Given at the Lynnville (IL) UMC on August 10, 2003! The Scripture is from Ephesians 4:25 – 5:2…

 

Have you ever had a deadline sneak up on you and suddenly realize that you are about out of time to do whatever it was you were supposed to do? During most of 1971, the year that I graduated high school, Dad and I lived by ourselves on our small farm outside of Edwardsville. As a rule, he went to work at the steel mill each day and I would take care of whatever chores needed to be done around the house and/or farm, as well as whatever hours I would work for the neighbor. Generally, he worked the day shift, but every so many weeks he would have to go in for a series of midnight and 4-12 shifts. And it was during one of these 4-12 shifts that this story occurred.

Being a teenager and fresh out of high school, there never seemed to be enough time to take care of all of those things teenagers always seem to think they need to do. I usually managed to take care of everything, but it wasn’t always easy! On this particular day, Dad had done the laundry before going to work and hung it outside on the line. Among other things, I had been given strict instructions to take it down and bring it in when it was dry. I had dutifully taken care of most of the things on my list, but shortly after he left for work, sometime around three, something came up and since the clothes weren’t dry yet, anyway, I left in my Fairlane to see one of my friends.

You can probably guess part of where this is going!

Yes, one thing led to another and midnight found me headed home from halfway across the county when I suddenly remembered the clothes still hanging on the line… and Dad would be home in about forty minutes! Now, you have to remember that many of the oil roads down there are similar to the one south of the ‘old brick school house’… full of curves and hills and hollers. But that Fairlane and I knew them well. Since it was night, I knew I could see the headlights of any other traffic well before I came upon them, but that night there was nothing. So off we went, curling and twisting around the corners and curves as we carved a path through the air that must have been slamming shut behind us with a huge ‘boom’, though I was well ahead of it!

Finally, I came to the longest straight stretch in that neck of the country… 5 or 6 miles with barely a curve. It was up-and-down and narrow, but I knew it like the back of my hand and put the pedal to the floor. That little Fairlane had a top speed of ninety-three miles-per-hour, and that’s what we were doing whenever the tires were on the ground… but occasionally, as we topped a rise, that became my air-speed!

Flying through the night, I was calculating that I should be home in plenty of time to get the clothes in before Dad got there when I topped a hill at ninety-plus and saw a set of barricades dead ahead! Locking up the brakes, I went into a four-wheel skid. With all four wheels locked, it was shear luck (or the Grace of God!) that I stayed on the road. I spun 180 degrees and stopped with my rear bumper two feet away from a barricade with a sign that read, “ROAD CLOSED – BRIDGE OUT!”

By reflex, I had also pushed in the clutch pedal, and as I took stock of what had happened and that everything was alright, I revved the engine, let out the clutch, and took off flying down an alternate route! I still got home, had the clothes in the basket and was sitting in front of the TV when Dad walked in. The only problem was that the dew had settled on the clothes during the night and they were all wet, again!

In today’s verses, Paul is instructing the Ephesians in what, to us, may seem like some ‘well, duh!’ kind of things. “If you are a thief, stop stealing.” Well, DUH! “Put away all falsehood and tell your neighbor the truth.” Well, DUH! “Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of malicious behavior.” Well, duh, duh, duh, duh, and duh! And to top it all off, he gives us a deadline to deal with… “…don’t sin by letting anger gain control over you. Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry, for anger gives a mighty foothold to the Devil.” Just why is he saying all of these things to these people, and what does any of it have to do with us?

In Barnes’ Notes we read, “It may seem strange that the apostle should seriously exhort Christians to put away “lying,” implying that they were in the habit of indulging in falsehood. But we are to remember that the Ephesians had been recently converted, and were, to a great extent, ignorant of the requirements of the gospel. A conscience has to be “created” when pagans are converted.

  Also, the effects of former habits often abide long after a man is converted. He who has been in the habit of profane swearing finds it difficult to avoid it; and he who has been all his life practicing deception, will find himself tempted to practice it still. It was for reasons such as these, probably, that the apostle exhorted the Ephesians to put away “lying,” and to speak only the truth.  Nor is the exhortation inappropriate to some Christians today…

 (1) He who is in the habit of concealing the defects of an article in trade, or of commending it for more than its real value – “let him put away lying.”

 (2) He, or she, who instructs a servant to say that they are not at home, when they are at home: or that they are sick, when they are not sick or that they are engaged, when they are not engaged – “let them put away lying.”

 (3) He who takes no pains to ascertain the exact truth in regard to any facts or rumors that may affect his neighbor, though they may seriously affect the character and peace of another – “let him put away lying.”

 (4) He that is in the habit of making promises only to disregard them – “let him put away lying.”

 Nothing is more important in a community than simple “truth” – and yet, it is to be feared that nothing is more habitually disregarded. No professing Christian can do any good who has not an unimpeachable character for integrity and truth-and yet who can lay his hand on his breast and say before God that he is in all cases a man that speaks the simple and unvarnished TRUTH?”

Let me read that again… “No professing Christian can do any good who has not an unimpeachable character for integrity and truth.” Which one of us here this morning has an ‘Unimpeachable character’? And yet in the 2^nd chapter of 1 Peter, verses 21 & 22, we are told that, “To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.

“He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.”

Look around us! Church leaders debate accepting homosexuality… others point fingers and condemn them, while, at the same time, trying to cover-up their own scandals of sexual abuse and misconduct. These are the very people who are supposed to have studied God’s word… who are supposed to hear and follow His commands! And yet we find them embroiled in as much controversy as any of the priests and Pharisee’s of Jesus’ time on earth. Is it any wonder that many in the world today tend to hold Christians in contempt?

As Christians, we have an obligation to set an example for the world to see. In other words, the world sees Christ through us! And if your neighbor or your co-worker is seeing Christ through you… what is he seeing?

Each of the things that Paul mentions in these verses should be ‘Well, duh!’ kind of things. Yet we are all guilty of them! Listen to them again! Do not lie! Don’t let anger control you! Don’t steal! Don’t cuss or use abusive language! Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander! Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them. You know that Jesus did right in all of these things. And if others are to see Jesus in us, then we must be living by the same standards!

The Life Application Commentary notes that Paul gives us another surprising reason for choosing right over the wrong… so that we don’t grieve the Holy Spirit — not just so that we don’t hurt one another, but also so that we do not sadden God the Spirit. G. Campbell Morgan once asked, “How would you like to live with somebody who was everlastingly grieving your heart by his conduct?” What a powerful incentive that should be for us to do what is right and avoid what is evil! What a privilege and responsibility to know that our actions have that kind of effect on God.

Paul told the Ephesians … and through them, us… to ‘follow God’s example in everything they do… to live a life filled with love for others, following the example of Christ, who loved us and gave himself as a sacrifice to take away our sins.’

Are we living our lives in Christ’s image? When others look at us do they see the purity and innocence of God’s Son? Or do they see the image of the world beaming back at them? Because, if all they see in you is an image of themselves in the world… who can blame them for believing that Christianity must be false?

Now, about that deadline… Paul also told them to not let the sun go down on their anger. I put it do you that we should not let the sun go down on any of these sins! But I put it to you further that we should not let another MOMENT go by before acknowledging them and asking God for forgiveness. First of all, one can never be sure wither evening comes! But even disregarding that, the sooner we get ourselves straight with God, the sooner others will come to see the true image of Christ in us! The sooner we get ourselves straight with God, the sooner we can let ourselves concentrate on doing His work… helping those in need and spreading the Good News! The sooner we get ourselves straight with God, the more time we will all have to fully enjoy all of the blessings this life has to offer through His name!

Romans 9: 1-5… Given at the Lynnville (IL) UMC on July 31, 2005…

 

“How bright and goodly shines the moon!”

“The moon! The sun: it is not moonlight now.”

“I say it is the moon that shines so bright.”

“I know it is the sun that shines so bright.”

“Now, by my mother’s son, and that’s myself, It shall be moon, or star, or what I list, or ere I journey to your father’s house. Go on and fetch our horses back again.”

“Say as he says, or we shall never go.”

“Forward, I pray, since we have come so far, And it be moon or sun, or what you please: And if you please to call it a rush-candle, henceforth I vow it shall be so for me.”

“I say it is the moon.”

“I know it is the moon”

“Nay, then you lie: it is the blessed sun.”

“Then, God be bless’d, it is the blessed sun: But sun it is not, when you say it is not; And the moon changes even as your mind. What you have named, even that it is; And so it shall be for Katherine.”

Many of you will recognize these words as being from Shakespeare’s ‘Taming of the Shrew’… this is where Katherine finally begins to bow to the will of her husband Petruchio. And before all of you women start coming at me with your equality pitchforks, let me just add that this was written in 1592… things have changed a bit since then! Or have they?

I have just finished, this week, going through the book 1984, written in 1949 by George Orwell. I’d like to read a bit of it for you this morning, though I caution you, some of it is rather graphic…

The part I’m reading is towards the end of the book… our hero, Winston, has been captured by the ‘Thought-police’ and is being ‘reprogrammed’ in the depths of the ‘Ministry of Love’. He is, at the moment, strapped to a table in such a way so as to allow no movement whatsoever and is attached to some kind of electrical monitoring equipment. His interrogator, O’Brian, asks him…

“Do you remember writing in your diary ‘Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four.’?”

          “Yes,” said Winston.

