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November 30, 2008
“Come On Down!”
Isaiah 64
November 30, 2008
From 1986 until his death from Cancer in 2003 Robert Ray Roddy was the announcer on the TV game show “the price is right”. He was known as Rod Roddy, and with his brightly colored clothing he often appeared on stage and he is probably more remembered as saying “Come on Down” than any of the other announcers that the show had during the many years it has been on Television.
It occurred to me recently that with his strange clothing and his phrase Come on Down, Rod Roddy was reminiscent of some of the Old Testament prophets. Some of them wore strange clothing at times and many of them publicly asked God to come down to earth for one reason or another.
This morning we have read that Isaiah was one of those prophets who asked God to come down from heaven and straighten things out. Actually, Isaiah was speaking on behalf of those who would come after him. Isaiah lived before Babylon captured Israel and destroyed Jerusalem. But some of his prophecies were written in the voice of those who would live during the captivity, those who would see Jerusalem in ruins.
Speaking for them, with the despair that would be prevalent in those days, Isaiah said “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down.” Now since I am near a University that educated several of our astronauts I want you to understand that I do not think that Christians have to believe that heaven, the place where God resides is above the clouds.
God is a spirit, and dwells in a spiritual place. When the bible speaks of Heaven being above the clouds it means that his place of residence is other than earthly. To visit us in our physical state God must come down into morally lower or inferior place.
Isaiah and the other OT prophets were not the only ones who wished that God would come down to earth and straighten things out. After September 11th of 2001 I heard and read about people asking “Where was God?” And the implication was that if He existed, He needed to intervene in such catastrophes. Where was God when the planes hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and a field in Western PA?
The question was asked by Jews during the Holocaust when millions of them were killed. It could have been asked more recently by Africans in Sierra Leone and other places where boys were and are being kidnapped to serve as killers in armies, and where some boys have had their hands chopped off so they could not serve in the army of the enemy. If there is a God, why does he not come down and intervene in such situations?
It is not my purpose today to answer the question of why God does not intervene in horrible situations in this world except to say that I believe that God intervenes in the events of this world much more than we think He does. I think the bible makes it clear that God does intervene in the actions of nations and even in situations where horrible atrocities are committed.
But before I move on from this side subject, I want you to notice that Isaiah may have had an idea as to why God does not always come down and straighten things out. Because of our sinfulness. In verse 6 Isaiah says “We have all become like one who in unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.”
I think that Isaiah understood that if God answered the prayers of his children to come down as a judge to punish the wicked, that even God’s children would suffer in the judgment because they were tainted by some evil and wickedness also.
In the first two verses Isaiah speaks for those who would want God to come down and judge “as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil” As you have watched the news coverage of the California fires you have seen how fierce and destructive brush fires can be, and how they often destroy the good homes along with the underbrush.
Sometimes God does not come down to visit his wrath on the problem-causers in this world because we are a part of the problems.
But as we begin the season of Advent in the year 2008, I want you to understand that when Jesus was born of Mary, God answered the prayers of the OT prophets and others in part. Jesus did not come to judge the sins of the world and punish evildoers when he came that first time. The brutality of the Roman Empire existed before he arrived and it continued after he was gone. Other empires and nations and races have continued the evil deeds after Christ left the earth.
But, Jesus did come to solve a part of the problem that Isaiah recognized. He came to deal with the sins and the evil within those who are called to be God’s children and God’s people. Jesus came to die to pay the price for our sins. He came to die so God could forgive our sins and yet consider them to be adequately punished without destroying us.
And yet the news media informs us daily that evil-doers still practice their wickedness. People are still killed or brutalized and victimized in other ways.
So, while we recognize that Jesus’ birth, life and death was a part of God’s answer to the pleas of the OT saints and prophets, we also acknowledge that Jesus did not come the first time to rid God’s creation of all evil.
But Jesus told us that He is coming again. And at that coming He will visit the evil on this earth like a brushfire unlike any that has been seen. He will put a permanent end to the kingdoms of this world and He will establish the eternal kingdom of God in a new heaven and on a new earth.
During the Christian Season of Advent we acknowledge that we are living between the comings of our Lord Jesus the Christ. He came the first time to deal with our sin so we can stand in the judgment that he will mete out when he comes again.
