1rst Sunday of Lent 2021

This was first written for and given at the Lynnville (IL) UMC on February 29, 2004. I have presented again here in 2021. The Scripture is from Romans 10: 8b – 13…

            I have always loved reading! I guess I learned how to fairly quickly and generally led my classmates in that ability through most of my grade-school years. And it seems as though I could never get enough of it… I would read everything! I would read the labels on cans… I would read dad’s Popular Mechanics magazine each month… I would read the lyrics in the hymnal during service… I would devour any books that I chanced to get at the library… and I dearly, dearly loved reading comic books! Whether at the barber shop, or a friend’s house, or the few that I had at home, I would read them from cover to cover, memorizing even the advertisements that filled so many pages of them. And for many years it seemed like those advertisements were the same in every issue that I chanced to see.

          There was the one for x-ray glasses that were supposed to let you see around a corner or tree to spot someone who was waiting in ambush for you… there were the ones promising to give you the body of Atlas so that the beach bully would stop kicking sand in your face… and the one that I always drooled over… a locker chest full of 1000 plastic army men posed in a number of battle positions! It cost something like $2.99 plus shipping and handling, but since my primary source of cash consisted of a weekly 25-cent allowance, we were talking half-a year’s income… just totally undoable for a young man with holes in his pockets from the money that burned whenever placed there!

          Another ad that seemed to be in each of the comics during that time was the one prompting you to make your fortune by selling seeds for them. It seemed easy enough… they would send a box of seed packets for you to sell to friends and family, after which you would send back the money and select from a number of prizes as your payment for doing so. The pictures that they showed were of gas-powered airplanes and telescopes and so on… just the kind of things that every young boy knows they just have to have! So finally, after enough pestering and promises, mom decided to let both my brother and I order a box and see how it worked. They arrived with a catalog listing all of the various prizes that were available… page after page of color pictures that were reminiscent of the Sears Christmas catalog… almost every one of which required selling multiple boxes of seeds! Undaunted, I set out that first day with my box to grandma’s house, and then to all of my friends. Over the next thirty days, which was the time period given to return either the money or the seeds, I hawked my wares to friends, to friends of friends, at church, and finally started going door-to-door… “Hello, would you be interested in buying some flower or vegetable seeds for your yard or garden?” I got to be fairly good at it. My brother, however, wasn’t nearly as enthused and as the end of our time grew near, his box was still mostly full. Mom had me take him door-to-door and help him sell some of his, so when the end of our allotted time found his box still almost half full and mine having only a few flowers seeds yet, she decreed that since I had helped him sell some of his I could empty the few packets I had left into his box and count mine as done. He got to keep a portion of the cash from what had been sold, but I got to choose a prize out of the catalog… that’s how I got my very first camera… my first sales commission!

          It seems as if over the years I have always had to be ‘selling’ something… first of all I would have to sell myself to a potential girlfriend (which is how I wound up with my wife… I think she’s still debating that deal!), or to prospective employers or investors. Once accepted, I found that in addition to performing my regular duties and tasks, I have also always been the interface… the direct link, if you will… between the customer and the company, which meant representing and selling the company and its services or products to all that I came in contact with. And over the years I have found that it is far, far easier for me to sell something that I really believe in myself!

For example, in the three years that I was the Ingersoll dealer here in Morgan County I sold almost one hundred tractors… and these were some of the most high-quality garden tractors available, and priced accordingly! However, I don’t think that I could ever be a successful used-car salesman… I won’t try to sell someone something that I don’t believe in or use myself! The same holds true for my faith and how I try to present it to others!

          Our verses today start off with Paul quoting from Deuteronomy… let me read you the paragraph that it is from… chapter 30, verses 11-14.

Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, “Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, “Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.

          Moses spoke these words to Israel as a reminder that God’s Law was known to each of them. This Law had been given to Moses directly from God and was very clear and distinct. I’ve been studying some of the instructions and decrees as listed in the books of Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers, and God had given them a very, very specific set of rules to follow. Moreover, these rules were known to all of the Israelites… they memorized them when they were young and studied them throughout their lives! They knew them, and they knew they were to obey them!

Paul borrows and applies this phrase to the Gospel of Christ… “… the word of faith we are proclaiming…” …  and declares that it was near to each of them, as well… it was ‘in their mouths and in their hearts’! What follows, then, is what many call the ‘Gospel in a nutshell’… “…if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

Today is the first Sunday of Lent. Let me read some material I found on-line about that…

Originally, Lent was the time of preparation for those who were to be baptized, a time of concentrated study and prayer before their baptism at the Easter Vigil, the celebration of the Resurrection of the Lord early on Easter Sunday. But since these new members were to be received into a living community of Faith, the entire community was called to preparation. Also, this was the time when those who had been separated from the Church would prepare to rejoin the community.

Lent is a time of stripping down to essentials, as each Christian focuses on his or her individual relationship with God. It is a time when Christians remember our baptisms, when Jesus washed away our sins, giving us newness of life to celebrate in the triumph of Palm Sunday and the glory of Easter.

Lent has traditionally been marked by penitential prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Some churches today still observe a rigid schedule of fasting on certain days during Lent, especially the giving up of meat, alcohol, sweets, and other types of food. Other traditions do not place as great an emphasis on fasting, but focus on charitable deeds, especially helping those in physical need with food and clothing, or simply the giving of money to charities. Most Christian churches that observe Lent at all focus on it as a time of prayer, especially penance, repenting for our failures and sin as a way to focus on the need for God’s grace. It is really a preparation to celebrate God’s marvelous redemption at Easter, and the resurrected life that we live, and hope for, as Christians.

          Paul tells us that, “Anyone who trusts in Christ will never be put to shame.” He also says that, “there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him,” and that, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”   But he also makes very plain that, “…it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.”

          Over the past few weeks I have been making a special effort to impress upon you the importance of reading your Bible so that YOU know what it says. I have encouraged you to ‘Open the Eyes of your Heart’ so that you may see God more clearly… I have expounded on how some ‘beliefs’ sometimes change but how our belief in God should NEVER change… we have reaffirmed our belief in the resurrection of Christ… and we have learned how we must protect and defend all of these beliefs with every ounce and breath of our being! We have come to see how the love of Christ connects ALL of these ideas and holds them together… it is what makes everything work!

This morning I challenge you to look into your own heart during this Lenten season and discern just what truly is there. Do you confess “Jesus is Lord” merely through your mouth… or do you FEEL it with all of you heart and soul? Do you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that He died as a sacrifice for your sins on the cross, and that He was raised back to life three days later, and sits next to His Father in Heaven? And if you believe all of that, are you then doing everything in your power to ‘sell’ those beliefs to everyone you possibly can?

Because Jesus only wants those who truly believe in Him… those who know Him as the Messiah and accept Him as Lord! He only wants those who believe in what He has to offer so much that they not only use it in their own lives every day but are also trying to sell the whole world on it! And that is only possible when each of us comes to know and accept every item in His ‘product line’… Love… Peace… Contentment… Forgiveness… and at the very pinnacle… the very last word in anything that anybody could ever possibly want… Salvation!

What product line do you represent?