man. "I've changed my mind! I guess I will have some after all." The young man took a few swallows before he realized how powerful the stuff was. His throat muscles tightened, his eyes watered, and he made a choking sound. "What do you think of it?" asked the farmer. "Good, ain't it?" "Yeah," gasped the lad, "I guess so." Then the farmer handed the young man the shotgun and grinned. "Here! Now, you hold the gun on me and make me take a drink!" This morning we're going to talk about temptation. It's a topic relevant to everyone's life. If there is anything in this world that is universal, it is the power of the tempter to lure us into sin. And usually he doesn't have to put a gun to our head. St. Paul mentions only a few relevant temptations or sins in this chapter. These were the sins of the children of Israel in the Exodus. He begins with idolatry, pagan revelry, and sexual immorality. These sins are still with us. Every generation thinks its transgressions are new. They aren't. We keep making the same sad mistakes generation after generation. I like a little ditty Rudyard Kipling wrote years ago. It goes like this: The crafts that we call modern; The crimes that we call new; John Bunyan had them typed and filed In 1682. Actually, the Bible is as fresh today about the manifold temptations humans face as it was when its various books were first penned. Paul also lists a couple of temptations we might not have even thought of--testing the Lord, for example, and grumbling. OBVIOUSLY, THERE ARE MANY KINDS OF TEMPTATION. There was an article in USA TODAY recently about a woman's group that had been formed for the sole purpose of pressuring supermarkets to remove candy from their checkout lines. Some temptations are just too great! Bill Bright tells about a young couple named Jeff and Anne. Jeff and Anne were both employed, but they were in financial trouble. They had too many debts. They were tied and bound to credit cards. Credit cards were meant to be a convenience. For Jeff and Anne they were like demons. So, instead of buying, one fall day they decided to go window shopping. Unfortunately, they saw an alluring display of ski gear. It practically called out their names. It whispered in their ear, "You need me; you deserve me!" The sale sign said, "HUGE BARGAINS, HUGE DISCOUNTS!" The banners proclaimed "YOU CAN'T AFFORD TO PASS THIS UP." "Well," Jeff said to Anne, "let's just check it out." They did. The bargain still came to $1,500. All the usual thoughts went through their heads: "We really do need to treat ourselves once in a while...We can't ski as well with out-of-style gear!" And the deadliest thought of all, "We can put it on Visa!" But Jeff and Anne were trying to get their marriage off to a proper start. They knew they had some decisions to make. They were having trouble making the minimum payments on their many credit accounts--not to mention paying down the principal. They had quit giving to their church; they had no savings; they argued about the grocery money. Then Jeff looked at Anne, and they sat down and talked. They admitted the problems they were having because of their materialism and lack of self-control. They changed their minds. Jeff put his wallet back.* Each of us has our own area of weakness. But we are all vulnerable. OF COURSE, SOME OF US ARE MORE VULNERABLE THAN OTHERS. Some of us foul up our lives pretty badly because we cannot or do not resist the tempter. There was a recent news story from San Francisco about a police inspector named Lou Bronfield who has been fishing for burglars. Bronfield was assigned to investigate the theft of packages left in the hallways of office buildings for couriers to pick up after hours. He set up four dummy packages outside an office and attached fishing line to the bottom of each package. He then ran the lines under a door into another office where he waited. Almost 45 minutes later he got his first bite, a big jerk with the line zooming out. Running out the door, Bronfield caught "the big jerk," a young man, at an elevator door with one of the boxes tucked under his arm. Later the young man was booked for investigation of burglary. I don't know if this qualifies as entrapment or not. How far should police go to place temptation in the path of vulnerable people? Of course, some people don't need any encouragement. In Wildwood, Florida, sometime ago a backed-up septic tank at the northern terminus of the Florida Turnpike spelled serious trouble for three toll collectors. Repairmen found the backup was caused by a sea of toll tickets in the tank, indicating some of the collectors had been flushing the tickets down the toilet and putting the toll fees in their own pockets. Three collectors were charged with theft. Police said thousands of dollars were stolen, although they were not sure of the exact amount or whether other toll collectors were involved. Three women, all of Wildwood, were each charged with multiple counts of petty theft and official misconduct, a third-degree felony. Some people seem to be particularly vulnerable to temptation. All of us, though, have our weaknesses. And I do mean all of us. THE FACT THAT YOU AND I ARE FOLLOWERS OF JESUS DOES NOT EXEMPT US FROM SINS OF THE FLESH. The fact that we have been baptized does not mean that our earthly desires have ceased to exist. Florence Littauer is quoted as saying recently that no good Christian man or woman gets up in the morning, looks out the window, and says, "My, this is a lovely day! I guess I'll go out and commit adultery." Yet many do it anyway. Notice what Paul says about those followers of Moses who perished in the desert: "For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them...." Why was God not pleased with them? Because these were the same people who were idolaters, revelers, adulterers, testers and grumblers. We are all vulnerable--some more than others, perhaps, but we are all vulnerable--even the saintliest of us. That is why Paul's words in verse 10 are such good news: "No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it." That's good news. He will not let us be tempted beyond what we can bear, and He always will provide a way out. I'm particularly glad St. Paul said God would help us get out. Maybe you heard about the two mountain boys who spotted a bobcat up a tree and decided to have some fun. One said, "I'll shinny up that tree and chase him down, and you put him in a