The Work of the Spirit: Animating, Activating, Liberating

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained." John 20:19-23

Pentecost is the day that might be considered the Church's birthday. It's the day when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the disciples, as they waited, hiding behind locked doors, in fear. Up to this point, they had been scattered after Jesus' crucifixion, and they had been hiding away, locked in that room, when suddenly the Spirit comes in power and might, and fills them up and sends them out on missions. Jesus says to them, "As my Father has sent me, so now I am sending you." It's only after they have been breathed on by the Spirit of God that they are equipped to go do what Christ had asked them to do.

As at any birthday, what we're doing today is trying to capture the essence and heart of what it means to be part of Christ's church. If you'll think for a minute about any birthday party you've been to, or any anniversary of an institution, one of the things that we try to do for a birthday is celebrate that spirit of a person or institution. Last year, my wife's grandfather turned 90 years old. Her brother compiled a cd-rom with photographs of him that went all the way back to when he was a boy, all the way through his life, and up to just weeks before his birthday party. In doing that, they were capturing the spirit of their grandfather. Who is this person, that we love so dearly? It's the same thing with us, in terms of images and relics and things of that nature. It causes a tension that we live in, as 21st century Christians. We have a great space to worship in. We have all of these things around us that tell us a great story of the church. We have crosses, the Lord's table, and stained glass windows that tell stories. In the chapel, there's a great mural painted on the back wall, which depicts the Holy Spirit of God descending and alighting on Christ's church. Right underneath the Spirit, there are angels drawn, who are worshipping. Underneath the angels, the disciples are depicted as gathered and waiting for the Spirit to rest upon them. One of the coolest things for me -- being a musician -- is to be able to go in and look at that mural and see the angels praising God with instruments. There's one on the right-hand side that I'm sure is playing a harp, but to me it looks like a guitar! So when I sit there and am praying, and look up at that, it looks like she's playing a power chord! For me, it's just a reminder that worship is supposed to be full of fire. Catherine Coleman, a great person of healing from Pittsburgh, said one time, "If we really knew what we were doing, when we come together on Sunday mornings we'd wear hard hats!" The heart of Christ's church is passion and fire and heat. The tension that we live in, being 21st century Christians, is that we're somewhat removed from that initial event of the Spirit coming. We have this great structure, and great images, to remind us what God has done in his Church in the past. But what's difficult for us is to be looking forward to what he's going to do in his church. In that future is where we might experience anxiety. We don't know what he's going to do next. And what if he shows up in power? What if he were to show up amongst us like he did at Pentecost? Now, that was one event that happened one time in a very powerful way, but God will still crack open his Spirit on groups of people sometimes. Just think about what it would be like. Would our hearts be open to receive God's Spirit in a very powerful way? That's the tension we live in -- the past, celebrating the history of our church, and looking into the future and seeing what God is going to do next.

For most of us, if you've grown up in a mainline church, the Father and the Son get a lot of exposure. We read and preach about them a lot. God the Holy Spirit is not a person of the trinity that we talk about very often in the last couple hundred years. After my grandmother died a number of years ago, we were going through her journals, and in one of them she had written, "I don't understand the Spirit of God. It's not that I have a closed mind, I just have a blank one. I don't know anything about the Spirit of God." For a lot of us, we may be in that same place. We've grown up knowing theologically that the Spirit is the third person of the trinity. We might approach the Spirit almost with a little bit of fear. We're not sure about the Spirit, because we don't know what he does! This morning, I want to frame the Spirit's activities amongst us in three different categories and activities.

The first point is that the Spirit animates all of creation. We look back into the earliest parts of scripture, and see in Genesis as God is forming the earth, there is a vast expanse of darkness, and over the waters of the deep, the Spirit is said to be brooding, or priming the way for God's work to begin in animating creation. The next thing that we see is God the great potter reaching down into the dust and forming out of clay a man, and breathing out of his nostrils and giving that person life. Again, we have the Spirit of God, the breath of God, animating all of creation. It's the same Spirit that animates the holy scriptures. If you've ever been in a Bible Study before, you may have experienced that warming of the heart or sudden realization of some truth in the scriptures, as the words leap off the pages. That's an activity of the Holy Spirit, quickening our hearts and opening our minds and firing our imaginations to the presence of God. God's Spirit animates all of God's creation.

The second work of the Spirit of God is to activate in us our natural and supernatural abilities. God, when he sends his Spirit, will activate something in us like he did in the Old Testament. Remember the story of God telling Moses that he was to build an intricate tabernacle? He goes on for chapters, describing the detail of the tabernacle that God wants to have built. Who knows what Moses was thinking, but he must have thought, "How are we ever going to do this?" Then God says to Moses -- by the way, I've put my Spirit on Bezalel, who is a master craftsman, and I've given him all of these artistic abilities, and I've given him wisdom and knowledge in many different crafts. And he is the one who helps build the structure. So God calls forth someone from the people, and God the Spirit equips him to do the task. It's a beautiful picture of God working amongst his people. Another example, from the 17th century, is John Wesley. He's one of my favorite examples, because of the way he tried to approach ministry. He initially tried to approach ministry out of his own power. I've been in that place before! Have you ever tried and tried to make something happen, and it just doesn't. Just like riding a stationary bike -- you can pedal as hard as you want, but you don't get anywhere without God's Spirit. John Wesley was doing the same thing. He was part of the holy club, with his brother Charles and a group of other people. They would read scriptures for 3 hours every night, and try to learn about God. He did this for some years, and then went to Georgia to be a minister. One of the problems that he ran into, as he tried to operate out of his own power and strength, is that he expected all of the people to behave like members of his holy club. He expected people to come in and beg to hear the Word, and then to go home and spend hours reading scriptures. Well they didn't! The expectations of the people were that Wesley was going to be satisfied with them showing up just for one hour a week! Well, he was not satisfied, and only stayed for a short time, and packed up and returned to England. On the voyage back to England, he had some experiences that prepared his heart to receive the Spirit of God. He found himself in a small Bible Study, and he was reading the Word, and as he describes it, his heart was strangely warmed. We can look at that now, and say that was the work of the Holy Spirit -- activating inside his own heart a fire and strength and passion to do what God called him to do. That's another work of the Spirit, activating inside of us a giftedness to go do what he has called us to do.

The third thing that the Spirit does is liberate people. He liberates us from all sorts of different kinds of bondage. As 21st century Christians, one of the greatest challenges for us is narcissism. For those of us who live in the U.S. especially, we can't help it. We are marinated in this culture that screams to us that the most important thing is to figure out what we want to do and then to go do it. It's all about us; it starts with my will and my power. We even bring that into the church, because we are marinated in this narcissistic culture, with our own selves at the center of the universe. Pastors do it. We do it as leaders by trying to gather people together and preaching to them what they want to hear. We do things to get people in the door so that we can brag about how many people we have on a Sunday morning. In terms of congregations, what that ends up looking like is people wanting leadership not to change them, but to please them. That's what a lot of people refer to as consumer Christianity. Don't talk about changing us; don't lay down any expectations for our lives. Please us. But when we look back at Pentecost, that's no where to be found. The birth of the Church is this fire and passion and heat that's emanating from God's Spirit. That's what our challenge is, to recover that on a day like Pentecost.

To wrap up this morning, the chief way to combat that greatest challenge for us of the narcissistic, me-centered culture, is prayer - and prayer specifically in the Spirit of God. The way we do that is to go somewhere to be still before him, and ask him to speak to us. Prayer is the one place where we can be honest with God. It's the only safe place in our culture where we can be with God. That's the one place where we don't have to be "good". I can be honest. That's the one safe place where we can go before God and say, I'm angry, or hurt, or mad at you, God. That's the one place where we can go to God and ask him to speak to us through his Spirit. It's the place where we can go and say, I don't have any passion on Sunday mornings.. why not? What am I missing, Lord? And in doing that, we are opening ourselves up to the same thing that the disciples opened themselves up to. They waited on the Spirit of God to be poured out on them. It happens... it still happens. For us, as 21st century Christians, honesty and prayer is that meta-virtue of spiritual formation and spiritual life and growth in Christ. That's our challenge, to have that courage and boldness to go before a living, holy God, put on our crash helmet, and go in prayer before him and say, "Lord, speak to me. Give me that passion and fire." In doing that, we remember that same thing that is laid out in the scriptures this morning. The reason the disciples were filled with the Spirit is to go out into the world to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. Our narcissistic culture would say, give me the Spirit and set me on fire just to praise you, and get my needs met. But that's not what it is about. We have to fight against that. We have to go in stillness before God and pray to him to change our hearts. That's what Pentecost is about, recapturing in our own lives and as the body of believers, what the core of the Church is -- fire, passion and energy.

Father, thank you for being able to gather together as a body of believers, a body of people who proclaim Jesus Christ as our Lord and our Savior. Lord God, I ask that you would pour out your Spirit on us this day in a mighty way. I pray Lord that individually you would provide that safe place for us to come before you and be honest with you, and wait upon your promised Holy Spirit. Lord God, I pray that as you do that work in our own lives, you'll gather us together and set us on fire with a passion for you. I pray this all in the power of your Spirit and in Jesus' holy and blessed name, Amen.

