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September 28, 2008
“This Is Going to Take a Lot of Work”
Philippians 2: 1-13
preached on September 28, 2008
From 1959 – 1963 there was a TV series called “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.” Featured on that show was a Beatnik named Maynard G. Krebs”. Being a true beatnik, Maynard did not like to work. In fact he even hated to say or hear the word work. When he heard the word he would respond with a phobic reaction shouting the word in fear.
Today we are looking at a bible passage that Maynard G. Krebs would not have liked. In this passage St. Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, requests the Christians living in Philippi to do some things that will require some hard work.
Not only is there work required in these verses of scripture, it also takes some work to seriously study this passage of Scripture. In these verses Paul uses some pretty obscure Greek words and sometimes uses their lesser known meanings. It can never be said that this passage is a joy to read in the Greek language.
So this morning I hope you are ready to figuratively roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty, because we have some work ahead of us.
St. Paul begins this laborious passage by listing some of the resources he expects his readers to have because of their faith and Salvation and that he expects them to use in the work he is about to set before them.
Since they are Christians, since they have been born again by the Spirit of God, and since they have used the faith that the Spirit has given them to embrace the Salvation won by Christ, Paul expects them to have the qualities he lists in verse 1. They are: “encouragement in Christ, consolation from love, sharing in the Spirit, compassion and sympathy.” As Christians, we ought to have all of these qualities. We should be encouraged and joyful at being certain of our salvation. The words and deeds of Christ recorded in the bible ought to encourage us. And the Forgiveness of sins that Christ promised to us should really encourage us when we fall or sometimes jump into sin.
We should also be built up and consoled in difficult times by the love shown to us by our fellow Christians and by our Lord Jesus Christ. And we should be built up by having Christian fellowship or sharing in the Spirit of God with our fellow Christians.
As Christians living in the church with other Christians we are to display and receive Compassion and Sympathy.
Since they have received all these gifts from God and their Christian Community, Paul expects them to use those gifts to do the following; (get ready folks, the work is coming, and it may not be easy) “be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.”
I don’t know if this command was ever easy for Christians of other generations to fulfill, but I know it is extremely difficult for Christians of our own time and place to fulfill. After all, we live in an age and place where diversity of thought in all matters is honored and protected. All of the mainline denominations in the US have allowed diversity of thought and beliefs and theology in their seminaries and in those they ordain as ministers. And now we can look and see how that is working out. It’s not. Since we cannot honor each other’s thoughts and philosophies, we are often simply encouraged to agree to disagree.
But the bible tells us that there are thoughts about God that are correct and thoughts about God that are incorrect. As Christians we are to be of one mind in the basic matters that are set forth in scriptures and are summarized in the Nicene and Apostles Creeds.
There are other issues that we Christians might disagree about. We ought not to shy away from our disagreements but we need to understand each other and celebrate what we have in common. We may never agree 100% in all matters, but that is to be our goal. We cannot do this if we shy away from those whom we suspect disagree with us in important matters. We must engage them as brothers and sisters in Christ. We must have discussions with them to discern what we believe.
I encourage you as members and attendees of faith church to engage each other regarding your beliefs and feelings and try to come to common places. We as Christians are to be working toward being of one mind, especially in matters that are important.
In addition to being of one mind, Christians are to “do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to his own interests, but to the interests of others.” Christians are to be humble and seek to improve the situations and lives of others rather than their own situations and lives. In this we are to follow the example of Jesus in his earthy life.
In verses 6-11 Paul reminds his readers about the humility of Christ. He did it in such a glorious way that some think that he was copying a hymn from the early Christian community. The Scripture text as printed in the pew bibles and your bulletin reflects that this is or could be a poem or song. It is a two stanza hymn about the humility and glory of Jesus. I know some of you have written songs and music. If you are ever in need of magnificent concepts, words or phrases for a hymn, I encourage you to turn to this passage.
