Paul’s Letter To the Philippians 3:1-11 [NLTse]
Whatever happens, my dear brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord. I never get tired of telling you these things, and I do it to safeguard your faith.
² Watch out for those dogs, those people who do evil, those mutilators who say you must be circumcised to be saved. ³ For we who worship by the Spirit of God are the ones who are truly circumcised. We rely on what Christ Jesus has done for us. We put no confidence in human effort, ⁴ though I could have confidence in my own effort if anyone could. Indeed, if others have reason for confidence in their own efforts, I have even more!
⁵ I was circumcised when I was eight days old. I am a pure-blooded citizen of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin—a real Hebrew if there ever was one! I was a member of the Pharisees, who demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish law. ⁶ I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church. And as for righteousness, I obeyed the law without fault.
⁷ I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. ⁸ Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ ⁹ and become one with Him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with Himself depends on faith. ¹⁰ I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised Him from the dead. I want to suffer with Him, sharing in His death, ¹¹ so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!

Sermon
Can anyone remember a time when you lost at something, when there was nothing more important to you than to win but for the first time in your life you realized that you just weren’t good enough and you never would be?

Yeah, if that’s never happened to you you’ll never be able to fully understand it. And if it has happened to you, likely, you’ll never completely forget it.

Anyone here ever been in love? [Let folks respond.] Yeah, people write about it, sing about it, paint and carve and sculpt about it, but it can never truly be described to someone who’s never known it. The strength and the weakness; the sense of absolute accomplishment and utter helplessness; to possess that which you want most of all in the whole world along with the humble, fragile feeling that it’s all hanging on a string…

Anyone here ever had your heart truly broken? The devastation and feelings of emptiness and hopelessness, and emotions you never thought you were capable of having overflowing your world…

Does anyone here know the complex pride of being a parent? How you can be so elated by rather trivial things, as long as they’ve been accomplished by your child? Being both proud of your kid while at the same time being so proud of yourself for being that child’s parent…

Anyone here ever worked a job you despised? Where you could literally feel it eating away at you from the inside?

Anyone here ever experience the rush of proposing to or being proposed to by the right person? When time stopped? The high that comes in thinking that everything in your life will now be alright forever?

Yeah, there are some things in life that a person can never understand unless they’ve experienced them themselves. And, of course, there are many such experiences. Knowing Christ is like that.

If you know Jesus, you know what I mean. If you don’t know Jesus, you can never know what I mean until, that is, you come to know Him.

For me, knowing Jesus is like coming home at the end of a long, hard day and seeing my wife, Amy. In the midst of all my burdens and confusion, our kids are all there – Noah, Eden, and Caleb – and Amy and the kids are more happy to see me than I am to see them! Knowing Jesus is like that. For me. …

For me, knowing Jesus is like being pulled over by the police and me going through my head all the things I might’ve been doing to be pulled over, and feeling kind of guilty and embarrassed because I’m a Christian and a pastor and getting ready to apologize for whatever it was I must have done wrong, but then having the officer be my friend who just pulled me over to say “hi” and he’s so happy to see me. Knowing Jesus is like that to me…

For me, knowing Jesus is like leaning up against my mom or dad reading, or cuddling on the couch with Amy and our kids watching a movie. We’re not talking or even interacting in any way, we’re just enjoying each other’s company. Knowing Jesus is like that to me…

For me, knowing Jesus is like when one of the guys in Bible Study pulls me aside and tells me about something I’ve been saying or doing that hasn’t been a good thing. We’re such good friends, and I know he cares about me so much, that I welcome the correction and truly want to be better out of love for my friend. Knowing Jesus is like that to me…

For me, knowing Jesus is like having all the bad stuff I’ve ever done or that’s ever been done to me come to my mind all at once, and me being ready to hate myself and feel like a worthless loser, but suddenly realizing that it all happened to someone else, and that I’m somebody else now…

Knowing Jesus is like when I’m running late to an appointment and having all the lights turn green along the way and all the roads and highways are wide open or filled with cars and trucks going just as fast as I am. And, although I left so late that it was impossible for me to get there on time, I do, arrive in plenty of time…

Knowing Jesus is like speaking at a political rally but not being able to find my speech. I get up and talk and feel like I’ve let everyone down because of my lackluster words but seeing the crowd inspired, and watching them leave filled with hope and committed to do the right thing out there no matter what! Knowing Jesus is like that to me…

With a God like that, nothing else in my life means very much to me. And yet, because of a God like that, everything else in my life has become that much more precious! But only because of Him. There’s nothing I’ve ever been able to buy or anything I’ve ever been able to make happen by myself that can compare with all that Father gives me each and every time I turn to Him in Jesus. Nothing. I have a lot to be proud of, a lot I could brag about. But compared to Christ and all He’s given me in salvation, I count all the rest as skubala: Garbage; waste; raw sewage (most literally) when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord

Anybody else here know what I mean when I talk about Jesus these ways? [Hopefully there’ll be a “yes”.] If knowing Jesus is like this for anyone else here, won’t you bow your heads right there in your seats: Clasp your hands together and bow your heads in worship and adoration. Love Him in your heart. Let your love for Him well up in your hearts!

Now, if knowing Jesus is like this for you, lift up your hands to Heaven! Not because it’s right to worship Jesus by bowing down, nor because it’s right to worship Him by raising our hands. Lift up your hands to God’s throne with me because He is worthy; because He’s worth it; worth our everything!

This is the month of November, a month that many often associate with gratitude on account of Thanksgiving. Coming towards the end of the year, it’s also the time that many businesses and organizations establish their plans and their budgets for the coming year. And it’s a time when many people, likewise, take special time to evaluate their lives and their priorities and make plans and set goals for how they want their lives to be across the year ahead.

With that in mind, we’re going to have some special inserts in our Worship Bulletins across the next couple of weeks challenging us with who we are in Christ and all that God has given us and called us to by saving us through our faith in the cross of Jesus. I’m going to be preaching about some of the ways God has called us to fullness of life, a fullness that shows itself through giving and sharing and helping provide for the needs of others because we’re trusting our Father to provide for us. A fullness of life that we can’t know when we are stingy with our time, talents, and treasure, and when we give in to only looking out for ourselves and trying to please ourselves.

It will all culminate on the last Sunday of November – November 29^th – the first Sunday of Advent, Recommitment Sunday here at First Church, when we will renew our baptismal vows, share the Lord’s Supper together, and when we will commit all that we have and all that we are to Him Who has given His everything and all to us.
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Remember, it’s not doing good that makes us righteous before Father. We become righteous by trusting in Christ: Trusting what He has done for us.

Introduction

As our reading from the Book of Acts begins, the apostles Peter and John, empowered by Jesus, have just miraculously healed a man who had been lame from birth so that he could walk. But when Peter and John begin crediting the man’s miraculous healing to Jesus, proclaiming that God had brought Jesus back from the dead and that through Jesus’ powerful name the man had been healed, they attract the attention of the Sadducees.

The Sadducees were a denomination of Judaism that did not believe in resurrection, that is, the teaching that at the end of time God would raise everyone who’d ever lived back to life and judge each one for their faith and deeds: Those who were believed and lived doing good would be rewarded with eternal life; those who did not believe and lived accordingly would be punished forever.

So Peter and John were arrested for preaching and teaching about the resurrection in general and about Jesus’ resurrection in particular. But after questioning Peter and John and threatening them not to speak or teach about Jesus and His resurrection any longer, the Sadducee leaders let them go…

The Acts of the Apostles 4:23-35 [NLTse]

²³ As soon as they were freed, Peter and John returned to the other believers and told them what the leading priests and elders had said. ²⁴ When they heard the report, all the believers lifted their voices together in prayer to God: “O Sovereign Lord, Creator of Heaven and Earth, the sea, and everything in them— ²⁵ You spoke long ago by the Holy Spirit through our ancestor David, Your servant, saying,

‘Why were the nations so angry? Why did they waste their time with futile plans? ²⁶ The kings of the Earth prepared for battle; the rulers gathered together against the Lord and against His Messiah.’

²⁷ “In fact, this has happened here in this very city! For Herod Antipas, Pontius Pilate the governor, the Gentiles, and the people of Israel were all united against Jesus, Your holy servant, Whom You anointed. ²⁸ But everything they did was determined beforehand according to Your will. ²⁹ And now, O Lord, hear their threats, and give us, Your servants, great boldness in preaching Your Word. ³⁰ Stretch out Your hand with healing power; may miraculous signs and wonders be done through the name of Your holy servant Jesus.”

³¹ After this prayer, the meeting place shook, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. Then they preached the Word of God with boldness.

³² All the believers were united in heart and mind. And they felt that what they owned was not their own, so they shared everything they had. ³³ The apostles testified powerfully to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and God’s great blessing was upon them all. ³⁴ There were no needy people among them, because those who owned land or houses would sell them ³⁵ and bring the money to the apostles to give to those in need.

Sermon

I’d like to share with all of you something that happened to me that is very personal to me and also very holy to me: The day my younger brother was killed I saw Jesus.

It happened the very day that I arrived on the campus of my seminary.

Here’s u a picture me and my wife in those days. I had no belly and no gray hair. Amy, of course, looks exactly the same… We had no kids in those days, but we did have a minivan full of stuff that we had just started to unload into our campus apartment in Richmond, Virginia. Upon arrival I found a note on our door that said, “Call your mom and dad.” Well, it had been a long drive and there was a lot of work to do unpacking and getting settled, and I thought that my beloved parents could wait to hear how we were doing until the work was done and we were better squared away.

It was a hot day and we were sweating and meeting neighbors and fellow students as we unpacked and hung pictures and found places for things, when some neighbors from upstairs came to our door and told me that the seminary administration had just called them asking me to call home.

I never had a clue. All the way upstairs to their apartment (because our phone was not set up yet, and cell phones were the size of brief cases in those days J) I remember feeling so embarrassed that my folks were hounding me like this. I was twenty-seven years old! I didn’t need them calling my neighbors to make sure we were okay! But when I called our pastor picked up the phone and I knew something was terribly wrong. The first thought that came into my head was that my dad had died, but I quickly found out it was not my dad but my younger brother, Charley. (We’d just celebrated his twenty-first birthday a couple weeks before.) And I cried: I sat there in a stranger’s study – they’d closed the door when I went to make the call, so the administration must have known and told them what had happened – and I balled. These kinds of horrors happened to other people. I couldn’t believe it had happened to us, to me!

The rest of the afternoon was a blur: I told my wife, Amy, the news and then she and I cried together. And we talked. And though we wanted to leave for my parents’ house right away, we couldn’t because our minivan was still mostly filled with all our stuff, and so we got to work emptying it out: No more hanging up anything or looking for just that right spot; we wanted to get the van unpacked and get back home.

As a part of it all, I remember sitting in the driver’s seat. I’d just moved the van because a better parking space had opened up closer to our building. I had just turned off the car and I was crying with my head down on the steering wheel. And then Jesus was kneeling next to me.

(New minivans have those consoles built in-between the front driver’s and passenger’s seats, but back in the early 90’s there was open space in-between the seats so that you could turn and walk – hunched over, of course – from the front seats to among those sitting in the back. [Perhaps so that moms could discipline the kids in person without having to pull the car over. J] And in that space between the two front seats Jesus was kneeling beside me.)

And He spoke to me.

He said, “I’m sorry.”

