Time

It’s time. Do you remember hearing those words? Maybe you were being prepped for surgery and the nurse had just come in to let you know it was time to go to surgery. Maybe you were in the delivery room at the hospital and the nurse said, “I think it’s time.” Maybe you heard those words when you were at the receiving station and the sergeant came in and said, “It’s time to go.”
It’s time. The time has come or as Paul put it, “the time had fully come.” What’s that mean to you to hear those words, “the time has fully come?”
When I hear those words I realize that I can’t put off any longer whatever I’ve been waiting to do. The time has come for action.
When we get the message that the time has come it is usually something we have written on a particular day on our calendars or it may be something we’ve put in our scheduler to remind us about appointments or commitments. Whatever it is we soon realize it’s time. We can’t put it off any longer.
I don’t know how your lives are governed but I can’t seem to go anywhere without my watch. If I don’t have my watch on my wrist I’m just not comfortable because I don’t know what time it is. Isn’t that silly? What does it matter if I don’t know what time it is? It seems as if we are all governed by time, whether it’s our timepieces or a calendar on the wall. They both show us how quickly time passes and if it’s wasted how we can’t ever get it back.
Some would say it’s very important to know what time it is. It may be very necessary for us to be somewhere at precisely the correct time. If I had stayed in bed until I felt like getting up and then took my time eating breakfast and then arrived here whenever I might or might not be here when people expected worship to begin. I might arrive too early or be too late and that might make some folks unhappy.
Time, it does seems to have a certain power over us. As I have gotten older I realize that time has gone by awfully fast and the time I have left in this world gets shorter with every day. And I wonder if today will be the day that I hear, “It’s time.”
When the time was right for God he sent His Son to us. And when the days were complete…Joseph and Mary offered Jesus to God. Simeon and Anna, when they saw Mary and Joseph come in with their offering of pigeons and Jesus, knew that God was keeping his promise to send the One who would be the world’s salvation and would free the world from its sin. It was time.
What time is it today? Is it time? Has the time come that we’ve been waiting for?
We have been waiting, watching, and preparing for the Messiah. He has come. God has been with us in Jesus and I believe is still with us in the Holy Spirit. Did we notice or have we been too fixated on what time it is?
The promise the Prophet foretold has been fulfilled as Simeon reminds us. The Promise is a light for all nations and glory for Israel. But not everyone believed it at the time and many don’t believe it today.
It is time. Peter’s letter reminded us during Advent that it’s time, time for judgment to begin and we’d better not wait too long to accept Jesus as our Savior. Paul said the same thing in his letter to the Corinthians when he said, “…brothers…the time is short.” Jesus will come again like a thief in the night and none of us knows the time.
It’s time, time to decide what we’re going to do with the lives God has given us. Are we going to believe in this Son he sent into the world or are we not? The time is now and it’s getting shorter.
Friends, Jesus doesn’t push himself on us. He’s patiently waiting for us to answer his call. But first we have to empty ourselves of everything that’s holding us back. Only when we are empty can God fill us up so we can serve Him.
It’s time. The time has come for our decision. Are we ready to make our offering to God and dedicate our lives to his service as Mary and Joseph offered Jesus to God in the temple? Is today the time?
Time is in God’s hands but he has left the timing up to us. Is today your time to make your offering? Friends, it’s time.
Thanks be to God for the gift he gave of himself to the world, Emmanuel, God with us. Amen.

Lost

Help! I’m lost and can’t find my way! Is there anyone here who can tell me how to get there from here? Does anybody here have a map or one of those “never lost” things on their cell phone? I mean it. I’m lost and don’t know which way to turn. Is there anyone here who can help me?
I don’t know what I’m going to do. If I don’t get some help soon I’m going to miss my appointment with the One who is supposed to be coming soon. Surely there’s someone here who knows the Way. Are you all as lost as I am?
Oh, God, what am I going to do? What if you come now and I’m not prepared?
I knew I shouldn’t have taken that left turn back there. I should have known that I couldn’t trust those people in the last town. They just didn’t look like they knew enough to come in out of the rain let alone know the Way. But I was desperate and I would have taken almost any route to get to where I need to be. Surely there’s someone here who has heard the voice of the one crying in the wilderness and knows where I should go.
How about you? Do you know the Way? What about you? Can you help me? Doesn’t anyone here know the Way?
Things just aren’t the way they used to be. It used to be that you could always count on someone to have the answer; there was always someone to tell you the way you had to go to get there. Where have all those people gone? Don’t they realize that we haven’t all got the Message yet? What am I going to do?
I’ve always thought I had all my ducks in a row. I always figured I was prepared for anything but I never believed that it would be so hard to find my Way to the light. If only I hadn’t listened to those folks in that last town. They really led me astray. I shouldn’t have been so gullible. I should have remembered what Paul said, “Check out everything, and keep only what's good. Throw out anything tainted with evil.” Why didn’t I think of that then?
Man I hate getting old. When I was younger I had all the answers. Now, I just don’t know anymore. I thought we were supposed to get wiser as we got older. It seems like I have more questions today than ever. I keep getting lost. I just can’t seem to find my Way to the light. Don’t any of you know the Way?
I should have paid more attention to my teachers at Silver Creek Church. They knew the Way. In fact some of them sat down and made sure I understood the directions. What did I do with that paper? You’d think I would’ve kept something that important some place where I’d be sure to find it when I really needed it.
Oh, why didn’t I listen to Grandma when she tried to show me the Way? I’ll bet if she were here she’d have the directions in her apron pocket.
Oh, what am I going to do? I’m so lost. I’m never going to find my Way to the Light. Isn’t there anyone here who cares whether I find my Way?
There’s so much apathy in the world today. Everyone’s afraid to lend a hand for fear they’ll be sued if they give the wrong directions and someone gets hurt. Oh, how I miss the good old days, back when you could get a ride just by standing on the side of road and putting your thumb in the air. Now those were the days. If you were lost then you could always find somebody to get you home to the Light, not today. No sir. Everybody’s a little gun shy.
I don’t know what I’m going to do. Wait a minute. Someone’s left a book here in the pew. The title on the cover is “The Message.” Do you think it might have the answers I need? Maybe it knows how to get to the Light.
But how will I know where to look? It looks like a pretty big book. Man, I sure wish there were someone who could show me where to start. That’s all I need. I’m a smart guy. I know I could figure it out if someone would just get me started on the right path.
Well maybe if I just put my trust in whoever’s in charge of this whole thing called Life; maybe they’ll just let this book fall open to the right spot. Should I try that? What do you think?
Wait a minute. How did you all find your Way here? Are you lost too? Well, maybe we could work together to solve this problem. I think our time is getting short. I wish I would have started sooner.
I had a plan once. But somehow along the way I got sidetracked. I thought I knew a better way. Boy was I wrong.
You know those Boy Scouts were right when they said, “Be Prepared.” I never knew it was that important. I just didn’t understand what my purpose in Life was.
Last week I heard that He was coming and I’d better not wait to get ready. I’m still not ready and I heard he could be coming any day.
I think my plan will be to pick up that book called “The Message” and start reading it to see if it has the answer so I can find the Way and be prepared. It sure would be nice if someone would help me.
Are you sure you don’t know where I can start? Would you help me find my way to the Light?
Friends, do you think we’re all prepared? Do you believe everyone knows the way to the Light? If you truly believe God has called us here for a purpose and he hasn’t called us home yet, then I believe we’d better be doing what God has called us to do. Make sure everyone hears the Good News and can find their way to the Light. We each can be the voice calling from the wilderness. Make smooth the way of the Lord.
Thanks be to God for his gracious love for all his children. Amen.

News from the Wilderness

John the Baptist has been preaching to us from the wilderness for over 2,000 years. He is still calling for us to repent, to turn our lives over to God, to have our lives changed from the inside out.
Why is it so difficult for us to change? Why do we not heed the call of the prophet to change our lives? Peter in his final letter to the followers of the Way says that we had better not delay because the Lord will return like a thief in the night. We won’t have any warning before he makes his appearance. And again, this is a Message we’ve heard before. Why are we so resistant to change?
I believe that we drag our feet because we are basically sinful people who refuse to give it all to God. Our faith is weak and we believe that we can do it all ourselves. Or we believe that the Message is for someone else; we don’t need to change, the Message isn’t referring to us. There is no reason for me to repent. I don’t need to make any changes in my life. My life’s perfectly fine the way it is.
Is it really? I used to think that I was just fine doing the same thing year after year. The pledge I made last year was enough, I shouldn’t need to make any changes to it. After all, there are others who are better off, financially, than I am. They’ll pick up the slack. The church doesn’t need me to work on any committees this year. I’ll just sit back and relax this year. Someone else will visit the folks in the care centers. I don’t really have the time anyway. After all, the pastor said we all need quiet time to study and reflect. Isn’t that how most of us think? Surely I’m not the only person who’s had these thoughts.
Friends, I was wrong. I did need to change. I still need to change. My heart is convicted every day by my sinfulness. I am reminded constantly that I am not where I should be. My only consolation is that God has forgiven all of us through the sacrifice made by the One whose birth we are waiting for again this year.
Isn’t that the Message that Peter was trying to get us to understand? We must be working continually to “make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him.”
John the Baptist was the voice calling from the wilderness exhorting the people to change. He was the prophet who knew that there was One coming after him who would baptize folks with something that would last. They wouldn’t have to keep coming back every year with a sacrifice for the priest to make in their behalf. And his voice, John’s, still calls to us from across the centuries. Our lives must be changed. We can’t keep doing the same old thing expecting something different to come from it. God had promised through the prophet Isaiah that he was going to do a new thing. There would be a voice crying from the wilderness to make the road smooth, flatten the mountains, fill in the valleys, to prepare for the coming of the King. John reminded the people of this day. His voice is calling to us today from the pages of our Bibles for us to change our lives.
The prophet Isaiah and the apostle Peter are in agreement when they remind us that our lives are as fragile as grass or the flowers that bloom in the spring. We are here one minute and gone the next. Or that’s what it seems like.
A thousand years are like a day to God and a day is like a thousand years to us. It’s only been a few days using that kind of logic since Jesus ascended to be with the Father.
Has everyone heard the Good News? Have all their questions been answered? Have they been baptized with the Holy Spirit? Is there still someone who hasn’t received the Message about the arrival of the kingdom of God? Have all your questions been answered? Have you been baptized with the Holy Spirit? Do you need to make some changes in your life? I do.
What better time than right now, with John calling us to repentance and Peter reminding us that we shouldn’t wait. Friends, is there anyone here today who doesn’t need to change? Is there anyone here today who doesn’t need to be healed from all the sickness in their lives?
Let us humble ourselves and come to God. Let us pray for the strength to change our lives. Let us pray for God’s grace to be forgiven and pray that He will grant us the peace and love that comes with the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
To God be the glory and the honor. Amen.

