Tawa Baptist

A New Generation

Scripture: Luke 9:1-10

Title: A New Generation

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Jesus creates a new generation
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Over the past couple of weeks we have been working through a sermon series for the Tranzsend Self Denial campaign called Made New

–         Jesus came to make all things new and that newness begins with the initiative of the Holy Spirit

–         Last week we heard how Jesus gives us a new perspective

–         Today we conclude the Self Denial series by looking at how Jesus creates a new generation  

Please turn with me to Luke chapter 9, verse 1 – page 89 toward the back of your pew Bibles

–         In today’s reading we hear how Jesus empowers the new generation of his disciples to heal the sick and preach the gospel

–         From Luke 9, verses 1-10 we read…

Jesus called the twelve disciples together and gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases. 2 Then he sent them out to preach the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick, 3 after saying to them, “Take nothing with you for the trip: no walking stick, no beggar’s bag, no food, no money, not even an extra shirt. 4 Wherever you are welcomed, stay in the same house until you leave that town; 5 wherever people don’t welcome you, leave that town and shake the dust off your feet as a warning to them.” 6 The disciples left and traveled through all the villages, preaching the Good News and healing people everywhere.

7 When Herod, the ruler of Galilee, heard about all the things that were happening, he was very confused, because some people were saying that John the Baptist had come back to life. 8 Others were saying that Elijah had appeared, and still others that one of the prophets of long ago had come back to life. 9 Herod said, “I had John’s head cut off; but who is this man I hear these things about?” And he kept trying to see Jesus.

10 The apostles came back and told Jesus everything they had done. He took them with him, and they went off by themselves to a town named Bethsaida.

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate this reading for us

Jesus creates a new generation:

We are talking this morning about how Jesus creates a new generation, but what do we mean by the word generation

–         Well, as a verb (a doing word) generation means producing something or bringing something into being

–         As in generating power or producing a crop or getting a project underway

 

But as a noun (a naming word) generation refers to a group or cohort of people born about the same time

–         As in generation X or baby boomers or millennials

 

We see both senses of this word generation in our reading from Luke 9 this morning

–         By empowering the disciples and sending them out to heal & preach Jesus is generating something new, he is creating a new movement

–         Also the disciples represent a new generation of God’s people

–         Just as there were twelve tribes of Israel, so too there are twelve disciples representing a new generation of leadership

 

Jesus does a number of things to create this new generation

–         Firstly he calls the disciples – inviting them to leave their old lives and follow him, learn from him, become his apprentices

–         We read how Jesus called his first disciples in Luke 5

 

Then, once Jesus has called the new generation, he shows them what to do by his own example – Jesus gives the disciples a model of how to do ministry

–         When we think of education we might think of sitting in a class room but the disciples learned by being with Jesus 24-7

–         Prior to Luke 9 the disciples have been following Jesus around everywhere, looking & listening, soaking up his way of doing things

–         I call this the tea bag approach to learning – Jesus’ example is like a tea bag and the disciples are like the water

–         As the disciples spend time with Jesus his way of doing things is infused into them, like tea is infused into water

–         This kind of learning happens without us necessarily being aware of it

–         The next generation (the children in our midst) are having our example infused into them, so we need to be careful of the model we provide

 

In Luke 9 Jesus takes the next step in creating this new generation of leadership

–         At this point the disciples have a clear picture in their mind of what preaching & healing the Jesus’ way looks like but they haven’t actually done it themselves

–         They know it in their head but they don’t yet know it in their hands

 

Last Tuesday night 14 of us gathered in the church lounge to learn how to operate the defibrillator

–         Amy from the Wellington Free Ambulance explained some procedures to us and then demonstrated on a manikin what to do if someone has a cardiac arrest (if their heart stops)

–         After showing us by her example, Amy then got each of us to practice on a manikin as well

–         It’s one thing to watch someone demonstrate a certain technique

–         It’s quite another to actually do 100 chest compressions a minute for over 2 minutes – watching and doing are quite different

 

Having shown his disciples what to do Jesus then gives them the opportunity to have a go themselves

–         But before sending them out Jesus first sets them up to succeed by giving them power & authority over demons & disease

–         No point in taking a knife to a gun fight – I imagine Jesus wants his disciples to have some wins, to get some runs on the board, because that will help generate confidence

 

Power & authority aren’t exactly the same thing although they often go together

–         Power is the ability to do something while authority is the permission or license to do it

–         I might have the power to drive a bus because I have the key but I don’t have authority to drive unless I have a license

–         I might have the power to cut down a tree because I have a chainsaw but I don’t have authority to cut it down unless it’s on my property

–         Jesus deputises his disciples with both the ability to drive out demons & heal disease as well as the license to do it

 

Demons are a manifestation of spiritual evil (the minions of Satan if you like) and disease is a manifestation of physical evil

–         What we observe here is that Jesus has jurisdiction over both the spiritual realm and the physical realm – there is nothing beyond Jesus’ reach

 

We also observe that Jesus shares his power & authority with those he trusts

–         Jesus doesn’t do it all himself, he uses a team approach

–         At the defibrillator training the other night Amy underlined the importance of using a team approach

–         You don’t try to do everything yourself – you get someone to ring 111 while you do chest compressions and you line up one or two others to help you do the chest compressions like a tag team

–         Later in Luke’s gospel we read how Jesus sends out the 72 in pairs

–         By using a team approach Jesus creates a new culture of cooperation & partnership, in contrast to the old culture of competition & one-up-man-ship – the new generation has a new culture

 

Another thing we notice is that Jesus gives the new generation a new focus and a new purpose

–         The old generation had been focused on things like politics and money and military might, because those things enable one to control people

–         But Jesus doesn’t give his disciples power & authority to control people

–         Rather he gives them power & authority to drive out demons & disease

–         Therefore Jesus’ focus, and the focus of the new generation, is to set people free from the forces of evil – both physical & spiritual

 

Most people have no difficulty understanding what is meant by physical disease – science has provided helpful insights into physical illness

–         Unfortunately we don’t understand as much about spiritual dis-ease

–         Demons are beyond the reach of science – in fact a lot people today would want to deny the existence of spiritual forces

–         However, just because we can’t look at it under a microscope doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist

 

When I was about 15 I was asked to sit in on an exorcism and provide prayer support (because you don’t do an exorcism on your own).

–         I was a relatively new Christian at that stage

–         The woman was having the exorcism because she had been a witch, part of a coven and all that goes with that

–         Witchcraft is the opposite of setting people free – witchcraft is about controlling or manipulating people

–         The sad reality is that when we seek to control or manipulate others we open the door to forces of evil that end up controlling us

–         At first this woman appeared quite normal – you wouldn’t know she was any different from anyone else

–         But as we started praying her behaviour changed – strange stuff happened to her, stuff she wasn’t in control of, stuff I can’t explain

 

I went away from that experience realising that demons are real – there are forces at work which we don’t understand and often aren’t even aware of

–         But we do not need to be afraid – Jesus has defeated Satan

–         If we have trusted our lives to Christ, if we have placed ourselves under his Lordship, then we are under his protection

 

We talked a couple of weeks ago about the human spirit being like a cup and the Spirit of God being like communion wine or fresh clean water

–         If the cup of our human spirit was designed to hold the water or wine of God’s Holy Spirit then we could say that demons (or evil spirits) are like dirty water or poison in the cup of our human spirit

–         To caste out a demon then is to clean out the cup of our spirit – to remove the dirty water, extract the poison, sort of like vomiting removes a stomach bug

–         Science can find cures for many physical diseases but only Jesus has the cure for what ails us spiritually

 

Now in talking about the spiritual realm and the physical realm, demons & disease, I don’t mean to imply a false dichotomy

–         While the spiritual & the physical are different by definition, they are not separate or mutually exclusive

–         There is some kind of inter-relationship between the spirit and the body

–         I’m not going to say much more about that relationship because I’m not sure I really understand it – for me it is in the realm of mystery

 

The other thing I want to say is that medical science doesn’t stand in opposition to Jesus, nor in isolation from him

–         Historically speaking science owes its existence to Jesus and the church

–         As I see it medical research to cure disease can be as much a part of God’s work of healing as the laying on of hands in prayer

–         Jesus takes a team approach – he often uses both doctors and our prayers to heal people

 

Take cataract operations for example

–         If left untreated cataracts can make a person go blind

–         They didn’t have cataract operations in Jesus’ day (that we know of) so Jesus simply healed by saying a word

–         Later in history God gave us the knowledge we needed to safely remove cataracts and restore people’s sight – that’s the sort of thing we would expect to happen under the reign of God.

–         These days thousands of cataract operations are performed every year, so it doesn’t seem miraculous to us anymore – it seems routine & mundane

–         We still pray for someone when they have a cataract operation though because we are depending on God, not just the surgeon

–         We acknowledge that healing comes from God and God is free to heal however he wants, whether that’s through science & doctors or in some other way – nothing is beyond Jesus’ reach

 

We also acknowledge that God is free not to heal

–         So if we pray with sincerity and in good faith for God to heal and nothing happens, it is no reflection on us or our prayers

–         It just means God has said ‘no’ on this occasion

–         God said ‘no’ to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus prayed to avoid suffering

–         God had a far bigger purpose in mind – the redemption of creation

 

In Luke 9, Jesus empowers his disciples to heal disease and exorcise demons because it served the immediate purpose of setting people free, as well as the bigger purpose of showing people that the Kingdom of God was near and had in fact arrived in the person of Jesus

 

I think it was C.S. Lewis who said, ‘Miracles are for beginners’

–         When we are just starting out, when we don’t yet know Jesus, miracles can serve the purpose of making us aware that Jesus is the real deal, he’s not fake or an imposter – miracles can ignite faith, get it started

–         But once we accept Jesus by faith the miracles are no longer necessary – just as sign posts are no longer necessary once you have reached your destination, or matches are no longer necessary once you have lit the fire

–         Yes, miracles are nice to have and God still does miracles today, even if we might take them for granted, but they are not the main thing

–         Jesus is the main thing, the Kingdom of God is the main thing

–         God doesn’t want us to rely on miracles, he wants us to rely on Christ

 

So if Jesus and the Kingdom of God are the main thing what does it mean then to preach the Kingdom of God, as the disciples are instructed in verse 2?

 

Well, the Kingdom of God refers to the reign of God, as in the government of God. The kingdom of God is what life is like when God is in charge

–      When God is in charge we have justice & mercy, we have truth & grace, we have healing & deliverance, we have peace & joy, we have freedom – not freedom to do what we want, but freedom to do God’s will, freedom with righteousness and we have abundant life

 

In verses 7-9 of Luke 9 we read about Herod, the ruler of Galilee

–         The reign of Herod stands in stark contrast to the reign of God

–         Under Herod, righteous men like John the Baptist were beheaded

–         Herod would later involve himself in the plot to kill Jesus

–         But under God’s reign there is justice so that Jesus (& those who belong to him) are resurrected to eternal life while Herod reaps what he has sown

–         In Acts 12, verse 3 we read how an angel of the Lord struck Herod down and he was eaten by worms

 

The disciples were sent to preach the Kingdom of God – to tell people that God’s reign was beginning – and that was good news for those who were oppressed by evil

 

One of the things we notice here is that Jesus sent his disciples throughout the villages of Galilee

–         Villages indicates smaller settlements, as opposed to the more populated cities – we might imagine villages to be the sorts of places most people pass through on their way to somewhere else

–         And the region of Galilee was considered a bit inferior, at least by those in Judea & Jerusalem

–         The poor in the villages of Galilee are visited by Jesus and his disciples, while Herod the ruler misses out

–         So this is a case of the last being first and the first being last

–         On this occasion Jesus sent his disciples to the least on the margins, before sending them to the greatest at the centre

 

Last Thursday Sarah Harris, a lecturer from Carey College, came to Wellington to speak to a group of Baptist pastors, and over lunch she told us a true story

–         A couple of years ago Sarah arranged a trip to Israel and on this trip there was a woman who was hearing impaired, practically deaf

–         The woman wasn’t sure about going, she was anxious about whether she would fit in – being deaf you tend to miss out on a lot of the conversation

–         Anyway one day on the trip they paused at a certain holy place for a while before moving on

–         Later that evening the woman said to Sarah, wasn’t that beautiful music we heard earlier today (presumably the woman had some hearing)

–         And Sarah replied, what do you mean? There was no music.

–         Yes there was – it was like nothing I had ever heard before

–         Sarah said again, we didn’t hear any music

–         Then the woman said, so you’re saying that I was the only one in the group who heard music and yet I’m deaf?

–         At that moment they both realised God had done something quite special just for her. She was deeply touched and her anxiety was relieved

 

God didn’t permanently heal the woman’s deafness, she was still hearing impaired, but he did let her hear a small sample of his Kingdom

–         It was like God was saying to her, my Kingdom is coming and this is what it sounds like

–         I expect no one appreciates the sound of heaven more than someone who is deaf

–         The disciples’ short term mission trip was giving people a taste, a glimpse, of the reign of God (this is what’s like when God is in charge)

 

One of the striking things in Luke 9 is the paradox of power & vulnerability

–         On the one hand the disciples are given incredible power, to cast out demons and cure disease, but at the same time Jesus says to them,

–         “Take nothing with you for the journey: no stick, no beggar’s bag, no food, no money, not even an extra shirt. Wherever you are welcomed, stay in the same house until you leave that town; wherever people don’t welcome you, leave that town and shake the dust off your feet as a warning to them.”

 

Jesus has called his disciples

–         He has given them an example to follow,

–         And he’s given them power & authority to do the job – to set people free

–         Now he gives the new generation wise advice specific to this situation

 

By telling the disciples to travel light Jesus is saying, go in weakness, make yourselves vulnerable

–         To be vulnerable is to be exposed to the possibility of harm – to be in need of protection, care or support. The disciples went without a staff to protect themselves and with no money to pay for lodgings or food. They were are the mercy of strangers. They were vulnerable.

Vulnerability protects against the corrupting influence of power

–         They say, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”

–         But when we find ourselves in a position of needing others’ help we are less inclined to abuse our power or misuse it for selfish ends

–         Yes, the disciples have power to deliver and heal but the people to whom they come also have power – power to welcome & provide, or not

–         The disciples go to help people in need, having needs of their own

–         This sort of power with vulnerability fosters interdependence (or reliance on each other) and interdependence has a way of distributing power

 

It’s like Jesus is saying:

–         Don’t abuse the power I’m giving you by shopping around for the best accommodation in town, honour your host by staying in the first home that welcomes you

–         Don’t abuse your power by retaliating against those who reject you – don’t make a big fuss, just quietly dust your feet off as a warning against them and leave judgement in God’s hands

 

Jesus is the very picture of vulnerability both at Christmas and at Easter

–         Born in a stable to poor parents during a time of violence

–         Becoming a refugee to escape the sword of Herod

–         Growing up under Roman occupation

–         Coming from Nazareth where it was presumed nothing good was found

–         Being misunderstood by those he came to save

–         Then being nailed to a cross, naked & bleeding, for all the world to see

–         The vulnerability of Christ has the power to open the human heart

 

It should be noted that Jesus’ advice to travel light was for a particular short term mission situation and doesn’t necessarily apply for all time

–         Later in Luke chapter 22, Jesus says to his disciples…

–         When I sent you without purse bag or sandals, did you lack anything?

–         “Nothing” they answered

–         He said to them, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one…”

–         Travelling light is not always the right approach – different situations call for different strategies

 

In verse 10 we read how Jesus cares for his disciples by taking them away by themselves to debrief and refresh – a sort of spiritual retreat I suppose

–         Jesus is teaching the disciples to care for themselves

–         Alongside self-denial we also need self-care

–         We can’t be on the job all the time, we need to have a break every now & then so we don’t burn out

–         The new generation is not a disposable object to be thrashed & thrown away – Jesus wants his disciples to go the distance

 

Conclusion:

This morning we have heard how Jesus went about creating a new generation to lead God’s people

–         This new generation of disciples wasn’t just a carbon copy of the old one

–         The new generation has a new culture, a new approach and a new purpose

–         The culture is one of team work and cooperation

–         The approach involves power with vulnerability

–         And the purpose is setting people free to enter God’s kingdom

 

Questions for discussion or reflection

1.)    What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon?

2.)    What do we mean by the word generation?

3.)    How does Jesus go about creating a new generation to lead God’s people?

4.)    What example are we setting for the next generation?

5.)    Jesus gave his disciples power & authority to drive out all demons and to cure disease

–         What do we observe from this? (What does this tell us?)

6.)    Why do you think Jesus told his disciples to take nothing with them (to travel light) on their journey?

7.)    Has God ever showed you a glimpse of his Kingdom? What happened?

8.)    In what ways is Jesus’ new generation different?

–         (Think culture, approach & purpose)

9.)    How is the balance in your life between self-denial & self-care?

–         What strategies do you have for looking after yourself?

10.)       Take some time this week to reflect on the vulnerability of Christ

 

https://soundcloud.com/tawabaptist/18-march-2018-a-new-generation

 

Tawa Baptist

A New Perspective

Scripture: Luke 9:28-36

Title: A New Perspective

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • A new perspective
  • Who is Jesus?
  • Jesus revealed
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Three preachers sat discussing the best positions for prayer while a telephone repairman worked nearby. “Kneeling is definitely best,” claimed one preacher.