And then He was gone…

I’ve often looked back on that occasion and wondered why the Lord came to me. I mean, others have experienced much greater losses; and still others have been far more faithful Christians, and loved Jesus far better and far more than me, I’m sure…

At other times I’ve looked back and questioned the experience altogether: Maybe it was all just in my head, a product of my grief; or maybe I just wanted it to happen so badly that I made the whole thing up…

And yet, it happened. And why the Lord came to me, I have no idea: An act of kindness on His part. Surely not because I deserved it or had earned it. Just a miraculous expression of His amazing grace, I guess…

And what did He mean by telling me He was sorry? But all of that is for another time…

Today I’d like to focus us on the resurrection of Jesus Christ: Jesus is not dead. He is alive!

And remember, I’m not telling you this because it is right doctrine. I am not telling you this because someone told me it was true and I’m now passing it on to you. I’m telling you that Jesus, the son of (it was thought) Mary and Joseph of Nazareth, Who lived and was killed almost 2,000 years ago, is alive because I’ve seen Him with my own eyes and heard Him speak with my own ears!

Historical records verify that on April 7, AD30 a man named Jesus of Nazareth was sentenced to death by the high court of all Judaism – the Sanhedrin – and then crucified to death for treason by the Roman prefect of Judea, Pontius Pilate. And we know that the Bible testifies, and that other historical records confirm, that this same Jesus rose from the dead two days later. And we know that He was seen and heard and touched to be alive by His followers almost 2,000 years ago. Well, it’s in-line with all that that I am here to tell you that that same Jesus is alive today and with us – His followers – today!

I’ve heard different ones of you tell me that you’ve seen Jesus, too. One of you told me that once, when you were sitting back [pointing] there, where you, NAME, are sitting today, that you saw Jesus sitting over [pointing] there, where you, NAME, are; sitting, worshiping among us. Another one of you told me, just this week, that you’ve seen Jesus several times, here in the Sanctuary, walking up and down the aisles, in and out of the pews, radiant and glorious as we’ve worshiped..!

I’m sharing all this today because, in our reading from Acts 4, we can see that central to the apostles’ ministry in those first months and years of the church was their testifying to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.

Christianity is not a faith based upon some god’s private revelation to someone, like the way Muslims believe that Allah spoke to their founder, Mohammed, or like the way Mormons believe that God spoke to their founder, Joseph Smith. Christianity is not a faith based merely upon reason or wisdom, like Jehovah’s Witnesses or Confucianism, or based upon the promise of power or good feelings, like Wicca or other New Age faiths.

The Christian faith lives or dies on the reality of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. As the apostle Paul once wrote, “Since we preach that Christ rose from the dead, why are some of you saying there will be no resurrection of the dead? For if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless. And we apostles would all be lying about God. (For we have said that God raised Christ from the grave. But that can’t be true if there is no resurrection of the dead.) And if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless and you are still guilty of your sins. In that case, all who have died believing in Christ are lost! And if our hope in Christ is only for this life, we are more to be pitied than anyone in the world.” (1 Corinthians 15:12-19)

For those of you who’ve gotten caught up in the worldliness around us and begun putting your hope in politics and presidents, I tell you that Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead! For those of you who’ve found yourselves worn down by pain into putting your trust in doctors and diagnoses, I tell you that Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead! For those of you who’ve been out of work or who’ve just been making ends meet, who think you need a job (or a better job), not Jesus, I tell you that Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead! For those of you who’ve been let down, betrayed, and abandoned your whole life long, who’ve gotten used to putting your faith in you, yourself, and what you can get done, I tell you that Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead!

He even came to a wretch like me to tell me He was sorry. Surely He’ll come to you and provide all that you need. Your part is to trust Him. Your part is to seek Him. Your part is to let every word you speak be what He would speak, and every thing you do to be what you know He would do. Your part is to live your life His Way: To watch for Him and listen for Him, following as His Holy Spirit guides you and provides for you as you call out to Him each day.

I’ve seen the Lord. He’s alive.

The Prophet Isaiah 58:1-14 [NLTse]

“Shout with the voice of a trumpet blast. Shout aloud! Don’t be timid. Tell My people Israel of their sins! ² Yet they act so pious! They come to the Temple every day and seem delighted to learn all about Me. They act like a righteous nation that would never abandon the laws of its God. They ask Me to take action on their behalf, pretending they want to be near Me. ³ ‘We have fasted before You!’ they say. ‘Why aren’t You impressed? We have been very hard on ourselves, and you don’t even notice it!’

“I will tell you why!” I respond. “It’s because you are fasting to please yourselves. Even while you fast, you keep oppressing your workers. ⁴ What good is fasting when you keep on fighting and quarreling? This kind of fasting will never get you anywhere with Me. ⁵ You humble yourselves by going through the motions of penance, bowing your heads like reeds bending in the wind. You dress in burlap and cover yourselves with ashes. Is this what you call fasting? Do you really think this will please the Lord?

⁶ “No, this is the kind of fasting I want: Free those who are wrongly imprisoned; lighten the burden of those who work for you. Let the oppressed go free, and remove the chains that bind people. ⁷ Share your food with the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless. Give clothes to those who need them, and do not hide from relatives who need your help.

⁸ “Then your salvation will come like the dawn, and your wounds will quickly heal. Your godliness will lead you forward, and the glory of the Lord will protect you from behind. ⁹ Then when you call, the Lord will answer. ‘Yes, I am here,’ He will quickly reply.

“Remove the heavy yoke of oppression. Stop pointing your finger and spreading vicious rumors! ¹⁰ Feed the hungry, and help those in trouble. Then your light will shine out from the darkness, and the darkness around you will be as bright as noon. ¹¹ The Lord will guide you continually, giving you water when you are dry and restoring your strength. You will be like a well-watered garden, like an ever-flowing spring. ¹² Some of you will rebuild the deserted ruins of your cities. Then you will be known as a rebuilder of walls and a restorer of homes.

¹³ “Keep the Sabbath day holy. Don’t pursue your own interests on that day, but enjoy the Sabbath and speak of it with delight as the Lord’s holy day. Honor the Sabbath in everything you do on that day, and don’t follow your own desires or talk idly. ¹⁴ Then the Lord will be your delight. I will give you great honor and satisfy you with the inheritance I promised to your ancestor Jacob. I, the Lord, have spoken!”

Today we’re continuing our new series called I Love Sundays.

Just for fun, I made a list this week of things I love. I love my wife: Amy. I love my kids: Noah, Eden, and Caleb. I love swimming in the ocean at the beach. I love our family vacations in Maine. I love reading a good book. I love superheroes. (Crazy, I know. But when their characters are portrayed well the whole idea of them just makes me smile.) (By the way, Jesus is my favorite superhero. And, of course, He’s real!) I love reading a good book…

Now, do me a favor, turn to somebody next to you in your pew and, in thirty seconds or less, tell them three things you love. Ready? Go!

If you worked at it awhile, I’ll bet we all could come up with a long, long list of things that we love. Did anyone here think to include Sundays on your list?

Let’s get into the habit. Practice with me now, will you? I’ll say it, then you say it: I Love Sundays! (“I Love Sundays!”) I Love Sundays!! (“I Love Sundays!!”)

Let’s pray before we dive in together…

Father in Heaven: You made us, and we’re grateful. You designed us, and You know how we best work. We came this morning hoping that you would speak to us in life-changing ways. And that’s our prayer right now: Lord, in these next few minutes, please speak to us and change us. We are listening. In Jesus’s name. Amen?

I want to propose to you today that Sunday was meant to be the best day of your week. During Jesus’ day, the Jews had all sorts of laws about what you could and couldn’t do on the Sabbath. One Sabbath day, Jesus was hanging out with His disciples, and they were debating which things applied to them and which things didn’t. In a show-stopping statement, Jesus clarified God’s purpose for the Sabbath once and for all when He said to them, “The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27)

What Jesus was saying was, of all the days of the week, God knew we would need a day to break from everything else we were doing and refuel, re-fresh, and re-focus. So, when God was arranging the rhythm of the world, He set one day apart: The Sabbath.

Study the history of Christianity and I think you’ll see that whenever people have taken the time to set aside a day for rest and re-focus with God, their lives have gone better. They’ve felt better about themselves, enjoyed their families more, and experienced the smile of God.

The problem is, in 2015, we live in a never-stopping culture where 24/7 we never have enough time because we never stop worrying about deadlines and never feel like we’re making enough money to guarantee our happiness. Day in and day out we live with pressure: Pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure…

[Take out a balloon and blow it up.] There are two ways to get rid of the pressure in a balloon. [Take out a pin.] You can pop it. [Pop it pretty close to the microphone.] Or [blow up a second balloon], you can let the air release from it slowly. Let the air escape from the neck of the balloon, again, fairly close to the microphone.] Human beings aren’t all that different. Of course, we all pop in different ways: Some have nervous breakdowns; others leave their families and run away; still others begin having affairs or go out and buy expensive cars or quit their jobs, etc…

But for Christians, popping isn’t the only option.

Do this with me. (It’s going to seem weird, but do it anyway.) Put your teeth together and just go “Sssss.” One, two, three: Sssss.

You know what you were just doing? Letting off pressure. Try it again: Sssss. Doesn’t that feel good? (Silly maybe, but it still feels good, doesn’t it?)

I don’t want you to relax so much this morning that you go to sleep, but I do want you to relax enough to lower your blood pressure, listen well, and leave here in a little while feeling a weight lifted off your shoulders…

Set the clock back in our country a hundred years, two hundred years, or three hundred years and there was a lot less pressure. Nobody worked on Sundays. Businesses were closed for the day. There were no kids’ traveling all-star teams. People used Sunday for a rest day. Which seems very old-fashioned. But doesn’t something about that old-fashioned lifestyle call to you?

In prior generations Americans got a lot less done on Sundays. But as a result, they got a lot more done on Mondays! After a day of rest, they attacked the week eagerly. Work was considered a noble thing.

Athletes have found they perform better by working hard and then resting, working hard and then resting, instead of working hard all the time. Our muscles were designed for stress, and then release. Our souls were, too.

Imagine this for a minute: what if we took a step backward in order to go forward?

Way back in the Old Testament, the nation of Israel was about to enter the Promised Land. For forty years they had lived in the desert, without houses or jobs or responsibilities. As they got ready to enter the Promised Land, where they would occupy homes and lead working lives, God visited their leader, Joshua, and talked to him about his priorities. He said [hold up a Bible], “Study this Book of Instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do.” (Joshua 1:8)

God was saying, “Joshua, once you and your people settle in, you are going to be very tempted to work, work, work to get ahead. But if you work, work, work, to get ahead, you won’t get ahead. You’ll fall behind.”

“Joshua, the secret to getting ahead is to spend time in this Book. Because if you get into this Book, this Book will get into you. And if this Book gets into you, you will become the kind of person who is prosperous and successful.”

And that’s been proven true. In eighteenth-century England, John and Charles Wesley started a movement that resulted in 100,000 weekly Bible studies by 1798. And for the next one hundred years, England was the most prosperous nation in the world.

In 1857, Jeremiah Lanphier started a noontime prayer meeting in the Dutch Reformed Church in downtown New York City that sparked a movement of Bible reading throughout our country. As a result, the history of America’s westward expansion was marked by households huddled around their kitchen tables at night. Mom would do some sewing while the kids played quietly and dad read the Bible to them all, out loud, for an hour. Once that Bible-reading habit was ingrained in our families, over the next one hundred years, the United States became the most prosperous nation on earth.

People today say they’re too busy to read the Bible because they have to work more hours to get ahead. But the Bible says that if you’ll read it regularly, you’ll become the sort of person who gets ahead.

