We have taken a big step, moving into our own villa, and now we are discovering the ways we have to improve if we are to take advantage of our new church home. Last week I talked about the use of our spiritual gifts. With more potential comes more opportunity and with more opportunity comes the need for more of us to use our gifts to support and encourage ministry in the church.

This morning I will talk about our financial support of the church. Next week, Clement will preach about prayer and then in the first Sunday in June I will focus on teaching in the church. In each of these areas we will have to increase our efforts if we are to live well in this new villa.

Some people get nervous when preachers talk about money, because churches are often manipulative, using sermons to squeeze more money out of the members and any visitors at church that particular morning. But this abuse of the pulpit does not mean that the subject of giving our money to the church is not important.

It is not unspiritual to talk about money and in fact it is because money has such power that Jesus spent so much time talking about it. In the Christian New Testament, sixteen of the thirty-eight parables are concerned with how to handle money and possessions. In the Gospels, an amazing one out of ten verses deal directly with the subject of money. The Christian New Testament offers 500 verses on prayer, less than 500 verses on faith, but more than 2,000 verses on money and possessions.

Why do you think this is so? Of all the things to talk about, why do you think Jesus spent so much time talking about money and possessions? And when he spoke about money and possessions, why do you think most times he spoke to warn of the dangers of money and possessions?

Matthew 6:24 in the Sermon on the Mount
“No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.

Matthew 13:22 in the Parable of the Sower
The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful.

Luke 12:15
Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

Jesus warns us over and over again in Scripture about the danger of money, wealth and possessions, not because money is bad but because our love of money pulls us away from God. Wealth is dangerous not because it is bad in itself but because it pulls us away from what really matters.

How much money should you give to the church? When the collection basket comes by Sunday mornings, how do you decide how much to give? People talk about tithing, giving 10%. Does this mean you give 10% of what you have in your pocket Sunday morning? Does this mean you give 10% of what you earn? If you give 10% of what you earn, do you give 10% before taxes are paid out or 10% after taxes have been paid? What do you do if someone gives you a gift? Do you give 10% of that to the church? If you find money on the ground and there is no way of identifying the owner, do you give 10% of what you found?

This morning I want to run through a brief summary of the concept of tithing in the Old and New Testaments of our Bible and then address the question, “Why should I tithe?”

The word tithe in the Hebrew means literally, a tenth part. The Greek translation of the Hebrew word means to pay or collect tithes.

In the Old Testament, there are three tithes that are mentioned. There is first of all a tithe, 10%, that was given to the Levites, the tribe of Israel who functioned as priests for Israel. The Levites were given no land when Israel conquered Canaan and instructions were given that the tithe would provide for this tribe.

The concept of the tithe was that God had brought Israel safely to Canaan, the Promised Land, and now they were to return to God 10% of what he had given them. God gave them grain, new wine, olive oil, fruit, cattle and sheep and so they offered back to him a tenth of their grain, wine, olive oil and so on by giving it to the Levites.

There was a second tithe, a second 10%, that was to be brought to the temple and eaten there with family and friends in the presence of the Lord. This tithe paid for the food and drink of a rejoicing feast, celebrating as a community what God had provided.

And then every third year there was a third tithe that was to be given to the storehouses so the poor and widows and orphans could be provided for. So in the Old Testament there was actually an annual 23.3% tithe.

The concept of tithing is well developed in the Old Testament. To fulfill one’s religious duty, it was necessary to tithe. To meet one’s obligations to God, tithing was obligatory.

So in Malachi 3 we read that God’s blessing was withheld because the tithe was not given.
“Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the LORD Almighty.
“But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’
8 “Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me.
“But you ask, ‘How do we rob you?’
“In tithes and offerings.  9 You are under a curse—the whole nation of you—because you are robbing me.  10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house.

God’s blessing was withheld because Israel did not pay the tithe it was required to pay. This was the law of God. To be a follower of God, you had to pay the tithe. God gave you all you had and you were required to give back one tenth.

Now we move to the New Testament and I have some good news for you. You are no longer under the law. In Christ, you have been set free from the law. In the New Testament, the requirement of tithing 10% is abolished.

When Jesus rose from the dead, Paul understood more clearly than anyone else that his death and resurrection meant we have been set free from the law. And he wrote in Galatians (5:1, 3:23-25)
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed.  24 So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith.  25 Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.

We have been set free from the law and are no longer under any obligation to tithe 10%. Giving to the work of God 10% of what we have is an Old Testament concept.

What do you need to put in the collection plate to fulfill your obligation to God? Nothing! You no longer have an obligation to God. God has given you a gift you cannot repay and your response needs to come from the heart, not from an obligation. You are not required to give anything.

But now listen. Remember when Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount and said:
“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’  22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  44 But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,  45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.

In the same way, it was said that we should bring a tithe of 10% of all we have to the Lord each year, but now, in the New Testament, I say to you that all you have belongs to God. It is no longer 10% that is God’s share of what you have. Everything you have is God’s share. That is the teaching of the New Testament. It is no longer a case of a tenth of what you have belongs to God but all you have belongs to God.

It is not a question of what you need to give to fulfill your obligation to God. What can you give to God to repay him for eternal life? Nothing! God has given you his salvation as a free gift. You who have accepted his gift have been recipients of his grace. You have been given what you do not deserve, what you cannot earn and what you can never repay.

So how much do you put in the offering plate on Sunday? It is far more difficult than taking the sum of what you earn and dividing by ten. What you offer to God is your life. Every minute of your life. Every part of your life.

There might be some who feel liberated by this understanding. “I am free from the law and can give 2% or 5%, whatever I want. The 10% has been abolished.” But let’s review Jesus’ teaching. In the Old Testament the law was given because of the hardness of their hearts. So, do not commit adultery, do not murder, love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But now in the New Testament, the law has been written on our hearts. We have been given the Holy Spirit and in each case, the more exacting truth has been revealed.

As New Testament Christians, not only do we not commit adultery, but the deeper truth is that we are not to view each other as sexual objects. We do not murder but the deeper truth is that our anger is also an offense. We are to love our neighbors and now also our enemies. In each case the law taught the minimum and Jesus moved us to an understanding of the more exacting truth.

In the Old Testament the Jews were instructed to give 10% to the Levites. Now in the New Testament, can it be we can give less rather than more than 10%? This does not fit with the teaching of Jesus.

We did not move from no adultery to adultery permitted on Tuesdays. We did not move from not murdering someone to murdering twice a year. We did not move from loving our neighbors and hating our enemies to hating our neighbors every so often. With a fuller understanding made possible by the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we move from the minimum requirement of the law to the fullness of the truth that lay behind the law. We move from the minimum understanding to the greater.

It is for this reason that 10% should be the minimum we give and then we can begin to see after that how generous we are able to be. It has been said you should give 10% to the Lord but now I tell you be really generous and give more than 10%.

I don’t want to beat you over the head and make you feel guilty so you will give more but I do want to help you this morning to see why it is in your own best interest to give.

In the Old Testament, giving the tithe was a religious obligation. In the New Testament giving is an expression of the joy of our Christian experience. Paul said in II Corinthians 9:7 that God loves a cheerful giver.

Let me present three reasons for being a cheerful giver to God’s work.

The first is rather simple. We give to show gratitude. We can never repay what God has done for us but we can show our gratitude.

In Luke 17 is recorded an experience Jesus had that came to my mind.
11 Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee.  12 As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance  13 and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”
14 When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.
15 One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice.  16 He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.
17 Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?  18 Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”  19 Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”

Jesus is walking to Jerusalem when ten lepers, keeping their distance from him as proscribed by law, called out to him to be healed. Jesus saw them and told them to go show themselves to the priests and when they obeyed, they were cleansed, healed from their leprosy. Ten lepers were healed but only one of them came back to thank Jesus and praise God.

Ten lepers received a free gift – healing from a disease that made them social outcasts from their families and communities. How much would they be willing to pay for healing from this disease? Everything they had. What could they offer to Jesus except their gratitude?

And yet only one out of the ten came back to thank Jesus and praise God.

Why did that leper return? Was he obligated to do so? No. Was his healing dependent on his coming back to give thanks? No. The other nine did not return to give thanks but were still healed. But the leper who returned came back out of gratitude and received in the process what the other nine never learned, that it was faith in God that brought healing, not the magic of Jesus.

Why should we give to the work of God in the world? Because we are grateful for what God has done for us and because when we give, we grow in our understanding of faith and the ways of God working in the world. We give out of gratitude.

How grateful are you for what God has done for you? Let that be your guide as you give.

A second reason for giving to the work of God in the world is that in doing so we are acting wisely, preparing for the future.

The parable of the Shrewd Manager that we read this morning is a difficult parable to understand. On the face of it, it seems to be commending dishonesty.

Let me summarize the story. A manager who has complete control over his master’s estate, is called in to the master and told he will be removed from his position. The manager decides he doesn’t like his future prospects: he does not like to do manual work and does not want to beg. So he goes to the people who owe his master money and lowers the amount they owe his master. In this way he puts them in his debt so that when he loses his job as manager, these people will help him out in his new life.

Now it doesn’t really matter if he defrauded his master of the money due to him or if he removed from the bills an unfair and illegal amount of interest charged. In either case, what Jesus commends in this parable is that he used his resources in his present situation to prepare for his future situation.

Picture yourself on the Titanic. The ship has struck an iceberg and is sinking. People are struggling to get into the lifeboats. The ship has begun to tilt as the stern of the ship takes in water so walking along the corridors and the deck of the ship is difficult. It won’t be long before the ship goes under and if you are not in a lifeboat by that time, you will most likely drown in the frigid Atlantic waters.

Being a conscientious person, you race through the hallway to see if there is someone you can save and bring to the lifeboats. As you race down the hall, you see a man ransacking the rooms, filling his pockets with gold and silver and jewelry he has found in the cabins. He is dragging a suitcase loaded with money and watches and other valuables. He is delighted at this treasure he has discovered. “I’m a rich man! Look at all I have!” he shouts at you and then races on to the next cabin to get some more. You try to persuade him that he should abandon all that and try to save himself but to no avail. His heart is so set on this treasure he has found he is incapable of thinking of the future.

This is the flip side of the parable Jesus taught. What good does it do you to accumulate money and wealth in this life when death is approaching that will take all you have accumulated away from you? The wise person uses what he or she has accumulated to prepare for the future, life after death. Jesus said (Luke 16:9)
I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

In the Sermon on the Mount as recorded in Luke 12, Jesus taught
“Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.  33 Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.  34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Where are you accumulating treasure? It doesn’t matter whether you have it or are lusting for it. It doesn’t matter whether you have a lot or a little. Where are you accumulating treasure? If your treasure is in this world, then you are a fool, like the man on the Titanic gathering up treasure while the ship is sinking.

Don’t end up being bankrupt when your life in this world is over. Build up treasure now in heaven by using what God has given you here in ways that are pleasing to him.

Why give to the work of God in the world? Because we ought to be grateful to God for what he has done for us. Because it is a wise person who uses what he or she has in this world to prepare for the future. And thirdly, we give to the work of God in the world because we receive from God blessing when we use our money and possessions in ways that please him.

I read earlier a passage from Malachi 3 in which Israel was cursed because they did not bring a tithe as they were instructed to do. But I left off the last verse of that section. After the Lord says he is being robbed because people are not bringing him their tithe, he says:
“Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.

There is a theme in Scripture that God’s blessing of us is in some measure dependent on how we use the money and possessions he has entrusted us with. We see this in the last verse of the passage from Malachi 3. We see this also in the teaching Jesus gave after his telling of the parable of the shrewd manager.
10 “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.  11 So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?  12 And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?

What is Jesus talking about here when he refers to “little” and “much”? That becomes apparent when you read verse 11. So verse ten can be read, Whoever can be trusted with worldly wealth can also be trusted with true riches, spiritual blessing, and whoever is dishonest with worldly wealth will also be dishonest with spiritual truths.

If you are not using the money and possessions God has given you in a way that pleases him, you are depriving yourself of the spiritual blessing God wants to give you.

Do you want to be blessed by God? Do you want to receive in your life God’s blessing? Then use your money and possessions in a way that pleases God.

Sometimes when I pray before we take up our offering I make the point that giving what the world most values is an act of defiance, telling the world that we choose Jesus first and foremost, above the money and power of this world. When we share our money and possessions, when we give them away, we shatter the power they have over us and make room for the joy of Christian life. Our giving becomes a joyous act, not a religious obligation.

This is why I focus in my preaching on growing in our understanding of the love of God for us. Money follows our heart and when our heart is given to God, our money will follow.

The very generous giving of RIC over the past six months is an indication of the rich spiritual life we share. We met the challenge necessary to move into this villa and now in the next six months we have another challenge. I am not worried or anxious about raising the funds we need to meet our budget for the year. I am confident we will do this.

Why am I confident? I am not confident because I know we can do it. When I think of the makeup of our church I am amazed we were able to give as much as we did the last six months. And I wonder if we can do this again.

I keep coming back to the story of Joshua and Israel crossing the Jordan and entering into Canaan. The strong fortified walls of the cities seemed too much for them but they were not too much for God and the walls of Jericho fell. They fell, not because of the might and power of Joshua and the Israelites; they fell because of the power of God.

I am confident as we move forward because God who has led us to this villa will bless us and he will help us meet our budget. I don’t know how, but if we continue to make Jesus the center of our service and attention, we will see the miracle of loaves and fishes and our offerings will enable us to raise the funds needed to meet our budget for this year.

Why give to God’s work?

How grateful are you for what God has done in your life? Are you using the money and possessions you have been given to store up treasure on earth or treasure in heaven? Do you want to receive all the blessing God has for you?

Be a cheerful giver. I remember a conversation I had with my father and the accountant for our company some years ago. We were having lunch and discussing this subject of giving to the church. Annie and I have given at least 10% ever since we were married and so the accountant began to ask me if a 10% tithe should be taken out before or after taxes. He asked what I would do if I had a tax-deferred investment? Would I tithe from that? He went on and on and finally I said to him, “You’re missing the point. It is not a matter of how much I need to give to fulfill my religious duty. It is a question of how much I can give because of the joy of participating in what God is doing in the world.”

This is what will happen if you are not generous with what God has given you. You will miss out on the blessing of God he has in mind for you, the joy of participating with him in his work in the world. You are the one who will suffer, not God.

John Wesley preached a famous sermon in which he called on Christians to earn all you can. Make as much money as possible. Secondly, save all you can. How little of the money you earned do you need to live on. And thirdly, he challenged Christians to give all you can.

10% is not a limit or a goal. “How much can I give?” is the question, not, “What do I have to give?”

I challenge you to open your heart to God and let go of the treasures of this world to which you cling so tightly.

And God challenges you as well.
Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.

For the past couple years a number of us at RIC have played in a softball league at the American school. We play for a team named, All Sorts, which in past years was made up from people here and there. But then a member of RIC became coach and now all but three players on the team attend RIC. There are six teams in the league and our team has won the championship the last three seasons: Fall 2011, Spring 2012, and Fall 2012. Last week we were tied for first place and after our celebration and dedication at RIC, we played the team we were tied with and won. We won decisively. We beat them 23-1, an amazing game. We are a very good team, when everyone is there. The week before, when we were missing some key players, we lost to one of the weaker teams, 13-8.

I pitch for the team and what is required for the pitcher it to be able to lob a ball with an arc that hits an area about the size of three dinner plates about 12 meters away. I have never been an exceptional athlete but this is something I can do and so it makes me a valuable member of the team. But this kind of pitching does not win games by itself. Most times, the batters hit the ball and so in order to be successful, the players standing behind me need to be able to catch the ball when it is hit. There is a first line of defense called the infield and a second line of defense called the outfield and when the ball is hit they have to keep an eye on the ball, react quickly, and catch it. We have very good infielders and outfielders.

Then it is our turn to hit the ball and we have very strong hitters. When we are all there, we score about 20 or so runs a game.

The rules of the league require each team to have two players who are either female or under the age of 14. We have one female player and several younger players.

We all have to be present in order to win. If the younger players and the female player do not show up, we forfeit the game. If we are missing good infielders and outfielders and if we are missing good hitters, we have a greater change of losing the game. Each person is needed and each person plays an important role.

The apostle Paul did not use softball as an analogy for how the body of Christ works because it had not yet been invented, but it is a great analogy for the church as we talk about spiritual gifts and our service in the church.

When I went off to college, my father went to the store with me and bought me some supplies. Rubber bands, paper clips, a stapler, scissors, tape dispenser, pens and pencils, a pencil sharpener, a slide-rule (if you don’t know what that is, look it up) – all the things I would need to do the work facing me in university. I still use some of those supplies.

