Text: Mark 4:3-9 Series: “Jesus’ Parables and the Mystery of the Kingdom” Years ago, when I first started out as a pastor, the Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention introduced me to something called the Annual Church Profile. That profile was, for all intents and purposes, a scorecard of a church’s performance over the past year, which was to be turned into the state convention, which then sent it on to the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention so that the denomination might know how churches were doing in term of baptisms and missions dollars contributed and attendance in worship and Sunday School. Those statistics were in turn printed in the respective state Baptist newspapers so that everyone could see how their church stacked up against other churches in their community or even their state. Needless to say, it was the perfect vehicle for creating friendly competition between otherwise cooperating churches and for raising the anxiety level of their pastors, who spent many a sleepless night over the sluggish performance of their congregations and how that sluggishness reflected on those pastors. The Annual Church Profile is still very much around, and we turn it in each fall. The statistics are also still compiled and published for all to see. It’s just that nobody pays as much attention to them anymore, and for good reason. Such statistics give us Baptists the impression that we are in some way responsible for the results of our ministry efforts and if we would only try harder or work smarter or motivate one another more inspiringly, we’d see more growth in all the numbers.  I am not against growth. By now, that ought to apparent to all of you. And I’m not against hard work or smart work or inspiring motivation. I’m not even against counting numbers. But over the course of time, I’ve come to see that all God calls us to do is to live out the Gospel, the good news of Jesus, focusing on our faithfulness to that calling and leaving the results to Him. Such is one of the points Jesus was emphasizing in his Parable of the Sower, which I like to term the Parable of the Foolish Farmer. Most of you are familiar with that parable. But have you come to hear it from the standpoint of the man who goes out to sow his seed, sowing it in a way that makes it appear that he has no idea what he is doing? Let me explain. The fourth chapter of Mark’s Gospel introduces the largest block of teaching material in Mark’s telling of the Jesus story, a Gospel that is otherwise known for its action-orientation. And even then, Jesus’ teaching takes place in a kind of rapid-fire fashion so that the crowd who hears it has a hard time staying up with Jesus’ stories and his disciples beg for more detailed explanation as to what these teachings mean. Notice how this parable is bracketed by a command to listen. Jesus does so to help his audience understand that when he bids them to listen, he’s talking about much more than physical hearing; he’s talking about life application. He’s talking about living the word. He’s talking about not letting such important instruction go in one ear and out the other.  “Listen,” Jesus tells them. “A farmer went out to sow his seed; and as he was scattering his seed,” which is the point where we begin to see that this farmer is of a different ilk. He isn’t your better than average farmer. Why do I say that? A smart farmer would be careful where he sows his seed. A smart farmer wouldn’t be sowing his seed into less than ideal soil. Yes, a smart farmer would understand that all sowing involves some loss; that’s inevitable. Not all seed comes to fruition. But a smart farmer would make sure that he’s not sowing his seed into areas that promise no chance for a harvest. He wouldn’t be scattering his seed; he would be strategically sowing it. No, this farmer is not a smart farmer; he’s a foolish one, because he does nothing more than throw his seed to the wind. And look what happens. Some of it falls along the path, where the birds swoop down and eat it up. Some of it falls on rocky places that have little soil. It springs up in those rocky places, but when the sun comes up, the plants get scorched and they wither because they have no roots. Some of the seed falls among the thorns, and as the thorns grow up they choke out the plants that grow with them so that the plants bear no grain. You hear this story and you say to yourself, “What was this farmer thinking?” But then something happens that takes your breath away. Some of the scattered seed is blown by the wind so that it falls into good soil, where it comes up, grows, and produces a remarkable harvest. Even the best farmer in Jesus’ day would have expected at best to get a sevenfold harvest, but this foolish farmer gets much more than that. He gets thirtyfold; that’s astonishing. He gets sixtyfold; that’s unheard of. He gets a hundredfold; that’s head spinning. So, where did such a harvest come from? “He who has ears to hear,” says Jesus, “let him hear.” You see, it wasn’t the farmer who produced the harvest. No farmer produces a harvest, even the smartest of farmers. It was God who smiled upon the farmer’s folly and brought the unimaginable out of something that should have produced much, much less.  Do you see the point of the parable? God only expects us to be sowing the seed of the Gospel. God doesn’t expect us to try to figure out where the good soil is. None of us has that ability. What appears to us to be good soil often turns out to be hard and rocky and thorny, where what appears to be a hopeless dead end turns out to be fertile and rich. No, God only expects us to cast the seed and then to trust Him with the results.  Are you familiar with the poem by Elizabeth York Case, titled “There Is No Unbelief?” The title is a bit misleading. After all, there most definitely is unbelief in this world. But that’s not her point. Her point is that certain actions in life show the depth of our faith, and none shows that depth more than the planting of a seed. Here’s how the poem goes: There is no unbelief; Whoever plants a seed beneath the sod And waits to see it push away the clod He trusts in God.  We sow. We plant. We scatter. We trust God for the results. Do you remember the story of Johnny Appleseed? That was his nickname. His real name was John Chapman. Born in Massachusetts in the late 1700s, John set out for what at that time was the pioneer west, Ohio and Pennsylvania, casting apple seeds everywhere he went, hence the nickname. As the story goes, many of the apple orchards in the American Midwest stem from the seeds that Johnny Appleseed scattered.  Two things about Johnny Appleseed’s story I find interesting. One, many in Johnny Appleseed’s day found him eccentric, unusual, and more than a tad foolish. That probably doesn’t surprise you. But the second thing might.  He was also a missionary. He was a person of deep faith who saw his scattering as a way of giving witness to his love of creation and the God who was behind it. “Whoever plants a seed beneath the sod and waits to see it push away the clod. He trusts in God.” Do we trust in God? If so, then we won’t so much be an obsessive concern over the results we’re generating as much as there will be a constant readiness on our part to scatter the good news of Jesus everywhere life takes us, casting Gospel seed and trusting in God to bring the harvest. While there may not be a place on any earthly Annual Church Profile to account for such obedience, there will be in heaven, the place where God’s harvest will be gathered, thirtyfold, sixtyfold, one hundredfold in which there will also be a place for you and for me. Mark 4:3-9