Advent is a time to rejoice because of what God has done for us in Christ. It is a time to joyfully acknowledge the forgiveness of our sins. It is also a time to join with the OT prophets and saints in pleading for God to come on down and put an end to this evil age and restore Eden on a grand scale which will be the eternal kingdom of God.
As you look at the Indiana skies this December, remember the prayer of Isaiah “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down”. That has become the hope and prayer of all Christians. And one day, He will.
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at 02:38 PM | Comments (0)
November 26, 2008
“The First Thanksgiving?”
Philippians 1: 3-6
Thanksgiving Eve, 2008
As I have read accounts about the first Thanksgiving year after year I have discovered some interesting facts. First of all, the first thanksgiving feast that was celebrated in Plymouth Massachussetts in
the Autumn of 1621 was not the first thanksgiving offered on American soil.
Native Americans had been celebrating harvest feasts with elements of thanksgivings to their Gods or the Spirits long before Europeans arrived.
The Pilgrim’s thanksgiving was not even the first thanksgiving feast that Europeans celebrated in thanksgiving to our God on American soil. A thanksgiving harvest festival was celebrated a few years earlier in the Virginia Colony. Earlier than that, in 1565 in what is now St. Augustine Florida French Huguenot colonists celebrated a Thanksgiving Feast. But the earliest thanksgiving feasts celebrated by Europeans on American soil seems to have been offered by Spanish excursions in what is now Texas.
But our present day practice of thanksgiving seems to have descended from the one in Plymouth Massachusetts in 1621, 387 years ago. Not that our spirit in celebrating it is the same.
Given our habitual bountiful harvests and prosperity, I think we misunderstand what motivated the pilgrims of Plymouth to offer their thanksgiving feast. We see the drawings of the Pilgrims and Native Americans eating their feast amid tables stacked high with food and fires roasting all sorts of wild game and we think they were celebrating the same kinds of abundance we are used to. That was not the case.
You see, the pilgrims had had a rocky start on the rocky New England soil. Due to poor planning and unfortunate circumstances they had disembarked from the Mayflower onto the shore of Plymouth on December 21, 1620, the first day of Winter. They were not prepared for a Massachussetts winter and there was no time to get prepared. About half of the 102 people who disembarked from the Mayflower that December died during the first winter in Massachussetts.
In April of the following spring, the survivors were befriended by 2 English speaking Native Americans. How they learned English is a long story in itself.
These two Native Americans taught the Pilgrims what and how to plant successfully in their new land. And the following Autumn they harvested enough food to get them safely through the following winter.
So when they invited their Native American neighbors to a thanksgiving feast, they were not celebrating an abundance or prosperity. They were celebrating their survival. The Pilgrims, some of whom were Calvinist Puritans, were celebrating the fact that it now appeared that God would bless their undertaking to establish a community of God a Church, in this new land. For a while they had not been at all certain that they would survive. But now God seemed to be blessing their attempt and they celebrated with a Thanksgiving Festival.
And that is the Spirit of Thanksgiving that we need to endeavor to capture. Not just being grateful for all our stuff, our abundance of food, the presence of our family or our enjoyment of football games. The spirit of thanksgiving that we need to recover is that of the pilgrims who were grateful that God had blessed their labors and their endeavors and that their efforts to establish a haven for Puritanism in America would succeed. They were seeking freedom of religion and it appeared that God was going to grant it.
St. Paul strikes a similar note in the first chapter of his letter to the Philippians. St. Paul was writing to them from a prison in Rome. His future was uncertain to say the least, but he was Thankful for the Christians in Philippi.
He was thankful because they were his partners in the gospel. They had believed what he preached and now they were preaching and witnessing so others were becoming Christians. Paul’s preaching had been stopped, but his missionary endeavors continued through the work of the Christians at Philippi and in other places.
Paul even told the Philippians that he was confident that God would bring to completion the work that God had started in them. The success of the Gospel was assured.
So, as we gather together to celebrate Thanksgiving this evening and tomorrow, I hope that the true spirit of thanksgiving will be present in you and your celebration. We thank God that he has allowed our families to take root in this place. We thank God that he has blessed our labors as we attempted to build and grow this community of believers known as Faith Church. And we thank God for the assurance that he will bring to completion that which he has started in us.