sack." The other agreed, and the first fellow climbed up the tree. When he reached the right limb, he started shaking and the cat came tumbling down. The other fellow grabbed the varmint by the back of the neck and tried to put him into a sack. There was a terrible commotion. Dust and fur and skin were flying in all directions. The fellow in the tree called down, "What's the matter, you need help catching one little ol' bobcat?" "No," replied his friend. "I don't need help catchin' him. I need help turnin' him a-loose." The problem with sin is that it is easy to get in but it's a terror sometimes to get back out. But think of this promise God revealed to St. Paul. God will not let us be tempted beyond what we can bear, and He always will provide a way out. What does that say to you? Here is what it says to me. If you and I give in to temptation and find ourselves bogged down in a terrible sin, it is because we have freely chosen to be there. If we do not want to be there, all we have to do is pray as Jesus taught us to pray, "Lead me not into temptation," and mean it, and God will honor that request and will not allow us to get sucked under by the riptide of our own desire. If temptation is tugging us under, it is probably because we went looking for it. Thus, we cannot excuse ourselves by saying pitifully, "I'm only human." We are all only human, but we also belong to Christ, and we have His promise that He will not let us be tempted beyond what we can bear but He always will provide a way out. You see, he knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows our strong points and our weak ones. It is like a pilot who was performing amazing feats for the people watching below. He was doing double and triple loops and other tricks. But when he landed, he broke a strut on his plane. He jumped in another plane and gunned the motor. A man seeing him do this shouted and waved for him to stop. The pilot ignored him and roared off into the sky. The man said, "That plane will never stand it." And, true enough, as the pilot was doing a sharp loop, a wing broke off and the plane crashed. Someone standing nearby asked the man, "How did you know?" "I built that plane," came the reply. God knows us better than we knows ourselves. And He loves us. He will not allow the tempter to destroy us without our consent. How about you? Are you willing to claim God's promise? Do you really want to be delivered from your sin--whatever that sin may be? Then it is done. I have the authority to say to you in His name, you are free. Go and sin no more. -------------------------- * Bill Bright, THE SECRET (San Bernandino, CA: Here's Life Publishers, Inc., 1989), pp. 111-112. TOP> MAR592 THE SEVEN YEAR SWITCH II Corinthians 5:16-21 I've got two pieces of good news for you this morning. First of all, did you realize that no one in this room is the same person they were seven years ago? Approximately every seven years, we are entirely new. Every cell, every atom, in our body dies and is replaced with new ones in that period of time. There is not one atom in your body today that was there seven years ago. Someone has called this the "seven-year switch." I don't know about you, but I find that quite refreshing. The process of dying and returning to life is going on in our bodies all the time. And yet our soul--our personality, who we really are deep within--remains the same. That is what the Easter story is all about, is it not? In a few weeks we will celebrate Christ's resurrection and our future resurrection. Suddenly that's not such a remote idea, after all. We already have some experience of how it works, for our bodies are dying every seven years and being restored to life, and yet our soul, our personality, who we really are, lives on. We are already experiencing a kind of immortality. So, that is the first piece of good news--every seven years we do the seven year switch. There is another bit of good news that is even more exciting. It is God's promise that our inner person, our soul, our personality, itself can be made new. And it needn't take seven years. It can happen today. St. Paul writes, "If anyone is in Christ he (or she) is a new creation...." So, if you are dissatisfied with your life in any way, hear this word of hope. Christ offers you the opportunity to make a new beginning! Here. Now. How does that new life in Christ begin? IT BEGINS WITH THE RECOGNITION OF WHO WE ARE. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a poem shortly before his execution by the Nazis. "Who am I?" he begins. Then he recounts the perceptions of others: "They tell me I bore the days of misfortune equably, smilingly, proudly..." But his following verses describe the person he knows within: "Restless and longing and sick," he describes himself, "...faint, and ready to say farewell to it all." "Am I one person today and tomorrow another?" Bonhoeffer closes, "Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others, and before myself a contemptible woebegone weakling? Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine." (1) We are faced with the same haunting question. Who am I, really? Some of us don't know. There was a prank they played in the old west. Owen Wister's character, the VIRGINIAN, was guilty of pulling this trick. He had ridden 118 miles to get to the Swintons' barbecue and dance. But Miss Woods, the schoolteacher, danced with the married men rather than with him. He was upset. He got even, though, by swapping the blankets on the dozen babies asleep in an adjoining room. You see, a dance such as this one attracted folks from miles around. They brought their children with them. Since the families had ridden or driven for long distances to get there, they weren't about to quit early and go home. A dance usually went on till all hours. After it was over the parents gathered up their sleeping children--guided by the familiar quilts and blankets they were wrapped in--and deposited the children in the wagons for the ride home. Far too often the kids woke up halfway home (or even later) to discover they were going home with the wrong set of parents! (2) Maybe you feel that way. Somewhere the blanket or the identification bracelet got switched and you went home to the wrong family. In a sense, that's true of us all. We are wrapped in the blanket of this world, but something tells us that we don't belong to this world. Deep in our heart there is an