–         “No,” another contended. “I get the best results standing with my hands outstretched to Heaven.”

–         “You’re both wrong,” the third insisted. “The most effective prayer position is lying face down on the floor.”

The repairman couldn’t contain himself any longer. “The best praying I ever did was hanging upside down from a telephone pole”.

The telephone repair guy put things in perspective for the three preachers

 

During the month of March we take a break from our sermon series on the life of Abraham to focus on the Tranzsend Prayer & Self Denial campaign

–         As already mentioned the overarching theme of this year’s Self Denial campaign is Made New – Jesus came to make all things new

–         Last week we heard how the newness that Jesus brings begins with the initiative of God’s Spirit

–         The headline for today’s message is A New Perspective

–         Understanding who Jesus is gives us perspective

 

Please turn with me to Luke chapter 9 – page 90 toward the back of your pew Bibles. This is Luke’s account of the Transfiguration of Jesus

–         As they witnessed the transfiguration Peter, James & John were given a whole new perspective on who Jesus really is

–         From Luke chapter 9, verses 28-36 we read…

About a week after he had said these things, Jesus took Peter, John, and James with him and went up a hill to pray. 29 While he was praying, his face changed its appearance, and his clothes became dazzling white. 30 Suddenly two men were there talking with him. They were Moses and Elijah, 31 who appeared in heavenly glory and talked with Jesus about the way in which he would soon fulfil God’s purpose by dying in Jerusalem. 32 Peter and his companions were sound asleep, but they woke up and saw Jesus’ glory and the two men who were standing with him. 33 As the men were leaving Jesus, Peter said to him, “Master, how good it is that we are here! We will make three tents, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” (He did not really know what he was saying.)

34 While he was still speaking, a cloud appeared and covered them with its shadow; and the disciples were afraid as the cloud came over them. 35 A voice said from the cloud, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen—listen to him!”

36 When the voice stopped, there was Jesus all alone. The disciples kept quiet about all this and told no one at that time anything they had seen.

 

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate this reading for us

 

A new perspective:

We are talking this morning about a new perspective – but what is perspective?

 

Perspective is understanding how aspects of a subject relate to each other and to the whole

–         In other words, perspective is seeing things in proper proportion and as they really are

 

Let me give you a visual example to illustrate

–         Here we have a picture of what appears (at first glance) to be three people leaning against a wall – we think we have the right perspective on this…

 

But when we widen the frame of the photo and turn it around we see things in better perspective – more accurately

–         The three people we thought were leaning against the wall are in fact lying on the ground with their feet against the wall

–         Perspective is seeing things in proper proportion and as they really are

 

New perspective comes from new information, from new experiences

–         For example: learning how to read

–         Going to university

–         Leaving school and getting a job

–         Becoming a parent

–         Or travelling overseas and experiencing a different culture

–         All these things give us a new perspective on life

 

I remember being so excited the first time I put on prescription glasses because I was able to see leaves on trees

–         Up till that point in my life trees were just a blurry green smudge

–         Glasses helped me to see with clarity – a whole new perspective

 

It should be acknowledged that loss can also give us a new perspective – whether it’s losing your health or your job or a loved one or whatever

–         There’s a line in the Hall & Oats song, Rich Girl, from the 1970’s which says: It’s so easy to hurt others when you can’t feel pain

–         If you can’t feel pain then you can’t see things from the other person’s perspective

–         Suffering pain & loss have the potential to give us a new perspective, a new understanding, a new sensitivity toward others

 

New perspective comes from new information, from new experiences

–         Humility is the awareness that we may not have all the information and so our perspective might not be quite right

 

Douglas Adams tells a true story about humility & perspective. Douglas writes:

  • – It was April 1976, in Cambridge, UK. I was a bit early for the train so I got myself a newspaper to do the crossword, a cup of coffee and a packet of cookies. Then I went and sat down at a table.
  • – There was a guy sitting opposite me, perfectly ordinary-looking guy wearing a business suit & carrying a briefcase. It didn’t look like he was going to do anything weird.
  • – What he did was this: he suddenly leaned across, picked up the packet of cookies, tore it open, took one out, and ate it.
  • – Now this, I have to say, is the sort of thing the British are very bad at dealing with. There’s nothing in our background, upbringing, or education that teaches you how to deal with someone who in broad daylight has just stolen your cookies.

 

In the end I did what any red-blooded Englishman would do: I ignored it, pretended to read my newspaper and had a sip of coffee

  • – After a while I took out a cookie for myself. I thought, That settled him. But it hadn’t because a moment or two later he did it again. He took another cookie.
  • – Having not mentioned it the first time, it was somehow even harder to raise the subject the second time around.
  • – We went through the whole packet like this. When I say the whole packet, I mean there were only about eight cookies, but it felt like a lifetime. He took one, I took one, he took one, I took one.
  • – Finally, when we got to the end, he stood up, we exchanged meaningful looks, then he walked away, and I breathed a sigh of relief

 

A moment or two later the train was coming in, so I tossed back the rest of my coffee, got to my feet, picked up the newspaper, and underneath the paper were my cookies.

  • – [I had been indignant because I thought he was stealing my cookies when in fact I had been stealing his]

 

Douglas Adams finishes his story by saying…

  • – “So next time you are convinced that you know everything and that you are right, make sure you check under the newspaper first. You might just be missing something important”

 

Who is Jesus?

There are many different things that can inform our perspective but ultimately, the biggest game changer is understanding who Jesus is

–         We might think we know enough about Jesus but really we don’t know what we don’t know. So the question is: Who is Jesus?

 

In Luke chapter 8 (after Jesus had calmed a storm) the disciples asked each other in amazement, ‘Who is this man?’

 

Then a little bit later (in Luke 9) when Herod heard about all the miraculous things that Jesus was doing he also asked, ‘Who is this man?’

 

And a few verses after that Jesus asks his disciples, ‘Who do the crowds say I am?’

–         To which the disciples replied, ‘Some say you are John the Baptist, others that you are Elijah, while others say that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life.’

–         ‘What about you?’ Jesus asked them. ‘Who do you say I am?’

–         And Peter answered, ‘You are God’s Messiah’

 

‘Messiah’ is a Hebrew word which literally means ‘Anointed One’

–         In Old Testament times, when God wanted to choose someone to carry out a special role or task (like being a king) He would have the chosen one anointed with olive oil

–         For example God told the prophet Samuel to anoint David as king of Israel. This identified David as the Messiah – God’s chosen king

 

Peter got it right when he said that Jesus is the Messiah but there was more to it than this

–         Peter didn’t quite understand what kind of Messiah Jesus was

–         Most Jews of his day thought Jesus would be a king like David – a king who would conquer his political enemies and be victorious in battle

–         But God was doing something new with Jesus

–         Jesus was the kind of Messiah who would suffer much, be rejected and die before being raised to life on the third day

–         Jesus’ victory would not be a military victory

–         Jesus’ victory would be a victory over sin & death

–         And it would look more like defeat, at least at first

 

Jesus tried to tell his disciples this but they didn’t seem to listen or understand

–         The reality of what Jesus was saying washed over them

–         Sometimes we listen selectively

–         We only hear what we want to hear – the nice bits – the comforting bits

–         And we are deaf to the things that we don’t like or can’t understand

 

Jesus revealed:

And that brings us to our reading this morning – the transfiguration of Jesus

–         About 8 days after Peter had confessed that Jesus is the Messiah

–         Also 8 days after Jesus had predicted his own death and resurrection

–         The Lord takes Peter, James & John up a mountain to pray

For some of us prayer may feel like a waste of time

–         We’ve got lots to do and we just want to get on and do it

–         But prayer is very important for refreshing our perspective

–         The problem with just getting on and doing it (without taking time to pray) is that we risk losing our perspective

–         We risk forgetting why we are doing what we are doing and we fall into the trap of thinking we are doing it alone

–         Prayer is a way of looking under the newspaper – it has the power to restore our perspective

 

While Jesus is praying the disciples are heavy with sleep

–         Then Jesus’ face changes in appearance and his clothes become dazzling white – he is transfigured

–         The Biblical scholar, Joel Green, explains: “In Old Testament and Jewish tradition, one’s countenance [their face] is a mirror of one’s heart and a manifestation of one’s relationship with God” [1]

–         So in ancient Jewish thought your face essentially reveals what’s going on inside, indicating the quality of your relationship with God

–         A bit like we might say today, ‘The eyes are the windows of the soul’

–         Basically Jesus’ inner being, his true heavenly identity, is being revealed to the three disciples

–         It’s sort of like Jesus has been in disguise but his disguise is removed for a little bit and his true heavenly glory is revealed

The disciples are wide awake now and they see Moses & Elijah talking with Jesus about his departure – his exodus – his death on the cross

–         This scene (the transfiguration) does not compare with anything in our own experience – it is shrouded in mystery

–         We can’t be sure but it seems the disciples were being shown a window (or a glimpse) into eternity

–         Eternity (like Jesus) provides the ultimate perspective

 

I’m reading a book by Laurie Guy at the moment and in it Laurie retells the true story of the Australian, Arthur Stace [2]

–         Arthur Stace had a pretty tough childhood

–         He never learned to read or write properly and grew up on the streets. He got involved in petty crime and became a ward of the state because his parents didn’t take very good care of him

–         He served in France during World War One and turned into an alcoholic

–         Then in the 1930s Arthur discovered who Jesus is and found a new perspective on life

–         He converted to Christ, gave up the drink and turned his life around

 

After hearing the evangelist John Ridley tell a congregation in Burton Street Baptist Tabernacle that he wished he could ‘shout eternity through the streets of Sydney’ Arthur Stace was inspired!

 

He became gripped with the word ‘eternity’, secretly writing it over 500,000 times in chalk on the pavements of Sydney (at least 50 times a day for 33 years)

–         Arthur was giving people a new perspective – lifting their focus out of the here and now to think about their lives in the light of eternity

–         Can you imagine people in the 1930’s, during the great depression, facing hard times and seeing that word ‘eternity’ on the streets – a message of hope that this life is not all there is

 

He died in 1967 but his legacy still lives on in the Australian imagination

–         When the lights lit the Sydney Harbour Bridge to mark the new millennium they emblazoned Arthur Stace’s word: ‘Eternity’

 

The disciples had caught a glimpse of who Jesus really is from an eternal perspective but they don’t yet understand – it takes time for this new information to sink in

–         Moses & Elijah start to leave but Peter wants them to stay

–         He wants to build shelters for them

–         Maybe Peter has the feast of tabernacles in mind

–         Or maybe he just wants to capture the moment – to preserve it

–         But he is missing the point – he does not know what he is saying

 

While Peter was speaking a cloud appears and envelopes them – the disciples feel afraid

–         The cloud + fear is a clear sign that this is a manifestation of the presence of God Almighty

 

A voice from the cloud says three things to endorse Jesus…

–         ‘This is my Son,

–         my chosen;

–         listen to him.’

Seeing by itself is not enough

–         The disciples also need to hear the divine voice in order to make sense of what they are seeing

–         Jesus is not John the Baptist or Elijah or some other prophet from the past come back to life, as the crowds thought

–         Peter was right – Jesus is the Messiah – the one chosen by God

–         But he is not like any Messiah the Jews have ever known before

–         For Jesus is the Son of God

–         Jesus is divine – He is quite literally from heaven

–         This might seem old hat to us 2000 years later but it was a completely new perspective for the disciples at that point in time

 

The voice from the cloud also refers to Jesus as ‘my chosen’

–         ‘My chosen’ is a reference to the servant of the Lord, described in Isaiah 42: Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry or lift up his voice…; a bruised reed he will not break and a dimly burning wick he will not quench;

  

The third thing the voice from the cloud says is: listen to him

–         This is both a command and another reference from the Old Testament

–         In Deuteronomy 18 Moses predicted Jesus’ coming when he said: The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall listen to him. 

 

We are to listen to Jesus because he shows us how to interpret the Law and the prophets (as represented by Moses & Elijah)

–         Understanding who Jesus really is gives us perspective on the Bible

 

We are to listen to Jesus because he comes to confront evil and set people free from slavery to sin & death

–         Like Moses confronted Pharaoh and set Israel free from slavery in Egypt

–         Like Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal and set Israel free from the futility of paganism

–         Understanding who Jesus really is gives us perspective on right & wrong

 

We are to listen to Jesus because he tells us the way of the Messiah is the way of the cross – for if anyone wants to follow Jesus, he (or she) must deny themselves and take up their cross daily

–         Understanding who Jesus really is gives us perspective on the difficulties we face in our own lives

 

We are to listen to Jesus because, as God’s Son, he shows us what God is like and what God wants

–         Understanding who Jesus really is gives us perspective on God

 

Most people of Jesus’ day thought he was just a prophet or a great moral teacher but Jesus is so much more than that

–         In his book ‘Mere Christianity’ C.S. Lewis writes…

 

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say.

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell.

You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

Conclusion:

Luke’s account of the Transfiguration finishes by telling us the disciples kept quiet about all this, and told no one at that time anything they had seen

–         This was the best response in the context

–         Whenever we are given a new perspective we need time to be silent and reflect on it – to take it in and allow the new information to do its work in adjusting our old perspective

 

We are in the season of Lent – when Christians traditionally take time to be still and reflect on who Jesus really is

–         Lent is a time for perspective prayer

 

Sometimes, perhaps most of the time, we (like the disciples) have an inadequate understanding of who Jesus is

–         For example, we might think of Jesus like a first aid kit – someone we only turn to in an emergency

–         And while it is okay to turn to Jesus in a crisis there is more to him than that – he wants to be involved in our whole life

 

Or we may think of Jesus like a bar of chocolate or a glass of wine – someone who gives us comfort when we are down

–         Again there’s nothing wrong in looking to Jesus for comfort but by the same token, he doesn’t exist primarily for our comfort

 

Maybe you think of Jesus like a kind older brother – someone you feel close to, someone who looks after you, someone you aspire to be like one day

–         That’s wonderful, what a beautiful relationship you have with him,

–         But the gospels also show us a side to Jesus which is less cozy, more demanding

–         Jesus is our brother, yes, but he is also our Lord & God. Can we obey Him?

 

Perhaps your perception of Jesus is not cozy at all – perhaps he is more like a distant dead relative in a black & white photo on your wall, you pass by him every day without really noticing he’s there or even knowing who he was

–         That’s sad. The gospel perspective is that Jesus is alive and he wants to share life with us – he wants to know us and he wants us to know him

–         Understanding who Jesus really is gives us perspective

 

I encourage you this week to find time to contemplate who Jesus is to you personally

–         And ask yourself ‘how does that fit with who the gospel tells us Jesus is?’

 

Questions for discussion or reflection:

1.)    What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon?

2.)    What is perspective?

3.)    Can you recall an experience in your own life that gave you new perspective?

–         What happened and how did your perspective change?

4.)    Can you think of a time when praying has restored your perspective?

5.)    Discuss / reflect on the three things God says from the cloud to endorse Jesus: “This is my Son, my chosen. Listen to Him.”

6.)    How do you think of (or picture) Jesus? Who is He to you personally?

–         How does your picture of Jesus fit with what the gospels tell us about Jesus?

7.)    Take some time to reflect on that word ‘eternity’. What are you in touch with?

 

https://soundcloud.com/tawabaptist/11-march-2018-a-new-perspective

 

[1] Joel Green, NICNT, ‘The Gospel of Luke, page 380.

[2] Laurie Guy, ‘Unlocking Revelation’, page 23.

Tawa Baptist

A New Spirit

Scripture: Luke 3:1-18

 

Title: A New Spirit

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • What is spirit?
  • The spirit of John’s message
  • The Spirit of Jesus’ baptism
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

During the month of March we take a break from our sermon series on the life of Abraham to focus on the Tranzsend Prayer & Self Denial campaign

–         The overarching theme of this year’s Self Denial campaign is Made New – Jesus came to make all things new and that newness begins with the initiative of God’s Spirit

–         With this in mind the headline for today’s message is A New Spirit

 

Please turn with me to Luke chapter 3 – page 79 toward the back of your pew Bibles

–         I’ve chosen the reading from Luke 3 because it fits in a number of ways

–         Firstly, Luke 3 features John the Baptist and John is the picture of self-denial (the opposite of self-indulgence) – living in the desert on locusts and wild honey, making his own clothes out of camels’ hair

–         Not only that but John’s preaching signals a new move of God’s Spirit, as John is the herald or forerunner of Jesus, the Messiah

–         John baptised with water but the Messiah baptises with the Holy Spirit & fire. From Luke chapter 3, verses 1-18 we read…

 

It was the fifteenth year of the rule of Emperor Tiberius; Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip was ruler of the territory of Iturea and Trachonitis; Lysanias was ruler of Abilene, 2 and Annas and Caiaphas were High Priests. At that time the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the desert. 3 So John went throughout the whole territory of the Jordan River, preaching, “Turn away from your sins and be baptized, and God will forgive your sins.” 4 As it is written in the book of the prophet Isaiah:

“Someone is shouting in the desert:
‘Get the road ready for the Lord;
make a straight path for him to travel!
5 Every valley must be filled up,
every hill and mountain leveled off.
The winding roads must be made straight,
and the rough paths made smooth.
6 The whole human race will see God’s salvation!’”