Quilt for the Youth

This is a picture of the quilt being raffled at the Antique Walk on this coming Father's Day weekend. The money raised is going to be used to help defray the costs for the younger members going to camp and to Minnesota.

Our thanks go to Linda K. for donating her time, talents, and materials for this project.

Things Are Bad; The Sky Is Falling; Jesus Is Coming Again!

Things are bad. The little red hen would say the sky is falling. Mark is telling us to not panic. Jesus is coming again.
There is war in the Middle East. The economic conditions aren’t getting better fast enough. Companies are laying off employees. Some companies are almost bankrupt. People are starving. Murders are reported every day on the news, some not too far away in Omaha. Can the end be close at hand?
When the gospel according to Mark was written people of the Way had seen their brothers and sisters dragged before local authorities, sometimes by members of their own families. War was all around them and some of the things Mark is alluding to may have already taken place. In fact the temple in Jerusalem may have been destroyed already. As one commentator pointed out, “That was the bad news, stuff that the community didn’t need to be told.” Things looked like they couldn’t get much worse.
When bad things like this are going on you can’t just say, “Don’t worry. Be Happy.” That might not go over too well. Someone just might take a poke at you. Instead we need to acknowledge the terrible things that are taking place and share in the grief they are feeling before we say, “Don’t panic. God has everything under control.”
Is our world in any better condition today than it was when Mark wrote this gospel lesson? We may not have war in our country but we do have men and women from our country who are in harm’s way in Iraq and Afghanistan and other parts of the world. And there is the fear that terrorists may even strike here. If not here they may attack and kill Americans who are travelling in Europe or other parts of the world where there is unrest. As the news said this week they may be doing this to bring attention to the pain they are experiencing in their part of the world, or to bring attention to the unfair conditions and injustices in their countries.
It doesn’t make this message any easier to listen to. But the truth is God is in control. And he does care what’s happening here in our world today. After all He did send His Son to this world so that the world could experience first hand what He, God, was like. The kingdom of God came down to earth as a fragile little baby.
There weren’t many people anticipating the arrival of the Messiah and there weren’t any here who understood what it meant. The prophets predicted it and there were some religious of the day who were waiting for it to take place but they really didn’t understand what that meant. Oh they thought they did but they really had no idea what God’s plans were.
It’s not any different today. Friends, there is trouble everywhere, even right here in Walnut, Iowa. The school struggles to keep operating as an independent entity. The town struggles to survive in this new economy where people’s budgets get tighter and tighter. People are worried about their jobs, their retirement incomes, and the unrest in the world. And then we hear today’s Message that says, “It’s okay. These things are going to happen but it’s not the end of the world.” No one knows when Jesus is going to return. All we know is He promised that he was coming back.
And so we wait and work and hope. And we continue on doing the work we have been given to do to make disciples of all the nations. We continue doing God’s work while keeping an eye on the things going on around us, keeping an eye on the horizon watching for Christ’s second coming.
The prophet is crying to God to tear the heavens apart and come; the psalmist is calling on God to restore our fortunes; the community in Corinth is waiting for Christ to be revealed and Mark’s little apocalypse helps us understand the birth pangs of the world around us. Only God knows the schedule of events.
This is the beginning of Advent. Are we as excited about Jesus coming again as the children are to see Christmas arrive?
Some questions to ask ourselves are: “What are we waiting and hoping for-for each of us as individuals, for our church, for our community, for the world?” Isaiah was waiting and hoping that God would come and make his presence known in the world. He was hoping for one thing and God did something different. What are you waiting and hoping for?
This season is a time for reflection and penitence. A time to reflect on where we should be, on our knees, full of faith, changing the direction of our lives, waiting, watching, working, knowing that all will be well because God’s in control.
Are you waiting for God’s kingdom to come? It has already arrived. God’s kingdom comes when we hear the Word and believe it. When this happens then we will realize true peace in our lives.
Thanks be to God for the gift of his Son. Amen.

Help! Who Should I Help?

Am I a sheep or a goat? How do I know? What if I’m a goat? Maybe I’m a sheep, no I’m a goat. I walked by that guy on the street the other day with his cardboard sign asking for some money so he could buy food for his family.
But I brought cans of food for the food pantry. And I brought some of my old coats to give to the Open Door Mission. Does that count?
How many of us have fed someone who’s been without food, or given a drink of water to someone who was dying of thirst, or gave clothes to someone who didn’t have any, or visited someone in prison? If we have then we’re sheep. On the other hand how many of us have walked by a hungry person on the street, failed to clothe a naked person, or not visited someone in prison? If we’ve done this then we must be goats. I suppose we could be good goats.
You know what the real problem with all this is? We’re trying to figure out whether we’re sheep or goats and that’s not the point. The whole point of this parable is not about “doing” but about “being.” We’re looking at this parable and trying to understand what it is that Jesus wants us to do. And that’s not the way to look at it. We should be reading this parable and asking the Spirit to show us how we need to change our being in order to be more like Jesus.
Friends, I believe it’s all about love. Paul reminds us right away in 1 Corinthians 13, “If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.”
This parable is not so much about what the sheep did as their attitude while they were caring for those who had needs. What they did was out of genuine love and compassion without any thought of getting anything back. They were just helping out a fellow human being.
It’s even possible that while they were preparing food or handing out clothes or wiping noses they might not have even felt close to God at that particular moment. Or maybe even for days on end or weeks on end they may not have felt the presence of God. They may have even been wondering if he even really cared what these folks were going through just to survive from one day to the next.
Mother Teresa wrote about such feelings in her book “Come Be My Light.” She struggled with her faith but she kept on doing what she felt God had called her to do, be His light to the people.
I believe that’s what our lesson from the gospel is about. It’s not whether we are sheep or goats. It’s about our attitude. It’s about our attitude and our reasons for doing this work as we feed the poor, care for the sick, clothe the naked, and visit the prisoners. If we’re doing with the idea that it’s going to earn us a spot in heaven then I’m afraid that we’re going to be very disappointed.
Not one of us does it perfect every day. We’re going to walk by someone sometime. Sometimes we feel like we don’t have anything left to give and so we don’t. But other times we hear God’s voice, we feel his presence, and we just do it because we know it needs to be done. And we may be the only ones who notice that it needs doing.
This winter may be a hard winter in more ways than one for a great many folks. The Food Pantries and the shelters are going to need our help as their supplies of food and clothes dwindle.
We have many members who aren’t able to worship with us any longer and they miss it. That’s why it’s so important to give them a call, stop in for coffee, or send them a letter. They need to know that we haven’t forgotten all about them just because they aren’t here with us any longer.
Food, clothes, and fellowship are what everyone needs. And there are many who are missing one or two or all three of these. God gave us a directive that we should care for the poor, the sick, and the lonely. If we help these folks and love them as much as Jesus loves us then we all benefit. As John told us God is love and those who do these things in love are born in the love of God and experience a closer relationship with Him.
God made a sacrifice for all of us when he sent his Son to die on the cross for our sins and the damage they have done to our relationship with Him. That’s the kind of love Jesus was talking about in the gospel, sacrificial love. It’s not our love for God but his love for us and what he’s done for us.
If He loves us so much we certainly ought to love each other enough to help our sisters and brothers out when they need a hand.
Friends, this is hard work, caring for all those in need. It’s difficult to know how much help to give and who to give it too. If we give all we have can we trust in God to provide for us in our need? I have been reminded that if I give it all away then I will be the one looking for a friend to help me.
I would leave you with this thought this morning. Jesus is the King. He is our intercessor before the Father. He took all our sins upon himself so that we could receive the assurance of forgiveness. He loves us because we are his brothers and sisters. He made us who and what we are. He is coming back and we will be judged for what we have done with what he has given us. May God find us faithful.
Thanks be to God for the gift of his precious Son, Christ the King. Amen.