The same is true with the Sabbath. We think we can get ahead by working more. But sometimes the best way to be productive is to rest and refuel for a while. That’s the concept of the Sabbath, and God invented it. The way to make your Mondays better is to start with Sundays.

In the Bible, God prescribes fifty-two Sabbaths a year as part of our health-maintenance plan. That’s seven and a half weeks of spiritual vacation! God did this because when He wired us up, He constructed us to run best on a rhythm of engagement and withdrawl; exertion, and then release.

Do this once again: Sssss! No pressure today, just release.

Open or turn on your Bible to Isaiah 58. Let’s look together at  verse 13. God says:

“Keep the Sabbath day holy. Don’t pursue your own interests on that day, but enjoy the Sabbath and speak of it with delight as the Lord’s holy day. Honor the Sabbath in everything you do on that day, and don’t follow your own desires or talk idly. Then the Lord will be your delight. I will give you great honor and satisfy you with the inheritance I promised to your ancestor Jacob. I, the Lord, have spoken!”

Repeat line three after me: Enjoy the Sabbath and speak of it with delight. (“Enjoy the Sabbath and speak of it with delight.”) And line eight: I will give you great honor and satisfy you. (“I will give you great honor and satisfy you.”)

God’s secret for our being greatly honored and satisfied is enjoying the Sabbath and calling it a delight! Which means that Sunday ought to be the best day of your week!

How can you make that happen? What would it look like to make Sunday the best day of your week?

There are two steps we need to take to make Sundays great. The first is to make a conscious decision to honor God’s rhythm for your life.

A few years ago, a pastor was at the Western Wall in Jerusalem as the Jews there brought in the Sabbath together. He wrote, “It was a raucous celebration. Jewish men, dressed in their finest, were bobbing back and forth. Israeli soldiers, Uzis in hand, were singing Sabbath songs together. One little boy ran up to me with a huge smile on his face and shouted ‘Shabbat Shalom’ (‘Sabbath peace’) to me like I was a long lost relative. It was one of the most festive celebrations I’ve ever seen.”

Sabbath celebration is so sacred to the Jewish people that the entire nation of Israel puts their elevators on automatic during the Sabbath. To avoid even the slightest amount of work, like pushing an elevator button, Israeli elevators are programmed to stop and open on every floor from the beginning of the Sabbath to its end. This might seem extreme to us because we live in a country where everyone can do whatever they want to. But imagine if you lived in a high-rise and every Sunday your elevator stopped on every floor whether you wanted it to or not?

Board an elevator in Israel on the Sabbath, and every stop will remind you that there is a God who created the world and He wants you to release and enjoy Him. That would be a great reminder, wouldn’t it, a great reminder of God’s rhythm for our lives?

If step one in making Sunday the best day of your week is to honor God’s rhythm for your life, step two takes it a little further. Step two is…

2. Prepare for Sunday as if it’s the highlight of your week.

Think of it this way. Guys, when you ask a girl out on a date, don’t you usually take a shower ahead of time, comb your hair, and put on some clean clothes? (Let’s hope so.)

How about when you ask a girl to the prom? It’s a lot more special, right? You would buy her flowers. You probably rent a tuxedo. Maybe you wash your car. You make special plans or reservations for dinner. Now, the regular date and your prom date might even be with the same girl, but what makes one good and the other extra-good is in the planning ahead and the extra-preparations, right?

So, think about this: On a normal weekend, the Smith family goes out and does something fun on Saturday night, sleeps until the last minute Sunday morning, rushes to get ready for church, and bickers all the way to the parking lot. (I know that never happens to your family. J)

How hard is it to have a great experience at church if you’ve had a miserable experience getting to church, hmm? Pretty hard!

So let’s rewind the Smith family’s weekend for a minute. What if, instead of whooping it up on Saturday night, they changed their “whoop night” to Friday? What if Mr. and Mrs. Smith developed a plan for preparing for Sunday like Sunday morning was the prom?

If the Smiths have small children, imagine this: It’s Saturday morning and Mrs. Smith is asking each member of the family what they want to wear to church tomorrow. Armed with this information, she does laundry or irons clothes to make sure the chosen clothes are ready by morning. On Saturday evening, Mr. Smith helps the kids to an early or normal bedtime. What kind of difference would it make in your church experience if every member of your family woke up rested on Sunday morning and everything they wanted to wear was already set out for them?

If you’re the Smiths and you have teens, you might not want to kill your kids’ social life every weekend by insisting on an early Saturday night curfew. But what if you worked together to come up with a mutually acceptable plan for Sunday mornings? What if you held a family huddle to talk about how long each member of the family will need to shower, dress, and eat breakfast so that you’re not all yelling at each other for the bathroom, falling over each other in the kitchen, and then running for the car at the last minute?

If you’re a single parent, you’re huddling with your kids and developing your own family game plan. The U.S. Marines have a saying, “Proper prior planning prevents poor performance.” Plan for church like you’d plan for the prom!

Now, replay Sunday morning. This might never happen, but imagine if it did: If it takes your family fifteen minutes to get to church, what if you all got in the car twenty-five minutes before church started and drove over here at or under the speed limit? No honking. No bickering. You could even sing a verse of “Kum-ba-ya” together on the way! When you get out of the car, you could actually walk across the parking lot leisurely. You could stop and have a conversation in the Narthex and still arrive in Sunday School or Worship with a few minutes to spare!

Now, this might seem like a fantasy, but does it have to be?

Like prom versus date, the difference in a good Sunday and a great Sunday just might be in planning ahead and the extra-preparations!

Let’s pray…

Father: Thank You for creating us for rhythm and for rest. It’s great to be Your church together! Help us to live the kind of lives you intended for us and to make the Sabbath a delight. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen?

The Gospel According to Matthew 24:37-51 [NLTse]

³⁷ “When the Son of Man returns, it will be like it was in Noah’s day. ³⁸ In those days before the flood, the people were enjoying banquets and parties and weddings right up to the time Noah entered his boat. ³⁹ People didn’t realize what was going to happen until the flood came and swept them all away. That is the way it will be when the Son of Man comes.

⁴⁰ “Two men will be working together in the field; one will be taken, the other left. ⁴¹ Two women will be grinding flour at the mill; one will be taken, the other left.

⁴² “So you, too, must keep watch! For you don’t know what day your Lord is coming. ⁴³ Understand this: If a homeowner knew exactly when a burglar was coming, he would keep watch and not permit his house to be broken into.⁴⁴ You also must be ready all the time, for the Son of Man will come when least expected.

⁴⁵ “A faithful, sensible servant is one to whom the master can give the responsibility of managing his other household servants and feeding them. ⁴⁶ If the master returns and finds that the servant has done a good job, there will be a reward. ⁴⁷ I tell you the truth, the master will put that servant in charge of all he owns. ⁴⁸ But what if the servant is evil and thinks, ‘My master won’t be back for a while,’ ⁴⁹ and he begins beating the other servants, partying, and getting drunk? ⁵⁰ The master will return unannounced and unexpected, ⁵¹ and he will cut the servant to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Sermon

The title of this sermon is: u

“IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD! ARE YOU READY? How We Can Let It Be the End Of Our World and Start Living In Total Surrender To Christ.”

As many of you may have heard, this coming Monday, September 28^th, there will be a lunar eclipse, a “blood moon”, so-called because of the “Raleigh Scattering” process that gives the moon a reddish tint when it’s in eclipse. This will be the fourth in what are thought to be a special series of lunar eclipses because they have coincided with Jewish holy-day festivals. The first of these “blood moons” appeared on April 15, 2014, the first day of Passover last year. The second occurred on October 8, 2014, the Eve of Tabernacles. The third took place April 4th earlier this year, the first day of Passover. And now this fourth lunar eclipse expected next Monday, September 28^th, the first day of Tabernacles.

Although there have been 8 previous occurrences of blood moons like these four (falling on Passover and Tabernacles) since the Lord Jesus ascended into Heaven, Pastor John Hagee of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas and founder of John Hagee Ministries has championed the prophetic importance of these recent blood moons. In his best-selling book titled Four Blood Moons, Pastor Hagee wrote that, for the past 500 years, during every series of four blood moons falling on Passovers and Tabernacles like these, that a significant event occurred in Jewish or Israeli history that, while beginning as tragic, ended up as triumphant.

Although Reverend Hagee has not proclaimed that the world will come to an end as the result of these “blood moons”, other pastors, teachers, and end-of-the-world prophets have promoted that possibility, even as u Joel 2:31 and Revelation 6:12 associate “blood moons” with the end of days.

And so, here we are with some Christian folks stock-piling food and water, wondering if the end is truly near, and other Christian folks considering it all to be rather silly, even while looking forward to the lunar eclipse that is coming. How are we, as Christ’s people, to live in face of such uncertainties?

First, I want to remind us, or to show us, if we haven’t been aware of such things before, that folks have been predicting the end of the world since Jesus first ascended. An Essene revolutionary, Simon son of Giora, saw the Jewish revolt against Rome in 66-70AD as the final end-time battle before Messiah came (he was not a Christian) and predicted the end of all things to come about during that war.

Martin of Tours (in what we now call France) predicted the end of the world to happen in 400AD, saying, “There is no doubt that the Antichrist has already been born. Firmly established already in his early years, he will, after reaching maturity, achieve supreme power.” The early church fathers Hippolytus of Rome, Sextus Julius Africanus, and Saint Irenaeus himself, all predicted that the end of the world would take place in 500AD, Julius later changing his date to 800AD. Many Christian leaders predicted Jesus’ return and the end of the world during 1000AD, and when that didn’t happen, 1033AD – moving it from one thousand years after Jesus’ birth to one thousand years after His death, resurrection, and ascension.

Many thought the different occurrences of the Black Plague across Europe were the beginnings of the end. Reformer Martin Luther believed that Jesus would return no later than 1600AD. Christopher Columbus believed it would happen in 1656 or 1658. The General Assembly of the State of Connecticut proclaimed May 19, 1780 to be the end of the world. Methodist-founder John Wesley believed that 1836 would be the beginning of the Millenium. Jehovah’s Witnesses predicted the end to take place in 1941. Astrologist Jean Dixon called it for February 4, 1962. Jehovah’s Witnesses tried it again, predicting the final battle of Armageddon to be finished by 1975. Pat Robertson predicted 1982. Louis Farrakhan declared the first Gulf War to be Armaggedon. Many may remember Harold Camping’s predictions of first September 6, then September 29, and then October 2 of 1994 to be the Last Days, and then March 31, 1995, and then that the Rapture would occur on May 21, 2011 and the end occur October 21^st of that year. And there have been many more and there are still many more predictions to come.

So, we are not the first generation to be hearing of these things, nor the first to wonder how to faithfully respond.

But Jesus told us what to do. He told us, “Be ready.”

Just as His proclamation of the Greatest Commandment breaks down into three parts (love the Lord with all your heart and mind, soul, and strength) the parables Jesus told about being ready break down into the same groupings: Heart and mind; soul; and strength.

As I’ve shared before, a good paraphrase of “loving God with all our heart and mind” is “loving God with all our thoughts and desires.” The Lord Jesus’ parable about the Ten Bridesmaids paints a picture for us of ten young ladies on the front porch of their friend, the bride’s, house, watching and waiting for the groom and his men to arrive. But some of them didn’t bring extra oil for their oil lamps (or extra batteries for their flashlights, we might think of it today).

Jesus paints that picture for us to show us how we are to be thinking about His return, planning for His return, using our time wisely, desiring His coming. Loving Him and not the people or the things of this world with all our thoughts and desires.