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at 02:28 PM | Comments (0)
November 23, 2008
“You Owe Somebody Big-Time”
Joshua 24: 1-15
Sunday, November 23, 2008
After our coffee time this morning, we will gather in this room to perform some important tasks. During our Annual Meeting of the Congregation we will elect Deacons and Elders and we will look at our budget for 2009.
I think that our denomination’s Constitution is wise in requiring each congregation to meet at least once annually. This has been an interesting year for those of us connected with Faith Church, because there were some Special or called meetings of the Congregation during the year. There has been some business regarding the call of a pastor that needed to be tended to and could not wait for the annual meeting today.
As you prepare to be a part of the meeting today, I want you to be aware that as we elect officers and see the budget that is based on what you pledged to give to your church the next year, these items of business make statements as to who we are.
When we elect officers we do so with the confidence that God’s Holy Spirit has been working in and through our nominating Committee. When we elect those persons and when we install them into their offices later, we are saying that we trust that these are the people whom God has chosen to lead us.
As we look at our budget, we will be saying that these line items are all things that it is proper to spend God’s money on. And as we ask you to continue to support this budget we are stating that it is proper for God’s people to give some of their money to the church to be used to support the work of God’s church.
It is good for God’s people to gather together once in a while and take actions that remind them who they are. In our actions today we will remind ourselves that we belong to God and that we consider God’s church to be important. That is why we provide it with leaders and money.
The constitution of ancient Israel did not require them to have a business meeting each year, but occasionally the leaders of Israel did call the people or the leaders of the people together to remind them who they were and what responsibilities they had to God and to each other.
Joshua was the leader who led Israel after Moses died. God had worked through Moses to deliver Israel from Egypt. He had given his Laws to Israel through Moses. God had given his instructions as to how Israel was to Worship God through Moses.
God chose Joshua to lead Israel into a new era. Moses’ tasks were completed. Joshua would have his own tasks. God used Joshua to lead Israel across the Jordan river and into the promised land. God would use Joshua to lead Israel as they drove God’s enemies out of the promised land and inhabited that promised land.
The passage we are looking at this morning describes a meeting Joshua had with the leaders of Israel after he had completed the tasks God had given him as Israel’s leader.
There were no regular annual business meetings to which the leader of Israel could submit a report. So Joshua arranged a special meeting with the leaders of Israel.
He called them together to remind them who they were and to call them to recommit themselves to God’s service.
On this occasion, Joshua spoke as a prophet, speaking for God who wanted to remind the people of how they got to be who they were and where they were.
I find this passage provides us with some remarkable parallels between ancient Israel and ourselves as we prepare for our annual meeting this morning and as we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving this coming Thursday.
God through Joshua reminded His people that their ancestors did not always worship Him. Abraham was a worshipper of other Gods, a worshipper of Idols until God called him and led him into the Promised Land where he lived as a foreigner.
As I look out at this congregation I see no one who has any ancestral claim on God. The family from which I received my last name came from Scotland. In Scotland there are archeological reminders of the pagan religions and cults that my ancestors were involved in before Christianity came to Scotland. There are similar sites in all the nations your ancestors came from or you yourselves came from. All of us have ancestors who at one time worshipped false Gods. Christianity and the worship of the one true God came into our families because God reached out to our ancestors and caused them to believe in Him. Or maybe you were the first in your family to believe in Jesus.
Then God called the attention of His people to the land they now called their own. God reminds them that their ancestors were in Egypt until God brought them out of there. Then he reminds them that their ancestors wandered in the wilderness with no homeland at all. God then brought them into the Promised Land and caused them to defeat and drive out the folks whom God hated who lived there.
The point of this part of the passage was to remind the Israelites that they had a homeland because God brought them into it.
As none of our families started out as believers in the one true God, neither did our families start out in the bountiful land in which we live. God brought our ancestors here. Some of them were fleeing tyrants. The first member of my family who came here had fought against the English King and lost. He fled to Ireland and then to the colony of Pennsylvania in the Americas. Diane’s ancestors came here from Germany because they were tired of generation after generation of war.
Others came here seeking a better education, or better jobs, or a better life in general.
