Ten years ago I thought I’d preached my last sermon. I was wrong. This past weekend I came out of retirement, so to speak, and shared a Sunday morning message with a very friendly group of folks in Dekalb, Illinois. Someday I’ll write about that ten year gap in preaching, why I stopped preaching and why I’m starting back up, but not tonight. I need to spend some more time finishing up this weeks message and so tonight I’ll just share a shortened version of last weeks message.
I am a firm believer that we have just as much to learn from Jesus’ actions as his words. Jesus provides patterns and rhythms for our lives and the more we watch the ‘how’ the more we understand the ‘why’. To begin I read the Last Supper account in Luke 22, focusing on the taking, blessing, breaking, and the giving of the bread. When we participate in these actions we are to do them while remembering Jesus. These actions ought to remind us of him and his invitation to participate in them means that we are to also connect with these actions. When we take bread we are to remember how Jesus was taken (chosen) and how we are taken (chosen). When we bless the bread we are to remember how Jesus was blessed and how we are blessed. For the first week I wanted to focus on these two actions so I could give each action more time than having to hurry through all four actions and not adequately deal with each one.
First we are taken, chosen. Last weekend was an event beloved by men all across this country called ‘NFL Draft Day’. College football athletes had already competed in the NFL Combine where they ran, threw, caught, jumped and did every conceivable quantifiable exercise in order to be evaluated by scouts. By the time draft day arrived the experts already had thorough evaluations of all athletes as well as lists of the needs for the teams drafting. If a team had weaknesses in their offensive line (insert Bears joke) these experts had the highest rated athletes to meet that need. Players were ‘taken’ according to their own ability as well as according to the needs of the team. Choosing or selecting is something we’re very skilled at in this world. If you want to see this art form in everyday life just go watch ladies shop for clothes or guys shop for power tools. When we choose items we evaluate all sorts of factors that have everything to do with the item we are choosing. Whether it’s appearance, cost, usefulness or convenience the factors we look at involve the item itself compared to other items.
What I find interesting when God chooses Abraham in Genesis 12 is that there are no factors listed. The passage says absolutely nothing about why he was chosen to be the father of many nations. You’d think if he were filling such an important role in human history God would have given us some sort of idea why he chose this guy.
His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.—2 Peter 1:3
Therefore, my brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things, you will never stumble, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.—2 Peter 1:10-11
These 3 verses tell us quite a bit about God’s choosing. First, he doesn’t call us because of anything to do with us. We aren’t chosen because we are the ‘best available’ on the draft board. He called us, chose us, because of HIS glory and goodness. God’s choosing has everything to do with Him. Second, we have some pretty bold promises if we are grounded in the knowledge that we are called by God. Through that knowledge we have what we need to live a godly life and being sure of our calling and election keeps us from stumbling. Those are some pretty big claims! These claims speak to the importance of knowing your true identity. People that are uncertain of who they are, or in this case ‘whose’ they are, find themselves continually in need and continually stumbling through life. How many problems can be boiled down to identity issues? How many people are burnt out trying to please everyone in the hopes that their value may be affirmed? How many people are absolutely devastated by the hurtful words of others? I am fully convinced that were people to understand the pure delight they bring to the Father and the fact that they are beloved by Him, they would be transformed to their core. They would live life differently grounded in that knowledge.
Second, we are blessed. Being chosen and being blessed go together like peanut butter and jelly or like bacon and more bacon. Whenever you see one in scripture you see the other. Abraham is chosen and receives a blessing. The prodigal son is embraced as a son and kissed (blessed) by his father on his return. While working on this message I couldn’t help but picture again and again the image of the father holding and kissing his son repeatedly. Being chosen is the embrace before the blessing. The Father pulls us in close so we can hear the blessing he has for us. You can’t hear a blessing from a distance. The image of a father yelling a blessing from the front porch all the way across the field to the returning son pales in comparison to what we see described. What if the father had thrown his arms around the son and pulled him in close only to say, "I’m not very happy with you." Wouldn’t that have been a hurtful betrayal? Invite the son in close only to deny a blessing and bestow a curse. The fear of this happening is why, I think, people keep God in the distance. Living in this world we are all to familiar with betrayal and the cursing words of others that we can barely comprehend the possibility of a blessing. Much less a blessing from a God that knows what we fight tooth and nail to hide from others. Their gut feeling is that if they are brought close to God that conversation is not going to go well for them. And so they intentionally deny the invitation to be taken, brought close, only to also miss the blessing.
There are also unintentional things that get in the way of hearing God’s blessing. Do we really need to be as busy as we are? Truth is that if something is important we take time for it. The problem then is not that we don’t have time for the important things but that we aren’t treating the important things as importantly as we should. We habitually treat as important and valuable things that in actuality aren’t important or valuable. We run around with flailing limbs all the while missing out on so much. Stop for a second and realize what you are doing and what you are missing. Be still. While driving the 3 hour trip from Holland, Michigan to Dekalb my wife experienced something extremely rare. I was quiet. For those that know me I can be very talkative but when nervous or anxious I go to my default introvert mode. For the most part I think I’m an introvert posing as an extrovert. So here my wife and I were for 3 hours 1 foot apart from each other and my mind was somewhere else entirely. Physically present but mentally absent as I was thinking through what I had prepared and dealing with the anxiety I was feeling about my 10 year break from preaching. While sitting in the Sunday School class and especially while singing during worship I had to fight to be present. Hearing the Father’s blessing requires us to be still and be present.
In Luke 22 it mentions that the passover is the day the lamb was sacrificed. Prior to passover Jesus entered a very festive Jerusalem on what we know of as Palm Sunday. The reason for the city being so jubilant actually had a lot to do with the feast they were celebrating. That Sunday was the day that the lamb was selected and so people were celebratory because a lamb had been selected which would spare the lives of their families. Little did they know that the Lamb had already been selected and had already been blessed.
When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased."—Luke 3:21-22
It is here where we see the Son taken (chosen) and blessed by the Father. The blessing did not come from a distance as the Spirit descends upon the Son. The Father closes the gap and says to the Son the very words we need to hear ourselves. Jesus invites us to participate in the very same relationship with the Father that he himself enjoyed. In Christ we are brought close to the Father as his sons and daughters. In Christ we are told the truth about who and whose we are. We are His and we are loved.
No comments:
Post a Comment