O’Brian held up his left hand, its back toward Winston with the thumb hidden and the four fingers extended.

“How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?”

“Four.”

“And, if the Party says that it is not four, but five, then how many?”

“Four.”  The word ended in a gasp of pain.  The needle of the dial had shot up to 55.  The sweat had sprung out all over Winston’s body.  The air tore into his lungs and issued again in deep groans which, even by clenching his teeth, he could not stop.

O’Brian watched him, the four fingers still extended.  He drew back the lever.  This time the pain was only slightly eased.  “How many fingers, Winston?”

“Four.”  The needle went up to 60.

“How many fingers, Winston?”

“Four, four.  What else can I say?  Four.”

The needle must have risen again, but he did not look at it.  The heavy, stern face and the four fingers filled his vision.  The fingers stood up before his eyes like pillars, enormous, leering, and seeming to vibrate, but unmistakably four.

“How many fingers, Winston?”

“Four.  Stop it, stop it.  How can you go on?  Four, four.”

“How many fingers, Winston?”

“Five, five, five.”

“No, Winston.  That is no use.  You are lying.  You still think there are four.  How many fingers, please?”

“Four—five—four—anything you like.  Only stop it—stop the pain.”

In both of these stories, we find one person being told what they are to believe and that person accepting it… in the case of Katherine it was voluntary, with full knowledge of what was actually truth but learning to accept what her husband told her as truth because it was her 16^th century duty as a wife to do so. In the second story, however, Winston knew the truth and wasn’t afraid of it, even though the truth went against ‘Party’ policies, and was being forced and brainwashed through torture and deprivation to believe whatever it was the ruling element wanted him to believe, no matter how wrong it might be.

I’ve quoted, before, from the rock-opera Jesus Christ, Superstar, the words between Pilot and Jesus as Pilot interrogates Him… Pilot starts by asking… “Then you’re a king?” “It’s you that say I am… I search for truth and find that I get damned!” “But what is truth? Is truth unchanging law? We all have truths. Are mine the same as yours?”

Truth! In our verses from Romans this morning, Paul starts off by stating, “I speak the truth in Christ — I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit-“ But what is that truth?

Some of you may have seen the recent ‘Letter to the Editor’ that began, “The purpose of education in the United States is to produce “good”, unquestioning Anglo-Saxons who are fed party-line, sanitized, (blank) rather than the truth. …let me open your eyes and show you just how much of a ‘government by law’ the United States is and just how much it is a ‘Nation under God’. Now, I usually pay no attention to the ravings of this particular fanatic… he seems to be a regular contributor to the ‘letters’ page… but in this instance, much of his story is true. In the words of his letter…

“In 1851, the Santee Sioux Indians in Minnesota sold 24 million acres of land to the U.S. Government for $1.4 million.  By August 1862, thousands of white settlers continued to pour into the Indian lands, even though none of the money had ever been paid to the Santee Sioux.

 There was a crop failure that year, and the Indians were starving.  (Washington) refused to pay them the money they were owed, breaking another Indian treaty.  Yet (Washington) provided white Minnesotans with $2 million.  The starving Sioux revolted.

 At a meeting arranged with the Indians, the government and local traders, the Dakotans asked lead trader Andrew Myrick to support this cause.  His response was blunt:  “So far as I am concerned, if they are hungry, let them eat grass or their own dung.” . . .

 In the ensuing conflict, Gen. John Pope was put in charge of federal forces in Minnesota.  Pope announced, “It is my purpose to utterly exterminate the Sioux. . . .  They are to be treated as maniacs or wild beasts, and by no means as a people with whom treaties or compromise can be made.”

 Minnesota Gov. Alexander Ramsey had declared on September 9, 1862, that “The Sioux Indians of Minnesota must be exterminated or driven forever beyond the borders of the state.”  His plan was further implemented, when bounties, which eventually reached $200, were placed on the scalps of Dakota Indians.

 And the sad fact of the matter is that, as far as I can make out, all of this is true… in fact, the United States government instituted and implemented an entire systematic plan to eliminate and/or relocate all Native Americans from lands that ‘white people’ wanted! And the only justification that can be made today is that for hundreds of years, ‘white people’ did not consider Indians… or Blacks or Chinese or Mexicans or anybody that didn’t look and act like ‘us’, for that matter… as being real people! Indeed, in spite of those great words of Thomas Jefferson’s which declared how “All men are created equal!”, many European scientists did great studies and wrote and published lengthy papers declaring and describing how inferior all other races were to the Anglo-Saxons! That was one of the ‘scientific truths’ of that day!

Today, we know better… our ‘truth’ regarding other races and peoples now accepts all men… and women… as our equals. And yet, even in my saying that I show how un-equal we are… for the inference is that we are the standard by which others are to be judged!

In the Book of Romans, Paul has been building the case for all non-Jews to accept, and be accepted of, Christ… and I, for one, think that is a good thing… after all, I am not a Jew! But Paul takes a moment here to lament how many of his fellow Jews have not accepted Christ. He points out how, “Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all…”

Let me pose you a question… which seems most natural to you… to drive by a Living Nativity scene in December filled with blonde and red-headed angels, shepherds and kings… or one filled with olive-skinned Middle-Easterners? And yet, the Jews were the chosen people of God! The baby Jesus was born to Jewish parents and attended Jewish synagogues! Why it is so much easier for us to picture Him as one of us! Somewhere along the line, one of our basic truths has been changed!

And that is the point of my sermon this morning… what do you believe is the truth about Christ? What do you believe is the point of His teachings?  I mean, exactly what truths are contained in this collection of writings we call the Holy Bible?

Throughout the book 1984, Winston considered himself a free-thinking revolutionary, remembering all of the mistakes and lies committed by ‘the Party’ during his lifetime. However, in the end, everything he had ever thought, said or did was being observed and recorded… Big Brother really was watching! And when the thought-police were finished with him, this is how he wound up…

“He set to work to exercise himself in crimestop.  He presented himself with propositions—‘the Party says the earth is flat’, ‘the Party says that ice is heavier than water’… and trained himself in not seeing or not understanding the argument that contradicted them. 

It was not easy.  It needed great powers of reasoning and improvisation.  The arithmetical problems raised, for instance, by such a statement as “two and two make five” were beyond his intellectual grasp.  It needed also a sort of athleticism of mind—an ability at one moment to make the most delicate use of logic and, at the next, to be unconscious of the crudest logical errors.  Stupidity was as necessary as intelligence and as difficult to attain.” He was broken… he would forevermore be incapable of independent thought… he would believe whatever the party told him to believe… their reality would become the only reality he would ever know.

Why do I bring all of this up this morning? Because it is very clear to me, in the study if history, that there have been many attempts over the last two-thousand-odd years to re-interpret the truths of Christianity! I won’t take the time to list any but the most obvious… such as the concept of eliminating all joy or happiness from leading a religious life… Jesus enjoyed going to weddings and dinners and such… and the wars and conquests that have been carried out “In the name of God”… Jesus was a man of peace! Most of us, today, can look back and see how many have tried to bend and shape the concepts of religion to fit what they wanted or believed… and how, in the long run, the truth of Christ has always won out in the end! But think of all the suffering that has been caused during those times when these incorrect truths held sway!

You know what? There are still people today who would have you change what you believe to be true! There are those who seem to quote and twist Jesus’ words to try to make them support such things as homosexuality and, really, it seems, all sins in general! After all, they want us to be loving and accepting of all sinners… which in and of itself is correct… but these people would then have us accept, by default, the sin as well! They are attempting to change the truths of God!

That is why I have always preached and taught what I consider ‘basic’ religion. For if a person is well grounded in the facts of what Jesus said and did… if they know the words of Peter and of Paul… if they are aware of, acknowledge and accept all of the axioms and ideals contained in these pages… then they know the truth! And no one… no way, no how… will ever be able to take it from them!

This the ‘shorter’ version of this ‘talk’ that I gave at Christian nursing home in Jacksonville (IL) when the Wesley Chapel youth-group performed the service there one Sunday, November 30, 2003.

The Basic Scripture is from 2 Corinthians 6: 1-13…

 

“Look! Up in the sky!”… “It’s a bird!”… “It’s a plane!”… “It’s Superman!”…… “Yes, it’s Superman! Strange visitor from another planet who came to earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men… Superman… who can change the course of mighty rivers… bend steel in his bare hands… and who… (disguised as Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper)… fights a never-ending battle for TRUTH… JUSTICE… and the AMERICAN WAY!”

 

I would be very surprised if there was somebody here today who had never heard that before. I think everybody at least knows of ‘Superman’ even if they are too young to have ever seen any of the old TV series or read the comic books. And if it were proper, I would just-about bet money that there isn’t a person who knows him who hasn’t dreamed or wished at some point in their life to have had some of his powers. I remember dreaming of flying through the clouds and rescuing a girl from grade school whose name I can’t even remember anymore!

Those of us who watched any television in the sixties can probably remember another very similar opening sequence… “Look! Up in the sky!”… “It’s a bird!”… “It’s a plane!”… “It’s a frog!” …… “A frog?”…… “No, not bird nor plane nor even frog… it’s just little ol’ me… (‘jhfcrashogf’)…Underdog!”           You probably also remember the other well-known phrase from the show, “There’s no need to fear… UnderDog is here!”