Our view of the Trinity affects:

• how we worship

• how we view other people

• how we make decisions

Jesus said, "Now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, `Where are you going?' But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts. Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because they do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned. "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you." John 16:(5-11)12-15

Today we celebrate Trinity Sunday, and it may just be that this is one of the Sundays where it doesn't get any more mysterious in the life of the Church than it does today. I'm often reminded of a quote from one of my professors in seminary -- a professor who is very much aware of the incredible depths of what is in the Old Testament -- who used to say to the graduates, "Just remember, when you receive your Masters of Divinity, take that with a grain of salt." His point was, you're not going to be a "master" of divinity when you graduate from seminary after three years. I always remember that when we come to a Sunday like today, when we're thinking about the Godhead. The three persons of the Trinity -- God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit -- are three distinct persons, but yet are one unified whole. Throughout the history of the church, we've tried to get our mind around what that means for us as created people -- people who have to answer to someone who made us. Even on your bulletin insert today, there is an image of a triangle which represents the Trinity. Inside the triangle are three fish, an early symbol of the Christian faith. All the fish are shown as interconnected. That's one way that we try to get our mind around what it means to serve and love and be loved by this great and incomprehensible God. That's one symbol, which for some of us who are visually oriented, is very helpful. For others, you might look at it and see absolutely nothing! That's when we might try to use words to describe God, which he also used to describe himself. Again, we remember that if you try to explain the Trinity (as one person has said), you will lose your mind. But if you try to deny the Trinity, you will lose your soul. So we're in that place of tension, where we try to enter into God presence, and try to love him, but not understanding fully who he is, or all the aspects of his character. Yet at the same time, that's what we're called to do, to be united with God in perfect unity.

There are a number of analogies that have been helpful throughout the ages, and all of them break down pretty quickly. You will see that they all disintegrate quickly! One of them is the idea of water. Water exhibits the same genetic code, no matter what form it is in. Water can be liquid, it can be solid as in ice, or it can be vapor as in steam. That's one imperfect image that begins to help us think about what the Trinity is like. They start to show the different faces or characteristics of God, while still illustrating the unity of the Trinity. Another example is that of a person. I am a person who inhabits one body, and am in one place at one time. Yet, there are different aspects of who I am. I'm a father to my children, a husband to my wife, and I'm a son to my parents. There are different characteristics and aspects of who I am, yet I am the same person. Another image would be that of an egg. (God forgive us for thinking about you in terms of an egg!) An egg has a white shell on the outside, and inside there is an egg white and an egg yolk. There are different parts of an egg, but it's all the same entity. Hopefully these images help describe the Trinity -- the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, all one God.

What I want to impress upon you today is the idea that God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are always present all of the time. Whenever we see God working in terms of God the Father showing himself to us, God the Son and God the Spirit are right there as well, fully present and fully God. Whenever we see Jesus high and lifted up, and whenever we are worshiping him, God the Father and God the Spirit is right there, all present at the same time. Whenever we feel the wind of God's Spirit moving amongst us, we may not know where it is coming from or where it is going, but we can see the effects. When that's happening, God the Father and God the Son are equally present.

The question we have to ask, as people living in the Fox Valley in Illinois in this period of history, is: Who cares? Does the Trinity even matter at all to us? Is this just a concept that only theologians consider? The answer is: No!  We are formed by the Trinity. J.B. Phillips has written a book called, "Your God is Too Small." In that book, he goes through many different mental images that we carry around describing who God is. For each one of those, he would say to the person, if your God is only that image of a grandfather sitting in heaven doling out blessings, with no expectations of you for growth or intimacy, then your God is too small! A.W. Tozer has also written much about this. He wrote a brilliant book called, "The Knowledge of the Holy." It's not easy reading, but each of its chapters talk about who God is. It is a great book to be formed by, and to read slowly and let it sink in. Listen to what Tozer says: "The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man's spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God. Worship is pure or base as the worshipper entertains high or low thoughts about God." There's that reality that our mental image of God shapes who we are and how we worship. It shapes how we see ourselves, and how we treat each other. It shapes how we make decisions. To think rightly about God, we have to think about the Trinity. Wherever God the Father is present, the Son and the Spirit are equally present all of the time.

The first way that this affects us is how we worship. Our idea of who God is will directly shape what we bring to offer at times of worship. If I consider God as just the Father, and not the Son and the Spirit, my worship of God will tend to be detached. I'll see God as a father-figure who is full of authority, but maybe is lacking some intimacy of the Spirit. Or maybe God the Father is there, but I'm removed from him, because I don't see any way that I can draw close to a holy, unapproachable God. If I only worship God as Jesus, my natural inclination is going to want to possess him, and say, Jesus is my Jesus, and my Savior and Lord. I will have a tendency to hoard Jesus all to myself. What that will do is prohibit me from going outside of these walls, and not mention his name to anybody else, because there is no mission there. If I only worship God the Spirit, then I might get lost in worship, and enter into a very energetic and wild and awesome experience of who God is. But if that Spirit is detached from the Son and the Father, I can do essentially whatever I want, and say that the Spirit has moved me. And so, our image and view of God will affect how we worship God. Cherie and I just went to a conference where we had an awesome privilege of sitting before many great teachers of spiritual formation. I was completely unprepared for one of the speakers. The first red flag was when she stood up and said she had completely re-written her talk over the last two days! She had something prepared, but she felt that she needed to speak something to that particular body of evangelical believers who had gathered. The first thing she did was to begin to dissect - very gently, but firmly - some of the lyrics of the songs we had been singing. I had been lost just like everyone else in the worship time, seeing Jesus and the Father high and lifted up. What she asked us was, who was the object of that worship? I began to realize, at least for me, that she had put her finger on something that was true in my heart. My worship had begun to curve inward onto myself. The object of many of those praise choruses is me!  I have the ability to see God, or Jesus belongs to me. I can control him. Again, very gently, she began to encourage us to reshape how we think about God. Much to my delight, she began to quote from the Book of Common Prayer. In addition to that personal worship and relationship to Christ, she said, is a necessity for corporate worship. That's what we do every Sunday. We come together and we're led through a liturgy, and we're trusting that the liturgy is going to be full of God's Spirit. There is a personal entering into who God is, in this aspect of corporate worship. That's what she challenged us with, and I want to bring that back to you. If this is all we do each week, our God is too small. If we're content just coming one time a week, and listening to someone else crack the Word open and pray, our God is too small. If we do nothing else with our faith than gather together, and we never proclaim the love of God to other people, our God is too small. The challenge for us as believers who attend a liturgical church is not to stay here, but to be formed by the liturgy and the Word and our understanding of who God has revealed himself to be, and then to actually do what he's calling us to do -- to be a blessing to other people. The only way we can do that is to think about God in his "three-ness" -- God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

The second way in which we're formed by our mental image of God is how we see ourselves. That will in turn affect how we view other people. Again, if I only see God the Father, I will see God's love and truth, but I may not be able to receive God's Spirit -- that sweetness and intimacy that God pours out through his Spirit. If I only see God the Son, I see the grace that's been extended to me, but I may not have the power to live out of that grace. If I only see God as God the Spirit, my worship and understanding of myself will tend to turn inward, and I'll see the Spirit as someone who I possess and take control of. For us, thinking in terms of the Trinity causes us to be curved out away from ourselves and towards God. It affects the way we view ourselves and others.

The third way in which we're affected by the way we view the Trinity is how we make decisions. It doesn't matter if you're in a secular workplace or if you're in a church setting, or if you're married with a family, or if you're single. The way we think about God will affect the way we make decisions. One of the ways that shows up is when we have someone speak the Word to us, or if we experience some manifestation of the Spirit, and we're called by the scriptures to test those spirits and make sure that it is God speaking to us. In 1 John chapter 4, we see that word. There are many false prophets around, wanting to tell us how to do things. The only way we can do that is to think in Trinitarian terms. Our gospel passage this morning hits on that. Jesus says, "[The Spirit] will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine." You can see this train of authority, starting with the Father sending the Son, and the Son sending the Spirit. What I would say to you is this: Anytime we have to make decisions, or when someone comes to us and says there is something new going on, we have to ask ourselves, where is this new teaching coming from? Is this a teaching that we can trace through the Spirit back to the Son? Can we trace it from the Son back to the Father? If we can't, we need to be suspect, because the way God the Father, Son and Spirit have revealed themselves to us is through the Word. God hasn't left us by ourselves to figure it out alone. We always have to go back to that, to discern.

Again, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are always present, all the time. I want to leave you with one last image offered by Rod Whitaker, a professor at Trinity. "God's unfolding revelation is like a flower. It continues to unfold, as time goes on, but that unfolding will always come from the same flower." He likens that to a new teaching. If there's something new that God's doing, it's going to have the same genetic code of what God has already done. There will be a consistency. It won't be contradictory to what God has done before. If we don't think in terms of the Trinity, we'll lose that, and we'll be much more susceptible to follow whatever wind is blowing. We need to test the spirits, by thinking of God as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, being always present, all the time. God is one God. That's the bottom line on Trinity Sunday. God is one God, the same God as yesterday, today and tomorrow and forever. That's the God we worship and are formed by.