Mountain Brook Baptist Church

Casting Seed and Trusting God

Text: Matthew 13:24-30 Series: "Jesus’ Parables and the Mystery of the Kingdom” Because Jesus first ministered primarily in the region of Galilee, a rural area in Israel known for its farming and its fishing, a good many of his teachings drew from those life experiences. The fact that Jesus felt led to do so reflects his point of view that the Kingdom of Heaven isn’t merely an “other-world” phenomenon. It involves instead the inbreaking of God’s reign upon this earth, particularly in the life of those who embrace it, so that, even as Jesus taught his disciples to pray, “God’s Kingdom might come and God’s will might be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  Those of you who farm or fish are in a better position than the rest of us to resonate with Jesus’ teachings. Because I do neither, it takes me a bit more effort to understand what Jesus was getting at. And yet when I do, I find the instruction both compelling and challenging. I find that it drives me to my knees as it calls my commitment into question and bids me open my heart even more to the grace that alone can set me back on my feet. Such are the emotions that come over me as I hear this parable of the Weeds and the Wheat.  Consider this parable. A man goes out to sow good seed in his field. It’s the time of the year when farmers go out to plant their crop of wheat in anticipation of an abundant harvest, and this particular man has taken great pains to sow the best seed he can get his hands on. He’s a smart farmer; wouldn’t you say? But evidently, at some point along the way this farmer has made an enemy, the kind of enemy that will go to any length necessary to do you in. This enemy thought it would be a good trick to sow weeds among the man’s wheat, and not just ordinary weeds. This enemy had snuck into the fields during the night and began sowing a type of weed that would be indistinguishable from the wheat in the first part of the growing season. That’s why as the wheat and the weeds began to grow, it became apparent to the man’s field workers that something was awry. They became perplexed. They knew their master was a smart farmer. How did this happen? And so they approach him.  “Sir,” they say to the owner, “Didn’t you sow good seed in your field? (Their expectation was that he had.) Where then did these weeds come from?” It didn’t take the owner long to figure out what had happened. “An enemy did this,” he tells his servants. You see, the owner knew that things like this don’t happen out of the blue. The owner could see how not everyone wants to see good seed come to harvest and good people prosper. Whether it be from hatred or jealousy, envy or pure evil, there will always be those who will work to sabotage the good that others are trying to accomplish. “Do you want us to go and pull them up?” the servants asked, which was a reasonable question. Most people who work the land, whether they be big-time farmers or backyard gardeners, are always worrying about weeds and how best to get rid of them, but not this farmer. No, he takes an unconventional position. “Don’t pull them up, at least not yet. Let both grow together until the harvest when you can tell them apart. At that time I’ll tell the harvesters to collect the weeds first and tie them into bundles to be burned, and then to gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.” What Jesus wants us to hear is this: As long as life goes on, evil will always mingle with the good and hypocrites with the righteous so that as his followers we must arm ourselves with patience in the face of situations that the Enemy, the Devil, intends to bring about to disturb us and distract us. “Don’t pull them up. Let both grow together. Everything will be sorted out at the harvest so that the weeds will be burned and the wheat will be gathered.” Clearly, Jesus is telling his disciples to be careful not to give up on anyone quicker than God does, which is a most important lesson. After all, think of the number of people who have been rooted out of God’s field because of the attitudes and actions of well-intentioned but misguided souls. The bottom line is that we don’t have the perspective we need to tell the wheat from the weeds. No one does. Only God. And God says, what? “Let them grow together.” That’s an important lesson to be sure. But I see an equally important one, an even more encouraging one. Instead of being tasked with the responsibility of pulling up the weeds, we can concentrate on being the wheat that God in Christ has planted us to be. After all, weeding the field probably doesn’t hold a lot of appeal to most of us; it certainly doesn’t to me. What makes my soul sing is to invest myself in work that brings glory to God. What makes me to feel joy in my soul is to be about that work that makes a difference for Christ. But if I have to worry about getting rid of all the weeds that are in the world, then I won’t have any energy left for proclaiming the gospel, the good news of Jesus which is able to change even the vilest of souls, even your soul and mine. Fred Craddock was a teacher of preachers, whose stories I have shared with you on occasion. In one of his sermons he invites us to look back at some of our old pictures.  “I’ll bet some of you looked pretty weedy,” he says.  “I’ll bet some of you were the little kid the parents of your friends didn’t want you playing with. I’ll bet some of you where the kid, who at one time or another, someone thought needed to be weeded from the classroom. I’ll bet some of you were the kid the coach was advised to drop from the team. I’ll bet some of you were the boy who some girl’s father told her to dump, or the girl who some boy’s mother said, ‘I guess she’s all right; but she’s not the one for you.’ But look at you, little weed. Look at what you’ve become. Thank God, somebody spared the sickle back then. You might have been history.” But you’re not. You’re not history. You are very much a shock of wheat in the garden of God. So, focus on what you can do to cast good seed so that other wheat might grow with you. Be fruitful in what God has given you to do. Be fixed on those God has called you to serve. Don’t be sidetracked or sabotaged by those who would seek you to discourage you. Don’t be worrying about who you can trust and who is out to get you. And be patient. Understand that God’s harvest may be some time away. Believe that until then, even the weeds you see around you may by God’s grace in Jesus Christ be changed into a shock of wheat even more fruitful than you. Remember your own story and how Jesus saved you.  In a world where people may think that it’s easy as pie to tell the good from that bad and may think that bad people can’t change, may we stand up to say, “That’s not the truth. That’s not the Gospel. Only God knows a person’s heart, and only God is capable of taking a heart that is not right and making that heart to be so.” Mary Hollingsworth is a pastor’s wife. Some years ago, she wrote a book titled Fireside Stories, one of which is a story about a man she calls Rick. That’s not his real name, but it’s his real story. Rick lived in small town down South, where Mary and her husband were serving. He was a big, burly sort of guy. Rick drove a truck, chewed tobacco, and hit home runs on his company-sponsored softball team. Rick rarely came to church or participated in any church activities. But one day, some of Rick’s friends, who did go to church, told him that they needed his help putting on a play for Vacation Bible School. As you can imagine, Rick wasn’t real excited about anything like that. But after some teasing and arm-twisting, he finally agreed to help. Ironically, they asked him to play Jesus in the play, about whom Rick knew very little.  The pastor’s wife had written the play, and when she saw Rick in his Jesus costume, she almost laughed out load because it seemed so out of character for both Jesus and Rick. But still, she had to admit that Rick did appear to be taking his role seriously, so she contained herself and congratulated him on how well he was playing the part. When VBS arrived, Rick played his role to the hilt, yelling at the money changers in his Southern accent, “Y’all get out of here! You can’t turn my Father’s house into a den a’ thieves.” Mary thought to herself, “Big mistake.” But then she began to notice Rick showing up in church over the weeks that followed. She saw some of the children who had been at VBS whispering behind Rick’s back, “Look! There’s Jesus!” And slowly, but surely, she began to see a change in other aspects of Rick’s life. He quit drinking and chewing. He cleaned up his speech. He began hosting youth activities with his wife. He started going on church mission trips. And before long, he was teaching a boy’s Sunday School class. After a few years, he was elected to be a Deacon. In short, Rick stopped acting like Jesus and began living like Jesus instead.  He went from being weedy to being wheat. And that, brothers and sisters, is how God’s harvest field ultimately grows. So, settle down and settle in. The Enemy may be at work, but God’s work is always much greater. And in the end, you will know the wheat from the weeds. Until then, be thankful that you know where you will stand when the Day of Judgment comes. And if you don’t; well, the good news is that there’s still time for God to change you so that you will.   Matthew 13:24-30