I’ve always felt a connection to him. Never having had a silver spoon in my mouth, it has always seemed far easier for me to relate to UnderDog than to Superman. And so it is that I have tried to support the underdogs as much as I can. For example, if it’s at all possible I try to buy from the mom-and-pop stores over the Wal-Mart’s and Best Buys… and normally, I’ll select a local restaurant over a national chain unless we’re really in a hurry. Until recent years, when I really started paying attention to elections, I had been known to vote for somebody just because they were NOT favored to win. I recall that during the campaigns of 1964 my sixth-grade teacher had each of us choose to represent and ‘stump’ for either Johnson or Goldwater. I, of course, chose Goldwater. As I prepared my notes for this, I have tried to think of other notable underdogs to name as examples… but since they were underdogs, their names have disappeared over the years.

We live in a world where we Christians are perceived as underdogs. We’ve been called ‘weak-minded… using religion for a crutch’… we’re called to task for standing up for things that may not be ‘politically correct’ but are morally and spiritually correct… a recent commentary took us to task for not ‘practicing what we preach’ in regard to our two commandments… loving God, and loving our neighbor. We are considered foolish when we turn away from worldly wealth and comforts in order that we might better serve God. To the world at large, we Christians may well seem small and insignificant… the underdogs of society. Now frankly, I don’t usually give much credence to what the world thinks of me, in general. But all too often we tend to accept the ‘niche’ that society has placed us in and just try to eek out our existence without drawing too much attention to ourselves.

In our verses today, Paul tells the Corinthians that he and his fellow disciples have striven to not do or say anything that might distract attention from where it belongs… the Good News of Christ and Salvation! He says, “We try to live in such a way that no one will be hindered from finding the Lord by the way we act, and so no one can find fault with our ministry. In everything we do we try to show that we are true ministers of God. We patiently endure troubles and hardships and calamities of every kind. We have been beaten, been put in jail, faced angry mobs, worked to exhaustion, endured sleepless nights, and gone without food. We have proved ourselves by our purity, our understanding, our patience, our kindness, our sincere love, and the power of the Holy Spirit. We have faithfully preached the truth. God’s power has been working in us. We have righteousness as our weapon, both to attack and to defend ourselves. We serve God whether people honor us or despise us, whether they slander us or praise us. We are honest, but they call us impostors. We are well known, but we are treated as unknown. We live close to death, but here we are, still alive. We have been beaten within an inch of our lives. Our hearts ache, but we always have joy. We are poor, but we give spiritual riches to others. We own nothing, and yet we have everything.”

           In the Old Testament story of David and Goliath, Goliath was surely the Philistines’ ‘Superman’. He stood over nine feet tall… the bronze coat of armor that he wore weighed just over 156 pounds, while just the point of his spear weighed almost twenty. For us today, Goliath represents all that we see as negative and dangerous in the world. He held Saul and his army in utter contempt, much like the world today seems to do the Christian faith. And I think most people would agree that in this story, at least, David was most-definitely the underdog! He was a mere child, sent on an errand by his father to help his brothers. But, David had the Lord!

David shouted to Goliath, “You come to me with sword, spear, and javelin, but I come to you in the name of the LORD Almighty–the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. Today the LORD will conquer you, and I will kill you and cut off your head. And then I will give the dead bodies of your men to the birds and wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel! And everyone will know that the LORD does not need weapons to rescue his people. It is his battle, not ours. The LORD will give you to us!”

What a difference it makes to know God! The Life Application Commentary says that, “He cares for his own in spite of what the world thinks. Christians don’t have to give in to public opinion and pressure. In today’s’ verses, Paul stood faithful to God whether people praised him or condemned him. He remained active, joyous, and content in the most difficult hardships.

          Paul wrote that he was poor and yet capable of making many others rich. Christians today have that same privilege.”

Paul also says that as God’s fellow workers we are urged not to receive God’s grace in vain. Then he quotes from Isaiah 49:8 which says…

“In the time of my favor I will answer you,

and in the day of salvation I will help you;”

 

Paul then avows that, “…now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation!”

Now is indeed the time of God’s favor… today is indeed the day of salvation! With the strength and love of God behind us, we Christians are NOT the underdogs of the world… we are the supermen of God’s Kingdom! And it is time we let the world know that we are tired of them ‘kicking sand in our faces’ and stand up with the power of God behind us for what we KNOW is right and true!

Like David, we Christians are mere children, sent by our heavenly father to help our brothers. And if we truly have God in our lives… if we let Him fill us with His power and His strength… then we can defeat every Goliath that the world sends our way!

Given on July 18, 2004 at the Lynnville (IL) UMC…

The primary Scripture is from Luke 10: 38-42, with other quotes from Amos 8: 1-12…

 

In January of 1976, I started working at a small school district here-abouts as their ‘Transportation Superintendent’. This was a fancy term for describing someone who actually spent most of the time working on the buses and/or driving them, and some little time actually planning routes and overseeing drivers.

 

But, that ‘overseeing of drivers’ part meant that I was responsible for lining up drivers for all of the sporting events and other extra-curricular activities that went on every week. These included various field trips and class trips and such things as that. Since many of these ran well into the evening, or were all-day affairs, it was usually easier for me to find a driver willing to take my daily run and I go on the trip, myself. This meant that you could sometimes find me driving that bus in downtown St. Louis to a ballgame, to Eureka, MO., for a day at Six Flags, or Bloomington/Normal to tour the science building at Illinois State University.

 

Now, keep in mind that in early 1976, I was only 22 years old… barely legal to even drive a school bus! I mean, I was not all that long out of high school myself, and certainly not that much older than many of the high school students that I took on these trips, and it was only natural for me to be as interested in many of the sights and activities that I took them to as they were! So it was that whenever possible, I would unload them all as close as I could, find a place to park the bus, then hurry and join them… the teachers were usually happy to have another ‘adult’ along, though I couldn’t say I really thought of myself as one quite yet!

 

Occasionally, though, circumstances would prevent me from being able to join them. Such was the case on a day-tour of the Lincoln sights around Springfield… I had gone with them through Lincoln’s home and tomb, but when we got to the old State Capitol, I had to stay with the bus and move it through the bus waiting line while they went through the building. I was upset! I had not been there since a trip I had made in my fourth-grade, and I really wanted to see it! But, there I was, stuck on the bus… forced to work while they were all off learning and enjoying themselves! So, when I read this story of Mary and Martha, I can really relate to it! Well… somewhat!

 

I would think that everybody in this room has found occasion to take Martha’s side in this story… after all if someone doesn’t do the work, how will it get done?! And isn’t all of this about doing God’s work, anyway? Well, yes it is… and yes, somebody has to do it! And yes, I think Jesus notes and appreciates all of the work done in His name. But… well, listen to what The Life Application Commentary has to say about it…

 

Hard workers beware. Note three potential problems:

1. While asking for help (a legitimate request), you point to your own accomplishments (prideful).
2. While calling Jesus “Lord” (certainly appropriate), you question his judgment with implied criticism that he is not directing his team effectively (suggesting you are a better chief than he).
3. While acknowledging your relationship to another person (Martha referred to her sister), you criticize that person for failing to follow your lead (imposing your will as right and good just because it’s productive).

A better way:

 

• Never assume your own greatness.
• Support others in their special roles.
• Ask Jesus first; then get to work.

 

Martha, for her part, wanted to give her guests the royal treatment — and she should not be criticized for that. However, she allowed her concern and distraction to turn to irritation. She went to Jesus and asked him to tell Mary to get up and get to work. There is a touch of reproach in her words: “Lord, don’t you care?” and “Tell her to help me.”

 

So, this is telling, first of all, that we need to be really careful about how conscious we are of the work we are doing and why we are doing it… are we working for Christ… or for our own glory and prestige? But Jesus’ point in these verses goes even deeper. Again quoting from the Life Application Commentary…

 

How quickly duties and demands rob us of our peace. Luke uses Mary and Martha’s experience with Jesus to give us a timeless lesson in discipleship. Doing God’s work in any of its phases of planning or implementation can distract us from reflecting on Jesus’ teaching. Are you so busy working for him that you have no time to sit and listen at his feet? Jesus wants diligent service, but even more he desires that you relax, set aside worries and urgent responsibilities, and come to him in singleness of mind. Adjust your priorities. Take time to meditate on Jesus’ life, his mercy, and his love.

 

 

Think about it for a minute… isn’t that what we tend to do, whether we realize it or not? ‘I cut the grass at the church last week, so I’m a good Christian!’ ‘I stay and wash dishes after the charity supper each time we have it, so I’m a good Christian!’ ‘I sent a check for $100 to a children’s home, so I’m a good Christian!’ People, these are all good things! These are all things that need to be done! But doing them does not make you a Christian… being a Christian makes you do them!!!

 

That’s what Jesus is saying here! There is a time to cook and clean and take care of one another… but there is also a time to learn… a time to listen… a time to pray and reflect… a time to worship! Don’t mistake painting the fellowship hall as an act of worshiping God! Don’t confuse giving money to the church or food to the needy with giving of your self to Jesus! They are all connected… but it is the worship and the prayer and the faith and the commitment that leads us… to doing all of these other things!