When my daughters went to college I did the same for them although some of the items had changed. They went with a computer, something that was not an option when I went to college. They took a graphing calculator which was again not an option when I went. Other than that, the items were pretty much the same although a computer and graphing calculator are a lot more expensive than a slide-rule.

Why did my father buy those things for me and why did I buy those things for my daughters? Because one does not send off someone you love without giving them the tools they will need to do the job facing them.

A good farmer does not send his workers to work in the fields without the tools they will need to do their work. A good general does not ask his troops to fight without the weapons they will need.

When Jesus ascended to heaven, he left behind his church and the task of the church has been and continues to be to do the work of Jesus in the world. One way of understanding the church is that we are the arms, feet and voice of Jesus. Our task is to love people in the world as Jesus loved people in the world.

This is an enormous task and like a good general or farmer or parent, Jesus does not send us off on this task without giving us the tools we need.

When Paul writes about spiritual gifts in his letters to Rome, Corinth and Ephesus, he writes about the tools God has given us so we can do the work of Jesus in the world.

What is a spiritual gift?

When God created you, he created you with certain strengths and abilities. Through some of these, the Holy Spirit works in a special, spiritually powerful way.

Paul, in three sections of his letters: Romans 12, I Corinthians 12, and Ephesians 4, lists a number of these gifts: administration, apostleship, contributing to the needs of others, distinguishing between spirits, encouragement, evangelism, faith, healing, helping others, interpretation of tongues, knowledge, leadership, miraculous powers, pastoring, prophecy, serving, showing mercy, speaking in different kinds of tongues, teaching, wisdom.

We do not have time to go into what each of these gifts are although that would be a great study for you in some of your small groups. We could do that here at Villa 91 but the truth is that this kind of study is best done in a small group with people who know you well and can help you identify which spiritual gifts you might have. In the first years I was a follower of Jesus my small group studied spiritual gifts and I still have a list of the gifts they suggested I might have. Let me know if you are interested and I can provide you with some resources for your study.

It seems clear that the Bible does not contain a complete list of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Paul used these gifts to illustrate points he was making in these three letters. He did not set out to make a comprehensive list of spiritual gifts. Let’s take a look at what Scripture teaches about spiritual gifts.

The first teaching about spiritual gifts is that each Christian is given at least one gift.
I Corinthians 12:4-7
4 There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit.  5 There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord.  6 There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men.
7 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.

This teaching is affirmed in Ephesians 4:7-8
7 But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.  8 This is why it says:
“When he ascended on high,
he led captives in his train
and gave gifts to men.”

You, as a Christian, have at least one of the gifts in the list I just read or perhaps a gift that is not on that list. You most likely have more than one gift. When you use your gifts, the Holy Spirit will work through you to build and strengthen his kingdom. God’s power and love are displayed when you use those gifts. You may look around and say, “I don’t have the talent others in the church have,” and sit back and let others do the work. But if you are a follower of Jesus, you have spiritual gifts meant to be used in the church.

The second teaching about spiritual gifts is that the purpose of the gifts is service.
I Peter 4:10
Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.

Spiritual gifts are not given to empower us. They are not given to enhance our reputation. They are not given to build us up, to inflate our egos. They are not given to make us look good or important in the eyes of others. Spiritual gifts are given so we can serve the church.

The third teaching on spiritual gifts is that they are spiritually worthless unless they are used in love.
I Corinthians 13:1-3
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

This thirteenth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians is one of the more well-known passages of Scripture. It is a wonderful poem of love but pay attention to where it is found. It is more than a text to be read at weddings. It comes in the middle of Paul’s argument about the abuse of the gift of tongues in the church in Corinth. The reason Paul inserts this poem in his argument is to reinforce the point that spiritual gifts are given to serve the church, not the individual, and when we use our spiritual gifts, we must use them in the spirit of Christ. We must use them with the love God has given to us.

The power of spiritual gifts is negated when we use them without love. We may be able to teach without love, but we will do so only with the skill and charisma we have been able to manufacture on our own. We may be able to help others but without love our help will not bring an experience of God’s love to those being helped.

Without love the spiritual gifts we have been given will not be done in service and will be stripped of the power of the Holy Spirit.

The fourth teaching about spiritual gifts is that the church functions best when each person exercises his or her gift.
I Corinthians 12:14-26
14 Now the body is not made up of one part but of many.  15 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body.  16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body.  17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?  18 But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.  19 If they were all one part, where would the body be?  20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!”
But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it,  25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.  26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

A woman who worked for me in my company in the US lost her little finger in an accident. That doesn’t sound like much but she had terrible difficulty with many tasks. Typing was a problem as were other tasks that are not as obvious. Try this. Grip two fingers of one hand with your other hand. Squeeze as tight as you can but do not use your little finger. Now grip those fingers using your little finger as well. So you see how important your little finger is?

Another friend lost the front part of his toes on one foot in an accident and he had problems with balance because of that. The front half of your toes do not seem that necessary, but they are. When we lose one part of our body, the whole body suffers.

Our softball team suffers when someone does not come because we depend on each person using their gifts, playing their position well. This is obvious to us in sports teams and in business and Paul makes this point for the church, that when one member of the body does not use his or her spiritual gift, the whole body suffers.

The fifth teaching about spiritual gifts that I will mention this morning is that spiritual gifts are given by God to build us up into Christ who is the head of the body.
Ephesians 4:15-16
Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.  16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

Spiritual gifts are given to unify us. They are given to enable us to grow and be built up in love to be one body of which Christ is the head. We have many gifts but they are all directed by the Holy Spirit to make us a body unified in our devotion and service to Jesus. That is when the church pulsates with life.

Can you imagine a body in which each part made up its own mind about what to do and when to do it? Such a body could do little more than lie on the ground and jerk around.

We used to run through a protected forest near our home in New Jersey in the US. A nature center in that preserve found a turtle with two heads. The turtle was not able to survive and died but was preserved in formaldehyde. The turtle’s problem was that each head saw some food to eat and tried to get there but was prevented in doing so by the direction of the other head.

The church is often similarly immobile. But when each part of the body focuses on Christ, the head, and obeys the directions of the head, Christ, the body is capable of making great progress.

Now let me apply this teaching to our church.

In a business, you hire people to produce and sell a product. In my company we had people in research & development who created a product. Manufacturing produced the product. Our quality control made sure the product was made properly. Sales took the product to our customers. The office staff kept track of all we did. Shipping packed up the product and sent it to the customers. Each person in the team was important. If one person did not do their job correctly, the whole company suffered. If the shipper sent out the product but did not specify that it needed to be sent overnight, despite the fact they everyone else had done their job well,  all the work that went into that product was wasted and I had to get on the phone and apologize to the customer. If someone continually made mistakes, that person was fired and we hired someone new with the necessary skills.

But the church is very different because although a church can pay a pastor or music minister, they alone cannot do the work of the church. A church depends on volunteers. A church whose paid staff does all the work of the church does not do very much. It may be able to put on a show on Sunday, but the life of the church will be superficial and anemic.

A church relies on the volunteer work of those who attend the church and unlike a business, the church does not seek out members with the particular skill sets needed in the church. A church welcomes anyone who comes.

If a business operated this way, it would quickly go bankrupt. It would have too many salesmen and not enough production workers or too many finance managers and not enough researchers. But what makes a church so amazing is that God supplies each church with just the right spiritual gifts it needs to operate.

Here at RIC we have every spiritual gift God thinks we need and next September when people have left and new people arrive, we will still have every spiritual gift God thinks we need. God continually gives the people who attend RIC the gifts we need and when people sit on their gifts and do not use them, RIC suffers.

It is important that you understand that I view the church as much larger than RIC. This sermon on spiritual gifts is not meant to manipulate you to use your gifts within RIC. But this sermon is meant to challenge you to make sure you are using your spiritual gifts, inside the community of RIC or outside in the larger community of the church.

The reason this sermon is being preached is because now that we are meeting at Villa 91, our responsibilities have increased. The bar has been raised. It is even more important now that we each use our spiritual gifts if we are to live up to the potential of this villa we have been given.

We have a wonderful building for our church home, but it will be just a shell if we do not use our gifts. In order to have life pulsating from the activities in the church, each of us will need to use our spiritual gifts.

At Assemblee Chretienne we needed ushers to hand out bulletins at the entrance and to take up the offering. Now we have a front door and back door. We have an upstairs and downstairs. This requires more ushers who have more responsibility. Our sound and audio system requires more effort. Someone needs to operate the video camera. We have speaking mikes and singing mikes that need to be managed.

Assemblee Chretienne oversaw the maintenance of their building, but now we have to maintain Villa 91 with all the cleaning and repairs that arise.

We had a cabinet into which we put all our nursery supplies but now we have a room for our nursery with closet space that allows us to do a better job caring for the children who come. More space requires more organization and maintenance.

We have a kitchen that has so much potential but can quickly become chaotic if we do not have someone maintaining it and setting rules for its use. We need to stock our kitchen with the dishes, silverware and appliances that will be needed.

How will we decorate the walls? What will we put over the light bulbs? How can we personalize this villa to reflect the makeup of the congregation? How can we make this a beautiful house of worship?

Now that we have a library within our walls, how can that be used to encourage us in our walk with Jesus?

We have space now so people will be requesting that they meet in our villa. What are our requirements for people using the villa?

We have the freedom now to set our own schedule but what will that schedule be? Will we have Sunday School here at Villa 91 or continue to use RAS or some combination of both?

We have a prayer room but how will it be used? How can we encourage those who come to pray?

We have more opportunity for ministry but who will use their gift of teaching? Who will use their gift of helps? Who will use their gift of prayer? Who will use their gift of mercy? Who will use their gift of wisdom? Who will use their gift of administration? Who will use their gifts to make Villa 91 a building that pulsates with life?

RIC needs you to use the spiritual gifts the Holy Spirit has given you and when you use your gifts, the wider church benefits, RIC benefits, and you will benefit.

You will benefit because when you use the gifts God has given you, there is a present joy and a future joy.

There is a present joy that comes with using spiritual gifts. One of my gifts is that of pastor. This is different from being a pastor. That is a role I play in the church. But the gift of pastor is the gift of a heart that takes in those God brings to a community. The gift of pastor is loving the people God brings.

This gift has been part of my life before I was a pastor in my 20s, in the years when I was in business, and continues now that I am pastor of RIC. I have strong, distinct memories of meeting with customers in various states in the US and we had wonderful conversations as they opened up to me about problems they were facing and I was able to pray with them. I remember thinking on a plane ride back home that my ministry to that customer was much more satisfying than bringing in a new customer to our company.

The years between 15 and 25 can be very difficult for some people and I have strong memories of helping certain of our employees clean up the mess of those years and make a new start.

Annie pointed out to me that in my business years, I never stopped being a pastor and I loved having the opportunities to love and care for people.

You can use your gifts now, where you are, and when you do, a deep satisfaction that you are working with Jesus in his kingdom will bring joy into your life.

There is a present joy when you use the gifts God has given you and there is also a future joy. Jesus told a parable about a landowner who gave his servants gifts. Some received more than others but they were all given gifts and then when the landowner returned to receive an account of how the gifts were used, the ones who took risks and used their gifts received welcome praise. “Well done, good and faithful servant.” But the one who buried his gift suffered the judgment of the landlord.

The gifts we are given by the Holy Spirit are not optional equipment in our lives. They are given to us because in God’s plan he expects us to use them in his service. The use of our gifts now brings us future joy when we receive our Lord’s approval.

Jesus is our model for this. He came to do the work of his father and did not shirk his duty. The writer of Hebrews wrote: (Hebrews 12:2–3)
2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

For the joy set before him, Jesus triumphantly accomplished his work on the cross. Use the gifts God has given you in service to the church for the joy you will receive.

I can’t hit home runs (hitting the ball over the fence). I am a terrible fielder and if the ball comes to me, I may well fumble it. But I can pitch and when I do, I help our team win. There are many things necessary and helpful in the church I am not skilled at. I depend on others in the church to use their gifts and make this a wonderful church home. But there are a few things I can do and when I do them, RIC benefits.

I thank the many in this congregation who use their gifts and make RIC the wonderful church that it is. And can you imagine what it would be like if every person in RIC used their gifts for the church? Wow! What a joy it would be to be part of that church!

For the joy of knowing you are working with God for his kingdom, for the future joy of hearing Jesus tell you, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” for the service to Jesus and his church and particularly his church at RIC, I urge you to consider what spiritual gifts God has given you and then take the risk of using them to build God’s kingdom.

Well, here we are at Villa 91. Isn’t it great? It is amazing for me to stand here in our new church with all of you because we are doing something I did not think was possible. For the four decades of the existence of RIC and for all of my thirteen plus years as pastor of RIC we have benefitted from the hospitality of another church but have also been restricted in what we were able to do because of the schedule of the host church. So many times I wished we could have our own facility but it seemed that because of the demographics and transitory nature of our church we would not be able to do this.

Our move to Villa 91 started in June 2012 when the landlord of the building where our church association met told us she needed the building for a sister who was moving to Rabat. We thought this was a way of getting us to pay more in rent, but in September we met with her and realized she was serious and we would have to find another location.

As I thought about it we had three options. We could look for a replacement villa for AMEP, our church association, that could be used for the midweek meetings of RIC. Or we could look for a larger villa that could serve as an office for AMEP as well as the church home for RIC. We could either buy that villa or rent it.

So we set September 17 as a day for fasting and prayer to see if we could hear from God what direction we should take. We met that evening to share what we had heard and had an encouraging time of worship and sharing but at the end of the time there was no clear indication of what direction we should take and I was frustrated that God had not spoken more clearly. I left feeling somewhat discouraged but then, to my surprise and delight, over the next two weeks I received a very clear sense of God’s direction for us.

A few days after our day of fasting and prayer, I met with Pastor Philippe at Assemblee Chretienne and he shared that they were thinking of having a second service in the afternoon because their morning service was full. He was not hinting we should move but I sensed God telling me that we needed to find a villa where we could meet for worship as well as meetings during the week. It became clear to me that if we found our own villa, both Assemblee Chretienne and RIC would benefit and our ministries would expand. So option one was discarded and we began looking for a larger villa to buy or rent.

Hasan and I began to look at properties and I was blown away by how expensive these properties were to buy. Real estate is highly inflated in Rabat, way above the value of the buildings, and although the political climate is stable right now, what we have observed in the Arab world is that things can change very quickly. I had thought that a friend in the US could buy a building for us and let us rent it from him, but it became clear to me that I could not, in good conscience, ask him to consider doing that.

So the third option of renting a larger villa became our focus. We met at our Semi-Annual General Meeting in November and the congregation approved a 168% increase in our budget that allowed us to pursue renting a larger villa. To my delight, there was no opposition to this budget and potential move. And, in fact, there was excitement about having our own church home. This was confirmation to me that we were moving in the direction God intended for us.

Hasan and I looked at many villas but did not see anything suitable and I became anxious. We were moving through December and needed to be out of the AMEP building by the end of January. Then Hasan suggested I take a look at a villa he had seen with Connie, Sue and Ken Morrow when I had been in the US in August. They reported that it was a very nice villa but the meeting room would hold only about 140 people, so I had discounted it as a possibility. But finally I went and when I stepped inside Villa 91 and looked around, it immediately became clear to me that this was the place for us. I immediately saw how each room would be used. We had been looking for one large room but I saw how we would be able to function with an overflow room. The only changes that have been made from what I initially imagined is that what I saw as a meeting room upstairs has become the nursery and the room I had thought would be the nursery is now a storage room. It all fit into place.

In the last week of December we signed the contract with a landlord who is supportive of us, another answer to prayer, and in the first week of January we moved the contents of AMEP over to Villa 91.

The next hurdle was to raise funds for the set-up costs of Villa 91 which amounted to 77% of the previous year’s giving. This was a huge challenge and once again RIC responded with enthusiasm. There was a joy in looking forward to raising these funds, once again, confirmation that this was God’s direction for us.

Those funds were raised and now we are here. But who will we be in this new villa? Who we are is not dependent on what building we meet in. We are grateful for the gift of this building, but it is only a building. It is not the church. We are the church and we carry with us from the Assemblee Chretienne villa to Villa 91 our desire to lift the name of Jesus, to bring glory to Jesus in all that we do. We carry with us the sense of fellowship that results from being drawn to Jesus. We have a new building, new sound and video equipment, new chairs, but the same Holy Spirit who is at work in us. But now we have a larger space in which we can operate. How will we use this gift of space? This move allows us to take a moment and reassess who we are and to what we dedicate ourselves.

A couple weeks ago in my daily Bible reading plan, I read Acts 2:42-47
42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Ever since I first became a believer and submitted to God by following Jesus, I have read these verses from Acts with a great deal of longing. What a thrill it must have been to be part of this new, growing, dynamic, pulsating, alive fellowship of believers. Acts 2:42-47 is how I have always wished it would be with us in the church. I have been part of nine churches in my Christian life and I have measured our life in these churches in one way or another by how we measured up to this description of the early church.