7 Crowds of people came out to John to be baptized by him. “You snakes!” he said to them. “Who told you that you could escape from the punishment God is about to send? 8 Do those things that will show that you have turned from your sins. And don’t start saying among yourselves that Abraham is your ancestor. I tell you that God can take these rocks and make descendants for Abraham! 9 The axe is ready to cut down the trees at the roots; every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown in the fire.”

10 The people asked him, “What are we to do, then?”

11 He answered, “Whoever has two shirts must give one to the man who has none, and whoever has food must share it.”

12 Some tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what are we to do?”

13 “Don’t collect more than is legal,” he told them.

14 Some soldiers also asked him, “What about us? What are we to do?”

He said to them, “Don’t take money from anyone by force or accuse anyone falsely. Be content with your pay.”

15 People’s hopes began to rise, and they began to wonder whether John perhaps might be the Messiah. 16 So John said to all of them, “I baptize you with water, but someone is coming who is much greater than I am. I am not good enough even to untie his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 He has his winnowing shovel with him, to thresh out all the grain and gather the wheat into his barn; but he will burn the chaff in a fire that never goes out.”

18 In many different ways John preached the Good News to the people and urged them to change their ways.

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate this reading for us

What is spirit?

We are talking this morning about a new spirit – but what is spirit?

–         Well, the word spirit can mean different things in different contexts

 

Usually spirit refers to some kind of non-physical quality or attribute – so spirit is not something we can touch or measure in a scientific sense

–         Spirit can also refer to that which is the deep essence or the most important part of a thing – as in ‘the spirit of the law is love’, or the spirit of the game of cricket is fairness

–         Other times the term spirit can be used to describe temperament or character – as in ‘he had a generous spirit’ or ‘the Spirit of Jesus is a Spirit of grace & truth’

 

Spirit is commonly used in relation to a person’s underlying motivation or emotional tank, their mental strength or energy

–         When understood in this sense, the ‘poor in spirit’ are those whose emotional tank is empty so they don’t have the energy reserves to face the difficulties of life

–         The really wonderful thing, Jesus tells us, is that the poor in spirit are blessed (they’re lucky) for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven

–         Perhaps what Jesus means here is: it’s when you are at the end of your rope, when you’ve got nothing left to give and your emotional tank is empty that you are able to receive what God wants to give you

 

When the word Spirit is spelt with a capital ‘S’, in the Bible, it generally means the God’s Holy Spirit

–         The Holy Spirit is the power or breath of life which animates the body, giving us vitality & special ability, making us come alive & sustaining us

 

The human spirit (with a lower case ‘s’) is different from God’s Holy Spirit

–         The human spirit is our capacity to respond to or relate with God

–         So a spiritual person is someone who is aware of their capacity to relate with God and in fact exercises that capacity

 

By way of analogy, the human spirit is like the sail of a yacht catching the wind of God’s Spirit

–         So a spiritual person is someone who knows how to trim their sail to catch the wind of God’s Spirit

 

Or to use another analogy, if the human spirit is our capacity to relate with God then our spirit is like a wifi connection with God

–         Or like a radio or TV aerial, designed to pick up the signal of God’s Spirit

–         A spiritual person then is someone who is tuned in to God – they are aware of what God wants and they respond accordingly

 

The spirit of John’s message

Luke 3 begins with reference to the various political and religious authorities at the time John began his ministry

–         The 15th year of the Emperor Tiberius places John’s ministry in historical context – beginning around 28 or 29 AD

–         Old Testament prophets were often introduced in the same way, so Luke is showing us that John the baptiser stands in the same tradition as men like Isaiah & Jeremiah & Elijah

 

God’s word doesn’t come to John in a vacuum – it comes at a time when the Romans are in charge

–         The spirit of the age (as in the character of the age) is hierarchical, it is a top down dictatorship and brutally violent at times

–         This spirit breeds inequality and abuse of power – there is an underclass and oppressors

–         John’s role is to prepare the way for the Messiah and that means challenging the spirit of his day by calling people to change their behaviour

 

The spirit (or essence) of John’s message is summarised in verse 3, where John is quoted as saying…

–         Turn away from your sins and be baptised and God will forgive your sins

–         John is trying to get people to trim their sails to catch the wind of God’s Spirit

–         He is encouraging them to realign the aerial of their human spirit and tune in to what God is doing

 

In some ways John’s message is not new – he is warning people that God’s judgment is coming and so they should repent to avoid being destroyed

–         Verse 9: The axe is ready to cut down the trees at the roots; every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown in the fire

–         Turn or burn basically

–         The prophets of the Old Testament had a similar message – they also called people to change their behaviour – to act justly & mercifully

 

Having said that, John’s approach is not exactly the same as his forebears

–         John is saying God will forgive the people’s sins if they repent and are baptised – the baptism part was new

–         Up until that time the Jewish people made atonement for their sins through animal sacrifice but John doesn’t require animal sacrifice for forgiveness – which implies the sacrificial system was on the way out

 

Now when I say baptism was new, I mean it was new for the Jews

–         Jews didn’t baptise themselves – they felt they were already clean and didn’t need a spiritual bath as it were

–         They reserved baptism for Gentiles who were converting to Judaism because they considered Gentiles unclean, spiritually speaking

–         So in calling Jews to be baptised John was basically saying to his own people, you guys are not clean – you are no better in God’s eyes than a Gentile – this was really insulting stuff if you were a Jew

 

The spirit (or character) of John’s message is that it’s our behaviour that counts, not genetics – It’s how we treat our neighbour that matters, not who our great grand-daddy was.

–         Verse 8: Do those things that will show you have turned from your sins. And don’t start saying among yourselves that Abraham is your ancestor.

–         I tell you that God can take these stones and make descendants for Abraham.

–         The image of God bringing forth descendants for Abraham out of stones is an image of God giving new life & breath (new Spirit) to that which is lifeless and without spirit

–         If God can give life to a stone on the ground then he can certainly give new life to a people with hearts of stone

 

The predominant spirit of our age (21st Century western society) is (among other things) one of permissiveness and individualism

–         Many things are socially accepted now that weren’t previously permitted

–         Hand in hand with this spirit of permissiveness & individualism goes a spirit of entitlement and consumerism

–         The spirit of our age is not all bad though – there is a growing sense of environmental responsibility which, to some degree, mitigates against our sense of entitlement and consumerism

–         But we also seem to be a less robust, less resilient and more sensitive, more fragile, generally speaking, so John’s ‘turn or burn’ message probably sounds quite harsh and overly severe to most people today

 

John calls the people a brood of snakes (snakes being a symbol of evil)

–         And he paints a picture of God that seems very punitive

–         God is going to burn you (he’s going to vaporise you) if you don’t change your ways – like he did the people of Sodom & Gomorrah

–         John’s words are very strong because he has such a clear vision of God’s goodness and when we see God’s goodness as clearly as John did we tend to have a low tolerance for anything that falls short of the justice, mercy & humility that God requires of humanity

 

By the same token having a clear vision of God’s goodness also widens our awareness of the scope of God’s redemption

–         What I mean here is that the spirit of John’s preaching is not narrow – it’s remarkably broad in the cultural context of his day

–         Even those who were most despised by the community (tax collectors and soldiers) could be forgiven if they acted justly

 

Because John is preaching in a hierarchical, top down society, where power is often abused, his message is aimed at those in a position of relative power

–         If he can get the powerful to change their ways then the powerless will benefit

–         When people come to him asking, ‘What should we do?’ (Or what does repentance look like in practical terms) John answers…

–         Whoever has two shirts must give one to the man who has none and whoever has food must share it.

–         John is encouraging practical acts of mercy when it’s in our power do so

 

In speaking to tax collectors and soldiers John essentially tells them to act justly

–         Don’t take more tax than is legal

–         Don’t extort money from people or accuse anyone falsely

–         Be content with your pay

 

Tax collectors and soldiers were generally hated by the Jewish people because they colluded with the enemy and often used their position to feather their own nest, at the expense of others

–         The interesting thing here is that John doesn’t require tax collectors and soldiers to leave their jobs – what good would that do?

–         Someone else would only replace them and do just as bad or worse

–         But if those tax collectors & soldiers change their behaviour and stay in their jobs then the system changes too

–         The spirit of John’s preaching was broad in its reach of redemption and immensely practical

 

Sometimes we might think that our so called ‘secular’ employment is somehow less spiritual or less Christian

–         But actually spirituality is not determined by who our employer is

–         You might sell real estate or used cars

–         You might work in education or insurance

–         You might make lattes or drive a truck

–         You might work in the city or you might stay home looking after the kids

–         You might be paid for what you do, you might not

–         You might write reports or read them or both

–         You might work in the private sector or for government, it doesn’t matter

–         God is no less present in those jobs than he is in the work of the church

 

You see spirituality isn’t about what we do for a living

–         Spirituality is about our capacity to respond to & relate with God   

–         You can be aware of God and relate with him in your work Monday to Saturday, just as much as you can in church on a Sunday

–         So if you are a retailer then being spiritual means being aware that God is just and engaging in fair trade practices

–         Or, if there is someone in your work place who you find particularly difficult, then being spiritual means remembering that God loves that person and Jesus died for them – which might lead you to pray for them

–         Or if you find your job frustrating or menial then being spiritual means doing that job as for the Lord (giving your best) and being mindful of Jesus who took the role of a servant and washed his disciples’ feet

 

One of the reasons we gather for worship each Sunday is to stay in tune with the Lord so we can sense what he is doing Monday to Saturday – so we can trim the sails of our spirit to catch the wind of His Spirit

 

The Spirit of Jesus’ baptism

Okay, so we’ve talked about what it means to be spiritual

–         And we’ve talked about the spirit of John’s preaching

–         But the whole reason John was calling people to repent was Jesus

–         Jesus, God’s Messiah, was coming and he would baptise with the Holy Spirit and fire

 

In the Old Testament the prophet Ezekiel said…

 

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

 

If you have a stringed instrument (a guitar or a violin or a piano) and the strings break, you don’t throw the whole instrument away – you replace the broken strings

–         It’s similar with the human soul

–         If the human soul is the whole instrument then our spirit is sort of like all the strings together – our spirit carries the music

–         If the strings of our spirit break or our spirit becomes so damaged it can no longer hold its tune then God has the power to replace our spirit

–         He has the power to transform a heart of stone (a dead heart – a heart without a spirit) into a heart of flesh (a living heart, with spirit)

 

Central to John’s message was this idea that the Messiah was coming soon and he would give those who were willing a new spirit

–         By the power of God’s Holy Spirit Jesus gives people the capacity, the energy, the motivation, the discernment to respond to & relate with God

 

It’s sort of like the sails of our human spirit have been torn so they no longer catch the wind of God’s Spirit

–         God’s remedy is to give us new sails and put his wind in those sails, so we can move in the right direction

–         Or, it’s like the aerial of the human spirit has been broken so people can’t pick up God’s signal anymore

–         God’s solution is to replace the aerial of our spirit so we can tune in to what God is saying and doing

 

Jesus came to make all things new and that newness begins with the Holy Spirit

–         John baptised with water whereas Jesus baptises with the Holy Spirit and fire

–         To be baptised with the Holy Spirit means to be immersed in the life and energy of God

–         But what does John mean by Jesus baptising with fire’? – because that sounds really uncomfortable to me

 

Well, let me offer three possible meanings

–         Fire is one of the images in the Bible associated with the Holy Spirit

–         For example, at Pentecost when the disciples received the Holy Spirit, what looked like tongues of fire came down & touched each person there

–         In this case fire is just another way of saying Holy Spirit – so it’s like John is saying the same thing twice for emphasis

 

Of course a ‘baptism of fire’ can also mean a difficult or painful ordeal – as in a particularly vicious battle in war time

–         Daniel’s friends: Shadrach, Meshach & Abednego were literally baptised in fire when king Nebuchadnezzar threw them into the fiery furnace

–         On that occasion God delivered them

–         Certainly Jesus predicted that those who followed him would suffer and face many trials and ordeals – so becoming a disciple of Jesus involves its own baptism of fire, much like becoming a soldier involves battle

 

A third interpretive possibility is that the fire applies to those who reject Jesus

–         Fire destroys things – so those who reject Jesus are destroyed

–         While those who accept Jesus are immersed in God’s life giving Spirit

 

All three meanings are possible at the same time – so you don’t have to pick one

–         But it seems the third meaning is the one foremost in John’s mind

–         In verse 17, straight after talking about Jesus baptising with the Holy Spirit and fire, John says of the Messiah…

–         He has his winnowing shovel with him, to thresh out all the grain and gather the wheat into his barn; but he will burn the chaff in a fire that never goes out

–         John is essentially talking about the future judgment here

 

It’s tempting to read these verses in a lazy or superficial way so the grain (which is saved) equates to good people and the chaff (which is destroyed) equates to bad people

–         But that kind of black & white, simplistic interpretation just won’t do

–         It’s not consistent with the gospel – Jesus came to transform bad people

–         Nor is it consistent with our experience in this life

–         The reality is, none of us are 100% grain or 100% chaff – our lives are a mixture of both

 

Grain has substance, while chaff is light and without substance

–         It makes more sense to say the grain represents those things of eternal value – things that last, like our acts of justice & mercy, our deeds of faith motivated by love and the truth we speak

–         While the chaff represents that which is temporary – things like money, our reputation and the lies we tell ourselves, the sorts of things you can’t take with you when you die

–         God’s judgement is the process of separating the grain from the chaff, separating the eternal from the temporal

 

John’s message is this: God’s Messiah is coming for judgment so make sure your house is in order before he arrives

–         Invest your trust, your hope, your whole lives in God’s Messiah (in Jesus) because by doing that you are investing in eternal life

 

One thing we notice is there was a real urgency with John’s message

–         It seems that in John’s mind judgement would happen with the arrival of the Messiah – but things didn’t happen exactly as John expected

–         God, in his grace, has withheld the day of judgement to give humanity more time to turn to him – but there will still be a day of reckoning

–         When Jesus returns in glory we will have to give account for how we have used our freedom – so John’s message of pending judgement and the need to repent is still relevant for us today

 

Conclusion:

The main thing to take away in all of this is that Jesus makes all things new

–         And it begins with the work of the Holy Spirit

–         Jesus has the power to give us a new spirit – one that is tuned in to what God is doing, one that is able to catch the wind of God’s Spirit

 

Questions for Discussion or reflection

1.)    What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon?

2.)    What is spirit?

–         How is the Holy Spirit different from the human spirit?

–         Can you think of some other analogies to describe the relationship between God’s Holy Spirit and our human spirit

3.)    What does it mean to be spiritual?

–         How might you be spiritual in your job &/or everyday life?

4.)    What is the spirit of our age? (I.e. what characterises our time & culture?)

–         How does this spirit express itself?

5.)    What was the spirit (or essence) of John’s message?

6.)    What could it mean to be baptised with the Holy Spirit and fire?

7.)    Discuss (or reflect on) John’s image of God’s judgement as winnowing

–         What does grain represent?

–         What does chaff represent?

8.)    Are you ready for Jesus’ return?

 

https://soundcloud.com/tawabaptist/4-march-2018-a-new-spirit

Tawa Baptist

Lot’s Rescue

Scriptures: Genesis 19:12-29

 

Title: Lot’s Rescue

 

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • God’s justice & mercy go together
  • God’s mercy to Lot (and Abraham)
  • Jesus’ commentary
  • Conclusion

 

Introduction:

In winter time Robyn makes a really nice potato and leek soup

–         Of course to be able to eat the soup we need a bowl

–         The bowl is different from the soup in pretty much every way

–         The soup is liquid while the bowl is solid

–         The soup fits the shape of the vessel it’s in, while the bowl holds its shape

–         And, you can eat the soup but you can’t the bowl

–         The point is, the soup and the bowl go together even though they are quite different

 

Today we continue our series on the life of Abraham

–         The main over-arching theme of the last two Sundays’ readings has been God’s justice

–         God’s justice is a bit like a bowl in that it contains God’s mercy

–         God’s justice & mercy go together – just as we can’t eat soup without a bowl so too we can’t really have God’s mercy without his justice

 

Two weeks ago, in Genesis 18, we heard how Abraham explored some of the facets of God’s justice including that God does not ignore injustice – he is affected by the cries of the oppressed and has compassion on them

–         This tells us God’s justice is motivated by mercy

  • – Furthermore, God’s justice differentiates between the righteous and the wicked – the fate of the righteous is not determined by the wicked
  • – To the contrary, God in his mercy allows time for the righteous minority to have a redeeming effect on the world around them

–         In a nut shell, God’s justice & mercy go together

 

In the first part of Genesis 19, last week’s Scripture reading, God’s two angelic witnesses checked out the situation on the ground (in Sodom) and could not find even 10 righteous people in the place

–         The angels did find Abraham’s nephew, Lot, who tried his best but in the end wasn’t able to influence his neighbours for good

–         By their own actions the men of Sodom condemned themselves

 

In today’s reading, Genesis 19 verses 12-29, we see God’s mercy & justice worked out as the Lord rescues Lot before destroying Sodom & Gomorrah

–         You may remember from last week how Lot showed hospitality to the two angels in the form of men, giving them a meal and a bed for the night

–         We pick up the story from verse 12 of Genesis 19…

 

Then the men said to Lot, “Have you anyone else here? Sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or anyone you have in the city—bring them out of the place. For we are about to destroy this place, because the outcry against its people has become great before the Lord, and the Lord has sent us to destroy it.”