Risk

To laugh, is to risk playing the fool.To weep, is to risk appearing sentimental.To reach out to another, is to risk involvement.To expose feelings, is to risk exposing our true selves.To put your ideas, your dreams, before the crowd is to risk loss.To love, is to risk not being loved in return.To live, is to risk dying.To hope, is to risk despair.To try at all, is to risk failure.
But risks must be taken,Because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing.They may avoid suffering and sorrow, but they simply cannot learn, change, feel, grow, love, live…Chained by their attitudes they are slaves.
ONLY THE PERSON WHO RISKS IS FREE.

A survey was taken recently of people who are over 95. The people were asked one question. It was an open ended question they could answer any way they wished. The question was: If you could live your life over again, what would you do differently? Among all the different answers, these three answers came back most frequently:
1. If I could live my life over again, I would reflect more.
2. I would risk more.
3. I would do more things that would live on after I'm dead.

There are a few different ways in which this parable could be understood. I would like all of us to consider this parable in the light of taking risk.
In light of the current economic situation maybe that’s not something most of us would like to consider since we all feel like we have taken considerable risk with our finances. But that’s not the kind of risk that I’m thinking about this morning.
I want all of us to think about the questions that were asked of those folks who were older than 95 and the answers they gave. Why do we have to wait until it’s too late and then wish that we’d done things differently? Why don’t we do some of the things now that these folks wished they’d done? Why are we so afraid of doing things that some people would see as foolish?
We live in a relatively safe society, here in the United States of America. Granted some of us here may remember what it was like back in the 30’s when the drought came along with bugs and insurance companies foreclosed on quite a few farms. But for people my age who grew up in the 50’s and 60’s when times were more profitable and people didn’t worry as much about jobs we have a different perspective than our fathers and mothers who grew up during the Depression. That doesn’t seem to make much difference though when it comes to taking a risk for Jesus Christ. It doesn’t seem to matter what era you grew up in, people are just afraid to step out in faith and talk to their family or friends about Jesus.
Friends, following Jesus does involve taking risks, sometimes a very high risk. But when risks are taken higher rewards are possible, rewards that we can’t even imagine.
I’m not quite sure how I want to do this. What I want all of you to do is to think about things that you do well, things that you really love to do, or maybe even things that you wish you could do but haven’t quite developed the proficiency for doing them well yet. Now out of all these gifts which ones could be used to develop a welcoming church community? Which ones could be used that would lead someone to be involved with leading a worship service? Or, which gifts do we possess that would give us the courage to share God’s Good News out there in the wider community in which we live?
You all know each other’s gifts. You may not be as aware of your own gifts so much as you are pretty certain of the gifts of your neighbor. I would imagine that most of us here today could turn to our right or left and come up with two or three gifts that our pew neighbor does well. In fact they probably are so good that the gift could be used to accomplish one of the three things I mentioned.
The sad fact is we’re too afraid to take the risk. It’s not like someone is asking you to give some of your hard earned income. No, God has given us many blessings and gifts and some of us are just sitting on them. We keep them hid hoping no one will ask us to do something, like go talk to a neighbor about coming to church with us. Or sharing with someone we strike up a conversation with about how Jesus has enriched our life.
We’re all alike in this room. We’re all afraid to take the risk. What are the things that keep us from doing what those people surveyed thought were important? What are some of our excuses? What do we need to know or do so that we do grab the opportunities that God presents us with? What can we do to help each other?
Friends, the first thing is to realize that Jesus didn’t set us up to fail. He told us the truth. He is here with us. And God sent the Holy Spirit to interpret God’s Word to us and to speak for us when we don’t have the words to pray. God is love and the Good News is the kingdom of heaven is here today. The kingdom of God is right here today.
The thing is we just have to believe with all our hearts that these words are true. We have to believe what Jesus told us. We have to believe that God hears our prayers and answers our prayers. We really have to believe that God is real and cares what happens to us. We have to believe.
If we believe it in our hearts then we can take the risk and try doing something we’ve never done before, something we never in our wildest dreams imagined ourselves doing. And know that’s its all right if it isn’t perfect, because God’s the one who’s in control of the world. So whatever we do in Jesus’ name is just the way God planned it. So let’s go ahead and risk everything in Jesus’ name.
What have you got to lose if you try? The bigger question is, “What have you got to lose if you don’t risk everything?”
Friends, God asks us to take chances everyday. The one’s who take the risks are the ones who are bringing forth the kingdom of God. It’s kind of like the doctors have been telling us about our bodies, use it or lose it.
God has given all of us gifts. As Paul told the Thessalonians, “…speak encouraging words to one another. Build up hope so you'll all be together in this, no one left out, no one left behind.”
Brothers and sisters in Jesus, close your eyes, say a prayer, and step out there trusting in Jesus to be the way, the truth, and the life. Trust in Him to never fail you. Thanks be to God for his grace. Amen.

Are You Prepared?

On today’s calendar the Presbyterian Church, along with many others, makes their stewardship commitment to support the church for the next year. Some folks will have sat down, put a pencil or calculator to their income and made a decision about what percentage of their income they can commit to the church. Others will have given it some thought but still aren’t sure how much they can give because they are uncertain about the current economic situation. And there are some who just don’t want to put it down on paper. They know what they’re going to give and they want to keep it private. There’s not one thing wrong with any of these ways of making a commitment.
When members are willing to put it down in writing it helps the leadership of the church make more informed decisions when they work on the budget for the next year. Every year that I have been involved with forecasting the budget for the next year I have observed that the pledges come no where near to meeting the needs of the budget. Every year the budget is put together based on the best estimates of what the next year will bring and then we go on ahead trusting in God to provide what we need to enable us to do his will for his church.
This is the time of year that many businesses are looking at the results for the past year and the forecasts for the next year and making decisions about how to proceed with their business. The church isn’t much different. We look at what has been accomplished in the past year, what went well and what didn’t, and then after spending some time in prayer and discernment put together a financial budget for the next year.
I’ve never been one to tell someone how much they should give to the support of the church. I believe that is between individuals and God. That’s what makes it so difficult to plan programs for mission, outreach, and education. Everything anybody does seems to take money.
I think its all about being prepared. That’s what the gospel lesson is for us today. We need to be prepared because we don’t know when the Master will return. The question you may be asking is how do we make sure that we are prepared? How can we know or be assured that we have done everything we can do and are ready for whenever He returns?
Winter is coming. As I write this the wind is coming out of the northwest at about 25 miles per hour and the temperature is hovering at 32 degrees. There is a dusting of white snow flakes on the wet leaves in the yard. The thought goes through my mind, “Am I ready for what might be coming this winter?” Is the gas can full? Has the oil been changed in the snowblower? Do I remember where I put the snow shovels? Do I have ice melt in case we get some freezing rain instead of snow? Am I prepared? Are you prepared?
What do we need to do to be prepared for the return of the Master? Jesus told the disciples in the preceding verses that even He doesn’t know the hour or the day, only God knows the time of His return. So we need to be on watch and we need to be prepared. What do we need to do?
I think if someone asked me that question I would begin first by finding out if they are practicing regular daily devotions. One of the first things we should be doing is reading the Word every day and letting the Spirit interpret the Message to our hearts. Along with reading and studying God’s Word is to spend time in prayer with God. That’s not us petitioning God with our requests and interceding for our family and friends and neighbors but it’s coming to God in conversation all day, every day, and allowing quiet time in our closets for God to speak to us.
These two tasks, and they are tasks because they require discipline, are important because if we neglect them then the world rushes in like nature filling a vacuum. Our hearts become hardened. The more we turn our backs on God the easier it is to find something else to do that we deem as more important than spending time with God. My fear is that when this happens it’s possible that Jesus may return and we will find ourselves unprepared.
It is tough work. We are bombarded daily by things that tempt us and pull us away from the work of preparation. Sometimes its really grunt work to go to our quiet place and pray.
Friends, we live in a time when we expect our wants and needs to be met immediately and when they aren’t we look somewhere else to find fulfillment. The readers of Matthew’s gospel had been expecting Christ to return and he hadn’t yet. They began to think he wasn’t coming ever and so they were becoming disillusioned with the gospel news. That’s exactly what Paul was talking about in his letter to the Thessalonians. Some believers of the Way had died and they were worried that they might miss out on eternal life. Paul was reassuring them that if they died believers then they would be the first to be with the Lord when he returned.
Friends, its 2008 and a new year is fast approaching. The Master hasn’t returned yet. Are you prepared?
Maybe you are already doing study and prayer. Is there anything else we can do to be better prepared? What about our family, friends, neighbors and those we don’t know so well? Are they prepared? What’s our responsibility to them?
We can’t change them. That’s up to them and the grace of God, but we can share with them our story of how God has helped us prepare our lives for his return. We can’t give them more faith but we can share how our faith has been strengthened by being in God’s Word and spending time in prayer and contemplation.
It sounds kind of harsh but we can’t change how people are or how they act. We can only love them as God’s children, share his love with them, and pray for God’s will to be done in their lives. It’s all up to each individual to make the decision to turn their lives over to God trusting in his grace and love through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross and his resurrection from the grave.
Maybe you aren’t sure where you’re at today. Maybe you want to get prepared but don’t know where to start. Friends the good news is you are in the right place right now to make a start. God brought you here to hear his Word for you today. The next step is to give your heart to Jesus. Ask him to forgive you for the times you have turned away from God. Believe on Him and confess your need to have him in your life. He will show you where to go next.
Everyday we wake up and the sun rises is one day closer to Christ’s return. Are you prepared?
Keep reading and studying God’s word. Stay in conversation with God. Listen for his voice. Look for Jesus in every person you meet. And keep coming back to worship God, our Savior and our Friend.
I began this morning by talking about making a financial commitment to the support of the church and ended by talking about making a personal commitment to God through Jesus. Our lives are about making commitments. Choose today whom you will serve and then make a commitment. I choose to serve Jesus and commit myself to being prepared through study, prayer, and worship. Put your hope in God and he will show you the Way in Jesus. Thanks be to God. Amen.