The closest I have ever come was when I attended Park Street Church in Boston, Massachusetts in the 1970s. Annie and I were two of about 600 college and graduate school age believers in a group called Seekers. Many of the characteristics of the early church were manifested in our fellowship. People with cars shared them with those who did not have a car. I received anonymous gifts that helped me pay my tuition fees for seminary. I learned a lot about the Bible from the multiple teaching opportunities each week. And maybe not every day, but every week, new believers were added to our fellowship.

In retrospect, we were part of a revival in the US in which an estimated 14,000,000 people became followers of Jesus and I have been longing for the whole of my Christian life to have a deeper and fuller measure of what we experienced in those years in the 1970s.

What happened in chapter two of the book of Acts is that the Kingdom of God burst onto the scene and the world was treated to a picture of what it will be like, at least in part, when the Kingdom of God is fully realized at the Second Coming of Jesus.

Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles.  44 All the believers were together and had everything in common.  45 Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.  46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts,  47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people.

This is the life we want and so we look at verse 42 to see what the disciples devoted themselves to:
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

This one verse describes for us how we should be focused in our church experience.

They devoted themselves to the apostle’s teaching. What was that teaching? Remember that Jesus put the disciples through a three year course in ministry, teaching them and demonstrating for them how to do what it was he did. Then after his resurrection, he spent forty days with them in an intensive refresher course, helping them to see in light of his death and resurrection, a more clear understanding of all they had learned.

It was what they had learned from Jesus that the apostles now taught. They took what we refer to as the Old Testament and showed from that how Jesus had fulfilled the prophecies of the Old Testament. They took the teachings of Jesus over the three years they had been with him and taught what he had taught. With the filling of the Holy Spirit, the word of Jesus now lived and burned within them and they taught that living word.

They devoted themselves to the fellowship. The reason the universe was created, the reason humans were created, the reason Jesus was born, died and resurrected was so that we could share the eternal fellowship of the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We were created to live in relationship with the Triune God and in relationship with each other. We were created to live in community.

Unity among God’s people has been a driving force throughout Biblical history and explains God’s reaction to all the conflict among his chosen people. The strongest condemnations of the prophets are reserved for Israel and Judah. By comparison, Egypt and Assyria and Babylon get off easy. It is the 300 year civil war between Judah and Israel that was most disturbing to God.

The teaching of divorce, that what God has united should not be separated, is another example of God’s concern for unity among his chosen people. The list of behaviors God opposes in the New Testament  are opposed because they work against unity.

In Matthew 18 Jesus taught about how to discipline a brother or sister who sins. The process is meant to bring to repentance and to maintain unity in the body. The center of Jesus’ High Priestly prayer in John 17 is concerned with unity.

This is why Paul was so upset with the Corinthians who were taking each other to court. This is why one of the first issues Paul dealt with in his first letter to the church in Corinth was divisions among the church.

Fellowship in the church is not an option; it is who we are meant to be.

In Acts 4, in the second description of the early church, Luke wrote that they were all of one heart and mind. This did not happen easily but happened in part because they devoted themselves to the fellowship. They worked at unity in the fellowship. When there was a disagreement, they worked to resolve the disagreement. A little bit later in Acts tension arose because it was felt that the Greek widows were being neglected at the expense of the Hebrew widows. So the twelve apostles chose seven Greek Jews to be in charge of the daily distribution of food. It takes work to maintain relationships. We have to work to overcome disagreements and differences, to understand how other cultures react to situations, but when we do, we benefit. The disciples devoted themselves to the fellowship, working toward the unity of the believers.

The disciples devoted themselves to the breaking of bread. This is a reference to what we call communion or the Lord’s Supper. This was not just a bit of bread and some juice or wine, as we observe communion today. This likely involved a meal in which they followed the command of Jesus, “Whenever you eat this bread, do so in remembrance of me,” and “Whenever you drink this cup, do so in remembrance of me.”

This also served the purpose of unity among the believers. When believers come to communion, they come in full equality where there is no rich or poor, no male or female, no Spanish-speaking or French-speaking or Korean-speaking or English-speaking, no employer or employee. When believers come to the communion table, they are all sinners in need of salvation. We are all equal when we come to the table of Jesus. We are all desperately in need of a living relationship with Jesus.

And the disciples devoted themselves to prayer. Prayer is also not easy. We struggle, all of us, with prayer. It takes energy and determination to pray. We have to make choices to pray. And when we pray, we are drawn into the mind and heart of God. As we pray, we are transformed and we learn how it is we are to think and feel about what happens around us. And as we pray, we work with Jesus as he reaches out to rescue those who are lost.

Each of these four characteristics of the early church serve the purpose of drawing us closer to God and closer to each other. In each of these activities of the church, the church drew closer to Jesus. The early church focused on Jesus by devoting themselves to these things.

And because the early church devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer, there were certain consequences.

Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles.  44 All the believers were together and had everything in common.  45 Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.  46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts,  47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

The early church did not devote themselves to wonders and miraculous signs. The early church did not devote themselves to sharing what they had with others. The early church did not devote themselves to selling what they owned and sharing with those who were in need.

The early church devoted themselves to teaching, fellowship, communion and prayer and then some wonderful consequences ensued.

It is very important that we understand the difference between the things we are to devote ourselves to and the consequences that result.

If we devote ourselves to miracles and wonders, then we risk becoming a superficial church, seeking the spectacular, developing techniques to get the results we want. We risk putting on a show that entertains but does not satisfy our deepest needs.

If we decide we want to be a church that shares, we risk becoming a church that creates a legalistic expectation of how we ought to be. We risk becoming a church full of people like Ananias and Sapphira who focused on the consequences rather than the four devotions. Barnabas had sold one of his fields and given the money to the church. Barnabas did this because he was devoted to the teaching of the apostles, the fellowship, the breaking of bread and prayer. Ananias and Sapphira liked the admiration that Barnabas received for his gift and so decided they would give a piece of land to the church as well. The problem is that their gift did not come because of their devotion and they focused on the external consequence.

Giving in the early church was voluntary, not mandatory. When we begin to mandate what we consider to be appropriate Christian behavior, we slip into a superficial, lifeless church. We may have the form of a church but we will lack the life of the church.

So if you want to experience what the early church experienced, it is a mistake to work hard at getting everyone to share what they have with everyone else. It is a mistake to work hard to see miracles and wonders in the church. It is a mistake to seek those things that will be the consequence of devotion to God. If you want to have a church that is like the church in Acts, then devote yourself to the activities of the early church that drew them to Jesus.

So we are brought back to what the disciples devoted themselves to.
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

We have time now to expand our ministry of teaching. When I was a young follower of Jesus in Boston, on an average week, I studied from six or seven different parts of Scripture. There was a Sunday School class before church where we taught through the entire Bible, book by book, over the course of three or so years. There was a sermon in the morning service. There was a late afternoon meeting of our fellowship during which we shared lessons learned from a chapter of the Bible we had all studied that week. There was a sermon in the evening service. We had a passage we studied in our small group that met each week. And I met with one or two people each week who were exploring a relationship with Jesus or who had recently become followers of Jesus and went through a passage with each of them. In addition I had my daily devotions.

As a consequence, when it came time for me to take my ordination exams for the Presbyterian Church, I walked into the Bible content exam without having studied at all. And I was surprised to hear that others taking that exam had been studying all week long. I scored 86 out of 100 in that exam, without studying, because I had soaked in the word of God over these years.

I would love to begin a class at Villa 91 that meets after church in which we would begin to teach through the Bible. Over the course of three or so years we could cover the entire Bible and then start all over again. This would be such a great addition to our ministry at RIC.

But teaching does not have to be limited to church classes. I want to encourage people to meet in small groups and study the Scriptures together. Even just two people can meet and read and discuss and pray together.

I want RIC to be known as a church that preaches and teaches the word of God, whose members know the word of God.

Villa 91 is now our church home and I am hoping that we will gather frequently at Villa 91 to share with each other, to encourage each other, to celebrate together. We may not have a meal together each week but I believe God is delighted when we gather together and develop deeper relationships. One of the joys of this church is the diversity we have and it is good to make efforts to expand our relationships to cross over national and denominational lines. I am praying that our fellowship will expand and deepen in our new home.

During Easter week a woman visited who had been part of RIC eight or nine years ago and she told people when she returned to the US how impressed she was with the strong sense of fellowship in our church. Another young woman talked with me and told me how impressed she was with the relationships in the church that cross national, denominational, and racial lines. I love hearing these reports and I want RIC to be known as a church where people love each other.

The church quickly became institutionalized and developed rites and rituals that are not necessarily bad but can remove us from the sense of community God wants to encourage. Jesus sat at the Passover Meal with his disciples when he instituted the sacrament of communion. We shared this at our Seder meal this past Easter week. The early church met in houses and shared a meal during which they remembered the body of Christ broken for them and the blood of Christ shed for them. We won’t do this at our potluck today, but perhaps one Sunday we will have a meal at the end of church and celebrate communion during that meal.

I want RIC to be known as a place where Jesus is central in all we do, where we recognize and rejoice in his presence with us.

For a long time I have wanted to have a room dedicated for prayer and now we have one on the top floor. This is a room where you can come, sit and relax, open your Bible, listen to music, reflect, meditate, and let your prayers come from your heart and mind. We will pray for each other, for the churches around Morocco, for the country of Morocco, for the whole world. I have no idea what God will do with our prayers in this room but suspect this could be the most powerful room in the villa.

We now have space so we can offer prayer for those who need prayer. If the Holy Spirit is working in someone’s life during the service, we can encourage that ministry by praying with people during and after the service.

Pierce Pettis wrote a song titled, Crying Ground, which is a metaphor for the church. He writes:
No need to hide what’s going on
Your story’s all over town
But it’s all right if everything is all wrong
Just come on down to the crying ground

Come on down to the crying ground
Let your tears be holy water
Rolling down your face, ain’t no disgrace
Come on down to the crying ground

I want RIC to be known as a place where people can be loved and accepted. I pray Villa 91 will be a crying ground for many people who need so desperately to be loved. I want RIC to be known as a place of prayer.

God has a plan and he is working out his plan to rescue this generation. God endures the suffering of the world, generation after generation, so that more can be rescued and brought into his kingdom. We want to work with him in our prayers, our actions and words. And we want Villa 91 to be a tool Jesus can use to do his work.

I have a vision of Villa 91 bursting with life, with people receiving healing, physical healing and inner healing, with people coming to faith in Jesus, growing in faith. I have a vision of Villa 91 being a home for people who love to give without having people scheming to receive. I would love to see people coming to faith in Jesus every day. But this is the work of God and we are not in charge.

Our responsibility is to teach the word of God, work hard to draw together in fellowship, remember in the breaking of the bread that Jesus is at the center of all we do, and to pray, pray, pray. As we do that, we will continue to be blessed and God only knows what will happen.

We have been given a great gift. We are blessed. We also carry more responsibility and I pray God will help us accept this responsibility with joy and great expectation. As I mentioned last
Sunday, God can do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.

Today is a before and after moment. The last Sunday of the year is one of those. I will call out at the end of the last service in December, “See you next year,” in hopes of getting at least a few smiles. The night before I got married was one of those moments in time. I went to bed single and the next night was married. The day before I took my drivers license was another of those moments. One day I had to have someone in the car with me when I practiced driving and the next I could drive off all by myself.

Today is our last service in this building. Next week we will meet for our worship service in Villa 91. For all the forty years RIC has existed, we have benefitted from the hospitality of others who have allowed us to use their building. For the thirteen years I have been pastor of RIC, I have wished that RIC could have its own building and use the building how and when we wanted to.

Almost three years ago when we found ourselves in an emergency situation and needed a place to meet, Assemblee Chretienne welcomed us into their church building and graciously allowed us to share their space. For this we are very grateful. Next Sunday, if you come to this building for our worship service, you will not find us. We will be meeting in our new villa, Villa 91. For the first time in the history of RIC we will have our own church home. Tomorrow we will get a Honda truck and transport the few things that are ours over to Villa 91 and get ready for our celebration and dedication service. This is a very exciting transition.

The Bible has before and after moments and the one from which I have been drawing inspiration is the crossing of Israel across the Jordan River into the promised land of Canaan. What was it like the week before Joshua led Israel across the Jordan? What were people talking about? There was certainly discussion of the giants in the land the twelve spies had all spoken of forty years earlier. There were still strong fortified cities and tall, strong men defending them. I imagine there was also discussion about how they would cross the Jordan River. The Adam bridge now stands at the spot where Israel crossed the Jordan, but the ancestor of that bridge was still 2,600 years into the future for Israel. How were they going to cross the swollen Jordan River?

We read the account knowing what happened. We know the river stopped flowing because of a landslide upstream. We know that the walls of Jericho fell. We know how God won battles for Israel in city after city. But Israel, standing on the other side of the Jordan River, did not know any of that. They stood at the side of the Jordan River with questions, uncertainties, and anxieties.

Today we stand on this side of meeting in Villa 91. We are facing increasing responsibilities and challenges. We have an increased budget to meet. We have the responsibility of using the building well and keeping it maintained. We have new audio and video technology to master. We have uncertainties. How will our new neighbors react to our presence? We have been there for a couple potlucks, a Seder meal and many smaller gatherings. When we begin to come regularly, each Sunday morning, how will they react to the cars being parked and the increased traffic on their quiet street? How will they react to the music of our service? And above all of this, we have new opportunities for ministry. What will we do with Sunday School? Will there be new opportunities for teaching and training? What will we do with all the new potential that comes with this villa? Will we make good use of this gift we have been given?

I have questions, uncertainties, and anxieties so it was encouraging for me to pick up my Bible this past Tuesday morning and read the text assigned for me to read that day. (Joshua 1:6–9)
“Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them. 7 Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. 8 Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. 9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

Be strong and courageous. Be strong and very courageous. Be strong and courageous. The fact that God felt it necessary to say this over and over again tells me that Joshua was feeling uncertain and anxious. It is comforting to know I am not alone.

Next Sunday I will share, once again, the story of how we came to this point in time. All I will say today is that God has led us to this point and so this exhortation to be strong and courageous is very encouraging. Because God has brought us to this point, we have confidence as we make our move. It is the strong sense of God’s leading us that has given me the faith to press on.

The benediction in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians in chaper 3 is an encouraging one for us to hear as we make this move. (Ephesians 3:20-21)
20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

God certainly did immeasurably more for Israel than they could ask or imagine. Who among them could have predicted that they would walk around Jericho and without attacking the walls, they would collapse? Who among them could have predicted the way God would win battles for them?

For hundreds of years Israel anticipated the Messiah. They had an understanding of what he would be like and what he would do, but they had no conception of the wonder of Jesus and his defeat of death. God, because he is God, will do far more than we can ask or imagine.

Who could have predicted that Saul, the persecutor of followers of Jesus would become Paul, the great evangelist of Jesus to the Gentiles?

God continues to do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine. God did this for Israel under the leadership of Joshua and he does it for us, but there is a big difference between the confidence Israel had as they crossed the Jordan River and the confidence we have as we move into our future. To show the difference, let me go back to the final words Moses spoke to Israel before he died and the leadership of Israel was passed to Joshua. Moses reminded Israel of the importance of obeying the law God had given. (Deuteronomy 30:11–20)
Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. 12 It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, “Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” 13 Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, “Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” 14 No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.
15 See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. 16 For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.
17 But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, 18 I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.
19 This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20 and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

The unfortunate truth is that Israel did not obey the law and they suffered the consequences. Soon after the victory over Jericho, Israel was defeated at a much smaller city because one of the members took for himself what God had said was not to be touched. Israel was drawn away to bow down to the gods of the land of Canaan and worshiped them. Israel sinned and earned the punishment Moses warned them about and eventually, after God gave them every opportunity, they were conquered by the Babylonians and sent into exile. Moses exhorted them to choose life but by their actions they chose death.

The unfortunate truth is that we are all incapable of obeying the law. No matter how hard we try, no matter how well intentioned we are, we break the law of God. We choose ourselves over others. We choose ourselves over God. We break God’s law and deserve his punishment. It is for this reason that Jesus, God in the flesh, came to rescue us, to save us. Jesus did for us what we are incapable of doing for ourselves. Jesus died, taking the punishment we deserve on himself. God became man so we could be rescued. Amazing love, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.