So Lot went out and said to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, “Up, get out of this place; for the Lord is about to destroy the city.” But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be joking.

When morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Get up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or else you will be consumed in the punishment of the city.” But he lingered; so the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and left him outside the city.

When they had brought them outside, they said, “Flee for your life; do not look back or stop anywhere in the Plain; flee to the hills, or else you will be consumed.”

And Lot said to them, “Oh, no, my lords; your servant has found favour with you, and you have shown me great kindness in saving my life; but I cannot flee to the hills, for fear the disaster will overtake me and I die. Look, that city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one. Let me escape there—is it not a little one?—and my life will be saved!”

He said to him, “Very well, I grant you this favour too, and will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken. Hurry, escape there, for I can do nothing until you arrive there.” Therefore the city was called Zoar.  The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar. Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven; and he overthrew those cities, and all the Plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. But Lot’s wife looked back and she became a pillar of salt.

Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord; and he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the Plain and saw the smoke of the land going up like the smoke of a furnace.So when God destroyed the cities of the Plain, God remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities in which Lot had settled.

 

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate this reading

 

God’s justice & mercy go together:

Environmental activist and writer, George Monbiot, narrates a Ted Talk about how wolves change rivers

 

Wolves are apex predators – they are at the top of the food chain

–         We all know that wolves kill certain creatures (including humans) and so they have a bad reputation – we have fairy tales about the big bad wolf, wolves are scary creatures in our imagination

–         What scientists have discovered is that apex predators (like wolves) are crucial for maintaining a healthy ecosystem

–         As well as taking life, wolves also give life and foster bio-diversity – so they may not deserve the bad reputation they have

 

The classic example is Yellowstone National Park in the United States

–         In the 1920’s wolves were eradicated from Yellowstone Park

–         As a consequence the population of elk & deer exploded

–         Elk & deer are herbivores – they only eat trees and plants

–         Their effect, in large numbers, was quite devastating on the vegetation in Yellowstone – sort of like opossums in NZ native bush

–         Park rangers tried to cull the deer but it wasn’t enough

 

Then, in 1995 after nearly 70 years absence, 41 wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone and the impact was incredible

–         The wolves killed a small number of the elk & deer for food but more significantly the wolves’ presence changed the behaviour of the elk

–         The elk & deer now avoided certain places like valleys & gorges where they were more vulnerable to being caught by the wolves

–         Immediately the vegetation in those areas started growing back

 

With the return of trees and shrubs birds returned to feed and nest

–         More trees meant the return of beavers who used the wood to make dams

–         Beavers are eco engineers – they create niche environments for other species

–         The dams they built provided habitats for otters & musk rats & ducks & fish & reptiles & amphibians

–         All this bio-diversity because of the wolves. But wait, there’s more…

 

The wolves killed some of the coyotes which meant more mice and rabbits which in turn attracted more hawks, more foxes and more badgers

–         Eagles and ravens came to feed on the carcasses left by the wolves

–         The population of bears also rose – partly because there were more berries growing on the regenerating shrubs

 

The really remarkable thing is that the rivers changed in response to the wolves

–         When there were no wolves the rivers kept changing course and meandering all over the place

–         But with the return of the wolves the regenerating forest stabilised the land

–         With more trees there was less erosion and the banks of the rivers collapsed less often, which meant the rivers became more fixed in their course and less meandering

–         The wolves’ presence had a flow on effect which actually changed the physical geography of the place

 

In some ways (although not in every way) God’s justice is like a wolf

–         Just as the presence of wolves improved bio-diversity & was good for the environment so too God’s justice has a positive, stabilising effect for all

–         We may fear God’s justice (much like we fear wolves) but ultimately the Lord’s justice is life giving

 

Now we shouldn’t press this analogy between wolves and God’s justice too far

–         God’s justice isn’t prowling around ready to pick off some poor unfortunate – to the contrary, God’s justice is keeping a protective eye on the unfortunate

 

The point is: God’s justice actually facilitates his mercy for all of creation

–         Just as wolves & bio-diversity go together, so too God’s justice & mercy go together – they can’t be separated

 

As we’ve already covered, over the past couple of weeks, the people of Sodom & Gomorrah were wreaking havoc and having a destructive effect on those around them – they were beyond redemption

–         They had consumed others so God’s justice consumed them

–         The measure we use for others is the measure God uses for us

 

While this thought might strike terror in the minds of the oppressor – it is good news to the oppressed

–         God’s justice is actually an act of mercy for the oppressed

–         If you are being bullied and someone removes the bully then you experience that as an act of mercy

–         By wiping out the wicked the Lord brought stability to the region and respite to the oppressed, so they could live their lives in peace

–         There is no peace without justice and mercy

 

God’s mercy to Lot (and Abraham)

We also see God’s mercy in his treatment of Lot

–         The angels ask Lot if he has any other family in the city, saying they need to get out quickly

Lot goes to the two men engaged to his daughters and tries to warn them but they think he’s joking

–         This is telling – the people of Sodom were oblivious to their wrong doing

–         They simply couldn’t believe that disaster would fall on them

–         Everything seemed okay to them – they were over confident

At dawn the angels tell Lot and his wife & daughters to leave the city quickly but Lot and his family linger, they are reluctant to go

–         Perhaps this indicates they don’t quite believe the angels either

–         Or maybe they are simply afraid to let go of the old & familiar

–         In any case they don’t realise the urgency of the situation so the angels lead them out by the hand, the Lord being merciful to them

 

Once they are out of the city the angels tell Lot to run for the hills but Lot doesn’t want to – he asks to be allowed to go to another city (Zoar)

–         So Lot is shown mercy again and allowed to flee to Zoar

–         Lot’s presence in Zoar would have saved the people of that place too – mercy you see

–         Sadly, Lot’s wife looks back (or turns back to Sodom) and becomes a pillar of salt

 

I was talking with Neville & John during the week and they told me about Nigel, the gannet

–         In an attempt to attract gannets to Mana Island the Department of Conservation placed some concrete gannets on the cliffs of the island and played recordings designed to lure real gannets

–         Their cunning plan worked

–         For the first time in 40 years a gannet flew in to roost but, instead of bringing a partner, this solitary gannet (named Nigel, because he had no mates) quickly became infatuated with one of the 80 decoys

–         Nigel built a nest out of seaweed and sticks for the concrete bird and was seen apparently trying to woo it.

–         Suffice to say Nigel’s love remained unrequited

 

A month or two ago, after a slight change to the sound system, three real gannets landed and took up residence at the opposite end of the colony.

–         Despite the company of real birds, Nigel stuck to his concrete mate, and it was next to “her” that he was recently found dead [1]

–         Nigel’s story might be funny if it wasn’t so tragic

 

In some ways Nigel reminds me of Lot and his family with their misplaced allegiance

–         Like Nigel, Lot’s wife was unable to leave the dead for the living, she clung to the decoy and missed the real thing

–         Nigel makes me wonder, what are the concrete decoys (or fake gannets) in our lives?

 

Our reading today finishes with the comment that God was remembering Abraham when he went out of his way to save Lot

–         What does it mean that God remembered Abraham when he rescued Lot?

–         Well, it could mean that God remembered his conversation with Abraham

–         Previously Abraham had appealed to God’s sense of justice & mercy by saying, ‘Surely you won’t destroy the righteous with the wicked?’

–         The problem (as I see it) was that Lot’s righteousness wasn’t clear cut

–         Lot wasn’t perfect – he was relatively righteous compared to his neighbours, but that’s not saying very much

–         Lot’s righteousness was sort of a grey area

 

The tradition with the umpire’s decision in cricket is that the batsman always gets the benefit of the doubt

–         So, for example, if the appeal for LB is unclear the batsman stays in

–         With the technology available to us today there is a lot less doubt – but where there is still doubt the batsman should not be given out

 

In Genesis 19, it seems that God was giving Lot the benefit of the doubt

–         Lot’s righteousness was marginal but God remembered his conversation with Abraham, and went beyond the justice with mercy Abraham had asked for – and God chose to save Lot

 

Lot’s rescue was as much an act of mercy for Abraham as it was for Lot

–         By saving Lot, God was also saving Abraham the grief of losing a close family member.

 

Jesus’ commentary:

The story of Sodom & Gomorrah and the rescue of Lot is a paradigm for God’s justice & mercy

–         In fact Jesus used this story to illustrate what it will be like when he returns in glory

–         In Luke 17 Jesus was asked about the coming of God’s kingdom

–         And this is what Jesus said…

 

For the Son of Man in his day will be like the lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other. But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.

  • – [In other words, when Jesus (the Son of Man) returns it will be sudden, unexpected & public [2] ]

…Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.

It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.

It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed. On that day no one who is on the housetop, with possessions inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything. Remember Lot’s wife! Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it.

 

Part of the message here is, don’t be like Nigel the gannet, don’t cling to what is false

–         Don’t be like Lot’s wife, don’t go back for what is already dead

–         When the opportunity for salvation presents itself, take it

–         If you are floating in the open ocean, clinging to a piece of drift wood and a boat comes along, throwing you a life line – you don’t cling to your drift wood, you let go of the wood and grab hold of the line

–         Jesus is the one in the rescue boat who throws us that life line    

 

Conclusion:

Passages, like the ones I have read this morning, can be frightening to us – like stories of the big bad wolf

–         It’s tempting for me as a preacher to miss out these bits

–         After all, who wants to hear about God punishing people

–         I would rather preach about good Samaritans helping strangers

–         And prodigal sons being forgiven by loving fathers

–         And lepers being healed by Jesus

–         But if we don’t hear the difficult bits, about God’s justice, then we can’t fully appreciate his mercy

Just as we can’t see the stars in the sky without the darkness of night

–         So too we can’t see God’s mercy apart from his justice

–         These things go together…

–         We can’t have grace without truth

–         We can’t know we are forgiven without first realising we have sinned

–         We can’t experience healing without first being wounded or sick

–         We can’t have freedom without responsibility

–         We can’t have faith without uncertainty

–         We can’t share in Christ’s glory without sharing in his suffering

–         We can’t follow Jesus without carrying our cross

–         We can’t have resurrection without death

Let us pray…

 

https://soundcloud.com/tawabaptist/18-february-2018-lots-rescue

Questions for discussion or reflection:

1.)    What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon?

2.)    The sermon offers a number of images to express the idea that God’s justice & mercy go together – e.g. soup and a bowl, wolves and bio-diversity, stars and the night sky.

–         Discuss (reflect on) the different nuances of these images – e.g. in what sense is God’s justice like a wolf (and in what sense is it not)?

–         What other images can you think of to reflect this idea that God’s justice & mercy go together?

3.)    Who would have experienced the destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah as an act of God’s mercy?  Why?

4.)    How did God show mercy to Lot in Genesis 19?

–         How did God show mercy to Abraham in Genesis 19?

 

5.)    What are the concrete decoys (fake gannets) in our lives?

6.)    What does the story of Sodom & Gomorrah and Lot share in common with the return of Jesus? (refer Luke 17)

7.)    How do you feel reading these passages (i.e. Genesis 19 & Luke 17)?

–         Why do you feel this way?

8.)    Take some time to reflect on the pairings at the end of the message – e.g. we can’t have grace without truth, etc.

–         What are you in touch with as you meditate on these?

 

Footnotes:

[1] https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/101073714/the-wrong-ending-nigel-the-lonely-gannet-found-dead-beside-his-concrete-love

 

[2] Refer footnotes in NIV Study Bible, Luke 17:24, page 1574

Tawa Baptist

God’s Justice

Scripture: Genesis 18:16-33

Title: God’s Justice

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • God’s friend
  • God’s justice
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

This morning we continue our series on Abraham by focusing on Genesis chapter 18, verses 16-33

  • – Last week we heard how Abraham provided hospitality to the Lord and two of his angels – Abraham was fully present to the Lord
  • – This week God engages his friend Abraham in a conversation about justice. From Genesis 18, verse 16 we read…

When the men got up to leave, they looked down toward Sodom, and Abraham walked along with them to see them on their way. Then the Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him.

For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.”

Then the Lord said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.”

The men turned away and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the Lord. Then Abraham approached him and said: “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”

The Lord said, “If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”

Then Abraham spoke up again: “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five people?” “If I find forty-five there,” he said, “I will not destroy it.”

Once again he spoke to him, “What if only forty are found there?”

He said, “For the sake of forty, I will not do it.”

Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak. What if only thirty can be found there?” He answered, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.”

Abraham said, “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, what if only twenty can be found there?”

He said, “For the sake of twenty, I will not destroy it.”

Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?”

He answered, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.”

When the Lord had finished speaking with Abraham, he left, and Abraham returned home.

 

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate this Scripture for us

 

It’s interesting that the writer of Genesis chose to explore the idea of God’s justice within the context of a conversation with God’s friend, Abraham

 

God’s Friend:

This weekend we’ve been looking after a dog

–         They say a dog is man’s best friend and it is generally true

–         In many ways dogs embody the essential elements of friendship

–         Once a dog gets to know you they like being with you, they give you affection and they remain loyal to you

 

According to the Collins Concise Dictionary a friend ‘is a person known well to another and regarded with liking, affection and loyalty’ [1]

–         This definition tells us there are 4 elements to friendship

–         Knowing, liking, affection and loyalty

–         You really need all four elements for it to be true friendship

 

The kind of knowing that is in view here is not just knowing facts about the other person but the deep knowing that comes with sharing life together

–         Knowing someone intimately, understanding how they think, experiencing both good times and bad with them

–         But simply knowing someone well, isn’t enough for friendship – you also need to like that person

 

Liking is about enjoying or appreciating the other person, spending time with them because you want to, not because you have to

–         We don’t always understand why we like someone, we just do

 

Affection has to do with feelings and it comes from the value we place on that person

–         If we really care about someone we will be affected by what’s happening for them

–         If they are happy it will cheer us up & if they are hurting it will trouble us

 

Loyalty is about what we do – it’s our actions that reveal our true loyalty

–         A friend sticks by you through thick & thin

–         A friend has your back in a fight, they align themselves with your cause

–         Unless of course you are off track and then they will speak the truth to you and get (gently) get you back on track

 

So a true friend (not just the Facebook kind) is someone who knows you well

–         Someone who likes being with you

–         Someone who is affected by you so they feel stuff you’re going through

–         And someone who is loyal – they are there for you when it counts

 

By that definition most of us wouldn’t have a lot of friends but that’s okay because you only need one or two

 

Our reading today begins with Abraham walking along with the Lord God and two angels, in the form of men

–         Abraham doesn’t have to do this but he apparently wants to

–         He likes being with God and wants to spend time with him

 

As they are walking along enjoying each other’s company God says (as if thinking aloud), “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?”

–         (After all friends confide in each other)

–         Then the Lord goes on to say of Abraham, “For I have chosen him…”

 

This is a paraphrase – the original Hebrew actually says, “I have known him…” meaning ‘I have made him my friend’ [2] or ‘I have chosen him to be my friend’

–         The Lord is saying here that Abraham is his friend – he knows Abraham well (or intimately) from years of experience with him and it’s because they are friends that God lets Abraham know what he’s planning

 

In John 15 Jesus talks about friendship in a similar way with his disciples…

–         I no longer call you servants because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit – fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. This is my command: Love one another.

 

Friends know each other and trust each other enough to share what they know

 

The story is told of a wealthy businessman who was driven to Wall Street every morning in a shiny black limousine by a chauffer

–         The chauffer was an intelligent man – he loved to read and had in fact taken the job as a driver so that he would have more time to read

–         There was a sound proof window inside the car to give the passengers privacy from the driver but this particular businessman always left the window down – he knew his driver from way back and he liked him

–         In this way the chauffer could hear his master’s business – what his boss was buying and selling on the stock exchange

–         Although he didn’t have a great deal of money to start with he used what he had to buy what his boss was buying

–         And when he heard his boss selling shares, he sold them too

–         Over time the chauffer became a millionaire all because his boss treated him like a friend and not an employee

 

Returning to Genesis 18, the Lord says…

–         “I have known him (or chosen him to be my friend) so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just…”

–         That sounds like loyalty to me

–         When we do what is right & just then we align ourselves with God’s cause, we prove ourselves his loyal friends

 

Righteousness & justice are closely related but they are not exactly the same thing

–         A righteous person lives in a way that promotes the life or well-being of everyone in the community

–         While a just person restores broken community, especially by punishing the oppressor and delivering the oppressed [3]

–         Righteousness is an on-going pattern or rhythm of living

–         Whereas justice is more of a singular action to right a wrong

 

Righteousness is like eating healthy & not smoking to reduce the risk of heart disease

–         Justice is like bypass surgery on the heart

 

Righteousness is not drinking and driving

–         Justice is taking the keys and license away from a drunk driver

 

Righteousness is buying fair trade goods

–         Justice is locking up slave traders

 

Righteousness is recycling and being careful with water use

–         Justice is killing opossums and fining water polluters

 

God’s true friends are loyal to him

–         God knows us (as friends) by whether we do what is right & just

–         We are God’s friends if we love one another

 

Abraham was God’s friend and as God’s friend he shared God’s concern for righteousness and justice

–         Just as God was affected by injustice, so too Abraham was affected

 

God’s Justice:

There is something in us as human beings that needs justice

–         I suspect it is the residue or imprint of God’s image in us

–         Injustice creates a hunger that must be satisfied

–         There are so many crime & murder mystery TV shows

–         I think we watch these not because we like violence but because we like to see justice done – the resolution satisfies something in our soul

 

From verse 20 we read…

–         Then the Lord said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.” The men turned away and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the Lord.