But I believe that God led each one of them here just as he led the Israelites into their new country.
Like those Israelites, we also eat the fruits of crops we did not plant. Some of us grow a little of our food, but most of our food comes from the labors of others.
Since in many ways our abundant circumstances are similar to the Israelites of Joshua’s day, I would like to give you the charge that Joshua gave to his people. “Now Fear the LORD and serve Him with all faithfulness.” God has been more than generous and faithful to us. He has kept us safe from our enemies since 9/11. He has made us wealthy beyond what many in the world can imagine. He has brought us from many strange places to live in this bountiful land. He has taken us from an ancestry that involved false religion and paganism and revealed himself to us through his Holy Word. It is good that our Nation gives us a Holiday to gather with friends and family and consider how thankful, how grateful we are to God. But we need to do more.
We need to serve him with all faithfulness. We need to do things for God and for others because we love the God who has been so generous to us.
And we need to be willing to stand before others as Joshua did and declare boldly “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord”
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at 02:36 PM | Comments (0)
November 16, 2008
“Preparing For the Day of the Lord”
I Thessalonians 5: 1-11
Sunday, November 16, 2008
The folks who came out to Bible Study at our house a week ago last Thursday were surprised to discover that my neighbors have already decorated their house for Christmas. I must confess that I was initially surprised myself, but then I went to Walmart last Friday and heard that they were playing Christmas music on the PA system. At least my neighbor is in sync with Walmart.
Even though most of us prefer to prepare for the Thanksgiving Holiday before we prepare for Christmas, the time of preparation is upon us. We have travel plans to make, menu’s to prepare, food to purchase, and sleeping arrangements to make for visiting relatives.
The Seasons are upon us. In the midst of all of these seasonal preparations I would like to remind you that we are always to be prepared for a very important season, the Season that is referred to in our Scripture passage this morning. This season is alluded to in the first verse when Paul writes “Now concerning the times and the seasons, you do not need to have anything written to you”.
I want you to notice two things about this sentence. First of all, Paul doesn’t seem to have meant it in its most obvious meaning. Paul evidently did think they needed some instructions regarding the “times and seasons” because he dedicated the rest of the chapter to giving them some instructions. In that light, what he seems to mean in the first verse is that they needed no new writings about the times and seasons, they only needed to be reminded about the instructions they had already been given. In the rest of the chapter, Paul seems to be merely reminding them of the things he had already taught them.
The other thing I want you to notice about the first verse is the appearance of a redundancy in it. Paul is writing to them about “the times and seasons”. To us the words times and seasons both refer to the passages of time. But the early Christians used two of the Greek words meaning times and seasons in different ways. The Greek word that is interpreted “times” here = Chronon. This is the word from which Chronometer comes. It means the measure of the passage of time, the time that is always passing. The days, hours, minutes, seconds that are measured by the clock.
The word that is translated “seasons” here = Kairon. This word was used to denote specific periods of time marked by certain characteristics or events. And for Christians of the first century the Kairos or season they were most interested in was the second coming of the Lord.
So in the phrase “times and seasons” we have the juxtaposition or intersection of two elements of time, the constant passing of time marked by days all of the same length and a pre-ordained season of God. Paul is writing about that coming time when God’s Season will become a part of one of our days.
This day is in the second verse referred to as the “Day of the Lord”. This term has its derivation in the Old Testament. The prophets often spoke of the Day of the Lord and it usually referred to some event that was not good for Israel. It was used to refer to some coming judgment from God. So the attacks on Israel from the Assyrians and the Babylonians were spoken of as the Day of the Lord, the day when God would pay Israel for her sins.
Among Christians the term Day of the Lord was used to refer to the final judgment of God, the day or time when our lord Jesus would return to earth and begin the final judgments of God.
Some Christians have felt uncomfortable that the return of Jesus is described as being like the coming of the thief in the night. To be strict with the language here, it is Christ’s coming, not Christ himself that is referred to as being like the coming of a thief in the night. It will be unexpected, it will be stealthy. There will be no warning signs.
But I think there is some appropriateness to Paul’s metaphor here. When Jesus comes again, it will mean the loss of everything for those who are not apart of his covenant of Grace. Those who do not believe in Christ will loose everything when Christ returns. For them He will be the ultimate thief in the night. That should be a sobering thought for those of us who have relationships with unbelievers.