This brings us to the difference between Israel when they crossed the Jordan River and us as we move to Villa 91. When Paul prayed for the Ephesians, the foundation he urged them to stand on was not obedience to the law but a deep awareness of the amazing love of Jesus. Let’s take a look at what Paul prays before he pronounces his wonderful benediction.
14 For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

One of the absurdities of the Christian church today is that many think God is at work to make us wealthy and healthy. But this mocks the work of Jesus on the cross. The work of Jesus and the riches of God are given to us not so we can powerfully make our way through the world, seeking and attaining success, not so we can win in the competition for finite resources, but
17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.

This is why Jesus gave up the prerogatives and privileges that were his, and took on flesh. Jesus did not come to make you a better person, he came to rescue you from certain death. Because of the work of the Holy Spirit in you, you will become a better person, but that is a consequence of his coming, not the primary goal.

As the Bible talks about salvation, it does so in three tenses. It says we have been saved. It says we are being saved. And it says we will be saved. Our rescuing is a process and it is our responsibility to cling to Jesus through all of life’s events, good and bad, easy and difficult, celebrations and tragedies, so that at the end, we will be carried safely into our eternal home.

The true wealth of the riches of God is the love of the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that seeks us, reaches out to us, comes to us, and rescues us from certain, eternal death.

This makes Jesus the focus and center of our lives. We get a glimpse of the love of God when we first come to faith but our experience of the love of God grows over the years as we cling to Jesus. And Paul prays for us that our view of the love of Jesus will continue to expand.
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Do you see the difference between the exhortation of Moses and the prayer of Paul? Israel knew God’s demand for justice and experienced his wrath when his law was broken. They saw the power of God and feared him. We see the power of God and know we are loved by him. Israel stepped into the immeasurably more with caution. We step into the immeasurably more with confidence because we have experienced the grace and mercy of Jesus. As the writer of Hebrews put it: (Hebrews 12:18–23)
18 You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; 19 to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them, 20 because they could not bear what was commanded: “If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned.” 21 The sight was so terrifying that Moses said, “I am trembling with fear.”
22 But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, 23 to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven.

It is on this foundation, being loved by Christ, that we stand as we receive the benediction that follows.
20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

We have the privilege and pleasure of serving an immeasurably more God. God takes our words and deeds and uses them for his kingdom immeasurably more than we ask or imagine.

The Samaritan’s Purse conference I attended in Florida celebrated the 100,000,000th shoebox sent out to children in over 100 countries of the world. Samaritan’s Purse began the distribution of shoeboxes filled with gifts in 1990 when they were delivered to children in Romania which had suffered under the Communist rule of  Nicolae Ceausescu.

At the conference a woman spoke who, in 1990, was a 12 year old girl living in Romania. While her parents were at work, she and her brother found a Bible hidden under the floorboards of their house. When they returned that night, the girl and her brother told them what they had found and their parents were angry. They told them to put it back and never take it out again. At the time, it was dangerous to have a Bible.

But since their parents had told them not to, now, each day, they would take it out and read it, keeping watch for the return of their parents so they could put it back before they came into the apartment. A man in the neighborhood began telling stories to children and they went to hear the stories. The girl recognized the stories from her reading of the Bible and told the man she had a book at home with those stories. He took her aside, told her not to mention this to anyone, and began to give her more instructions. He encouraged her to pray.

This happened in December and what she most wanted was to have snow for Christmas so she prayed for this. After a week of no snow, she told the teacher prayer did not work but then he gave her a very important lesson. He told her God always hears our prayers but sometimes answers them in different ways than we expect. So she continued to pray. Christmas came and there was no snow. The next day some trucks arrived in town and people rushed after them, eager to see what they might contain. With food shortages, there were always lines waiting to buy whatever was available.

The trucks were the first delivery of shoeboxes and a woman came to this young girl and gave her a shoebox. When she opened it, right on top was a snow globe. When you shook it there were flakes of snow. At the conference when she told her story, she showed us the snow globe she has kept all these years. Of all the boxes, she received one with an answer to her prayer. God will do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine.

In 1993 Samaritan’s Purse went to Sarajevo in the former Yugoslavia when the Bosnian War was still being fought. One of the distributions was in a schoolroom where all the windows had been shot out and the cold of winter came into the room. The children sat around the room and the boxes were distributed.

Children from the US had filled these shoeboxes and each one was different. Samaritan’s Purse did not know what was in the boxes. They handed them out to the children and then had them open them together, at the same time. At the conference we watched a video of this distribution and among the children sitting there, one boy had no coat. All the children in the classroom were wearing winter coats except this boy. When he opened his box, guess what was inside? A winter coat.

Now, who would put a winter coat in a shoebox to be given as a gift? Little toys, a model truck or car, some candy, these are things you would think to put in a shoebox and yet someone, for whatever reason, decided to put a winter coat in the box and that box made its way to the one boy in the room who did not have a coat. God will do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine.

Another boy, from Romania, spoke of living in an orphanage where the twenty boys all shared one towel for their weekly shower. When he opened his box, there was a washcloth. He didn’t know this was used just to wash your face. He looked at it and was delighted to know he had his own personal towel and did not have to dry off from his shower with a wet towel. God will do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine.

Boxes are packed by children in the US, in Canada, in Germany, in England, in Australia and sent to children living in countries around the world. It is not much, just a box with some gifts, but God can take that gift with its unique contents and direct it to the specific child he wants to bless with those contents.

These stories were so encouraging to me and they reminded me of the power of God to reach out and touch us. If we were all to take a turn sharing the story of how we came to faith, we would have example after example of God’s amazing love that took the simple actions of his followers to let someone know God loved her. That someone loved him.

God used Billy Graham as he spoke to millions but he also uses our smiles, our acts of kindness, our words of encouragement and compassion to let people know they are loved by him.

Every time we take a step of obedience and move out into the world to be light for Jesus, God takes what we do and say to build his kingdom. We don’t know the outcome of our actions and words. We simply love people in his name and then God does immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine.

As we make our move next week to Villa 91, our new church home, I want us to carry with us this sense of being loved by Jesus and the expectation that God will do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine with this villa we have been given.

We have a room on the top floor that is dedicated for prayer. I am hoping many will be drawn to this room to pray for God’s work among us and in this land. What miraculous work will
God do in this room? How will lives be changed in this room? How will God use the prayers prayed in this room? God will do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine.

We will have more space and time in our service and I wonder how God will use that. We can offer opportunities for people to receive prayer during and after the service. We will have more freedom to respond to our sense of God’s leading during the services. There are so many possibilities that will open up.

We now have the space to allow our ministry to expand with more opportunities for teaching from the Bible, more opportunities for fellowship, more opportunities for classes to encourage the different parts of our community.

We fasted and prayed on September 17, 2012, asking God what we should do and this move is the result of his answer to us that unfolded over the weeks. We stepped out in obedience by approving a budget in November that allowed for the increase in expenses. We took an extra step and raised the funds needed for setup costs.

I don’t know exactly what we will look a year from now but I know we will be a stronger, brighter light for Jesus. How do I know? I know because God has led us to this move and he will do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine.

And whatever happens, we will join with Paul and say
21 to [God] be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

In the Lord of the Rings, which perhaps you have seen as a movie and/or read as a book, there is a character named Strider. He is a bit mysterious, as are many of the friends of Gandalf the wizard. He comes alongside the hobbits and the band of men, dwarves and elves who join together to destroy the ring of power. At the end of the trilogy, Strider is revealed to be the heir of Isildur and the three part book and movie end with his coronation as king, a wonderful climatic scene.

Throughout the books and movies, whenever he rides, he sits astride a great horse, either Hasufel sent to him by the elves, or his own horse, Roheryn. The movie conflates these two horses into one, Brego, but his horses are always magnificent creatures befitting a great king.

I grew up with horses. When I was eight years old my grandmother bought me a pony. Later my parents bought a horse and sitting on my pony and later on our horse made me feel powerful. Many times I rode bareback, without a saddle, and with my legs wrapped around the side of the horse I felt that I was part of the horse and we would race across the fields feeling the wind against my face.

From my Western eyes, one of the silliest things to see is a full-grown man sitting sideways on a small donkey, being carried down the street. A donkey is great for pulling a cart and carrying things, but it is not the most dignified mount for a man.

I understand that I am viewing all this as a foreigner to Palestinian culture but even within that culture a donkey is not an esteemed animal. Here in Morocco, which has a culture very similar to Palestinian culture, a donkey is the symbol for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The donkey is a disrespected and abused animal. One year I wanted to have someone ride a donkey into the church for a Palm Sunday service and was talked out of the idea because Muslims would consider it such a sacrilege to have a donkey enter a holy building.

When Jesus entered Jerusalem for the last week of his earthly life, he rode a donkey. It would have been far more dignified for him to ride a horse. Sitting on a regal steed, surrounded by adoring crowds, that would have spoken of a man of worth and power, a king.

But Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey and that was the high point of his week. It was all downhill from there. He went into a rage at the Temple, overturning the tables of the moneylenders. Everywhere he went there was confrontation and then after his last meal with his disciples, he was arrested, beaten, tortured, crucified, and buried.

Then came the triumph we celebrate today. Jesus broke the power of death and rose to new life. He rose from the dead as the risen, eternal, King of kings and Lord of lords.

And how did the King of kings and Lord of lords move about now? Yes he seemed to be able to transport himself from place to place, but when he appeared to two very discouraged disciples walking away from Jerusalem toward Emmaus, he came along, walking on the road.

He did not appear in a blaze of glory; he came up behind them, walking. This is the Jesus whose resurrection we celebrate especially today, a Jesus who rode a donkey, a Jesus who walked along a dusty road, a Jesus whose greatness comes from who he is, not the external trappings.

When you have a ten year reunion for your school someone who has been very successful will show up in their new BMW sports car wearing an expensive suit and watch. The success of this person is revealed in what he or she wears and who comes with them.

After Jesus rose from the dead he was mistaken for a gardener by Mary. He was just another traveler to the two disciples walking toward Emmaus. Jesus knew who he was, who he eternally is. Jesus did not need to show external marks of greatness but was able to come in humility to those he loved.

Over the period of Lent we have looked at some of the various responses people had to Jesus. Some were delighted, others amazed. Some could not contain themselves and had to share their experience with Jesus. Some were fearful, others gave praise. This morning we will look at some people whose response to Jesus was belief.

On Easter morning, the day of resurrection, two of the disciples of Jesus, Cleopas and one other, were walking out of Jerusalem. They had heard the reports that Jesus’s body was not in the tomb and that angels had said he had risen from the dead. They knew that the disciples had gone to the tomb and seen for themselves that the tomb was empty, but they had not seen Jesus.

So with all this news, why were they walking away from Jerusalem? Why not stay where the news was happening and see what unfolded? When there is big news, it is difficult to drag me away from the television and live reports. Why did they walk away from the news? Maybe they had pressing business. Maybe they came to Jerusalem for the Passover feast but now had to go back home to their responsibilities. For whatever reason, they were walking away from Jerusalem, three days after Jesus had been crucified and the day they had heard these early morning reports.

As they walked, Jesus came up to them and joined them. As with Mary in the garden, he was not recognized. They talked. They shared with him the reports of what had happened, surprised he did not know about it. And then Jesus began his first class: Post-resurrection 101 (Luke 24:25–27)
He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

As they came to the village where Cleopas and his companion were headed, they urged Jesus to stay with them and share a meal. (Luke 24:30–31)
When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.

Whatever important responsibilities were taking them away from Jerusalem that morning were forgotten. They turned around and raced back to Jerusalem to tell the other disciples what they had experienced. (Luke 24:33–35)
They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together 34 and saying, “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.” 35 Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.

When they returned and while they were giving their report, Jesus appeared to them: Luke 24:36–49
36 While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
37 They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. 38 He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? 39 Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”
40 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. 41 And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate it in their presence.
44 He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”
45 Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.

This is a post-resurrection story of belief. Let me go back in time to an earlier expression of belief that took place on the day we celebrate as Good Friday.

Luke 23:32–43
32 Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. 33 When they came to the place called the Skull, there they crucified him, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. 34 Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.
35 The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, the Chosen One.”
36 The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar 37 and said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.”
38 There was a written notice above him, which read: this is the king of the jews.
39 One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!”
40 But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? 41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”
42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
43 Jesus answered him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”

We talk about the pain and agony suffered by Jesus as he was beaten and then crucified, but the criminals on either side of him suffered the same physical agony. They were beaten and most likely flogged, just like Jesus. They had nails driven through their wrists and ankles. They suffered the humiliation of hanging naked in front of all who passed by. They suffered the excruciating pain of crucifixion.

It is not apparent that either of them had seen Jesus before. Perhaps they had heard about him but now they met him and had a close-up view of who he was. It was not the most shining moment in the life of Jesus. He was not delivering teaching with authority. He was not casting out demons. He was not performing great miracles. He was not walking on water or quieting a storm. He was hanging naked, suffering great pain, physical and spiritual.

Some people around the cross mocked him and one of the criminal joined in the mockery.
“Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!”
This was a tough man, spitting in the face of death. He had not feared in life and he was not fearing in death.

But the second criminal looked at Jesus as he suffered and saw something remarkable. What did he see?

He heard Jesus say to those who mocked him: (Luke 23:34)
“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
He watched Jesus as he suffered. He saw how Jesus handled his pain. He saw how Jesus continued to care about those who were watching him even while all his strength was required to deal with the pain he was experiencing.

He saw who Jesus was and repented. He rebuked the criminal who was mocking Jesus:
“Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? 41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”
42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
43 Jesus answered him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”

This is a second story of belief.

We have friends and family who are not followers of Jesus and we want them to respond to the love of God. We marvel at how Jesus was able to share who he was. What can we learn from him from these two storiews so others can learn about Jesus through us?

First, Jesus comes to us. Jesus rose from the dead and immediately began making appearances to those he loved. Jesus did not rise from the dead and sit under a tree, waiting for people to come to him. He did not sit at a café hoping someone would sit down next to him. Jesus went out to meet with those who were grieving his death and needed to understand who he was and what had happened. Jesus appeared to Mary in the garden. Jesus walked with Cleopas and the other disciple. Jesus appeared to Peter and the other disciples in the room where they were hiding. Jesus appeared to the larger group of his disciples. Jesus appeared to his half-brother James and maybe others.

Throughout history Jesus has continue to come. In each generation Jesus is at work encouraging people who are lost to reach out to him. He is constantly at work to rescue the lost. Many people in this part of the world report having dreams of Jesus who is present with them, encouraging them to come to him. Jesus never stops coming to us.

Likewise, we need to make the effort to reach out to others. We need to engage with people. It is not for us to sit back and watch the world go by. We need to enter into the lives of those around us and share the treasure we have received.

Second, as we reach out, we need to meet with people where they are. Notice that when Jesus came up to Cleopas and his friend, he did not impose himself or his message. Jesus did not come along with a plan of salvation he could share. He asked them,  “What are you discussing together as you walk along?” He entered into their conversation, starting where they were, starting with what they were concerned about, and then began to share his insights.

When we meet with people we need to listen and enter into their lives, their conversation. When the conversation offers the opportunity, we can share our perspective, but if our message is imposed, it will come across as programmed and unappealing. We need to enter into relationships and then allow who we are and what we believe to arise naturally in those relationships.

Third, Jesus is made known in our fellowship. Cleopas and his friend heard Jesus explain the scriptures that made sense out of the early morning reports they had heard. But it was not until they sat down to a meal and Jesus gave thanks and broke the bread that they recognized him.

This was not a communion meal. This was not the first Lord’s Supper of the church. There was no wine. This was a simple meal and it was in this meal that their eyes were opened and they recognized Jesus.

Sitting down and sharing a meal together is a spiritual act. Think about meals in the Bible. When Abraham received his visitors from heaven, they shared a meal together. When God told Israel to remember their deliverance from slavery in Egypt, he told them to remember this at a meal, the Seder, which some of us celebrated last Thursday night. When God gave instructions to Israel about their tithe, part of the tithe was to be used each year to come to Jerusalem and celebrate with food and drink at the three annual festivals. Meals together were a central part of their worship.

It may not be surprising, given that Jesus lived in a culture that valued hospitality, but there are ten meals Jesus shared with others recorded in the gospels. Jesus took the Passover Seder and used it to institute the sacrament of communion which is an anticipation of the wedding feast we will share together in heaven. And when Jesus resurrected, he ate in their presence to prove he was not a ghost. In John’s gospel it is recorded that he cooked breakfast for them.

It is not simply the food that is important. Going to McDonalds and taking out a sandwich and eating as you drive in the car is not particularly spiritual, nor safe. A family going into the kitchen and grabbing something to eat and then each person going back to their computer or TV to eat is not particularly spiritual.  And if the family or friends are sitting around the table, each one talking into their phone or listening to their own music, that is not particularly helpful or spiritual.