Don't Let the Weeds Get the Best of You

Text: Mark 4:30-32 Series: “Jesus’ Parables and the Mystery of the Kingdom” Do you remember the Mother Goose nursery rhyme you learned as a child, the one that went like this? Mary, Mary, quite contrary, How does your garden grow? With silver bells, and cockle shells, And pretty maids all in a row. Now, I’m not much of a gardener, but that seems to me to be a strange sort of garden; don’t you think? Yes, silver bells and cockle shells are types of flowers. But pretty maids? What’s that about?  Suffice it to say that many see the rhyme as having a dark meaning, one that goes back to 16th century Scotland and Mary, Queen of Scots. The origins of the rhyme are not fully known, but from what the rhyme tells us, one thing is crystal clear. This “Mary” is a different kind of gardener, she is a contrary gardener; and by that I don’t think that description of Mary refers just to her countenance. I believe it refers more to the contrary way in which this Mary goes about her gardening. But even then, the rhyme poses the question, “Does her contrary approach to gardening lead to any results? Does her garden grow?” because that’s what gardens are supposed to do. Gardens are supposed to grow. So, how does your garden grow? I’m not talking so much about your garden at home or at your farm or on your back porch. I’m talking about what you do for the Kingdom of God and how your faith has been planted in such a way that it yields the results our God is looking for. According to Jesus, this result is what matters most to God; and if we have nothing to show for our efforts, more than likely that’s the case because of how we have been following too much the prevailing view of life and have not fully adopted the contrarian ways of the Kingdom of God. So spoke Jesus in this Parable of the Mustard Seed. It’s a parable found only in Mark’s Gospel, though there are parables in Matthew and Luke that make a similar point. Nonetheless, the Gospel of Mark was originally intended for believers in the Imperial City of Rome, the seat of the Emperor Caesar, a ruler who would not tolerate contrarian views of any type to his authority. But of course, Christians could not accept the authority of Caesar; Jesus was their Lord. Therefore, their faith in Christ was a contrarian one in their first century world, and this parable Jesus told helped them to see that as small as their witness must have seemed to be in comparison to the greatness of Caesar and the Roman Empire, their witness to Jesus would in fact win the day.  This parable is the last of three “seed parables” in the fourth chapter of Mark’s Gospel, the emphasis on which is the mustard seed. Now, as most of you know, in Jesus’ day, the mustard seed was the smallest of all seeds. A mustard seed was no more than one or two millimeters in diameter, which is about the thickness of your driver’s license. So, unless you had lots of mustard seeds in your hand, you’d likely not be able to see one with your naked eye. Therefore, what Jesus tells us is that something as grand and glorious as the Kingdom of God stems from such a small and humble beginning as a mustard seed.  Should that truth really come as a surprise to us? Think about how God has always worked in ways most have always missed, because they were looking in other directions. In the Old Testament we read of how God chose a people for Himself not from a mighty nation like Egypt or Assyria, Babylon or Persia, but from a band of nomads who had descended from Abraham, a nation called Israel, “they who strive with God.” We see how when God chose to send His Messiah, the Agent of His Salvation into the world, he did, as the prophet Micah prophesied, in Bethlehem Ephrathah, which though “little among the tribes of Judah,” would the one from which would come “the ruler of all Israel” (Micah 5:2). We see it in the prophet Zechariah, as he prophesied about the good future God had for His people, offered them this warning: “Who despises the day of small things?” (Zechariah 4:10). And in the New Testament, we see these same contrarian tendencies played out in Jesus, who was born to a virgin, raised in a small village Nazareth, and crucified in a seemingly barren outcropping outside the gates of Jerusalem called Calvary, Golgotha in the Hebrew, the Place of the Skull. Evidently, it’s not just in our day that people have automatically assumed that bigger is always better. People in Bible days did as well, which explains why so many then and so many today miss out on so much of what God is about in our midst. They’re looking for growth in all the wrong ways and in all the wrong places. This is not how it will be with the Kingdom of God, says Jesus. “The Kingdom is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground. Yet when you plant it (not if, but when you plant it), it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade.” What’s interesting about this parable is that Jesus chooses the garden plant as the image of how and to what end God’s Kingdom would grow. He didn’t choose a magnificent oak as did Ezekiel or a majestic cedar as did Isaiah. Jesus chose a garden plant, a big shrub. Yes, the shrub Jesus spoke of was one that could grow as high as 8 to 10 feet. But it wasn’t the height that was the important thing; it was the fact that the birds of the air, which in the Bible always refers to the nations, will be able to come and perch in its shade. If there’s a principle for us to take from this parable, it’s the principle that bigger is not always better; better is better, with better being our ability to live into the purpose to which God has called us – that purpose being the winsomeness of our witness that might attract those looking for a place to perch to consider the peace that perching with a people who belong to Jesus can bring. We live in a day when there seems to be a lot of handwringing going on around the future of the church. The prevailing wisdom is that things, which were bleak prior to COVID, will be even bleaker after it, as people continue in the habit of staying away from church to the point that, as some experts are predicting, one in three churches will close their doors in the next year. And so many churches have begun doing their best to emulate the prevailing culture so that their church won’t seem irrelevant and out of touch with the masses. But is that the best way to grow the Kingdom? I don’t think we should ever forget the words of William Inge, Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, England, who back at the turn of the last century, in 1911, uttered these immortal words of warning to the church: “It is not certain that religious bodies ought to cooperate with secular movements at all,” said Inge. (For) if you marry the spirit of your generation, you may well become a widow in the next.” (“Christian Ministers and Politics,” The Wells Journal, December 14, 1911, p. 6) I don’t know what the future for Mountain Brook Baptist Church will look like post-COVID, and I don’t believe anyone does. But what I do know is that there are plenty of birds looking for a place to perch and if we at this church would be willing to employ whatever measure of faith we might have at our disposal, small as it may seem to us to be, then the God who is the Lord of all creation and who has granted to us the possibility of eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, that same God will work through this church in the most remarkable ways as we trust our future fully to Him. Are you willing to do that in your life, and just as importantly, are you willing to do it in concert with others God’s Spirit has brought our way? It is, after all, the only way this garden will grow. And while we may not grow to be the biggest church, we will certainly grow to be the most faithful one, which in the end will be what to God matters most of all.  Mark 4:30-32

What Makes Your Garden Grow?

Text: Matthew 25:31-46 Series: “Jesus’ Parables and the Mystery of the Kingdom” You’ve heard many say that in all of human history there never has been a more polarizing time than the one we’re now living in. I don’t know if that’s actually the case; humans always tend to be somewhat polarized. We inevitably divide ourselves from others in terms of loves and loyalties. You see it in everything from politics to sports teams to musical tastes and more. It’s just because we’re living with the polarization today that it just seems to be true that this is the worst of times. I prefer to ponder the matter from a deeper perspective, one that asks the question, “Where does this human impulse to divide ourselves from others come from? Why is it that we must have some person or some group to set ourselves apart from?” Might it be that in some unconscious way our lesser divides hint at a much great one, the divide between right and wrong, the divide between good and evil? And of course, as we think about that greater divide, we’d like to think that the side we’re on is always the right side, the good side. But how do we know that we are? One way of making sure is by checking our hearts against a parable that Jesus told – the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats. Now, some might say, “I didn’t know that was a parable! I thought it was a prophecy.” And a case could be made that it was more of a prophetic teaching, until you remind yourself that all parables contain a prophetic punch. But I see this teaching as a parable because of how it appears to conclude a series of parables Jesus had been telling his disciples, all of which are connected by an emphasis on the end times when each of us will stand before Jesus to give account for our faithfulness. In this parable, the last one that Jesus told before going to the cross, Jesus is emphasizing to his disciples how more than anything else he will be looking for a faith that has been lived out in unfettered kindness toward those in profound need. The parable combines imagery from both the royal courts and shepherd’s fields of the first century world, as it invites us to see Jesus as both the Good Shepherd and the King of Kings. “When the Son of Man comes in his glory,” says Jesus, "and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. And all the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheet from the goats.” And that’s where the story gets interesting. The sheep this Shepherd King will put on his right and the goats he will put on his left. The right side was the preferred side in the ancient world, the side of honor, and sheep were recognized by Jesus as more valuable than goats. But the strange thing about Jesus’ teaching is that in his day most people considered goats the most valuable, so that Jesus, as he did on many occasions, was inverting the notion of value as far as God’s Kingdom is concerned. But of course, this story is not really about sheep and goats; it’s about faithfulness, and how the Son of Man will divide the faithful from the unfaithful so that we might know how to order our lives while we still have the chance. The determining factor will be how we treat those less fortunate, those who have received a raw deal in life, those who need connection and compassion. To those on the right, the King (note the change from Son of Man) will invite them to enter into “kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I need clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”  And how will those righteous souls respond? They will be surprised, shocked is a better word. “Lord, when did we see you in such distress?” Clearly, their motivation has been anything but a personal one. They haven’t been trying to earn the King’s favor. They’ve only been focused on serving his cause. And to those the King will explain, “I tell you the truth, whenever you did it to the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it unto me.” Then the verdict will be rendered to those on the other side, the left side. To them the King will demand their departure, departure to a place reserved for the devil and his angels. They will be consigned to eternal punishment because they did not serve the King when he was in need. And they too will express surprise at their verdict. No, stronger than that, they will push back. “When did we see you in such distress?” And the King will answer them, “Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do it for me.” It wasn’t that those the King condemned lacked opportunity to show their faithfulness. It was that they forfeited those opportunities. They forfeited them out of callousness and conceit and not for a moment did they realize that there would be lasting consequences from their disobedience, consequences that they would rue for all time. So, what is this parable saying to us today?  Is it saying that we should be discounting our evangelistic efforts and ramping up our advocacy for social justice? No, it’s not saying that; and anyone who would tell you otherwise is trying to sell you on a false polarity. The issue for the church today is not social justice at the expense of evangelism; it is instead a combining of the two so that we distinguish ourselves as Jesus’ followers by the way we promote his Kingdom causes through our words and our deeds, which ultimately are for the benefit of those who cannot help themselves, which includes all of us. So, whose side are you on? In the end the choice is not so much between justice or injustice, right or wrong, good or bad. None of is pure enough in our hearts to be able to make those determinations anyway. What Jesus is telling us in this parable is that it’s better for us to minister to human hurt whenever we cross paths with it and wherever we find it.  When I was in high school, I remember my French teacher requiring her class to read The Plague by Albert Camus, a French existentialist who wrote this story about a 19th century plague in the country of the north African country of Algeria, a plague that to Camus symbolized the indifference that too many people have to the suffering of others, given how they would rather think that their suffering is more important. I don’t remember all that much about the story except for the takeaway our teacher wanted to impress upon us. It was a statement by one of the characters that goes as follows: “on this earth there are pestilences and there are victims, and it is up to us, so far as possible, not to join forces with the pestilences.” Maybe that’s the same takeaway Jesus invites us to see in this parable as each day the Final Judgment draws nearer for one of us. Focus on doing all you can to show compassion to those Jesus sends your way who are need of it. Then Judgment Day won’t be for you a day to dread; it will instead be one of vindication, as the King sets you on his right hand and invites you to enter into the kingdom, “the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” Forasmuch as you showed compassion to the last and to the least, all the time you were in reality showing it to Jesus too. Matthew 25:31-46