Here St. Paul portrays the self sacrifice of Jesus. He was God and yet he for a time set aside his divine prerogatives and perks and was born as and lived as a human being. He then took on the roll of a slave, living to serve people of his day and people of all times since then. He, the only true and divine God, even allowed himself to die on a cross.
In the second part or second verse of this hymn, Paul goes on to the conclusion or reward of Christ’s sufferings. God has exalted Christ and will cause every person to worship and confess that Jesus is Lord.
The truths of that hymn are the reasons why we should be humble and put others before ourselves: 1 – he was humble and placed our welfare before his own, and 2- if we are to be exalted in the kingdom of God, we should follow Christ’s example and live in humility on this earth.
After the hymn, in verses 12 & 13, Paul gives one more job to the Christians at Philippi. “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”. Now if you paid attention to those words, you may wonder how a Protestant pastor, especially one who claims to be a Calvinist, can read those words. After all, we Protestants reject the Catholic notion that we can work along with God in procuring our salvation, that we can cooperate with God in our salvation. That is not what Paul meant. If you read other passages in his epistles he teaches very clearly that our salvation comes to us through faith alone and is a work of God alone. Nothing we can do can make us worthy of God’s salvation.
However, after we have received the salvation of God, we are renewed by the Spirit of God and are able to live out the effects of our salvation. It is that living out the effects of our salvation that Paul refers to as working out our salvation.
He has just referred to Jesus’ humble life on earth. Jesus was God and he was God’s savior before the ages began but he still had to be obedient and humble, and die on earth.
We have already been saved by the grace of God, but now we are to demonstrate our gratitude and our new worthiness by doing God’s works.
Our work for God is also good for us. As we enjoy doing the work of God and yes, even suffering for His cause, and as we see the changes that God is working in us so we can and are willing to work for Him, we receive confidence that God really is in us and that we really are saved. By working out our salvation or working out of our salvation, we become more confident of our Salvation.
So, this morning, as football coaches are preparing their teams to go onto the field and face their opponents, I send you in the name of Jesus into the church and into the world. In the church you are to work together to be of one mind. In the church and in the world you are to be humble. In the world you are to work out the deeds that are demonstrations of God’s love and of your Salvation. Go, Team Go!
Let us pray,
Almighty God, we thank you for saving us through the humble and self-sacrificing acts of Jesus. Help us to demonstrate that we are His by working at being of one mind, by being humble, and by doing your works for and among the people of this world. Amen.
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at 03:28 PM | Comments (0)
September 21, 2008
“An Outrageous Parable and More”
Matthew 19: 27 – 20:16
preached on September 21st, 2008
As a new resident of the State of Indiana, I am trying to observe and understand unique Hoosier customs. But I am not always finding this to be an easy task.
Last night seems to have been “party night” in my neighborhood. Across the street there was a birthday party for a little girl. As part of the festivities, there was a Piñata. Having lived in a place with lots of Hispanic folks, a piñata was not new to me, but the way it was suspended was. The Piñata was suspended from a clothesline, but each end of the clothesline was held by a person standing on the roof of an SUV. Is this the standard method of suspending piñatas in Indiana?
The people who live in the house behind mine were hosting a party for several teenaged girls. After a while the girls spilled out the back door and they began to play baseball. At least that’s what I thought it was. But they were playing with a length of PCV pipe and water balloons. Is this a Hoosier version of baseball?
You see, it is very important that we understand the customs of the people we are living with, or whom we are reading about.
All of Jesus parables are based on the customs and ordinary practices of the his day and place. They were based on the way shepherds and farmers and others generally operated. Some parables used these practices and customs to describe ordinary events and then said that these ordinary events were like the kingdom of God in some way. The parable of the Sower is one of these ordinary stories. It described the normal actions of a planter and the normal growth process of a normal crop in Palestine.
The parable we have before us this morning is what I would call an extraordinary or outrageous parable. In this parable of the hiring farmer we see many of the ordinary practices of farmers of Jesus’ day as they would hire extra help to bring in the crops.