So let me ask you: What do you spend your time thinking about? What do you really desire in this life? Let me ask you something else: What would it be like if Jesus was a part of all your thoughts? If, as you thought about your girlfriend or your boyfriend and the test you have coming up, if Jesus was a part of those thoughts, as well, and you got thinking about what He wants for your relationships and how He wants you to prepare for, and be worried or not be worried, about the test… If, as you consider your hopes and dreams, your plans, or as you look forward to retirement, if Jesus was a part of those plans and desires, letting Him shape your hopes, letting Him give you rest from your fears, letting Him give you great purpose in your last days… In the parable, Jesus says that those who do not love Him with all their thoughts and desires will find themselves knocking on Heaven’s door and will hear Him replying from inside, “Go away! I don’t know you.”

A good paraphrase of “loving God with all your soul” is “loving God with all your time and talents.” Jesus’ parable of the Three Servants speaks to this, that is, how we use our time and our abilities. One servant was given five bags of silver to invest for his master. A second was given two. And a third was given one bag of silver to invest. The first invested fully and well and doubled his master’s money and bringing him ten bags of silver. The second did likewise, doubling the two into four. But the third servant was lazy and didn’t do anything special with his, giving the master back his one bag. And, concerning this servant, Jesus said, the master threw this slave into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth!

So, I ask you, is Jesus really a part of everything you do? Do you work for Jesus, doing your schoolwork, doing your chores, doing your 9 to 5 (or whatever your hours) for Him and not merely for your teacher or parents or boss? Do you decide upon the things you are going to do and the things you are not going to do depending on whether or not Jesus would want you to do or not do those things? Are you in the Word enough to be able to know what Jesus would want or not want? Are you in prayer enough to recognize His voice directing you across your days?

This love that Jesus calls us to is pretty pervasive, isn’t it? When He tells us to be ready, He has a lot in mind, doesn’t He?

A faithful paraphrase for “loving God with all our strength” is “loving God with all our stuff” (believe it or not). “Strength” and “stuff” include everything we have authority over, so it includes our kids, our possessions, our employees, and all that we are able to affect or influence. Jesus says that when He returns that one will be taken but that the one with them might not be. He says that when He returns that we should not go back to get this or that favorite possession…

Let me ask you, “Do you love your kids, or your grandkids, or your parents, or your husband or wife or girlfriend or boyfriend more than you love Jesus?” If Jesus came to you and told you that so-and-so was going to Hell, would you be sad about that but trust Jesus and continue to love Him the same?

Do you love your possessions – your house, your clothes, your cars, your checking account, your collections of this or that – do you love your stuff more than you love Jesus? If it was all taken from you would you still love Him the same?

Jesus is coming back for us. And although at the end of every Worship Service I say, “The grace of Jesus Christ, the love of God our Father, and the communion and fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us, within us, and among us until the Lord Jesus does come to bring us all home,” some of us may not get to be a part of that “homecoming”, not if we’re not ready.

In the Adult Sunday School class we are looking at our lives – our thoughts our desires, our time and our talents, our stuff and all that we influence – with Jesus as a part of it all. We’re doing this in the context of ways the Holy Spirit might be moving us to be Jesus’ witnesses and to share our love for Him and all He’s done for us with others. I invite you all to join as we consider how to love the Lord our God with all our heart and mind, soul, and strength, especially as that love applies to sharing our faith – the great news of Jesus Christ – with those around us whom He so fiercely loves.

It is the end of the world. Let it be the end of your world. Are you ready?

Psalm 122

A song for pilgrims ascending to Jerusalem.

A psalm of David.

¹ I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.” ² And now here we are, standing inside your gates, O Jerusalem. ³ Jerusalem is a well-built city; its seamless walls cannot be breached. ⁴ All the tribes of Israel—the Lord’s people—make their pilgrimage here. They come to give thanks to the name of the Lord, as the Law requires of Israel. ⁵ Here stand the thrones where judgment is given, the thrones of the dynasty of David.

⁶ Pray for peace in Jerusalem. May all who love this city prosper. ⁷ O Jerusalem, may there be peace within your walls and prosperity in your palaces. ⁸ For the sake of my family and friends, I will say, “May you have peace.” ⁹ For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek what is best for you, O Jerusalem.

I want to propose what may be a revolutionary thought to you this morning. Are you ready for it? Here it is: Sunday was meant to be the best day of your week.

Many of us grew up in situations where Sunday was boring. Or Sunday was a rat race. Some of us grew up in homes where Sunday was just another day. Others grew up in homes where Sunday was a disappointment, because it was supposed to be a family day, or a day off, but nothing ever happened because the family never did anything together. Or the wrong thing happened, like you had to do yard work with dad or chores with mom all day. For some of us, Sundays were awkward days because they were the day we had to go stay with our non-custodial parent whom we didn’t know very well. Others of us grew up in homes where Sunday was full of conflict because church was mandatory but no one was ever ready to leave on time, so the whole family competed for the bathroom, bumped into each other scrambling for breakfast in the kitchen, wolfed down our food, bolted for the door, and argued with each other all the way to church—where you were miraculously healed and acted like saints as soon as you hit the parking lot.

Well, I have good news for you today: Sundays were never meant to be that way. God made Sundays for you! Jesus said in Mark 2:27, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” And yet today we live in a world where the pace of life is killing us.

I want to suggest to you today that Sunday is a solution to that.

It feels like we always have too much to do. God said that Sunday is the antidote for that. It seems like we always feel pressured. God made Sundays as the relief for that. We rarely have time for the really important things. God thinks Sundays can take care of that. There’s never enough time for family … or for the people we love … or for the rest we need. God designed Sundays for that. With so much going on in our world, it’s easy to lose sight of what really matters. God created Sundays as the cure for that.

Open up your Bible or your Bible app or a pew Bible to Psalm 122. Psalms is in the middle of the Bible, and Psalm 118 is the chapter exactly in the middle of the Bible, so open just about to the middle and you should be able to find Psalm 122 fairly easily from there.

In a manner of speaking, one time, somebody invited King David, who wrote this psalm, to attend church with them. David’s response is recorded here in Psalm 122. Listen to this: “I rejoiced with those who said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.” (Psalm 122:1)

Does that sound like a guy who was turned off by church? No. David got excited when he was invited to church. Why? Why was David fired up about the thing that so many people are turned off by today? David couldn’t wait to get there. What does he know about church that aren’t making clear to those around us?

Well, let’s walk through this little psalm together so we can find out.

David says: “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.’” He’s pumped about going to church, wouldn’t you say?

Verses 2-3: “And now here we are, standing inside your gates, O Jerusalem. Jerusalem is a well-built city; its seamless walls cannot be breached.”
He’s describing his physical surroundings: He’s inside the city of Jerusalem. It’s well-fortified. He’s feeling safe there.

Verse 4: “All the tribes of Israel—the Lord’s people—make their pilgrimage here. They come to give thanks to the name of the Lord, as the Law requires of Israel.” David’s describing what the people are doing: They’re going up to worship God. And there are lots of them—tribes of them, in fact. They’re going to give God thanks, to give Him glory, “as the Law requires of Israel.” In other words, “because God told them He’d like them to come.”

Verse 5: “Here stand the thrones where judgment is given, the thrones of the dynasty of David.” Again, he’s describing what he’s seeing: The Congress and Supreme Court of Israel!

So that’s what David’s been seeing and feeling. Now we get to hear what he’s thinking about. In verse 6 he sings: “Pray for peace in Jerusalem. May all who love this city prosper.” Why does he want that? Because he cares for the people he’s worshiping with.

“O Jerusalem, may there be peace within your walls and prosperity in your palaces,” he goes on in verses 7 and 8. “For the sake of my family and friends, I will say, ‘May you have peace.’”
He’s singing, “God, I want you to keep my people safe. I want you to bring them peace whenever we get together, and even when we’re not together. I want this for my family gathering with me, and for my friends that are all around me.”

He closes by saying, “For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek what is best for you, O Jerusalem.” That is, “God,” David is singing, “I want this for You and for Your sake too. In fact, I’m going to do something to make this happen. I am going to seek your prosperity.” Why? “Because I love Your place, I love Your people, and I love You.”

Let’s unpack that for a minute. In this little psalm, David gives six great reasons to go to church.

First – look at verse 4 – he says that he wanted to go to church because he liked being with God’s people. “That’s where my tribe goes,” he’s saying.

Second, also in verse 4, David wanted to honor God: “I want to go to church to give thanks and praise the name of the Lord.”

Third, again in verse 4, David says that he wanted to go to church because he wanted to do what God asked him to do: “I want to go to church because the commandments given to Israel tell us to.”

Fourth, now in verse 6, David wanted there to be peace and security in the house because he wanted peace for those who love God. He just wants good things for God’s people. He wants peace for those he loves. Don’t you?

Fifth, in verse 8, he admits that he wanted peace for them because God’s people were his family and his friends: “For the sake of my family and friends,” he says.

And sixth, in verse 9, he makes this decision: He’s committed to doing whatever is best for the house of God (v. 9).

I want to tell you why I want there to be people in church and why I want what’s best for the house of God, and why I want Sunday to become the best day of the week for each and every one of us.

Once upon a time in our country, everything stopped on Sundays. People went to church and worshipped God, then ate together, hung out together, rested and recreated together in the afternoon. Sunday wasn’t an extra day to get things done or a bonus day to put our kids in high-impact activities so they could get ahead. Sunday was a day of rest and worship.

I think people had a greater sense of peace in those days. And a greater sense of hope. I think their pace of life all week wasn’t as frantic as ours because they slowed their pace of life one day a week and rested and refueled and refocused on what really mattered.

Imagine a graph in your mind. The vertical line represents happiness and prosperity. The horizontal line represents years on a calendar. Plot the percentage of our nation’s church attendance year by year. You’ll notice it’s been going down for the last few decades. Now plot the percentage of societal happiness and peace over that same length of time. What you find is two lines that run parallel, because the two are directly related. The higher the church attendance, the higher the happiness quotient. Why is that?

The Bible tells us that it’s because there is something you can’t see, touch, taste, or smell about being in church and worshiping God that makes it the most powerful investment of your week. Something about being in church and Worshiping God that makes us better and qualifies us for special blessings and provisions from God.

Once upon a time, Sunday was the best day of the week for almost everybody. And life was better for almost everybody. I want that again for our country. And I want that for you.

Way back at the beginning of Time, the Bible says that God created the heavens and the earth. After it was all done, after He made the sun and the moon and the land and the plants and animals, Genesis 2:2–3 says, “On the seventh day God had finished His work of creation, so He rested from all His work. And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because it was the day when He rested from all His work of creation.”

God rested. Do you think He rested because He was tired? God doesn’t get tired! The reason God rested on the seventh day was because He knew that we would need to rest every seventh day (remember that Jesus told us that He’d made the Sabbath for us?) so He set the example for us.

When God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses, His fourth commandment was, “Remember to observe the Sabbath by keeping it holy.” But there was more. in Exodus 20:8–11 we read: “Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. You have six days each week for your ordinary work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the Lord your God. On that day no one in your household may do any work. This includes you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, your livestock, and any foreigners living among you. For in six days the Lord made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and everything in them; but on the seventh day He rested. That is why the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy.”

Let me give you seven reasons why I want to invest in a Sabbath every week.