 

In our Old Testament verses today we heard how God confronted Amos with a basket of ripe fruit, saying, “The time is ripe for my people…: I will spare them no longer!” He had had enough of Israel’s sinning! “Hear this,” He said, “you who trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land, saying, “When will the New Moon be over that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath be ended that we may market wheat?”- skimping the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales, buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the sweepings with the wheat.

 

The LORD has sworn by the Pride of Jacob: “I will never forget anything they have done.”

 

These people had a written law… there was no question what was right and what was wrong behavior… there was no question what God wanted from them… and even if they failed in that, there was a written procedure for them to follow for atonement… and still they failed! Not only failed, but ignored it… they turned their backs to God… most likely because they felt oppressed by all of the rules and regulations, and so on. Never mind that this was God… never mind that He had brought them out of Egypt… never mind that He had performed miracle after miracle after miracle and helped them grow into a great and powerful nation! The false gods were easier to deal with, and promised more personal gain, comfort, and pleasure! Note, the key word there was ‘personal’… they were interested in their personal gain… their personal comfort… their personal pleasure!

 

Martha wanted Jesus to instruct Mary to help her! She wanted to impress the Lord with all of her accomplishments and her diligence and her hard work in His name! But Jesus was far more impressed with how eagerly Mary listened to Him… how she hungered for His teaching and His wisdom. What about you?

 

You know, God gave Moses Ten Commandments and then followed those with a book of individual laws and directives… and the people of Israel still didn’t understand or follow them. Jesus has given us just two… Love God above all else, and Love our neighbor as our self! That’s all we have… that and this instruction book we call the Bible! God does not… will not… force us to follow and obey Him! He does not demand of us a certain number of specific things to do in order to be accepted of Him! He asks us to Love Him… and to Love our neighbor… and to listen and learn from Him just what that means! That’s all we have to do… believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and love Him! That’s it!

 

But you see… if we truly love Him… if we truly listen to His message and open our hearts and our minds and our souls to His teaching… we will then DO all of these things that we feel like we’re ‘supposed’ to… only… then we’ll be doing them with the joy of love that comes with truly loving and following Jesus!

The ‘talk’ that I gave at the Lynnville UMC (Outside of Jacksonville, IL…) on July 14, 2002, and with a minor rewrite’, on November 29, 2009 at the Hartford East Maple Street Chapel…

The Scripture is from the Gospel of Matthew 13: 1-23…

The house that we lived in in Hartford was an average ‘starter house’ of the late fifties era. Dad had bought it brand new and my brother and I did a lot of growing up there. Grandpa, Dad, and both of my uncles on that side all worked regular jobs but also worked together to farm a number of acres scattered all around Hartford. In addition to that, each had a garden to take care of. I guess, then, that you could say I grew up pretty close to the land! Due to the size of our yard, the garden that we had at our place in Hartford was limited to the basics, such as sweet corn, onions, radishes, and tomatoes. But dad always wanted more. So, when we finally bought our own little farm outside of Edwardsville, he could hardly wait to lay out a huge spread!

 

We started with a space behind the chicken house that was at least twice the size of what we had in Hartford. And right off, Dad planted a row of grapes. We had to put up a fence to support them, and he learned about how to prune them back each year until you started to get a good, steady crop from them. I’m sure that the people who bought the place after us finally got to enjoy some of them!

 

There were two barns on the place. Both of them were whittled peg and tendon construction, and both still had the original wood shingles underneath the asphalt. However, the one had been built as a dairy barn and had very small aisles in the lower section, which were totally unsuitable for storing equipment, so about the third year we were there, we tore it down. This opened up a huge area close to the house, and dad couldn’t wait for spring! Potatoes had always been a part of every garden we had, but now we were planting enough to feed two or three families for the entire year! Sweet corn was planted with a corn planter. And the tomatoes and green beans would have kept an entire city block red and green if we could have stayed on top of picking them everyday!

 

And then, there were the experiments. Edwardsville is the horseradish capital of the country, so we had to plant a row of that to see how it worked. Horseradish is a very labor-intensive crop. After the shoots are up about 10 inches or so, you have to carefully dig up and break off all but the main taproot. This is what grows and is harvested later in the year. After we did harvest it, we took it all into the kitchen to run through the meat grinder, but it wasn’t long before we moved everything out onto the porch. The hardest part was putting it into all of the little baby food jars that mom had gotten to keep it in. You had to use a spoon to pack it in, and even at arms length it was almost unbearable! But we did have some delicious horseradish for a number of years.

 

Then there was the time that we planted a row of watermelon seeds and a row of pumpkin seeds along the outside edge, next to the field. We had vines everywhere! In the tomatoes, up the sweet corn…everywhere. Not only that, but you couldn’t be sure which vine it was, and if you wanted it to produce anything, you weren’t supposed to even touch it! Well, needless to say, not all of the vines survived. But the ones that grew out into the hay field were mowed around all summer. Some were twenty and even thirty feet into the field, but that summer we had a few volleyball sized watermelons, and by October there were some smallish pumpkins drying on the vine, so I would say that our soil was good for growing. We just needed to learn how to plant and take care of them!

 

Since so much of my growing up was ‘in the dirt’, as it were, I never had any problem understanding the parable that I read today. The broadcast seeder that we would mount on the back of our little Farmall ‘B’ and used to sow alfalfa and grass was totally indiscriminate about where the seed landed. If it was turned on, it cast out a 15 or 20-foot swath of seed…period! You had to regulate the ground speed of the tractor to control how dense you wanted it, and if you turned around too close to the trees it would just keep throwing seed into the woods. If you crossed the field road or drove along too close to the creek, your seed would just end up sitting on top of the road or washing away downstream. All the seeder knew to do was throw out the seed! So, yes, not all of the seed that was cast germinated and produced. Just like Jesus said, that which landed on the road was probably eaten by mice and birds…the seed that landed in the trees might germinate but would be swallowed up by the other plants…and any seed that fell close to the road might get started to grow, but would never be able to get a root system down that would support it and would either wither and die or, at best, live a very stunted, unproductive life.

 

Most people, it seems, read this passage and come away from it trying to determine which of the seeds are most like them! Are they sincere enough in their listening…in their faith…to produce the fruit that Jesus expects? Or will they shrivel up at the first sign of heat…the kind of heat caused by all of the dilemmas in living day to day!

 

But there is an entirely different point that I would like to make today! And I can make it best by telling another story!

 

Around twelve or fourteen years ago, when the landscaping section of my business was in full swing, a lady called me to come till up her entire yard. She had some kind of weed that had taken over most of it and just wanted to start from scratch. So I made the arrangements with her for me to work up all of the dirt and prepare it for seed. And I explained right up front that I did NOT do seeding. There was another company that I worked with that could do that, or she could do it herself if she wanted, but I did not have the equipment nor the state licenses to do seeding and chemicals. She understood that and agreed to the project. When I was done with my part, she asked me if I would go ahead and seed it. I told her again that I was not in the seeding business and couldn’t do it! But she insisted. All she wanted, she said, was for me just to throw out a little seed and fertilizer by hand…she was too old to do it herself. So to help her out, I told her to go ahead and buy what she wanted and I would come back and throw it out for her, which I did. About three weeks later she phoned again, wanting me to come back and look at the yard. When I got there, it was all that I could do to not laugh out loud. The grass seed I had spread fairly evenly, but the fertilizer had not. All across the back yard were these light and dark green stripes that started small on one side and grew towards the other!

 

The point of this story is this…this lady was very upset about where the seed (and fertilizer) landed. But Jesus is not! Jesus expects us to throw out the ‘seed’ of His word anywhere and everywhere we get a chance! We may not know, when we throw it, where it might land or how it might respond. We may not know if it lands on a hard heart and Satan, like the birds, snatches it away. We may not know if it lands and sprouts vigorously, only to dry up and wither away because the roots where too shallow to withstand the pressures of everyday life. We may not know if a seed takes root, giving hope of a harvest, only to be choked out by the distractions and conflicts of life not allowing time to grow and nurture. And we may not know if a seed that we throw may land in fertile soil and grow. But what if it does? Consider this from Adam Clarke’s Commentary …

 

The power of grain to multiply itself, even in the same year, is a subject as much of curiosity and astonishment as of importance and general utility. For the further elucidation of this text, I shall give the following example from a practice in agriculture, or rural economy, which is termed filtering.

On the 2nd of June, 1766, Mr. C. Miller, of Cambridge, sowed some grains of the common red wheat; and on the 8th of August a single plant was taken up, and separated into 18 parts, and each planted separately: about the middle of September some of them were taken up and divided; and the rest between that time and October. This second division produced 67 plants. These plants remained through the winter, and another division of them, made between the middle of March and the 12th of April, produced 500 plants. They were divided no further, but permitted to remain in the field. These plants were in general stronger than any of the wheat in the field. Some of them produced upwards of 100 heads from a single root; and many of the heads measured seven inches in length, and contained between sixty and seventy grains. The whole number of heads produced from the single plant was 21,109, which yielded three pecks and three-quarters of clear grain, weighing 47 lbs. 7 oz., and, from a calculation made by counting the grains in an ounce, the whole number of grains was about 576,840.