emptiness that cannot be filled by anything this world has to offer. Coach Tom Landry experienced that kind of emptiness. Football fans will remember Coach Landry as the unemotional coach who for years paced the sidelines of the Dallas Cowboys. Walt Garrison, former Dallas Cowboys running back, was once asked if Coach Tom Landry ever smiles. Garrison replied, "I don't know. I only played nine years." Tom Landry might not show it on the outside, but he knows about filling that emptiness. Before he came to know and trust Christ for his salvation, Landry thought he knew what religion and Christianity were all about. He recalls that he knew the Lord's Prayer and the Christmas story. He went to church, at least on occasion, and he was familiar with the fact that Christians were supposed to try to do what is right. Then one day, as a young assistant coach with the New York Giants, Landry was persuaded by a friend to attend a small group Bible study. It was there, by the working of the Holy Spirit through the Word of God, that Landry's eyes were opened and his heart was really changed. For the first time he saw that the central message of Christianity is not what we do for God, but WHAT GOD HAS DONE FOR US. (3) That emptiness in Tom Landry's life was filled. He became a new person in Christ. Have you experienced that kind of change in your life? Perhaps, as the motivational speaker says, we need to do a check- up from the neck up. Becoming a new person begins with a recognition of who we are. IT CONTINUES WITH THE ADMISSION THAT WE ARE HELPLESS TO SAVE OURSELVES. There are some areas of our life that we can improve on our own. We can go on a diet. We can begin exercising. We can discipline ourselves to read a book a week. There are areas of our life in which, with the right attitude and the proper dose of determination, we can make some significant changes. There is one area, though, in which we are helpless. It reminds me of a cartoon in which Broom Hilda, the little green witch, is standing on the edge of a cliff. Across the way, with a deep canyon separating them, Gaylord, the buzzard, is standing near the edge of another cliff. Gaylord yells to Broom Hilda, "Come over here with me!" Broom Hilda looks down at the canyon, then looks at Gaylord and replies, "I can't jump that far!" Gaylord says, "You're defeating yourself with negative thinking. I'm writing a book on the power of positive thought, in which I can prove you can do anything if you have the correct attitude!" Broom Hilda just stands there, eyes wide, taking all of this in. Gaylord continues, "Tell yourself you can do it--and do it!" Now Broom Hilda is really psyched-up. She says, "Okay--here I come!" She rears back, kicks up her leg and leaps. She goes down, down, down... Gaylord steps to the edge of the cliff and looks at Broom Hilda falling, becoming a mere dot in the canyon below. Then, as he turns to walk away, he says, "You know, I think I'll add a chapter on building up your leg muscles." (4) Positive thinking is great, but it does not change that most basic of all realities: When we are wrapped in the world's blanket we are cut off from God. There is an emptiness within that we ourselves are powerless to fill. We cannot think our way to God. We cannot work our way to God. We cannot climb up to where God dwells. We can do only one thing to fill that emptiness within--that is to accept what Christ already has done in our behalf. After a series of meetings had finished, the evangelist Billy Sunday was helping the workmen take down the tent. A young man who had been in the meeting the night before came up to Mr. Sunday and asked him earnestly, "What must I do to be saved?" Sunday said, "You're too late," and kept on working. "Don't say that," exclaimed the young man, "for I desire salvation; I would do anything or go anywhere to obtain it." "I can't help it," Sunday replied. "You're too late; for your salvation was completed many years ago by Jesus Christ, and it's a finished work. All you can do is simply accept it. You have done nothing and can do nothing to merit salvation. It is free to all who will receive it." New life in Christ begins with a recognition of who we are and what our situation is. We are cut off from God. We are helpless to fill the emptiness within by our own initiative. All we can do is to receive that which God freely gives--His grace. When we do that, it becomes possible for us to become a new person in Christ. But there is a final step. WE DO NOT TRULY BECOME NEW PERSONS IN CHRIST UNTIL WE, OURSELVES, BECOME AMBASSADORS OF RECONCILIATION. St. Paul says, "All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation...." (NIV) Want to know the test of whether your experience of Christ is real? Does it drive you farther from others or closer? Some people have what they call a conversion experience, but it causes them to look down on others and to avoid others--even to despise others. If our experience of Christ is real, exactly the opposite will occur. St. Paul says, "...from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer." When we become a new person in Christ, we see others in a new way. We see them as persons to whom God is reaching out as He once reached out to us. This time, however, He is reaching through us. It is like a fisherman who was in his boat off the coast of Alaska where the tides vary up to 25 feet. The tide was going out fast and he was too close to the shore. His boat got stuck on the rocky ocean bottom. It was rocking back and forth and would break apart shortly, destroying his whole livelihood. A fellow fisherman further out to sea saw his plight. Without hesitation, he drove his boat alongside the mired boat and threw lines to the other boat, lashing them together catamaran fashion so that both boats could ride out the low tide together without rocking back and forth. When high tide returned, they could both back off to safer, deeper water and go their way. (5) When we become new persons in Christ, we become more likely to throw out the line to someone in distress. We lash ourselves to them and ride out the storm with them that they might know that God is alive in the world. So, are you ready for a new life? You can wait for seven years while your body renews itself. Or you can begin right now by confessing your need, by saying "Yes" to the God who has already said "Yes" to you in Christ Jesus, and by opening yourself to be an ambassador of reconciliation to everyone you meet. ------------------------------------------- 1. Charles Colson, WHO SPEAKS FOR GOD? (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1985). 