Friday, December 16, 2011

Titus 2:11 - 14 -- A Message for Christmas

Grace, Mercy, and Peace to you from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ,
            The Christmas season can be a time of peace and joy and fellowship, especially among Christians.  We take hold of it in more than one way.  It appeals to our senses – the bright lights, the sounds of music, the feel of packages as we wrap them and then unwrap them.  The Christmas holiday brings us reasons to celebrate during the darkest times of the year.
            Christmas also warms our souls, which are the crucial parts of our natures even though we can’t see or touch them.  As we give presents to others and receive them, so do we receive gifts from God.
            When Christ was born, God came to the earth in the form of a child.  As Paul wrote, he brings salvation.  His grace appears to all people.  Grace means undeserved favor like a free gift.  God knew that the world was a mess and that we couldn’t save ourselves, so he sent his Son to live as we do and to die in our place.  Jesus didn’t come because of any merit in us but because of God’s gracious desire to save.  There’s a part of us that wants to save ourselves, to show God how wonderful we are, but if we try to do God’s work for him, we take on an enormous burden that will crush us. The Lord frees us from the need to please him on our own.  He gives us his friendship as a gift, which we receive by faith.  He invites us to rest in him, to be at ease.
            Jesus brings us hope and direction.  Christmas lights shine out at the darkest time of the year, though not so many in Toronto, I’ve noticed in the four years I’ve lived here.  The light of Christ casts out darkness of the spirit every day, all year long.  He keeps us from wandering like sheep, going from here to there, trying different things, never quite getting it right.  Jesus takes us out of ourselves and invites us to focus on him.  He will give us hope and purpose now and everlasting peace in eternity.         
Now, the good Lord asks something of us in return.  The free gift of salvation is not like a reclining chair from which we need never get up.  It isn’t a soft couch or a hammock.  The first and most important thing the Savior asks of us is that we believe in him, trust him, accept his gift with our hearts, our minds, and our souls.  Jesus likes to see every part of our personalities concentrated on him in faith.
In the second place, as Paul says, God assigns us tasks to carry out.  He doesn’t remove us from the world, but leaves us in it to do good works that give him glory and benefit our neighbors.  He gradually changes our lives from ungodliness to a love for doing his will.  He trains us, as Paul wrote.  He gives us the gift of an education, and he is the teacher.  He guides us so that we lead balanced, satisfying lives. 
Paul sets down the guidelines.  He mentions two negatives first:  ungodliness and worldly desires.  Ungodliness is the natural state of every human heart.  By nature, we rely on our own abilities.  By grace, we trust in God.  We restrain the part of us that races like the little engine that could in the old story I used to hear when I was a child.  We say “yes” to God’s offer to help us.
Everyone knows what worldly desires are. They abound at this time of year.  Experience teaches, though, that craving for “more, more” always brings disappointment.  This is why we listen to the Lord when he asks us keep in their proper place those things that have significance only for this world.  We eat to live, for example, not for the sake of food itself.  We rest to revive ourselves, not to give way to laziness.  We celebrate Christmas to take part in the joy of the season, for fellowship, and to draw closer to the Lord, not for the sake of extravagant display.  Everything is ours, but we avoid excess, which is a sign of ungodliness.  Overwork and extreme self-denial arise from ungodliness, too, just like self-indulgence and lack of discipline.   By God’s grace, we are able to lead balanced lives, giving him praise in everything we do.  Mature people accept boundaries, which act as fences to protect us.