God's True Word to You

Why are you here this morning? Why did you set your clocks back one hour, get dressed, comb your hair, and maybe put on some perfume and cologne and drive or walk to church?
Did you come here for the fellowship? Did you come out of habit? Are you here because Mom or Dad made you come? Did you come hoping that I would have some words of inspiration that would help you get through the next week? Did you come to worship God?
I don’t really care why you came today. I once worked with a man who just hated it when I’d say, “I don’t care.” He believe that it implied that whatever we were talking about wasn’t important to me; it didn’t really matter in the greater scheme of things.
I do care that you are all here. It just isn’t important to me why you came. The reason being is that I know you are here because God called you to be here today. There is something here in this sanctuary, among these folks in this community of faith, that God wants you to experience today. It may be just to hear the Word read or a song sung, or to put your hand on the shoulder of a friend or to have them give you a hug. Whatever it is you are here because God desired you to be here in these pews.
So that puts the burden on me to proclaim the Word today, to preach the Message from the Bible. Friends, in the gospel lesson for today from Matthew Jesus says that we have only one Master, there is only one Father and we have only one Teacher. The greatest among us will be our servant. And so I am conflicted today. Am I the one who can teach today?
God is who I call my Father and my Master and I do look to Jesus to teach me how I should live and work. And I trust in the Holy Spirit to guide me and help interpret God’s word to me.
You all have come to church today to be fed; fed by hearing God’s word read and then to hear your pastor proclaim the Message of God’s love to you and then to be fed at his table.
Friends, I pray that the Spirit of Jesus Christ enables me to speak the words that each of you came to hear this morning. This morning God has led me to talk about hope.
I began this morning by asking, “Why are here?” I imagine that quite a number of us come to church to be filled with hope. Work can be pretty stressful. Just turning on the news raises the level of anxiety in our lives. Everyone is concerned about the economy and war and who the next leader of our nation is going to be. And the stress level keeps going up.
And so we come here for sanctuary and a word of hope, even me. So not only did you come here today for a particular reason but so did I. Sure, I know that I am expected to preach and teach but I also came to receive a word of hope from God. How He will send that Message to me I don’t know yet. I just know that I came with the expectation that God has something for me here.
We have already heard in the Psalm that God is good and his love endures forever. But what else does God want us to know? The Psalms are one of the best places to go to be taught about hope.
The psalmist says, “Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.” Hope in God because he will save you and he is your God. He also tells us to “Find rest…in God alone,” because your hope comes from him. He is your Rock and your salvation. He is your future.
Psalm 130:5, 7 “I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope. O Israel (First Presbyterian Church), put your hope in the LORD, for with the LORD is unfailing love and with him is full redemption.”
We are blessed when we put our hope in God when we turn to him for help as we find in Psalm 146:5. It gives God great delight when those who hold him in great reverence put their hope in his unfailing love (Psalm 147:11).
Why did you come here today? Did you come to be filled with hope? The prophet Isaiah says, “…but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on the wings like eagles; they will run and not get weary, they will walk and not be faint.” Friends, God gives you the stamina to keep at the work he has given you; the strength to fight against the forces of evil in the world.
Why are you here this morning? Maybe its to find out the plans God has for you. The prophet Jeremiah said, “For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Hope is a gift from God. In Lamentations it says, “Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed for his compassions never fail.”
Friends, this word I’m preaching today aren’t my words but the words of God; they are God’s true words to you. They show us that God may be beginning some new work in you or may be continuing the good work he began in you a long time ago.
You came for sanctuary. I pray that you have been filled with hope. Hope in God and hope in the future. As Paul wrote to the Romans, “For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.”
Friends, be filled with hope and pray that God will strengthen your faith in the power of his word. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Giving Our All to God

What does it mean to love God with all our heart, all our soul, and all our mind? I guess I would want to understand what each of the words, heart, soul, and mind, are actually referring to. What is heart? As I studied I came across a number of definitions. The Hebrews believed that the heart, the place that was the center of their emotions, was their bowels. We westerners, when we speak of heart, put our hands on our chests in the approximate area of our heart. No matter where we believe that area is, heart is the center of our emotions, the place where we feel joy, happiness, sadness, peace, and all the rest of the feelings that make us who we are.
The soul is where our emotions meet the spiritual side of us. This, for me, is the hardest piece to get my mind around. The soul is who we are, who we have been shaped to be by our environment and by our God. I’m sure it is way more than I have described here but I picture my soul as that part of me that is at the very center of my being, the part of me that will never, ever, die.
And then there is the mind, the mind is the center of logical reasoning; the part that often times gets us into trouble or causes us pain and trouble. The mind, as the advertising folks remind us, is a terrible thing to waste.
Jesus said that the most important thing, the greatest commandment, was to love God. Now that sounds like an easy thing to do. God created everything; he provides, for me, everything I need. Loving him is easy. Oh, wait a minute. He put that little word all in there didn’t he. We are to give our all to him. Now that does make it a lot harder. All, our entire being, we are to love God with everything we are. And since most of us westerners are also shaped by the things we possess that means even what we call our possessions, everything.
How can we love God, that’s the real question? How many of us have had the opportunity, like Moses, to talk to God face to face? How many of us have come out of our little tent of meeting after talking with God and been seen with faces so radiant from the power of God that people were afraid to look at us? I haven’t met anyone, yet we are commanded to love God with our whole being. How are we to do that, love a God whom we’ve never seen?
It’s easy to say this is what we should do but to really do it, that’s the tough part. Isn’t it?
I believe part of the answer is in the second part of Jesus’ answer. Mother Teresa once said, “We love the God we can’t see by loving the neighbor who we can see.” Think about that. There’s quite a bit of truth in what she said. To love a neighbor as we love ourselves requires that we change. Most of us love ourselves, some of us love ourselves so much that we don’t want to share and that’s our selfish side showing. To love our neighbors as much as we love ourselves therefore means that the love we share with them must be selfless. And that’s hard.
And so we’re back where we started. In order for you and me to love our neighbors we first have to love our God with our total being. And we find that hard. So what are we to do? How do we give God our all?
Friends, God knew this wasn’t easy since we all live in sin. The world pulls so hard at us. It wants us to turn our backs on God and seek our own pleasures. It doesn’t want us to give God our all. That’s what sin is, turning our backs on God, living as if he doesn’t exist. And we all do that don’t we. Maybe not all the time but we do it. We can’t help it because we are imperfect people.
God made us perfect but we messed it up when we thought we knew better than God. And so he cast us out of the Garden of Eden. And oh how we want back in. God has given us a way, Jesus.
That’s the second part of the gospel lesson today. Jesus didn’t stop with just the answer to the greatest commandment question. He answered that question then he had a question for his questioners, “Who is the Messiah?” Well that’s easy; it’s the son of David. Good answer, but then Jesus makes it hard when he quotes Psalm 110:1 that says, “The Lord says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.’ If David calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be his son?” They couldn’t answer and so they walked away and asked him no more questions.
Jesus had answered all their questions but they still couldn’t, or wouldn’t, believe that he was the Messiah. They couldn’t believe that God’s kingdom was here on earth and so they couldn’t love God and they couldn’t love their neighbor. They loved themselves and their world too much.
What do we believe? Do we believe that Jesus is the Messiah, our Messiah? Are we ready to accept him as our Savior? Are we ready to trust him with all we are? If we are then we need to turn our backs on the world and give our all to God. We must change.
Friends, we must put our faith in God before we can do anything else. We must believe that God is the great I Am, the one who brought Moses to the Promised Land and let him see it before he died. We must dare to proclaim the gospel message, dare ourselves to take the risk to love God, to love others. We must sacrifice our all for God and others. And only then will we truly find the joy and peace that we have been searching for, longing for, and desiring our entire lives.
Loving God and neighbor is about living as a revolutionary in a broken world. It’s about reorienting our lives in radical ways. Are we ready to do that? Are we ready to make sacrifices for our God and our neighbors?

What Are You Looking At?

"Taxes"-Storyteller, Desperate Preacher
the "tax question" in Jesus' times is different in some way from the "tax question" of our time.
The Jesus people are living in a colonized context. Those who make decisions on how much tax and what the tax is for are the empire. Much of what the tax was for did not benefit Joe the plumber and his neighbor Joe Six Pack. Jesus' times were unlike our situations where taxes are something of a "community fund raiser" where we pay for roads and schools and hospitals, where we all benefit either directly or indirectly. Imagine being taxed so the money can build a temple for some pagan god! Imagine being taxed so the money can pay the soldiers who will kill Jesus! Imagine! And so, living between a rock and a hard place, should we pay the tax and be collaborators with the Roman Empire or should we "refuse to wear the garment" and get our heads chopped off? d---- if you do, d--- if you don’t!and of course this all happens in the temple where folks pay "good taxes" taxes they agree with taxes they can make theological sense out of, call it "temple tax," call it "tithe," call it "apportionment." So Jesus takes the emperor's coin. It belongs to the man. Give it back to him. One day this coin will be a museum piece. Give it back to him, don’t invest yourself in this coin; don’t hold too tightly to this coin. tTis coin does not own you, God owns you. You belong to God.