Those who needed day jobs would rise early in the morning and go to the marketplace before the sun came up. Those needing to hire workers would also go and hire the people they needed. The work day began at sunrise.
Sometimes the hiring farmers would return to the marketplace as the day progressed if they needed more workers, and sometimes there would still be people there waiting to be hired.
We see these ordinary customs setting the stage for this parable. In this parable, a farmer went to the marketplace before sunrise and hired a group of laborers to work the entire day in his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for their day’s work. As our translation informs us, the Roman coin called a denarius was the “usual daily wage” for a day’s worth of labor.
As sometimes happened, the farmer in Jesus parable went back to the marketplace throughout the day to hire more workers. He went at 9:00 and again at noon and hired more people. He did not promise to pay them any specified amount for their nine hours our six hours of labor. He simply said he would pay them “whatever is right”.
This is where the story begins to get unusual. The farmer went again to the marketplace at 3:00 in the afternoon to hire some more workers for the 3 hours that remained of the working day. To hire people at this hour was not unheard of, but it was not the normal practice.
He went again and hired more people at 5:00, when there was only one more hour to work. This would have been unheard of. The people who were hired at 3 and 5 are only promised to be paid “whatever is right”.
Now the parable returns to normalcy for a while. It was customary and even necessary to pay all day laborers at the end of the day. Jewish law required this because some of the workers would need that money to buy food for their families to eat that evening.
But the way in which the payments took place is outrageous. In this parable, the last hired are paid first. I think it would be normal to pay the all day workers first, and the latecomers last.
But in this parable, the latecomers are paid first. And they are paid outrageously. They are paid the full amount that had been promised to the all day workers. So are the 3 hour workers, the 6 hour workers and the 9 hour workers. The all day laborers are paid the same amount, the amount that the farmer had promised to pay them at the beginning of the day. They are outraged. Surely their all day labors should be worth more than the few hours of those who were paid the same.
The all day laborers began to complain. They probably would not be the only ones. I can imagine that once the word of these payments got out the other farmers and others who hired day laborers would also be complaining. After all, if this guy continued this practice, what would motivate the workers to be ready to work all day at sunrise? Who wouldn’t wait till 5pm and get the full day’s wage? This farmer could ruin the entire economy of the village.
But the vinyard owner had an explanation. He had decided to mix his generosity in with his just payments. The all day workers where not cheated. They were paid a good wage. The owner decided to be generous with the others and pay them more than they deserved. The all day workers couldn’t really protest an act of injustice. They had been fairly paid for their labors. Their problem was jealousy. They were jealous of those who were paid the same as they were for much less work. Which kinda makes you wonder if at least some of the times we yell about injustices in this world we are really just jealous.
Jesus had started this outrageous story by saying that this story was like the kingdom of heaven. He also started and ended the parable with the line “The first will be last and the last will be first”.
These statements and this parable describe the outrageous generosity of God that is planned into the kingdom of God. It is a kingdom that in one sense gives all its citizens the greatest gift of all. All of its citizens receive full forgiveness for all our sins. Now for some of us that is a larger account than for others of us. But for all of us this is way more than we could have expected. The Son of God died to give us entrance into heaven. And that is the gift God gives to all believers regardless of how long they served him in this life.
This is really good news for those who have not yet believed. And it is really good news for those who love someone who has not yet believed. As long as they are alive, it is not too late to believe and be full beneficiaries of the kingdom of God. Keep after them and keep praying for them.
But as outrageously as this parable portrays the kingdom of God, it only tells half the story. Before Jesus told this story he had an en encounter with a rich young man who asked Jesus what he must do to enter eternal life. Jesus told him to obey the 10 commandments. He said he had. Then Jesus told him to sell all he had and give the proceeds to the poor. He couldn’t, so as he walked away, Jesus told the apostles that it was more difficult for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. Then he said that though this is impossible, it is possible with God’s help.