 

We notice at least three aspects of God’s justice in this verse

–         Firstly, when something is wrong God takes action to fix it

–         God doesn’t ignore the outcry of those who are suffering – he has compassion and cares enough to do something about it

–         Secondly, God goes down to see the situation for himself, first hand

–         God’s justice is evidence based – he doesn’t act on gossip or hearsay

–         Thirdly, God sends two objective witnesses (angels) to verify the facts

 

These verses don’t specify the nature of the sin of Sodom & Gomorrah

–         They simply say that the outcry against them was great and their sin grievous

–         This probably means they oppressed others and were guilty of a host of injustices – their sin wasn’t just one thing

–         The prophet Ezekiel confirms this view when he writes…

 

This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them when I saw it.

 

It appears the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were violent consumerists

–         They were rich at the expense of others, not for the benefit of others

–         They took what they wanted when they wanted, without regard to God or the well-being of the community – the opposite of righteousness

 

After the two men (or angels) had left to check out the situation in Sodom, Abraham stands before the Lord, or (as the original text reads) the Lord stands before Abraham

–         ­Abraham is God’s friend and God wants to talk about this decision with his friend, because that’s what friends do

 

Now at this point God hasn’t actually talked about destroying Sodom & Gomorrah – he’s told Abraham that he’s heard bad things and is going to check it out for himself

 

Abraham is the one who raises the possibility of destruction saying…

  • – “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? … Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike…

 

This little dialogue continues to explore the nature of God’s justice

  • – Abraham is probing God to understand God’s justice better
  • – One of Abraham’s concerns is, will the righteous be treated the same way as the wicked? Will the righteous be collateral damage?
  • – And God’s answer is ‘no’
  • – The Lord said, “If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”

 

While we were on holiday a few weeks ago we went for a walk through the Mamaku Forest near Rotorua – beautiful native bush

  • – What we noticed on our walk were these little devices for killing rats and possums and other pests and predators
  • – The really cool thing about these devices is that they target the culprits without doing harm to the innocent
  • – There is no collateral damage with these, unlike poisons which can end up killing the good with the bad
  • – God’s justice is like this trap – it only targets the guilty

 

Abraham’s questioning of God is also trying to discover whether there is room for mercy & redemption in God’s justice?

  • – Can the fate of the wicked be determined by the behaviour of the righteous?
  • – Would God spare the city for a time to see if a righteous minority could turn things around?
  • – And God’s answer is ‘Yes, there is room for mercy & redemption’

 

The rest of the chapter has Abraham pursuing the question of how small the minority of righteous people can be before God would destroy the city

  • – 45? 30? 20? 10?
  • – “This is an important issue for Abraham to explore because his family is to be that righteous minority among the nations” [4]
  • – And God answers, ‘For the sake of 10 I will not destroy it’
  • – God’s justice is very merciful indeed

 

As we shall see in the coming weeks not even 10 righteous people could be found, but God in his grace remembered his friend Abraham and rescued Lot.

 

Conclusion:

This morning we heard about God’s friendship with Abraham and we’ve explored some of the dimensions of God’s justice

The destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah serves as a paradigm for God’s justice

  • – The Lord does not ignore injustice – he is affected by the cries of the oppressed and has compassion on them
  • – God investigates the situation himself and ensures at least two objective witnesses to establish the facts
  • – He doesn’t act unilaterally or in isolation – the Lord involves his faithful ones (like Abraham) in making his judgement
  • – God’s justice differentiates between the righteous and the wicked – the fate of the righteous is not determined by the wicked
  • – To the contrary, God in his grace allows time for the righteous minority to have a redeeming effect on the world around them

 

Jesus said to disciples, ‘You are the salt of the earth’ – meaning (among other things) you are the redeeming minority if you do what is right & just.

 

Questions for discussion or reflection:

1.)    What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon?

2.)    Why do you think the writer of Genesis chose to explore the idea of God’s justice within the context of a conversation with God’s friend, Abraham?

3.)    Discuss the four elements of friendship: knowing, liking, affection & loyalty

–         What other elements might we find in true friendship?

4.)    What proves our loyalty to (or friendship with) Jesus? (Hint, read John 15:12-17)

5.)    What is the difference between righteousness and justice?

6.)    What was the sin of Sodom & Gomorrah?

7.)    Discuss the different facets of God’s justice as revealed in Abraham’s conversation with the Lord. (See the conclusion for a summary of these facets)

8.)    Take some time this week to consider what it means to be a redeeming minority

 

[1] Collins Concise English Dictionary, page 509

[2] Derek Kidner, Genesis, page 132

[3] Bruce Waltke, Genesis, page 269

[4] John Walton, NIVAC Genesis, page 483.

Tawa Baptist

Being Present

Scripture: Genesis 18:1-15

Title: Being Present

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Abraham is present
  • Sarah is afraid
  • God is free
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Last year we began a series on the life of Abraham, pausing for a few weeks during Advent

–         This morning we pick up Abraham’s journey of faith from Genesis 18, where we left off

Abraham’s journey of faith is characterised as two steps forward, one step back

–         Abraham & Sarah didn’t start with perfectly formed faith – it took time and testing for their faith to grow and develop

–         From Genesis 18, verse 1, we continue Abraham & Sarah’s story…

The Lord appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground. He said, “If I have found favour in your eyes, my lord, do not pass your servant by. Let a little water be brought, and then you may all wash your feet and rest under this tree. Let me get you something to eat, so you can be refreshed and then go on your way—now that you have come to your servant.”

“Very well,” they answered, “do as you say.”

So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah. “Quick,” he said, “get three seahs of fine flour and knead it and bake some bread.”7 Then he ran to the herd and selected a choice, tender calf and gave it to a servant, who hurried to prepare it.  He then brought some curds and milk and the calf that had been prepared, and set these before them. While they ate, he stood near them under a tree.

“Where is your wife Sarah?” they asked him.

“There, in the tent,” he said.

Then the Lord said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son.”

Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him. Abraham and Sarah were already old and well advanced in years, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing. So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, “After I am worn out and my master is old, will I now have this pleasure?”

Then the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son.” Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, “I did not laugh.”

But he said, “Yes, you did laugh.

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate this reading

There are three main characters in this episode: Abraham, Sarah & God

  • – Abraham is present – fully present to serve his guests
  • – Sarah is afraid – she is hiding in the tent
  • – And God is free – nothing is too hard for the Lord
  • – First let’s consider how Abraham is present

 Abraham is present:

A couple of weeks ago Robyn and I were fortunate enough to take a trip to Kapiti Island

  • – Kapiti Island is a special conservation reserve – it’s a place set apart for native bird life
  • – You can’t just travel over any old time and land your boat on the island, you need a permit
  • – So Robyn made the arrangements, we had our bags checked to make sure we weren’t bringing anything to the island that we shouldn’t and then took a boat ride over – we spent most of the day there

 

There’s really only one thing to do on Kapiti: walk around and look at the bird life

  • – Some people might find that boring but Robyn & I really enjoyed it
  • – You see, when you have only one thing to do you are able to be fully present to that one thing
  • – I’ve walked through native bush many times but usually it was to get from point A to point B – I was on a mission
  • – Kapiti was different. There was no mission, no goal to achieve – all I had to do was be present and enjoy
  • – The forest and birds filled up my senses so I could be fully present to just one thing – it was freeing

 

There’s a line in John Denver’s “Annie’s Song”, which says…

  • – You fill up my senses, like a night in the forest, like a sleepy blue ocean, like a storm in the desert, like a walk in the rain …
  • – ‘You fill up my senses’ means I am fully present to you, you are so beautiful, so captivating that I’m not distracted by anything else, you have my full and undivided attention

 

In Genesis 18 Abraham is fully present to God

  • – The Lord appears to Abraham in the form of a man
  • – The Bible shows us that manifestations of God’s presence are rare – they don’t happen often and when they do happen it’s usually different each time (unexpected)
  • – For example, the Lord appeared to Job as a storm in the desert and he appeared to Moses in the burning bush and to the people of Israel in a pillar of cloud & fire
  • – But on this occasion the Lord appears to Abraham as a human being
  • – Imagine that, God physically turning up and knocking on your door

 

Now obviously in appearing to Abraham as a man, God is holding back his full glory – it was like God was making himself smaller so He could meet Abraham where he is at

  • – Abraham does not go to God – God comes to Abraham in a form that Abraham can relate to
  • – The Lord is incredibly considerate of us human beings

 

God is accompanied by two heavenly associates, most likely angels also in the form of men

  • – They come during the heat of the day – which in Abraham’s culture wasn’t altogether convenient, it was siesta time (time for rest)
  • – But Abraham does not let that bother him – as soon as he notices them Abraham hurries out to greet them, inviting the men to stay and enjoy his hospitality for a little while – the Lord accepts

 

Abraham is fully present to their every comfort

  • – He offers water to wash their feet, rest under a shady tree and a full meal with the best food he has to offer

 

Abraham moves quickly to prepare the meal – he respects his guests’ time

  • – And he provides generously for them – more than they can eat
  • – He tells Sarah to bake some bread using three seahs of fine flour
  • – Three seahs is about 22 litres of flour – that makes a lot of bread [1]
  • – He also has one of his servants prepare a tender calf – a whole beast between three men, plus curds and milk (curds is probably a bit like yogurt) – only the best for his guests

 

Once the meal is served Abraham stands near them waiting and listening

  • – This is a sign of respect – he won’t eat until they have finished
  • – Abraham is taking the role of a servant, making himself fully present, fully available for whatever his guests may want
  • – Apparently the Lord and his heavenly companions have filled up Abraham’s senses

 

We live busy lives don’t we – we are pulled in so many different directions, distracted by so many competing voices, juggling to keep all the balls in the air

  • – Being on Kapiti Island, letting the forest fill up my senses, put me touch with the creator of that forest, with the Lord God – it was prayerful

 

At its best prayer is about opening ourselves up to God so that he fills our senses and we are able to be fully present to him, ready to do whatever he asks

 

What is the one thing that fills up your senses?

  • – What is the one thing that sets you free to be fully present?

 

Sarah is afraid:

During the meal the three men ask Abraham, “Where is your wife Sarah?”

  • – This question tells us two things:
  • – Firstly, even though Abraham has never seen these men before, they seem to know Sarah’s name – how do they know this

 

The second thing it tells us is that Sarah is not present – she is hiding

  • – This seems a bit strange to me – we would expect Sarah to be coming in and out of the tent helping Abraham serve, but the guests haven’t seen her
  • – Why is Sarah hiding?

 

Abraham answers honestly, “She’s there in the tent”

  • – By being honest and not holding anything back Abraham is trusting God

 

Then the Lord said…

  • – “I will surely return to you about this time next year and Sarah your wife will have a son”

 

Sarah, who is still in the tent, overhears this and laughs to herself

  • – But it’s not a happy laugh – it’s more a laugh of disbelief, she can’t (or won’t) believe this word because she is past the age of child bearing
  • – The original Hebrew basically says she has finished having her monthly cycle – so she is on the wrong side of menopause for having children
  • – For Sarah to get pregnant would be a miracle on par with raising someone from the dead – resurrection, it’s the biggest miracle you can think of

 

Sarah’s faithless response is understandable

  • – For years she has hoped for a child and every month of waiting and hoping she has had to deal with the disappointment
  • – Now, from a natural (human) point of view, she is beyond hope

 

Hope is a dangerous thing

  • – If we put our hope in the wrong things, the disappointment can destroy us
  • – I wonder if Sarah has suffered so much disappointment in her life that she is not able to risk hoping anymore
  • – She is (understandably) afraid to believe the Lord’s promise of resurrection

 

When we were on Kapiti Island we met a couple from the UK, from Yorkshire in fact, who were having a holiday here in NZ

  • – They had hopes of seeing a kiwi in the wild
  • – Kapiti Island has kiwis but they don’t come out during the day – you can only see them at night

 

This couple, who looked about the same age as Robyn & I, were on the track ahead of us

  • – When we caught up with them they motioned for us to be quiet
  • – As we drew closer they whispered that they had seen a kiwi come out of the bush and walk across the track in front of them
  • – I thought that was unlikely but I didn’t say anything
  • – Then, out of the undergrowth, a brown bird looking much like a kiwi emerged onto the track

 

I could tell straight away that it was a Weka, not a Kiwi (Weka are far more common than Kiwi)

  • – Seeing the excitement on their faces I didn’t have the heart to correct them, so I smiled and said nothing
  • – I figured, what harm would it do if they went back to the UK thinking they had seen a Kiwi in the wild

 

Later on we met up with them again at the homestead for lunch

  • – By that stage I was thinking to myself, ‘I wish I had the courage to be honest with them on the track. Now it’s going to be more awkward if I have to burst their bubble’
  • – Fortunately on the way back they saw another Weka and realised their mistake and, because they were good sorts who didn’t take themselves too seriously, they admitted to us they had it wrong and that cleared the air for everyone – the truth sets you free

 

Returning to Genesis 18, when Sarah laughed in disbelief at the Lord’s promise of a son, the Lord responded by saying…

  • – Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child now that I am old?’
  • – Sarah was afraid so she lied and said “I did not laugh”
  • – But the Lord has the last word saying, “Yes, you did laugh”

 

The Spirit of God is a Spirit of grace & truth

  • – Grace & truth go together with God – you can’t separate them
  • – God can forgive us (that’s grace) but God’s forgiveness comes with truth
  • – We must be honest with ourselves and confess what is true because it’s the truth that sets us free and clears the air
  • – It is when we name things for what they are that they lose their power over us

 

I respect the couple from the UK

  • – Obviously they hadn’t done anything morally wrong in confusing the Weka for a Kiwi (that’s a harmless mistake), but they had the courage to be honest with themselves and with us, while I fumbled with the socially awkward truth, albeit to save them embarrassment

 

I don’t think God was trying to humiliate or embarrass Sarah by calling her out for laughing in disbelief – God is not like that

  • – I believe the Lord understood Sarah better than she understood herself
  • – He was simply inviting Sarah into a conversation so that Sarah could speak her truth (because it’s the truth that sets us free)

 

Had Sarah found the courage to be honest with herself and with God the conversation may have continued with Sarah saying something like

“Yes Lord, I did laugh in disbelief. All these years I’ve waited for you to fulfil your promise of a child and you have disappointed me time and time again. You’ve let me down and now it’s too late. Now I can’t have children anymore. I have become cynical and untrusting because it’s safer than getting my hopes up and risking more disappointment.”

I don’t really know what Sarah might have said if she was being honest with God – I’m just guessing

  • – Whatever was on her heart God knew it already and I believe He was giving Sarah the chance to clear the air and find release

 

Abraham is present and Sarah is afraid, but God is free

God is free:

In responding to Sarah’s fear & doubt God says of Himself…

  • – “Is anything too hard for the Lord?”
  • – That’s a key question which keeps coming up in the Bible
  • – It’s a question all believers must face at some time or other
  • – Israel faced this question in the wilderness when they wondered how God would provide for them
  • – They faced it again centuries later during their exile in Babylonia

 

Jesus’ disciples faced it too, asking our Lord, “How then can anyone be saved?”

  • – To which Jesus responded, “…all things are possible with God.” [2]
  • – Jesus himself faced the question in the Garden of Gethsemane when he prayed: “Father, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will” [3]
  • – As we know, God did not remove the cup (of suffering) from Jesus

 

The point is, while all things are possible with God, it doesn’t automatically follow that we will always get what we want

  • – All things are possible with God but not all things are promised
  • – God is free to do the impossible
  • – But he is also free to say ‘no’ to us
  • – Whether God is promising us the impossible or saying ‘no’ to what we want, our best option is to trust Him, as difficult as that might be

 

God promised Abraham & Sarah a son but up until Genesis 18 he didn’t put a timeframe on it

  • – God made Sarah & Abraham wait until their situation seemed hopeless from a human perspective
  • – I expect this wasn’t what Sarah or Abraham wanted but there is no glory without suffering
  • – Just as truth & grace go together, so too suffering & glory go together
  • – It was possible for God to remove the cup of suffering from Jesus, but not without diminishing Christ’s glory
  • – It was possible for God to give Abraham a son through Sarah while they were still young but not without diminishing their faith

 

The fact that Sarah lied showed that she didn’t trust the Lord, but God in his grace did not hold it against Sarah

  • – While I believe God would have preferred Sarah to trust Him, the fulfilment of His promise of a son did not depend on her trust
  • – God was still able to do what he said even though Sarah did not believe
  • – If God’s purpose could be thwarted by Sarah’s doubt & denial then he wouldn’t really be God

Conclusion:

Genesis 18 presents Abraham & Sarah as polar opposites

  • – Abraham is fully present to the Lord, ready & willing to serve
  • – While Sarah is hiding, too afraid to admit her disbelief
  • – But God is free – nothing is too hard for the Lord
  • – The Lord is able to work out his purpose through Abraham’s faith & service as well as Sarah’s fear & doubt.