What Are You Looking At?
Moses wanted to know who God was going to send with him. It may have been a rhetorical question because it’s possible he knew what the answer was. But he may have wanted some reassurance that God was going to actually be with them as they traveled toward the Promised Land. He may have had some doubts since the people he was leading had behaved so badly, worshipping a calf made from the gold they had brought with them from Egypt.
God answered his question by telling Moses that he knew him by name and that he had found favor in His sight. Even with that Moses wasn’t satisfied. If he had indeed found favor with God then he wanted to know what God’s plans were. Then, he figured, he would continue to find favor in God’s sight. After all, these people were really God’s responsibility.
But Moses wasn’t done yet! He certainly wasn’t afraid to push the envelope with God. He wanted to see him, to see his glory. I’m sure he knew that no one could look upon God’s face and still live, but he asked anyway.
I wonder what that must have been like to have such an intimate relationship with God that it felt safe to question God, trusting in his love and never fearing that he would get angry and smite you with his mighty hand.
And so God, after telling him that he couldn’t see his full glory and live, placed him in the cleft of the rock and shielded him with his hand until he had passed by. Moses got to see God’s back. That must have been enough for Moses because then he and God were able to get to the work at hand of making the stone tablets again.
Moses wanted something from God to give him the confidence that he was there for him. And God delivered.
These past weeks the news has been all about the economy. Our presidential candidates have been talking about how they would “fix” the economy. Our legislative folks in the Senate and the House have been working to rebuild the levees so the economy doesn’t get any worse. And the stock market is trying to figure out what all that means. It can’t decide whether to go up or down so it does both, up one day and down the next or both on the same day. It’s enough to give you a headache trying to keep up.
And we wonder what we should do. How is it going to affect our finances? What impact is it going to have on the cost of living through the next few winter months? How is it going to affect our life styles? What changes are we going to have to make?
So what have you all been doing to cope with these crises? If we would open our Bibles to Isaiah 41 the prophet would say to us, “Don’t fear, for I am with you.” And the psalmist has these words for us, “I will strengthen and uphold you.” And our Lord has these words in Matthew’s gospel, “Don’t worry about your life…strive first for the kingdom of God…and all things will be given to you.” Paul wrote these words to the Philippians, “Don’t be anxious about anything…present your requests to God.” And finally Paul told Timothy, “Tell those rich in this world’s wealth to quit being so full of themselves and so obsessed with money…Tell them to go after God…to do good, to be rich in helping others, to be extravagantly generous.”
And that leads us to the gospel lesson for today from Matthew. It seems to be about tithing and what belongs to God and what belongs to the government. If we think about it and truly believe in God then we would know that it all belongs to God so therefore we should give everything to God.
So I guess that’s it then, believe in God and give everything to him, don’t believe in God then keep it and see where that gets you.
Whatever you have decided I believe I’ll put my trust in God. Now that doesn’t mean that I am not concerned about the current state of our economic system. But I don’t believe that God is causing the problems. I believe that the current crisis is in part caused by misplaced trust or faith between debtors and lenders. You might even say that gluttony, greed, sloth, envy, and pride are the underlying causes of the current crisis.
What do our lives consist of, that’s the question? Do an abundance of possessions make our lives fulfilled? Luke says, “Life is not defined by what we have, even when we have a lot.”
What are you looking at, your 401k, your savings account, your real estate holdings, what you have hidden under your mattress, or are you looking up and giving all of your worries to the One who controls everything?
It really takes a load off your shoulders and relieves a lot of the stress if you just give it all to God. After all there really isn’t much any of us can do about the current crisis.
Well, I guess we could complain and grouse about it like the Israelites Moses was leading through the wilderness. We could complain that God isn’t listening or if he’s listening he isn’t answering our prayers. We could demand an audience with God. We could text him or Skype him to let him know, since it’s all his, he’s sure lost a lot of money this week on the New York Stock Exchange.
Friends, everything belongs to God. If we believe that then that’s it. No worry, God’s will is going to be accomplished in his good time. We should quit worrying about our possessions and worry more about our friends who haven’t heard God’s story and learned that Jesus is the answer to all of their questions.
After all what does the Lord require of us but to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God. God has given us work to do and that is to make disciples of all the nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And in doing that we are to love God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all our mind. Along with that we are to love our neighbors as much as we love ourselves in the process.
So friends, I’m not going to worry about the economy. I’m going to focus on what God gives me to do each day and that is to teach and preach and share God’s love with everyone I meet in whatever way he directs me. I will be frugal in my spending and I will give God the first portion of everything he blesses my life with.
Lift up your eyes and look to the hills for that is where your help will come. Christ is coming again, of that you can be sure. What are you looking at? I pray that you are looking to the future when Christ will return and we will all see God’s glory shining forth.
Remember the words of Paul, “…he has put his hand on you for something special…lives echoing the Master’s word.” Believe it my friends. God loves you and so do I.

Come On In! Everyone's Invited!

We’re all invited to the party. It’s a heavenly party and we’ve been invited because the original guests declined to come. In fact they either ignored the requests or treated the slaves who came with the invitations so badly that the king has invited everyone else. Those of us who wouldn’t have even been considered by any of the original guests if they were hosting the party have been asked to come to the party. We don’t have to do anything special just put on the robes the king has prepared for us when we arrive.
What do you think this parable means? Matthew has Jesus in the Temple teaching. The Pharisees are there and I’m sure this parable was aimed directly at them. God had chosen the Israelites as his people, in fact they are still his people, but they had rejected Him so many times. He wanted them to be able to enjoy the all the riches of heaven but they insisted on turning away from Him.
He sent people to invite them, prophets they either ran off or killed. And so God allowed them to be taken into Exile and then allowed a remnant to return and rebuild the city. But again their hearts were hardened and they refused his gifts and his invitation.
But surely they would honor his invitation to come to the celebration of his Son’s wedding. After all, the Bride was the Church. But they had better things to do.
So friends, that’s how you and I got to be included in the invitation to God’s celebration. There is only one requirement. The king, God, requires us to dress in the proper clothes for the wedding celebration. No worry, he has made all the preparations with the tailor. They are custom made for each of us. The only thing is we have to agree to put them on. If not then we will be thrown out just like the man in the parable.
The suit of clothes God has ready for us are the clothes of acceptance, repentance, and forgiveness. In order to be allowed into the celebration we must accept Jesus as our Savior, repent of our former sinful life; trust in God to cleanse us of our sin, to receive his forgiveness to us for turning our backs on Him so many times. If we do that we are free to come inside and enjoy the celebration with the king’s son and his bride.
That doesn’t sound so hard to do but then why do so few choose to accept the invitation? Probably for the same reasons the original guests turned down the invitation. Their hearts had been hardened by the ways of the world.
The world we live in today that is the things of the world today are insidious in the ways that they attack our hearts and seek to lead us away from the Way of Jesus Christ. There is always something seemingly more important that lures us away from doing the work God has called us to do.
You know how it is. The mission trip the church has been planning for six months is next week but now we have one chance meet our favorite presidential candidate and so we say we can’t possibly go now. And we make all sorts of excuses, none of them really true. But this is a once in a lifetime chance. We can always go on another mission trip. There are always people who need help. After all no one will notice if I don’t go. Isn’t that what we say or think?
We try to rationalize our actions when what we are really doing is turning our back on God’s call to help and listening to the voice of the world. The sad thing is the more we listen to the world’s voice the easier it is to turn our backs on God. Our hearts slowly become hardened to his call and soon we find ourselves outside the party wondering how it all happened. The evil one is sly. There’s no doubt about it.
Many are invited but only a few make it inside. What have you done with your invitation? Are you ready and willing to accept Jesus as your Savior, change your old life for a new life, and receive the gift of God’s forgiveness?
In the words of Paul we heard read today, “Celebrate God all day, every day. I mean, revel in him! Make it as clear as you can to all you meet that you're on their side, working with them and not against them. Help them see that the Master is about to arrive. He could show up any minute!”
Friends, this is important stuff. Your life depends on it. Don’t lose your invitation. God is calling you to come inside today.

Change

Have you ever considered what it means to have the mindset of Christ? Or have you heard the words in Paul’s letter to the Philippians and thought it’s just plain impossible to think like Jesus. I would like you all to give some thought this morning to what it would mean for you to think of yourself as Jesus thought of himself.
The first word that came to my mind immediately was that I would have to “change” my thinking. In fact it would have to take a change of heart. That word “change” is being tossed around a lot these days by the candidates running for president of these United States. But I don’t think they are talking about a change of heart to think of themselves like Jesus thought of himself, do you? No I think the change they are talking about is more worldly.
There is a song by Eddie Espinosa called “Change My Heart, O God” and it goes like this.