There are times, of course, when we know we haven’t done well, when we’ve broken through common-sense restraints.  As believers, we regret our lapses.  We take hold of God’s gift of pardon that he won for us on Calvary.  We give thanks that he doesn’t hold our trespasses against us.  We delight in the new life he gives us and the high status he confers on us as his sisters and brothers.
And so we come three positives Paul sets down:  self-control, upright living, godliness.  To be self-controlled means to live sensibly, not as slaves to the many mad follies the world puts before us.  We may think of self-control as honorable living and good breeding. We do our best to act temperately, discreetly, and with courage.  We welcome discipline and carry ourselves modestly.
Paul also writes that we should be upright or righteous – to conduct ourselves so that God’s judgment approves of us.  We consider our neighbors. We give each person his or her due.  We help folks in need, even if it means risking ourselves, our property, and our own honor.  We don’t retreat from the world around us but work to make it better.  Jesus transforms our minds so that we trust his ways and love righteousness.
In the third place balanced, satisfied living requires godliness – trusting our Savior and relying on his grace rather than our own efforts.  We honor, praise, and trust God.  We’re confident that he’ll be gracious to us and send his blessing to us. He doesn’t ask to build great monuments, but he does want us to be loyal to him.  He’s delighted when his grace moves our hearts to look to him for purpose, meaning, and direction.  He wants to help; a godly heart accepts his offer.  He treasures our obedience to him and will reward it.  Godliness also includes sincere worship and he is pleased that Christians around the world gather to worship hm.  He will also be pleased if our godliness continues in the months and years ahead.  Our lives work out well when we turn our hearts to him in faith.
So God’s promise that we will lead balanced, satisfying lives here on this earth calls for a response from us.  This gift from God, you see, is more like an exercise bike than a 500 channel TV.  It benefits us only if we use it regularly and vigorously, trusting that the same Lord who pardons our failings will also uphold and strengthen us to walk along paths that please him.  Christian living calls for energy and commitment, and this, too, comes as a gift from God.
The Savior knows that we wonder where our strength will come from and how we can possibly maintain the joy of the Christmas season through whole year when no one knows what will happen next week.  He assures us that he is God and that he will strengthen us. 
You see, the Child born in Bethlehem, whom most people ignored at the time and whom many still reject, came to earth with a purpose – to purify for himself a special people a chosen nation, a kingdom of believers.  That means you and me.  The Savior calls us into his community, where he will nourish us and keep us strong.  He defends his Kingdom and will protect us from everlasting harm.  The key for us is to trust that he cares so much about us that he will keep our faith in him vibrant and inspire us with a desire, more and more, to do his will.
As hard as we try to keep calm, the secular side of the Christmas season often catches up with us.  It’s almost impossible to avoid the rhythm of fast-paced times.  I can’t know what you are feeling – whether you are joyous and full of anticipation or on the point of burn-out or somewhere in between.  Perhaps it’s a low time for you, as it can be for folks who are grieving or working their way through a troubled patch.  Wherever you are in the curve of life, I pray that you will trust the Jesus, the God who became man, holds out his hand to you and invites you to rest in him.  It is his wish that you live abundantly and richly.  He will bless you with strong, balanced lives. May he give us the insight to recognize his actions in our lives and the wisdom to follow him. In His name we rejoice.  AMEN.
The peace of God that passes all understanding…….                                                            
                                                                                      