First, I need it, and God knows I need it. That’s why He rested and that’s why He gave the commandment. God doesn’t want to flatten our fun or lessen our lives by taking away a day. He wants to increase our joy and improve our lives by giving us a day to refresh, refuel, and refocus with Him because He knows we need it!

The second reason I want to invest in a weekly Sabbath is because God asks me to. The fourth commandment says to keep the Sabbath “holy.” (I’ll talk about that more in a couple of weeks.)

Third, I want to invest in a Sabbath because God blessed the Sabbath. (Genesis 2:3) For reasons only He fully understands, God says that He blessed the Sabbath. It’s a special day, not an extra day. When we cooperate with what God blesses, we get blessed!

Fourth, my life goes better when I Sabbath. So many of us think that if we can just get more done we can get ahead faster… But that’s not how God made the universe. Did you know that the most prosperous fast-food restaurant in the world is Chick-fil-A. No one makes as much money per location as Chick-fil-A. And Chick-fil-A is closed on Sundays because the owners of Chick-fil-A know that if they honor the Sabbath, God will honor their business. So they make more money in six days a week than McDonald’s, Subway, Burger King, and Taco Bell do in seven!

Here are some statistics I think you’ll find interesting. Secular sociologists have studied the benefits of church attendance. Follow this for a minute. What they’ve found is that those who attend church regularly:

Live seven and a half years longer than those who don’t. (And yet some people say they don’t have time for church. J)

Are 56 percent more likely to have an optimistic life outlook than those who don’t.

Are 27 percent less likely to be depressed.

Are 35 percent less likely to get divorced.

Have higher average levels of commitment to partners, higher levels of marital satisfaction, less thinking and talking about divorce, and lower levels of negative interaction.

Achieve higher grades, practice better time management, and experience a better sex life.

Sociologists, who aren’t necessarily going to church themselves, are finding that life goes better for those who go to church regularly.

The fifth reason I want to take a Sabbath every Sunday is because my Mondays go better when I Sabbath. Does anyone here dread Mondays? Does anybody here get out of bed saying, “Ugh! I have to go back to work today!” Anybody here exhausted and unmotivated because you used all your energy on Sunday instead of receiving new energy from Sunday?

Today I’m starting a series called I Love Sundays. We won’t be going straight through because, for instance, next Sunday I want to talk about all the end of the world predictions, especially since we might not get the chance to do so again, if the world ends.

But during this series I want to teach you two things from God’s perspective. Number one is how to have a great week, and number two is how to have a great life. The next message is called “Good Sundays Make Better Mondays.” We’re going to learn is that if your Sunday is lived the way God intended, your Monday will go as it was intended too.

The sixth reason I want to take a weekly Sabbath is because my family does better when we Sabbath.  It really is true that the family that rests together does best together. A family that attends church learns skills from the Bible about how to do relationships better and how to do life better. And great families become great by building great memories together. If you develop the habit of doing church together, and then take the Sabbath to invest in family and relationships, you will build a storehouse of goodwill, happiness, and rich memories that will last a lifetime. My family is a far better family because of church, and because of those Sundays we’ve protected and invested in the Lord and one another.

And the seventh and last reason for Sabbathing is because I know that my eternity will go better if I Sabbath. God promises to bless me if I bless Him. And I bless Him when I show up at church to worship Him.

I heard someone tell of a friend who once said that they hated Sundays. But that one day he heard God whisper to him, “I love Sundays, because that’s the day when my children sing to me.”

Can you imagine what that would feel like? You create a planet for people and you do things for people all week long, and then they spend a morning a week recognizing you and thanking you for what you’ve done. Wouldn’t that would be great?

Yeah, God loves Sundays. And He wants us to love Sundays, too.

The Prophet Jeremiah 31:31-34 [NLTse]

“The day is coming,” says the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. This covenant will not be like the one I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant, though I loved them as a husband loves his wife,” says the Lord.
“But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel on that day,” says the Lord. “I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. And they will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their relatives, saying, ‘You should know the Lord.’ For everyone, from the least to the greatest, will know me already,” says the Lord. “And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.”

Interlude

[Super-glue two paintsticks together.] Anyone ever heard of Gorilla glue? Great stuff. These are two paint sticks. With a line of Gorilla glue. And we’ll set that aside…

The Letter To the Hebrews 9:11-28 [NLTse]

So Christ has now become the High Priest over all the good things that have come. He has entered that greater, more perfect Tabernacle in heaven, which was not made by human hands and is not part of this created world. With his own blood—not the blood of goats and calves—he entered the Most Holy Place once for all time and secured our redemption forever.

Under the old system, the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a young cow could cleanse people’s bodies from ceremonial impurity. Just think how much more the blood of Christ will purify our consciences from sinful deeds so that we can worship the living God. For by the power of the eternal Spirit, Christ offered himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sins. That is why he is the one who mediates a new covenant between God and people, so that all who are called can receive the eternal inheritance God has promised them. For Christ died to set them free from the penalty of the sins they had committed under that first covenant.

Now when someone leaves a will, it is necessary to prove that the person who made it is dead. The will goes into effect only after the person’s death. While the person who made it is still alive, the will cannot be put into effect.

That is why even the first covenant was put into effect with the blood of an animal. For after Moses had read each of God’s commandments to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, along with water, and sprinkled both the book of God’s law and all the people, using hyssop branches and scarlet wool. Then he said, “This blood confirms the covenant God has made with you.” And in the same way, he sprinkled blood on the Tabernacle and on everything used for worship. In fact, according to the law of Moses, nearly everything was purified with blood. For without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.

That is why the Tabernacle and everything in it, which were copies of things in heaven, had to be purified by the blood of animals. But the real things – the things in heaven – had to be purified with far better sacrifices than the blood of animals.

For Christ did not enter into a holy place made with human hands, which was only a copy of the true one in heaven. He entered into heaven itself to appear now before God on our behalf. And he did not enter heaven to offer himself again and again, like the high priest here on earth who enters the Most Holy Place year after year with the blood of an animal. If that had been necessary, Christ would have had to die again and again, ever since the world began. But now, once for all time, he has appeared at the end of the age to remove sin by his own death as a sacrifice.

And just as each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgment, so also Christ died once for all time as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many people. He will come again, not to deal with our sins, but to bring salvation to all who are eagerly waiting for him.

Sermon

Our God – our Father – is a covenant-maker.

He made a covenant with Noah promising to never again destroy all life on the earth by flood. And He gave us the rainbow as a sign of this “eternal covenant between God and every living creature on earth.” (See Genesis 9:8-17)

He made a covenant with Abraham promising that Abraham’s family line would grow to become a great nation, and that through Abraham’s descendants that all the peoples of the earth would be blessed. He promised Abraham’s children all the land between the Nile and Euphrates rivers, and gave them circumcision as the sign of this everlasting covenant. (See Genesis chapters 12-17)

God Almighty made a covenant with Moses promising to make the nation of Israel His treasured possession from among all the nations of the earth, to make them a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation”, if they would follow God’s commandments. The Sabbath was the visible sign He gave of this covenant. (See Exodus chapters 19-24 and Deuteronomy)

The Lord made a covenant with King David promising that one of David’s heirs would always sit on the throne of Israel, and that David’s kingdom would be established forever, even as David’s heirs were promised to obey all of the Lord’s ways. (See 2 Samuel 7) The sons of David, the kings of Israel, were the living signs of this covenant.

And some have argued convincingly that God also made covenants with Adam and Aaron and Aaron’ son, Phineas, and others.

Our God – our Father – is a covenant-maker.

Some of these covenants have been one-sided, God bearing all the responsibility. Some of the others have given responsibility to God and Man. And God has always been faithful: The great covenant-keeper! And humanity has always been faithless: Not always circumcising, not obeying the Law, Israel’s kings not always following in God’s ways; breaking the terms of each and every one.

In our Old Testament reading this morning, back around the 600s B.C., the Prophet Jeremiah announced Abba’s intention to make another covenant, a new covenant. This new covenant wouldn’t be like the old covenants that Israel kept for awhile but broke eventually. No. This new covenant would require a circumcision of the heart. He would put His commandments deep inside of people. God Most High Himself would forgive their wickedness and never again remember their sins…

Our God – our Father – is a covenant-maker. He establishes this new covenant, and He fulfills our failings in all the others, in Jesus Christ.

A covenant is legal action between two or more parties. That legal action can be someone committing to leave their belongings to another or others when they die, like a will. That legal action can be a man and a woman committing themselves and their belongings to each other, forever, like in marriage. Buying and selling property is a kind of covenant. Establishing a business partnership is a kind of covenant. The receipt you got at the movie theater or Home Depot serves as a kind of covenant. Even friendships can be covenants when commitments are promised and kept, when assurances need to be offered and are…

Contrary to modern beliefs and practices, covenants are to be unbreakable. There should be no such thing as “no fault divorce”. Filing “bankruptcy” should never be allowed! They are all a breaking of what God established to be unbreakable.

(Now, don’t get me wrong. People are people, and sin happens, and forgiveness is available for those who have trusted in Christ, confess their sins, and seek His grace to change their ways. But none of that changes that fact that covenants are meant to last forever, or at least until the terms of the covenant have been fulfilled.)

Back to our Gorilla glued sticks… Gorilla glue promises that if you fasten two things together with their glue that the new piece might break again, but they promise that it won’t break in the place where it was glued. They promise that the glued areas will be stronger than the original materials. [Break the glued stick over my knee.]

God established covenants to be unbreakable. A relationship, a deal, an agreement, a commitment might break in all sorts of different ways and in all sorts of different places but they will never break at the the junction of the covenant. Not at the place of the promise. Not where the covenant-commitment was made. Not if God’s involved. Not if He is Lord of our covenants. Things might break, but they will break anywhere but there.

[Move to the Lord’s Table.] Which brings us to the Lord’s table and the New Covenant established in Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, established in His body and His blood.

This is the bread, this is the cup, of the eternal, unbreakable covenant God has made between Himself and people. All the benefits of Christ’s sacrifice are wrapped up and made fresh new to us in this bread and this cup.

Jesus can say, “I tell you the truth, those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life. They will never be condemned for their sins, but they have already passed from death into life,” (John 5:24) because the New Covenant is an unbreakable covenant. Paul can write to Titus, “he saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit,” (3:5) because the covenant is everlasting. And to the Romans, “I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of @#!*% can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Yes, Paul can write these things, saying even, “I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns,” (Philippians 1:6) because God Himself has established this New Covenant not through a weak, sinful man the likes of Noah, Abraham, Moses, or David. No. He’s established this covenant through sinless Son of Man/Son of God, Christ Jesus of Nazareth.

And in Jesus the heart is circumcised and the Law is fulfilled and Son of David and the King of kings is able and willing to keep the ways of the Lord! And the earth will, indeed, never be completely destroyed again by floodwaters, but by the purifying fires of judgment: Fires that will warm and welcome those made righteous by His sacrifice, those saved by His body and His blood; fires that will destroy and put an end to the wicked and wickedness once-and-for-all.

So, come to the Table! This is not my table. It is not the Evangelical Presbyterian Church’s table. It is the Lord’s Table! And the Lord Jesus Christ invites all those who have trusted in His death on the cross to serve as God’s sacrifice for sin to come and be refreshed and be made new by the New Covenant made in His body and blood.