2. John O. West, COWBOY FOLK HUMOR (Little Rock: August House Publishers, 1990). 3. Thomas K. Reis, Apple Valley, MN. 4. Carl Mays, A STRATEGY FOR WINNING (New York: The Lincoln-Bradley Publishing Group, 1991). 5. Fred Buker, Director Pastoral Care, Ancora Psychiatric Hospital, Glassboro, NJ. TOP> BONUS92 Responding to the Roadblocks of Life Philippians 1:1-11; Galatians 6:9 Several years ago Frank Court told the story of a student at Iowa State University who took to selling magazine subscriptions for additional income. He determined that a likely customer might be the president of the University. The student was greeted at the door by the president's wife who was able to resist his sales pitch by saying that her husband already received more magazines than he could read. The student assured her that he understood and turned to leave. It was then the president's wife saw something she had not noticed before. The student was crippled. She felt bad that she had turned him down, and probably out of a twinge of guilt called out to him and said, "I did not know you were a cripple." The student responded that his being a cripple was a result of having polio when he was a child. The woman then said, "My, how being a cripple must color your life." The young man brightly responded, "It certainly does, but, thank God, I can choose the color!" Dr. Court said, "How indebted we are to those radiant individuals who bring a perspective of hope and life into a difficult situation...Such persons are not born that way but choose to become that way as they pick their attitudes." The colors we choose to paint the picture of our lives determine whether we will be a victim or victor. The colors we choose determine whether we will quit when the first roadblock and detour of life comes upon us, or whether we have the courage and commitment to go the extra mile and distance to reach our destination. What will grab our attention and help us focus our life's direction? Will it be energy and enthusiasm or will it be discouragement and disillusionment? Eugene Patterson, in his book A LONG OBEDIENCE IN THE SAME DIRECTION, shares a penetrating insight when he writes: "Our attention spans have been conditioned by thirty-second commercials. Our sense of reality has been flattened by thirty- page abridgments. "It is not difficult in such a world to get a person interested in the message of the Gospel; it is terrifically difficult to sustain the interest. Millions of people in our culture make decisions for Christ, but there is a dreadful attrition rate...In our kind of culture anything, even news about God, can be sold if it is packaged freshly; but when it loses its novelty, it goes on the garbage heap. There is a great market for religious experience in our world; there is little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue, little inclination to sign up for a long apprenticeship in what earlier generations of Christians called holiness." It seems that so many people start the journey with a great bolt of lightning which fades as quickly as the headlines in the morning newspaper. What happens to these fellow pilgrims on the road of life? What has happened is that they run head on into unexpected detours, dead-end alleys, and rugged roadblocks. They become disappointed, disillusioned, depressed, and defeated. They raise their hands in despair, turn around, and go home. They experienced hardships or were ridiculed or received unwarranted criticisms and attacks which turned their dreams into nightmares. Can you identify with any of these circumstances I have mentioned today? How have you allowed them to "color" your life? Now you find yourself in church, and in the silence of these few moments your soul cries out with anguish and hurt, "IS THERE ANY WORD FROM THE LORD TODAY FOR ME?" I am very glad that you asked that question! For our Bible is filled with pages of those faithful biblical characters who traveled the road of life before us and who also experienced broken dreams, crippling roadblocks, and major disappointments that seemed to have the tenacity of a junk-yard dog. Seated before me today and within the sound of my voice are those who have experienced the roadblocks of life. Real folks whose jobs have been terminated or they have been fired or released. These persons have families to feed and financial commitments to meet. Young people who feel an agonizing awkwardness as they face the challenge of being a teenager in the modern era--so much peer pressure and so few who really understand them or care to listen. Parents who have been called in for a special conference with the school guidance counselor and principal. Also, parents who have been called to pick up their children at the police station. The doctor's office calls and the yearly routine tests show results that are not the ones that you had planned for. The real estate agent calls and your home is not worth what you expected it to be. These are just a random sampling of some of the roadblocks that we face periodically that threaten our dreams and seemingly can provide the evidence to color our lives in the most negative ways. There is hope for our lives. Today I want to share with you the story of St. Paul, one of God's finest servants and role models who overcame broken dreams, difficult moments, and numerous roadblocks in life. Let me share with you today a reading from II Corinthians 11:24-28 which describes just a few of his difficult moments: "Five times I have received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I have been beaten with rods; once I was stoned. Three times I have been shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brethren; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure upon me of my anxiety for all the churches." I think you could safely say that Paul is certainly no stranger when it comes to life's roadblocks, detours, and dead- end alleys. The scripture lesson from Corinthians was not written from the Hilton Tower in Rome but from a dingy cell in a Roman jail. It might both shock and surprise you today that about one-third of the New Testament was written from various jail cells. JUST THINK ABOUT IT--JUST THINK ABOUT IT--how these