Sermon #2

Hi there! In case you haven't noticed, it's been about 2 months since I've posted here. Amazing how time gets away from you when you A) get a computer virus and have to fix the laptop and get a new modem and B) get completely out of the habit of getting up early.

So in an attempt to kickstart my morning habit again, I'm going to give you the second sermon I gave in my leadership class, which I would have posted about the time that I got the virus. It is a bit lengthy I know--remember this wasn't written to be a blog post but rather a 12-minute sermon. But I like the idea of putting this out there. Remember too that I gave this sermon right in the middle of the Stanley Cup playoffs. :)

Are You Prepared for the Day of the Lord?

Imagine two hockey players. They’re both on the same team. The team has done very well, and is in the finals for the Stanley cup. The are clearly both very excited, and they are each preparing for the games in different ways.

The first player, we’ll call him Jim, showed up early every day for practice. He worked out in the weight room, ate healthy food, went to bed on time, and in general followed all of the directions that his coach and his trainers gave him.

The second player, let’s call him Bob, grew a beard. Now, I don’t want you to think that I have an issue with any real hockey team that happens to be growing beards. This is an illustration. But Bob was a little bit confused. You see, he had heard all of the superstitions about how important it was as a team to grow a beard, and to not wash his socks, and to wear the same jersey every game, and to put his left skate on before the right one. He still went to practice, but he spent just as much time focusing on all of these superstitions as he did on honing his skill.

Which player do you think will do the best in the game? I’ve got to say Jim is a little more prepared for the big game, isn’t he? He has kept his focus on what is good, and important about hockey, and Bob, well, you could almost say that Bob was worshiping at some rather interesting altars, couldn’t you? He didn’t have faith in the right way to act as a hockey player, and spent time instead trying to satiate these images he had in his head of rituals that would suddenly bestow winning skills on him.

So, what does this mean to us? None of us are professional hockey players. We are, however, in a similar situation. Where Jim and Bob were preparing for the final game, we must prepare, in a way for our final game—the day that we meet with God. So my question for you today is: Are you prepared for the Day of the Lord?

“The Day of the Lord” is a phrase that has been used throughout the Bible and in much biblical commentary. There is a very strong end-times connotation to it, from our perspective, because it speaks to the day when Christ will return. It speaks to the rule of God on earth. It speaks to a day when we will all stand before God and account for our actions. Pretty fun stuff, huh?

But The Day of the Lord was not just a new testament theory. The Day of the Lord was known to the Jews of the Old Testament, because remember they were looking forward to the coming of the messiah, who we know as Jesus Christ.

But the problem is that no one knew when he was coming.

And the problem is that the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel were experiencing some peaceful, prosperous times. And what happens when humans, fallen, broken humans, experience peaceful, prosperous times? They often get complacent. They begin to develop a feeling of entitlement. And they begin to assume that The Day of the Lord is when the party gets started, when all the heathens and enemies of Yaweh get smited by the wrath of God, and when the earth will finally belong to the Chosen ones at last.

And then comes Amos. Amos was a prophet during the reigns of Uzziah of Judah, and Jeroboam the 2^nd of Israel. Amos stepped up and said “you know, I don’t think you quite get what this Day of the Lord is about.”  Listen to what he says in Amos 5: 18-24, speaking on behalf of God:

“Woe to you who long
       for the day of the LORD!
       Why do you long for the day of the LORD ?
       That day will be darkness, not light.

 ¹⁹ It will be as though a man fled from a lion
       only to meet a bear,
       as though he entered his house
       and rested his hand on the wall
       only to have a snake bite him.
 ²⁰ Will not the day of the LORD be darkness, not light—
       pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness?
 ²¹ "I hate, I despise your religious feasts;
       I cannot stand your assemblies.
 ²² Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
       I will not accept them.
       Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,
       I will have no regard for them.
 ²³ Away with the noise of your songs!
       I will not listen to the music of your harps.
 ²⁴ But let justice roll on like a river,
       righteousness like a never-failing stream!”