                 

                                                             

Friday, December 9, 2011

John 3:7 - 18 John the Baptist

Grace and peace to you from Him who is and who was and who is to come,
            John the Baptist was a down-to-earth man who lived close to the soil.  He knew the pattern of the wind and the rhythm of the seasons.   When he spoke to his neighbors, he used word-pictures from everyday life – trees, an axe, a winnowing fork, a barn, a threshing floor, and fire.  The Israelite people he was at home with taught him about life and he knew how to speak to them.
            You see, God’s Old Testament people loved the land and earthy things.  They didn’t analyze everything and make precise distinctions as we’re trained to do.  Instead, they saw the world as a whole, ruled by God.  This is why some of the psalm-writers could say that rivers clap their hands and hills rejoice.  Everything was a unity for God’s Old Testament children: the Lord ties everything together.  We’re grateful to him for the ancient Hebrews.  If it weren’t for them, we might see the universe as tiny bits of matter with an obscure connections with each other.  Instead, the Old Testament writers teach us that life comes from God and exists under his direction.  Things that seem to be incompatible such as nature and spirit, soul and body are all parts of God’s creation and fit together into his plan.
            But the Old Testament Israelites strayed.  They wandered away from their spiritual homeland.  They were like everyone else.  They needed to reverse direction and turn back to God, so John sent out John the Baptist to get the people ready for the coming Savior.  You may remember that his father said this to John when he was still an infant: “You will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercies of our God.”  
            Before they could receive the gospel and appreciate it, though, they needed to confront the law.  And so, using picture language he knew they’d understand, John called God’s people to turn back to the Lord.  “Produce fruit in keeping with repentance,” he proclaimed.  “Every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”
            When he speaks about fire, he uses ordinary language that anyone can understand.  The Heavenly Father wants his people to turn to him in faith and produce good works.  If we don’t, he’ll consider us useless and throw us into the fire like rubbish.
            Everyone knows how devastating fire can be – to the wilderness, to homes and businesses, to human life.  But John is speaking about a more serious kind of fire – the eternal punishment that will come to those who habitually harden their hearts to the Lord.  There is no one like that at St. Peter’s.  The threat of hellfire is the ultimate wake-up call.  In days gone by, visions of hell featured more prominently than they do today in the church’s proclamation.  The question now is more likely to be – how can a civilized God who creates civilized people also create everlasting damnation?  He alone knows the complete answer to questions like that, but it surely has something to do with the fact that he gives us freedom and takes things more seriously than we do.  He forgives repentant sinners and he forgets sins, but he promises to punish impenitence and stiff-necked pride.  One Christian writer said that to become hell-fodder a soul must have a pronounced and ineradicable streak of arrogance, a conviction that his or her judgement is infallible....”  Anyone who is driven by pride in their own power or skill, their own beauty or genius or their own intellect is a candidate for eternal damnation – anyone who tries to be like God.  This is food for thought and meditation.
            But because of our trust in Christ, our acceptance of forgiveness, our customary humility before the Lord, you and I – St. Peter’s people, as we said – don’t worry about the fires of hell.
Heaven is our home and our destination.   Still, biblical teachings about hellfire do work to keep us on track.  They remind us to trust in God and not our own achievements or the fact that we are citizens of an advanced civilization.  God’s ways are not our ways.  It’s wise not to lean on our own understanding, but to rest in him.
            Now, John uses the word “fire” in still another way.  He says that Christ will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire.  He doesn’t mean the fire of condemnation here, but a divine fire that is associated with God himself.   You probably remember that Moses saw God in a burning bush and that when he received the 10 commandments God came down to Mt. Sinai in fire and that a pillar of fire guided the Israelites as night as they traveled through the wilderness toward the Promised Land.  The Holy Spirit came to the apostles at Pentecost as flames that rested on their heads.  Luke writes: “They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.”  In other words, there is something in God’s nature that is fire and warmth.
            These qualities come to us, first, as the fires of refinement and purification.  The prophet Zechariah writes about ancient Israel: “Two thirds (of the nation) will be struck down and perish; yet one third will be left in it.  This is the third I will bring to the fire; I will refine them like silver and test them like gold.”  Isaiah wrote that God will cleanse the bloodstains from Jerusalem by a spirit of fire.  Peter in his first letter tells us that we rejoice in temporary trials of all kinds, which have come so that our faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may be proved genuine.”  God’s fire comes tov his beloved children as a cleansing fire.  The Lord says in Isaiah: “See, I have refined you, I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.”  And Job said: “he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.”
            In other words, God’s fire drives away our complacency and smugness and self-satisfaction.  His fire clarifies our souls so that we’ll keep turning back to him. Some well-known hymn texts speak about God’s fore, too: “Revive our drooping faith, our doubts and fears remove, and kindle in our breasts the flame of never-dying love.”  Another says: “And each believing soul inspire with thine own and holy fire.”
            God’s fire comes to believers, then, to brothers and sisters of Christ, as cleaning and purifying, the fire that inspires us with love and enthusiasm.  God’s fire never rests; it is always prodding and guiding and invigorating, drawing us back to our heavenly resting place.
            Returning to the Lord is one of the great themes of the Bible.  “Return with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning,” the Lord says through the prophet Joel.  “Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate.”
            For us at St. Peter’s this morning, it’s not that we have strayed like the prodigal son or built a golden calf like Aaron, but that things of the world, whether cares or amusements, infiltrate our souls and we forget the Lord.  This is where his refining fire comes to our rescue.  It burns up the chaff that sticks to our souls.  It shines with a more reliable warmth than the light that glimmers from the frills of the world.  It’s a sign that God is at work on us, keeping our wills focused on him, for he has vowed not to let us go, not to lose us or give up on us.
            So John the Baptist does have a message for us.  He may seem like a strange person, eccentric and one-sided, but he warns us not to be deceived by the vanity of human life.  There are always rivers of vanity at Christmas-time.  John shows us we don’t need to drown in it.  The way  out is through repentance and faith in Christ, a way that includes contact with chastening fire.  This particular fire doesn’t hurt us at all.  It’s good for us, in fact, and we’re grateful for it.
            Secondly, John the Baptist was a public spokesman for the Lord.  His example reminds us of our own callings as witnesses.  Though we may not be aware of it, others may see in us what we see in John.  A friends may recognize in us the joy of Christian freedom.  A neighbor may be grateful for our detachment from the excesses of the pre-Christmas season and follow our example to seek relief through rest in the Lord.  May his refining fire continue to work on us these December weeks.  May our families    and loved ones find warmth from our contact with the fire of God’s love.  In Jesus’ Name we give thanks.  AMEN.
The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and mind in the knowledge of Christ Jesus.  AMEN.