various moments of great difficulty could have "colored" Paul's life in the most detrimental of ways. However, instead of quitting like many people do when life deals a harsh hand, Paul declares "I count it all joy." Paul writes further encouragement to all of us today when he shares in some of his other sacred writings the following words: "Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we shall reap if we do not grow weary." (Galatians 6:9) "Therefore...be steadfast, immovable...your toil is not in vain in the Lord." (I Corinthians 15:58) Yes, instead of complaining and moaning when life's roadblocks and detours force a change of plans, Paul never forgot the ultimate goal of his life, which was to preach and teach the saving Gospel of Christ Jesus. It is correctly said that the difference between a piece of coal and a diamond is pressure. The difference between an admirer of Jesus Christ and a faith-filled servant of Jesus Christ is how we handle the pressures of life and how we allow them to "to color" our lives. Christians are those who can cope with the changing circumstances of life because of the constant presence of the Lord Jesus Christ in our lives. Today, I want to share three points for your consideration on how to response to the roadblocks of life. FIRST OF ALL, KEEP THE DREAM ALIVE. I looked the word "dream" up in Webster's second college edition dictionary. One of the many meanings of the word "dream" is to have a "fond hope" or "aspiration", or to think of something noble in life, to be at all possible and desirable. Yes, dreams are hopes and ideas that inspire us and motivate us. Dreams can be the most powerful and pervasive force at work in our world. Dreams of freedom and religious liberties propel countless persons to move across oceans and unknown lands. As long as the dream was alive, so were the people who pursued them. Never underestimate the power of an idea. I don't believe you can explain the recent changes in our world without the power of dreams and the people who were claimed and shaped by them. How else can you explain how an unknown shipyard electrician in Poland could begin and sustain a movement of reformation in his native land--a movement they tried to crush and control but without success. You look at Lech Walesa and you see a dreamer. God takes a "nun" from the safe environment of a school teacher and uses her dreams and visions to be the leading spokesperson for the cause of the helpless, hopeless, and homeless persons in the world. Mother Teresa is a dreamer. Her dreams propelled her into the world to be salt and light and leaven for the Kingdom of God. Her dreams are what fuel the flames of her witness. For years we saw right before our eyes on television how they tried to beat down and even imprison the dreams of Lech Welesa. The Polish regime soon learned that you cannot imprison dreams behind locked doors and iron bars. If dreams are from God, they are too powerful "TO BE CAGED AND SHACKLED". What kind of ideas and dreams do you entertain in your very being today? How do these ideas and dreams move and inspire your activities today and in the future? How do these dreams and ideas measure up with God's dreams and visions for our world and for our shared life as a community of faith? What are your dreams and visions for our church family? Do you want us to be a Bible-believing, soul-winning, Gospel- preaching church in total surrender to the Lordship of Christ? The New Testament is filled with many different but authentic role models for our church's ministry in the name of Christ. The scriptures picture the church as the fellowship of the redeemed, also the beloved community, the body of Christ, the salt of the Earth, the light of the world, the leaven in the loaf, and the list could go on. What our church needs to do is to response to just ONE OF THESE BIBLICAL ROLE MODELS AND THEN ALLOW IT TO BE THE FOUNDATION OF ALL THAT WE DO. The creeds of the Church have always said we are to be "holy, apostolic and universal". As the dreams of our forefathers and foremothers propelled them across oceans and continents, how will we respond to the dreams and visions that God is placing upon our hearts to claim new territory for the King of kings? We are fortunate that we live in an area that is growing rather than declining. I believe that the fields are white unto harvest, as the scriptures proclaim. What God needs is a church that is willing like Abraham to get out of its comfortable existence and by faith go into a new territory that God is preparing. According to recent census statistics, thirty-seven percent of the population is unchurched and undiscipled. As a church, we need to respond to the cries of God's people when they ask, "IS THERE ANY WORD FROM THE LORD TODAY?" As God's people, we are always pilgrims on a journey to answer the call of God. Yes, God always offers a larger, greater,and grander dream and hope for the fellowship of the redeemed than the secular world will ever offer. God has promised that if we are faithful to His leading, He will guarantee a harvest in due time, even when the weeds grow side by side with the wheat. ALL WE NEED IS THE FAITH TO RESPOND. Yes, please keep on dreaming for our Church, even when you feel your dreams have been shattered or broken or temporarily put on hold by the roadblocks of life. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in a very powerful sermon titled "Shattered Dreams" shares how we are to deal with those times in our lives when we experience shattered dreams. He says our capacity to deal creatively with shattered dreams is ultimately determined by our faith in God. Genuine faith imbues us with the conviction that beyond time is a divine Spirit and beyond life is Life Eternal. However dismal and catastrophic may be the present circumstance, we know we are not alone, for God dwells with us in life's most confining and oppressive cells. And even if we die there without having received the earthly promise, He shall lead us down that mysterious road called death and at last to that indescribable city He has prepared for us. The Christian faith makes it possible for us nobly to accept that which cannot be changed, to meet disappointments and sorrow with an inner poise, and to absorb the most intense pain without abandoning our sense of hope, for we know, as Paul testified, in life or in death, in Spain or in