 

Questions for reflection or discussion

1.)    What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon?

2.)    In Genesis 18 God manifests His presence in human form. Can you think of other ways in the Bible (or your own experience) that God makes His presence real?

3.)    What does it mean to be fully present?

–         How was Abraham fully present to God in Genesis 18?

–         What helps you to be fully present?

–         What gets in the way of you being fully present?

4.)    Why do you think Sarah was hiding in Genesis 18?

–         Why do you think Sarah laughs in disbelief at the Lord’s promise that she will have a son within a year?

5.)    In what sense is hope a dangerous thing?

–         Have you ever felt disappointed by God?

–         How can we handle our disappointment?

6.)    How did the Lord respond to Sarah’s laugh of disbelief?

7.)    What does it mean that ‘God is free’?

8.)    Make some time this week to be present to the Lord

 

https://soundcloud.com/tawabaptist/28-jan-2018-being-present

[1] Refer the NIV Study Bible, page 32 – in the footnotes

[2] Mark 10:17-27

[3] Mark 14:36

Tawa Baptist

Something old, something new…

Christmas Day Message – 25th December 2017

There is an old rhyme often quoted in reference to a bride on her wedding day

–         The tradition is to give the bride…

–         Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue

Something old represents continuity with the past

–         Something new speaks of change and making a fresh start

–         Something borrowed represents the joy or energy we borrow from hope

–         And something blue stands for purity, love, and fidelity

This saying: Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, seems to sum up the Christmas story

 

Now when we talk about something old we mean something valuable that lasts, something with history, like a family heirloom

–         For example, a bride on her wedding day may receive a piece of jewellery from her mother which has been handed down through the generations

–         To receive something old is to be trusted with something priceless

–         It is not old in the sense of being broken down or obsolete

–         It’s old in the sense of being original and resilient

Something old is seen in the opening verses of John’s gospel, where John writes: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.

Jesus is the Word of God

–         He has always been with God even before time existed

–         So Jesus, the Word of God, is very old indeed

–         But not old in a broken down or out of date kind of way

–         Old in the best sense of that word

–         Jesus is the original word of God, he has history from the beginning

–         He is timeless, classic, tried & true – his oldness speaks of his resilience and priceless value

John’s gospel was written in Greek and the Greeks have at least two ways of expressing the term Word

–         Rhema (as in Radio Rhema) which refers to the spoken word

–         And Logos (from which we get the term logic) which refers to the unspoken word, the thought in one’s mind before it is spoken

John uses the term Logos to describe Jesus

–         Jesus is the logic of God – the inner word of God

–         Or to put it another way, Jesus shows us how God thinks – with grace & truth

 

As well as being something old, Jesus also brings something new   

–         In fact, Jesus came to make all things new

Most of you would have received something new for Christmas

–         Perhaps a new cell phone or a bicycle or a new dress or a pair of socks, which is fine, we need to replace stuff like that from time to time

–         But those kinds of new commodities soon wear out, they lose their shine, become obsolete and have to be replaced by something else new

–         The kind of newness that Jesus brings is a lasting newness – it’s not a newness that loses its gloss or has to be replaced again next Christmas

John 1, verse 4 reads…

–         In him was life and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.

Light and life go together

–         Light is the foundation of life – light sustains life, it keeps things alive

–         John is saying that Jesus is the source of life & light – Jesus has the power to sustain eternal life

–         So the newness Jesus brings does not wear out or become obsolete

If light & life go together then it follows that darkness relates to death

–         There is a shadow side to Christmas and the shadow is cast by death

–         For some reason (at this time of year) we are often more aware of what we don’t have

–         We feel more sharply the loss of those we love who have died and so Christmas is tinged with sadness

–         The light of Jesus’ life is stronger than the darkness of death

–         The newness that Jesus brings is a lasting newness, it won’t die

–         When God’s kingdom is realised in its fullness there will be no more tears, no more sorrow, no more death

 

Something old, something new, something borrowed…

–         The something borrowed, for a bride, is happiness or joy

–         Joy is an energy, a power, a force which comes from hope

–         Hope is like the wind – you can’t own the wind but you can borrow its energy

Or to use another analogy, hope is like a wave on the ocean – you can’t own a wave but you can borrow its energy to ride the wave, like a surfer

–         Joy is that positive energy borrowed from the wave of hope

–         We can’t own hope but we can ride it

–         Newlyweds borrow joy & happiness from their hope for the future, riding that hope like a surfer rides a wave

Like any powerful force hope can be dangerous

–         If we get hope wrong – if we misplace our hope (put all our hope in the wrong things) then it can crush us and leave us in the pit of despair

In Luke chapter 2 an angel appears to some shepherds as they watch their flocks by night. The angel says to the shepherds…

–         Do not be afraid. [Don’t be anxious.] I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people. Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. 

Jesus embodies the hope of salvation for all people and the shepherds rode the wave of that hope – they couldn’t contain their joy, spreading the good news that the Saviour of the world was born

There is so much anxiety and depression in our society today

–         Most of us don’t really want stuff for Christmas

–         We just want to be free of worry – to be happy, to enjoy life

–         We want to know that our kids are going to be okay

–         We want to know that our parents are going to be okay

–         We want to know that we are going to be okay

–         What we really want are those things that can’t be bought with money, things like peace & joy

–         In Jesus we find a hope that can be relied on – and from that hope we borrow the positive energy of joy to carry us through

 

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue

–         Blue stands for purity, love and fidelity

–         Fidelity is a word that means faithfulness or loyalty

–         You give a bride something blue as a symbol of the pure and faithful love between a husband & wife

 

The Christmas story is a story of purity, love and fidelity

–         Mary, the mother of Jesus was the picture of purity – she was a virgin and she conceived Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit

–         Joseph, the fiancé of Mary (and a step father to Jesus) was the picture of fidelity – when he discovered that Mary was pregnant he decided to break off the engagement quietly so as not to embarrass her

–         But when an angel appeared to him in a dream explaining the situation he stuck by Mary and married her, such was his loyal love for Mary & God

 

Mary & Joseph bring something blue – a pure and faithful love

–         The quality of Mary & Joseph’s relationship points to the faithfulness & purity of God’s love for us in Christ

 

Christmas is a time to celebrate the gift of God’s Son, Jesus

–         With the gift of Jesus comes something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue

 

Let us pray

–         I will pray the words in the plain type and I invite you to respond with the words in bold italics…

Jesus, you are the logic of God, older than time itself. You are the most worthy, the most valuable, the most priceless gift of all…

–         Help us to receive and honour you

Jesus, you came to make all things new. In you is the light of life, more powerful than the darkness of death…

–         Fill us with the life of your Spirit

Jesus, you are our hope of salvation. Forgive us for the times when we misplace our hope. Save us from anxiety and despair…

–         Carry us in your peace & joy 

Jesus, you embody the love of God, faithful & pure. You are committed to the well-being of all creation with a goodness beyond compare…

–          Make us loyal to you Jesus. Amen.

Tawa Baptist

Good News

Scripture: Isaiah 61:1-4 & 8-11

Title: Good news

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Messiah – jubilee
  • Yahweh – justice
  • Redeemed – joy
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

This morning’s sermon is based on the lectionary reading for today, Isaiah 61, verses 1-4 and verses 8-11. In today’s reading we hear three voices:

–         The voice of the Messiah, proclaiming jubilee, in verses 1-4

–         The voice of Yahweh, affirming his justice, in verses 8-9

–         And the voice of the redeemed, expressing their joy, in verses 10-11

–         Jubilee, justice and joy. From Isaiah 61 we read…

 

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, 2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion – to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy 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 splendour. 4 They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations.

8 “For I, the Lord, love justice; I hate robbery and wrongdoing. In my faithfulness I will reward my people and make an everlasting covenant with them. 9 Their descendants will be known among the nations and their offspring among the peoples. All who see them will acknowledge that they are a people the Lord has blessed.” 10 I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. 11 For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.

 

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate this Scripture for us

 

Good news is a relative term – what passes as good news for one person can be bad news for someone else

–         It depends on your perspective and on where your loyalties lie

 

The Black Caps’ recent test series win over West Indies was good news if you are a Black Caps supporter, but not good news if you support the West Indies

–         If house prices go down then that’s good news if you are a first home buyer but bad news if you’ve only just bought a new home

–         We could go on but you get the point, generally in our society today, one person’s good news is another person’s bad news

 

The other thing to say here is that sometimes what appears to be bad news at first, actually turns out to be good news in the long run

–         Maybe you miss out on a promotion at work and it feels like bad news at the time

–         But then 6 months later the organisation gets a new CEO and she restructures everything so the job you missed out on gets disestablished – had you got the job you’d be out of work now

–         Or maybe you have an overseas holiday planned but for some reason you are prevented from going

–         It seems like bad news at the time until a few days later you learn that the resort you had booked to stay in was flattened by a Tsunami

–         Sometimes what seems like bad news at first, turns out to be good news

 

The message of Isaiah 61 is good news for the righteous poor – but is it good news for anyone else? We’ll have to see

 

Messiah – jubilee:

Verses 1-4 are the voice of the Messiah proclaiming jubilee

 

Messiah is a Hebrew word which literally means ‘anointed one’

–         Priests in Old Testament times would be anointed with oil as a sign of their consecration and commissioning as priests

–         Likewise when a king was chosen to lead the nation God would send his prophet to pour oil on the king’s head as a sign that the one being anointed was God’s choice to lead Israel

–         (The prophet Samuel anointed Saul to be king and then later David)

 

We know it is the voice of the Messiah speaking in the opening verses of Isaiah 61 because he says…

–         The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor… to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour

 

The ‘year of the Lord’s favour’ is most likely a reference to the year of Jubilee

–         Under Jewish Law every 50 years was a special anniversary when everyone returned to their ancestral land

–         It was a sabbatical year – which means the people didn’t sow or reap crops, they simply ate what grew by itself in the fields and had a holiday for 12 months – sounds fantastic doesn’t it

–         Slaves were set free, debts were forgiven and land was redistributed so that any gap between the rich and poor was eliminated – everyone went back to an even footing

 

The year of Jubilee was good news if you were poor because it meant redemption and restoration – you got the family farm back with a fresh start and a clean slate

–         Obviously if you were rich it meant giving back some of the wealth you had accumulated during the past 50 years

–         It’s not that the rich became poor – they just went back to being like everyone else again

 

Now that might seem unfair to us, because we are immersed in a capitalist society where price is driven by demand & supply

–         House prices have gone up in NZ because the demand for houses is greater than the supply

–         But in ancient Israel the value of land wasn’t driven by demand

–         In ancient Israel the value of land was determined by the number of years remaining to Jubilee, when the land would return to its original owner

–         So, if there were 5 years left to Jubilee you only paid half as much as you would 10 years out from Jubilee

–         In effect this means you weren’t buying land to own forever, you were leasing it for a fixed period of time

–         Price was determined by time (not demand) – a much fairer system

 

So was the year of Jubilee bad news then if you were rich?

–         Well, it depends on your perspective and where your loyalty lies

–         If you were the kind of rich person who loved God (more than money) and was generous toward your neighbour, then it was good news for you too, because you would be happy for your neighbour

–         But, if you were the kind of rich person who was greedy and loved accumulating wealth then the year of Jubilee would still be good news, only it would have felt like bad news at the time

 

You see, losing wealth might feel unpleasant at the time but is actually a form of redemption in the long run

–         Giving back to the community sets us free from slavery to greed

–         The year of the Lord’s favour (Jubilee) is good news for everyone because it’s about putting everything back in the right place

–         It’s about putting God in charge of our life (not money) and it’s about putting our neighbour beside us, not above us or below us

 

The Messiah of Isaiah 61 is speaking this message of good news to Jews who were returning to their homeland after being held captive in exile for 70 years

–         The Jewish refugees are the broken hearted receiving healing

–         They are the captives being redeemed (or set free) from exile

–         They are the poor and dispossessed being restored to their ancestral lands      

 

The year of the Lord’s favour is also the day of God’s vengeance

–         God’s favour and vengeance are two sides of the same coin

–         We don’t normally like thinking about God’s vengeance

–         We like God to be friendly & indulgent toward us like Santa Claus or a dotting grandparent, but vengeance belongs to the Lord

–         God is the only one who can be trusted with vengeance

–         He does not over punish as we are inclined to do

 

Jesus read these opening verses of Isaiah 61 in the synagogue at Nazareth near the beginning of his public ministry and he added that today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing [1]

–         In other words, I’m the Messiah that Isaiah talked about and I’ve come to bring Jubilee, to set the captives free and so forth

–         That’s a pretty big claim to make

–         For some reason though he left out the part about the day of vengeance

–         I don’t think that’s because there is no vengeance with God

–         I think God wanted to postpone the day vengeance in order to give Israel’s enemies the chance to be redeemed as well

–         Any way the people of Nazareth didn’t like that and they tried to throw Jesus over a cliff, but he escaped – it wasn’t his time to die

 

From verse 3 the Messiah continues his proclamation of good news saying he will comfort all who mourn in Zion

–         Zion is another name for Jerusalem

–         When the exiles returned to find their beloved Jerusalem in ruins and occupied by foreigners they were devastated

–         Put yourself in their shoes for a moment

–         They had been living in Mesopotamia (Babylonia) for 70 years.

–         Most of them would have only heard about Jerusalem from parents or grandparents

–         They finally get royal permission to return to their homeland and are filled with a great sense of anticipation & hope

–         But on arriving to the holy city they find the place is a mess

–         They’re tired, the kids are grumpy, there’s no McDonalds and there’s so much work to do

–         To make matters worse the people who moved in while they were away aren’t that welcoming or friendly – in fact they are a thorn in the returnees’ side.

–         What a huge disappointment – feels like bad news at first but actually they will discover the good news in the long run

 

Putting ashes on the head was a sign of grief and shame

–         The Messiah will 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

–         In other words he will reverse their circumstances & give them something to smile about

 

They will be called oaks of righteousness

–         Righteousness means right relationship – relating to others in a right way

–         Loving your neighbour as you love yourself – that sort of thing

–         An oak tree speaks of strength and being established, firmly rooted

–         It is oaks (plural) as in a forest of oak trees

–         The refugees may feel vulnerable and misplaced on first returning to their homeland but they will be called oaks of righteousness, meaning they will become an established long standing community, where people love their neighbour

–         Of course, it takes time for an oak tree to grow – this won’t happen overnight

 

Verse 4 says the people will rebuild, restore and renew ruined cities

–         Jerusalem had been laid waste but God will give his people the strength to rebuild

–         Their present may look bleak but their future is strong and hopeful

 

Yahweh – justice:

Okay, so that’s the voice of the Messiah proclaiming jubilee

 

The second voice we hear is that of the Lord God (Yahweh) affirming his justice, in verse 8…

–         “For I, the Lord, love justice; I hate robbery and wrongdoing. …”

 

This is a statement about the character of God – the Lord is just & fair

 

From our point of view in history it is easy to take the justice of God for granted

–         As Christians we worship God because he is good – he is just & merciful

–         But people in the ancient world (500 years before Christ) did not automatically associate the gods with justice

–         For most pagans in the ancient world the gods had little or no moral compass – so for Yahweh (the God of Israel) to say “I love justice” was a significant and shocking thing

–         ‘What? A God who loves justice. That’s unheard of”

 

This Jewish/Christian belief that God is just poses a problem for some people – because this life is not always fair

–         Sometimes bad things happen to good people

–         We might not always get what we deserve – we may suffer loss at the hands of others – but God has a way of compensating us for those losses

–         He has a way of evening things up – restoring our losses and making things right

–         The year of Jubilee was one of the ways God evened things up

 

Of course, some losses can’t be easily restored in our lifetime (even with Jubilee) – in those cases we trust God to make things right in eternity

–         We can count on God’s justice because it is fundamental to who he is

–         God can’t be unfair

 

In the second part of verse 8 the Lord (Yahweh) says…

–         In my faithfulness I will reward my people and make an everlasting covenant with them…

 

The ancestors of the returning exiles had broken God’s covenant – that’s why they were sent into exile in the first place (kind of a massive time out)

–         But God will make a new covenant with the descendants of these refugees

–         This covenant is based on God’s faithfulness to his people, not on the people’s worthiness

–         Once again we see that what God does, flows out of who he is

–         The Lord is making a covenant because he’s faithful and that’s what the refugees need – security & commitment from a higher power

 

People generally change countries to improve their lot

–         But coming to a new country and starting again can be challenging

–         Parents will put up with the hard ship though if they think it will ultimately mean a better quality of life for their kids

–         Yahweh’s words give the returning refugees the assurance they need

–         The Lord is basically saying, I know it is tough for you now but it will get better (easier) for your descendants

 

The band Imagine Dragons have a song called ‘Not Today’

–         The chorus reads…

–         “It’s gotta get easier and easier somehow but not today, not today”

–         The returning exiles had the hope of knowing God would make things easier somehow, but not today

–         It would be their descendants who would be called blessed

 

Jesus is the one through whom God established this everlasting covenant

–         Jesus is the Messiah through whom the blessing of God comes

 

We’ve heard the voice of Messiah proclaiming Jubilee

–         And we’ve heard the voice of Yahweh affirming his justice

–         Now let’s listen to the voice of the redeemed, expressing their joy in verses 10 & 11

 

Redeemed – joy:

I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God… as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

 

Delight, rejoicing, bride & groom on their wedding day – these are words and images of joy

–         And the reason for the joy is that the Lord (my God) has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness

–         God has covered our shame (our nakedness) and made us look good

–         He has made us publicly acceptable once more

 

There’s a movie called Central Intelligence, starring Dwayne Johnson, the Rock

–         It’s nothing too heavy – just feel good entertainment

–         In this film Dwayne Johnson plays a character named Bob Stone

–         Bob gets picked on and bullied in high school

–         As a prank some guys steal his clothes while he’s in the shower and when he chases them to get his clothes back they lead him into an assembly hall where the whole school sees him in his birthday suit

–         They don’t actually show you anything (thankfully) – they just leave it to your imagination

 

Anyway, everyone is laughing at Bob except for the most popular guy in school who takes off his jacket and gives it to Bob to cover himself

–         The jacket was Bob’s salvation – covering his embarrassment & shame

–         That simple act of kindness changes Bob’s life

–         Bob studies hard and goes to the gym and undergoes a remarkable renewal, becoming a buff undercover agent for the CIA

 

The refugees are a bit like Bob Stone in the movie – they have been publicly humiliated, shamed for all the world to see

–         But God has covered their shame – he has clothed them with his own jacket (his own righteousness) and this saves them, precipitating a renewal of their life

 

In verse 11 the redeemed of the Lord sound a note of hope…

–         For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.