On the positive side, the other metaphor Paul uses is also appropriate. He likens the return of Christ to the suddenness of labor pains in a woman approaching childbirth. It is good for us to remember that although the return of Christ may have some unpleasant aspects even for us, it will be the birth of the final form of the kingdom of God.
But the bottom line here is that the return of Christ will bring disastrous judgments and glorious redemption, and that it will come unannounced. We will not know ahead of time when He is coming.
So how can we prepare for this surprise event? Well, the obvious answer is to be prepared at all times. But how do we prepare on a permanent or constant basis for the return of Jesus and the final judgments that will commence with it?
Paul says we are to be awake and sober. Does he really intend that Christians not sleep? Although some noteworthy Christians who are connected to this congregation are known for not sleeping much, I don’t think Paul meant that Christians must be insomniacs. I think he meant we are to be alert, aware that Christ might return or that we might face him in death at any moment.
So, other than being alert, how can we prepare for the return of Christ?
We need to put on the Christian Armor that Paul talks about in verse 8. The imagery of Paul’s metaphor here comes from the suit of armor worn by the Roman soldiers in his day. The large pieces of armor were the chest plate or breast plate and the helmet.
The breast plate covered the area from the waist to the shoulders in the front. The helmet covered the head with the face exposed yet protected by projections on the helmet.
The vital organs were thus protected from harm by these two pieces of armor. The mind and the heart were protected. For the Christian living in the age before the second coming of Christ, God has given us the armor that Paul describes. The Christian equivalent of a breastplate consists of two virtues: faith and love.
Faith is that commodity that connects us to God. Love is that which connects us to others and to God. But you have to remember that whenever the bible speaks of Love and often when it speaks of faith, it describes it in terms of the actions that should logically proceed from them.
In other words, when we are commanded to love our neighbors we are commanded to do good deeds for them, to perform loving and king acts for them. When the OT saints are commended for their faith, the commendation is not based on some warm feeling or mere profession of faith that the OT saints spoke. They are commended for the faithful acts they performed, such as following God in the wilderness, obeying the commandments of God, obeying God in the face of opposition. It is our loving and faithful acts that build us up and help us to persevere until the Lord returns or we meet him at our death.
The helmet in Paul’s armor metaphor is “the hope of salvation.” This is HOPE in the biblical sense, of something we are assured of, something that we have no empirical evidence of but that we nonetheless are convinced is true.
This helmet protects our minds from wandering and our eyes from leading us astray. This helmet comes from the word of God. It is the Word of God, the bible, and fellowship with other Christians that provide our helmet for us. These are the things that build up our hope and keep us strong.
So as we prepare for the upcoming holiday festivals, we need to remember that we are to be prepared for the return of Jesus and the Kingdom he will cause to exist.
We prepare ourselves by exercising our love and our faith, by doing loving and faith driven acts, and by reading and studying scriptures and having faith discussions with other Christians. And as we prepare, we are to help others prepare, as Paul wrote in verse 11, we are to “encourage one another and build up each other”.
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at 02:30 PM | Comments (0)
November 09, 2008
“What a Strange Shepherd”
Ezekiel 34: 11-24
November 9th, 2008
The most well-known and best liked passage in the Old Testament and maybe the entire bible is probably the 23rd Psalm.
That Psalm has comforted a lot of people as they counted on comfort and help from God. The 23rd Psalm is written from the viewpoint of the individual believer and the relationship dealt with in that Psalm is the relationship between the individual believer and God. In the 23rd psalm the focus of the Shepherd is his care and comfort for that one sheep among many.
There are other passages that refer to God or Jesus as the Shepherd and describe his relationship to the entire flock. This passage in Ezekiel is one of them.
Now, whenever we look at a passage from the OT it is important to remember the time and situation of the author of the book. This is not so important when we look at a new testament passage. All of the NT books were written within 70 years, so the prevailing attitudes and subject matter were all somewhat similar.
The OT on the other hand was written over a period of a little over a thousand years. During that time Israel became a nation, divided, was conquered, carried into captivity, emancipated and rebuilt. So when we look at a passage from the OT it is often important to take note of who wrote it and what was going on at the time it was written.