Change my heart oh God
Make it ever true
Change my heart oh God
May I be like You

You are the potter
I am the clay
Mold me and make me
This is what I pray

Change my heart oh God
Make it ever true
Change my heart oh God
May I be like You

Now if we all had a change of heart and our hearts were true and like Jesus’ heart what kind of change would we see here?
First, we have to decide in our own minds what Jesus’ heart was like. What was His primary concern as he walked all over Galilee, Judea, and Samaria? How can we really know Jesus’ heart?
I think that I would start by reading the gospels to see what they told about what he was doing when he was living among the people of Israel. What was he doing? He was teaching, he was healing, he was casting out demons, he was feeding hungry people, he was upsetting the religious community of his day, and he literally upset tables and through people out of the meeting place, the synagogue in Jerusalem. So what was Jesus’ mind like?
First I think we need to be certain what it was that he was teaching. Was it something worth believing and would it make the world a better place? What was Jesus teaching and is it relevant for us today?
Jesus was teaching the people that the kingdom of God was here right now and that there needed to be a change. He was preaching repentance, change of heart. He was preaching that God was love. He was baptizing people a symbol of the cleansing power of God’s love and forgiveness.
But Jesus wasn’t all about words. His life was an example of service to people who were at their wits end. They had been everywhere and tried everything looking for healing. And they came to Jesus to see what he could do. They received healing beyond anything they could ever imagine. Not only were their bodies and spirits healed but they found that by believing in Him their sins were forgiven!
Jesus didn’t just help one or two people here and there. No, wherever he traveled people were healed. And every town and city he came to the crowds were there waiting for him because word of his amazing powers preceded him. And he never failed to help those who believed. They were all healed.
But those who were skeptical and doubted and called him a blasphemer couldn’t be made whole. If there was no faith there was no healing.
So having a mind like Jesus means that you and I have to stop putting ourselves first. Having a mind like Jesus means that we are to be constantly looking for and seeking ways to help those who have tried everywhere else to get help and now have come to us as a last resort. What does that mean? I think it means whatever God has put into your mind right at this very minute. What he puts in your mind may be different than what he puts in my mind or they just may be identical. Wouldn’t that be something, God changing our minds and having us think of the same thing, would that be too weird?
What was that we heard Paul say, “If you've gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care— then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don't push your way to the front; don't sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don't be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand. Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself.”
Friends, I think that means we have to be servants. We have to continually be aware to how God is working around us every minute of the day. We must be alert to the needs of people all around us and ready to answer the call to help when it comes.
Sisters and brothers, that’s what it means to be a church. Having a heart and mindset like Jesus probably means that we will have to change. But is that a bad thing? I don’t think so.
Our world all around us seems to be tumbling down, falling to pieces and we feel so helpless worrying about our savings and investments. Is there anything we can really do about it? Probably not much, but there is something we can do for the neighbor who can’t pay for groceries this month, or the family who is having marital problems, or the neighbor who just lost a loved one. There’s something we can do for them. That’s what Jesus did. He didn’t fix the national debt but he did heal them and feed them and gave them hope in a God who loved them. He set an example for the disciples and he is an example for us.
Friends, it’s not impossible. We can change. We can think of ourselves like Jesus thought of himself. We can share the love of Jesus Christ with our neighbors. Change is good and if we are honest with ourselves every one of us needs to have our hearts changed.
When God calls to your heart I hope your answer is yes but if it’s no at first I pray that it will change to yes later. God is calling all of us the change our hearts and minister to his children. God is faithful and will help us all to finish what he has called us to do.

Steve Green - He who began a good work Lyrics
He who began a good work in youHe who began a good work in youWill be faithful to complete itHe'll be faithful to complete itHe who started the workWill be faithful to complete it in youIf the struggle you're facingIs slowly replacingYour hope with despairOr the process is longAnd you're losing your songIn the night you can be sureThat the Lord has His hand on youSafe and secureHe will never abandon youYou are His treasureAnd He finds His pleasure in you

God loves you my friends, and so do I. Amen.

It's Just Not Fair!

The news this week has been mostly about the collapse of the stock market on Wall Street fueled by the fact that some of the major financial institutions were going bankrupt and/or were requesting bail outs from our federal government.
There has been much discussion by the news commentators and the candidates for president about where to point the finger of blame. One article I read this week put the blame where it probably needs to be and that is on greed. As Robert Samuelson put it, “…short-term rewards blinded them to the long-term dangers.”
So what does this have to do with today’s lessons from scripture? The lessons are about the grace of God. The parable about the landowner who hired men to work in his vineyards was all about a standard of grace that many find hard to accept.
Why should someone who didn’t work as hard or as long as the other get paid the same wages? It’s just not fair. Sounds like something we’d hear from our children, doesn’t it?
The confirmation class was playing a game last week where they received a word and then were asked to describe it either by drawing, word clues, or pantomime. One of the words was grace and the option was to use words to get someone to answer grace. Now how easy do you think that was? Believe it or not one of the class members came up with the answer. The clue was a free gift from God. I thought that was pretty good. I know that I couldn’t have come up with that answer when I was in 7th grade.
So how would you describe grace? I came across a saying that puts it this way: Just is getting what you deserve; mercy is not getting what you deserve; grace is getting what you don’t deserve.
God, we have all learned doesn’t do things by the ways of the world. He works to standards that don’t seem fair to us. Everyone who comes to him is accepted into the family of God no matter when they make the decision to accept Jesus as their Savior. The last received into the family is loved just as much as the first who came into the family. Doesn’t seem fair does it?
When Jesus came into our world the world had a hard time understanding his theology. A God who loved without reservation, who loved everyone so completely, who forgave sins and forgot the sins committed, and who cared as deeply for the lost and the least as much as he did for those who had everything was not the God they knew.
They understood a God who could be petitioned for wants and needs, a God who would give them what they asked for if they earned it or at least that’s how they saw it. They had gotten so far away from the kingdom of God that they just couldn’t believe there was anything free anymore.
The common person in Jesus’ day understood what it meant to work for their food and if they were lucky there might be enough left over to provide some other comforts for the family. But it all had to earned through hard labor. They understood hard labor. Everything they did was hard labor, nothing was easy.
And then Jesus tells this parable about the landowner and the day laborers who all received the same wage no matter when they came to work in the vineyard.
He paid those who were hired last first and gave them the exact same wage as those he had hired early in the day. Of course those hired first saw what the last workers hired got paid and they were quickly calculating how much their pay would be based on what these men had received.
Can’t you just imagine the whining when they received the same amount of money as the last hired? This isn’t fair!! In fact we have all probably used these very same words. It isn’t fair!!!
If they hadn’t seen what the others had received they would have been perfectly satisfied with their wage. The same things are still happening today. Someone gets the same compensation as we do and we “know” they didn’t do half as much as we did. And so we give them or our “boss” the evil eye.
Judging our value based on what others get or give will always lead to the “evil eye.” Our value isn’t based on others.
It’s a good thing for us that God chooses to love us with his all. Our God pours all his love out for each of us. It isn’t fair but it’s a good thing for all of us that God doesn’t do things by the world’s standards.
The prophet Isaiah said it well when he said, “For my thoughts aren’t your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.”
That’s what grace is, an undeserved and unearned gift from our God. There is nothing we have done to deserve it and there is nothing, absolutely nothing, we can do to earn it.
So those who answer Jesus’ knock on the door of their heart on their death bed receive the same grace as those who have known the Lord and done his work many, many years. It isn’t fair but friends, it’s not about us. It’s all about God and his plan for the world.
The Israelites travelling in the wilderness didn’t deserve the free bread and meat that God gave them but he gave anyway. Paul didn’t deserve the many blessings God gave him but he received them anyway. We don’t deserve God’s love either but thankfully God doesn’t give us what we deserve. He is merciful and gracious and gives us the free gift of eternal life when we commit our lives to Jesus.
So what does all this have to do with the financial state of the world today and everything that’s been on the news this week? Friends, I don’t have to tell you the worlds a mess. And I would dare say that all of them have been caused by us. Our culture has become more greedy and fearful. We are all about getting and not so much about giving. We see what our neighbors have and we think, “Why can’t I have that?”
Some commentators might be telling us that the whole problem is the economy but I believe it has more to do with the morality of the world. Those who have much wealth are getting rich whether they make good or bad decisions. And the consumers and workers are the ones who suffer from all their bad choices.
Friends, God never promised us that we were going to be blessed with wealth and mansions. He did promise us eternal life. Eternal life is the good news and the promise is here today.
God sent his Son not to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved. All he asks is that we have faith and even our faith is grace.
It’s all God and not us. Don’t pay any attention to what your neighbor has. Don’t even think about whether it’s fair or not. Pay attention to what God is saying to you in his Word. Go there every day and spend some time with the Father as he gives you what you don’t deserve, his gracious love. And then go out and share it with someone else who doesn’t deserve it either.
…By grace you have saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is a gift of God (Eph. 2:8). Friends God loves you and so do I.
Receive this blessing of grace from God. “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give your peace” (Num. 6:24-26).