 

There’s that word righteousness again, keeps coming up doesn’t it

–         This image of the soil making the sprout come up and seeds grow reminds us of the oaks of righteousness in verse 3

–         Righteousness and praise are compared to a sprout and seeds – living things that start out small but contain incredible potency

–         The sprouts and seeds then are an image of spiritual renewal

–         God is the one who grows righteousness & praise

–         The Lord is the one who brings renewal

 

The sprout and seeds of righteousness & praise are not like Jack’s bean stalk – they don’t grow to the sky overnight

–         They take time to grow – in due course it will get easier to do right and easier to praise God, even if it doesn’t feel like it today

 

So often we approach Christmas with this expectation that it will be perfect or complete – that it will be the fruit fully formed, ripe and ready to eat

–         But that kind of expectation usually leads to disappointment

–         We are better to think of Christmas as a seed or a sprout – the beginning of renewal, not it’s end

 

In the meantime, if we truly believe things will get better in the future, if we know Jubilee is coming, it gives us joy & strength to cope in the present

 

Conclusion:

Isaiah 61 is a message of good news

–         The Messiah proclaims that a time of Jubilee is coming

–         The Lord (Yahweh) affirms his justice (his commitment) to the people

–         And those overdue for redemption are filled with hope & the joy it gives

 

https://soundcloud.com/tawabaptist/17-dec-2017-good-news

[1] Luke 4: 21

Tawa Baptist

God’s comfort

Scripture: Isaiah 40:1-11

Title: God’s comfort

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • God’s comfort
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

This morning we follow the lectionary reading for the second Sunday in Advent

–         In case you’re wondering what a lectionary is, it’s simply a list of prescribed Bible readings for each day

–         And the Old Testament reading prescribed for today (the 10th December 2017) is Isaiah 40:1-11

–         As I keep saying the word Advent means ‘coming’

–         Isaiah 40 is about the advent (or the coming) of the Lord.

–         From verse 1 we read…

 

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak to Jerusalem’s heart, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.

3 A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 4 Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. 5 And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

6 A voice says, “Cry out.”

And I said, “What shall I cry? All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. 7 The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the Lord blows on them. Surely the people are grass. 8 The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever.”

9 You who bring good news to Zion, go up on a high mountain. You who bring good news to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with a shout, lift it up, do not be afraid; say to the towns of Judah, “Here is your God!” 10 See, the Sovereign Lord comes with power, and he rules with a mighty arm. See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him. 11 He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.

 

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate this Scripture for us

 

God’s comfort:

By the rivers of Babylon, where we sat down

There we wept, as we remembered Zion…

 

Can anyone tell me the name of the 1970’s pop group who sang that song?

–         [Wait for people to reply…]

–         Yes, that’s right, it was Boney M.

 

Now can anyone tell me where they got the idea and words for that song?

–         [Wait for people to reply…]

–         ‘By the rivers of Babylon’ comes from Psalm 137, a song of lament, written by the Jews living in exile in Mesopotamia

 

In 586 BC King Nebucadnezzar destroyed the city of Jerusalem, killed thousands and forced many of the survivors to leave their homeland

–         This all happened because the people of Judah had broken faith with God

–         They had betrayed the Lord and dragged his name through the mud

–         So God left the temple and let his people suffer the consequences of their own injustice

–         The surviving Jews were held captive as exiles in Mesopotamia for about 70 years. Isaiah chapters 40-55 are words of comfort & hope for the exiles

 

Probably, for most of us here, the word comfort is a soft word

–         When I hear the word ‘comfort’ I tend to think of a pillow for my head or comfort food, like ice-cream, or a soft toy for comforting a small child

–         But I don’t think this is what God has in mind when he says, ‘Comfort my people’

 

If you are lost in the bush then having a compass is far more comforting than having a pillow

–         Or if you are trapped in a deep hole, then being thrown a rope is far more comforting than being thrown a tub of ice-cream

–         Or if you fall overboard at sea, then wearing a lifejacket is more comforting than holding a teddy bear

–         The comfort God offers gives real, tangible meaning & hope in the most bitter and hopeless of circumstances

–         It’s the comfort of a compass and a rope and a life jacket, not the comfort of pillows and ice-cream and soft toys

 

The people are hurting, they have suffered much and so the Lord says: speak comfort to Jerusalem’s heart

–         The heart of Jerusalem is not it’s buildings or its sacred sites

–         The heart of Jerusalem is its people

–         So when God says speak to Jerusalem’s heart he is really saying, speak to the people of Jerusalem

–         And in the context of Isaiah 40, written hundreds of years before Christ, most of the people of Jerusalem are living in exile, they are not actually living in the city itself – so this message of comfort is meant for the exiles

 

We’ve heard a bit about Jerusalem in the news this past week

–         Donald Trump’s words were comforting to the Israelis but very discomforting to the Palestinians

–         I wonder what it would mean to speak words of comfort to Jerusalem’s heart today (roughly 2,500 years later)

–         If the heart of Jerusalem is it’s people then we would have to say Jerusalem’s heart is divided today

–         Ethnically speaking the people of Jerusalem aren’t just Jewish, they are also Palestinian

–         And from a religious perspective they’re not just orthodox Jews, they are also Muslim and Christian and other things besides.

 

I don’t think Jesus would get involved in a political argument over who Jerusalem belongs to

–         Jesus died for the Israelis and the Palestinians – he loves them both

–         Donald Trump is trying answer the wrong question

–         The question is not: Who owns Jerusalem?

–         The question is: Will you be ready when Jesus returns?

 

Verse 2 continues …proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed

–         In Hebrew, the term hard service is the same term used for compulsory military service

–         So it is like saying to the exiles that their tour of duty is over

–         No more war for them, no more destruction and chaos – they have done their time

 

The last part of verse 2 reads…

–         Proclaim… that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.

–         Now when I first read this, I thought to myself, it sounds like Israel has paid for her own sins by suffering punishment from God

–         And that God has punished her twice over – more than she deserved

–         But that can’t be right – God is just & merciful – with God the punishment is never greater than the crime

 

Israel’s injustice toward God and their neighbours was like an infected wound that had to be cleansed, quarterised and dressed

–         Their hard service wasn’t so much payment for their sin as it was painful but necessary surgery to heal a wound

 

I was sitting in WINZ the other day (as you do) and they had this advertisement playing on their TV, with three guys in the pub betting on the races

–         One of the guys spent his wife’s hard earned money on a horse to win but he lost it all and ‘Guilty Feeling’ won instead

–         As a consequence the power bill didn’t get paid

–         Worse than this though the man had to live with the consequences of having abused his wife’s trust

 

Israel were like the guy in the ad with the gambling problem

–         They had bet on idolatry and broken trust with the Lord

–         God allowed Israel to suffer the consequences of their sin and disobedience so the nation would be humbled and learn their lesson

–         It was a kind of tough love approach by God, in much the same way that we might have to show tough love to someone with a gambling addiction

 

When the text says, She has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins, it doesn’t mean that God has punished Israel twice over for her wrong

–         It means that God himself has paid for Israel’s mistakes in full

–         You see, the word double does not mean twice over, in this context

–         The Hebrew word for double here means two sided (or double sided)

–         The same word is used in Job 11:6, which reads …for true wisdom has two sides. Know this: God has even forgotten some of your sin.

–         So to receive from God ‘double’ actually means that God has paid for (or forgiven) all of Israel’s sins

–         Not just the ones that Israel knows about but also the sins they are not conscious of – the sins on the flipside

 

Have you ever wondered about the sins you have committed without being aware of it? I have.

–         On the rare occasions that I buy an item of clothing I wonder whether it was made with slave labour

–         I don’t break into people’s homes and steal stuff but I do participate in a global economic system that transfers wealth from the poor to the rich in unjust ways – we are all part of that system whether we like it or not

–         Unless we were to live in the desert making our own clothes, eating locusts and wild honey I don’t see how we can avoid being complicit

–         The good news is that God’s forgiveness for us is double sided

–         Christ has paid for our all our sins – both the ones we know of and the ones we don’t.

–         I’m not suggesting that means we can turn a blind eye to injustice

–         The point is: God’s grace is often far greater than we imagine

 

In verses 3-5 of Isaiah 40 we hear a voice calling…

–         “In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God…”

 

With these verses the Jewish exiles are being told that the Lord God, Yahweh, is coming and they are to build a highway for him

 

Construction of Transmission Gully is well underway – a 27 kilometre four-lane motorway which will run from Mackays Crossing to Linden, through Transmission Gully.

–         The new motorway is scheduled to be open for traffic in 2020.

 

Developing the Transmission Gully Motorway was controversial, and was a topic of considerable debate in Wellington politics for some time.

–         There are anecdotal accounts that the American Marines were keen to build a road inland through Transmission Gully in World War II, but the government did not have the material (the concrete) to spare.

 

Building a literal highway for regular motorists in the 21st Century is a significant and costly undertaking

–         Building a metaphorical highway for the Lord is also a significant task – it means personal & corporate change, repentance basically

–         Straightening out our lifestyle so we are ready when Jesus returns

 

It is significant that the Lord makes his way through the desert wilderness

–         In the ancient world the wilderness was generally a metaphor for chaos and a place where God was thought to be absent

–         To say the Lord will come to his people through the wilderness is like saying that God will restore order out of the chaos

–         God will make his presence most real in the places he was thought to be most absent

 

As a family, we found God in the desert

–         I don’t mean that we literally drove out to the central plateau to meet God

–         I mean that we became Christians when my grandmother died

–         She had cancer but by the time they discovered it the cancer had spread to her liver and there wasn’t much they could do for her

–         Nan came to live in our house for the last few months of her life before she died. I was about 10 or 11 at the time

–         Now you would think that nothing good could come out of that but actually God came to us through that desert experience

–         He didn’t heal my nan but she did place her trust in Jesus before she passed and as a consequence we began following Jesus too

 

It’s funny how God is often most real for us when we are in a place of deep suffering and disorientation – a desert place

–         It’s our need that makes us open to receive God

–         And it’s the desert that makes us aware of our need

 

Verse 5 says…

–         And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together.

–         What does this mean?

–         Well, the word glory can mean a number things depending on the context

–         In Isaiah 40 the glory of the Lord refers to the manifestation of God’s presence. God’s glory is the sign or the indicator that God is present

 

It’s easy to tell when a human being is present – you know that I’m here because I have a physical body that you can see and hear and touch (hopefully you can’t smell me from where you are)

–         In a sense our bodies are our glory – they are a physical manifestation of our presence

–         But God is not like us – he isn’t made of flesh & bones – He is Spirit and so how do we know when God is present?

 

Well, it’s a little bit like knowing whether someone is home or not, without actually going into the house

–         You can usually tell someone is home because their car is in the driveway

–         Or, if it’s night time the lights are on and, if its dinner time, you might smell food cooking

–         We could say the car, the lights and the cooking smells are the glory of the house, in the sense that they are signs of the homeowner’s presence

 

God’s glory, his presence, can be seen in a whole variety of ways

–         We might see God’s glory (or presence) manifest in a sunrise or when our prayers are answered or when someone makes a decision to follow Jesus

 

For me personally, one sign of God’s glory (or presence) in my day is synchronicity – being in the right place at the right time

–         For example, last Thursday someone from water services came to fix the leaky water toby behind the hall

–         Just as I was hopping into my car to leave for an offsite appointment I noticed the plumber coming round the back of the church

–         He was having trouble finding the leaky toby – and to be fair it is hard to find, being half way up the bank hidden in the bushes behind the hall

–         So I showed him where the leak was and he fixed it

–         Had I been a minute earlier or later I would have missed him and he probably would have left without fixing the leak

 

Now that might seem to you like a mere coincidence or a minor detail

–         But for me it was a manifestation of God’s glory, a small sign of His presence in my day

–         Had I missed the plumber it would have created more work for me because then I’d have to ring the Council back and get them to send someone again – which would be a bit of a wind up

–         By making sure I was in the right place at the right time God saved both me and the plumber time & frustration

–         Little things like that are a great comfort to me because they demonstrate in a very real and practical way that God is present – I’m not alone

 

When the people of Israel left their slavery in Egypt the Lord led them by a pillar of fire & cloud – this pillar was another form of the glory of God

–         People could look at the pillar and see that God was present with them, sort of like seeing the lights on at night and knowing the owner of the house was at home – it was a tremendous comfort to the people

–         In ancient Israel the Tabernacle and then later the temple in Jerusalem were also manifestations of God’s glory (signs of his presence)

 

Obviously when the temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC that was a sign that the lights were off, that God’s glory had departed and the Lord’s presence had left the building

–         So when it says in verse 5 the glory of the Lord will be revealed, the exiles can draw strength & comfort in the certain knowledge that God’s presence is returning to them – they are not alone

–         Verse 5 doesn’t tell us specifically how God’s glory will be revealed

–         Initially, we could say it was revealed in the return of the exiles and the rebuilding of the temple

–         But looking beyond that we know (from our vantage point in history) that God’s glory is perfectly revealed in the person of Jesus Christ

 

Over 500 years later the gospel writers would use these words from Isaiah 40 in reference to John the Baptist and Jesus

–         They would identify John as the voice of one calling in the wilderness

–         And they would name Jesus as the glory of the Lord revealed to all humankind

–         For it is through the humanity of Jesus that God chose to make visible his presence with his people

–         And it is through the suffering of Jesus that God chose to reveal his glory

 

In verses 3-5 we heard the voice of someone calling in the wilderness

–         Then in verses 6-8 we hear a different voice, or rather two voices:

–         A heavenly voice and human voice [1]

–         The heavenly voice says, “Cry out”

–         And the human voice responds, “What shall I cry? All people are like grass, & all their glory is like the flowers of the field. 7 The grass withers & the flowers fall, because the breath of the Lord blows on them…”

 

Last year we went to the West Coast of the South Island for a bit of a look around – we’d never been there before

–         We stopped at Franz Joseph for a night or two

–         I remember walking up the valley toward the glacier with these massive stone cliffs either side of us

–         The valley had been carved out of solid rock over many thousands of years as the glacier ice moved backwards and forwards through the valley

–         We are here for 70 or 80 years maybe, if we’re lucky but this valley, the mountains and the glacier, had been there for millennia upon millennia

–         It gives you a sense of the fleeting nature of human life

 

Being in a place as old as that begs the question: What is the meaning of our lives when our lives are so short?

–         In a paradoxical sort of way though, being close to something so ancient actually comforted me

–         It quieted my soul, putting all my worries & anxieties into perspective

 

The human voice (in verses 6 & 7) sounds a note of despair, which is what we would expect from someone who has lost so much and was living in exile

–         It’s like this person is saying: What’s the point in telling people that God is coming? By the time he arrives we’ll probably be dead anyway

–         What’s the point in comforting people, we are like flowers, here today and gone tomorrow – human life is so fragile, so fleeting and God’s advent (His coming) is so slow (like a glacier)

–         But despair eventually gives way to hope for the word of our God endures forever 

–         It is the enduring nature of God’s word that puts our worries into perspective and gives meaning to the transitory nature of human life

–         God’s word is super food for our soul when we are starved for meaning

 

We hear the content of the message of comfort in verses 10 & 11…

–         See, the Sovereign Lord comes with power, and he rules with a mighty arm. See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him.