It is the community aspect of a meal that is important and it begins with the preparation of the meal. If you can, pick your vegetables from the garden. If you cannot do that, then buy the vegetables from the market. Resist buying food already prepared. Part of the spirituality of the meal is the community that is formed as you work together in the kitchen peeling the vegetables and preparing the meal. Then the whole community gathers and the food is brought out to the table and everyone sits down and shares together. Conversations flow, sometimes everyone listens to one person, other times there are three or four or more conversations going on at the same time. There is news and thoughts and laughter being shared.

This kind of meal brings us together and in this kind of meal there is a spiritual presence we are able to share. A hundred of us experienced this the other night at our Passover Seder. There was a wonderful spirit as we shared our food with each other, chatted with old friends and made new friends.

I think this is why it is important to say grace before we eat. We remember, with gratitude, that all we have, all we share, comes from God and we give him thanks. This places us with God at the table as we share together. Jesus makes himself known to us when we share together around the table. Jesus saves us and brings us into a community. When we open ourselves to that community around the table at a meal, we are blessed and Jesus is made known.

Fourth, Jesus is made known in scripture. Jesus explained what the scriptures had to say about the resurrection of the Messiah and after Cleopas and his friend recognized who it was that had been talking and eating with them, they said to each other,
“Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”

When Jesus appeared to the disciples as Cleopas and his friend were giving their report, Luke writes: ( Luke 24:44–45)
44 He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”
45 Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.

The Bible, Old Testament and New Testament, bear witness to Jesus and as we read this precious gift to the church, Jesus is made known.

But notice that while the scriptures proclaim the truth of Jesus, the message is not apparent to everyone. Jesus opened the minds of his disciples so they could understand the scriptures.  Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 2:14
The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.

We need to share the scriptures with others but pray that the Holy Spirit will open their minds and help them see the truth contained in them.

Fifth, our best witness for Jesus is when we die well.

As I said, Jesus was not at his best when he was hanging on the cross. He was in great pain. His body was demanding to be the center of his focus. In addition Jesus was suffering the spiritual pain of being separated from God. For the first time in his eternal existence he was cut off from fellowship with God. But in all his pain and agony, Jesus was made known to the thief on the cross and to the Roman centurion who was in charge of this execution. As they watched Jesus suffer, as the thief suffered alongside of Jesus, it became clear that Jesus was no ordinary mortal.
47 The centurion, seeing what had happened, praised God and said, “Surely this was a righteous man.”

When is it we shine most brightly for Jesus? Our best witness for Jesus does not come when we proclaim how well we live. When someone stands up to testify, “I gave my life to Jesus and then got a raise,” Jesus is not glorified. Testimonies that share how Jesus brought prosperity and health bring glory to the world and increase our attachment to the world.

I have a friend who is battling a cancerous brain tumor and his witness for Jesus has never been more powerful. He holds on to Jesus with hope, enjoying the life he is given. He delights in the love and affection of his community of family and friends. He holds on to Jesus confident of being victorious over death and disease. In his weakness Jesus is shining.

Our best witness for Jesus comes when we die to ourselves, when we forgive someone who has offended, hurt or betrayed us. Our best witness for Jesus comes when we chose to hold on to hope when circumstances are working against us.  Our best witness for Jesus comes when we hold on to Jesus through discouragement, grief and pain. Jesus is not seen best in our success. Jesus is best seen in our weakness, in our suffering.

This was my experience when I was in business. The employees knew I had been a pastor and some of them watched me very closely to see how I lived. Anyone can be a follower of Jesus when money is pouring in and all is going well. But when there is a financial crisis or a personnel crisis, that is when it becomes most clear that we are followers of Jesus. I have seen this in organizations here in Morocco. I have seen this over and over again. When we are suffering, going through great difficulties and we hang on to Jesus, refusing to let go, that is when Jesus shines brightly in our lives. We may think we are stumbling, awash in our imperfection. We may think we are showing our warts to the world, but the way we work through the difficult times reveals Jesus in us.

Jesus comes to us and enters into our lives. He uses the events and circumstances of our lives to speak to us. He encourages us to join in community so he can be seen in our fellowship. He speaks to us through his living word. He speaks powerfully when we are weak. And he wants us to have the privilege of working with him. He wants us to take the glorious truth that he loves us and died for us and share it with all those he wants to rescue.

Jesus is at work this Easter morning as he is in every day of the year. He is constantly coming to us, offering us his hand that will pull us into eternal life. Are you reaching out to him? Will you accept his proposal?

Let me share with you this creative presentation of the offer Jesus is making to us. Falling Plates

When I was young my sisters and I decided to serve my parents breakfast in bed. We got up early and worked really hard. We fried eggs and bacon, made toast, put orange juice in glasses, put a little bit of jam in a cupcake holder and butter in another, got some flowers out in the lawn and put them in a vase and made some coffee. All this was put on two trays and brought upstairs to my parents. We woke them up, gave them the trays, and then stood there with our beaming faces watching them eat.

Let me pick up the story from my father’s perspective. He said he was woken up, feeling tired, and looked down at the trays. The eggs were overcooked, cold and greasy. The bacon was also overcooked. The toast was cold. The only thing that looked like he could manage was the coffee.

As we were making the coffee I remember my sister asking how many spoons of instant coffee to put in the cup. I said, “He likes it strong,” so we put in four or five spoons.

My dad picked up the coffee and sipped it. He said that if you had put a spoon in the middle it would have stayed there. He smiled and said everything was wonderful and played with the food but he couldn’t wait for us to leave so he could flush everything down the toilet and tell us it was a delicious breakfast.

We made a great effort and while that was appreciated, what we brought was not quite delicious.

I believe God was pleased with our worship this morning. We sang with our hearts and it was great for me as well. But I don’t want to offer God praise that is merely good. I want our praise to be the best that can be offered. I want God to be delighted with our praise and so I ask myself what it is we can do that will make our praise more delightful to God.

As we read through the Bible we discover that God is fussy about praise and he does not accept all the praise that is offered to him. I talked about this in the RICEmail a couple weeks ago.

Proverbs 15:8 tells us
The Lord detests the sacrifice of the wicked,
but the prayer of the upright pleases him.

The praise God desires obviously has a lot to do with what is in our hearts. When King David repented after committing adultery and murder, he wrote Psalm 51. (Psalm 51:15–17)
O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart,
O God, you will not despise.

God was upset with Israel for their worship of false gods and spoke through the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 1:11–17)
“The multitude of your sacrifices—
what are they to me?” says the Lord.
“I have more than enough of burnt offerings,
of rams and the fat of fattened animals;
I have no pleasure
in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.
12 When you come to appear before me,
who has asked this of you,
this trampling of my courts?
13 Stop bringing meaningless offerings!

They have become a burden to me;
I am weary of bearing them.
15 When you spread out your hands in prayer,
I will hide my eyes from you;
even if you offer many prayers,
I will not listen.
Your hands are full of blood;
16 wash and make yourselves clean.
Take your evil deeds
out of my sight!
Stop doing wrong,
17 learn to do right!
Seek justice,
encourage the oppressed.
Defend the cause of the fatherless,
plead the case of the widow.

In order for our praise to be accepted by God, there needs to be a foundation of obedience in our lives.

We see this in the text that was read this morning. Jesus was being accused of having power over demons because he was working in cooperation with the devil. He exposed the faulty logic of this accusation and did it so well a woman in the crowd was highly impressed. Perhaps this was a very intelligent woman in an environment where her intelligence was not encouraged or appreciated. Perhaps she was aware of how often people spoke illogically and she was impressed with the quality of Jesus’ mind. Women were not supposed to speak out. She could not say, “That was brilliant!” so she found something that would be appropriate for her to say.
“Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you.”

She wanted to tell Jesus how wonderful he was and she tried to find the best way to say it. This is the best thing she could tell him.

So how did Jesus respond? What would be the polite, respectable thing to say? Jesus could have said, “Thank you very much.” He could have accepted her comment with grace and humility. He could have said, “My mother is a wonderful woman and I am sure you are also a wonderful woman,” but Jesus was not running for political office. Jesus was trying to save the world.

Jesus deflected her praise and said:
“Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”

We want to please God with our praise and our obedience is what makes the difference. It is not how skilled we are musically, whether we can keep a tune. The key is that we sing from a foundation of obedience and our hearts are given to him. That is what makes our praise delightful.

But the problem for us is that we are far from perfect and we continue to slip away from our focus on God. Even if we start from a position of obedience, we slip into sin. We slip into serving ourselves and our interests. We slip into pride and judgment. We slip into the temptations that surround us. We assert our rights rather than serve the people around us. We make ourselves the center of the universe.

For these and many other reasons we need repeatedly to quiet down and allow the Holy Spirit to speak to us and help us clean out the junk in our lives so we can be more filled with him.

So this morning we will follow the Biblical pattern of confessing our sin. The first step is to have an experience of God and become aware of his presence and love for us. Within the safety of being loved by God we can then take a look at ourselves and see our sin. We confess that sin and are emptied so we can then be filled with the Holy Spirit. This allows our prayers and praise to be more pleasing to God. To focus on our sinfulness outside of the context of knowing we are loved by God is a destructive experience. Our examination of ourselves always needs to be in the context of experiencing God’s love.

We see this in Isaiah who was called by God to be his prophet. Isaiah 6:1–5
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”
4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”

Isaiah had a tremendous vision of God and in that environment he was able to more clearly see his sin, be cleansed, and be called to his mission.

Peter was fishing with his brother Andrew. They had been fishing all night with no success and then Jesus came along and asked Peter if he could sit in his boat and teach the people gathered by the shore. (Luke 5:4–9)
4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.”
5 Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”
6 When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. 7 So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.
8 When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!”

Once again, Peter saw the glory of Jesus and in that context was able to see his sin, leave his nets and follow Jesus.

We had a wonderful morning of praise and we have more to look forward to. But now I want us to take some time to reflect. Quiet yourself and ask the Holy Spirit to help you examine yourself.  Remember the joy of praise you experienced this morning. Remember the words of the songs we sang. As you sit and then a thought comes to you about something you have done or something you should have done but did not do, don’t feel condemned. You are much loved by God. Take the thought, remember it and then ask God for forgiveness. Repent, and resolve to resist that sin in the future.

The extent to which you hold on to sin in your life minimizes the delight God takes in your praise, so relax, feel safe and let go. Don’t be anxious. There is no expectation you have to fulfill. You don’t have to come up with some sin to deal with. All I want you to do is sit back, close your eyes, relax and invite the Holy Spirit to lead you. It is his work to convict us of sin. You job is to relax, feel safe in the arms of God, and allow the Holy Spirit to do his work. He will speak to you.

Invite him now with the words of Psalm 139:23–24
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

************************************************
Psalm 147:1
1 Praise the Lord.
How good it is to sing praises to our God,
how pleasant and fitting to praise him!

Psalm 147:10–11
10 His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse,
nor his delight in the legs of a man;
11 the Lord delights in those who fear him,
who put their hope in his unfailing love.

King Nebudchadnezzar threw three men into a fire so hot the soldiers who threw Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego into the furnace were killed by the heat of the flames. (Daniel 3:24–25)
Then King Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement and asked his advisers, “Weren’t there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?”
They replied, “Certainly, O king.”
25 He said, “Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.”

King Nebuchadnezzar was amazed.

Jesus went into a house followed by two blind men. He healed them and when he came out (Matthew 9:32–33)
a man who was demon-possessed and could not talk was brought to Jesus. 33 And when the demon was driven out, the man who had been mute spoke. The crowd was amazed and said, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.”

Jesus healed and cast out demons and people were amazed.

My oldest sister told me this story about a friend of hers who was in her Bible Study.

Babs was in my Bible Study years ago and was in the end stages for MS.  She was sent home from the hospital to die; there was nothing else they could do.  She had been wheelchair bound for the previous 5 years. Her muscles were so contracted that her fingers touched her forearms and she was more or less permanently in a fetal position.  She was blind, had a tracheostomy in her neck for breathing, had a Foley catheter to empty her bladder and an ileostomy for her bowels. All she could do was pray.  On June 7, 1981 she was in bed and friends had come over to read to her some cards she had received.  She heard a male voice over her left shoulder say, “My child, get up and walk!”  She took out her oxygen tube, took off her arm brace, and jumped out of bed!  She saw herself in the mirror.  She stood and the muscles in her arms and legs were filled out.  Her mother came up the ramp, lifted her nightgown and said “Barbara, you have calves again!”  She had some surgeries to remove the various tubes but her doctors were amazed and said it was truly a miracle.  They found no signs of MS.  She was made whole.

Babs was 31 years old at the time and later she married a pastor with three children and raised them as her own. She continues to testify to what God has done in her life. She says that when she gets to heaven she has two questions to ask Jesus, “Why me?” and “Why not everyone else?”

That is an amazing story. Blind, unable to walk, her central nervous system shutting down and then she could see, she could stand, and she could walk. Her muscles and nerves were rejuvenated. Amazing!

My sister talks about her reaction the first time Babs returned to their Bible Study.

I remember having lunch with her and feeling an almost confusing sense of awe.  Here I was, a strong believing Christian who is supposed to expect miracles, and I could hardly believe what was right in front of my eyes.  It actually helped me understand why not everyone believed in Jesus during Biblical times and some of the statements Jesus made about faith and miracles.

I have never seen anything so amazing. This past Monday I watched two women pray for a knee to be healed and I watched with faith, believing this could happen. I waited for the knee to be healed but it was not. If it had been healed, that would have been amazing.

I read or hear these stories and think, “That’s really amazing,” and then I wonder what is amazing in my experience with Jesus. I hear amazing stories others have experienced, but is there anything amazing in my experience with Jesus?

This led me to look at the incidents in the Bible that amazed people to see if I could find what they have in common. How can we identify amazing experiences?

King Nebuchadnezzar was amazed. The three men he threw in the fire were not consumed by the fire. That is amazing in itself, but then he observed a fourth man in the fire with them. He knew this fourth man had not been thrown into the fire, he was like a son of the gods. He was clearly not a mere mortal. This was definitely a supernatural appearance.

The day before Joshua led Israel across the Jordan River into Canaan, he told them: (Joshua 3:5)
“Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you.”

The next day when the priests carrying the ark of the covenant stepped into the waters of the Jordan, the river stopped flowing and all of Israel passed over into the promised land. This was a supernatural act and the people were amazed.

When Jesus was twelve and went to the Passover feast in Jerusalem, he made his way to the Temple and began to talk with the teachers. How did this happen? This was a busy time for them and they were not likely to pay a lot of attention to a young boy, newly arrived at the age when the transition to being a man was made.

I imagine Jesus came up to one of the teachers and asked him a question. Perhaps this was a question he had asked the rabbi in his synagogue in Nazareth but that rabbi was not skilled enough to answer it to Jesus’ satisfaction. The teacher heard this question and paid closer attention to the young boy asking the question.

Or perhaps Jesus stood around a group discussing some issue, debating the meaning of some text from the Torah and then Jesus, standing at the fringe of the circle, made an observation that caused the whole group to turn and look at the young boy who had spoken so profoundly.

The teachers were amazed because Jesus’ questions and observations were so full of wisdom and understanding that they would have been highly respected if a sixty year old rabbi had spoken them. What was so amazing was that these words were spoken by a twelve year old boy.

There was a supernatural insight in the words and questions of Jesus that amazed them.

We read in Matthew 7:28–29
28 When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, 29  because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.

Itinerant rabbis who traveled the roads of Palestine, taught in the traditional style. They read from the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, and then commented on what they had read. They acted as modern day commentaries, pointing out what this respected rabbi had said and what that respected rabbi had said about a certain passage. But Jesus did not do this. He did not lean on Rabbi Gamaliel or any other respected rabbi. He spoke for himself, making declarations with authority and power.

There was something supernatural about his teaching.

Jesus was asleep in a boat with his disciples when they woke him up because they were afraid of sinking in a terrible storm. Jesus stood up, rebuked the winds and the waves, and the sea became calm. (Matthew 8:27)
27 The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!”

The power Jesus had over nature was supernatural.

Jesus healed lepers, gave sight to the blind, made the lame walk and people were amazed because of the power of Jesus to do such great miracles.

Jesus cast out demons, freeing people who had been held captive and the people were amazed. (Mark 1:27)
The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, “What is this? A new teaching—and with authority! He even gives orders to evil spirits and they obey him.”

In his greatest demonstration of the supernatural, Jesus appeared to his disciples after his resurrection. (Luke 24:37–43)
37 They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. 38 He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? 39 Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”
40 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. 41 And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate it in their presence.

When we see wonderful things we are delighted. But when we grasp the presence of the supernatural intruding into our world, we are amazed. We can explain the natural wonders of the world but the supernatural experiences in this life defy understanding. They work against the laws of nature. They are mysteries revealing a world beyond this world.