I be there were some Israelites who thought “Woe?? Woe to us?? What the heck are you talking about? Why would God be angry with us? Look, we’re doing the offerings, we’re singing the songs, we’re doing everything you told us to do!!”

But the problem, alas, is that the Jews were doing more than that. While they gave offerings to God, they also gave offerings to idols. Amos continues to say:

“ You have lifted up the shrine of your king, the pedestal of your idols, the star of your god—which you made for yourselves.”

Woah. That kinda explains things a little more—to me at least. What is it the children of God were doing? They were creating their own gods, and worshipping them as well. It’s almost as if they were hedging their bets. Almost as if, like Bob the hockey player, they said “Ok, I’ll do what I’m supposed to do, but I’m not entirely sure it’s going to work, so I’m going to do all this other stuff too, because I heard that will ensure that I have a good life.”

So what were the children of God doing to prepare for the Day of the Lord? They were ignoring God’s commandments. What good is singing and sacrifice when there is no justice? What good is giving a tenth of what you have to the temple and then walking past the sick, the poor, and the down on their luck on your way home to spend the other 90%?

Does this sound perhaps like Christians today? Do we as a group worship God, lift up his name, give him our offerings, and then play the lotto, cut corners, steal paper from the office because we “don’t get paid enough,” and ignore our neighbor who actually has less than us? Do we sometimes expect more from others than we require of ourselves? Do we get upset when someone isn’t on time and yet we’re always late? Do we speak ill of someone who hurt us instead of going directly to them to resolve the issue? Do we make idols for ourselves? Idols called Greed, Entitlement, and Pride?

I have to say this sounds sometimes like me. So what do we do? What do we do to prepare for the Day of the Lord, when Jesus returns and we are called to give that account of our lives? Yes we are saved through the blood of the lamb, but aren’t we supposed to do more with our lives than just “get ours” ?

Well we’re in luck, because the Bible answers this question for us. We are told many, many things. Love the Lord Your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. And, one of my favorite verses in the Old Testament, Micah 6:8:

       He has showed you, O man, what is good.
       And what does the LORD require of you?
       To act justly and to love mercy
       and to walk humbly with your God.

It’s about how we act that we prepare for the coming of the Lord. It’s how we treat God, how we treat ourselves, and how we treat others, that prepares us for The Day of the Lord.

And the great thing is that God gets our hearts. He knows that we aren’t going to be perfect. The trick, however, is to keep ourselves from making those idols. The trick is to not be like Bob, trying to find a shortcut through to a better life. The trick is to be more like Jim, to learn the “right” way to live, and to do our absolute best to live that way. To be humble when we mess up, and to try again.

And I’ll leave you with one more illustration, from one of my favorite movies, G.I. Jane. This is a fictional story about a woman who was in the Navy Seals program, the hardest program in the entire armed forces. She and her crew were on a training mission outside Lybia, when they were suddenly brought together and told that a satellite had fallen into the desert, and the combat unit that had been sent to retrieve it needed help out. So these people, who were still in training, were told “we need you to do the right thing, to step up and help these people who need us, because there’s no one else.” “If for one second, the Captian told the Command Master Chief” your people aren’t ready for any reason, you tell me now.” And the Master Chief said “we’re ready.” He then turned to his crew, told them what was going on, and said “ok, who’s not ready.”

No one raised their hands. They weren’t “ready” by the standards of training and examinations and titles. But they were needed. And they stepped up. And they got that other team out of there.

So I guess my only question for you today is “What are you doing to be prepared for the Day of the Lord?” When you are called upon to help the lost, the last and the least, do you? Do you study the Bible daily in order to learn more about how God wants us to live? Or do you try to find the shortcut? Do you try to find that one song, that one ritual which will “make” God give you an abundant life?

God is looking at us right now, people. There are others in need out there. And his Command Master Chief is asking us: “who’s not ready?”

The Forgiveness Equation

So my computer has a virus. Booooo. Public Service Announcement time: If you haven't updated/added a virus protection program to your computer recently, please do so now. I'll wait. Seriously, this just cost me $260. I'll wait.