 

Christ expects us to be the ‘broadcast seeders’ of His word! It is not our place to worry about where the seed is landing. It is not our place to worry if any of it is being wasted. We cannot say, “I’m only going to sow my seed in fertile soil” because we do not know where that soil might be! Our job is to throw it out there onto every soil…every soul…that we can reach! When my family planted those watermelon and pumpkin seeds in our garden, back then, we really had no idea about the proper way to do it. Yet the seeds germinated, the vines grew, and fruit was produced. This had nothing to do with us…it was the handiwork of God. And when we broadcast this seed, the same holds true…all we have to do is get it out there. The Lord will see to the increase!

 

 

Let me close with this… The story is told of a small dog which had been struck by a car and was lying by the side of the road. A doctor, driving by, noticed that the dog was still alive, stopped his car, picked up the dog, and took him home with him. There he discovered that the dog had been stunned, had suffered a few minor cuts and abrasions, but was otherwise all right. He revived the dog, cleaned up the wounds and was carrying the animal from the house to the garage when suddenly it jumped from his arms and scampered off. “What an ungrateful little dog,” the doctor said to himself. He thought no more about the incident until the next evening when he heard a scratching at the door. When he opened it, there was the little dog he had treated with another hurt dog.

 

We may never know what happens to the seeds that we broadcast out in Jesus’ name. And sometimes, the feeling of pointlessness and frustration can become overwhelming! But sometimes…if you’re very lucky…the fruit of one seed makes itself known to you. And when that happens it makes everything else worthwhile! God rejoices in every soul…every life…that turns to Him. But unless we’re out there spreading seed…spreading the Word of God…everywhere we can, some lives may not have the opportunity to experience it. They won’t have the opportunity to grow and multiply. And they won’t be saved come judgment day! Where can you spread a little seed today?

Once I discovered it, the First Chapter of Proverbs has always held a strong ‘connection’ to me! One of the first songs that I wrote for the choir at Wesley Chapel (outside of Jacksonville, IL…) was based on it, and this ‘talk’, given at the Lynnville (IL) UMC on Father’s Day, June 9, 2002, was ‘based’ on it as well!! Indeed, the second chapter of my book, ‘What We Learn’, is titled, ‘PROVERBS ONE’!!

 

A message that I saw on a poster some years ago impressed me enough to remember all these years. It said, in big bold letters, TEENAGERS! HURRY! LEAVE HOME TODAY…WHILE YOU STILL KNOW EVERYTHING!  It was one of those things that was intended as a joke but had enough truth in it to stick with you. Because I remember being a teenager…and I DID know everything! Only as the years have stacked up one on top of the other have I come to realize just how much I DON’T know!

I would like to think that most of us have gained enough experience over the years to realize that we don’t…that we can’t…know everything. Only through the eyes of youth does one feel invincible! Only through the eyes of youth does one feel all-powerful! And only through the eyes of youth does one see all of life’s answers! Let’s face it…it is only as we weave our way down our individual life paths that we begin to find chinks in our ‘armor’ of invincibility. We make mistakes…we learn…we try again. We make more mistakes! And with each passing year we learn more and more and more. And the more we learn, the more we realize how much there is still to learn. And then, some of us have children of our own…and the process starts all over again!

Solomon was about twenty years old when he became king of Israel. Not too long into his reign, he went up to the hilltop of Gibeon, one of the largest alters at that time, and offered up 1000 burnt offerings. 1 Kings 3:5-9 tells us what happened next…

The Lord appeared to him in a dream that night and told him to ask for anything he wanted, and it would be given to him!

 Solomon replied, “…I am as a little child who doesn’t know his way around. And here I am among your own chosen people, a nation so great that there are almost too many people to count! Give me an understanding mind so that I can govern your people well and know the difference between what is right and what is wrong. For who by himself is able to carry such a heavy responsibility?”

 Now what do you suppose God thought about that? The next verse says…

The Lord was pleased with his reply and was glad that Solomon had asked for wisdom. So he replied, “…yes, I’ll give you what you asked for! I will give you a wiser mind than anyone else has ever had or ever will have!

Then in chapter 4:29-34 we read…

God gave Solomon great wisdom and understanding, and a mind with broad interests. In fact, his wisdom excelled that of any of the wise men of the East, including those in Egypt. He was wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite and Heman, Calcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol; and he was famous among all the surrounding nations. He was the author of 3,000 proverbs and wrote 1,005 songs. He was a great naturalist, with interest in animals, birds, snakes, fish, and trees-from the great cedars of Lebanon down to the tiny hyssop which grows in cracks in the wall. And kings from many lands sent their ambassadors to him for his advice.

Now, one may well argue the case that Solomon must have been fairly wise to start with to perceive the situation that he was facing and ask for wisdom from God. He had already had to deal harshly with those who had been against his becoming king and plotted against him, even to the point of condemning them to death when they failed to honor the house arrest he had sentenced them to. (The book of Kings has some very interesting reading in it. You should all check it out sometime.) So Solomon already had some idea of what it was going to take to be an effective king. And he knew that to succeed, he was going to need God’s help! So when God offered him anything that he might desire, he asked for wisdom. He asked for the ability to determine right from wrong. And God was so pleased with his choice that He gave him, according to this account, “a wiser mind than anyone else has ever had or ever will have!”

At some point, Solomon decided to try to share his wisdom with others, and set down to write. Some of these writings are collected together in the Book of Proverbs. Our verses today are the first chapter. And his reason for writing them, he states, is “to make the simpleminded wise! I want to warn young men about some of the problems they will face. I want those already wise to become wiser and become leaders…”

His words were for everyone, but he especially wanted to reach the ‘young men’…the youth…of his kingdom, and to make leaders out of everyone. Because the young people of that time were just as much a part of his future as the young people of today are part of ours!

[My wife] and I went down to Silver Dollar City last weekend [2002]. We arrived early and set down to watch the pre-opening show that they do in the bandstand area at the top of the hill. On this day, they had a troupe of girls from Utah doing clog dancing. These girls ranged in age from around twelve to nineteen. And they were very good! Their show consisted of telling about the ‘trip’ that they took around the country on their way to Branson, and showing some of the different dance steps that came from different areas. They performed Canadian and southern style clogging, danced in wooden shoes from Holland, MI, and performed various Irish line dances, to name just a few. And at the end of their program, the announcer came out to sing their praises. And then he added, “Many people seem to be worried about the kids of today’s generation. But if these girls are any indication, I think they’re going to be aright!” And the crowd went wild.

But as I was applauding I couldn’t help but wonder about what he had said. I have worked with a lot of kids over the years, from driving school buses and helping with theatre projects to working with our own youth group at Wesley Chapel. I have taught small groups at the Youth Annual Retreat, and been on three mission trips, the last of which I built from the ground up (with a little help from my ‘[wife]/secretary’). So I feel like I know a little bit about kids. I may not always know how to reach them, but I do know a little about how they think and feel, even when they think I don’t got a clue! After all, I still remember my teenage escapades at church camp and the Christmas and Easter studies that I attended. Not everything that I did would have been considered ‘Christian’!

So as I looked at this group of teenage girls and thought about them being on their own for an extended period of time, I couldn’t help but wonder about what kind of example they might actually be living. Because the way that they are actually living their lives is determined by the education that they have received up to this point. And frankly, unless that education has been steeped in the Bible, I have strong reservations about their character. And that was just as true in Solomon’s time as it is today!

Solomon knew that to make his kingdom strong he needed strong people. He needed people who were not only strong individuals, but people who were also strong in their following of the Lord! He knew that the key to a successful life is a firm foundation in God. So his very first step in becoming wise is “to trust and reverence the Lord!” But his second direction is almost as important. “Listen to your father and mother,” he writes. “What you learn from them will stand you in good stead; it will win you many honors.”

Today is ‘Father’s Day’, and last month we celebrated ‘Mother’s Day’. And both of these days are intended to honor our parents for the job that they have done in raising us. A very noble cause, even if it sometimes seems to benefit retailers more than anyone else! But I would like to use the day as an excuse to put it to you that we, as parents, have more of an obligation to our children than just raising them. We have an obligation to raise them with a firm background and belief in the Lord! And furthermore, I put it to you that that obligation extends beyond just our own children…it includes grandchildren, nieces and nephews, neighbors and friends. In short, it is our obligation to see to it that ALL children are raised with a firm background and belief in the Lord!

Some decades ago there was a religious sect known as the Shakers. They were well respected for their very firm beliefs and stout enforcement of them, as well as for the strong communities that they established, and the furniture pieces that they built for themselves and to sell as a source of support. One of their beliefs was a complete separation of men and women. This even extended to their meeting places. There were two doors, one for the men and one for the ladies, and they sat on opposite sides of the room. They’re not around anymore. They all died off! They never had any children to teach and train to follow in their footsteps. And if we are not careful, the same exact thing will happen to us! Not because we didn’t have children, but because we failed to bring them into the church. We failed to bring them into the arms of Jesus!

There is not a person in this building today who doesn’t possess at least some of the wisdom of Solomon. And there is not a child in this county that couldn’t be helped with some of that wisdom! Whether it’s supporting the Food Center, doing volunteer work at the schools, or any number of other possibilities, every child could benefit from some of the accumulated wisdom in this room. But even more than that, we need to get them into this building! We need to get them to see and know the God that we know! We need to teach them about Christ!

Now, I’m sure that most of you are thinking ‘Yes, yes, all of that’s true, but what can we here in the little town of Lynnville do about it?’