So when I ask myself what amazes me in my life with Jesus, I have to clarify what it is I am looking for. A good questions to ask is: In what way do I observe the supernatural intruding into my world?

The reason this is an important question is that if I sit waiting for a dramatic healing so that I can be amazed, I will miss out on all the amazing things God is doing right now in my life. It is not my place to dictate to God what kind of supernatural intervention I want to see. It is not God’s responsibility to provide me with miracles that I want to see. If I expect to see someone be healed, raised from the dead or some other miracle of Jesus, I risk being in the camp of Herod who I mentioned in last Sunday’s sermon. Herod wanted Jesus to entertain him with a miracle and I do not want to demean Jesus by demanding he entertain me.

The reality is that there are supernatural miracles taking place in our lives all the time. The kingdom of God is consistently advancing in us and in the people around us. All we have to do is pay attention. In fact, it is not possible for us to avoid the miraculous when the Holy Spirit is at work in our lives. Where is it we see God’s kingdom supernaturally moving into our world?

Let me suggest some ways we experience God’s supernatural movement in our lives.

I asked people in the adult Sunday School class what amazed them in their relationship with Jesus and one woman said that when she went through difficult times, she was amazed to see how present God was with her in those times.

Paul wrote to the church in Philippi: (Philippians 4:4–7)
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

The peace of God that comes to us in difficult times is beyond our understanding. This is supernatural work in our lives. It is not simply our philosophical understanding that enables us to be at peace. There is a spiritual presence in us that enables us to be at peace in the midst of difficulty and tragedy.

Juliet shared this in the adult Sunday School class and gave me permission to share her story. In 1981 one of her brothers committed suicide. This was a devastating experience and she grieved his death. She felt great guilt about his death. It was a very difficult time in her life. Eighteen years later a second brother committed suicide and once again this was a devastating experience. She grieved his death. But in the intervening years, she had renewed her faith in Jesus and drawn closer to him and what was amazing to her was how much better she was able to cope with the pain of her brother’s death. It still hurt but she had an inner strength that enabled her to carry that pain.

God’s peace in our lives is amazing!

God’s orchestration in our lives is amazing. Nicky Gumbel tells this story in the Alpha Course.

Michael Bourdeaux is head of Keston College, a research unit devoted to helping believers in what were communist countries. Years ago his Russian teacher sent him a letter which he had received. It detailed how Christians in the USSR were being beaten by the KGB and subjected to inhuman medical experiments. The letter was signed “Varavva and Pronina”.

In August 1964, Michael Bourdeaux went on a trip to Moscow, and on his first evening met up with friends who explained that the persecutions were getting worse; in particular they mentioned an old church that had been demolished. They suggested he go and see for himself.

So he took a taxi. When he came to the square he saw two women. They asked him, “Who are you”? He replied, “I am a foreigner. I have come to find out what is happening here in the Soviet Union.”

They took him back to the house of another woman who asked him why he had come. He explained he had received a letter from the Ukraine via Paris. When she asked who it was from he replied, “Varavva and Pronina.” There was silence. He wondered if he had said something wrong. There followed a flood of uncontrolled sobbing. The woman pointed and said, “This is Varavva, and this is Pronina.”

The population of Russia at the time was over 140 million. The Ukraine, from where the letter was written, is 1,300 km from Moscow. Michael Bourdeaux had flown from England six months after the letter had been written. They would not have met had either party arrived at the demolished church an hour earlier or an hour later. That meeting was one of the ways God called Michael Bourdeaux to set up his life work.

That is an amazing story of God’s orchestration, God’s providence.

Last Sunday I was at a meeting with four women from South Africa who came to pray for people in Morocco. One of the women was born in France, was engaged to a young man and then broke off the engagement. The whole family of this man was angry with her. After she broke off the engagement she went to a prayer conference at a church in South Africa, met a young man there and married him. She travels now with these women in a prayer ministry.

When she came into our salon for the prayer session, she saw a couple visiting from France and recognized them as the aunt and uncle of the man she had been engaged to. Five years had passed and she did not know what to expect. The last time she had seen them, they were furious with her. But as she talked with them there was a healing reconciliation and she translated for them what was spoken in English. She prayed for them. It was beautiful.

She came from South Africa. They came from France. They were here at the same time, in the same room, and God was able to bring healing and reconciliation.

Amazing!

Creation is amazing.

Psalm 19 tell us:
The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Psalm 8 looks at this amazing creation and reflects:
When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
4 what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?

I was once on a hiking trip in the mountains of the northeast of the US and lying by a waterfall, looking up at the stars. The more I looked, the more vast the expanse of the universe seemed to me and then I had a Psalm 8 experience as I reflected on the amazing wonder that the God who created all this had revealed himself to me as someone who loved me and wanted to be in a relationship with me. I was completely overwhelmed.

This is an amazing experience that has stayed with me all my life.

We observe nature and it speaks to us of God.

In his book, Scribbling in the Sand, Michael Card tells of meeting a Chinese woman who had grown up under communism where belief in God is shunned. But she said that from her childhood she found something in nature that she could not explain away. Michael Card writes,  “First there was sunset that caused a deep stirring in her soul she could not put into word. Then there was a time when the simple beauty of the flowers in her mother’s garden spoke to her of a simplicity for which her heart yearned. Simply by observing the beauty in nature, she became convicted of an existence of not simply a benign God but a loving, caring father.” This Chinese woman testified, “Imagine the joy I experienced when I learned that he had a name and it was Jesus.”

God speaks to us through his creation.

This is amazing!

Proverbs 30:18–19 tells us:
18 “There are three things that are too amazing for me,
four that I do not understand:
19 the way of an eagle in the sky,
the way of a snake on a rock,
the way of a ship on the high seas,
and the way of a man with a maiden.

We have used our God-given minds to analyze the flight of eagles and to study the behavior of snakes and we understand the physics of boats traveling through water. We study human psychology and measure what part of the brain is stimulated by feelings of love. But there is still mystery to it all. If we glance up from our formulas and equations and look at an eagle soaring high in the sky or contemplate a man and a woman in love, we are amazed.

Let me share just a few more things I consider to be supernaturally amazing.

My daughters both had an English teacher when they were 12 years old. This teacher had a son, born the same year as our youngest daughter. A few years earlier, the teacher’s son had been killed by a drunk driver when he was walking on the sidewalk. The drunk came off the road, onto the sidewalk, hit and killed her son.

The teacher visited this man. This tragedy proved to be his last drunk and he experienced the forgiveness of this woman whose son he had killed. Every year he came to her classroom and talked about the evils of drinking and driving.

When someone forgives a great injustice, a great hurt, a great betrayal, this is truly amazing. This is clearly God’s supernatural intervention in the world.

I have been with people when they have prayed to be a follower of Jesus and while I am pleased that they are making this decision, a part of me is asking, “How long will this last?” But then when they experience difficulty, discover there is a cost to being a follower of Jesus, and still continue to follow, then I stand back in wonder and awe.

This is amazing!

I was talking this week with someone who told me about an Imam in a rural area who became a follower of Jesus. He had been prosperous, receiving income for being an imam as well as income from dispensing curses and blessings in the folk-Islam of the region. He went from all this income to no income. Despite the loss of his income and facing opposition because of his transformation, he has remained faithful to Jesus.

This is amazing!

I watched people being prayed for last Sunday by these women from South Africa and sensed the presence of God as they were bathed in prayer. Annie called what happened a prayer spa. I listened as these women prayed for people who were complete strangers and were able to focus in on critical issues being faced by the people there. It was clear that God spoke to them about the lives of those they prayed for.

This is amazing!

Our goal is not to be amazed and you do not need to feel guilty if you do not feel amazed at this moment in time. If I go outside tonight to look at the stars, I may or may not be amazed. Actually, with city lights, it is difficult to be amazed on any night. But I have seen the night sky in the middle of the Sonora Desert in the southwest of the US and in the desert here in the south of Morocco and while it is beautiful, I have not been amazed as I was that night in the northeast of the US.

If we were constantly amazed I think we might end up in a hospital bed somewhere, mentally and physically exhausted. We should always be thankful, always be grateful, but amazement is a work of God in us as we glimpse the supernatural and are encouraged in our faith.

Think through your life with Jesus. I am certain you have experienced amazing things. We live in a world that is constantly being invaded and overcome by the kingdom of God as Jesus works in each generation to rescue those who are lost. Men and women, girls and boys are drawn into his family. The Holy Spirit is at work in us to transform us. We were once God’s enemies but now we are his sons and daughters, en route to his eternal kingdom.

This is truly amazing!

Last week Peter preached from the story of Jesus and the woman healed from bleeding when she touched his cloak. I read the scripture passage from Mark before he preached which begins with a synagogue ruler named Jairus who came up to Jesus. (Mark 5:22–23)
Seeing Jesus, he fell at his feet 23 and pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.”

I don’t know how many times I have read that passage, but last Sunday as I read it aloud, the pain Jairus was experiencing became real to me. My little daughter. Not just my daughter but my little daughter. As I read I thought about my daughters and my grandchildren. What would I be feeling if they were dying? Jairus was desperate, pleading for help.

It is important when we read scripture to take time to reflect on what we are reading. We can skim right over a story, say we know this one, and never consider what it was like in the moment. As a consequence we will miss the power of the story and the depth of the character of Jesus revealed in the story.

The story this morning is about a woman who was crippled.
10 On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, 11 and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all.

This woman was not unclean. She was not an outcast, but she walked bent over. For eighteen years she had been this way. For eighteen years she had lived with pain and discomfort and the physical limitations of what her body could do. She was probably not married and lived with some family members. She was physically limited but she was able to work with her hands, trying to make herself useful. Perhaps she made baskets, or worked with clay. There are any number of things she could have done. Whatever work she did she was well known and easily recognized. From a distance someone would see her bent over form and know who she was. Maybe she was referred to by the people in town as, “the bent woman” or some other descriptive name.

She was probably well known in the synagogue. Maybe she helped straighten out benches or dusting them off. Because of her condition she worked hard to make herself a valued part of the synagogue. She needed to belong and so made sure she was useful so she would be accepted. She was a part of the life of the synagogue. She had a life but it was a life limited by her condition.

So picture the scene. Jesus was teaching in the synagogue on the Sabbath when she entered and he saw her. His seeing is how the stories of Jesus always begin. He sees. He notices. He saw this woman bent over and knew the kind of life she lived. He recognized her need to belong. He saw her life. Jesus saw this woman and then Jesus had compassion. Over and over again in the gospels it is mentioned that Jesus saw and then had compassion. That detail is not in this story but because we know the character of Jesus from other stories in the gospels, we know that Jesus saw this woman and had compassion for her.

Jesus saw her bent over condition, her painful and limited life, and then he saw something not immediately noticeable. If a modern physician saw her, he or she would guess that she had a deficiency of calcium in her bones, or that her spine had narrowed at some point. The doctor would wonder what was causing this physical condition.

But Jesus looked at her and knew her problem was not just physical but spiritual. Not all illnesses are demonic in origin, but in this case Jesus saw that an evil spirit was causing her to be crippled.

Jesus saw, he had compassion and then he acted.
When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” 13 Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.

This was an amazing miracle. After eighteen years of being stooped over, all the muscles, ligaments, and tendons in the front of her body would have been severely shortened and become contracted. With her rib cage being down and muscles holding it together, her heart and lungs would have been compressed making it difficult for her to breath, swallow and digest food. She would have endured constant pain.

When she was healed, there was a miraculous relaxation of all her muscles and related connections. Strength was given to her overstretched muscles. She began to breath normally, her blood began circulating freely, and her pain disappeared.

Her view of the world was no longer limited by being stooped over. She could twist and look around without restriction. She had all the world to see but, I suspect, what she saw most clearly was the joy-filled face of Jesus as he saw the kingdom of God advance into her life. She was set free.

What would you do if a woman in your community was instantly healed after being crippled for eighteen years? This woman stood up and began praising God and I doubt she was alone.

In Acts 3 a man who was lame from birth was healed and when Peter took him by his hand and he stood up, he began walking and leaping and praising God. Walking was exciting by itself but not enough. His exuberance led to leaping up and down, praising God all the while.

I picture this woman the same way. Perhaps she kept bending over and standing up, showing over and over again to all who watched what had happened to her. She thrust her hands in the air, making herself as tall and as straight as she possibly could, taking deep breaths of air for the first time in eighteen years and bursting out in praise. How could she not have been leaping for joy and praising God? Who would not be celebrating?

The synagogue ruler was not celebrating. There are so many things the synagogue ruler could have said. He could have said, “Rejoice this day because our sister who has suffered for so many years has been healed.” He could have said, “We have seen an amazing demonstration today of God’s power. Let’s listen again to the teaching of this man who brought healing into our sister’s life.” He could have said a lot of things but what he did say reveals a hardness of heart, a man enslaved by rules and regulations, a man who was crippled by the rules and regulations that kept him and those he led in a prison just as cruel as the prison this woman had lived in for the past eighteen years.
14 Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue ruler said to the people, “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.”

He chastised this woman and all those who were celebrating with her. Rather than rejoice in her good fortune, he lectured her and all those in the synagogue who might also need to be healed and delivered. If there had been public relations consultants back then, they would have lined up offering him much needed advice. The synagogue ruler alienated the people in his congregation because he let them understand that his rules were more important than their lives. And isn’t it interesting that Jesus showed such compassion for the woman who was bent over but not for the synagogue ruler. Jesus let him have it with both barrels.
15 The Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? 16 Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?”

The synagogue ruler saw a system to which people had to conform. The people saw a woman, the bent woman. Jesus saw past her bent condition into her soul. He saw a daughter of Abraham, one of God’s chosen people who for far too long had been kept a prisoner by Satan. Jesus saw, he loved, he had compassion and he acted. He set her free.

Luke concludes:
17 When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.

This is the line that caught my attention when I was reading through Luke in the café in Thailand. The humiliation of the synagogue ruler and the delight of the people.

I wonder what happened to the synagogue ruler? Did he take the path of the Pharisees who reacted to being bested by Jesus by seeking to kill him? Or did he allow the humiliation to lead him to repentance? Did he see the truth of what Jesus was saying? Was his heart opened so that the love of God for the people in his synagogue could enter his heart? That is another story and another sermon.

I wonder about the delight of the people.
the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.

What part of what happened made the people feel delighted? Our emotions are very complex and there were multiple levels of emotions at this event. Were the people delighted because this woman had been set free? Were they delighted because Jesus had so masterfully shot down the synagogue ruler’s devotion to rules and regulations? Were they delighted because Jesus had brought something new and exciting to the tedium of their daily existence? Were they delighted because Jesus was entertaining?

When I read this passage in the café, my mind went immediately to the account of Herod when Jesus was sent to him by Pilate. (Luke 23:8)
When Herod saw Jesus, he was greatly pleased, because for a long time he had been wanting to see him. From what he had heard about him, he hoped to see him perform some miracle.

Herod wanted to be entertained by Jesus. In the musical, Jesus Christ Superstar, Herod sings a song with these lyrics:
Jesus, I am overjoyed
To meet you face to face
You’ve been getting quite a name
All around the place
Healing cripples
Raising from the dead
Now I understand you’re God
At least that’s what you’ve said

So you are the Christ
You’re the great Jesus Christ
Prove to me that you’re divine
Change my water into wine
That’s all you need do
Then I’ll know it’s all true
C’mon King of the Jews

So if you are the Christ
Yes the great Jesus Christ
Prove to me that you’re no fool
Walk across my swimming pool
If you do that for me
Then I’ll let you go free
C’mon King of the Jews

Herod wanted to be entertained and let’s face it, Jesus was great entertainment. Think about Jesus arriving in a village where there were no movie theaters, no television sets. Everyday there was the same old thing. The fish market being set up next to the vegetable and fruit market, next to the butcher, next to the bakery. The same people doing the same thing, day after day. The same faces day after day. So when someone arrived from out of town, that was a new show to watch. There was someone new to watch and talk about and maybe they had some interesting news or stories to tell.

I have seen street theater many times here in Rabat. I was in the Takaddoum market one day, waiting for the chicken vendor to open up. While I was waiting an argument erupted at one of the stands in the street. A young woman and her father were arguing with a muscular man in his late 20s. The father was not doing a lot. I suspect this was because if he did, the young man would have beaten him up. But the young woman was very aggressive. The argument went on and on and the young man’s friends pulled him back and he began to walk away. But she went after him, publically shaming him. The woman was screaming, her head pointed toward him, yelling what I imagine were insults directed at him and then he turned around. He slapped her and she went after him with her nails. Friends pulled them apart and then later the police came and took the young man away in the police van.