Ezekiel was a prophet of the Exile. Before he was called by God to be a prophet he had been taken from Israel as a captive to Babylon. He was called in Babylon to be a prophet to the other exiles there. He also sent prophecies to the Jews who were still in Israel since it had not yet been destroyed at the beginning of his ministry.
His message to the captives scattered throughout Babylon was one of comfort. God told him to tell them again and again that they or their descendants would return to Israel and rebuild it. Jews from all over Babylon would one day be able to return to their homeland and worship their God in his chosen land.
But he also prophecied to the exiles and to those still residing in Jerusalem that before the exiles could return, Jerusalem and Israel would be totally destroyed.
This passage was probably written shortly before the fall and destruction of Jerusalem. In the beginning of chapter 34, God has Ezekiel address the unfaithful shepherds of God’s flock. As we begin the chapter, the flock is the nation Israel and the shepherds are the Kings, priests and false prophets of Israel.
Ezekiel is to announce God’s judgments on the leaders of Israel. God was angry with them because they ruled over Israel for their own power and benefit. They did not rule to benefit the people. As a result, God punished their nation by allowing them to be attacked by the Assyrians, then the Babylonians, and many of the people, God’s sheep, were carried away into Exile.
In the first 10 verses of chapter 34, Ezekiel announces that God will judge the evil shepherds and remove them from their positions of power and authority.
Then, in our passage, Ezekiel announces that God will act personally to save his flock. He will search out his sheep, even though they have been scattered among other flocks. He will look after them, He will gather them together and bring them into their own land once again. He will feed them well on the mountains and hills of Palestine and he will continue to seek out those who are still scattered and lost and bring them home to the flock. He will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak. As you read this part of the passage you can almost hear one of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphonies playing in the background.
And then, right in the middle of that thought, right in the middle of the 16th verse, the passage takes a startling turn. You may have missed it when I read the passage a few minutes ago, so let me read the 16th verse again.
“I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy”. And right here I want to say, “wait a minute, Just what kind of a shepherd is this God of Israel? And when I ask this question I am certain that I am joined by many of you.
We have in our congregation people who are at the head of the field in animal gene research. Some are professors, some retired, some work in the labs, but all of them have dedicated or are dedicating their careers to developing herds or flocks of animals that are resistant to diseases and parasites. They are in short, dedicated to helping farmers develop herds and flocks where every animal is strong and could possibly be described as fat. They have spent their lives or are spending their lives to improve the flocks and herds of farmers so that more people in this world will have access to more and better food. What a noble way to spend ones life.
But for those among us who are engaged in such a noble endeavor, the very idea of destroying the fat and strong animals in a flock and working exclusively to improve the weak and struggling animals is not the way to raise a superior herd or flock.
But you see, God is not building his flock to create strong animals that will feed the world, He is building an eternal kingdom. And He has chosen to build it of the weak and sinful, the humble, and the meek. He has chosen not to gather in many of the wealthy and the powerful, be case it is really difficult to make them understand the values of God’s kingdom.
God is building a flock that will minister to the needs of the downtrodden people of this world. He is building a flock that will preach the message of and about a humble carpenter turned preacher who was also the eternal son of God.
God is building a flock in which the sheep are not to push each other around, or to selfishly hoard the best grazing land or water holes. As sheep in God’s flock we are not to use what God has given us to build ourselves up. God’s way of building up his herd is to have us make each other stronger, to build each other up.
Now, you may have noticed that I somehow moved from this passage being about OT Israel, God’s flock to it being about us. Actually, I didn’t do that. God did, speaking though the prophet Ezekiel.
Take a look at verse 23 & 24. “I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them and be their shepherd. And I, the LORD will be their God, and my servant David will be prince among them; I, the LORD have spoken.”
In the OT, the Son of David was another phrase denoting the Messiah, the one whom God was going to send to his people. In the NT The Son of David, the Messiah is identified as Jesus. So those who believe in Jesus, those who follow Jesus are the present day flock of God.