Forgiveness

Peter asked Jesus how many times he should forgive a brother who sinned against him, “Seven times?” He thought that was more than generous since it was more than twice what the Law required. I think Peter was more than a little surprised when Jesus told him, “I tell you, you must forgive him more than seven times. You must forgive him even if he wrongs you seventy times seven.”
There is some question as to what Jesus said whether it was seventy times seven or seventy seven times. The point that I think Jesus was trying to help Peter understand was that even if his brother sinned against him too many times to count he should continue to forgive him.
But what about the words Jesus said in verses 15-19? If your brother hurts you work it out between you and if that fails get another brother to go with you and try again. If that still doesn’t work go to the church and have them talk with him. And if that still doesn’t work he said to treat him like a pagan or a tax collector. Now that sounds to me like he should be shunned if he refuses to repent and seek forgiveness.
But then Peter asks his question and Jesus says to keep on forgiving forever if need be. I can understand Peter getting a little confused and frustrated with Jesus’ answers, can’t you?
I think Jesus wanted us to understand that we should never give up trying. After all God hasn’t given up on us. No matter how many times we fail and fall away from Him he forgets our past sins and forgives us again when we come to Him again begging for him to forgive us.
Forgiveness is something we have to carry with us all the time. In fact forgiveness should be put in our bag of necessities every day just like we put on clothes every day. We can’t get through one day without asking for forgiveness or giving forgiveness, sometimes or maybe most times, without being asked for it.
Friends, we have to forgive so that we may be forgiven. Every time we repeat the Lord’s Prayer we are reminded of that fact. “Forgive us our debts (sins) as we also have forgiven our debtors (those who sin against us).”
Why is it so important to forgive and/or be forgiven? What difference does it make to me if I forgive someone or I am forgiven? Let’s think about that for a minute.
Let’s say that every wrong ever done to me is put in this bag. I carry it around on my back every waking minute of the day and maybe even take it to bed with me. Every one of these wrongs is like a dead animal and they begin to rot but I still carry them around in the bag on my shoulder. I can’t let them go.
Now this isn’t a very pretty picture but consider this, the wrongs are decaying and they begin to seep through the fabric of the bag and soak into the fabric of my clothes. I still can’t let go of them. They are still too hurtful. And so eventually it begins to permeate my skin and if I don’t relieve myself of the burden soon my own body will begin to decay. This is an ugly thing to think about but that’s what happens when we can’t bring ourselves to forgive or to accept someone’s forgiveness.
We may not realize it but every hurt that we carry in the bag on our shoulders is preventing us from experiencing the love of God. Think how much easier our load would be if someone would just come along, take the bag from us, and help carry the bag with us, or how much lighter the load would be if we could just get rid of some of the load.
Friends, that’s what happens when we ask for forgiveness to those we have hurt or we offer forgiveness to those who have hurt us. It is such a relief to get that load off our backs. We often don’t realize how heavy the burden is that we are carrying when we can’t or won’t forgive.
Oh, it’s not easy. Sometimes it can take years for God to get us to release our hold on our anger, our hurt, and our hate but if we trust in God and pray to Him in our weakness for faith that is strong enough to believe in his power to forgive us, then it can happen.
Jesus said, “Behold I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me (Rev. 3:20).” In Matthew Jesus said, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”
Jesus is here for us. He is waiting for us to invite him into our hearts so he can forgive us. He is just waiting for us to hear his voice so he can come in and enjoy an intimate meal with us.
Too many of us are carrying around these bags of hurts when we could be relieved of them and allowed to experience the joy of being forgiven. Sometimes its not that we need to forgive someone else but we need to forgive ourselves for things we know we have done. Sometimes that is the greater burden we carry in the bags on our shoulders.
Friends, we can’t be judging each other and we shouldn’t be judging ourselves so harshly that we can’t see that Jesus is just waiting to offer us forgiveness. We all sin and will continue to sin. We all need to be forgiven. We all need to forgive. And what a joy it is when that happens.
It’s like putting on clothes that have just come out of the dryer smelling all clean and fresh and light. That’s what its like to be rid of the stinky, smelly bag of sins we carry around on our backs every day.
Let go of them and be forgiven. Jesus shed his blood and died so that we could be forgiven. He made the ultimate sacrifice for us when he was nailed to the cross. Friends lay your burdens today at the foot of the cross and know that God loves you and so do I.
Thanks be to God for his grace and forgiveness. Amen.

God Calling

Oh my God! This really is God calling! I may have mentioned this once before but what if your phone rang, doesn’t matter whether it’s your cell or your landline, and you saw in the caller ID “I Am”, what would be your response?
It can’t really be Him. It must be one of my friends. Someone is playing with me. But then you push the talk button and say, “He….llo???” And you know with the first sound of the voice that it’s really the Man, God, the Great I AM. Now what do you do?
This happened to Moses. It wasn’t a phone ringing it was just a burning bush but still when he went to investigate what was going on with the bush he heard a voice calling to him by name and he answered, “Yeesss? I’m right here.” Then God stopped him and said, “Hold it right there.” “Just wait a minute.” “Take your shoes off.” “This is holy ground.”
Jesus said in this morning’s gospel lesson that those who answer the call he gives to follow him must turn over control to him. They aren’t in the driver’s seat any longer, He is. Anyone who ever said that following Jesus was easy, anyone could do it, didn’t read this part. Did you hear it? He said, “Don’t run from suffering, embrace it.” “Follow me and I’ll show you how.” “Self-sacrifice is the way to do it.” That’s Jesus’ way to finding yourself, your true self.
Jesus said here, “What good is it if you get everything you want but lose yourself.” Luke put it another way. He said, “What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you?”
What is the real you? What does it mean to lose yourself? No one knows the real you but you…and God. The real you, the you way down deep inside, is our soul. It’s who we really are. And that’s what we are in danger of losing if we make the choice to follow our own whims and desires instead of heeding the call to follow Jesus.
How do any of us know if it is really God who is calling us to work at a particular thing or in a certain place? I truly believe that when God calls you will know. Maybe it won’t show up on your caller ID but believe me you will know. And if you don’t respond, God is patient; he will keep ringing your bell until you hear it and answer.
So we answer the call, then what? I think Paul’s letter to the Romans gives us some pretty good one-liners to get us started.
He begins with love, real love, not the fake kind, genuine love. Love that really cares how you feel. You know what that kind of love is like.
Watch out for evil. Beat feet when it comes near. Get a good grip on the good things.
Be good to your friends, the ones who love deeply, the ones who will never desert you no matter how grumpy you are. Learn what it’s like to be of service to others. In service to others we learn to deny the importance of our own lives; only in service to the least and the lost can we understand and accept the role of suffering in Jesus’ life as Messiah and in our own lives as his followers.
Don’t burn out. Take time to refuel and keep the fire hot. Be alert to what God is doing around and within you. Be cheerfully expectant.
When times get hard, and they will, don’t quit. Pray harder. Wear the knees of your jeans out praying.
Help those in need. Do something different when you are welcoming strangers. Bless those who you would like to curse.
Laugh often with your happy friends and cry with them when they cry. Get along with each other.
Don’t be stuck-up. Make friends with people you would never think of as being your friends. Be careful; don’t think you know it all. You don’t.
See the wondrous beauty in everyone. It’s there, the Holy Spirit will help you see it.
Treat the one you can’t stand, your enemy, to a fine meal. Boy will they be surprise. If he’s thirsty, find out what he likes and get it for him. Don’t let evil get the better of you. Get the best of evil by doing all the good you can.
God’s calling. It may not show up on your caller ID but you will know it’s him. Stop what you’re doing and answer like Samuel did. Just say, “Speak, your servant is listening.” And then listen.
Friends, hear the words from a Storyteller.

Last week Jesus asked "who do you say that I am?"Unlike Peter, I threw my hands up and said "Whatever!"After all, what I say he ishe keeps beating down the walls and won’t be containedI say he is sweet and gentle and kindthen he calls some indigenous mother with a sick daughter a dawg!And when I say he is a soft, kindergarten sorta rabbihe calls his star student Satan!and if I would have said he is the liberator of a people oppressed by Roman colonial rulewhat a disappointment when he sayshe will sufferhe will be killedand talk of death does eclipse the third day resurrection promisebut here I amOne of the "some standing here who will not taste deathbefore they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom"my changed heart is testimony to some standing here
Friends, dare to tell the rest of the story.Jesus did.Maybe we too often tell the glory side onlyLeaving the hearers thinking its all coming up roses and blue skiesBut the other half of the story is that the road to glory is a difficult roadsuffering, rejection, mockery, death.This half of the story is the one that we are afraid to tellWhen the pastor is asked "What's in it for me?"We want to say "Glory!"Dare to say "First the suffering, then the glory"
Storyteller-DesperatePreacher.com
Friends, God is calling us. Listen. Thank you God for the call.

Who Am I?

Has anyone ever come up to you and said, “Who are you?” What was your answer? Who are you?
How many of you men have been brave enough to ask your wives this question, “Honey, how am I doing as your husband?” Don’t worry I haven’t done it either and it’s probably because I’m afraid I’ll get an honest answer. I don’t know how I would handle that. Or let’s put the shoe on the other foot, how many of you wives have asked your husbands, “Honey, how am I doing as your wife?”
I would venture a bet that more wives have asked the question than any of us men. Face it men, we just can’t take the truth, to put it in the words of Jack Nicholson.
Another question that many of us should ask, and probably haven’t or maybe we have, is for our bosses or those we work for, “How am I doing in my work for you?” This is another question that is hard to ask because we aren’t sure we want to hear the answer.
The question today is, “who are you, who am I”. Or it may be who do people say that you are or who I am. Jesus asked the question and his followers had some answers.
I think he asks that same question of us, “Who do you say that I am?” I wonder how many different answers we’d get. Who is Jesus to you? Think about that. Friends, this is important stuff because how we answer tells us a lot about how well we know Jesus.
How do we answer that question today when we are talking to someone about our faith, our beliefs, or this community gathered here today? Who do we say Jesus is? Who do people say Jesus is when they see how we are living our lives?