Blessed Lord, thank you for giving us your Word. Thank you, Father, for creating a world with truth. Thank you, Lord, for sending your Spirit to form us, to heal us, to lead us into new life. Lord, I ask that you would plant seeds this morning in our hearts, that would bloom and blossom in your good time. I pray, Lord, that in all that we do and say, you would be glorified, in the name of your Son Jesus, through the power of your Holy Spirit, Amen.

God's promises fulfilled -- not because of rules & regulations, but because of his love

Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise. Galatians 3:23-29

This Pentecost we are taking a brief look at Galatians, one of the epistles found in the New Testament. On Father's Day today, I want to think about rules and regulations in our houses. The boys and girls here today can maybe give me a little help. When I was growing up, I was the oldest boy in the family. Some of you boys and girls may also be the oldest child. As you grow up, you're going to think that your parents aren't as tough on your brothers and sisters as they are on you! I thought my little brother got away with everything. Let's think about some of the rules that we've grown up with. Along life's way, some of our rules change. When you were very little, your moms and dads taught you not to touch hot things like the stove. As you grow older, you don't need to be told that, because you already know it. What about leaving the yard?  When you're little, are you able to leave the yard on your own? Of course not! Not until you get bigger. So that is another rule that changes. One big one for me when I was growing up was: When can I cross the street alone? I could do it before my younger brother could do it, because I was older. One day I got in trouble, because I held his hand and told him to come with me. I thought it was okay to do that!

In the book of Galatians, there is a little bit of this wrestling going on about rules and regulations. It's very early in the life of the Christian church; people have recognized that Jesus is not just a man -- that he was God himself. They've seen that he's come back to life, and they were wanting to follow him. In Galatia (a part of modern-day Turkey), there were certain rules and regulations that some believers said everyone ought to follow. "If you want to follow Jesus, you have to be Jewish," some were saying. That was the rule. Paul has to write to them and wrestle with his friends there in Galatia. Picture this for a minute. If you boys and girls at age 8 were allowed to cross the street, what would happen in your life if suddenly your mom and dad came back to you when you were 12 and said that you can't cross the street anymore? That wouldn't be very good, and wouldn't make sense. Paul writes to his friends in Galatia with the same message. He told them that they were now asking people to follow rules & regulations that could never help them in the first place, and why should they go back to them now?

Let's think about this for a few minutes. The Jewish people have lots of rules. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but they can never ultimately get you closer to God. That was the struggle for the people in Galatia. Paul tells them to think about the great promise that every Jewish person knew. It's a promise that God made to Abraham, that he could walk out into the desert and look up into the sky at the stars, and know that his descendants would outnumber them. Every Jewish boy and girl knew this promise. Paul says to think about that promise for a minute. Was there any law or rule or regulation given at that time? The answer is no. It was more than 400 years later that the Ten Commandments were given. Paul says to his friends in Turkey, Abraham's promise about descendants didn't happen because he followed a bunch of rules and regulations. That promise was fulfilled because God loved him. Paul told his friends in Galatia that the same thing was true for them. You get close to God and his promises, not because of what you do, but because of how God loves you. If it was true for Abraham, it's even more true for you. "If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise." Not according to rules or regulations, but according to the promise.

Paul goes on and says something that I'm not sure if we as modern people really understand correctly. He says that when you are in Christ, there are no longer male and female (or boys and girls), or Greek and Jew, or slave and free. Now, some people thinks that means that it doesn't matter anymore. I don't think that's what this passage says at all. It doesn't say that it doesn't matter who we are. This passage asks, where do we get our name from? This last week, I took my "little" boy off to college for orientation. He's going to the college that I went to. I thought a lot about where I get my identity. Do I get my identity from being a boy or a man; do I get my identity from being a husband; or from my job; do I get my identity from being a dad? The reason I was thinking about that is because I am proud to have gone to Vanderbilt. Do I get my identity from my college, or the fact that my son is going to that college? The answer is no. Paul says here that your identity and mine doesn't come from the job we have, or the car we drive, or house we own, or rules that we follow, or even the rules that we break. Paul says your identity and mine comes from knowing God's promises and believing them. When we believe, we take on the family name of "Christian."

I would like us all to wrestle with the rules and regulations in all of our lives. They are important. They have meaning. But Paul would remind us always, that life is more than rules and regulations. It's about promises and love. He says in the end, if you only live your life by rules and regulations without the love, then you will have missed a lot of what God has for you. That's why he writes, before faith came, we were in prison and guarded under the law, until faith was revealed.

I want to finish this sermon with one little story. How many of you boys and girls are soccer players in this room? About four years ago, the country of Ivory Coast had a soccer team. They were part of the World Cup series, and they didn't do very well. When the team came back to the Ivory Coast, the president of the country put everyone in prison who was on that soccer team! For two days, all of the players were in prison. Do you think that made them better soccer players? Of course not! That's all Paul is trying to say to us today. He says, love and God's promises will get you much farther than rules and regulations every could.

Heavenly Father, I pray that each of us in the room would grow up in Christ, that along life's way, we would come to see the value of our responsibilities, and that we would understand that the law is your gift, and that we would understand that as we grow up, we are truly free -- not because of the law -- but because of your love, and then like the psalmist, we would be able to say that we delight in the law of the Lord, in Jesus' name, Amen.

Discover perfect freedom -- not in the law, but in God's love

For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another. Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. Galatians 5:1,13-25

This is our third lesson from Galatians, the final reading from this set of lectionary readings. We've been wrestling with the law -- those rules and regulations that were handed down in Old Testament times, and the code and ethic that we put into our own lives. As we've looked at Galatians, Paul has said to us again and again, the law will never give you freedom. The real choice we have in life is to either follow God and discover his grace, or be entangled in that web that we weave for ourselves.

This morning I want to show you how powerful the law is. I have just finished reading The Heartbreaker by Susan Howatch. Now, I don't want you to read this book. You're not ready for this book, and I don't think you should read it.  What does that make you want to do? Read it, of course! That demonstrates the power of the law. As soon as we are told "no," there is something within us that says, "I must have that." This book is the ninth in a series of books about English clergymen, which strikes home for me, but don't start with number nine! This book is a Christian novel about the book of Galatians. It's a fictional novel about a character named Gavin who is wrestling with the law. He's at a place far from God. If he were to walk in here today, he would be the most attractive person in the room. His clothes would be Armani suits, he would have the right hair style, and everybody in the room would be captivated by him. We'd all admire the powder blue Jaguar he arrived in. Do you have the picture? This book is about a man who is so caught up in a life apart from God. He is a male prostitute. He has everything, and yet he has nothing. Don't read this book!

Let me remind you of the process that Galatians describes for us, which happens to the man in this book. In Galatians chapter 2, Paul says, try as he might, the law will never bring him closer to God. "I live now by faith in the son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me," Paul says. The law could never give love. Only God can give love. That changes everything for Paul. Jesus didn't die on the cross for the world, he died on the cross for you and me. Once we understand that God's love is for us, then our identity changes. In Galatians chapter 3, Paul says that we are all sons of God. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female. We are all one in Christ Jesus. We talked about this misunderstood verse. It doesn't say that I'm no longer a man, or that you are no longer a woman; it says that my identity isn't as a man or a woman. In the end, if you've discovered the love of God, because he died for you, then your identity has changed. You've now put on Christ.

Gavin, the character in this book, wrestles with this process. He comes to a place where he sees the love of God. He's so far from God at the beginning of the novel that he can't even say Jesus' name. Do you have friends that can't say the name Jesus? I do. I bet you do too. He calls Jesus "the bloke." Along the way, he discovers the "love of the bloke," and then he realizes that his identity can no longer be in his car, or fine suits, or job, or money, or contacts. His identity can only be in Jesus Christ (Galatians chapter 3). And then, he comes to Galatians 5, which we read today. "For freedom Christ has set us free." The challenge that Paul has for us, and that Gavin works through, is will you live by the law? Don't read this book! This is what happens to you and I if we live by the law. We live in our own flesh, Paul writes. "The works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these." If you think that you can create your own ethic, or believe that you can have a set of rules and regulations and laws that will get you closer to God, every time -- instead of that happening -- you will end up somewhere in that list. I can't explain it, but it's true. Don't read this book!