…

Feed yourselves on bread that pronounces you innocent of your every sin, bread that grants you Jesus’ Own righteousness in the place of all your wicked thoughts, words, and deeds. Drink deeply from a cup that assurances you of salvation, a cup that proclaims here and in the heavenly places your peace with God. Eat and drink holiness. Swallow the unconditional love of the Almighty. Satisfy your hunger with true forgiveness. Quench your thirst with a new life to worship and give never-ending thanks to the One Who truly saves…

According to Luke 5:1-11 [NLTse]
One day as Jesus was preaching on the shore of the Sea of Galilee,[a] great crowds pressed in on him to listen to the word of God. 2 He noticed two empty boats at the water’s edge, for the fishermen had left them and were washing their nets. 3 Stepping into one of the boats, Jesus asked Simon,[b] its owner, to push it out into the water. So he sat in the boat and taught the crowds from there.
4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Now go out where it is deeper, and let down your nets to catch some fish.”
5 “Master,” Simon replied, “we worked hard all last night and didn’t catch a thing. But if you say so, I’ll let the nets down again.” 6 And this time their nets were so full of fish they began to tear! 7 A shout for help brought their partners in the other boat, and soon both boats were filled with fish and on the verge of sinking.
8 When Simon Peter realized what had happened, he fell to his knees before Jesus and said, “Oh, Lord, please leave me—I’m too much of a sinner to be around you.” 9 For he was awestruck by the number of fish they had caught, as were the others with him. 10 His partners, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, were also amazed.
Jesus replied to Simon, “Don’t be afraid! From now on you’ll be fishing for people!” 11 And as soon as they landed, they left everything and followed Jesus.

Sermon
Why are you here? Do you know why you are here? I know that you woke up to your alarms, took showers, got dressed, and drove here. But, why? Do you know why you set your alarms, took showers, got dressed, and drove here?

Maybe you think it is because you wanted to worship God and show your love and adoration for Him with other Christians. Maybe you’re thinking it is because you wanted to learn more about the Christian life: Who God is by getting to better know Who Jesus is; who you are by getting to better know what Jesus has done and how the Holy Spirit has applied that to you. Maybe you think it is because your husband or your wife or your mom or your dad or your son or your daughter made you come this morning, and that’s why you’re here.

Well, the Bible tells us that you are here – that we are all here, each of us altogether – because God the Father has gathered us here by calling out to us through the voice of Jesus Christ and moving us to accept His call through the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, all of which moved us to set our alarms, take showers, get dressed, and drive here.
You are here because God wants you here. We – this unique mix of us – we are here because God wants us here.

Paul writes, “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) “Not that we loved God but that He loved us,” John the apostle writes. (1 John 4:10) The Lord Jesus Himself made it clear this way, “You did not choose Me but I chose you.” (John 15:16)

When a child is adopted he or she does not visit adoption websites looking through bios of prospective parents who are looking to adopt, and then picking from among them his or her new mom and dad. No. Parents adopt the child.

When Amy and I were dating she asked me to marry her: Not once, not twice, but three times! I said “no” to her every time, but not because I didn’t want to marry her. I loved Amy and was committed even during those moments to be her husband and have her to be my wife! No. I said “no” because the woman doesn’t ask the man to marry her (I know, call me old-fashioned), the man asks the woman.

And so it is with the Lord. The apostle Paul tells us, “You received God’s Spirit when He adopted you as His Own children. Now we call Him, “Abba, Father.” (Romans 8:15) We didn’t pick and choose and adopt Him. He picked, He chose, and He adopted us!

Likewise, to the Ephesian-Christians, the apostle Paul wrote, “The Scriptures say, ‘A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.’ This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one.” And St. Paul goes on writing to the Corinthian-Christians, “I promised you as a pure bride to one husband—Christ.” (2 Corinthians 11:2) And it is the husband who asks for the wife’s hand, not the wife the husband’s…
You are here because God wants you here. You are His because God has made you His. We are here this morning because God Himself wants us to be.

So, what does He want from us, this God Almighty, the maker of Heaven and earth, the Holy One of Israel, Who knows everyone and everything (even the hearts of people), Who is and has within Himself all power, even power over death… He has called us to be with Him. He has made us His Own. His love for us like a husband’s; his love for us like a dad’s… What does this lover of our souls want from us?
Well, of course, as lover’s do, He tells us.

In our reading this morning Jesus said: He wants us to go and fish for people. And in our passage from John where Jesus said, “You did not choose Me but I chose you,” He went on to say, “And I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit.” (15:16)

Let’s start with our reading from Mark. Our Lord and Husband wanting us to “fish for people” means that He wants us to “catch people” for Him or “gather people together” for Him. And yet we’ve just said that people only come to Christ when He’s first called them personally! So then, “fishing for people” must mean having people respond to Christ’s call and then come to be with Him because they’ve heard His voice calling to them through us – through our words, our influence, or our ministry in their lives: Fishing for people.

And He has appointed us to go and produce lasting fruit. And that lasting fruit might include “fishing for people”, but, certainly it must also include the fruit Paul so famously refers to as the Fruit of the Spirit: “Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control,” (Galatians 5:22-23) the very character of God that gets produced in us as we are with Him daily responding to His call.

So, where “fishing for people” speaks of Jesus’ desire for us to call more and more people to Himself through us, “producing lasting fruit” speaks about Jesus’ desire to make each of those He’s called – each of you, each of us – Jesus’ desire to make each of those He’s called to be more and more like Him.

Now, that can seem like a pretty tall order, and like pretty hairy and complicated tasks. But I believe that Jesus has intended for it to be simple.

Elder Doug Jacobs preached to you all several weeks ago about the book, “Simple Church”, that different ones around the congregation have been reading. So many churches around the world are trying to be all things to all people, having become so very scattered and complex and, perhaps, so very unfocused and lost as a part of it. Yet the Bible seems to portray our life together quite simply: Jesus calls people; they come to Him; and then they go and serve as His mouthpieces to others while at the same time growing to be more like Him in character and heart.
For years I have been talking and preaching and teaching about God’s calling us to regularly – even always – be a part of worshiping Him, talking, preaching, and teaching us to be a part of at least one Bible Study to help us be growing in Him, and talking and preaching and teaching us to be a part of at least one ministry so that we can be serving Him. I’ve talked and preached and taught about it as WORSHIPING making us like a pitcher, and GROWING being that which fills us up, and SERVING being that which pours us out, ready again for a fresh filling. I’ve talked and preached and taught about it as WORSHIPING being that which refreshes and renews our new life, and GROWING being, then, like breathing in, and SERVING being, then, like breathing out. And our “Simple Church” study has provided even more of a foundation and an intentionality to all of that for us, and, of course, most especially, for the elders.

We believe that Jesus Christ is calling people to Himself and developing “fishers-of-men” and “fruit that will last” by setting us to be a WORSHIPING – GROWING – SERVING people. That as we WORSHIP and actively participate in expressing our commitment to Christ by WORSHIPING, that as we GROW and are actively GROWING through Bible study, prayer for one another, and Christian fellowship, and that as we SERVE and are actively SERVING in ever more self-challenging and faith-demanding ways, that we will indeed be living lives following after Him as He calls, and that draw others to Him as His ambassadors and mouthpieces, even as we become more and more like Him in grace and truth.

If you are not already involved in at least one Bible Study, whether that be one of our small groups that meet in the church or at different ones houses throughout the week or whether that be one of the Sunday School classes that will be beginning Sunday, September 13th, I charge you to join one, or to start one yourself in your own home or neighborhood.

If you are not already involved in at least one serving-ministry, whether that be serving Sunday morning or serving in other ways at other times across the week, I charge you to offer your gifts to be a part of serving the Lord Jesus Christ through your service to one another or to others around our community.
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He’s calling us to be with Him. in order to call even others to Him, and in order to be more like Him, the way He is. WORSHIPING – GROWING – SERVING. Simple.

Introduction
Our reading this morning comes as King Solomon has just completed the building of the Temple in Jerusalem…

1 Kings 8:1, 6, 10-11, 22-30, 41-43 [NLTse]
¹ Solomon then summoned to Jerusalem the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes—the leaders of the ancestral families of the Israelites.  They were to bring the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant to the Temple from its location in the City of David, also known as Zion…
⁶ Then the priests carried the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant into the inner sanctuary of the Temple—the Most Holy Place—and placed it beneath the wings of the cherubim…
¹⁰ When the priests came out of the Holy Place, a thick cloud filled the Temple of the Lord. ¹¹ The priests could not continue their service because of the cloud, for the glorious presence of the Lord filled the Temple of the Lord.
²² Then Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in front of the entire community of Israel. He lifted his hands toward Heaven, ²³ and he prayed,
“O Lord, God of Israel, there is no God like You in all of Heaven above or on the earth below. You keep Your covenant and show unfailing love to all who walk before You in wholehearted devotion. ²⁴ You have kept Your promise to Your servant David, my father. You made that promise with Your Own mouth, and with Your Own hands You have fulfilled it today.
²⁵ “And now, O Lord, God of Israel, carry out the additional promise You made to Your servant David, my father. For You said to him, ‘If your descendants guard their behavior and faithfully follow Me as you have done, one of them will always sit on the throne of Israel.’ ²⁶ Now, O God of Israel, fulfill this promise to Your servant David, my father.
²⁷ “But will God really live on earth? Why, even the highest heavens cannot contain You. How much less this Temple I have built! ²⁸ Nevertheless, listen to my prayer and my plea, O Lord my God. Hear the cry and the prayer that Your servant is making to You today. ²⁹ May You watch over this Temple night and day, this place where You have said, ‘My name will be there.’ May You always hear the prayers I make toward this place. ³⁰ May You hear the humble and earnest requests from me and Your people Israel when we pray toward this place. Yes, hear us from Heaven where You live, and when You hear, forgive.
⁴¹ “In the future, foreigners who do not belong to Your people Israel will hear of You. They will come from distant lands because of Your name, ⁴² for they will hear of Your great name and Your strong hand and Your powerful arm. And when they pray toward this Temple, ⁴³ then hear from Heaven where You live, and grant what they ask of You. In this way, all the people of the earth will come to know and fear You, just as Your Own people Israel do. They, too, will know that this Temple I have built honors Your name.

We are baptizing Ava Zellmer into Christ this morning. The Lord calls us to baptize our children when, during Peter’s very first Holy Spirit inspired sermon, he tells the crowds, “Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. This promise is to you, to your children, and to those far away—all who have been called by the Lord our God.” (2:38-39) We baptize even infants because  Romans 4:11 illustrates baptism’s relationship to circumcision: That just as circumcision was a sign of faith and righteousness to be given to all the male children of Israel even though they didn’t yet have faith for themselves, likewise, baptism, too, is to be given to the children of Christians as a sign of faith and righteousness even though they don’t yet have faith for themselves.

In our reading from 1 Kings 8, Solomon, son of David, king of Israel, has just finished building the Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem and is dedicating it by way of prayers and sacrifices and bringing into it the Ark of the Covenant – the golden box that contained the Ten Commandments, a jar of manna, and Aaron’s walking stick that God had made to miraculously grow almond blossoms.

And King Solomon has called all of Israel together to be a part of this sacred dedication, representatives from every family attending on each family’s behalf. And as he prays King Solomon asks God to watch over His Temple night and day. He asks the Lord to hear and answer the humble and sincere requests prayed towards the Temple: Answering and forgiving, and teaching the people to follow His ways as He does so. Solomon prophesies that foreigners who do not belong to Israel will hear of the Lord, hearing of His great name and His strong hand and His powerful arm and that the Lord would hear and respond to their prayers, as well, so that the whole world would know and fear Him, just like His people, Israel.