Who Am I?
My mother was Mary.
I was born in Bethlehem.
A star shone over the manger where I was born.
Shepherds and Wisemen came to see me.
My Dad’s name was Joseph.
I grew up in the town of Nazareth.
My cousin was John the Baptizer.
I assembled a group of followers who travelled with me throughout Judea.
I ministered to those in need in Galilee, Judea, and Samaria.
I told people the kingdom of God was here.
My lifestyle upset the religious hierarchy of the day.
I called Jehovah “Abba”, Daddy, Papa.
I referred to myself as the Son of Man.
Peter said I was the Messiah, the Christ.
I was betrayed by one of my own followers.
Pilate ordered me flogged after releasing the criminal, Barrabas.
Soldiers cast lots for my clothes.
I was crucified on the hill called Golgotha.
I was buried in a sealed tomb guarded by two soldiers.
Three days later my tomb was found empty by Mary.
I appeared to my disciples and dined with them after my resurrection.
I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
Who do you say that I am?

The answers we give really depend on what kind of relationship we have with Jesus. Do we talk with him every day or do we only think about him on Sunday? That might make a difference in our description of Jesus. Have we given our very lives to him? Do we trust him enough to go wherever he leads us?
Friends, that’s what Paul was talking about to the Romans. We are to understand that we don’t bring anything to God he brings it to us. When we embrace everything that God did for us in sending his Son then we are changed from the inside out. We begin to establish the kind of relationship with Jesus that God intended for us.
Then when someone asks who Jesus is we have an answer. He is our brother. He is our friend. He is the one who knows us from the inside out. He cares for us. Our sins have been forgiven because of what he has done for us.
Who is Jesus to you? He is calling to each of us today. Can you hear him? Do you know him? He is the reason we are all here.
Thanks be to God for the gift of his Son Jesus. Amen.

Are There Canaanites in Walnut?

If you made a list of people you would help if the came to you and asked for it who would make the list? Make a list in your mind. Is everyone on your list Caucasian, are they about on the same rung of the economic ladder, do they go to your church?
The disciples had just heard Jesus give a lesson in Galilee about what defiles the body and what doesn’t. It was hard for the Jews, those who were his followers and those who weren’t, to understand. They had lived by the law for so long it was hard to understand not living by the law.
It would be like going to China and finding dog on the menu. There are probably none of us who would find it okay to eat it. But in China it is acceptable cuisine.
But what Jesus said was, it’s not what you put in your mouth that defiles you but what comes out of your mouth when you speak. Because what you speak comes from the heart, from your soul.
And then he goes away from Galilee to Syrophoenicia, specifically to Tyre and Sidon. There he is confronted by a Canaanite woman and asked to heal her daughter who was tormented by a demon. The words we hear Jesus speak aren’t the words we expect to hear come from Jesus. In fact it sounds like he called her a dog.
Dogs weren’t thought of very highly in Jesus’ day. If you called someone a dog or referred to them as a dog it was a real slap in the face. No matter what translation I read it all comes out the same. Jesus said he had come to help the lost sheep of Israel and it wasn’t fair to give the children’s food to the dogs.
I don’t know how you’d take something like that but I think I would have tucked my tail between my legs and slunk off somewhere to stew about what he had called me. It’s hard to imagine Jesus using words like this.
The fact is Matthew recorded these words of Jesus so I believe he did say them. But since we can’t tell what his tone was when he said them we can’t be sure if he was being sarcastic, like we might be, or was he saying in a tone that was lighter. Or maybe he was doing this in order to give the disciples a lesson in what he had taught in Galilee.
Whatever the tone or the reason we see that Jesus finally was persuaded to help the woman’s daughter. In fact Jesus said, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it done for you as you wish.”
This is what makes me believe that Jesus was using this moment as a teaching moment for those who were following him. Matthew’s gospel was written for the Jewish community who were followers of Jesus. And it’s possible that they too were struggling with the acceptance of those who weren’t of the Jewish faith. So Matthew included this so to show that Jesus didn’t exclude those who were different, both by nationality and by gender.
So, all of this got me to thinking whether there are any Canaanites living in Walnut. What do you think? Who would we have a hard time helping if they came knocking on our door? Do we have prejudices that get in the way of helping those who desire our help? What about those who run those skateboards up and down our sidewalks, or those who drive down the street with the bass cranked up and all we hear is thumpa thumpa thump. Or do we have trouble helping those who are covered with tattoos or we a lot of body jewelry? Or maybe we can’t bring ourselves to help those who have made some bad choices in their lives. You know now that I think about it there probably are some Canaanites living in Walnut.
Well, if there are then I’m sure that Jesus wants us to help them when they come knocking on our doors. Remember the Scripture that said it doesn’t matter what religion we are God accepts everyone? If that’s the case then that means that we should accept them too.
It’s not easy if all our lives we’ve been taught that we shouldn’t associate with people like that, whoever they are. It’s hard to put those things behind us and realize that God loves everyone and wants a relationship with everyone, even us though we are sinners.
Shoot there are times that I feel like the dog begging for the crumbs from the table because of things that I have done that make me less than perfect. But then something happens that reminds me that the God who created me also forgives me for my sins. If he forgives me then it follows that he forgives others too who live lives that aren’t perfect. Shoot, I think that takes in just about everyone I know.
So even if there are Canaanites living in Walnut know that they are God’s children and they are loved and accepted by Him. Trying to be and live like Jesus we should also love, forgive and accept them as our potential sisters and brothers in Jesus Christ.
It’s a hard thing friends, but with Jesus’ help we can do it. The world is changing and so are the demographics of our community. Just look at all the different folks who are living among us since construction has begun on the new wind generators. Pray that God will grant you the grace of his loving acceptance of those who are different, even you and me. Amen.

Faith

Joseph is sold into slavery by his eleven brothers who hated him so much they wanted to murder him. Joseph probably wondered where God was in all this. As it turned out, God was with him through all of this. But it does make a person wonder how strong his faith was through all these trials. It certainly had to be tested.
Paul talks about how difficult it was and is to live totally by the law as prescribed in the Old Testament. There’s just too much fine print.
Paul says that it’s all about trusting God to shape us up for right living. In fact he points out that’s its much easier to trust in God to straighten things out and let him go to work than it is to try to make sure every “i” is dotted and every “t” is crossed in trying to keep the law.
It does take faith and that may be the hardest part for some folks. In the scripture read from The Message it says, “Say a welcoming word to God—“Jesus is my Master”—embracing, body and soul, God’s work of doing in us what he did in raising Jesus from the dead. That’s it.”
We don’t have to “do” anything. We simply have to call out to God and trust him to do for us. We do have to embrace the fact that God is going to set everything right and that may be one of the toughest steps to take for some of us.
It’s not easy to put your trust in someone you can’t see or have never seen. It’s not easy to trust in someone you have only heard about or read about but haven’t actually seen or heard. But did you hear what Paul said about what the Scripture says? “No one who trusts God like this—heart and soul—will ever regret it.” And it doesn’t matter what denomination or religion you profess at the time you call to him. God is there for anyone who calls out to him. If you ask for help you will get help.
It does take faith to make the first call or take the first step. And for some that is the biggest hurdle.
Last week Jesus had just received the news about his cousin John being beheaded by Herod. He tried to get away with the disciples to a quiet place, a lonely place, but the people followed him and so he ministered to their needs first. And the disciples fed them and cleaned up what was left over. When that was all done he tells them to get in the boat late in the afternoon and go to the other side of the lake.
Jesus takes care of dismissing the people. It doesn’t say how he did that. How do you dismiss 15-20,000 people? But it says he did and finally he was able to climb the mountain so he could be by himself and pray. He was there late into the night.
In the meantime the disciples were far out in the Sea of Galilee and they were in trouble. You see the wind had come up and the waves were threatening to capsize their boat.
Can you imagine what they must have thought when they looked up and saw someone walking towards them on the water? I think I would have wondered if I was seeing things too. Jesus assured them that it was him and then Peter thought, “Well, if Jesus can walk on water maybe I can to.” And so he said, “…if it’s really you, call me to come to you on the water.”
Good old impetuous Peter. He steps right over the side of the boat and begin walking towards Jesus. But the wind hadn’t stopped blowing and the waves were still rolling and it was then that he realized that maybe he had bitten off more than he could chew. When his doubts got the better of him he began to sink. Peter the Rock began to sink like a rock.
But when he called for Jesus to save him he did. Jesus said he had little faith or a faint heart. He had enough faith in Jesus’ power to take the first step but when he saw the power of the storm all around him he began to doubt.
I think that’s what happens to us sometimes. We take the first step by faith but then we look around us and realize that we’re in a little deep and wonder what if the Lord’s busy today. We forget that the One who made everything controls everything.
Like the man who asked Jesus to cast the demon out of his son if he was able to do anything. And Jesus said, “If you are able! All things can be done for the one who believes.” And he said, “Jesus, I believe. Help my unbelief.”
That’s it. If we believe, anything, absolutely anything is possible for God. Like Jesus said, “Let those with ears to hear listen!”
It takes faith to get started. It takes faith to put words together and ask for God’s help. It takes faith to pray. Without faith it’s impossible to believe.
God is here for everyone and wants nothing more than to be in a loving relationship with us. But he’s not going to push himself on us. He is waiting for us to get to that point where we realize that he is God, that he loves us, and forgives us no matter what we have done in our lives prior to coming to him.
Faith, faith as small as a mustard seed, is all it takes. My friends pray to God to strengthen your faith.
Thanks be to God for his grace in our lives. Amen.