That’s street entertainment and people rushed to see the show. By the time the police arrived, there was a large crowd. This happens all the time. Every time there is an accident or an argument, people gather around to watch.

When I first arrived in Morocco and needed to buy some tables and chairs, a friend, Habib, went with me. At every purchase Habib would begin to negotiate and one or two people would come over to listen. Each negotiation lasted about ten or fifteen minutes and by the end there would typically be eight to ten people standing in a circle around Habib and the man he was negotiating with. There would be laughter because of the things Habib was saying. Once, Habib took his bottle of water and sprinkled it on the head of the man he was negotiating with and the man and everyone else laughed. This too is street theater.

Each person who passed through a small town in Palestine was of interest but when Jesus came with his disciples, this was Hollywood coming to town. There had already been reports about Jesus. People had heard many stories about him. This was the big show and people were eager to see what he would do.

So when Luke writes that the people were delighted, I wonder about why they were delighted. And I wonder where their delight led them.

There are lots of references in the Bible to being delighted. Psalm 37:4 tells us:
Delight yourself in the Lord
and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Psalm 16:3
As for the saints who are in the land,
they are the glorious ones in whom is all my delight.

Psalm 111:2
Great are the works of the Lord;
they are pondered by all who delight in them.

Psalm 112:1
Blessed is the man who fears the Lord,
who finds great delight in his commands.

There are many similar references. It is clear that delighting in the Lord and the people he has chosen is a good thing.

But there is also this in Luke 22:1–6
Now the Feast of Unleavened Bread, called the Passover, was approaching, 2 and the chief priests and the teachers of the law were looking for some way to get rid of Jesus, for they were afraid of the people. 3 Then Satan entered Judas, called Iscariot, one of the Twelve. 4 And Judas went to the chief priests and the officers of the temple guard and discussed with them how he might betray Jesus. 5 They were delighted and agreed to give him money.

The chief priests and the officers of the temple guard delighted in their evil scheme to kill Jesus. Why were they delighted? They were delighted because they were getting what they wanted. For quite a while they had wanted to arrest and kill Jesus without a crowd being around him and now they were being given a chance.

So we are delighted when we get what we want. We are delighted when we are entertained. We are delighted when things go our way.

But in a more positive way we are delighted when we see the world as it should be. We are created with a longing for heaven where: (Revelation 21:4)
[God] will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

When the lame walked, the blind saw, the lepers were cleansed, the hungry were fed, these actions announced the coming of the kingdom of God. This is the way the world is supposed to be and we are delighted when we see the kingdom of God claim ground as the suffering of this world is relieved.

So in what do you delight? In what way are you delighted?

Is your delight grounded in the advancing kingdom of God? Is your delight based on things working out the way you want them to? Is your delight based on the pleasure of being well entertained?

These may seem like silly questions but the answers are not that obvious.

Last Sunday during worship when we were singing And Can It Be, there was a strong sense of the presence of God and we sang that song from our hearts. We finished the service with a song that many of us did not know but quickly learned, I Am A Friend of God. We sang that song with passion and it was wonderful. It was delightful.

I would love to have our experience of God be that powerful and more every Sunday but I have to ask myself the question, who is our worship for? Are we delighting in our worship because we like the way it makes us feel? Is the measure of a good Sunday how I feel about it? Are we the central focus of our worship?

When we hear reports of a miracle we are energized, we are delighted. But what do we do when we hear of someone who has been suffering from MS for 12 years and is not getting better?

We get a raise and we are delighted, but what do we do when we lose our job?

There are levels of delight and the more superficial levels of delight can take our emotions up and down like a yo-yo. When things work the way we want, we are delighted. When things don’t work out the way we want, we are discouraged.

We are all happy when things work out well but our delight needs to be in deeper levels of truth. This is why in our worship this morning I wanted us to focus on Jesus, to be drawn to praise for the deep truth in our lives, truth that is steady and unchanging.

There are churches and rallies that advertise, Come See A Miracle. I pray for miracles. I pray for signs and wonders to be evident here in Morocco. Signs and wonders grow the church and I want to see that happen. But miracles do not grow faith. As Peter Wagner points out in his commentary on Acts, miracles grow the quantity of the church but not the quality of the church. Delight when God acts in a miraculous way and his kingdom advances in this world. But do not seek miracles.

As exciting as miracles seem to be to us, there is a far more significant experience we have and that is when things do not go as we wish they would and we continue to hang on to Jesus. This is when our faith grows, and God values our faith far more than the miracles that take place. The miracles will be left behind but we will take our faith with us into heaven. Delight in this deeper truth.

Let me give you an example of what I am talking about. Jesus sent out seventy-two of his closest disciples in pairs of two. Earlier Luke records that Jesus sent out his twelve closest disciples and gave them power and authority to: (Luke 9:1–2)
drive out all demons and to cure diseases, 2 and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.

This is apparently the same power and authority he gave to the seventy-two because when they came back they were delighted, ecstatic. (Luke 10:17)
17 The seventy-two returned with joy and said, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.”

They had a great experience. People were healed. Demons were cast out. They were able to do what they had seen Jesus do and he was not present with them.

Did Jesus share in their excitement? What did he tell them?
18 He replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. 19 I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. 20 However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

He took them from the more superficial thrill of miracles to a far deeper truth. He took them from miracles to eternal life.

In what do you delight? What are you longing for? You may begin your Christian life longing for the spectacular but God wants to take you far deeper.

God wants to take you from seeking what he can do for you, to seeking what you can do for him. God wants you to grow in faith so you realize that the Christian life is not about you and your happiness. The Christian life is about God and his advancing kingdom.

This is the problem with the health and wealth gospel that was exported from the US and found fertile soil in Africa. The health and wealth gospel is focused on what God can do for us. Are we healthy? Are we prosperous? If so, then our faith is strong and God is good. We need to understand that God did not send his Son to die for us so we could be happy, wealthy and healthy. Jesus suffered and died for us so we could live for him eternally.

Too many Christians have a baby faith, asking God, what can you do for me? Feed me. Heal me. Get me a raise. Give me an apartment. Give me a car. Give me. Help me. Feed me. Heal me.

I am not saying we should not ask God for the things we need. It is important that we bring to God all the things that make us worried and anxious. But when this dominates our conversations with God, then we have an immature faith.

What can I do for God? That is the question we should be asking. How can I please God with my life? How can I serve God? How can I love people in his name?

When I ask those questions then I am led to deeper truth and a deeper faith.

Of all those Jesus encountered in his three years of ministry, who knew most clearly who he was? Moses and Elijah met with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration and they certainly knew who he was. Everyone else seemed to know Jesus was someone special but were not quite sure about him. When Jesus asked his disciples who people thought he was, they replied: (Matthew 16:14–18)
“Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
15 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

This is Peter’s great declaration of faith, being bold enough to say what the others speculated but were afraid to say. Peter took a risk, just like when he walked on water toward Jesus, and put his speculation out where it could be shot down.

When Annie and I were in Thailand visiting out daughter and her family, I went out one day and sat at a café and read through the gospel of Luke and parts of the other gospels. As I read, I wrote down how people responded to Jesus and that has become our Lenten series focus. Today and over the next six Sundays, we will look at some of the various ways people responded to Jesus.

As I read through Luke in the café in Chiang Mai, one of the things I noticed was that the beings who were most clear about who Jesus was were demons. People were confused about who Jesus was. Some called him Rabbi, teacher. Some thought he might be a prophet. Some wanted to make him king and have him lead them in a rebellion against the Roman occupiers. Some thought he was in league with the devil. But there was no uncertainty, no hesitation on the part of demons. In encounter after encounter the demons cried out:
Luke 4:34
“Ha! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”

Luke 4:41
Moreover, demons came out of many people, shouting, “You are the Son of God!” But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew he was the Christ.

Luke 8:28–29
When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell at his feet, shouting at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don’t torture me!” 29 For Jesus had commanded the evil spirit to come out of the man.

Before I tell you where my mind took me when I read these texts, let me tell you about demons. Most of what we know about demons is found in the Apocrypha, fourteen books written during the four hundred years between the Old Testament and New Testament. These books were influential and the New Testament writers often refer to the teaching of these books when they write.

But the New Testament itself says very little about demons. We know they are created beings. They are referred to as fallen angels and have power to do evil. They manifest themselves in possession of individuals, causing illness – although not all illness is attributed to demons. They are active in the world, working with the devil against the purposes of God, and like the devil, they are destined for judgment.

With that limited understanding, let me tell you where my mind took me when I read the reactions of demons to Jesus. In my early years as a follower of Jesus and at times since then, I have thought that it would be so much easier to believe if I could see Jesus. I envied the disciples because they got to walk with Jesus, talk with him, watch him. They saw him heal people. They saw him in his encounters with demons. They saw him die and then on the third day after his death they saw him in his resurrected body. They watched him walk through walls. They watched him eat a fish. They heard him speak. No wonder their lives were transformed. No wonder they were so dedicated. No wonder they were willing to die as martyrs for him. And I thought that if I could have that experience, then I would be a stronger, more faithful follower of Jesus.

And yet the demons knew Jesus at a far deeper level than any of the disciples. The apostle John spent three years with Jesus, was one of his closest disciples, and had a revelation toward the end of his life in which he saw the risen, resurrected Jesus in all his heavenly glory. But John, at least until his death, did not live with Jesus in the spiritual realm.

We have no idea when angels were created, but they existed long before humans were created. They were in the heavenly realm with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. These fallen angels, demons, had no doubt about who Jesus was. They had every experience I ever wanted with Jesus but at a far deeper level. But then, what was the result?

The demons had no doubt about who Jesus was but they were actively working in opposition to him. Knowing who Jesus is, without any doubts, is obviously not the answer to having faith in Jesus.

So let me take off from this train of thought and make two points: First, you cannot have faith without the presence of doubt, and secondly, belief is not belief without submission and obedience.

First, you cannot have faith without the presence of doubt.

This is not immediately obvious. Consider the statements Jesus made about doubt.

When Peter stepped out in faith and began walking on water to Jesus and then began to sink, (Matthew 14:31)
Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”

When Jesus spoke judgment on a fig tree for not producing fruit and later that day the tree had withered, the disciples were amazed and asked him how this had happened. (Matthew 21:21)
Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done.

After Jesus resurrected from the dead, he appeared to his disciples. (Luke 24:37–38)
They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. 38 He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds?

Thomas had been absent when Jesus appeared to his disciples and doubted what they told him. Later when Jesus appeared to him he said to Thomas (John 20:27)
“Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

James, who relied on the teaching of Jesus more than any of the other letter writers in the New Testament said that if we lack wisdom we should ask for it. (James 1:6–8)
But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.

It seems clear that doubt is not encouraged in any way. It would be wrong for me to hold up doubt as a positive quality in our Christian faith. There is nothing admirable about doubt. Our goal is to have faith without doubt. But I would argue that faith without doubt is impossible and we should not dismay when we do have doubts.

Jesus wants us to have faith. James wanted the readers of his letter to have faith. I want us to have faith. But faith does not develop unless there is room for doubt. Certainty does not produce faith. When there is room for doubt, that is when faith grows.

Phil Yancy struggled a lot with the question of suffering. He wrote a book, Where Is God When It Hurts and as a result of that book, many people wrote to him, telling him of their struggles, telling him why it was so difficult for them to believe in a loving God. As a consequence, he wrote his next book, Disappointment With God, as a way of dealing with all the stories he received from people who were struggling with faith.

In this book he wrote about three questions many Christians ask but are afraid to verbalize. Is God unfair? Is God silent? Is God hidden?

Is God unfair? Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people? Why do people who are following him suffer? They ask the question that has been asked as long as man has been able to think: why do the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer?

Is God silent? Why does God not speak to us when we pray for understanding and answers. Why is it that someone who has been faithful in following God and endures great suffering, pours out his or her heart to God and then there is no response? Why does God not speak to us when we are in such agony?

Is God hidden? Where is God? Why does God make it so hard to believe in him? Why doesn’t he show himself to us? Why doesn’t he at least send an angel to us to encourage us and let us know he exists?

These are questions many people ask and then Yancy thought about a time when God was fair. God was not silent. God was not hidden.

In the book of Exodus when Israel made their way from Egypt to Canaan, God was fair. He laid down the law with Moses and when someone disobeyed, they were punished. When they obeyed, they were blessed. And the result of his fairness was that people were terrified of him.

God was not silent. He let them know when to move by having the cloud over the tabernacle move. He made decisions for them by the casting of lots and the use of the Urim and Thummim. He gave them the Law, telling them what to do and what not to do. And what was the result? People pretty much did whatever they wanted to do. God’s direction did not result in an obedient people.

God was not hidden. He spoke with Moses in the Tent of the Tabernacle and when he did, a pillar of cloud, God’s visible presence, blocked the entrance to the tent. He was fearfully present at Mt. Sinai, with the mountain trembling and lightening and thunder and fire. Moses went up that mountain to meet with God and before he ascended, he told Israel that any man or woman who touched the mountain would die. God was visibly present and what was the result? While Moses was meeting with God, Israel decided to create an idol to replace him and were in the process of worshiping that golden calf when Moses came down from the mountain.

God was fair, he was not silent and he was not hidden but the result was rebellion, disobedience, terror – not faith.

In the great chapter in Hebrews that lists heros of the faith, the writer begins with this: (Hebrews 11:1)
Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

Faith grows best in the absence of evidence for what we believe. Faith grows best in the presence of doubt.

One of the best examples of this is Abraham, the father of our faith. God promised him he would be the father of a great nation, even though he and Sarah had no children. His faith is illustrated by his waiting most of his life, until he and Sarah were old, well past the time when they could conceive a child, before they finally had a son. God promised Abraham his descendants would be as many as the stars in the sky and yet for year after year he and Sarah had no children. Abraham is the father of our faith because he continued to believe God’s promise despite the lack of any evidence to support it.

We crave certainty. We want to believe in what we can sense with our five senses but God wants us to grow in faith because that is all we will take with us into our heavenly existence. God wants us to be rich in faith when we enter his kingdom so God has to work in our lives against our basic instincts.

Let me give an example. Jews came to the Temple in Jerusalem to pray and make their sacrifices. They came to the place where God dwelt on earth, but where was he? So Israel did in the Temple what they did at the foot of Mt. Sinai. When they could not see God, they created a god. At Mt. Sinai, Aaron collected their gold and made a calf for them to worship. In the temple, they took an ancient relic, a bronze serpent, and turned that into an idol they named Nehushtan.

Seven hundred years earlier in the Exodus from Egypt, the people of Israel rebelled and were afflicted with a plague of poisonous snakes. As they suffered, God told Moses to make a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Anyone who looked at the bronze snake would be healed.

For over seven hundred years this bronze snake was kept in the tabernacle and later, the temple in Jerusalem. It was a treasured relic. But over time it became the object of worship of people who came to the Temple. So when Hezekiah became king of Judah and instituted reforms, he got rid of the Asherah poles and other places where idols were worshiped and he also destroyed the bronze serpent.

What could be seen replaced the God who is not seen. There has to be room for doubt if faith is to grow but we do all we can to get rid of room for doubt and replace it with certainty.

I know a woman who suffered back pain for two years rather than go to a doctor and get the operation she needed. Why did she choose to suffer so long? She kept waiting, wanting God to heal her supernaturally. A supernatural healing confirms that God is present and makes faith more certain. How many of our prayers are directed toward making what we believe more certain? We seek the spectacular to make what we believe more clear. We hold on to miraculous stories and sometimes exaggerate them so our faith will seem more certain.

At various times in my life I have gone away to a retreat center for three days to fast and pray. I remember one time going away to fast and pray and wanting so desperately to have an angel appear to me. For three days I kept looking up, wondering when it would happen – but there was no angelic appearance. Why did I want to see an angel? I wanted certainty in my life that God existed.

I think I may have wanted to see an angel at that time because I had talked with a friend who did see an angel. I believed him when he told me this. I do not disbelieve the existence of angels, but it seems to me that God does not see the benefit of revealing himself to me that way. God is at work in me to grow my faith and the appearance of an angel would work against that in my case. I wanted to see an angel to have my faith grow but God has a different way of growing faith in me.

As I have mentioned, the worst year of my life was 2010 when the parents of the children at the Village of Hope were deported, along with 134 other foreign Christians who had been living and working in Morocco. I was devastated and unable to trust God even to pray before a meal. That was a very difficult year in which my faith was shaken to its roots. And yet, in that year, my faith grew.

I wrote a letter to friends at the end of that year and three or four people emailed me to say it seemed I had grown in faith. I responded by saying that if I had grown in faith, it was not intentional. All I had done was to hold on to Jesus and refuse to let go, despite the chaos and pain of what was happening.

Our faith grows best when we go through difficult experiences and we refuse to let go.