 

The image we have of God here is that of a mighty warrior king

–         If you are a weak, vulnerable, defenceless nation then it is a comfort knowing you are under the protection of the most powerful force on earth

–         Or, to use another analogy, if you are being held hostage it is a comfort knowing the Navy Seals are on their way to your rescue

 

The reward accompanying God (the warrior King) is most likely a poetic reference to the Jewish exiles – the people are the treasure, the recompense

–         God is about to set his captive people free and lead them back from exile to their homeland in Judea and Jerusalem

 

But God is not one dimensional – there are many facets and layers to God’s character

–         As well as being a warrior King the Lord is also a shepherd gathering the lambs in his arms and carrying them close to his heart, gently leading those with young

 

Not only is God powerful & strong like a warrior King (so that no enemy can resist), he is also tender & gentle like a shepherd (so the weak won’t be left behind) [2]

–         These twin images offer real practical comfort to the people

 

Conclusion:

When we put it all together the message is…

–         God is on the move and the exiles’ sense of God’s absence will soon be replaced by a sense of God’s presence

–         This is good news – a message of real comfort

–         Not the soft superficial comfort of pillows, ice-cream and teddy bears

–         But the real life saving comfort of a compass when we are lost in the bush, or a rope from above when we are at the bottom of a pit, or a life jacket when we fall overboard

 

In John 14, the night before he died, Jesus spoke words of comfort to his disciples – He promised them the gift of His Holy Spirit

–         God’s Spirit is intimately connected with God’s glory

–         It is by God’s Spirit that we become aware of God’s presence both in the ordinary things of our lives as well as the extra-ordinary

 

Questions for reflection or discussion:

 

1.)  What sort of comfort is meant in Isaiah 40?

–         What comforts you?

2.)  Reflect / discuss the double sided forgiveness of God

3.)  How do we prepare a highway for the Lord?

4.)  What is the significance of God coming through the desert wilderness?

–         Think of a time when God has met you in (or through) a desert experience

5.)  What is the glory of the Lord?

–         How do you know God is present with you?

6.)  How does Jesus reveal the glory of God?

7.)  Ask God to make you aware of presence this Advent season and make a note of how he answers your prayer

 

https://soundcloud.com/tawabaptist/10-dec-2017-gods-comfort

 

[1] These speech marks follow the NIV translation.  The original Hebrew doesn’t have speech marks.

[2] Refer Barry Webb’s commentary on Isaiah, page 163.

Tawa Baptist

Interceding for the exiles

Scripture: Isaiah 64

Title: Interceding for the exiles

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • The prophet prays for God to intervene
  • Because of who God is (not because of anything Judah has done)
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Over the past couple of months we have been working through a series on the life of Abraham, in Genesis

–         This morning we take a break from Abraham to follow the Anglican lectionary readings for the first three Sundays in Advent

–         In case you’re wondering what a lectionary is, it’s simply a list of prescribed Bible readings for each day

–         And the Old Testament reading that is prescribed for today (the 3rd December 2017 – the first Sunday in Advent) is Isaiah 64

 

Isaiah was a prophet who lived around 700 years before Christ

–         In chapter 64 the prophet prays to God, on behalf of the people, saying…

 

Oh, that you would tear the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you! 2 As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you! 3 For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you. 4 Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him. 5 You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways. But when we continued to sin, you were angry. How then can we be saved? 6 All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. 7 No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and made us waste away because of our sins.

8 Yet, O Lord, you are our Father.     We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. 9 Do not be angry beyond measure, O Lord; do not remember our sins forever. Oh, look upon us, we pray, for we are all your people. 10 Your sacred cities have become a desert; even Zion is a desert, Jerusalem a desolation. 11 Our holy and glorious temple, where our ancestors praised you, has been burned with fire, and all that we treasured lies in ruins. 12 After all this, O Lord, will you hold yourself back?     Will you keep silent and punish us beyond measure?

 

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate this Scripture for us

 

Isaiah 64 is a prayer of intercession – it is one of the great prayers of the Bible

–         In this prayer the prophet asks God to intervene for the sake of his people, not because of anything the people have done, but because of who God is

 

The prophet prays for God to intervene:

In 1957 Dr Seuss wrote a book titled: The Grinch Who Stole Christmas

–         It was later made into a film by Ron Howard, in the year 2000

 

The Grinch is a grumpy sort of character who hates Christmas – can’t stand it (sort of like Charles Dickens’ Ebenezer Scrooge)

–         The Grinch lives in a self-imposed exile, in a cave, above the town of Whoville

–         The residents of Whoville simply love Christmas – can’t get enough of it

–         Consequently most of them don’t like the Grinch, they’re afraid of him

–         All except for Cindy Lou, a little girl who has compassion on the Grinch

–         Cindy is not afraid and actually shares some of the Grinch’s feelings that Christmas has become too commercialised

 

Cindy intercedes for the Grinch and manages to get him invited to their Christmas celebrations as the Cheermiester, or the special guest of honour

–         The Grinch hasn’t done anything to deserve this honour – but Cindy and the townsfolk aren’t doing it because of anything the Grinch has done.

–         They are helping the badly behaved Grinch because that is what he needs and that’s who they are

 

Intercession is a verb – it’s a doing word

–         To intercede means to intervene on behalf of another

–         Cindy Lou interceded for the exiled Grinch

–         She intervened on his behalf, asking the people of Whoville to help the Grinch because he couldn’t help himself

 

Isaiah 64 is a prayer of intercession

–         The prophet asks God to intervene to help the Jewish exiles because they can’t help themselves

 

Now in saying that Isaiah 64 is a prayer of intercession you need to know that it’s not the whole prayer – the prayer actually begins at chapter 63, verse 7

–         So Isaiah 64 is the second half of the prayer

–         The prophet starts his prayer by saying: I will tell of the kindness of the Lord…  His intercession begins with adoration and praise

 

The impassioned cry, O that you would tear the heavens and come down that mountains would tremble before you… comes somewhere near the centre of the prayer. We could say it is the heart of the prayer

 

The fact that the prophet is asking God to come down from heaven is significant

–         It reflects what the people are thinking – they don’t feel like God is with them. They feel like God is absent and ignoring them

 

This intercessory prayer is poetic. The mountains are a metaphor for imposing and oppressive obstacles [1]

–         The prophet wants God to come down from heaven in power to deal with all the challenges the people on earth face

–         He wants God to put heat on Israel’s enemies, As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil

 

So what are these mountains (or challenges) they face?

–         Well, there is the challenge of their present circumstances but there is also the challenge of their past sins

 

A large portion of the book of Isaiah hinges on the destruction of Jerusalem and the resulting Jewish exile

–         We could think of Isaiah in three parts, broadly speaking…

 

Chapters 1-39, deal with events before the exile in 586 BC

–         Prior to the exile the nation of Judah became increasingly corrupt to the point where God could no longer associate his name with Israel

–         As punishment for Judah’s sins God arranged for king Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians to destroy Jerusalem

–         Thousands were killed and many of the survivors were carried into exile

 

The second section of the book of Isaiah is chapters 40-55, which are mostly words of comfort & hope to the Jews during their exile in Babylonia

–         The conditions in exile weren’t too bad – the Jewish refugees were able to trade and do business and live relatively comfortable lives

–         But without their temple, without a centre of worship, the exiles were at risk of losing their identity and being assimilated into the cultural soup around them

–         They needed to be told that God still cared about them and that their exile wasn’t permanent – they would be able to return to Jerusalem one day

 

The third section of Isaiah, chapters 56-66, deals with the time after the exile when the Jews were allowed to return to their homeland

 

With this framework in mind Isaiah 64 is a prayer for the returning exiles

–         The Jewish exile lasted for 70 years – so the people of Judah were returning to a homeland they had never seen before and only heard about

–         Filled with hope at a fresh start the exiles returned to Jerusalem only to find their temple in ruins and their land occupied by others

 

The prophet describes this destruction in verses 10-11 where he says…

–         Your sacred cities have become a desert… Jerusalem a desolation.

–         Our holy and glorious temple… has been burned with fire and all that we treasured lies in ruins.

–         After all they had been through the survivors were now facing the challenge of starting again and rebuilding from scratch with many mountains (or obstacles) to overcome and nothing left in the tank

 

To make matters worse they face the even larger challenge of the burden of their sins. From verses 5 & 6 we read…

–         When we continued to sin you were angry. How then can we be saved? All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags…

 

To be unclean is to be labelled a Grinch by the community

–         You see, in Jewish religion there are certain things that can make you ceremonially unclean, like touching a dead body, for example, or eating the wrong foods or having a skin disease

–         These things in themselves are not sinful but they do exclude the person (temporarily) from participating in worship

 

The prophet is saying we’ve become like the Grinch, like someone who is unclean, someone excluded from the worshiping community

–         And there’s nothing we can do to get back in

–         All our righteous acts are like dirty rags

 

You may have seen that ad on TV where the mum is wiping the kitchen bench with a piece of raw chicken – not very hygienic

–         The point of the ad is that using an old dish cloth to wipe down the bench just spreads the germs around – it makes things worse

–         What you need is a fresh new cloth (Dettol wipes or whatever it is they’re selling)

 

The prophet is saying, we’ve become like someone trying to keep the kitchen clean with a dirty cloth

–         We may as well be wiping the bench with a piece of raw chicken

–         Our righteous acts, our best intentions, are just spreading the sin around and making things worse

 

No wonder the people feel like God is absent and ignoring them

–         How could a holy God get near to an unclean (salmonella) people?

 

The breakdown in communication between God and his people finds expression in verse 7 where the prophet says…

–         No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and made us waste away because of our sins

 

‘To call on the name of the Lord’ means to pray

–         The prophet is praying on behalf of the people because the people themselves have given up trying to pray

–         They don’t believe God will listen to them because of their sins

 

It’s a Catch 22 situation

–         The only way we’re going to get through this is with God’s help (with Him coming down to save us)

–         But God isn’t going to help us because we’ve broken faith with Him – so what’s the point in praying. We’d just be wasting our breath. (That’s Grinch like thinking)

 

When I was training for ministry I spent three months one summer working as a chaplain in Greenlane Hospital

–         There was one ward I visited that specialised in caring for patients with throat and speech problems

–         Most of the people on that ward had difficulty talking, if they could talk at all – either they had lost their voice box because of cancer or they had been affected by a stroke

–         It was a challenging ward to visit – I had been trained to listen and understand but when the patients can’t talk it’s hard to do either

–         I felt powerless – like I had nothing to offer (which is probably something close to what the patients felt as well)

–         I guess God sometimes puts us in situations where we feel like we have nothing to offer because it makes us rely on Him, rather than our own competence

 

Anyway, I remember this one guy – an older gentleman who, in very broken English, managed to tell me that he had been in the war

–         He struggled with guilt over the people he had killed

–         For 60 years he had carried that guilt and now, when he finally gets a chance to make his confession to a padre, he can’t speak properly

–         I don’t think he had much longer to live

–         He needed me to be his intercessor, saying the words he couldn’t

–         In the end his tears made a truer confession than any words could have

–         I believe God understood his heart, even if I couldn’t grasp every word

 

Perhaps the Jewish exiles were a bit like the patients in that ward who couldn’t talk – they wanted to pray but were powerless to do so

–         They needed someone to intercede for them

–         That’s what intercessory prayer is – praying on behalf of those who can’t pray for themselves

 

Who do you know that needs God’s help but can’t pray for themselves?

–         Perhaps someone who used to be a believer but has now left the church in a kind of self-imposed exile

–         Perhaps someone who doesn’t know that God is gracious – they’ve done wrong and don’t feel like God will listen because of their sins

–         Perhaps an innocent unborn child or a baby

–         Perhaps someone who is so sick or depressed that they can’t find the energy or the hope to pray

–         Will you be their intercessor? Will you speak to God on their behalf?

 

Because of who God is:

The prophet asks God to help because of who God is, not because of anything Judah has done

In verses 4 & 5 the prophet describes something of God’s character when he says…

–         No ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him. You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways.

 

This speaks of the goodness of God’s character, the justice of God

–         And it also suggests the problem for Judah – it is precisely because the people have not done right and have forgotten God’s ways that they feel like God won’t listen when they pray     

–         If Yahweh were a pagan god like Marduk or Baal the people might think they could bribe him or manipulate him with sacrifices

–         But the Lord God Almighty isn’t like the gods of other nations – he is free – he won’t be bribed or manipulated

–         God does good because He is good

 

Verse 8 holds more promise though…

–         We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.

 

I remember when I was kid, maybe 6 or 7 years old, watching a potter form a bowl out of clay

–         There was this alley way off Ward street in Hamilton which (in the 1970’s) was home to a collection of artisans

–         It’s probably a mall or a carpark building now but back then you could actually watch people doing their art, making their crafts

–         I think my mother must have been shopping for shoes, or something else that held no interest for me, but that didn’t matter – I was transfixed, happy to simply watch the potter expertly shape the clay on his wheel

–         Every now and then he would look up at me and smile

–         He was completely silent – didn’t say a word, just let his hands do the talking. I remember wishing I could be as clever and skilful as him

 

We are the clay, you are the potter

–         This is an image of creation where God is the creator and the people of God are his handiwork

–         For the Jewish exiles, returning to Jerusalem was an act of creation

–         The exiles are like a lump of clay – they are in a state of chaos

–         They have no form or shape or function – no useful purpose in Babylon

–         And like a lump of clay they are completely helpless

–         There is nothing they can do to shape themselves – they are entirely dependent on God, the potter, to remake them as a nation

 

Why does a potter work with clay to create something?

–         Because he is a potter and that’s what potters do

–         Why should God reform and remake the exiles into a new nation?

–         Because he is the creator and that’s what the creator does

 

Verse 8 contains another image of God…

–         Yet, O Lord, you are our Father. 

 

To say that God is a Father to the people of Judah means that God is the one who brought the Jewish people into existence

–         The nation of Israel exists because God created them

–         But there is more to being a Father than simply conceiving

–         God has been a Father to Israel in the sense that he has raised them and protected them and provided for them and taught them and cared for them

–         All the positive things a father does for their children

 

The prophet is essentially saying to God: ‘as a Father how can you bear to turn your back on us?’ Or as he puts it in verse 12…

After all this, O Lord, will you hold yourself back?     Will you keep silent and punish us beyond measure?

That’s how the prayer ends, left hanging with an unanswered question…

 

In thinking of the image of God as a Father, I’m reminded of the parable of the Prodigal Son

–         What did the father do when he saw his wayward son returning home in the distance?

–         Did he hold himself back? Did he keep silent and turn a cold shoulder?

–         No – of course not. The loving Father (a picture of God) ran out to meet his son. He showered love and honour and acceptance on his boy saying,

‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’  [2]

God’s judgment (his punishment) is not beyond measure – it is limited

–         The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases

–         His mercies are new every morning

 

Conclusion:

We’ve heard how Isaiah 64 is a prayer of intercession – a prayer for God to intervene

–         The people are powerless to save themselves

–         Their behaviour has been so bad that they have given up praying – they can’t believe that God, in his justice, would listen to them

–         But the prophet knows God’s grace, as well as his justice, and he intercedes for the people

–         The prophet asks God to help because of who God is, not because of anything the people have done

You may be wondering, why did the Anglicans prescribe Isaiah 64 as a reading for Advent – what on earth has any of this got to do with Christmas?

–         Good question

Isaiah 64 is a prayer that is answered in the person of Jesus

–         The prophet had asked for God to tear open the heavens and come down to help them

–         500 years or so later, in Mark chapter 1, at Jesus’ baptism, we read…

–         And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending on him like a dove

–         Jesus is the divine intervention that the prophet had asked for

–         He came to conquer the mountains of sin & death – to restore the relationship between humanity and God

–         Jesus became an intercessor for us

Isaiah 64 is an Advent reading because the coming of Jesus answers the prophet’s prayer

 

Questions for discussion & reflection:

1.)    What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon?

2.)    What is the prophet doing in Isaiah 64?

–         What does it mean to intercede?

3.)    What are the ‘mountains’ of verses 1 & 3 a metaphor of?

–         What mountains are you facing at present?

4.)    Who was Isaiah 64 originally written for?

–         Who might it apply to today?

5.)    Why did the people not lay hold of God in prayer?

–         How is your prayer life at the moment? Do you feel able to talk to God freely?

–         Who do you know that is not able to pray for themselves?

6.)    On what basis does the prophet ask God to help the people?

7.)    Discuss the image of the potter and the clay.

–         What light does this image shed on the situation of the returning exiles?

–         What light does it shed on your situation?

8.)    What does it mean that God is a Father?

9.)    How does Jesus answer the prophet’s prayer?

Take some time this week to pray (intercede) for those who are not able to pray for themselves

 

https://soundcloud.com/tawabaptist/3-dec-2017-interceding-for-the-exiles

[1] Refer John Watts, Word Commentary on Isaiah, page 335.

[2] Luke 15:22-23