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Ok, now that that's done, I've got to be honest and say that I will soooo not be able to post anything new until I get the computer back, which will probably be next weekend (I'm writing this on Sunday night at the office). So for those of you who read this (and I can't tell you how thrilling it is to know there are actually people who read this) I offer my humble apologies for the absence. But I do want to leave you with one last post for the week, especially since you've all been a part of my writing it... the sermon!

I went through about 3 iterations of this thing, but below is the sermon in its entirety. I tend to write verbatim, and then follow it mostly. :) You'll notice bits and pieces (and whole sections) from earlier blog posts, so there isn't much new here. But I do want you to see how it turned out...

The Forgiveness Equation

My verse today is 1st John chapter one, verse 9: If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

Ok, so if you’ve ever had to hear me talk about myself, which I believe you all have had to do once or twice… you’ll know that I have a degree in art. But what you might not know about me is that when I was in school, I was actually quite good at math as well. So today the title of my sermon is The Forgiveness Equation. What I plan to do in the next few minutes is lead you through a look at this verse on forgiveness, and give you an equation to remember as you go about your day. Not that we can create an equation to define God or life in their entirety, but the basic equation for forgiveness is one that we can always use, one that will help us live a more balanced life in Christ.

Now, we have been studying the writings of John in this quarter of VLI, so one thing that we’ve all been told is that to truly understand what John is saying, we should look at the context. Who is John’s audience? If you study the writing style of 1st John, it doesn’t read like a typical letter and in fact scholars believe that this is what is called a “circular letter,” a sort of “Best of John” publication that was passed around among the Christian community. So these words are speaking to Christians.

This works well for me, since I am… a Christian. Now, since I accepted Jesus as my Savior, I could think that I’m done, right? That there’s nothing else I need to do in my life. But the thing is, God wants us to lead wholesome, holy lives. Unfortunately, we miss the mark on that all the time, don't we? We sin all the time. So what can we do? Well, here is where the equation factors in. But first let me give you one more verse, this time from 2nd Chronicles 7:14

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and will heal their land.

This verse adds a second dimension. If we pray to ask forgiveness AND we repent, or turn from our sins, THEN God will forgive us. Do you see the equation here? In literary terms we’re talking about an if-then statement. IF we pray AND turn from our sins, THEN God will forgive us. To put it in mathematical terms, think about it this way. A + B = C. So, A:Praying plus B:Repentance, Equals C) Forgiveness.

Prayer plus Repentance equals Forgiveness. When you have an equals sign in an equation, the total of whatever is on each side has the same magnitude. Thus 1 plus 2 equals 3. If you remove one of the numbers from either side of the equation, it no longer works. If you only have 2, then you do not have 3.

If we only ask God to forgive us for something that we have done, but we do not have any intention to stop doing it, do you think that God will jump to forgive us?

So what is that balanced equation again? Prayer plus Repentance equals Forgiveness.

Now. What if we get crazy with our math skills here? If you remember your basic algebra, you will know that what you do to one side of an equation you must also do to the other, in order to keep the balance. So take the simple equation A + B = C. Let’s add the number 3 to it. I know, it’s crazy, right? Well, if I were to say (A + B) + 3 = C, would that be right? Nope, because we already established that A + B = C. So what would I need to do to make it even? I’d have to add something of the same value to the other side to make it balance out, something equal to the value of the number 3. What’s equal in value? How about one plus two? That’s three, right? So, and I know this is high-brow thinking here, but if I were to write (A+B) + 3 = C + (1+2), is that equal? Why yes, in fact it is. Because we’ve already established that A plus B equals C, and so now each side of the equation simply has the value of 3 added to it.

So, what value can we add to our Forgiveness Formula?

Well, let’s look at a real-life situation. I might be the only person in the room today who is really really bad at repentance. I will ask God left and right to forgive me, but I’m not the best at saying “and I will never do this again.” I will admit it’s a failing of mine. But let’s say that I do accomplish to ask God’s forgiveness for something that I have done, and I commit to Him to stop doing it. As an example, let’s say I’ve been gossiping about my boss behind her back, and I finally realize that it’s wrong. So I pray and say “God I have no right to speak ill of another person. I am so very sorry, please forgive me.” And I even add “Ok God, I’m going to stop doing this now, I promise.” So, super-cool, I have forgiveness, right? Right.