Paul reminds us of what we want in our lives: "Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." All of these things can come only one way, by giving yourself to God, and let his Spirit work them through you. If you try to be loving, you'll never be loving. If you tell the people around you to love you, they'll never love you. Paul says, if you want these things in your life, they come as a byproduct not of the law, but of the Spirit. That's what Gavin is grappling with in this book, that I don't want you to read. I want to read a passage for you. This is a moment that he is wrestling with claiming that identity and living the new way. How can you do that? How do you move from a life that is so far from God, to a place very close to God? Here is talking to a very old priest, a man named Louis. Louis says, "Human beings love idols, because human beings love to worship. But if you worship the wrong God, you risk being seriously cut off from reality." Louis begins to think about that. He says, "Anything can become an idol -- a nation, a political party, a head of state, drink, drugs, food, football, rock music, pop stars, cars, boats, designer clothes, sex, exercise, loads of money -- you name it. All these things may be good in themselves, but once they become an obsession, you squander time and energy on illusions. Your priorities get rearranged. Your balanced lifestyle goes down the tubes. Your true self gets stomped on. Or in other words, getting cut off from reality can make you physically, mentally, and spiritually ill. I pick out my past items from his list. The idols I used to fill the worship space in my head. What I now have to do is fill the worship space in my head with right stuff, the stuff that's code-named 'God'. But I'm not going to be interested in the souped-up father-figure who gets wheeled out with a boring religion. And you can forget the nursery rhyme old man in the sky." Who wants a God like that? That didn't change Mary Magdalene. A boring God, a rhyming God, a pie-in-the-sky sort of old man -- that never changed anybody's life. But this bloke Jesus is changing Gavin. "I still like the idea of a God as a fraught artist," Gavin says. Louis says, "That's fine; it's a passable image, because art is about reality, and God is ultimate reality." Louis warns him, "Remember, no image of God can give you more than a glimpse of him."

Then Gavin begins to wrestle with the hard questions. "Why doesn't God just wave a magic wand and change me? If he wants me to have the fruit of the Spirit, if he doesn't want me to live in the weakness of the flesh, why doesn't God just change me? I mosey around in all this spiritual stuff like a dog circling a deeply relevant lamppost. But finally I ask, 'Why doesn't the bloke just fix me?'" Have you ever asked that question? Why doesn't God just fix me? "He's not a magician, Gavin," Louis replies. "He operates through love, not a magic wand." That's the point of Galatians, chapter 5. In the end, Paul says, either you will live selfishly for yourself, or in the power of God's love you will become slaves to one another. "Do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love, become slaves to one another." It's in that place that you discover perfect freedom. Don't read that book!

Heavenly Father, it's in knowing your love that we find our true selves, and it's in serving you that we find perfect freedom. So we ask by the power of your Holy Spirit, you would make each of us more and more into the person you have created us to be, in Jesus' name, Amen.

Rev. Mark Tusken

Jesus: Our Great King

Psalm 66
Jubilate Deo

Be joyful in God, all you lands;
sing the glory of his Name;
sing the glory of his praise.

Say to God, "How awesome are your deeds!
because of your great strength your enemies cringe before you.

All the earth bows down before you,
sings to you, sings out your Name."

Come now and see the works of God,
how wonderful he is in his doing toward all people.

He turned the sea into dry land,
so that they went through the water on foot,
and there we rejoiced in him.

In his might he rules for ever;
his eyes keep watch over the nations;
let no rebel rise up against him.

Bless our God, you peoples;
make the voice of his praise to be heard;

Who holds our souls in life,
and will not allow our feet to slip.

For you, O God, have proved us;
you have tried us just as silver is tried.

You brought us into the snare;
you laid heavy burdens upon our backs.

You let enemies ride over our heads;
we went through fire and water;
but you brought us out into a place of refreshment.

I will enter your house with burnt-offerings
and will pay you my vows,
which I promised with my lips
and spoke with my mouth when I was in trouble.

I will offer you sacrifices of fat beasts
with the smoke of rams;
I will give you oxen and goats.

Come and listen, all you who fear God,
and I will tell you what he has done for me.

I called out to him with my mouth,
and his praise was on my tongue.

If I had found evil in my heart,
the Lord would not have heard me;

But in truth God has heard me;
he has attended to the voice of my prayer.

Blessed be God, who has not rejected my prayer,
nor withheld his love from me.

228 years ago, we were celebrating that we had no king. I'm not sure if we Americans all these generations later can quite fathom what it is to live in a sovereign country where the king rules. Even in England at one point, Oliver Cromwell was in charge and the king was not, and a portrait was painted of him (and if you didn't know, he wasn't exactly the most handsomely featured person), and when he saw it he said, "Take it away. I want you to paint me, warts and all." The portrait artist had made him look perfect. I want you to understand that that is what happens in a culture that understands that there is a king. We don't have any of that anymore. We have politicians who are far from perfect!

I want us to wrestle with what it means that we are members of the kingdom of God, and that we do have a sovereign. Let's look at Psalm 66 for that. Our lesson today captures for us what all of the Psalter holds regarding the kingdom of heaven and this great king of ours. I would summarize the Psalter as saying this: that we have our great king who is here for us. You can see it beginning in verse 6. "In his might he rules for ever; his eyes keep watch over the nations; let no rebel rise up against him." The people of Israel had a sense that their God, in the midst of the pantheon of the gods of the ancient world, was in control and was a good God understood justice, right from wrong, truth from error, and good from evil. In fact, they would call upon him to mete out that justice, as is found in Psalm 5. There is a sense that this great God rules forever, knows everything that happens in our lives, knows the justice and injustices, the trials and turmoil, and he can make all the difference. The people of Israel -- and you and I -- are invited to call upon the great king. The reason the people of Israel can call upon him, and the reason why you and I can offer our prayers to him today, is because of what God has done for us in our past. "Say to God, 'How awesome are your deeds! because of your great strength your enemies cringe before you.'" What are some of those great deeds? "He turned the sea into dry land, so that they went through the water on foot, and there we rejoiced in him." The people of Israel forever saw their identity secured in that moment when they were trapped, and the Egyptians were behind them and the sea was before them, and they began to move forward, and the sea was opened up, and they were brought to dry land and safety. They never forgot that. On July 4th, we light our fireworks and think about the Declaration of Independence, and it in some ways makes us a people, but it is nothing to compare with that awesome deed with which God rescued his people. We need to ask ourselves this question: Are there times and places in my life in which I've offered a prayer, or had a need, and you've seen God there for you? Was the right person there, in the right place at the right time? Maybe you received a directive that you could never have imagined yourself? Did a door open that you could never plan for? How awesome are your deeds! the Psalmist cries out, and we should too, because of what God has done for us in the past, and with an expectation that he will meet our needs in the present.

We also need to look beyond our own individual lives. "All the earth bows down before you, sings to you, sings out your Name." There was a great sense amongst the Israelites that their God wasn't just there in the midst of their lives, but he was present in all of creation. You can see it reflected in the life of Jesus, because that's another one of the themes from the Psaltery, that if the great king is ruling, there is the promise that he will rule forever, and he will do that in an astounding way. Jesus becomes a fulfillment of that. In fact, there's a great sense as he ministers on the earth that he is at work as God would be at work, controlling creation. Think about it -- every healing work reflects that. He heals a man with leprosy, people who were sick, people who were paralyzed, a woman who was bleeding, men who were blind, persons who cannot hear, people who cannot speak, several different person who were controlled by evil or captured by demons, people who are crippled or deformed. All along the way we see Christ in control, which reflects the majesty of God in control. Think about the way he commands nature: calming the storm, walking on water, feeding 5,000, feeding 4,000, a coin in a fish's mouth, two miraculous catches of fish, and especially the raising of the dead several times. All along the way, Jesus exhibits power over creation, that the Psalmist acknowledges our great king to have.

There's more. Because the people of Israel began to recognize that God could make a difference in their lives as individuals, and that God could touch any portion of the creation, they had a great sense that there would be blessings for their lives. "Come now and see the works of God, how wonderful he is in his doing toward all people." There's a great sense that when you enter into this moment of praise and relationship to God, and acknowledge his blessings, you and I are changed. We become more of who we were created to be. It's a mystery that I can't explain. It parallels what happens with those 70 who go out and are able to do many great works. They come back extolling all that God has done, and what does Jesus say? That is a wonder, but that's not really what is important. "Rejoice not over what you've been able to do, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven."

On the 4th of July, that's the last word for each of us. We have a great nation, a place of tremendous blessing. Some of us make the mistake of looking to the economy, or to some leader, or to our own jobs, for great blessings. But ultimately the Psalmist reminds us, it's the great king who meets our every need, and the real blessing isn't for here and now, it's that our citizenship is written in heaven.

Heavenly Father, thank you for meeting our every need through your awesome deeds. We pray for our country, that you would guide and direct us as a people, that we would reflect your glory and not our own weakness. On this day of celebration, we humbly acknowledge that you are the great king, in Jesus' name, Amen.

Rev. Mark Tusken

We are justified through grace, not through the law

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he said, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" He said to him, "What is written in the law? What do you read there?" He answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." And he said to him, "You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live." But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" Jesus replied, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, `Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.' Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?" He said, "The one who showed him mercy." Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise." Luke 10:25-37

There was a book that was very popular some time ago called "All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten." I think we could revise that to say, "All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned in Sunday School!" Today I want to retell the story of the Good Samaritan from the perspective of our Sunday School children, and I want us to ask ourselves the question: What will the law do, and what can grace do for us? You see, this story is really about someone that is bound up in the law. The lawyer speaks up to justify himself by saying, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" Someone who wants to justify himself is living by the law. That's the "checklist mentality" that says, if I do this, and I do that, and I am here, and I am living this way, then God owes me heaven. That's someone who is living by the law, and doesn't capture in their own heart the spirit of mercy and grace that Jesus wants for us.