Whose Side Are You On?

Text: Luke 10:25-37 Series: “Jesus’ Parables and the Mystery of the Kingdom” “You are a sight for sore eyes.” Have you ever had someone say that to you? Have you ever said it yourself to another person?” If for some reason you’ve never heard that expression before, it’s a declaration of someone’s deep gladness for another person’s presence, especially for that person’s presence in an hour of pressing need. And we’ve all been in such a situation, a situation where something has happened, and life has taken its toll on us. But despite whatever damage has been done, another person has shown up to come to our aid and to help us get back on our feet. At times it’s a family member. At other times it’s a neighbor. At other times it’s a colleague or a business partner. And at some times it’s a complete stranger, a person unbeknownst to us who was moved by our circumstance and led to do something to ease our pain. When life beats us up and we stand in need of serious help, regardless of where that help comes from, we embrace it, and when we are at a point where we’re able to process it, we think of that individual who came along to help us as a “Good Samaritan.” Now, that’s an expression I know you’ve heard before because it’s one that gets thrown around in our society pretty frequently. We hear it used to describe everything from automobile clubs to charitable organizations to evacuation strategies for major cities in times of natural disasters. Even in a day of rampant biblical illiteracy, mention the phrase “Good Samaritan,” and everyone has an idea what you’re talking about, even if they don’t know exactly where in the Bible the story of the Good Samaritan comes from. As we’ve seen today, the story comes from Luke’s Gospel, and only from Luke’s Gospel, which makes good sense. Luke was the Gospel writer who had a heart for the marginalized and dispossessed, the ones beaten up most by life, and it was Luke who better than anyone saw the good news of Jesus Christ as extending to all persons, even to Samaritans, who in Jesus’ day were looked upon by righteous Jews as suspect and questionable and not at all to be trusted, given how they had compromised their religious purity years ago, back in Old Testament times and had been making life difficult for God’s people ever since. Now, you can appreciate why Jesus chose such a character for the story he shared with a Jewish scribe, an expert in the law of Moses, who one day approached Jesus with a question on how he might inherit eternal life. Their exchange could have been a brief one. When the lawyer questioned Jesus, Jesus answered with a question of his own. “You’re the expert; what does the Law say?” And when the lawyer replied by combining Deuteronomy with Leviticus to come up with, “Love God, Love Neighbor,” Jesus affirmed where the lawyer had landed. “Do this,” promised Jesus, “and you will live.” But for the lawyer Jesus’ affirmation wasn’t enough. Perhaps he felt he had lost the high ground in his conversation with Jesus, this untrained Galilean rabbi. Why else wouldn’t he have turned and gone his way, satisfied that Jesus had assured him he was on the right track. But no, Luke tells us, “seeking to justify himself,” the lawyer came back with another question, a probing question, “And who is my neighbor,” which led Jesus to tell his story. “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho.” No doubt the lawyer himself had made that trek many, many times. The road between Jerusalem and Jericho was windy and narrow, and it was lined with numerous caves where robbers could lie in wait for unsuspecting travelers. And sure enough, according to Jesus’ story, one such traveler was waylaid, robbed, and beaten, and left by the side of the road for dead.  What a horrible place to be – stripped and beaten and left for dead. It was every traveler’s worst nightmare. But not long thereafter a priest happens by. What luck! What a sight for sore eyes. Surely, this priest will stop to help this hapless man. But remarkably he doesn’t. No, Jesus tells us, he passes by on the other side. And just as the lawyer was no doubt left scratching his head as to why the priest didn’t stop to help the man, lo and behold, the next best thing comes along, a Levite, a person whose sole responsibility in life is serving in the Jerusalem temple. But no, the Levite doesn’t stop either. The two most likely candidates to have helped this unfortunate man have passed him by and have even gone to the other side! “What kind of story is this?” the lawyer must have been thinking to himself. “Is it an anti-preacher story? Is that where Jesus is going?  Will an ordinary Israelite turn out to be the hero, or maybe even a lawyer? Will an angel appear to take the man to heaven where he will inherit eternal life?” And just as the lawyer is trying to sort out all the possibilities, Jesus reveals the answer. It’s a Samaritan. And notice, Jesus doesn’t call him a “Good” Samaritan. In fact, at no point in the story does Jesus ever use the word “good” to describe him.  We’ve added that adjective, and if we would remove it and just read “Samaritan,” maybe we could recover something of the shock that would have come over the lawyer when Jesus introduces him as the lead character in the story. Notice what the Samaritan does. In spite of his busyness, (and clearly he is on business - why else would he be so far from home?), the Samaritan does what he can by sharing what he has. He doctors the victim’s wounds, puts him on his donkey, takes him to an inn, and instructs the innkeeper to take care of him, essentially giving the innkeeper a blank check that he will be good for upon his return.  And then, after telling that gripping story, Jesus turns to the lawyer and asks him a final question, “Now, which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” To which the lawyer, who clearly was not a supporter of “Samaritan Lives Matter,” answered, “The one who had mercy on him.” He couldn’t even say his name. “Then go,” Jesus told him, “go and do likewise.” Let me ask you a question: “Who do you identify with in this story?” My guess is that you would say, “the Samaritan.” At least that’s who we’d like to identify with. After all, we call him “good” and we want to be good; we want to be merciful. And that’s a bad thing; not a bad thing at all. But the only way we can get to that place is first to see ourselves as the wounded man, as the person beaten up along life’s way who is need of someone to come along and help. You see, when the lawyer asked Jesus the question, “Who is my neighbor?” he was thinking of himself. But when Jesus answered him, Jesus invited him to put himself in a position of need and then ask the question, “Who needs help from me?” For only then could the lawyer see that neighborliness knows no proximity, love knows no boundaries, and mercy knows no limits. Is that what you see? Someone has said that every church needs an eleven-foot pole to be able to deal with all the neighbors it wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. When you think about it, we actually have such a pole, one that we put out in the front yard of the church every spring to remind this community what our church is all about. It’s a cross. It represents the emblem of suffering and shame that Jesus bore as one stripped and beaten and lifted up to die. People pass by it on Montevallo Road every day and how many do you think see it for what it really is – God’s power unto salvation for Jews and Gentiles alike?  For us who are being saved it is always a sight for sore eyes. And it is something else – a reminder that when it comes to the question of neighbor, it’s not so important that you be able to define one as to be one. So, go, and do likewise. Be a neighbor. Even if you’re the last person they’d expect to see, if you go to them bearing the cross of Christ, you’ll be the person that they’ll end up needing to see. Only then you will be loving God and doing what is necessary to inherit eternal life. Luke 10:25-37