And Jesus said, “Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” (John 2:19)
In Jesus Christ God Almighty has answered Solomon’s prayers concerning the Temple.
Jesus is the true and living Temple… We worship God in Jesus… In Jesus we have all that Solomon asked for…

Solomon asked the Lord to hear and answer the humble and sincere requests prayed towards the Temple: Answering and forgiving, and teaching the people to follow His ways as He does so. In Jesus Christ God does.

When the Lord Jesus raised Lazarus (who had been dead and in the grave for four days) back to life again, He prayed, saying to the Father, “Father, thank You for hearing Me. You always hear Me, but I said it out loud for the sake of all these people standing here, so that they will believe You sent Me.” (John 11:41-42) The Father always hears the prayers of the Son. Likewise, when we pray by faith, in Jesus’ name, according to the will of God, Abba hears our every prayer. In Christ, He hears. In Christ, He answers. In Christ, He forgives us and teaches us to follow His ways.

Solomon prophesied that foreigners would one day hear of the Lord, hearing of His great name and His strong hand  and His powerful arm and asked that the Lord would hear and respond to their prayers, as well, so that the whole world would know and fear Him.
And, in Jesus Christ, we know that that has come true and will come true.

Most of us were once foreigners to Israel. But in Christ now we have been made a part of Israel – grafted in like a branch to a tree, like a lamp to a power strip. Even so, more are coming. We regularly pray in this place for God to save this one or to bring that one to Himself: Our loved ones, our neighbors, or even others for whom He’s given us His heart. And, as we’ve said, in Christ their prayers, too, will always be heard and answered. Once in Christ, they, too, will be forgiven, and He will teach them to follow His ways.

Jesus Christ is the true and living Temple, the One in Whom the one, eternal, omniscient, all-powerful God lives. As Paul and others have written, “Christ is the visible image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15); “for in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body” (2:9); “the Son radiates God’s Own glory and expresses the very character of God” (Hebrews 1:3).

And that’s what we are baptizing little Ava into today: She is being plugged into Christ; becoming the true and living Temple of God with us, in Christ. Bryan and Carla are committing her – as she grows and grows in love and faith – to join us in the priestly Temple service: Serving around the church; living her life for Christ; studying Him, growing in Him; and helping others to know and grow in Him.

That’s what we’ve all been baptized into. That’s Who we’ve all been baptized into: The Suffering Servant; the Lamb of God; the Prince of Peace; the One Who alone will take vengeance; the true and living Temple.

In v. 10, we read that after placing the Ark in the Holy of Holies a thick cloud filled the Temple; that the glorious power of the Lord filled the Temple. Likewise, as Ava grows, let us keep praying for her and for all the baptized  that she and all be filled with the Holy Spirit, the glorious power of the Lord…
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Because Jesus is God’s true and living Temple, in Jesus we, too, can be filled with the glorious power of God. During the dedication of that first Temple in Solomon’s day, we read that, after the priests carried the Ark into the Most Holy Place that a dark cloud filled the Temple, and that it was filled with “the glorious power of the Lord”. In those days, because the Temple was a building made of wood and stone, the Temple being filled with God’s glorious power kept the priests from ministry until it moved on. But today, because Jesus is God’s Temple, God’s glorious power is what we need in order to be about our ministry!

Genesis 32:22-32 [NLTse]

²² During the night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two servant wives, and his eleven sons and crossed the Jabbok River with them. ²³ After taking them to the other side, he sent over all his possessions.

²⁴ This left Jacob all alone in the camp, and a man came and wrestled with him until the dawn began to break. ²⁵ When the man saw that he would not win the match, he touched Jacob’s hip and wrenched it out of its socket. ²⁶ Then the man said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking!”

But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

²⁷ “What is your name?” the man asked.

He replied, “Jacob.”

²⁸ “Your name will no longer be Jacob,” the man told him. “From now on you will be called Israel, because you have fought with God and with men and have won.”

²⁹ “Please tell me your name,” Jacob said.

“Why do you want to know my name?” the man replied. Then he blessed Jacob there.

³⁰ Jacob named the place Peniel (which means “face of God”), for he said, “I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been spared.” ³¹ The sun was rising as Jacob left Peniel, and he was limping because of the injury to his hip. ³² (Even today the people of Israel don’t eat the tendon near the hip socket because of what happened that night when the man strained the tendon of Jacob’s hip.)

Sermon

Anybody here ever have to wait a long, long time for God to answer one of your prayers? … How long did you have to wait? … How long did you have to wait? …

Anyone here still waiting for God to answer a prayer? … How long have you been waiting? … How long have you been waiting? …

Has anyone here stopped praying about something or another because so much time has gone by that you’ve decided God must not be listening, or you’ve got to thinking that maybe He doesn’t care, or that you’ve gotten to thinking that maybe prayer doesn’t matter? …

Yeah, those who live in a dynamic relationship with God and who are familiar with prayer are also familiar with the delays – and sometimes the years and years and years of delays – that are a part of praying and having our prayers change the world. And yet, these same delays can be ammunition for the enemy of our souls to tempt us to believe that prayer doesn’t matter, that God doesn’t care, and even doubt the existence of God altogether!

With all of this in mind, did you ever notice how, according to Luke, that after teaching His disciples the basic model of prayer in “The Lord’s Prayer”, how Jesus then immediately taught them about the importance of persistence in prayer?

Luke writes, “Then, teaching them more about prayer, He used this story: ‘Suppose you went to a friend’s house at midnight, wanting to borrow three loaves of bread. You say to him, “A friend of mine has just arrived for a visit, and I have nothing for him to eat.” And suppose he calls out from his bedroom, “Don’t bother me. The door is locked for the night, and my family and I are all in bed. I can’t help you.” But I tell you this—though he won’t do it for friendship’s sake, if you keep knocking long enough, he will get up and give you whatever you need because of your shameless persistence.” (11:5-8)

R. A. Torrey, a friend of Dwight L. Moody’s, and one of the great Holy Spirit preachers and teachers of his day, described the practical application of Jesus’ teaching on persistence in prayer this way: “The central lesson in this parable of our Lord’s is, that, when we pray, if we do not obtain the thing the first time we ask for it, we should pray again; and if we do not obtain it the second time, we should pray a third time; and if we do not obtain it the hundredth time we pray, we should go on praying until we do get it.”

The Lord goes on, right after this teaching on persistence, to give us an astonishing promise about the results of such relentless prayer. He says, “And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.” (11:9-10)

Prayer at its most profound level is not just conversation with God, but is a living, active, dynamic engagement with God that includes wrestling and persistence. As we saw in our reading from Genesis, Jacob was blessed because he would not let God’s angel go until the angel blessed him. And the Lord Jesus seems to be encouraging us to have this same attitude. Apparently our Father likes us to wrestle with Him, not letting go until we have received what we have been asking for.

When my kids were younger, wrestling together in their rooms, on the lawn, or on our living room floor was an integral part of our life together. Noah and I would circle each other round and round, lunging at each other for a good hand-hold or take down. As Eden got older, she would get involved or set Noah to get me from one direction as she came at me from the other. I remember times when I would be walking across the room, minding my own business, and I’d hear a, “Hi-yah!” and find Caleb clinging to my back and Eden slamming her shoulder against my knees. Soon Noah would have joined the fray, too, and I would be seriously outgunned: Pinned down and having to resort to tickling or little pinches (they hated the tickling and little pinches) to try to break free.

Of course, those bouts were never about my kids trying to get anything from me. Pinned underneath them I never heard them crow with triumph, “Now bless us, Dad!” But that does get me thinking about another kind of wrestling that we sometimes go through together. Caleb is especially gifted with these moves: It’s the wrestling art of debate. Caleb regularly engages Amy and me, trying to get us to give him a dog or a new computer game or more time to watch TV or to stay up later or to get more Magic The Gathering cards and other such “bouts”. As frustrating as it can be to sometimes go round and round with him, I also often find myself secretly proud of the logic he’ll use or the examples he’ll raise that get Amy and I backed into a corner, reduced to that famous parental phrase of desperation, “Because I told you ‘no’, that’s why!” J

I think about these wrestling matches with my kids – both physical and mental – and I think about my praying and praying and praying to God, and I remember that it’s never been a fair fight. Each and every time with my kids I could use all my strength and all my know-how and overpower them and hurt them and win every time. It would leave them in tears, but I would win! And yet, then we wouldn’t get to keep on wrestling! I realize that in Amy’s and my debates with them that Amy and I are experienced enough and sinful enough that we could shame them or say hurtful, nasty things to them, and we could win each and every debate. But, again, then we wouldn’t get to wrestle! I confess to you, and I think I may be speaking on our Abba’s behalf, as well: The truth is, I like losing to my kids. I raised them to wear me down. I raised them to outmaneuver me. And, of course, after a few matches or two, I love blessing them, whether they are specifically asking me to or not.

About persistence in prayer and wrestling with God in prayer, the great Martin Luther wrote, “[God] does not give what the saints seek on the surface of their hearts and with that foam of words, but He is an almighty and exceedingly rich Bestower who gives in accordance with the depth of that sighing. Therefore He lets prayer be directed, grow, and be increased; and He does not hear immediately. For if He were to answer at the first outcry or petition, prayer would not increase, but would become cold. Therefore He defers help. As a result, prayer grows from day to day and becomes more efficacious. The sobbing of the heart also becomes deeper and more ardent until it comes to the point of despair, as it were. Then prayer becomes more ardent and passionate…” (Martin Luther, Commentary on Genesis, Luther’s Works, vol. 5, pp. 359-60)

Answers to prayer are not a matter of putting the time on our knees into a cosmic gum ball machine and getting just what we wanted just when we want it. The answers to our prayers arise out of the dynamic of our relationship with God. As we persist in prayer, we get to know God’s moves. As we debate with Him we get to know His logic. Keeping at it not only shows our commitment to Him and our relationship together, but over these periods of time as we are praying and waiting, we also find our requests being refined and molded and shaped to be more in line with His will.

And yet it’s not just our requests that are refined. We, too, are being refined as we wrestle and persist with God. As we wrestle with God, His presence, and the intimacy of embracing Him and struggling with Him, melts us and molds us. And we grow to be able to pray more and more according to His will and to truly be able to pray in Jesus’ name.

Paul writes, “And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s Own will.” (Romans 8:26-27) As we strive in prayer the Holy Spirit is shaping us so that He can truly intercede through us.

Of course, part of our problem is that, in the eternal life of God, waiting year after year for prayers to be answered is nothing may seem like nothing to Him. But in my life and your life, waiting year after year is a long time! That is our human nature being bound by time and space. And so, in our waiting, He calls us to trust Him: To trust that He knows all that’s involved in bringing about what we’ve asked Him for by faith; to trust that His timing as He orchestrates history and governments, as He reshapes the Devil’s evil designs for our good, as He dances around human sin and selfishness to bring about His purposes and answers to our prayers out of it all. To trust Him. In our dialogue with God, we are engaged with One Who truly has an eternal perspective. What may seem like a lifetime of persistence in prayer is just a fleeting moment in His eyes. And God is always on time!

Another reason we can have to pray for so very long is that there may be spiritual realities hindering our receiving God’s answers to our prayers. (I went into this more deeply during a sermon last year, so I won’t go into too much detail here. But, we see an example of such things in the book of Daniel where God has immediately answered Daniel’s prayer by sending him an angel, but the angel gets delayed by an “archon” [that is the New Age name for a high level evil spirit]. The angel finally overcomes the evil spirit, but as a result God’s response to Daniel was delayed. [See Daniel 10:12-13])

In a similar way, the answers to our prayers can also be blocked when demons are successful deceiving or distracting those whom God has chosen as the means for answering our prayers.