C.S. Lewis wrote a book, Screwtape Letters, in which a senior devil writes to a junior devil about his work to pull people away from faith in God. In one letter he writes:
Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.

Growing in faith does not come easily. Do not be dismayed by doubt. Persevere. Do not let go of Jesus. You cannot have faith without the presence of doubt.

Jesus had appeared to his disciples after his resurrection but Thomas was not present. When the others told him they had seen Jesus he could not believe them. Then Jesus appeared again and this time Thomas was there. (John 20:26–31)
Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
28 Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
29 Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Why are we, who have not seen Jesus, who have not had the opportunity to touch his side and see his wounds, blessed? We are blessed because our faith grows best when there is room for doubt.

Secondly, and briefly, belief is not belief without submission and obedience.

James wrote in his letter: (James 2:18–19)
18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. 19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

Demons know that Jesus is the Son of God. James wrote that they believe there is one God. But it is clear that knowing Jesus is the Son of God is not enough.

When I was in university, I met people who talked about Jesus as a person you could have a relationship with. This was news to me. I had grown up in the church. I had been an altar boy in the Lutheran Church. I had been active in my Presbyterian youth group, serving as a junior deacon. I had heard the Bible stories but now I was in university and not sure that God really existed.

One young woman encouraged me to begin praying, asking God, if he existed, to reveal himself to me and I began to do that.

At the time I was shoplifting, mostly books. One day I stepped into a store to steal some books and then as I stood in the door of the store, I knew God was watching me. It was clear to me that he existed and with someone watching me, I could not steal books. Shoplifting is something done when no one sees you and so with an awareness that God was there and watching me, I turned around and walked out of the store. I knew that God existed but then it took a couple more months before I came to the point of submission and chose to live my life for God.

This is the first big step required of us if we are to become followers of Jesus. We have to realize that we are not the center of our universe and we are created to serve our creator in a relationship of love. We follow the example of Jesus who prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane the night he was arrested and taken to be crucified. He prayed: (Luke 22:42)
“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”

We enter faith in an initial act of submission but then it is followed by innumerable times when we have to choose to submit to God.

In my early months of following Jesus I had to choose not to get drunk when I went out with my roommate. I had to choose to treat women with respect as God’s creation. I had to choose to use the money I had for God’s purposes and begin to tithe what I received.

In the years that followed I have had to choose to submit to God in each relationship of my life. I have had to choose to forgive, choose to see people with God’s eyes rather than my own, choose to encourage people rather than assert my rights, choose not to express my judgments and keep an open mind about people, choose not to speak unkind words but to build up people with the words I speak.

I have had to submit to God as I resisted temptation or as I turned back to God after giving in to temptation. I have had to submit to God in the expression of my emotions. I have had to submit to God in my dreams and ambitions.

It is true that I have often chosen badly and have had to come back with a renewed desire to follow Jesus. We are not perfect and it is a struggle to resist our human nature and put Jesus first. This is a daily struggle and some days I do better than others but there is never a day when I do not have to tell God I am sorry for asserting my will rather than seeking his will for my life.

In our relationship with God we are continually faced with a choice of living for ourselves or living for Jesus. Our submission to God has to be continual because my human nature keeps asserting itself.  I keep wanting to choose myself.

Do you believe Jesus is the Son of God? Saying yes to that question is not enough. Are you holding on to Jesus through the difficult periods of your life? Are you daily, hourly, submitting to God, trying to live for Jesus in every part of your life? Are you persevering in faith as you follow Jesus? Are you holding on to the love of Jesus as you work to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in his transformation of you? Are you holding on to Jesus with hope? Saying yes to these questions is what our life as followers of Jesus is all about.

Mike mentioned last week in his sermon that James was a bit too intense. He said that James would be a difficult friend to have, always pushing for perfection. Mike is not the only person to feel that way. There are many who find James too intense. The pastor of a church I visited in Los Angeles preached from James and he had to take a Sunday away from his exposition of the letter to deal with the many people in his church emailing him to say they were feeling oppressed by the messages from James. What makes the intensity of James so difficult is that his words in this letter are not directed to those outside the church. These difficult words are written to those inside the church, his brothers and sisters in faith.

When you read his letter from this perspective, what he writes jumps out even more powerfully.
4 You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God?

These are harsh words. Is this the way we are supposed to talk to each other in the family of Jesus? If you used this tone in speaking to your brothers and sisters when you were a child, your mother or father would take you aside and tell you to begin showing more restraint, more respect toward your brothers and sisters. The words of James are the words and tone of a prophet. These are the words of John the Baptist who saw the Pharisees and Sadducees coming and blasted them: (Matthew 3:7–10)
“You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?

These are the words of Jesus who provoked the Pharisees at a meal where he was a guest: (Luke 11:43–44)
“Woe to you Pharisees, because you love the most important seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces.
44 “Woe to you, because you are like unmarked graves, which men walk over without knowing it.”

But James is addressing brothers and sisters in the family, in the community of faith and when we hear those words we ask why he is being so harsh, so demanding.

If we want to be comforted we go to Hebrews 4:14–16
Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. 16 Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

We go to the words of Jesus in Matthew 11:28–30
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

But open up to James and his first words are: (James 1:2 )
Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds,

Then when he goes on to call us foolish and adulterous, he seems to be determined to lose the “Who is the New Testament Mr. Sunshine?” contest.

Let me share why I think James was so intense in this letter and then I will talk about how the teaching of James can be encouraging teaching for us.

James was the half-brother of Jesus, same mother, different father. I’ve said before that Jesus would be a difficult older brother to follow. Those of us who had older brothers or sisters who excelled in school know what I am talking about. You step into the classroom and the teacher says, “Oh, you’re Mike Smith’s brother.” What is not spoken is that Mike Smith was the class valedictorian, president of the Student Council, captain of the football team. This is understood and your older brother is the benchmark against which you will be measured.

Here you are, a new student in the school, which is difficult as it is, but unlike all those around you, you enter expected to be the best and if you are not, you will have failed to measure up to your older brother.

James stepped into the class at his synagogue and the Rabbi said, “So you’re Jesus’ brother.” Jesus always had the right answer and then asked a penetrating question that revealed the depth of his spirit and mind. This was the benchmark for James. This was the standard against which James would be measured.

At home when James took some bread and then lied, saying he had not taken the bread, Mary told him, “Why can’t you be more like your older brother Jesus. He doesn’t lie.” Jesus was always good, always obedient. What an impossible model to follow.

I don’t want to paint a dark picture because having a competent older brother or sister is also wonderful, especially if they are kind and loving toward you. So I imagine there was deep affection between Jesus and his brothers and sisters despite the difficulties of following in his footsteps.

When Joseph died, Jesus took over the carpentry shop, doing what his father had trained him to do. Depending on when he died, Jesus not only had the responsibility of running the carpentry shop, he also had to train James and his other brothers to be carpenters themselves.

But then Jesus left the carpentry shop. He left Nazareth and began traveling around as an itinerant rabbi. Was there agreement in the family he should do this? Did the family think he should stay and continue earning money for the family through his carpentry? Did he leave with his family’s blessing?

Perhaps the family agreed with Jesus that he should do this, but then reports began to come back. There were reports that Jesus was healing people and casting out demons as well as teaching. What were they to think about this?

When Jesus came to their hometown synagogue and spoke, the whole family was gathered with the expectation that Jesus would make them proud. The family honor was on display and when he began to speak, the people of his hometown were initially impressed. But then he provoked them, claiming they were only interested in him because he could do a few magic tricks and they were furious with him.

Jesus walked away from Nazareth but his family was left to deal with the anger of the people in Nazareth. Every day, when people came by the carpentry shop, or when they went to buy food or get water at the well, they had to deal with the shame of Jesus being so critical of the people in his hometown.

As reports came back of more and more healings and exorcisms, and larger and larger crowds, the criticism of people in the town grew. Jesus was a big deal. He was a local celebrity, but he clearly thought too much of himself. He was too good to spend more time in Nazareth. They did not understand who he was but they felt judged by him.

And now there was a new element added. Was Jesus going to lead a rebellion against the Romans, as had Judas Maccabees 200 years earlier. This was the speculation. If this happened, what would happen to Jesus. Would the peace of Nazareth be disrupted by the Romans?

All this is speculation. What we know from the gospels is that Mary and James and his other brothers thought Jesus had gone too far. (Mark 3:20–21)
Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. 21 When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.”

They went to take charge of him. They said, He is out of his mind. They obviously had talked a great deal about this and decided he was getting carried away and needed to be helped. Mark includes this incident with the arrival of the teachers of the law who came from Jerusalem to accuse Jesus of being linked with the devil. James and his family thought Jesus had gone mad.

In John’s gospel there is an insight into the relationship of Jesus and his brothers. The Jewish rulers in Jerusalem were threatening to kill Jesus and rather than being concerned or protective, James and his brothers mocked Jesus. (John 7:3–4)
Jesus’ brothers said to him, “You ought to leave here and go to Judea, so that your disciples may see the miracles you do. 4 No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world.”

They dared him, taunted him, to go to Jerusalem and face his opposition.

This is all that is recorded in the gospels, but obviously there was much more.

Then Jesus was arrested, put on trial, and executed. Whatever James had felt, now his older brother was dead. He grieved the loss of his brother and, as happens at funerals, he remembered the good times and not the bad times. He grieved for his brother’s terrible death, perhaps regretting he had not reconciled with Jesus before it was too late.

But then, just a few days later, the resurrected Jesus appeared to him and this became the turning point of his life. All of his life became measured by this appearance. Everything in his life became before or after this appearance.

Of all the resurrection appearances of Jesus, I think I would most like to see this one. What did Jesus say? What did James feel? What did James say?

Whatever was said, James was a different person the rest of his life. He was spiritually transformed. James quickly became leader of the church in Jerusalem. He was known as a man of prayer. His nickname was “camel knees” because his knees were calloused from spending so much time on his knees in prayer. He lived the rest of his life devoted to Jesus and ended his life as a martyr, being stoned to death for his faith in Jesus.

Why is James so intense in this letter? Why is he so fervent in his teaching? I think it is two things. First, he regretted all the mean things he said about his brother. He regretted that he had been so stubborn and worked against Jesus, rather than working with Jesus. He could have been one of his followers but instead he had been one of his detractors. James wanted to make up for what he had done.

Secondly, I think James was so clear about where he was going. For many years he had resisted the teaching of Jesus, but then he got it. He understood. He understood Jesus’ teaching about the Kingdom of God. He understood that this world is passing away and we will soon stand before Jesus as judge. He understood that what matters most in this world is not how much we accumulate but how much we love. He understood that what makes an eternal difference is not fighting for our rights but seeing the purpose of Jesus in each life and working toward that. He knew he would see Jesus again and was determined to give a good account of his life.

James relies more on the teaching of Jesus than any other New Testament writer, other than the gospels. Jesus said it, so now do it. This is how James concludes his teaching on words.
11 Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. 12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?

James teaches that when we speak against our brother or sister and judge them, we speak against the law and sit on judgment against the law. What does he mean? What law is he talking about?

Always remember that when James teaches, he is standing on the words of Jesus. What words of Jesus is he referring to?

The Pharisees and Sadducees got together to talk about how to test Jesus and an expert in the law asked him: (Matthew 22:36–40)
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
37 Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus said this was the law and that was enough for James. Jesus said it, so now do it! When he looked around and saw the fighting and quarreling, the political infighting, the jealousy and envy in the church, he almost exploded with frustration. “Don’t you get it!” James exhorted. “Don’t you know who Jesus is and what he is doing!” “Don’t you know where you are going and who you will face!”

The intensity of James comes from his powerful experience of Jesus, when he saw his brother and realized who he was, the risen Son of God.

James is intense so how do we deal with what he has to say?

The mistake we don’t want to make is to work hard to be a better person. If that is what you want to do, then go to one of the many self-help gurus who go around telling their secrets about how to be more successful in life, how to win friends and influence people. But don’t go to the New Testament because that is not what it teaches.

If you focus on working hard to be a better person, you may improve your behavior, but it will be an external improvement. This is what the Pharisees did. They had a long list of laws to obey and they worked hard to make sure they did not break any of them. Jesus was highly critical of this.

Jesus taught: (Matthew 12:33–35)
“Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit. 34 You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. 35 The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him.

If we want to be better people, we need to go to the heart of our being and clean that up. Once that is clean, then our behavior will improve. This is what James taught: (James 4:7–10)
Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

James did not tell us to be better people, he told us to submit to God, come near to God, resist the devil, repent. All these are actions at the heart level.

This is also the teaching of Paul. The fruit of the Spirit Paul lists in Galatians (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control) do not come by focusing on the behaviors. Your life does not become characterized by kindness by trying to be kind. Kindness is the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of a tree is produced by paying attention to the roots of the tree. If the roots find water and are healthy, then the tree will produce fruit. If the roots are unhealthy, affected by disease, then the tree will not produce fruit and begin to die.

In the same way, when we focus on developing a more intimate relationship with Jesus, when we open ourselves to the work of the Holy Spirit in us, when we allow the Word of God to affect us at a heart level, then we become changed people and our behavior changes. We don’t have to beat ourselves up because we fail to use our words well; we have to draw near to Jesus and allow the Holy Spirit to help us clean our heart from being overly critical.

What is amazing and so wonderful is that we can do this because we are indwelt by God the Holy Spirit. God who created the world from nothing, who pre-existed creation, dwells in us. This means that the power of God is at work in us. When we draw near to God his power works in us and changes us.

This is what happened to James. What drove James was his experience with the resurrected Jesus. What happened in that encounter was so powerful it turned his life around. It cannot be that his life was driven simply out of guilt and a desire to atone for his sins. And the reason I say that is because he spent so much time in prayer. If all he wanted to do was to be a better person and adhere to the teaching of Jesus, then he could have made daily lists of good behaviors and made sure he lived up to them. But that is not what James did. He devoted himself to his relationship with Jesus through prayer.

James was not simply working on his external behavior; he was living out the internal life he had with Jesus through the Holy Spirit. His union with Jesus was what drove him, what motivated him to exhort others to live lives pleasing to Jesus.

This is what makes all the difference. If we feel guilty when we read the Bible and work hard to live up to all the Bible tells us to do, then we will have, at best, an external obedience, just like the Pharisees. But if we focus on our relationship with Jesus and develop an increasing intimacy and openness with Jesus, then the Holy Spirit will work his creative power in us and our external lives will begin, more and more, to reflect the teaching of Jesus and Paul and James.

This is where you need to put your first focus. This is why it is important to take the part of the day when you are at your best and open the Bible and read, reflect, journal and pray. If you neglect your relationship with Jesus and focus on the externals, you will become more and more rigid, stuck in a rut, unable to see your sin, relying more and more on what you have experienced in the past rather than living in the present with Jesus who will take you into the future.

One of my problems is being too critical, too judgmental. I have been very critical of a certain ministry and have been free to share my criticism. I know the people who lead this ministry. I have great respect for the head of this ministry, but less respect for some of those who work with him.

As I have worked on this message I have been convicted that I am wrong to share so freely what I think. I have felt guilty for saying the things I have said. As I considered that Jesus is working in each life to bring that person into his kingdom and that my critical words work against what Jesus is trying to do, I was convicted. I want to work with Jesus, not against Jesus. So what do I do now? I can speak to the leaders of that ministry and apologize. I can go around to all those I have spoken to and tell them I was wrong to say what I did. I can slap myself every time I say something I should not say.

But if I slap myself and beat myself for not being the person James says I ought to be, that is going to be a destructive experience. The reason I am thinking about this is because this message affected me at a heart level. The Holy Spirit has used this sermon to convict me of my behavior. I became aware at a heart level that I need to make sure my words build and encourage others. And so I have repented and resolved to be different.

This is where change needs to start. We need to be convicted by the Holy Spirit that our behavior is not what it should be and that happens because we draw near to Jesus and open ourselves to his teaching.

I am certain that for each of you, there are parts of your behavior you are not pleased with. You may have problems with jealousy, envy, anger, being judgmental, critical. You may say things and then cringe, wondering why you had to say what you did.

Here is what I want you to do. Take some time to be with Jesus. Listen to some praise music. Remind yourself of how you are loved by God, completely. Remind yourself that you will not be rejected because you are not perfect. Then, when you are safe in his arms, open yourself to God and ask him to reveal to you the ways he wants you to change.

When the Holy Spirit speaks to you, be open to the changes he wants to bring in your life. If you feel convicted by what James exhorts us to be and do, let your love relationship with Jesus be at the center of your being so you will be transformed from the inside out.

Be patient, you will not become perfect overnight, but persevere, keep drawing near to God, keep your experience of the love of Jesus for you fresh, and then work with the Holy Spirit to make the changes he wants to bring about in your life.