The Last Person You'd Expect to See

Text: Matthew 18:23-35 Series: “Jesus’ Parables and the Mystery of the Kingdom” A concern that once upon a time was on every American politician’s mind, but now seems to have become a distant memory, is the national debt. Simply put, the national debt represents the total federal financial obligation owed to the American public because of how federal spending has exceeded more than the government has taken in. You’ve probably seen those virtual clocks that track the United States’ national debt, which is currently at 28 trillion dollars and growing. In fact, the debt clock is moving so fast that it makes the electrical meter at your house look like it’s standing still. And of course, while arguments rage among economists as to whether this debt is a good or bad thing, the question that is on everyone’s mind is not so much “How will we pay the debt?” The question has become “Can we ever pay it?” Behind that question is a fundamental assumption, which is that if you have a debt, you also need to have a plan to pay it, which is an assumption that holds true not only for governments. It also holds true for businesses and institutions and churches and individuals.  Because if you don’t pay your debts, or as I heard one preacher once phrase it, “If your outflow exceeds your income, your upkeep will be your downfall.” In other words, there will be a day of reckoning when all debts and obligations must come due; and if on that day you have a debt that is unpayable, that day of reckoning will not be a good one. It will not be a good one at all. This truth is not just a modern one. It’s a truth that has applied to every society going back to the beginning of time. And for that reason, it was a truth that Jesus drew upon as he spoke with his disciples about the Kingdom principle of forgiving others of the wrongs they have done against us and doing so because of the truly unpayable debt God has forgiven us from. The parable is recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, the same Gospel account that includes the Sermon on the Mount, in which is also recorded what we call “the Lord’s Prayer,” which includes the line we pray every Sunday here at Mountain Brook Baptist Church: “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us” – a line I always have thought was a somewhat flimsy rendering of what Jesus actually taught. The word Jesus used, as recorded in the Greek, is opheilema, which means “debt.” To ask for the forgiveness of a trespass just doesn’t seem to me to carry the force of my asking to be forgiven of a debt and then to be asked to forgive others of debts they’ve incurred against me. But it’s important that we recognize the most serious nature of debt in Jesus’ day so that we might better appreciate the primary teaching of this parable, which is how our willingness to forgive others and to do so with the deepest sincerity is the best indication of how deeply grateful we are for the forgiveness God has shown us through Jesus Christ. The context of this parable is important, as you would expect. The 18th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel is the famous “conflict resolution” chapter in the Bible. That is to say, it represents Jesus’ teaching on what believers should be doing to make sure that we don’t let our disagreements with one another, which even Christians will inevitably have, devolve into insoluble ones. Simon Peter has just approached Jesus with a question couched as a statement of Peter’s readiness to exceed the expectations of the scribes that folk should forgive those who wrong them three times, but no more. But when Peter asks Jesus if seven times would be sufficient, Jesus in effect calls upon Simon Peter to throw away his abacus and practice unlimited forgiveness, what Jesus calls “seventy times seven” forgiveness, a level of forgiveness that can only come from a heart that is captivated by God’s forgiveness. And with that teaching, Jesus launches into the parable that is before us this morning.  “The Kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants.” Jesus begins by calling attention to one servant who owes his master “ten thousand talents,” which doesn’t even register with people today until they realize that the debt this servant owes was equivalent to 150,000 years of wages, or in today’s terms, billions of dollars, an unpayable debt even for the wealthiest of us gathered today. It’s important that you let the weight of that debt sink in. Do the math in your mind. 150,000 times what you make in a year. Think you can handle that debt? Now you can understand why this servant was so desperate. To begin with, he’s obviously no ordinary servant to have amassed such a mind-boggling debt. He’s probably an administrative official of some sort in the king’s court, one that has no doubt been cutting corners and playing footloose with the king’s business, likely skimming off the top for his own gain. You know the kind I’m talking about, as slimy as a snake. So, when the king tells him that he’s about to order that his wife and his children and everything he owns be sold to repay at least some of the debt, the servant falls to his knees, begs for patience, and promises to pay back “everything,” which is never going to happen. The debt is unpayable, remember?  But a remarkable thing happens. The king is moved by his servant’s plea; he is deeply moved. The king is so moved that he orders the inconceivable. He doesn’t just give the servant more time to pay his debt. He doesn’t lower the debt to a manageable amount. He cancels the debt. He wipes it away. It’s as if the debt no longer exists. Actually, it doesn’t exist because the king nullifies it. And the servant walks away scot-free, totally unobligated, redeemed, restored, free from every encumbrance.  So, you think this servant that had been completely released from his unpayable debt would be the picture of mercy to others; right?  Well, think again, says Jesus. No sooner has he been forgiven of his debt does the servant go out, find a servant that owes him a much lesser amount, a trifling amount in comparison to what he owed the king, which this servant, no doubt a lesser servant, was in no position to pay, even though the debt in his case was payable. But not only does this first servant demand payment from the servant who owes him money, he resorts to violence to exact it. He grabs the second servant and begins to choke him. “Pay back what you owe me,” he demands of the second servant. And what does the second servant do? He begins to plea for patience in the same way as his creditor had done, to the letter, except for one thing – this second servant does not say that he will pay back “everything.” He knows he can’t pay back “everything.” It’s just, “Be patient with me; I will pay you back.” But the first servant is not patient, and he is not prone to pity. He has the second servant thrown into prison until he could pay the debt, which of course, leads to the question, “How do you pay back a debt when you’re in prison?” You don’t; unless your friends and your family come to your rescue. But how likely would that have been? Clearly, not very likely. Because there are other servants, Jesus tells us, who upon seeing what has taken place, go to the master to report what has transpired. And the king is not happy. He calls the first servant back for a confrontation, what we might call a “come to Jesus meeting.” “You wicked servant,” the king calls him. “I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?” And in anger, the king threw that first servant into prison as well, and even worse to be tortured, until he should pay back all that he owed, which as we know was unpayable. And then Jesus delivers the punch line; and for some of us, it may be more of a “gut” punch line: “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you, unless you forgive your brother from your heart,” unless you forgive deeply, not flippantly, and sincerely, not begrudgingly. Mercy received must lead to mercy that is shown. Lewis Smedes was a professor at Fuller Theological Seminary in Los Angeles, who wrote the book on forgiveness, at least from a theological perspective. Actually, Smedes wrote several books on the topic. In his book, A Life of Distinction, he tells the story of how this topic first became so important to him. As an ethics professor interested in prison reform, he once spent a day at the Los Angeles County jail trying to get someone out on bail. After seeing a stream of assorted thugs and addicts coming in and out of jail, he became rather cynical. “What a bunch of losers,” he thought to himself. While waiting to accomplish what he had gone there to do, he struck up a conversation with a young black man in a clerical collar, who was visiting the jail. It turned out that this young man was not an ordained minister; he was an insurance salesman who spent one day each week ministering to people in lock-up at the county jail. “So, what kind of people do you meet here?” Lewis asked him. “Addicts?  Losers?” The young man replied, “Well, maybe they are. But that’s just not the way I divide people up. The only two categories of people I really care about are the forgiven people and the unforgiven people. And what I’ve found is that to forgive is to set a prisoner free, and when you do, what you discover is that the prisoner was you” (Smedes, A Life of Distinction, pp. 166-167.) “All I care about are the forgiven people and the unforgiven people.” You do know that Jesus cares about the same thing. You know that because of how when he was nailed to the cross, where at the top of his head the Romans had affixed a crude sign in three separate languages that read, “King of the Jews,” Jesus looked down at his tormentors, his trespassers, his debtors, and prayed, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” At one time, we didn’t know. But now because of Calvary, we do, and we have no excuses. Mercy received must lead to mercy that is shown. The day of our reckoning is coming, our real “come to Jesus meeting.”  And between now and then our celestial debt clock is ticking. So, let us pray, and let us mean it when we pray, “Our Father, who art in heaven, forgive us our debts, unpayable as they are, as we forgive our debtors.” Only then will God’s Kingdom come, and God’s will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Matthew 18:23-35