Rome, that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose. My closing words for today are from Oscar Hammerstein and Richard Rogers who penned these famous words: "CLIMB EVERY MOUNTAIN, SEARCH HIGH AND LOW FOLLOW EVERY BY-WAY, EVERY PATH YOU KNOW CLIMB EVERY MOUNTAIN, FORD EVERY STREAM FOLLOW EVERY RAINBOW, TIL YOU FIND YOUR DREAM. Let us follow God's dreams for our church family. TOP> SERMONS FOR CHILDREN CSJAN192 Second Sunday after Christmas A GREAT AND WONDERFUL NEW YEAR Scripture: Ephesians 1:3-6, 15- 18 Object: A cordless phone that is plugged in at the church, the receiver of which can be "rung" from the transmitter. (PREPARATION: The impact of this children's message depends on some prior staging. A father of one of the children should be instructed to leave the sanctuary and ring the receiver shortly after the children's message begins. He will ask to speak to his son or daughter, and tell him that he loves him.) Boys and girls: Today I want to talk with you about this object I am holding in my hands. Who can tell me what it is? (A cordless telephone) (Ad lib until the phone rings.) (Embarrassed) I'm sorry; this is embarrassing. Excuse me a moment. (Into phone) Hello, we're in a church service right now. Could you please call back later? What's that? Oh, (To the child) it's for you (Johnny). (Allow for conversation.) Who was that, Johnny? (My father) What did he have to say? (He loves me) I know; I asked him to help me with the children's sermon this morning. God, our Father, is constantly trying to tell us He loves us, but He doesn't have to call us on the telephone. That's something we learn in these worship services. And each new day, as we see the sun come up and hear the birds sing, it's God's way of telling us once again that He loves us. As we begin this new year we are reminded once again of God's love. In our scripture lesson for the day St. Paul tells us that God has blessed us and He has chosen us to be His own people. That's the best message we could receive. It didn't come by telephone, but it is a message from God to each of us just the same. ------------- ------------------ TOP> CSJAN292 First Sunday after Epiphany A NEW LOOK FOR A NEW YEAR Scripture: Isaiah 61:1-4 Object: A mirror Boys and girls: I was reading in the newspapers recently about Dr. Bill Sanders of the Aardvark, etc., Veterinary Hospital in Dallas, Texas. Dr. Sanders provides an unusual medical service for pets. He performs cosmetic surgery on them. That is, he is a plastic surgeon for pets. If you don't like the way your pet looks, you can take it to Dr. Sanders and he will try to improve your pet's appearance. Personally, I think that's silly. Most of us like our pets just like they are. They are beautiful to us. Did you know that there are many people who look in a mirror and find they don't like the way they look? All of us have some part of our body we would change if we could, I imagine. Some of us would want smaller noses or smaller ears or longer legs or straight hair, or whatever. But you know what? To people who love us, we are beautiful just as we are. However, there is one thing we all can do that will improve our appearance. We can put a smile on our face. Everybody looks better when they are wearing a smile. God wants His children to wear a smile. We are all beautiful to Him, but He wants us to look beautiful to one another as well. And that means, put on a smile. ~~~~ TOP> CSJAN392 Second Sunday after Epiphany ABOUT MIRACLES Scripture: John 2:1-11 Object: An acorn Boys and girls: I have a miracle in this sack. How many of you would like to hold a miracle in your hands? (Pass around the acorn.) In this acorn is a mighty oak tree. How many of you have seen an oak tree? Many of you have seen one and not known it was an oak. Maybe you climbed an oak tree once upon a time. Oaks grow to enormous size. Some of them have branches that reach upward higher than our church. God puts an oak tree in every acorn. If we planted this acorn in the ground, gave it the warmth of the sun and the nourishment of rain, a great oak tree could grow up to produce millions of other acorns--all out of that one acorn. Each of those would also contain the beginnings of a mighty oak. To me, that is miraculous. Of course, the most magnificent miracle in the world is standing right here in front of me. It's each of you! Just a few years ago you did not even exist. Now here you are--beautiful, full of life, intelligent and loving and all the good things that make up a boy or a girl. The world is full of miracles. No wonder most of us find it so easy to believe in God. He's surrounded us with wonders of His love--whether it is an acorn like this one that will grow to be a mighty oak. Or whether it is a magnificent young person like you. We are surrounded by miracles. ~~~~ TOP> Third Sunday after Epiphany INSIDE OUT Scripture: Luke 4: 14-21 Object: A retractable pen, a stapler, a salt shaker with salt, and a pocket knife. Boys and girls: I have four objects here on the table, and there is something the same about all of them. Who can guess what it is? (Allow response. If the correct response is not given, and you feel comfortable doing so, ask the adults to answer.) That's a tough question, isn't it? Maybe we will ask some of the adults if they know what is similar about these four items. These items are alike, because they all have something inside them, and they all are not very useful until what's inside comes out. There's a lesson in that truth. Your Sunday School teacher studied his or her lesson and learned a Bible story to tell you. But that story is on the inside of her mind and doesn't do much good until she tells it--until what's on the inside comes outside. It's like that with God's love. When we trust in Jesus and follow him, God places his love inside us. But it isn't very useful until it comes outside, and we show that love to others by doing kind things for them, or by praying for them, or by telling them about Jesus' love for them. Some things aren't much good until what's on the inside comes outside. God's love is like that. ---------------- ---------- TOP> ~~~~ CSFEB192 Fourth Sunday after Epiphany THREE DEADLY WORDS Scripture: Jeremiah 1:4-10 Object: A dictionary Boys and girls: This is a very special book. What book is it? That's right, it is a dictionary. It contains the meaning of thousands of words. Some of these are big words (pick out a couple of