So in the midst of that question, Jesus tells a story, and I'm going to tell that story in the way that we tell it to our five-year-olds! I don't mean to be condescending, but I think it will help us all to move from the law to grace. The story Jesus tells is one that was very familiar to the people of Israel. He talks about a journey that many had made from the big city of Jerusalem down to the city of Jericho. They were both delightful places. Jerusalem is in the mountains, and contained the temple. Jericho was the oasis in the midst of the desert. Jerusalem is the high point in the trip, and all the way to Jericho you go downhill. It's a mountainous, dangerous 17-mile journey. Some spots are very barren, and it's not unheard of for the temperature to reach 120 degrees, and at night it's not unusual for it to be freezing. It was dangerous for many reasons. The road itself was rocky and treacherous; there were wild animals there in the wilderness; the climate was difficult; but also, thieves were known to inhabit the area of this road. They would hide along the way knowing that at just the right time they could come out and attack some unsuspecting traveler, and steal all of their goods. That's the background of the story of the Good Samaritan. So here's the story, from a five-year-old's eyes.

Once there was someone who said such amazing things, and did such wonderful things, that the people began to follow him. One day, a lawyer asked him, "What's the most important law?" And the man answered, "You already know." The lawyer responded, "I know we are to love God and our neighbors, but who is my neighbor?" [Now there are little hints on this crib sheet telling me what to do with these model figures in this play set. It says, "Place the traveler in Jerusalem."] So, the man called Jesus told a parable. A person ["begin moving him slowly," it says] was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and robbers came and attacked him, and hurt him, and they left him in the road, half dead. ["Remove the robbers, and return them to the box. Turn the traveler on his side."] A great priest from the temple in Jerusalem was going down the road. He was very busy and important, and he knew the law. The law said that you should not touch a dead person. If he touched the dead person, he was no longer allowed to minister. He passed by on the other side. ["Move the priest to Jericho."] A Levite, another person who also worked at the temple, was going down the road. When he saw the traveler, he passed by on the other side. ["Move the Levite to Jericho."] But, there was a Samaritan. Now, Samaritans were not liked by the people in Jesus' day. He was not even from the same country. He came to the place where the hurt and dying man lay. When he saw him, he had compassion. [A side note: This is a very important word which literally means in the Greek that he was moved from his innermost being with a feeling for the one in need.] He went to him, and gave him medicine, and put bandages on his cuts, and put him on his donkey. [I unfortunately couldn't find the donkey in this play set!] He brought him to an inn. He stayed with him all night. He told the innkeeper that the man could stay until he was well, and that he would pay for his care. He gave him two denarii. [That was two day's worth of wages! Now, everyone in this room has a pretty good idea of how much they earn in two days.] He even promised to pay anything more that was required. Now, which of these three ["place the priest, the Levite, and the Samaritan on the table"] was a neighbor to the man who was robbed and left by the side of the road? That's the question Jesus asked.

It's really a question of law and grace. The priest and the Levite were living their lives according to the letter of the law, and it was deadly. They were really asking this question: What will happen to me if I get involved? I'll be late for my important work. I may become contaminated, and not able to do what I'm supposed to do. He's a wounded traveler, and I don't want to meet that person's needs. Maybe the robbers are still in the area, and will attack me too. People who live their lives seeking to justify themselves are always asking the question, what about me? That's what the lawyer was really asking when he said, what do I have to do to get to heaven? What about me? But the Samaritan was asking the different question. He was asking the question about grace and love. He wasn't asking what would happen to him if he stopped; he was asking what would happen to the hurt traveler if he didn't stop. What will happen if God doesn't use me in this situation? That's the challenge for all of us. In our own will, we become the Priest or the Levite. But in God's love and power, we become different. Will you be the Good Samaritan? Will you live your life by grace and mercy? You see, these two were blind. They failed to see. They failed to feel the need. They failed to act. But this is the Good Samaritan. How will we live our lives? Justifying ourselves, or living in the power of God's love and mercy?

Heavenly Father, each of us finds ourselves in those places where we are too busy or too important or just not caring. Forgive us for those times and places, Lord. And then by the power of your Holy Spirit, change us to live lives that fulfill the law -- not because of what we are doing, but because of your love flowing through us, and all of this because of Jesus, his death and resurrection for us. And that's who we pray to and through, Amen.

No summary available.

Rev. Tony Welty

Prayer:

• What does it look like?
• Who are we praying to?
• How do we pray?

Jesus was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples." He said to them, "When you pray, say:

Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial."

And he said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, `Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.' And he answers from within, `Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.' I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs. So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" Luke 11:1-13

Today in our reading we have what we call "The Lord's Prayer." The early church fathers referred to it as a summary of the entire gospel. I want to look this morning at why that is so, and take a look at what prayer is and what it means for us. I want to start by telling you one of my favorite stories about a Scottish evangelist who had been asked to address a large gathering of young boys in Scotland. He went into a great hall, and he wanted to begin by getting their attention. He looked out over them, and he though he would ask a question. "What is prayer?" he said. He didn't expect any response whatsoever, but to his amazement, many little hands shot up. He called on one of the boys, and the boy said, "Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins and thankful acknowledgement of his mercies." The evangelist was so delighted, that all he could say was, "Thank God, my boy, you're from Scotland!" Could you imagine going into an American elementary school on any given day, and asking that same question? What kind of response would you get? If you walked in and asked, "Kids, tell me what prayer is," what percentage of them would have any clue what that word means, the idea of turning our soul up to God?

I recently saw a survey that said that 87% of Americans have never doubted the existence of God. 81% of Americans said that prayer is a very important part of their daily lives. In looking at that survey, my reaction was of doubt. I really doubted those figures. If 240,000,000 Americans were really praying every day, like that little Scottish boy, things would be different. People would be different. When people pray, people are transformed. That's the heart of prayer, transformation. We Americans in our culture are so busy that we become like Martha in the gospel reading from last week. We scurry about with very long to-do lists. I like to call it the "Eleanor Rigby Syndrome". If you remember that Beatles song, it talks about a woman sitting by this window wearing a face, or mask, that people look at. She keeps this face in a jar by the door. The Beatles ask, who is that face for? A lot of the time, and I know this because I am at this place many times, we fall into a default mode where we have a spiritual face on. Before coming to God, we have a desire to get "cleaned up" and not to be real with him. We tend to put on our spiritual faces, and say to God, "I know you really don't want to hear any of my stuff, so could you please give me the following things." That's not real. If that's how 81% of us pray, we're never going to get very far in changing the culture for God, because we're not going to be people transformed by God's grace. We're not entering into God's presence. Prayer is much more than that syndrome of putting on a happy face, and then when we're done praying, taking it off and putting it back into the jar.

I want to look at some faces of prayer. (None of these are original to me.) One is the turning of the soul to God. That's a great image, isn't it? The living soul turning to the living God, and just being present there. Another image is prayer as a vital function of the Christian life, in which we're formed into Jesus' image. Prayer again is relational; it's about being present before God as he transforms us into Christ's image. Another one is prayer as the way the life of God is nourished in us. This is from Oswald Chambers. He says some striking things about prayer. Many people assume if a man does not pray, his life will suffer. Chambers said, it is rather that the life of God in a person will suffer. People can get through life without praying, but the life of God in a person will never develop outside of being present before God, without allowing him and asking him to change us and form us into the people he wants us to be. Those are some faces, or definitions, of what prayer is. It is opening ourselves up to God.

What does prayer look like? One image given to us by St. Francis is standing on Mt. Alverno in Italy and said nothing but "Oh God," and being swept up in God's glory and the very idea of who God is. He was in a place of adoration much of the time in his prayer life. If you have seen the movie "The Apostle," which came out a number of years ago, you'll remember the great image of the man who called himself Apostle E.F. railing against God in his upper bedroom above the garage, because he had gone through all of these things that had devastated his life. He poured out his anger and anguish and questions before God, because he didn't understand why he was living the way he was living. It's a striking image for a creature to be speaking that way to his creator. The next scene, which is the next morning, you see this peace that has come over this apostle. For me, it was a reminder that there is nothing that we can say to God that is going to shock him. There's nothing that we can bring to God -- a sin that's so grievous and disturbing -- that God is going to turn away and say, "That, I can't handle." There's nothing that we can ever bring to God that will make him turn his face away from us. God already knows where we are. He knows our inmost being, everything about us. That is an image of prayer. After the 8:00 service, a person shared with me an image of prayer from another movie, "Forrest Gump". There's an image of Lt. Dan, where's he's up on this mast on the boat, challenging God -- "Come on! Is that all you got?" It's raining fiercely, and the wind is blowing into his face, and there's this image of a person bound to a wheelchair who has climbed up and strapped him onto this mast, just railing against God. Again, the next morning, there's this peace. That event changed who that man was, because God had compassion on this person. There's nothing Lt. Dan could say that would shock God. All it did was open up Lt. Dan to who God is, and for the first time in his life, he was able to receive something from the creator of the universe, from his creator, from the person who had knit him together. It was a life-changing event. One of the greatest examples is from the scripture teaching of Martha and Mary. As I was looking at the text this week, I had never noticed this before, but it jumped out that Mary had taken the posture of prayer before Jesus, and Jesus recognized that and said, "Martha, Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her." Martha was busy; she had her checklist, she was angry, she wanted Mary to get up and get into the kitchen and help get dinner ready. Mary goes in and sits down at Jesus' feet, and listens to everything he is saying. That's what prayer is about, being present to God, seeing who he is, listening to his voice, and then presenting our requests to God, allowing even our questions to be formed by who God is. That's another image.