Well, you can start by seeing to it that all of your own children are here, for one thing, along with all of the grandkids! Then work on the neighbors…your friends…your coworkers! And we need to be ‘children friendly’. We need to encourage them to attend Sunday school. If we get enough of them coming here we could start our own program up again! We could do a Vacation Bible Study for all of the Lynnville area! We could set up some special concerts and/or meetings aimed at getting a younger crowd in here. But most of all, we can talk to them!

It is very true that most teenagers seem to think that they already know more than their parents. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t want to learn! At Silver Dollar City I saw two teenage boys with their grandparents. And they were going from craft to craft and item to item asking them what this was or what that did. And I have to admit that from the little that I overheard, the answers weren’t always correct. But the boys were listening! Sometime ago, [my wife] and I were at the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit, MI. I chanced upon an exhibit in the robotics section that looked very familiar. I had approached it from the rear and so didn’t see the sign at first, but I knew it was the main engine and transmission section of a Case tractor being shown with one of the robotic arms that are used to paint them in the factory at Racine! I knew because I had seen them during a tour of the factory many years ago. As I was standing there, a group of high school boys on a school field trip walked up and were trying to figure out what it was and what it did. I told them! And I told them with such excitement and enthusiasm that they actually seemed to listen to me.

We need to be excited and enthusiastic about our faith! We need to be excited and enthusiastic about our God! And we need to be excited and enthusiastic about our youth! Solomon warns us about what will happen if we don’t. Talking to them, he says, “Some day you’ll be in trouble, and I’ll laugh! …When a storm of terror surrounds you, and when you are engulfed by anguish and distress, then I will not answer your cry for help

For you closed your eyes to the facts and did not choose to reverence and trust the Lord, and you turned your back on me, spurning my advice. That is why you must eat the bitter fruit of having your own way and experience the full terrors of the pathway you have chosen. For you turned away from me-to death; your own complacency will kill you.”

If the day comes that sees us alone…if the day comes that we have no one to help us…if the day comes that we see this building empty, and God’s word not being taught…then we have no one to blame but ourselves. Because it is our responsibility to bring in and educate the next generation…and the next…and the one after that…in the way of the Lord! It is our responsibility to see to it that that education IS steeped in the Bible, and that the lives that they live reflect that. And it is ALSO our responsibility to see to it that they pass that education on to THEIR children! What you do or don’t do is up to you. And it is between you and God. But you know what? Once you get started, it’s really a lot of fun!!

Written for and given at the Lynnville (IL) UMC On June 23, 2002… One of my Very First ‘talks’!!

The main Scripture is from the Gospel of Matthew 10: 24-39

 

The house on the farm that we bought outside of Edwardsville in 1965 was a big, old, two-story affair. It looked to me like it had been built with just the front four rooms, two on top of the other with a chimney at either end and the stairway in the middle, while the dining room and kitchen, with an unfinished attic, were added as an ‘L’ shape later on. I say this because the basement was also a two-room affair underneath the front part of the house. The stairs to this went down directly under the stairs that led to the second floor, but there was also another set of stairs that led directly outside. So a routine was developed of going into the basement after working outside and keeping all of our chore cloths, coats, hats, and boots, out of the main house. This worked like a charm for all of the years that we lived there.

          Alfred Hitchcock made movies. To be exact, he made very high quality thrillers! Movies that would keep you on the edge of your seat and could still make you jump out of it at any time. One of these was the story surrounding a small town somewhere on the west coast where the birds had somehow decided to team up and drive out the interfering humans. And there were hundreds and thousands of birds. When they were in flight the sky seemed to darken. In one scene they filled the playground equipment, fences, and electric lines outside of a school. In another, they had broken into a house and filled the attic and rooms. Each time they gathered like that, the people would slowly try to move to safety, and each time the birds would watch them and wait until they were too far away to run back to where they had come from and would then attack ‘en masse. The problem was that I could relate, somewhat, to all of this.

          During the first spring at our new farm, and for some years after, the barn swallows would invade. They filled all of the wires running to the outbuildings, lined the roofs and fences, and built numerous nests in all of the barns and sheds. Our cats must have learned how to get to at least some of the nests, because anytime one of them strolled across the yard, the swallows would begin screeching out warnings and threats and masses of them would start swooping down at the feline. Generally, the cat was unperturbed and would just keep walking nonchalantly on towards its’ destination with a string of ‘dive-bombers’ strafing it all the way. Occasionally we or our guests would also be strafed as we went to and from the house. So for a time I was taking my brothers B-B gun and shooting them off of the lines. After a while the noise and disturbances did seem to thin them out a bit.

Sometime in the late ‘60’s I chanced to see ‘The Birds’ on TV one night. And even though I KNEW it was just a movie…I KNEW that nothing like that could ever really happen…the thought of our birds somehow wanting to ‘even the score’ with me was in the back of my mind. That very next morning I was up to do chores as usual and headed down the stairs into the basement. As I sat on the stairs to put my boots on I heard a rustling of wings coming from the other room!

Have you ever been afraid…I mean really afraid? The rational side of me was trying to say that there was a logical explanation for the noise, but the irrational side was screaming, “THERE ARE BIRDS IN THAT ROOM!!” My face has always been a road map for my emotions, and I’m sure that if anyone had seen me right then they would have feared for my health, my sanity, or both! The nape of my neck and the short hair I had back then had to both be standing on end, and I’m sure that I looked as white as a ghost! The knot in my stomach felt like it was trying to escape on its’ own!

But…there was only one thing to do…I had to go see what it was! I stood up and walked toward the doorway separating the two rooms, listening to the rustling growing more and more agitated. As I approached, step-by-step, I had no idea what I was going to see. And when I rounded the corner and walked into the room I saw…NOTHING! But I still heard the rustling! It was coming from the furnace! Somehow a bird had come down the chimney and managed to get into the burner area but couldn’t find his way back out. Mystery solved! But…then again…why had it been trying to come down the chimney?

I want to talk a little bit about fear, today. In verse 28 of today’s’ reading, Jesus says, “Don’t be afraid of those who want to kill you. They can only kill your body.” Well, DUHH! I don’t know about you but that’s the part that I would least like to have killed! But there’s a lot more to it than that!

In this chapter, Jesus has been giving instructions to the apostles. We join in about halfway through as He says, “A student is not greater than his teacher. A servant is not above his master.”  And that seems pretty straightforward. We humans take pride in our ability to learn. And yes, as humans we have the potential of exceeding the learning of our human teachers. But we can never learn more from any one teacher than THAT teacher knows! Since Jesus is the ultimate ‘knower of knowledge’ we could never learn more than what He teaches us. In Luke 6:40 Jesus says, “A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher.” So if each of us seek to become fully trained disciples of Jesus, our lives should reflect His! And if our lives truly reflect His, He warns us that we will be subject to the same treatment as He. Adam Clarke’s Commentary puts it this way…

          Can any…scholar or disciple of Jesus Christ, expect to be treated well by the world? Will not the world love it’s own, and them only? If you want the honour that comes from it, abandon Jesus Christ, and it will again receive you into its bosom. But you will, no doubt, count the cost before you do this.

What is the cost of abandoning God? In 2 Chron 12:1-5 we read…

After Rehoboam’s position as king was established and he had become strong, he and all Israel with him abandoned the law of the LORD. Because they had been unfaithful to the LORD, Shishak king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem…

Then the prophet Shemaiah came to Rehoboam and to the leaders of Judah who had assembled in Jerusalem for fear of Shishak, and he said to them, “This is what the LORD says, ‘You have abandoned me; therefore, I now abandon you to Shishak.'”

But here we’re still talking about ‘the body’…that is, earthly matters. What other cost might there be in abandoning our beliefs and following the call of ‘the world’? In Luke 16 Jesus tells us a parable about a rich man and a beggar named Lazarus:

” The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’

But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’”

From most pulpits in today’s world we hear about a God who is loving and forgiving. A god who, Jesus tells us, cares about even the smallest sparrow! A Jewish legend relates how a certain Rabbi had been hiding in a cave for thirteen years from his persecutors, where he was miraculously fed. After a time, he observed that when he laid his snare, the bird escaped or was caught, according as a voice from heaven proclaimed “Mercy” or “Destruction.” Jesus says that if even a sparrow cannot be caught without heaven’s bidding, how much more is your life worth to God, who knows ‘even the number of hairs on your head’? And all of this is very real and very true. God loves each of us so much that He sent Jesus to die on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins! But it seems to me that we lose a little bit of our reverence…our respect…our deep-seated awe of God… when we loose our fear of Him!

          If God were to suddenly appear in the fellowship hall and let His presence be known, I’m sure that I would have the same ashen look on my face, the same knots in my stomach, the same feeling of irrational fear that overcame me as I was walking towards the rustling noise I heard in the basement those many years ago. But that fear would be based on a fear of the unknown. We have been conditioned to believe that there has to be a logical, explainable, scientific answer to everything in the universe. And frankly, God doesn’t have a logical, scientific explanation! God is God! And yes, my knees would be shaking as I walked into that room! But that’s not the kind of fear that Jesus is referring to in today’s verses.

          Jesus tells his disciples that even though people might be able to kill the body, they are not be able to kill the soul. Only God can destroy both soul and body in hell. It is far more fearful to disobey God than to face martyrdom. The worst that people can do (kill the body) does not compare with the worst that God can do.