Even so, through it all let’s remember that God is almighty. He speaks, “Let there be light,” and there is light! And yet God has limited His means of working in the world to include us: He wants to work through us. And this means that God takes seriously our prayer, our faith, and our obedience. Our talking to Him, our listening to Him, our trusting Him, and our obeying Him really do make a difference, both to God and to the working out of His purposes in the world.

Like a complex domino run, there is an intricate interaction of people and history and circumstances that need to come together for our prayers to be answered. And the more world-changing the prayer, the more people and happenings and circumstances need to come together to bring it about.

And yet, this is the way God works.

For 400 years the Hebrews cried out to God in the oppression of slavery in Egypt. Finally, God gets ready to answer their prayers and what does He do? Exodus tells us, “About this time, a man and woman from the tribe of Levi got married. The woman became pregnant and gave birth to a son.”

He works through the process of cooperation with human beings. So, after 400 years, Amram and Jochabed (Moses’ dad and mom) need to meet, get married, have Miriam and Aaron, and then have Moses. Innumerable decisions, layer upon layer, built by acts of the human will, all come together to put into place the workings of God. (With freewill and human sinfulness getting in the way to muddy things up and to slow things down.) And only then, finally, it all comes together to the point where God – with “signs and wonders” – can lead His people out of bondage in Egypt and into the Promised Land.

All this takes time. There is no other way for God to work if He is going to work with us. So, often, prayers take time, and so, often, prayer calls for persistence.

It can be painful and disappointing when God does not answer our prayers at a certain moment of time. But through it all we can know that God loves us, that He knows intimately all the strands that need to be woven together, that He knows intimately all the dominos that are required, and where they need to be set, and how. And we can also know that we have an awesome responsibility to be in prayer and to persist in prayer with our Abba. And we must not give up and we must not give in. Because if we do then visions and plans in the heart of God that He has placed in our hearts for prayer will never become reality…

So, let’s pray… [We can be tempted, but help us trust that You hear our prayers because of Jesus’ sacrifice…]

1 John 4:1-12 [NLTse]

Dear friends, do not believe everyone who claims to speak by the Spirit. You must test them to see if the spirit they have comes from God. For there are many false prophets in the world. ² This is how we know if they have the Spirit of God: If a person claiming to be a prophet acknowledges that Jesus Christ came in a real body, that person has the Spirit of God. ³ But if someone claims to be a prophet and does not acknowledge the truth about Jesus, that person is not from God. Such a person has the spirit of the Antichrist, which you heard is coming into the world and indeed is already here.

⁴ But you belong to God, my dear children. You have already won a victory over those people, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world. ⁵ Those people belong to this world, so they speak from the world’s viewpoint, and the world listens to them. ⁶ But we belong to God, and those who know God listen to us. If they do not belong to God, they do not listen to us. That is how we know if someone has the Spirit of truth or the spirit of deception.

⁷ Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. ⁸ But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

⁹ God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. ¹⁰ This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.

¹¹ Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. ¹² No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.

A man was starting a new diet and so altered his drive to work to avoid passing by his favorite bakery. However, he accidentally drove by the bakery one morning and as he approached, there in the window were a host of chocolates, donuts, and cheesecakes.

The man felt this was no accident, so he prayed: “Lord, it’s up to You. If You want me to have any of those delicious goodies, You’re going to have to give me a sign: Create a parking place for me directly in front of the bakery.”

And sure enough, as he drove around the block for the eighth time, there it was! God is so good!

We’ve been talking about prayer for the past couple of weeks, but not just about the talking-to-God kind of prayer, we’ve been talking about the listening-to and hearing-from-God kind of prayer, as well. But like the man driving ‘round and ‘round the bakery until his “sign from God” appeared, we need to know that we’re truly hearing from the Almighty and not just our own desires or worse.

Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the Roman Catholic monk who founded the Jesuit Order, published some rules for discernment that are as instructive today as they were back when he wrote them in the mid-1500s. He writes:

“In souls that are progressing to greater perfection, the action of the good angel [the Holy Spirit] is delicate, gentle, delightful. It may be compared to a drop of water penetrating a sponge.

“The action of the evil spirit upon such souls is violent, noisy, and disturbing. It may be compared to a drop of water falling upon a stone.

“In souls that are going from bad to worse the action of the spirits mentioned above is just the reverse. The reason for this is to be sought in the opposition or similarity of these souls to the different kinds of spirits. When the disposition is contrary to that of the spirits, they enter with noise and commotion that are easily perceived. When the disposition is similar to that of the spirits, they enter silently, as one coming into his own house when the doors are open.”

In our day the depth of Christian discernment can often be heard as going no deeper than if we have a sense of peace then the response must have come from God or if we have good feelings about the answer then it must have come from God. But Ignatius’ rules show the shallowness of such a standard: The counsel of a lying spirit will be received peacefully to one with a lying heart; the counsel of a lustful spirit will be received peacefully to one with a lustful heart; the counsel of a greedy spirit will be received peacefully to one with a greedy heart; etc…

The prophet Jeremiah famously states: “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?” When we trust God’s Word about the sinfulness of the human heart we know that everyone of us has the potential to be deceived and to deceive ourselves. That knowledge compels us to be careful in, and to treasure, discernment.

The gift of discernment is a vital necessity for the Church. Without it, the body of Christ is vulnerable to the assaults of Satan and false teachers and false teaching. Without discernment, Christians are unable to move forward boldly, trusting the leading of the Holy Spirit.

We live “between the times”, the time of the working of the Holy Spirit, but also of human sinfulness and the working of Satan. “Jesus answered, ‘Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, claiming, “I am the Christ,” and will deceive many.’” (Matthew 24:4-5) Jesus tells us that not all signs, wonders, and miracles come from the Holy Spirit. “For false Christ’s and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect – if that were possible.” (Matthew 24:24) And Paul tells us, “… such people are not serving our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naïve people.” (Romans 16:18)

It is critical for us to learn about discernment because there are different sources of inspiration and religious experience. We can be spoken to by 1) God and His angelic beings; by, 2) Satan and his evil spirits; 3) our own human minds, spirits, and emotions can be at work; or the response might be coming from 4) the pressures of culture and society; or we might be being wowed by 5) the awesomeness of nature; and, of course, any combination of the above.

Because of these different sources of inspiration and religious experience, nothing can be taken simply as being from God. Everything must be weighed carefully.

Have you ever had the experience of listening to someone preach or teach, or listening to a friend share with you about something God just revealed to them, in which something felt wrong, but you weren’t sure what it was? This could have been the Holy Spirit within you alerting you to some false doctrine or to the presence of evil spirits…

Each new word or action that is from the Lord must be discerned anew. Even among those who are recognized as godly preachers and teachers. Such a person may begin to assume that each time he or she speaks that the Holy Spirit is leading. The result is that he or she is no longer submitted to the rigors of the discernment process. This is very dangerous! Often the preacher or prophet’s ego, in collaboration with the passivity and praise of their hearers, provides an opening for Satan to slip in and work his mischief. Each new word that is given must be discerned.

The character and life of the person who receives the inspiration is also important. Jesus gives us clear guidance as to discerning the source of a word. That guidance is to check out the source. “Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns or figs from thistles?” (Matthew 7:15-16) This test of character works. Lifestyle and character will reveal the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Discernment is a supernatural gift given by the Holy Spirit as needed and prayed for, but it is also an art that may be cultivated through experience. Discernment involves both the ability to tell what is truly from the Spirit of God and what comes from other spirits. It is a process involving human reason and observation in which words or behaviors may be measured against the standard of Scripture. It is the eye-opening work of the Holy Spirit that reveals the source of some counsel or action.

There are four questions we can ask to help us discern if the spirit someone has, and/or the counsel someone has or has been giving, comes from God.

First, does it give glory to Jesus Christ in the present and in the future? John 14:26 says, “But when the Father sends the Advocate as My representative—that is, the Holy Spirit—He will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you.” The Holy Spirit will always point to Jesus and bring to us the words of Jesus, not anyone else.

“When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on His Oown but will tell you what He has heard. He will tell you about the future. He will bring Me glory by telling you whatever He receives from Me. All that belongs to the Father is Mine; this is why I said, ‘The Spirit will tell you whatever He receives from Me.’” (John 16:13-14) The Holy Spirit has a single-minded focus on Jesus Christ as the truth, and will bring glory only to Jesus. If the counsel or guidance or word does not make the Lord Jesus Christ look good and draw people’s attention to Him, that counsel or guidance or word is not from God.

A second question we can ask when seeking to discern whether or not an answer to prayer is from God or not is, is the answer or counsel or proclamation consistent with the intentions and character of God as revealed in Scripture?

Paul wrote to young Pastor Timothy, “You have been taught the holy Scriptures from childhood, and they have given you the wisdom to receive the salvation that comes by trusting in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:15-17)

Whether personal to corporate, every word or direction from God must be tested by Scripture.

Another question to ask is, do other people who are filled with the Holy Spirit have a confirming witness? To the Corinthians, Paul wrote: “Let two or three people prophesy, and let the others evaluate what is said.” (1 Corinthians 14:29) If guidance or a manifestation is from the Holy Spirit, the same Holy Spirit will confirm it in the hearts of others. The same reason we talked about last week as to why it’s so important to pray with others and have the Holy Spirit demonstrate His agreement as others pray like us.

Spiritual reality is not accessible to those who are not walking with Jesus. “But people who aren’t spiritua can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means. Those who are spiritual can evaluate all things, but they themselves cannot be evaluated by others. [He’s speaking about non-believers here.] For, ‘Who can know the Lord’s thoughts? Who knows enough to teach Him?’ But we understand these things, for we have the mind of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 2:14-16)

Too often we seek the counsel of well-meaning friends and family members who are not Christians when trying to discern our courses of action. But only those being filled with the Holy Spirit can help us discern God’s will.

Lastly, we need to ask, is there confirmation in objectively verifiable events or facts? “The rain and snow come down from the heavens and stay on the ground to water the earth. They cause the grain to grow, producing seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry. It is the same with My Word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it.” (Isaiah 55:10-11)

God is the Lord of the universe. He is sovereign and is acting in nature and in human history. This means that there will always be an objective dimension to God’s work.

God said, “Let there be light,” and there was! This light may be objectively studied and observed.

This is true for other words and actions by God. They are objective. This is why Isaiah says God’s words will not come back empty. And it’s these objective results that provide us with our answers to the fourth discernment test.

Moses wrote in Deuteronomy, ““But you may wonder, ‘How will we know whether or not a prophecy is from the Lord?’ ²² If the prophet speaks in the Lord’s name but his prediction does not happen or come true, you will know that the Lord did not give that message. That prophet has spoken without my authority and need not be feared.” (18:21-22)

Some examples of this would be that

Sometimes when praying for healing, there will be manifestations. If there is an actual healing, the doctor will confirm it.

If a vision or prophecy is from God, it will start to have objectively verifiable indications that it is actually being fulfilled.

A word of knowledge will connect with actual facts in the person’s life.

Etc…

Of course, sometimes the objective evidence does not come all at once. Sometimes we have to reserve judgment on whether a word or action is from the Lord until we can see the fruit, and that may take some time. But we must be willing to take the risk of obedience even though we are still waiting. Sometimes we will not know until we actually obey and step out in faith.

Because we are imperfect, there is always risk in the discernment process. We could be wrong. Yet we still have to act and make decisions. God knows this, and He helps us even when we miss His guidance.