How do we pray? One thing I would just say to you is that the way we will pray will be dictated by how God has knit us together. If you are someone who tends to be mystical and experiential, you'll probably not be someone who kneels five hours a day in one place. You will probably move around all over the place, like St. Francis. Or if you are more like somebody who is very methodical, and you are a checklist person, that's okay. You probably will be on your knees in one place for hours, going through one line at a time, and asking God to bless those people you are lifting up in prayer. The way that you pray will be dictated by who you are, the way you've been knit together. The important thing is that we pray, that we make ourselves available to God, and take that time to be present before him.

Who are we praying to? Who is this God that we are before? Who is this God that we are glorifying? Walter Brueggemann said, "God is wild, dangerous, unfettered and free." This God who we come before with literal requests can do magnificent things when we ask him to. C.S. Lewis said, "Christ is like an untamed lion, one who would infuriate enough people to get himself crucified." Some of the great mystics of the past have said, "The Holy Spirit is the wild goose, always ready to lead us into uncharted and exhilarating territory." These are some aspects of who we are praying to, who this God is to which we present what we think are little tiny requests, which are actually big things to him.

There's no area of our life that God does not want to bless. But we have to be in that place of asking. How do we do that? It's going to be different for each of us. The first step is to gain a realization of God's glory. We do that in our corporate prayers together in the Anglican communion when we recite together the song that we sing with the angels. That's all glory and praise. When we say that and sing that, we are putting ourselves in a right relationship with God. God is glorious and magnificent; and yet he is personal and closer to us than our own skin. That's what we are doing when we sing that together. Jesus said, "When you pray, disciples, start with, 'Father, who art in heaven.' This is who you are praying to." And then, "Hallowed be your name." Praise and honor and glory be to your name, God. The third one is, "Your kingdom come." If we really understood what we are asking there, we'd be careful when we said that! Can you imagine if God began to do these things on a grand scale? Can you imagine if we began to ask, and God began to do, the stuff in our midst? What would that look like? So that's where we start, with a realization of God's glory and who he is. The next step is a realization of God's grace. By setting all of our prayers in the context of God's glory and personhood, that's when Jesus asks us to enter into the place of asking for things for ourselves and for our loved ones. That's God's grace. The only reason we can do that is because of Christ Jesus. That's what the New Testament is all about; glorifying God and sending his son Jesus to pay a price for us so that we can be in that relationship with God, and be present before him, and the doors of heaven are opened up to us. That's what it's about. "Give us this day our daily bread." That's what we're asking for. Lord, you know our needs better than we do. We pray for these things. Then we ask, "Lord, forgive us our sins." Again, that only happens through Christ. Because we've been forgiven, Lord help us to forgive all those who have sinned against us. That's an act of grace. Finally, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." Again, that's grace. That's what prayer is about. Two steps -- glorifying God, and receiving God's grace. When you get into that position and posture, and you stay there for long periods of time, things aren't necessarily going to change that you can see, but you are going to begin to change. And your life will change. People around you will change, because God is actively working out in your life his will.

Prayer can be hard. Prayer can be a struggle. But one of the things we remember is that 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." In Jesus' words, every time we go before him and open ourselves to him and pray to him, he's going to respond to us every single time. That's a hard teaching for any of us who have spent any time praying. But Jesus said that it is true. So, when you and I pray, that's the posture we take. We realize who God is, and give thanks for his grace; and then we open ourselves to receive those things. Ask, seek, and knock. That's the heart of prayer.

Father, thank you again for the ways in which you've blessed us. Thank you for revealing yourself to us in your Word, and through worship, and in the liturgy. Thank you for revealing yourself to us as we celebrate communion, and the ways in which you pour out your Spirit in our hearts. Lord, I ask that you would plant seeds this day in our minds and hearts and innermost being, that you would change us, Lord, into the people that you are calling us to be. Help us, Lord, to realize your glory, and to realize and respond to your grace. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Rev. Tony Welty

True Riches

Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me." But he said to him, "Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?" And he said to them, "Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions." Then he told them a parable: "The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, `What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?' Then he said, `I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, `Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.' But God said to him, `You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God." Luke 12:13-21

I have no doubt that most of you have heard at some point in your lives these modern-day myths about money. In a culture like ours, money is so prevalent, and it's so much of a defining factor for so many of us. Many of these myths we almost incorporate into ourselves, and begin to live out of those myths. One of them goes like this: The measure of a man's success is the size of his girth; in other words, the bigger you are, the more successful you are. I heard that one in Texas, a land full of big people! The second one goes: He who has the most toys, wins. Another one goes like this: The worldly golden rule says whoever has the most gold, rules. Each one of these myths, if we incorporate them into our hearts, will drive us towards the end of our lives, where we find ourselves like the man depicted in today's gospel lesson. This is the parable of the rich fool. If we find ourselves in that place at the end of our lives, we'll get the same rebuke that this man received. He was no doubt living out of each one of these myths, and what he received from God was, "You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?" What are you going to do with all of this stuff, and how is it going to help you now? True riches have nothing to do with material things. That's the nugget we get out of the gospel reading for today.

In context, this story comes during a time when Jesus was talking to a great crowd of people who were following him. He was telling them about discipleship -- what it means to follow him, and to live out your life as a believer. In doing this, he had given them a whole series of warnings and encouragements. Some of the warnings were to watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees. What he was talking about there was hypocrisy. Watch out for people who say one thing, but live a completely different way. He also told them to guard against all kinds of greed. Why? Remember the movie from the mid-eighties, "Wall Street"? The character Gordon Gekko says, "Greed is good!" He encourages everyone to buy into the capital system, where at the end of the day what's most important is your own material success. If somebody gets in your way, too bad for them. But Jesus says, watch out for all sorts of greed. Greed will lead you into idolatry. When we live out of a life of greed, we are going to take something or someone and put it in God's place, and begin to worship that, whatever it is. But Jesus also encourages his disciples. He tells them to not be afraid of other people. People can hurt you and even kill your body, but they can't kill your soul. He encourages them by telling them who to be afraid of -- the one who can not only take your body, but throw your soul into hell. Yet, Christ was there representing that person and showing them his absolute love for them. Don't be afraid of people. He also encouraged them to trust absolutely in his ability to provide for them. He encouraged them not to worry about stuff. Don't worry about your life, the little things, or even what you are going to eat or wear. Trust God; don't be afraid to trust him. It's in that context that we get the story of the rich fool.

Why was this guy a fool? How was he any different from us? The first way he was a fool is that he failed to recognize the ultimate source of all wealth, good gifts and good things. If you look at the text, it says that the land of the rich man produced abundantly. This guy had nothing to do with what popped up out of his ground. He may have tilled the soil and planted the seed, but any of you who are familiar with agriculture know that you can plant seed, but it may or may not grow. If a crop comes forth from the land, it is a blessing and a gift. He failed to recognize that he didn't do anything to make his crops grow. They grew because that soil had been blessed. It's still true today. My sister-in-law and her husband live in rural Mississippi, and they live in a development that had been built on a plot of land that had been farmed for over 100 years. It's been almost 2 years, and they still don't have grass! I asked them about this, and her husband (who works in agriculture) said, "The land is sterile." I had never heard that before. The dirt surrounding their house had been so over-farmed that it doesn't have any nutrients left. They will have to bring dirt from another place to have a yard. If the ground is sterile, it's not going to produce anything, no matter how much seed or water you put on the ground. Anything that comes out of the earth is a gift. That's part of what it means to recognize the source of giftedness.