Then Peter raised the issue that begins our scripture reading. Since the subject was wealth and those who couldn’t give it up, Peter wanted to know about those who like himself had given up much to follow Jesus. Peter said “Look, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?”
Jesus said they will get their reward “at the renewal of all things” which means “in the kingdom”. The final stage of the kingdom of God IS the renewal of all things; The re-creation of heaven and earth; The reestablishment of the Garden of Eden on a much grander scale.
Jesus said that when that final kingdom comes, there will be in it a throne for each one of the 12 apostles.
He also said that as to Peters sacrificing his “everything” for Jesus, “everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields, for my name’s sake will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life.
Let me just pause here a moment and call your attention to that verse and ask you to read it to yourself before you fill out the pledge card that Faith Church sent you recently. At 100 times eventual return, your gifts to God’s church are not really gifts, they are probably the best investments you will ever make.
Now lets get back to the main message. We already observed God’s generosity in making latecomers full participants in the kingdom and even making some of them of first priority in the kingdom. Then we looked at Jesus’ response to Peter and saw that he promised a 100 fold reimbursement on all that we give up to serve him.
What an outrageously generous God we have! He rewards those who sacrifice for him and he makes a first priority of those who come last. God is so generous to us that none of us should be jealous of any others.
Let us pray,
Almighty God, help us to appreciate, enjoy, and look forward to your marvelous, outrageous generosity. Amen
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at 03:21 PM | Comments (0)
September 14, 2008
“The Holy Society of Non-Judgmentalists”
Romans 14: 1-12
Delivered on September 14th, 2008
The church of Jesus Christ is the earthbound part of the Kingdom of God. And the Kingdom of God can sometimes be described as an upside down kingdom. In many ways its standards and values are the opposite of earthly kingdoms and organizations.
In the world, the ordinary people serve the leaders. In the kingdom and the church, the leaders serve the people. In the world the greatest are those who hide or overcome their mistakes and shortcomings. In the kingdom and the church the greatest are those who confess their sins and demonstrate humility in their daily lives. In the world it is the strong and sometimes the devious who inherit the earth. In the kingdom and the church, it is the meek who inherit the earth and eternity.
As I read this passage from Romans, I encounter a bit of Up-side down-ness of my own. In this passage St. Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, encouraged the members of the church in Rome to welcome those who were weak in the faith. Then he identified the weak as those who ate only vegetables. Now I don’t know about you, but I always consider vegetarians to be the stronger people among us. Vegetarians are those who due to some moral or dietary conviction refuse to eat meat. They often have to work around family and restaurant menus to achieve their goal of a meat free life.
I, on the other hand consider us meat eaters to be weaker in our convictions. I really don’t like the thought of animals being killed so I can eat meat. But my answer to this situation is to not think about it and to keep on eating meat. I am the weak one with very little will power. Some of you have asked me what I do to stay in shape. I think that is funny because I don’t consider my shape as being in shape and the answer as to what I do to keep in this non-shape is “very little”. For better or worse I exercise a grand total of about 8 minutes each morning.
So since I consider vegetarians to be stronger regarding personal will and moral convictions than I, I might be confused as to why Paul categorized the vegetarians in the church of his day as being the weak, except for the fact that I am a student of the bible and I understand what was going on in the church in those days.
A few Sundays ago I preached about the sacrifices that were offered by the other religions in those days. In the pagan religions, the meat from the animals which were sacrificed to the idols was often sold to the markets for resale. So if you bought a nice standing rib roast or high grade of ground sirloin from the local butcher in Rome, there was no way of knowing whether or not that meat had been offered to a false God.
This was a problem for some of the Gentile Christians who had formerly worshipped those false idol gods. They had renounced those gods, and sometimes had to remove themselves from their families and friends who firmly remained in Idolatry. To eat meat that may have been offered to those gods constituted a crisis of faith for them.