A Debt We Could Never Repay

Family Warnings

Walking in Truth and Love

Pentecost Sunday Text: Ezekiel 37:1-14 One of the great joys every pastor gets to know is the joy that comes from officiating a ceremony of marriage. At least that’s how I’ve always felt about my role. That’s because I have seen it not so much as a responsibility I must discharge as a participant in a civil event, but more as privilege I have to participate in a sacred one.  If you’ve done as many weddings as I have, you come to know the traditional ceremony by heart; and in particular, the pronouncement of marriage, where at the end of the ceremony the minister proclaims: “What God hath joined together, let no one put asunder.” Those words are a reminder not only to the couple being married but also to everyone in attendance how the purpose of every marriage is to celebrate the work of God’s Holy Spirit, as the Spirit comes down upon the couple to make the two to become one in and for Christ. But sadly, as we all know from the divorce statistics, not every marriage lives in to such a purpose. Not every marriage stays together.  Some marriages are “put asunder” to use the language of the traditional marriage ceremony. And more times than not, it’s because not every couple is willing to do the hard work that comes from making their marriage all God intends for it to be. They forget to put Christ first in their marriage. They forget to keep themselves open to the Spirit’s presence and power. And as a result, they drift apart. But when God truly joins something together, there is nothing that can tear it apart, simply because of how God draws near to become a part of it, be it a marriage or a ministry initiative or even a church.  People who have a place for the Spirit of God make it through each day on the conviction that life is not random, but that God is in control. And whatever God brings to pass is something that will last forever and forever, Amen. That’s what the prophet Ezekiel came to discover at a time in his life when he found himself in a most disconcerting place – a valley of dry bones. Ezekiel was a prophet who ministered during the time of the Babylonian Exile, about 600 years before Christ. The city of Jerusalem had fallen to the Babylonians, and after having deposed the king and destroyed the Jerusalem Temple, the Babylonians took with them the best and the brightest back to Babylon. And among those exiles was the prophet, Ezekiel. What was groundbreaking about Ezekiel’s ministry to the exiles was his insistence that God’s Presence abided with them even in a faraway place like Babylon. Up to that time, there was a generally held belief among ancient people that a nation’s god was confined to the boundaries of that nation, sort of like those “Police Jurisdiction” signs you see in small towns today, which mark the boundaries wherein local law enforcement agencies conduct their work. Therefore, the question that was on the minds of the exiles in Babylon was, “Is God with us way over here in Babylon?” “Can God’s power be known in this distant place?” “Can God keep us together and see us through this calamitous time?” Those are questions many of us know all too well, because they mirror so plainly the questions that are on our hearts also. “Is God with me in this time of loss?” “Can I count on God in this place of stress?” “Does God see me in this place of pain?” You don’t have to be too far away from familiar turf to identify with the anguish of exile. Any place that seems bereft of hope can be that place of deportation – that place to which you feel you have been banished to a life of meaninglessness and insignificance. All of us at some point fall prey to those feelings, even those of us who consider ourselves to be strong in our faith. It was even that way for Ezekiel.  You look at how the book of Ezekiel begins, and there is God’s prophet, summoning his people to courage and hope. But as time goes by in Babylon, even Ezekiel begins to wonder if maybe God has given up on His people. Like many of us who have this uncanny knack of holding out hope in the face of the most discouraging circumstances, there is always a point when you ask yourself the question, “What’s the use?”  Ezekiel had reached precisely that point in the text I read for you today. As he explains it, the “hand of the LORD” had led him to the middle of a valley, full of dry bones. Most likely, this valley was a battlefield, and the bones were of those who had fallen in battle.  All around Ezekiel were signs and indicators of death. Which leads us to ask the question, “Why would the hand of the LORD put Ezekiel in such a place?” Might it have been because the exiles had given up hope of ever returning to Jerusalem and were “making no bones about it,” pun intended? Might it have been because they had been hounding Ezekiel about how God had forgotten them in the land of exile? Might it have been because God wanted Ezekiel to see that he was capable of bringing them, dead as they were, back to life so that Ezekiel might be renewed in his ministry to the exiles? I trust that you know that the situation described in this text applies even to our day. All around us are people who have given up hope of their lot in life ever improving. For them everything just seems so dry.  So, where are the dry areas in your life? Do you believe God is capable of bringing new life to those places of hopelessness? Are you willing to allow Him to do what only He can do in that area of your life? Do you trust Him for a miracle? I love how Ezekiel answers when that question is posed to him. “Son of man, can these bones live? And how does Ezekiel respond? “O Sovereign LORD, you alone know.” “You alone know.” Please understand; Ezekiel is not being weak or doubtful in his response. He’s not playing his cards close to the vest with God, as if he’s afraid to go out on a limb as to God’s ability to do the impossible. No, on the contrary, Ezekiel confesses that God is the Sovereign LORD, and as such, God would be the only one able to do such a thing. To Ezekiel, it was not a matter of God’s ability to bring life out of death and hope out of despair; it was God’s willingness. Would God want to do such a thing? And the manner in which Ezekiel answered the Spirit’s question was a faithful way of opening himself and his people to what he hoped with every fiber of his being that God might be gracious to do. “O Sovereign LORD, you alone know.” In other words, if you don’t do it, no one else will. And with that confession of faith on Ezekiel’s part, something truly amazing begins to take place. Bones come together. Muscle, flesh, and skin become formed upon them. The wind of God’s Spirit sweeps through them. They come to life. They stand to their feet. They become a vast army. “And one day,” God says to Ezekiel, “this is what I will do for my people.” Sometimes God has to bring us to a place, a valley, where we find ourselves at the end of our own resources and where the only hope we have is to rely on a God who alone can bring life out of death. In fact, the only reason that we don’t experience more of God’s restoration in our lives is because we maintain the delusion that restoration somehow is within our control. But it is not; restoration is not in our control, and the sooner we learn that lesson of faith, the more we will experience the transforming power of God in each and every area of our lives. In his book, Believe and Belong, Bruce Larson tells about a gigantic statue of Atlas that stands in the entrance of the RCA building on Fifth Avenue in New York City. The statue portrays Atlas as an amazingly proportioned man who, with all his muscles straining, is holding the world upon his shoulders. And yet, even though he is the most powerfully built man on earth, Atlas can barely stand under his burden. As Larson observes, “That’s one way to live; trying to carry the world on your shoulders.” But Larson also points out how on the other side of Fifth Avenue is Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. And there, behind the altar, is a little shrine of the boy Jesus. He is perhaps eight or nine years old, and with no effort he is holding the world in one hand. “We have a choice,” Larson says. “We can choose to try to carry the world on our shoulders, or we can say, ‘I give up, Lord; here is my life. I give you my world.’” If this morning you are “bone weary” from your efforts at making your life hold together, why not turn that responsibility over to God, as He has drawn near to you in His Son Jesus Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit? Why not come to the realization that only God knows how the future will play out, because God is in control of the future, and that by yielding your life to Him, you can connect with God’s purpose and God’s power in a life-giving way? Why not recognize that whereas you and I tend to focus on the pitfalls that are all around us, God always considers only the possibilities?  “Can these bones live?” “Can your spirit be restored?” “Can your soul be saved?” It can, if you allow God in Christ to do that which only He can do, because what God joins together, even a bunch of bones in a dry valley, nothing will truly ever put asunder. Ezekiel 37:1-14