The second thing the foolish rich man did was that he failed to plan with God in mind. He had a great abundance of stuff coming out of the ground, and he wondered what to do with this great bounty of things. His barns were not big enough to store it all. The appropriate response would be to ask, "Lord, what should I do with this great abundance?" But what did he do instead? He tore down his barns and built bigger ones. He took his grain and goods and put it in his huge barns and he relaxed. Right there he already mis-stepped. He failed to plan with God in mind. One of my seminary professors, John Rogers, always said to us, "If you were to make God laugh, tell him your plans!" Isn't that true? How much control do we really have? Listen to what Oswald Chambers says about that same thing: "God seems to have a delightful way of upsetting the plans we've made when we've not taken him into account. We get ourselves into circumstances that were not chosen by God, and suddenly we realize that we have been making our plans without him, that we have not even considered him to be a vital living factor in the planning of our lives. Yet, the only thing that will keep us from even the possibility of worrying is to bring God in as the greatest factor in all our planning." This rich man was not a fool because he was rich; he was a fool because he failed to recognize where all of his riches came from. He was a fool because he failed to plan with God in mind -- the creator of the universe, the sustainer of life. He was also a fool because he failed to trust in God's provision. This is so easy for any of us to do. I'm sure you've experienced that anxiety of finances getting thin, of basements flooding, of all sorts of things happening where you have nothing to do, but trust. The temptation is to say, "We have to do something to take care of this, because it is very uncomfortable." Yet, God says to us, don't worry about that stuff. Trust me. Watch what I can do when you trust me. This rich man was a fool because he failed to trust in God's provision. He said to himself, "You have ample goods laid up for many years; just relax, eat, drink, be merry. You're so smart and wealthy." God says to him, "You fool! Don't you know who I am? Don't you know who you are?" Jesus turns our attention to being rich toward God. So it will be to anyone who gets to the end of their life and says, "I didn't need Jesus because I had all this stuff." God says to us, "What is that going to do for you now?" I'm sure again that you've heard stories of people (maybe only in Texas!) who get buried in their Cadillac! In ancient Egypt, people were buried with tons of treasures and other stuff -- soldiers, riches, goods. Then an archaeologist will dig it up, and it's all still there! One someone is buried in their Cadillac in Texas (my home state), they're going to rot, but this Cadillac will stay in the ground just exactly where it was! It's not going anywhere. You fool! What is all that stuff going to do for you now?

What does it mean to be rich towards God? We look in our Colossians passage, and we find it all there. Paul says that being rich towards God means turning away from the old self and living out of those patterns that were characteristic of the old self. Casting off anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language. That's all part of the old self. None of that has to do with being rich towards God. Being rich towards God means putting to death whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry). Put that stuff to death. Being rich towards God means turning away from that, and turning towards God. The positive aspect of this is to be clothed with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, and forgiveness, and ultimately, love. That's what it means to be rich towards God -- to be rich in love towards him and others. All of these things have nothing to do with material stuff. Nothing. True riches have nothing to do with material things.

I want to share with you part of a story called the tale of two dreams. It's about a young, gifted man with many skills who had a big dream. Right across the street from this man's house was another young man's house who had a little small window where he watched all of these things taking place. What this story is really about is not so much what was being gained by the man with the dream, but what was happening with the other man who sat and watched it all take place. He was deeply troubled by the sting of envy and greed in his own heart, and he turns to the Lord and prays. "I don't know what to do with all of this. I feel terrible. I don't want to covet all of my neighbors stuff. Please help me." The Lord brings a dear friend into his life, and this is the interaction they have with one another. The wise friend says, "What's the matter with you, my friend?" "I'm not certain what's wrong with me," he replied. "But my heart is deeply troubled." The wise friend asks, "Well, what have you done? Why are you deeply troubled?" "It's not that I've done anything," said the man. "Perhaps it's a matter I've discovered." "What would that be?" replied his friend. "I've discovered my neighbor has become very wealthy, gaining a new house, a new car, and new-found success." "And?" said the wise friend. "What do you mean 'and'?" asked the man. "And," quipped the wise friend, "what does your neighbor's success have to do with you? Are you saddened because the Lord has decided out of his generosity to bless someone else with material wealth?" "Well, no; at least I don't think so," responded the man with the little window. "It's just that I realized my own dreams were so far away that they seem to have gone into hiding. I feel very sad. More than that, I think I feel...."  "Envious?" interrupted the wise friend. The man with the little window paused for a moment, and then responded, "Maybe so." The wise friend thought for a moment, and then offered, "It seems to me that you've allowed your neighbor's success to grab your attention, moving your eyes off of the giver of gifts and on to the gifts themselves -- gifts that somebody else has received." "You know," responded the man, "I think you're right. I wonder if that's what Jesus meant when he said to watch out and be on guard against all kinds of greed." "What do you mean?" asked the wise friend. "I mean, I wonder if the great danger of greed and envy is that it causes people to lose focus like me. I've been painfully lost because of something that has nothing to do with me. Just now I realized that I've been obsessed with stuff for a long time, even though I know in my heart that material things can't provide lasting peace and security." "Right," said the wise friend. "It's as if great wealth makes a lot of promises that it doesn't have the power to keep. Like promising to take the edge off of life, making difficult times more bearable, and joyful times more enjoyable. These promises are tempting. I would even say that the deep desire for riches is poisonous to the soul. Let me put it this way: If I can achieve great gain through my own efforts, I won't feel the need to feel as dependant on God as I would if I were destitute. As my riches increase, so will my stature in the eyes of other people. I'll be able to experience the soothing effect of buying things to fill empty spaces in my heart. At least for a little while. As I gain more and more, I risk losing my dependence on God, forgetting that even my next breath is an act of God's grace. You can see the danger here. In a real sense, my gain in riches may cause me to become my own God in my own eyes. When this happens, all sorts of negative outcomes are likely. Ultimately, I will live out of a false sense of security, and fail to realize that one day I am going to lie down in the dust, and everything I've worked for will come to nothing. St. Paul said it himself. We brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. It seems to me," continued the wise friend, "Your dream has not really vanished; rather, I wonder if they are not being brought into sharper focus. I would guess that your deepest desires are riches of another kind... riches towards God, a kind of wealth that has nothing to do with material gain or loss. Lowering your eyes from the face of your Lord, and turning them to behold your neighbor's ecstatic face as he views his good fortune -- I wonder if you have simply realized your greatest need and desire." As the wise friend finished his comment, the man with the little window stood silently. He realized that the Lord God had used this servant to speak truth into his life in a way that is tangible and real and hopeful. Just before the two men parted ways until another day, the wise friend made another suggestion for his friend. He suggested that the man would benefit greatly if he would withdraw and find a quiet place and slowly read chapter 30 in the book of Proverbs. As the man with the little window returned to his house, finding respite in his study, he opened his Bible to the book of Proverbs, as his friend had suggested, and as he opened it and read, his heart was kindled as his eyes fell on this passage: "Two things I ask of you, O Lord. Do not refuse me before I die. Keep falsehood and lies far from me. Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you, and say, 'Who is the Lord?' For I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God. And so the man with the little window, now with a glowing heart, turned his head and looked toward the house of the young man with a big dream. There, in his neighbor's driveway, sat the same shiny sports car, and in the softly lit dining room filled with moving boxes, sat the young man with the big dream and his family as they dined together. Rather unexpectedly, a smile broke out on the face of the man with the little window. He turned his head back into his study, and looked at all of the things that represent to him what was nearest and dearest to his heart. The pictures of his wife and children, the book that had formed and shaped him, the well-worn pages of his Bible he received as a gift from his father, the worn out chair that he sat in as he drew nearer to his Savior -- these keepsakes and reminders of all that is precious to him had been there all along, it's just that now he had fresh eyes to see how truly rich he really was. The young man with the little window, little study, and little house gently closed his eyes, tilted his head upwards, and simply whispered, "Thank you, to the giver of all good gifts."

True riches have nothing to do with material things.

Father, again thank you for the many ways in which you bless us. Thank you for calling us to yourself; thank you for your word. We pray that you would plant seeds in our hearts and that in our hearts you would make fertile ground, and that you would water it with your Spirit; in the name of Jesus, Amen.

Rev. Tony Welty

Faith: Trusting in the Character of God

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible. By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain's. Through this he received approval as righteous, God himself giving approval to his gifts; he died, but through his faith he still speaks. By faith Enoch was taken so that he did not experience death; and "he was not found, because God had taken him." For it was attested before he was taken away that "he had pleased God." And without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever would approach him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. By faith Noah, warned by God about events as yet unseen, respected the warning and built an ark to save his household; by this he condemned the world and became an heir to the righteousness that is in accordance with faith. By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. By faith he received power of procreation, even though he was too old-- and Sarah herself was barren-- because he considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, "as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore." All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them. Hebrews 11:1-16

I want to share with you the story of a woman named Baroness Caroline Cox. She is an English woman who is a nurse, a scientist, and a former Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords. She's a woman familiar with extraordinary acts of faith. She's a humanitarian, and she spends 10 days a month traveling around the globe bringing food, clothes and medicine to people who have absolutely nothing -- to groups of people that you and I will probably never see, who the world has forgotten. Oftentimes she'll show up, and they will say, "Thank God you're here! We thought the world had forgotten about us!" Because she takes journeys such as these on a regular basis, people often ask her to relate her best and worst moments. Oz Guinness relates her response to this question on one occasion: "She thought for a moment, and described with brutal simplicity what it was like to enter a Dinka village after the Sudanese government-backed soldiers had left, laden with human loot. Baroness Cox said, 'The stench of death was overpowering. More than 100 corpses lay where they had been savagely butchered -- men, women, children, even cattle had been cut down or herded into captivity to be carried off to the northern part of the country. Straw huts had been set ablaze, crops razed and devastation and death affronted the eyes everywhere. Worst of all,' she said, 'was the knowledge the the Militia, with their gun ships and rifles, would return. And various villages, once again, would be naked before the ferocity and bloodlust of the fundamentalists from the north. Genocide is an over-worked word,' Baroness Cox said. 'It's one I never use with meaning it, but I mean it.'" The moment she was about to relate came right after the worst, with the raiders gone and the results of their cruelty all around -- husbands slain, children kidnapped into slavery, homes ruined, and they themselves brutalized. The few women who were still alive were pulling themselves together. Their first instinctive act was to make tiny crosses out of sticks that they had found on the ground, and they pushed them into the earth. What were they doing? Fashioning instant memorials to those they had lost? "'No,' Baroness Cox replied. 'The crudely formed crosses were not grave markers, but symbols. The cross sticks that they had made, pressed into the ground at the moment when their bodies reeled and their hearts bled, were acts of faith. As followers of Jesus of Nazareth, they served a God whom they believed knew pain as they knew pain, and blinded by pain and grief themselves, horribly aware that the world had forgotten about them, and would neither know nor care about their plight, they still staked their lives on the conviction that there was one who knew and one who cared. They were not alone.'"