But Paul had been teaching that the false gods where nothing, and therefore had no power to affect the meat that was offered to them, so eating the previously sacrificed meat knowingly or unknowingly was not a problem for a Christian. But some felt funny or strange eating it and felt that their eating it was somehow a betrayal of Christ’s sacrifice. You know, it is sometimes hard to control our feelings, even when we might admit that they could possibly be non-rational.
So, in the church at Rome, there were people who were able to follow Paul’s advice, (the stronger, more rational Christians) and those who could not (the weaker, less rational Christians).
Notice that Paul’s advice in this situation was not to welcome the “weaker” brothers and sisters in their weakness and try to “strengthen” them by arguing with them and trying to convince them to eat meat. No they were to welcome them and totally ignore the fact that they only brought vegetable dishes to the covered dish Suppers. The weaker-stronger dichotomy and feelings were to be kept in their own minds and not given voice.
About those who might be considered to be weak by others, Paul says “Do not pass judgment on them”, saying out loud that they are weak. And he reveals something interesting in this part of the passage. In verse 3 we read “Those who eat must not despise those who abstain, and those who abstain must not pass judgment on those who eat”. Do you grasp the implication there?
Unless I am mistaken, he is implying that the no-meat people consider themselves to be the strong ones and they reckon the meat-eaters to be the weak ones. How about that?! This is not necessarily about the weaker ones knowing their weakness. In some of the struggles of the church when I think I am right and strong, I may in reality be the weaker one, so not judging others can protect me from being openly and publicly wrong.
In verses 5&6 Paul reveals that the meat issue was not the only one that could cause trouble in the early church. There was also the issue of regarding some days as more holy than others. These folks were probably Jews, with their Sabbath regulations and their Jewish Feasts and Fasts. But the formerly pagan Gentiles has also been raised with religious holidays and festivals.
Interestingly enough, the issue of Special religious days surfaced again during the Reformation. Some of the reformers, including Calvin discouraged any special services or recognition of special religious holidays, including Christmas and Easter. In Geneva under Calvin Worship on Easter was the same as any other Sunday, not that they were all common, but that because of the resurrection of Christ, All Sunday’s were extraordinary.
Paul then implied that the real important issue here was not whether one was weak or strong, but whether they acted to honor Jesus. If those who ate meat did it to honor Jesus, it was good. If those who did not eat meat refused to eat it to honor Jesus, that was good too.
I have to admit that I struggled a little to figure out what verses 7-9 meant in this context. Why does he go from not judging the weak and the strong to living and dying in the Lord, then back to judging others?
Because in the end, who among us is weak and who is strong does not matter. Even our strengths are weaknesses when it comes to living and dying. It is only Jesus who is strong enough to be with us and save us in life and in death. Only Jesus was strong enough to die and live again, only Jesus can be the Lord of the dead and the living. Jesus is so strong that our strengths and weaknesses pale into insignificance in comparison.
In the 10th – the 12th verses Paul reminds us that there is a judgement that we do have to be concerned about. We will all, weak and strong, have to face God’s judgment of us.
But until that day, it is recommended that we cut each other some slack. We are fellow servants of God. We are to wait for His judgment, we are not to judge each other.
Now, having said that, let me put in a disclaimer. This passage is about morally neutral issues. How we choose to honor God in neutral issues, like eating certain foods or abstaining from certain foods or honoring God by recognizing certain days or feasts, or having a cross and crown tattooed on ones leg, or a bible verse tattooed on ones wrist, or having ones face pierced, or wearing a tie to church or not wearing a tie to church. Or being a Calvinist or an Arminian, or in believing in a pre-tribulational or post tribulational or mid-tribulational return of Jesus. Or believing in a literal millennium or not believing in one.
There are matters that are not morally neutral, like hatred, or murder, or adultery, or lying or stealing. In moral matters we are to hold one another accountable and to keep each other from falling into sin.
But in morally neutral matters we in the church are to be a society of non-judgmentalists.