What God Hath Joined Together

Faith and Following

Text: 2 Timothy 1:10 Post-Easter Series: “The Dawn of a New Day” Maybe it’s just me, but it seems as if we’ve had more than our share of storms this spring season. And even if you’ve managed to escape the damage generated by the high winds and fierce lightning, more than likely you’ve had to deal a time or two with the loss of power at your home or business, which always manages to come at the worst possible moments. It usually happens at night, does it not, when the sun has gone down and the loss of power has us shrouded in darkness. When that happens at your place, you know the drill. Find the candles. Find the flashlights. Look for matches or batteries to create some sense of light until the power can be restored. When we think about them, those moments become a parable of our modern-day existence where we are reminded of how vulnerable and exposed we are when the power is taken away. Storms always come our way, and not just in the weather-related sense of the word, but they also come in the form of emotional storms and vocational storms and relational storms and financial storms, and we lose power in the face of each one of them, a loss of power which plunges us into a level of deep darkness that nothing we can put our hands on seems to dispel. Oh, that we might get our hands on some kind of mystic generator that could kick on the power when those existential storms came our way! Well, what if I were to assure you that while there is no mystic generator we can turn to in the pitch-dark times of life, there is most definitely a spiritual one. There is a source of power that never fails in the moments of our deepest distress, one that according to the Apostle Paul, has brought “life and immortality to light through the gospel” so that in those very times we might see clearly that God is in control and how even in those most challenging moments God’s purpose and grace are very much in play. Those were Paul’s words to his protégé in the faith, Timothy, in his second letter. In First Timothy, Paul has addressed what we might call “nuts and bolts” questions on how to manage life in a community of faith, things like the qualifications of a pastor and the qualifications of lay leaders. But in Second Timothy, Paul speaks more specifically to the challenges that must have come Timothy’s way in his seeing after that task and which were most likely sapping Timothy of his strength and robbing him of his joy.  On this Mother’s Day, I think it’s interesting to note how Paul acknowledges how Timothy’s faith journey was nurtured by his mother Eunice and by his grandmother Lois, both influential women in his life. But even more importantly, Paul reminds Timothy that ultimately his salvation and calling rests in the providence of God, a God who purposed all of it “before the beginning of time,” which was Paul’s way of reminding Timothy that his salvation and his calling weren’t afterthoughts to God. They were instead a part of God’s purpose for Timothy, and as they emanated from the heart of a Sovereign God, they weren’t vulnerable to the whims of fate or the vagaries and disruptions of everyday life. But evidently, Timothy was having trouble seeing all of that, which is why Paul made such a strong appeal to the significance of the Resurrection of Jesus and how through it God displayed a source of power that has “destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.” Note how in this verse I read for you this morning, verse 10, Paul employs three expressions that all speak to illuminating power of the gospel. “It has now been revealed. It has been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus. His appearing has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. What Paul is reminding Timothy is that even when life saps our souls of strength and resolve, as we turn our eyes away from the challenges to the life that the Risen Jesus awakens, our anxieties are lessened and our fears are resolved in the promise of God’s resurrection power, which has been unleashed into this world and into our lives through our commitment to Jesus as our Savior and Lord. More importantly, we even begin to see and celebrate how those very challenges that have come our way are all a part of God’s plan to form us and shape us for how His power might more easily flow through us into this world so that we become agents of God’s redemptive purposes and evidence as to the difference His Easter power can make in an ordinary life. Perhaps you’re here this morning and you find yourself in a place similar to the one in which Timothy had landed. Life has taken its toll on you. Disappointments have robbed you of your joy. Setbacks have piled up so that you feel you don’t have the power to rise above them like you once did. Here then is a suggestion: Take your attention away from all those things and redirect it to the abiding presence of the Risen Jesus, who is very much with you even in the midst of all your despair. See how the power of God is able to create for you a new situation in the face of your current one and illumine your darkness with the light of God’s everlasting light in Christ Jesus. Then you will be able not only to rise above your darkness, but you will help others to do so through your witness to the power at work in you, which is what you have been called to do through God’s purpose and His grace in Christ Jesus. Can you do that this morning? Can you open your eyes and your heart to the illuminating possibilities the Risen Jesus can bring about in you and through you? I’m reminded of the story of the rich man who was living out his life and therefore called to his bedside his three sons, telling them, “I wish to leave my fortune intact. I’m not going to split it up among you. I want to make sure that one of you employs it as faithfully and responsibly as I’ve done my best to do. So, I will give each of you the same opportunity so that I might see which one of you is the most capable at managing the money. Here, then, is the task I set before you. In my warehouse there are three large storerooms. I’m going to give each of you the same amount of money. Your task is for each of you to fill one of those storerooms with as much as your portion of money will buy.” Then, he sent them out. What would you have bought? The first son went out and bought sand with all his money, and was able with the sand he had purchased to fill a third of his room. The second son went out and bought some dirt with his money, and was able to fill a half of his room. The third son went out and with only a small portion of his money bought candles and matches, and he filled his room with light. I think you can see the application. This world in which we live is shrouded in deep darkness and needs something from beyond it to cast out the darkness and replace it with light. God has done precisely that in raising Jesus, God’s Only Begotten Son, from the dead. Jesus, through his life, his death, and his resurrection has destroyed death, has robbed it of its power and brought it to naught, which is what that word really means, and has in its place brought life and immortality to light.  You may not see yourself as qualified to bear witness such good news because of how you may still be struggling with your own darkness.  According to what Paul says in this passage from Second Timothy, I’m not sure that anyone is able to experience Easter until he or she has spent at least some time in the dark. After all, even Jesus was in the grave for two days, where in some faith traditions, Jesus “harrowed” hell, casting light into that darkness and rescuing imprisoned spirits who were awaiting his revelation. Such is the message of apocalyptic passages such as 1 Peter 3 and Revelation 4, where in that latter passage we’re told of the creatures around God’s throne who are “covered with eyes in front and behind” that enable them to see the victory of the Lamb in the midst of all the trials and tribulations. The point is that you may not see yourself as someone qualified to bear witness to the light. But the truth is that, like Timothy, you’re actually in the perfect place. You’re in the perfect place for the light to shine through you so that you become the evidence of a soul that has been transformed and through whom the Risen Jesus is at work to transform this entire world. So, in the midst of this world’s deep, deep darkness, don’t just look for the light. Be the light, and let the light of Christ shine through you, the light of life and immortality. For the gospel’s sake and for the world’s sake, let it shine. Let it shine. Let it shine. Let it shine.