Faith, and acts of faith. Faith, as defined in the 11th chapter of Hebrews in our reading today, is "being sure of what we hope for, and being certain of what we cannot see." As people of God, you and I live our lives by faith, when we live at our best -- when we give our greatest for his glory. Acts of faith are fruit of trust, and trust is the quality of our character that delights God the most. By faith, we're told in Hebrews, Enoch "was commended as one who pleased God. And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him." Having faith means living a life of trust, and living a life of obedience. You and I cannot understand what God is doing a lot of the time in our lives. We have to trust, because we have no idea what he is doing when we hear about these stories from the Sudan, and we hear about Christians like us being brutalized and being crucified. Those things we can't understand when we try to set our minds to understand them. We have to trust. We also have to be obedient, to follow in faith. Even though God knows, in our limited understanding, that we cannot comprehend what he is doing all the time, he still expects us to walk before him in obedience, just like Abraham did. "By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going." So Abraham's trust in the character of God enabled him to walk in obedience before God. It wasn't his faith in his own faith; it wasn't his trust in his own ability to trust. Abraham trusted in who God is. It was God's character that was worthy to be trusted. Through Abraham's obedience "came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore."

Have you ever wondered about faith? Have you ever wondered why the very idea of faith is so difficult and unpopular in our culture? Usually when we think about faith, we think about very earthly things. For example, I have a car that I have no faith in at all! Last week, I was coming back from a house blessing out in the country, and I was about 2 miles away from home, and all of a sudden I hear a click, and I'm driving down the highway with no lights at all. There's people behind me and in front of me. It's just like my car and I vanished from the face of the earth. I don't have faith in a vehicle. For a lot of us, when we come to have faith, we want to have faith in other people, but we can't do that either. People are imperfect. We want to have faith in people to absolutely meet our needs. We can't do it! People are fallen and imperfect. All of us are like that. When we think about faith, we tend to think about very tangible and practical things. But when we widen our perspective and look at the culture around us, we see faith as a word that is barely recognizable. The word faith has been ripped out of the pages of the Bible, and has been stripped of richness. So many times it has been affiliated with different groups of people. For example, many times when you are watching CNN, the word faith will be attached to radical, right-wing politicians. "He's a man of faith! What an idiot!" is something we might hear. Or, the word faith will be used to describe people who can't make decisions for themselves. "They're not like us! They're people of faith, not rational people!" The word faith itself has a negative connotation in our culture. It's related to people who are desperate. You'll hear things like, "Well, I guess all we can do now is have faith." But that is not the picture of Biblical faith. Biblical faith is certain about things that are uncertain. Biblical faith is confident in times of absolute confusion. Biblical faith is bold in the face of any circumstance, even circumstances that threaten death. Think about St. Stephen, as he was being stoned to death. He looked up into the heavens and prayed for his persecutors. He had faith. Think about Christ, in the Garden of Gethsemane, praying, "Lord, if there is any other way you can do this, please do it; and yet, not my will, but your will be done." That is faith that God is moving and has a plan. The Bible is full of people with real, tangible faith. The saints of ages past walked before God, just like Abraham. But their trust was not in themselves; their trust was in the character of the one who had promised them life. That's what it means to have faith, to trust the character of God, the one who calls us.

People of faith, like you and I and the saints in ages past, trust in the greatness of God. There's a great book by James Sire called "The Universe Next Door," which gives a great read on different worldviews. He compares these major worldviews. He says this: "So the greatness of God is the central tenet of Christian theism, that being the belief that there is one God, who sent his only son to die a horrendous death for people that were not even coming to him yet, for people in the future that would call upon his name." He says, "When a person recognizes this, the greatness of God, and consciously accepts it and acts on it, the central conception is the rock, the transcendent reference point that gives life meaning and makes the joys and sorrows of daily existence on planet Earth significant moments, In an unfolding drama, in which one expects to participate forever, not always with sorrows but someday with joy alone." For most of us, we don't wrestle with our faith when things are going well. Usually we begin to wrestle with faith when something has happened in our life. It's kind of the cave-man effect. Usually when things are happening outside of our cave, we don't get to worked up about them. But as soon as something happens inside our own cave, we get worked up. Usually those are the times we begin to wrestle with our faith. Where is God now? What could he be doing in these circumstances that I don't understand? It's in these times that our basic worldview begins to get shaken. Have you ever seen one of those paint-shakers at Home Depot? They violently shake all of the ingredients inside of the paint can. That's kind of what we become like when our faith is shaken up and challenged. But God is not like that. He said, "I never change. I'm not like shifting shadows. I'm the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. I don't change." When our faith is shaken, we have that transcendent reference point that's not going anywhere. When our faith is shaken, we're the ones being shaken up. When our core belief system is strained, a lot of times we begin to realize that what's in our worldview is based on the stand of popular opinion rather than the rock of divinely revealed truth as we find it in the scriptures. Just think about radio ads, or television shows that you've seen, or things you've seen on the Internet. All of these things contain bits of worldview data. For most of us, when we're watching a show, we're receiving this data usually subliminally. We're not even aware that our worldviews are being shaped by this information. When our faith begins to shake, these tidbits of information come up to the surface, and many times that's what we begin to operate out of, this worldview that's been formed without our even knowing it. Listen to some of these popular worldview phrases, that I'm sure you've heard: "You can believe anything you want, as long as it's sincere." Not true! That's not out of the scriptures. "It's really not about one thing or another; as long as you have spirituality, it's all good." That's from MTV, presented as truth. "Your truth is your truth, and my truth is my truth; we can coexist together, because it really doesn't matter." Or this one I heard at a soccer game from another parent: "Really all religions are the same; it's all about being good." No! That's nowhere to be found in the scriptures. None of these things are in the Bible. They are popular cultural myths. That's what I was marinated in during college. We heard nothing about scriptures; what we heard was, "Just relax! You're fine; I'm fine; we're all fine. There's no absolute truth, so believe whatever you want."

What's missing from each one of these statements? Two things, which are crucial to faith. The first one is a fixed reference point. That is, God the Father, who described himself as someone who never changes, no matter what's going on in our lives. Without that point, faith is impossible. The second part of that is a reference point that is worthy of trust. This is where Christian theism is different from other faiths and worldviews. Only Christian theism - the belief that there is one God, who sent his one and only son to die for people, so that they can come into perfect relationship with him - completely satisfies the need for absolute trust, leading to obedience. Walking before a living God in faith and trust. Only Christian theism allows for adherence to absolutely trust in the character of the one who promised. Not in our own abilities to trust. Another ad I saw showed a screen that was split in two, and one person was talking on each side. On one side there was a person who was obviously a teacher, and who was expounding on the theory of evolution. On the other side was another person teaching, expounding on the theory of creation. They were talking at the same time, and as they finished, the last words of the first person were, "And this is how man came to be." On the one side, the person said, "And God rested on the seventh day." Then the narrator came on and said, "Vote for something."  What's the message there? That it doesn't matter. Pick one. What you see there is two radically different views of the way the world began, and the way things came to be. Two worldviews are being presented as completely irrelevant. It's saying that truth isn't what is important; what is important is that you vote. That's radically different from what we believe as Christians. As followers in Christ, we stake our claim in the fact that truth does matter. We stake our lives on the fact that truth matters absolutely. Just like the women in the Dinka village, our faith is not an empty, terministic faith, but it's built on the foundation that Jesus Christ really lived and died and rose again from the dead. That type of faith allowed those women, in the worst moment of their life, to pick up little sticks and make a symbol representing faith. As one Christian writer put it, "Faith, as the Bible teaches it, is faith in God coming against everything that contradicts him. A faith that says, 'I will remain true to God's character, whatever he may do.' The highest and gr