We are God’s flock that he is making into is eternal kingdom. We are not to be stronger and more powerful or more influential than the other kingdoms of this world. We are not to overcome them by stealth or wealth or brute force. We are to be a flock of weak sheep, where we build each other up. We are to be a flock in which each uses the gifts and resources that God has given them to help and build up the others. The others we are to help are those in our fellowship and Christians around the world.
As our shepherd is determined to go out into the desolate valleys and barren hills to seek out his lost sheep, so are we to reach out to the lost sheep across the street, across the river, and around the world.
The flock of God is not called to build huge congregations and large portfolios of our holdings. We are called to help each other, to build each other up and to bring in those who are lost.
What a strange Flock, what a strange shepherd.
Let us pray,
Almighty God, it is so easy for us to think that you want us to be successful as the world defines success. Help us to remember that we belong to your flock, a flock that is not to be defined by the world’s standards. Help us to be faithful to you and to each other. Amen
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at 02:11 PM | Comments (0)
November 02, 2008
“Walking in the Light in the Midst of Darkness”
I John 1: 5-10
November 2, 2008
Did anyone arrive here an hour early this morning? If so, you did not adjust your clocks back last night. The key word and the key idea involved in going back and forth to and from Daylight Savings time is “Adjust”. Because we have less daylight and more darkness in the winter, our political leaders have thought that we need to adjust our clocks to make better use of the daylight hours in the summer when there are more of them and in the winter when there are less of them. In the winter when there are less than 10 hours of daylight, it is important to have them when traveling back and forth from work and during the hours we work. Our political leaders think that we save energy if the sun is up most of the time while we are working.
I think that this adjustment of our clocks or adjusting to the increased hours of darkness in the Autumn can serve as a metaphor for the life of a Christian. We, the ones who are called to live Holy lives, live in a world where there is much moral darkness. As we attempt to live lives that are somewhat pleasing to God, we have to learn to adjust to the moral darkness that surrounds us. We learn what programs not to watch on TV, what kinds of movies not to watch, and we learn what places and situations to avoid. But as we adjust to the darkness in this world we need to be careful that we do not accommodate the darkness in our personal lives.
In this passage John the apostle reminds us that God is light and if we walk with God, we must walk in the light.
He means that God is grounded in moral light and truth. He always does what is right and always honors the truth. And if we are with God, if we have God in our lives, if we care about God, we will also always try to do what is right and always honor the truth.
If we allow our sinful natures to rule parts of our lives, we are walking in the darkness and not in the light and we cannot truthfully claim to have fellowship with God.
But if we do our best to limit the influence of our sinful natures over our lives, then we can have fellowship with God and with each other. Wait a minute, did you catch that? Take a look at verse 7 again: “but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” Walking in the light, living our lives as Jesus wants us to, is one of the things that allows us to have fellowship with one another.
If your fellowship or Christian relationship with someone is suffering there may be a reason. It might be that one of you is not living or behaving as God wants us to. If it is you, get rid of that sin from your life and your fellowship will be restored.
If you cannot find any great darkness in your life, then maybe it is in the life of the other person. Do not seek it or declare it at first. First pray that God will reveal it to them so they can deal with it before God alone. If that doesn’t work, then prayerfully ask God what he wants you to do about it. Do not immediately assume that you are to confront them and correct them. On the other hand, don’t assume that you aren’t. Be patient and let God work.
There is one more thing I want you to notice in that 7th verse. It is not our walking in the light or living to please God that makes us right with each other and with God. It is the Blood of Jesus that cleanses us from all sin.” Our walking in the light is not the cause of God’s forgiveness, it is a result of it. We strive to please God in all we do because of what He has done for us in Christ. It is the death of Christ that makes us clean, that allows us to enter God’s eternal kingdom. It is the death of Christ that gives us the power to walk in the light.
But even with the death of Christ, and the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we cannot live totally without sin. Even the redeemed, those who belong to God will commit some sins in this life. Those are to be recognized and confessed to God. They are to be added to the bunch that we trusted Jesus to forgive when we first believed in him.
We are now about to participate in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. It is a reminder to us that it is Jesus’ sacrifice of Himself on the cross that causes our sins to be forgiven by God. It is a chance to proclaim that we are among those whom Jesus has redeemed. And it is a chance to confess our sins and add them to the list of the things for which Jesus died.
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at 05:46 PM | Comments (0)