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at 02:10 PM | Comments (0)
September 07, 2008
Our Passover Meal
Exodus 12: 1-14 Revelation 5: 6-10
preached on September 7th, 2008
To begin our sermon this morning we need to go back to our first reading and we need to go back in history about 3,400 years. Moses was about to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. God had already smitten Egypt with 9 plagues and the 10th and final plague would take place in about two weeks.
To prepare for this grand and much awaited event, God instructed Israel through Moses and Aaron to prepare a big meal. Each family was to slaughter, cook, and eat a lamb accompanied with some interesting side dishes. The lamb was not only to be a meal, but also a sort of sacrifice. The blood of the lamb was to be smeared on each side of and above the doorway to each of their homes.
The final plague on Egypt was to be the death of the firstborn male of each family, except for those families of the Israelites who had the blood of the lamb around their doors. This meal was to be called Passover because God would pass over the houses where the blood of the lamb was displayed and would not kill the firstborn males in that family.
That was the purpose of the blood of the lamb. The purposes of the meal might be a little more obscure. The next morning the Israelites would be forced out of Egypt into the wilderness. The big meal was a way of nourishing them, fattening them up for the first part of their journey.
It was also an opportunity for family fellowship in their homes. During the next few days, their lives would be rather chaotic. Families might not be eating together for a while.
But I want you to notice that in this passage the Jews were also instructed to reenact this meal every year on the anniversary of the first meal and their being freed from Egypt.
Passover meals were celebrated in the Promised Land for many years until some of the kings of Israel led the Jews to worship other Gods. Then Israel was punished by being captured and spending 70 years of captivity in Babylon. They returned to Palestine and celebrated the Passover every year after their return.
Then Jesus came, and was killed at almost the same time that the Passover lambs were being killed that year. He rose from the dead 3 days later and there was some talk among the first generation of Christians that Jesus served as a new Passover lamb; that He was the new sacrifice that would cause God to Pass Over his people when he judged others.
As the first generation of Christians was passing away, the Apostle John received a vision from God on the island of Patmos. In that vision he saw a scroll that had secrets written inside it, but no one in heaven was worthy to open the scroll. Finally a lamb came forward. This lamb had obviously been killed yet it was alive. That lamb was worthy to open the scroll containing some of God’s secrets. That lamb is later identified as Jesus.
Jesus is our Passover lamb. On the night before he died, Jesus had celebrated the old Passover meal with his apostles. He took two elements from the old Passover meal and did something special with them. He took the bread and said it represented his body which would soon be broken for them. He also took the wine and said it represented his blood that would soon be spilled for them. Then he told them to eat and drink the bread and wine together as often they wanted and that he would rejoin them in eating and drinking it when his final kingdom was established.
So here we are, celebrating this meal about 1980 years after Jesus first celebrated it with the apostles and about 3,400 years after the first Passover.
This is our Passover meal. Since it is so small, it is good to ask the question, what does partaking of this meal do for us?
It makes us obedient. Jesus commanded his followers to eat this meal together.
It provides and identifies for us our family. The OT Passover meal was to be eaten by families. The NT Passover or Lord’s Supper is to be eaten with other Christians, by congregations. We are a family of God.
It provides nourishment for us. The Jews ate the first Passover meal to get ready for several days of scant and haphazard meals as they marched to the Red Sea and into the wilderness. This meal provides us with spiritual nourishment as we prepare to be in the world apart from each other for a few days. God’s Holy Spirit somehow mysteriously supplies us with Spiritual Strength and nutrition as we eat this meal in obedience to Christ and in dependence on his great sacrifice for us.
It is our Pass Over meal. In it we celebrate the death of Christ. The death of Jesus is the sacrifice by which God Passes Over our sins. We will escape the final judgment of God because Jesus died for our sins
Let us now eagerly and earnestly partake of this Holy meal.
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at 06:34 PM | Comments (0)