Keith Miller says, “It has never ceased to amaze me that we Christians have developed a kind of selective vision which allows us to be deeply and sincerely involved in worship and church activities and yet almost totally pagan in the day-in, day-out guts of our business lives . . . and never realize it.” If we see God only as a loving, forgiving God then the temptation to partake of some of the worlds’ offerings is a lot easier to give in to. After all, we can just pray for forgiveness afterwards and everything will be alright, right?

          Jesus says NO! In Matt 16:24-28 he says, “If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. What profit is there if you gain the whole world-and lose eternal life” Which ties in to today’s verses. “If you refuse to take up your cross and follow me, you are not worthy of being mine. If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give it up for me, you will find it.”

          Being a Christian isn’t always easy. We want to be a part of and accepted by the world that we live in. So if God is so understanding, what’s the harm in being a little worldly? We have lost our fear of God…our fear of hell! Teddy Roosevelt said to “Talk softly and carry a big stick.” And when we listen to the loving words of Jesus…when we hear how much God knows us and loves us…and we know that His fairness and judgment is not the same as our own…we too often forget that there is also that ‘big stick’ in the background…Hell!

          The Life Application Commentary says that “The gospel takes us by surprise. We think we have life pretty well figured; then God upsets our schemes. For example, ambitious life goals are without a doubt one of the strongest aspirations a person can have — incentive, drive, challenge, direction. Then God announces, “Wrong! This is not my way!” Without Christ, ambition is pointless and challenge misdirected. But a life surrendered to Christ gains eternal focus and divine incentive.”

          Our God is an Awesome God. He does, indeed, reign from heaven above. He knows when a sparrow falls from the sky. He knows how many hairs are on your head. And He knows when you are being faithful to Him and when your not! And to some people, that should be VERY frightening!

This was written for and given at the Lynnville (IL) UMC on July 6, 2003… The Scripture is from the 8th chapter of the Gospel of John, verses 31-59…

PRAYER FOR THE NATION

Father, I pray in Jesus’ name that You would restore a social conscience to our nation. I pray that we would again see the value of teaching our children the virtue of being good citizens—to not only live for the good of the individual but the good of others as well.

All: Dear Father, I desire to see our nation restored to godly integrity and excellence, so that our children and our citizens can be proud of their nation and proud to be called citizens of it.

In recognizing our duty to God and our country, keep us mindful to pray for our nation not only in our churches and our homes, but also in the quietness of our daily lives.  Amen

Did you know that Davy Crocket was killed in a bar when he was only three? No, wait a minute… that was ‘killed him a bar’ when he was only three’. And do you remember that Davy was the man with three ears: a right ear, a left ear and a wild frontier? Surely most of you remember this Bob Dylan phrase from a song that was done by many performers but perhaps most famously by Peter, Paul, and Mary, “The ants are my friends, they’re blowing in the wind.”

These misheard lyrics are called mondegreens. The term originated from Sylvia Wright’s mishearing the Scottish folk song, The Bonny Earl Of Morray. Instead of, “Oh, they have slain the Earl of Morray and laid him on the green”, she heard “Oh, they have slain the Earl of Morray and Lady Mondegreen”.

 Having had trouble, myself, understanding the lyrics to many songs over the years, I have often been shocked after somehow learning the true words to realize that what I had been singing wasn’t even close! Perhaps that’s one reason why I enjoy discovering the sources of various words and phrases.

Take, for example, the phrase, “Hell has no fury like a woman scorned.”  It’s credited to William Congreve, 1670-1729, who actually said, ‘Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.’ My source, however, gave no indication as to WHY he said it! However, Benjamin Franklin was writing a letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy in 1789 when he said, ‘In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.’ We can probably guess what that was about. And in Matthew 7, verse six, the Living Bible reads, “Don’t give holy things to depraved men. Don’t give pearls to swine! They will trample the pearls and turn and attack you.” If I said, “Into your hands I commit my spirit…” would you think of Jesus’ last words on the cross? In fact, He was quoting from Psalms 31:5.

          The fact is, many of our most well-known sayings are from the Bible or are Biblically based. The idea of something just being a ‘drop in the bucket’ comes from Isaiah 40:15, which says that, “… for all the peoples of the world are nothing in comparison with him-they are but a drop in the bucket, dust on the scales.”  And in 1 Samuel 13:14, Samuel tells Saul that, “… now your dynasty must end, for the LORD has sought out a man after his own heart… for you have not obeyed the LORD’s command.”

          During the mid sixties there was a very beautiful song released by the Byrds entitled Turn! Turn! Turn! Imagine my shock, when perusing the concordance of my Bible one day to turn to and read this from Ecclesiastes 3:1-8.

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

          In the second verse of today’s Gospel reading, we hear Jesus saying another of these well-known sayings; “… you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

          Being a fan of a lot of science-fiction stories, I have heard this phrase used an awful lot. It seems as if there are always injustices being perpetrated somewhere in the universe that can only be resolved by revealing the ‘truth’. Truth is a word used a lot by politicians and political activists (though I’m not always certain they know what it means.) And the word ‘truth’ is proclaimed from pulpits and soapboxes, alike, all over the world. I, myself, have stood up here and preached to you about “the truth that we know is in the Bible!” In the Gospel of John, chapter 3, verse 21, we read, “But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” But… just what is this ‘truth’?

          In the rock-opera Jesus Christ – Superstar, Jesus proclaims to Pilate, “I search for truth and find that I get damned!” Pilate’s response has always haunted me… “But what is truth? Is truth unchanging law? We all have truths… are mine the same as yours?” Now, we must keep in mind that most of these words are from Andrew Lloyd Weber, not any of the Gospels, but still, that idea of questioning what truth actually is has affected much of how I go about looking at life and all that goes on around me. And yes, there have been times when I have questioned God’s Word! But you know what? I have never found it wanting nor lacking in anything! As hard as I might have tried at different times in my life to find fault or error in it, I have never been able to! So… what is this truth that Jesus is speaking about, and how will it set us free?

          That is the very question asked by some in the crowd He was addressing… “(We) have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?” Yet, the Life Application Commentary points out that “the crowd’s denial of the obvious seems apparent even to us. The Jewish ancestors of these people had been enslaved by the Egyptians, the Assyrians, and the Babylonians, and they were ruled by the Romans at the moment Jesus spoke. But they insisted that as Abraham’s descendants they were free people. They also claimed that Abraham’s righteousness guaranteed their righteousness. Their spiritual superiority made them blind to their real slavery to sin. Jesus bluntly challenged their claims.

Not only was the crowd wrong about their national history, they were also wrong about the meaning of Jesus’ statement. Jesus spoke of a different liberation — that of the soul set free from sin. He pointed out that they did indeed need to be set free, because, “Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.”

Jesus forcefully challenged the leaders’ claim that they were God’s children. “If God were your Father,” He said, “you would love me.” In other words, if those people truly loved God as their Father, then they would recognize and love the Son. And he repeated for them his origin and mission: “I came from God and now I am here. I did not come on my own, but he sent me.” Jesus came as the one sent by the Father to bring God’s word to his people.”

Jesus’ audience was hardened and deaf; the life-giving, enlightening word could not penetrate their closed hearts, ears, and minds. And this was very dangerous because not being open to the words of God made them receptive targets for the devil’s lies. The religious leaders were unable to understand because they refused to listen. Satan used their stubbornness, pride, and prejudices to keep them from believing in Jesus.

The attitudes and actions of the Jewish leaders clearly identified them as followers of Satan, though they may not have been conscious of this. But their hatred of truth… their lies… and their murderous intentions indicate how much control the devil had over them.

Sin has a way of enslaving us, controlling us, dominating us, and dictating our actions. It manifests itself in self-centeredness, rebelliousness, possessiveness, dysfunctional love, and addictive behaviors. Jesus can free us from this slavery that keeps us from becoming the person God created us to be. Even if sin is restraining, mastering, or enslaving us, Jesus can break its power over our life. Jesus himself is the truth that sets us free. He is the source of truth… the perfect standard of what is right. He shows us clearly the way to eternal life with God. Thus Jesus does not give us freedom to do what we want, but freedom to follow God. As we seek to serve God, Jesus’ perfect truth frees us to be all that God meant us to be.”

In the New International Version of the Bible there are 222 separate references to ‘truth’. In Isaiah 45:19 we read, “I have not spoken in secret, from somewhere in a land of darkness; I have not said to Jacob’s descendants, ‘Seek me in vain.’ I, the LORD, speak the truth; I declare what is right.”

In the 6^th chapter of John, when asked… “What must we do to do the works God requires?”, Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” 

So they asked him, “What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'”

Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who (gave) you the bread from heaven, but my Father… For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 

“Sir,” they said, “from now on give us this bread.”

Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.” 

That is the truth that we most need to be aware of… that Jesus is the ‘Bread of life’! That whoever comes to Him will never go hungry… that whoever believes in Him will never be thirsty… that anyone who believes His teachings will never die! That is the truth that we must build our lives around… that is the truth that protects us from the lies and slavery of sin… that is the truth that we must pass on to all of those around us… that is the truth which will set us free!

This was written for and given at the Lynnville UMC on July 4, 2004.