The Light of Life and Immortality

Text: Acts 26:8 Post-Easter Series: “The Dawn of a New Day” When I was growing up, one of my favorite comic strips was “Ripley’s Believe It or Not.” Some of you may remember it. Or some of you may have visited one of their “odditoriums,” as they are called, while on vacation in Orlando or Gatlinburg. Both comic strip and odditorium involve collections of stories about bizarre events and displays of odd items that were so strange and unusual that they bordered on credulity, even though they were supposed to be real; hence the title, “Believe It or Not.” You may not can explain it. You may not can wrap your head around it. You may not be able to replicate it or repeat it. But the choice is yours. You can believe it or not. Quite honestly, I’m surprised that while the comic strips have long since disappeared, the “odditoriums” have managed to attract enough attention to stay open. That’s because, once upon a time, people were prone to be open to the possibility of things inexplicable, but as life has evolved and narratives of despair have become the default, we’ve become jaded and pessimistic and not all that excited about what the future holds for us. Even on this Senior Recognition Sunday, it would be interesting to hear our seniors respond as to how they feel about their own futures. If they view them positively, then our church had done a good job of grounding them in the possibilities of a God who is always about making everything new; but if they don’t feel good about their futures, then by all means we need to remind them before they get away, that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ always works best in what seems on the surface to be the most hopeless of situations. That’s the burden the Apostle Paul must have felt as he stood before King Agrippa and his Jewish accusers that day in the governor’s audience room in Caesarea, on the shores of the Mediterranean. This last section of the book of Acts recounts Paul’s final days in Judea, before his arrest and extradition to Rome. At this point in Paul’s life he had returned from his last missionary journey with an offering for the impoverished believers in Jerusalem, which he had received from Gentile believers in other places throughout the Roman Empire. But now, as a way to open doors among potential Jewish converts there in the Holy City, Paul has taken upon himself a vow of purification and has gone into the temple to make an offering for himself and four other men who have joined him in the vow. It is there in the temple that Paul is recognized and immediately branded a blasphemer because of his commitment to Christ and his openness to non-Jews.  Several trials ensue, along with a number of plots against his life; and the next thing you know, Paul is whisked off to Caesarea, thrown into prison there, and like a ping-pong ball is batted from one Roman official to another until he is given an audience with King Agrippa, the great-grandson of Herod the Great.  Paul’s witness to Agrippa would make an ideal case study in first century Greek rhetoric. For example, notice how Paul first expresses his respects to Agrippa and counts it an honor to explain his situation to someone who understands Jewish customs and controversies as well as does Agrippa, who himself would have been at least part-Jew.  Then Paul turns his attention to the charges leveled against him, knowing that his accusers are in the audience. “I’m not a fraud or a blasphemer,” he begins. Everyone in Jerusalem knows me. They know my background. They know my training as a Pharisee, the strictest sect of the Jewish people. And so, I think it odd (yes, that’s essentially what Paul was saying) that these are the people who would charge me with doing something against God in light of how they say they live in God’s hope, working night and day to see it fulfilled.” And then, having checked off all the rhetorical boxes, Paul comes to the main point in his defense, which is “And why should any of you consider it incredible that God raises the dead?” I find Paul’s speech a thing of brilliance. He doesn’t disrespect the king. He doesn’t undermine his critic’s belief. He doesn’t even start out by naming Jesus, even though he will definitely get to Jesus in short time. What Paul does instead is to tell everyone within the sound of his voice that if anyone there has a problem with him, it’s not really Paul they have the problem with. It’s God. It’s God they have the problem with. “And why should any of you consider it incredible that God raises the dead?” “You believe it or not.” That is, after all, the one question upon which the whole matter of our everyday life hangs; is it not? Do you believe that God raises the dead or do you not?  I saw a statistic the other day that first didn’t register until after a few moments reflecting on it. The statistic read that 52% of all non-Christians in America believe that God raised Jesus from the dead. That’s right; the statistic doesn’t refer to Christians; it refers to non-believers in America, those who claim no real faith in the Risen Christ. On the surface, that might seem something to celebrate. Over one out of every two non-Christian Americans believe in the Resurrection of Jesus. But when you think about the implications of that belief, you come to understand that it represents mere intellectual acceptance, the same sort of concurrence you might give to any other historical fact, such as Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492 or Alabama became the 22nd state in the Union in 1819 or the Mets won the World Series in 1969.  The people who “believe” in the Resurrection don’t necessarily see it as anything that changes the playing field upon which they live their everyday life.  But when you believe in the Resurrection like the Bible calls us to do, then you can’t help but do things that other people find odd or strange or unusual, though they seem perfectly reasonable to you in light of Easter hope. You see the world differently. You see other people differently. You see yourself differently. You forgive those who wrong you. You put others first. You follow God’s lead even when it takes you to the edge of light, and then you take one step more. You live in the hope of God’s glorious tomorrow because, quite frankly, without it you couldn’t abide the cold, harsh, lifeless reality that surrounds you at every turn. Reading this account of Paul’s defense of his faith to King Agrippa, I’ve been reminded of how when I was growing up, it seemed that every youth revival we had in my home church involved the preacher asking us the same question: “If you were on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?”  That question haunted me then, and even though I like to think I’m older and wiser, it still haunts me today, despite the fact that for all intents and purposes I’m a credentialed Pharisee with a Ph.D. in religion. The question still haunts me today because of how in my more honest moments, I see how on too many occasions I limit God. I limit God by showing more faith in the constraining realities of this everyday life than I do in a God who has the power to raise the dead. I walk to the edge of light, peer into the darkness, and flinch before I take a step. And in those very moments I have to remind myself of where my hope rests. It rests in a God who raised Jesus from the dead. And if God can do that, then what is there that God cannot do? You may be here this morning, decades past your high school graduation. Or you may be here with some years yet to go. The question still pertains, “How do you see your future?” “Where do you see yourself in the days to come?” “How do you feel about the possibilities that are before you?” If you feel pessimistic and uncertain, then know that’s precisely how the Devil wants you to feel, because then you will have nothing to live for, except how much you can make, how far you can advance, how much power you can attain – none of which will bring you joy. Now, is the time to ground your future instead, as incredible as it may seem, in a God who can raise the dead, and whose power can do in you immeasurably more than you might ask or imagine. John Bertram Phillips was an English Bible scholar, whose translation of the New Testament into Modern English in 1958 set the stage for other contemporary translations that would follow. In an interview done toward the end of his life, Phillips was asked to define the marks of a Christian. That’s essentially asking how you might put someone on trial to see if he or she truly trusted Jesus. Phillips’s answer speaks, I think, to the type of witness to which all genuine believers should aspire. “There are,” Phillips contended, “four marks of a genuine Christian, all of which come from God. They are a tranquil mind, an unquenchable joy, an outgoing love, and an irrepressible sense of victory.”  In a day when such distinctives may seem odd to many, for us who truly love Jesus, they seem to make entirely good sense. They make entirely good sense because we choose to believe. We choose to belief in Jesus, and our belief in him makes all the difference today and will continue to do the same tomorrow…and the next day…and even forevermore.  Acts 26:8

Why Do You Consider It Incredible?

One Savior

One God

Love God. Live with Grace and Generosity.

hubhopper

Mountain Brook Baptist Church

hubhopper