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The Gospel: John 3:1-17
There was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? “Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” Prayer: Lord, you have promised that when two or three gather in your name you will be present with them. We depend on that promise today and pray that you will move among us. Lord, we pray that you have inspired Mike's preparation, that you will enliven his presentation, and that you will empower our application. Amen The Message: I don't often title my sermons. But I was struck, as I was working on this one for this morning, by the thought that the title for this sermon would be "The Unfinished Work." Of course, it could also be "The Unfinished Work of God." Or perhaps it might be "The Ongoing work of God in the lives of His people." So many potential titles. That is probably why I don't title my sermons. I would spend all my time trying to find the exact or perfect one and just end up with a series of titles and no sermon. So, back to my message for this morning, we began with the very short passage from Genesis which outlines God's call to Abram. Now, at, a first reading, this seems like a fairly simple, and straightforward passage. God speaks to Abram and says go and Abram goes. God also promises to bless Abram and protect him by "cursing" those who oppose him. I mean that can't be too complicated can it, it is after, all, only four verses. Have you ever stopped and thought about why God chose Abram? There is nothing in this passage to indicate anything about Abram, nothing that distinguishes him from any of the other people living around him at the time. The story doesn't tell us he is particularly righteous or faith-filled. But, can I draw your attention to the very end of Chapter 11 of Genesis and verses 27-32 which say: "Now these are the descendants of Terah. Terah was the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran, and Haran was the father of Lot. Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldeans. Abram and Nahor took wives; the name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife was Milcah. She was the daughter of Haran the father of Milcah and Iscah. Now Sarai was barren; she had no child. Terah took his son Abram and his grandson Lot son of Haran and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram’s wife, and they went out together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled there. The days of Terah were two hundred five years, and Terah died in Haran." Did you catch the story in verse 31: "they went out together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled there." Now, there is no indication that God spoke to Terah, but he did set out to go to the land of Canaan. But he is interrupted in his journey and settles in Haran. In Genesis chapter 12 God speaks to his son Abram and instructs him to complete the unfinished business of Terah's life and family. God says go, take your family, and go to the land that I will show you. Abram is completing the unfinished business of God with his father. In fact, if you look back through the chapters that lead up to this point it is one story after another of unfinished business. The unfinished business of God down through this whole family's line. We could pick out a few highlights and connections. Adam's family story leads to the story of Noah and his family, and that leads to Shem and his family, and eventually, that leads us to Terah and then on to Abram. All the while God is seeking this family and seeking to complete the unfinished business between himself and them. There and Covenants established and broken, and there are individual relationships that shine hope into the world. In Genesis this morning we hear how God speaks to Abram and they begin a relationship. There is very little information about that relationship in the reading this morning, it is like a first contact moment, but there is hope in the last verse: "So Abram went, as the Lord had told him" Now, we are all familiar with the scriptures so we know that this is just the beginning of another story of unfinished business, don't we? Abram eventually becomes Abraham and his story goes on from there. Until he too dies, with the relationship between God and his family still unfinished. But, Abram/Abraham learns a central truth which he passes on to his family and then to all of us. That truth is expanded on and clarified for us all in Paul's writing to the Romans. "For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith." If you read the story of Abram/Abraham as it is laid out in scripture you will quickly learn that Abraham had a lot in common with his ancestor Adam, and with all of us. He had a passing grade in failing. Aren't we all glad that we can depend on the Covenant of Abraham lived out through faith? Or as Paul puts it: "For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants," If you struggle to comprehend what that means well take comfort that we are right there with Nicodemus when he meets with Jesus and seeks to understand what new life is all about. We need to visit and revisit Hebrews 11, don't we? That wonderful chapter, that, starts out with verse 1: "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." The whole chapter outlines faith in its many facets, examples, and relationships. It is the ongoing illustration of the unfinished business between our God and his family or more precisely, between our God and us. Which only is completed by a living and active faith in Jesus and his sacrifice of himself for us. John sums it up so beautifully in chapter 3 verses 16 and 17: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” So, can I ask you this morning: "what does it feel like for you to see yourself as an unfinished work of God." We are all an unfinished work of God, aren't we? A "work in progress" in our relationship with our God. Isn't it interesting that we can be an unfinished work of God and at the same time follow the example of Abram/Abraham and go when the Lord speaks to us? Or to follow the example of Nicodemus and ask the questions we need to clarify our understanding of our faith. Or to follow the example of Paul and declare our unwavering faith and belief in our Lord Jesus Christ? Perhaps we could look again at the Collect from last week: "Almighty God, whose blessed Son was led by the Spirit to be tempted by Satan: Come quickly to help us who are assaulted by many temptations; and, as you know the weaknesses of each of us, let each one find you mighty to save; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever." Amen. I have to admit I draw great encouragement from that Collect. To see myself as an unfinished work of God, loved by him and worth all that Jesus did uplifts me and encourages me. To know that God understands my frailty and inability to keep it all together, or my inability to do it right all the time is such a blessing. So, I am going to read the center section of the Collect again: "Come quickly to help us who are assaulted by many temptations; and, as you know the weaknesses of each of us, let each one find you mighty to save" Yes, amen, please come quickly to help us Lord. We, your "unfinished works" need you, now and always. Amen The Gospel: Matthew 4:1-11
Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him. Prayer: Lord, you have promised that when two or three gather in your name you will be present with them. We depend on that promise today and pray that you will move among us. Lord, we pray that you have inspired Mike's preparation, that you will enliven his presentation, and that you will empower our application. Amen The Message: Our readings this morning are a perfect follow-up on my message from last week. We are once again looking at glory and power, and the desire for it, in people's lives. This week, of course, the focus is on how people deal with or respond to the opportunity of glory and power. I want to briefly say something I didn't get a chance to say last week. Many of us would most probably look at the message from last week and again this week and say something like: "well that doesn't really apply to me, because I am not a person of importance and I don't have all that power associated with glory." Sometimes feeling like you have no power or glory can create its own need to seek whatever glory we can claim for ourselves. Or to exercise whatever power we can in our lives, or to exercise whatever power we can in the lives of those around us. Sometimes when you feel like people don't notice you, or they aren't taking any notice of you, you seek your own glory, or you seek to exercise your own power. This becomes its own destructive pathway in our relationships and in our interactions with those around us. In an effort to be noticed or recognized, we can exercise power that is harmful and can be destructive or even self-destructive. I am sure we all know people like this in our families or among our friends. With that said I want to come back to the readings for today. It seems to me that the common theme or word in the readings this morning is testing. As I said earlier we are looking at glory and power, and the desire for it, in people's lives. The readings this morning draw our focus to how people deal with or respond to the opportunity of glory and power. How do they respond when tested? Testing is common to us all. Adam was tested in the garden, and Jesus was tested in the wilderness. You and I are tested every day. Testing is common to humankind. We are all tested every day. I would imagine that if you asked most people how they were doing with their testing today most of us would reply with something along the lines of: "not as well as I would like to," or perhaps on a bad day: "you mean how am I doing with my failing." "I am getting a passing grade in failing." Perhaps it is not quite that bad. But we certainly know how easily we are drawn to things that have the potential to distract us. Can we as Christians agree that we are better off when we are in a relationship with an eternal being we call God? That our lives, and the lives of those around us, are better when we place that eternal being God at the center of our lives. But, we can often be distracted and we can seek to place ourselves or other things in that central place. The story of Adam and Eve, in the Book of Genesis, this morning illustrates this powerfully. Now, there are most probably those here this morning who will discount the story of Adam and Eve as Jewish folklore. A story made up long after to explain the unexplainable of humankind's relationship with an eternal being designated as God. That being said the essence, or the heart, of the story, still carries some eternal truth for us all. Human beings can be drawn to things that we, feel like we are lacking, in our lives. I don't know about you, but, I certainly identify with Adam and Eve. Both in my failure to follow instructions but also in my willingness to rationalize why it was OK for me to make the choice I did. Adam particularly gets a passing grade in failing. When he is tested he falls right into failure mode and then into crisis management. Adam sees an opportunity for glory and power and he takes it. This method of dealing with distractions is the basis of the words Paul writes to the Romans. "Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned" Romans 5: 12 NRSV We might say that because one human being fell, for the temptation of glory and power, that opened the door for all who followed him to go down the same path, generation after generation. But Paul draws our attention to an eternal truth that we all need to hear: "If, because of the one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. For just as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so through the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous." Romans 5: 17-19 What Paul is saying here and we can see illustrated for us in the Gospel of Matthew this morning is that Jesus is not distracted, by the offer of glory and power, from his purpose and his calling. Then thankfully and wondrously he makes it possible for all to follow him down that same path, generation after generation. In fact, as we talked about last week, he turns, that glory and power, to an entirely different purpose. He uses it to prepare for his ultimate sacrifice. Then through that sacrifice and his resurrection, he makes it possible for us to find peace and purpose in our own lives. The testing and challenges, of glory and power, will still be evident in our lives, but with renewed hearts and minds we can seek after his example. In the words from the Book of Common Prayer Morning Prayer Rite II on page 99 A Collect for Fridays Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. |
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March 2023
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