long, unfamiliar words like "platitudinous" and "polysyllabic" and give their definitions). Some of these are little words like boy, girl, dog and cat. This morning in our message for the adults we are going to talk about three words that we ought never to use. I can't tell you right now what those three words are. That would spoil it for the adults. But there are some words that we should never use. Some of these are bad words, but others are words that we might use on ourselves or others that are hurtful--like "stupid" or "dumb." Of course, there are some words we should use more often like "love" and "thank you." You can usually tell a lot about a person by the kind of words they use. Because words come not only from the lips. They also come from the heart. From the heart of a person who loves Jesus will come only good words, loving words, words that build up, not tear down. So, it's good to own a dictionary. It's good to know the meaning of words. It's better to use words that show our love for Jesus. ~~~~ TOP> CSFEB292 Fifth Sunday after Epiphany HONORING ST. VALENTINE Object: A valentine for each of the children Boys and girls: In just a few days we will be celebrating Valentine's Day. I wanted to be the first one to give you a valentine this year. I give you this valentine with my love and the love of this church and the love of God. So this is a pretty special valentine. Did you know that Valentine's Day has its origin in our faith? There is an ancient legend about a man named St. Valentine. St. Valentine was a very religious man who lived in Rome about A.D. 200. In fact, he was a priest. This was a time when you could be thrown into jail for being a Christian and that's what happened to St. Valentine. He was thrown into jail by the Roman government. Eventually he was put to death. While in prison he came to love the jailer's daughter, who was blind. He prayed for her, according to this tradition, and she received her sight. On the night before his execution he sent her a note. It was signed simply, "From your Valentine." And that's where we got Valentine's Day. That's a beautiful story, isn't it? Every story is a beautiful story when it's built around love. And, of course, the most beautiful love story of all is that God so loved each one of us that He sent Jesus into the world to be our Savior. Jesus is God's valentine to each of us. Jesus was sent into the world because God loves each of us so much. ~~~~ TOP> CSFEB392 Sixth Sunday after Epiphany WHAT ARE YOU SITTING ON? Scripture: Jeremiah 17:5-10 Object: A pillow Boys and girls: This morning we are going to talk about people who pursue their dreams. Oh, I don't mean the kind of dreams that we have at night when we lay our head on a pillow like this one. Some of those dreams can be nightmares, can't they? Have any of you ever had a nightmare? Well, I'm not talking about those kind of dreams. I'm talking about daydreams--the dreaming we all do that someday we will be somebody special. For example, there was a little girl who daydreamed that one day she would fly. She grew up and became an actress who became most famous for her role as Peter Pan. Her name was Mary Martin and in the role of Peter Pan she had the opportunity to fly though the air. I know of another little girl who was five-years-old when her milkman told her that one day she would be Miss America. That dream got into her heart and one day Cheryl Prewitt Blackwood became Miss America, 1980. Our dreams are very important to us. It's very sad when a person gives up dreaming. However, there is one thing that is mistaken about daydreams. Remember this the next time you dream that someday you will be someone special: you already are very, very special. God has created you a beautiful person. You have a wonderful body and a wonderful brain. You have people who love you and think you are the greatest in the world. And you have the very love of God in your heart. So dream of doing special things some day. That's great. But know that you are already somebody special, and that's even greater. ~~~~ TOP> CSFEB492 Seventh Sunday after Epiphany THE SECRET OF HIS SUCCESS Scripture: Genesis 45:3-15 Object: A pair of ear rings Boys and girls: There was a very sad story in the news a few months back about a teenage girl who was murdered for a beautiful pair of gold ear rings she was wearing. You may have heard about young people getting beaten up at school for their Reeboks or their ball caps. There is a story in the Bible about a young man who was nearly killed by his brothers because of his robe of many colors. In fact his brothers did sell him to some slave traders. Does anybody remember his name? That's right, Joseph. Joseph's brothers was jealous of him and it caused them to do terrible things. Jealousy gets people into lots of trouble--whether it is jealousy of someone else's clothes or their grades or their athletic ability or whatever it may be. Jealousy means that we think somebody's better than we are. And there is only one cure for that. The only cure for jealousy is to know that each of us is somebody special. All of us are beautiful and gifted and special in God's eyes. We don't need to be jealous of anybody else. We've got everything we need because Jesus loves us everyone.Last Sunday after the Epiphany ~~~~~ TOP> CSMAR192 (Transfiguration Sunday) FLIES ON THE CEILING OF THE SISTINE CHAPEL Scripture: Luke 9:28-36 Object: Some moving boxes Boys and girls: I brought some boxes with me this morning. These are not just any boxes. These are moving boxes. These are for moving books, clothing and lamps and all the things we have to move when we go to a new location. Moving is not always fun to do, is it? It's hard to leave behind old friends. It's hard to begin a new school. Our Bible lesson today takes place on the Mount of Transfiguration. It was a wonderful, moving experience for the three disciples who went with Jesus. In fact, one of them suggested that they stay on the mountain, they were so happy there. They could just make that their permanent home. But Jesus would not let them stay there. There were people who needed their help. They needed to go back down to the valley. Sometimes we have to move too. Our parents get new jobs in other places,. Sometimes sickness or other problems in the family cause us to have to move. Sometimes we don't want to move either. But who goes with us when we have to move? Jesus