The Scripture is from Galatians 6: 1-16

NOTE: The included songs are very Much a part of the ‘lesson’! The ‘ads’ are Not!! If a ‘space/link’ seems empty, try just clicking in it…

Let me give you just a little insight, this morning, into part of the process of my ‘building a sermon’… First, before I leave for the week either [my wife] or I print up all of the lectionary verses for the next Sunday… in print big enough for me to read without my glasses… and I pack it into the truck along with all of my other stuff for the week. Then, whenever I have the opportunity, I pull them out and read them out loud a number of times and see if anything ‘jumps out’ at me as a message that I can build around. I then spend most of the rest of the week coming up with a story that I think helps demonstrate the point that I want to make, or at least gives me a jumping off place to get into the message. I try to think of what general points I would like to make and some basic ideas on how to get there. But it isn’t until I sit down in front of my computer, usually on Saturday morning, that everything seems to come together on the ‘page’ in front of me! And I can honestly say that there are many times that the finished product surprises me as much as anyone… I never know for sure where God is going to lead me until I sit back and read through it myself!

          This week started out no different… I had the verses for the week, and I came up with a really clever story to get things started, and an idea of where I was going to go with it… but… when I sat down on Saturday to write it, it just didn’t seem to ‘talk to me’!

Over the years, I’ve been told any number of times about how someone had watched as a preacher ‘threw away’ his prepared sermon, saying how he felt ‘moved by the spirit’ to preach about something else… and how that was the ‘best sermon they’d ever heard’! Now, as a preacher myself, I usually had some cause to doubt some of these stories… I know that a really good message requires some forethought and planning… and I felt like this ‘throwing away the sermon’ was probably more a case of ‘showboating’ for effect! I considered doing that this morning… but since mine is always on my computer, I would have to throw IT across the room, and I decided that that would not be a good thing!

I have, however, decided to ‘throw out’ my original sermon idea and do something a little different this morning… so, just bear with me a bit as I present a couple of thoughts pertaining to Independence Day… and our Scripture lessen this morning…

There was no date that I could find to indicate just when John Denver cut this track, but I would assume it was during the anti-war era of the ‘60’s and ‘70’s. And I use it as a reminder this morning that war is hell! And I would love to live in the world of peace that God had intended it to be when He created it! But because of Satan’s actions in the world, war has sometimes become a necessary evil… as was the case 228 years ago when our Declaration of Independence was signed into law and this country went to war for its freedom! I feel like it was a necessary evil when we and our Allies are forced to defend that freedom from those who would dominate and try to control all people… and I feel like it is a necessary evil whenever we try to extend our freedoms to others, such as we are doing in the Middle East today. Yes, there are issues we are not dealing with very well, but our intent has always been to bring freedom to those who don’t even know what it really is!

Are there any other times when it might be proper to ‘do battle’? Listen to this song before you answer, and then see what you think!

The first verse of today’s lesson starts out by saying, “Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently.” But the very next words of Paul say to “…watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.” We are in a daily battle with Satan… a battle for our very soul! I know that we seldom like to think about it in that sense, but it is very true! And what is our most effective weapon to use in that battle? Prayer! What would happen if all of His people prayed like we should?

Another thing that Paul tells us in today’s verses is that, “If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else.”

In the first part of Luke chapter 10 we find the story of Jesus sending out seventy-two others two-by-two ahead of Him to every town and village. As they returned, they all rejoiced, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.”

Jesus’ reply was… “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.  I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

He was telling them to not take false pride in their accomplishments here on earth… but to be proud of their place in heaven!

Today is a day we Americans take great pride in ourselves and our country… and on many levels, that may seem justified. We are one of the richest countries in the world… even the poor among us are generally far better off than many considered ‘middle class’ in other counties. Our policies and politics are listened to… though not always agreed with… all over the world. Our leaders are considered to be among the world’s leaders. We are a great country!!! But… something is happening… something is changing us… and it’s happening so slowly and insidiously that most don’t even see it!

Consider this… the phrase “In God We Trust!” is found on every piece of currency that we use in our daily lives… but I ask you… how true is it? In the novel ‘1984’, a society and government was presented that was so evil and so undesirable… “Big Brother is Watching!”… that we were on constant guard against it! During the sixties and seventies, we went out of our way to insure the rights and freedoms of the individual and of all groups, races, sexes, and religions. We may have gone overboard, a bit, but that’s a sermon for another day. My point is that the calendar year 1984 came and went, and since we had all been on the lookout for and defense of all freedoms, it came and went without notice. It is now twenty years later. Has anyone noticed how many of our freedoms we have been asked to give up in the name of ‘National Security’? Oh sure, I know all of the arguments for it… they are good, solid, sensible arguments… and that scares me!

The social order presented in the book ‘1984’ did not occur overnight… and slowly but surely we are going down the same road printed in those pages… and we are not only allowing it, we are encouraging it in the name of our own safety!

Our country… our Constitution… and the government created by that Constitution… was established on Christian principles, using the Word of God as a guide. But we have been proud of ourselves for far too long, and we have let slip what those principles stood for… we have let slip the education of generation after generation in the ways of God and His Son, Jesus, and what the Bible tells us… and we have become less and less a country that trusts in God and more and more one that trusts in ourselves! Beware!

My article from the April 2004 Wesley Chapel UMC newsletter, ‘The Circuit Rider’…

Through the connections of my friend Larry, several of us were privileged to spend a day at Six Flags Over Mid-America two weeks before the official opening date of their very first season in 1971. And one of the few attractions that still survives from that time (as far as I know!) is the Cinerama Theater. Originally billed as The Chevy Show, the screen was bent in a curve towards the audience. When a film was shot with the same type of lens and projected onto this screen, the 3-D effect became very powerful.

Many of the early films consisted of mounting a camera on a roller coaster and filming the ride. The effect was so startling that if you got sick riding the real thing, you had better not watch this! What was even more fun than ‘feeling’ the twists and turns was to pull your eyes away from the screen and watch your fellow audience… even though the only thing actually moving was the film through the projector, everyone would lean to the right or left during a ‘hard turn’, or forward when the ‘brakes’ were suddenly applied. The effect was just too real for most people to ignore. Another standard that seems to be in all of these types of films over the years is the obligatory helicopter dip into and through a narrow canyon… a ride sure to get your adrenaline pumping by any measure!

Some years later I had an opportunity to ride the helicopter in Branson for a seven minute ride up and over Tablerock Lake and back. In those days, the helicopter was one of the early Bell models with a clear bubble cockpit and no doors. I sat on the outside edge with nothing but a seatbelt separating me from eternity. Believe me… as exciting and life-like the movie may have seemed, there was absolutely NO comparison with the reality!!!

We went to see The Passion of the Christ in March. I had been told how graphic some of the scenes were by friends who had already seen it… indeed, some said that they had to close their eyes or look away… it was just too intense, too real for them to watch… so I felt somewhat prepared as we sat in our seats just before it began. And you know what…? I didn’t see anything that I had not already seen in my own mind any number of times over the years!

I have often pondered and spoke about the fact that Jesus was a real, living, breathing human during His time on this earth. I feel like we far too often tend to think of Him as being more the Son of God and less the Son of Man.

What I mean by that is I think we are sometimes tempted to discount His human side because He was the Christ. After all, when Satan tempted Him in the desert, didn’t Jesus know that all Heaven and earth was already subject to Him? When He prayed in the garden for deliverance, didn’t He know that it was only temporary? The obvious answer is ‘yes’. But, that then begs the question, if He knew these things… if He knew that in the end He would sit at the right hand of God, His Father… what’s the big deal? How could He really feel and understand the things that you and I have to deal with in our lives everyday? What kind of sacrifice did He actually make if He knew that He would be alive again in three days? My answer to that lies in accepting the premise that Jesus really was a man… and was as human as you or me!

Consider, if you will, what I believe to be one of the basic premises of the human psyche… that no matter how positive we might be about something… no matter how sure we are of our facts and/or our beliefs… there is always room for doubt. In fact, in at least my limited experiences with my own life and those of whom I have had the pleasure of interacting with over the years, I believe the human mind is incapable of being one-hundred percent certain of anything!

Thus, the true nature of what exactly Jesus felt and dealt with while human depends on just how human He really was! And I believe He was 100% human! Because of that, He felt every temptation that we feel… lust, self-importance, the desire for success and acceptance. He knew pain… He knew hunger… He knew joy… and He knew sorrow. Because He was truly human, He felt all of these things, as well as the myriad of other feelings and failings that confront each of us everyday! And perhaps most important… because of His humanity, He was forced to doubt all that He knew was true.

In the movie, we saw a scene of Him as a young man working on a table and interacting with His mother in a very loving way… but I’m sure that the reality of it was even more touching. In the movie, we saw Satan tempting a struggling Jesus by attacking and using His uncertainties against Him as well as offering rewards… but I’m sure that the reality was far more difficult than we can ever imagine. In the movie we saw a scared, uncertain Jesus praying in the garden for deliverance from the anguish and torment He knew was soon to come… but I’m sure the reality was far more poignant. In the movie we saw the stripes cut into His flesh… we watched Him struggle and fall carrying His cross… we saw the nails hammered into His body… and yet I know the reality of it had to be far worse than any movie screen could ever present.

This Easter, as you ponder the sacrifice made in your name… remember that it was a human being… with all of the same doubts and uncertainties and fears as each of us have… who elected to make that sacrifice! He may have also been the Son of God… but on the Cross He was the Son of Man… in other words… on the Cross, He was human!

Let none of us ever forget that!