But what happens in two days when my boss does something absolutely insane again? And when I’m tempted to run to a friend and tell him all about that crazy thing she said or did and how much I can’t believe that I have to work for this crazy, crazy insane person. How do I avoid this?

Let’s look at Hosea 12 verse 6 for the answer: Return to your God; maintain love and justice, and wait for your God always.

I love this verse because it tells me what to do in this situation. Return to my God. When I feel the desire to stray into temptation, I must return to what God has called me to do in life, and He has NOT called me to be a gossip, I can tell you that. Then, I must maintain love and justice—I must act in a manner appropriately to who I am as a child of God. And last, I must wait for God. If I reach out to God to help me in my temptations, and wait on Him, he will give me the strength to maintain a Godly lifestyle.

So I’m thinking that maybe here is a value I can add to my Forgiveness Equation, to give it some lasting value. I’m going to focus on the word Maintain. So, if I pray for forgiveness, and I repent of my sins, and then I maintain the life God has designed for me, what will I get? What is equal to the value that is maintaining a Godly life?

To answer that let me tell you about how much I hate doing the dishes. I HATE doing the dishes. If it weren’t for the environment I’d have switched over to paper plates and plastic silverware years ago. And it’s just me in my house! I mean really, it shouldn’t be that hard to wash my own dishes, right? In a busy week I may only be home long enough to eat a bowl of cereal every day. That’s one bowl, and one spoon. If I were to wash that one bowl and one spoon every day, then I would never have dirty dishes, right?

But alas, I own more than one bowl and one spoon. Which means that if I really want to, I can take that one dirty bowl and spoon and put them in the sink, and the next day pull out another bowl and spoon, and another and another, until at the end of the week I have zero clean bowls or spoons, and several dishes in the sink in varying stages of crusty. Eew. I hate washing crusty dishes. It takes forever to get crusty dishes clean. First you have to soak them, then you have to scrub at them. I hate doing that.

But whose fault is that? Right. It’s mine. Because I didn’t take the time to wash my dishes as I used them. Had I maintained a habit of spending the 35 seconds it takes to wash one dish and one spoon, I would have reached the end of the week with a clean sink, and all clean dishes, and no headache. I would have been able to look into the kitchen and have… peace of mind.

Aha! There it is. Peace. If I can maintain a lifestyle in accordance with God’s rules for us, I can have peace.

So if we add peace to the equation we now have this:

If I Pray for forgiveness and repent of my sins, AND maintain a life in accordance with God’s rules, THEN I will receive forgiveness AND peace.

So. Let me reread all three of these verses together:

If we confess our sins he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and will heal their land.

Return to your God; maintain love and justice, and wait for your God always.

So what is the equation again?

(Prayer & Repentance) + Maintenance = Forgiveness & Peace.

Our lives are certainly not as simple as a mathematical equation, but sometimes it helps to have some simple guidelines to remember, things that we can repeat to ourselves when we’re in situations where we need God’s guidance.

So when you are in a place where you feel that your equation is unbalanced, when you are missing either forgiveness or peace in your life, perhaps you will need to look to the other side of the equals sign, and figure out what it is that you’re missing. No forgiveness? Perhaps you haven’t truly repented of some recent sin. No Peace? Perhaps you aren’t maintaining the lifestyle to which God has called you. But the great news in this is that all you have to do to balance your equation is do what you weren’t doing. If you aren’t praying, pray; if you’re not repenting, repent; if you’re not maintaining… then maintain. If you can do this, then you will receive both forgiveness and peace. And that is an equation to live by.

Let us pray: Lord God thank you for providing us with simple rules that we can take to heart, ways to remember all that you have called us to do. Thank you for providing us with your forgiveness and peace. Give us the ability to see when we are leaving out a critical part of our equation, so that we may return to a balanced life. In your name we pray, Amen.