does, doesn't he? He is with us just as much in a distant place as he is with us in our present home. That means that no matter where we move, we can find happiness. He can help us find new friends. He can help us make it in a new school. As long as he is with us, any move can be a good move. ~~~~ TOP> CSMAR292 First Sunday in Lent TURN ON THE LIGHTS! Scripture: Romans 10:8-13 Object: A Walkman stereo cassette player with headphones. Record on it the following words from Matthew 5:14-17: "You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." Boys and girls: Oh...Hello. I have something very special in my cassette player. Inside this tape player is a tape with the words of Jesus on it. I have never heard anything so powerful and helpful in my life. Just listening to them makes me feel good all over. Don't tell anybody what I'm doing because they might think that this is strange. Besides this tape is just for me. I don't need to share this with anybody. If they want to find out about Jesus, let them get their own tape and tape player. Right? Oh...wait a minute. Jesus is saying something really good. Let me unplug these ear phones so everyone can hear. (play tape) Oops. Maybe I'm wrong to keep this to myself. Jesus could be saying: "You are the Walkman of the world. A tape in a tape player cannot be hidden. Instead it must be shared so that all may hear the good news. In the same way let your voice speak before everyone so that they may hear you love and devotion and praise to your Father in heaven." I guess that means the headphones need to come off this tape player so that everyone can hear the good news that is inside. It really would be a shame if I was the only one hearing this good news. In fact our lesson from the Bible this morning is about telling others about Jesus. He wants us to share his love with everybody. TOP> CSMAR392 Second Sunday in Lent WHERE IS YOUR CITIZENSHIP? by Mrs. Tina Paris, Paris, Kentucky Scripture: Philippians 3:17-4:1 Object: A license plate Boys and girls: Who can tell me what this is? That's right; it's a license plate from a car. What is it used for? Well, it's used to identify the car and who it belongs to for police information. It also tells what state and the county the owner of the car lives in. It's just a small piece of metal placed on the outside of a car that tells a lot about the person inside it. Are there any Christians in this room this morning? Yes, there are, and how do we know they are Christians? First of all because they are at church shows that many are. You can tell some are because they are happy. You can tell some are because they are teaching you about Jesus this morning. Our lesson from the Bible this morning is about being citizens of heave. That's who are when we give our hearts to Jesus. But how can people know where our citizenship lies. John 13:35 says, "By this all men will know you are my disciples. If you love one another." Jesus here is telling us how very important it is to love. He also is telling us that is how others will be able to tell we are His disciples or Christians, by love. Just like the license plate tells a lot about the person in the car. How we love and love others will tell a lot about the one who lives within us. I hope and pray that Jesus and His love is what others see in you. ~~~~ TOP> CSMAR492 Third Sunday in Lent NO EXCUSES by Mrs. Tina Paris, Paris, Kentucky Scripture: I Corinthians 10:1-13 Object: An iron Boys and girls: What am I holding here in my hand? That's right, an iron. This iron is like temptation and sin. Most of you have an iron somewhere at home. The iron, if you see it from a distance you can't tell if it is on or not, can you? What do you need to do to find out if it is on? You need to get closer and closer to it, don't you? The closer you get, the warmer it becomes. At first the warmth might feel good, but then it starts to get hotter and hotter, doesn't it? And when it gets hot enough, what happens? That's right you get burned and that burn hurts for a long time even after you are away from the iron. Temptation is like that iron when you are at a distance. When you get closer to that temptation and if you give in to that temptation it becomes sin. Just like the iron when it is warm it feels good at first, but then it gets hotter and hotter and you end up getting hurt. In the same way sin always leads to hurt. Not a hurting on your skin like the iron gives you, but a hurting down in your soul. Even after you have stopped the sin the hurt stays with you for a long time just as a burn does. When you get a burn you put something cool on it to make it feel better. When you sin the only thing that will make it better is the forgiveness we have through Jesus. He can forgive us of our sins and with His help never give into temptation again. There is a Bible verse I'd like you to remember that will be helpful to you. I Corinthians 10:13. "No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. Boys and girls, God will help you say no to temptation. God loves you and will always be there for you. So, stay away from hot irons and temptation and stay close to God. ~~~~ TOP> CSMAR592 Fourth Sunday in Lent THE SEVEN YEAR SWITCH Based on an idea by Richard W. Kitz, St. Mark's Lutheran Church, Oaklyn, NJ Scripture: II Corinthians 5:16-21 Object: A Coke bottle Boys and girls: I brought with me something quite remarkable this morning. What is this? It looks like an ordinary coke bottle, doesn't it? Well it is. But it is still remarkable. Look what we can do with it. (Blow over the mouth of the bottle so it makes a musical sound.) Hear that? I'll bet that if we had enough bottles like this one we could b play a tune. Then it wouldn't be just a discarded drink bottle anymore, would it? It would be a musical instrument. The Bible tells us that everyone who is in Christ is a new creation. What does that mean? I like to think of it being like this coke bottle. The word for "Spirit" in the Bible is the same word as for wind. God breathes his spirit or his wind into us, and turns us into an instrument for His glory. Now, imagine that God is playing His tune through all of us. Our church, then, would become like a mighty orchestra, wouldn't it? Wow! Wouldn't that be great? We who may seem like ordinary cokes bottles can be instruments in the orchestra of God. ~~~~ TOP> Back to Sermon Index>

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