Real Choices

Real Choices

(Deuteronomy 30:11-20; 1 Corinthians 3:1-9)

Sun, Feb  16 23, 2014, Windsor UBC, J G White

In the movie “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” there is a scene where Bilbo Baggins, the Hobbit who is accompanying 13 dwarves on a mission, unexpectedly disappears and seems to have abandoned the dwarves during a crucial battle. They were losing. Bilbo does return and the dwarves are victorious. Afterward Thorin (the dwarf leader) and Bilbao have a conversation.

[Thorin:] “Why did you come back? It matters! I want to know: why did you come back?”

[Bilbo:] “Look, I know you doubt me, I know you always have. And you’re right, I often think of Bag End. I miss my books. And my armchair. And my garden. See, that’s where I belong. That’s home. And that’s why I came back, cause you don’t have one. A home. It was taken from you. But I will help you take it back if I can.” (Ken Pell, Sermon Central)

The choices of characters in a fantasy story may be far from reality, but we are alive and well, with Christ, because of the choices God made for us.  To come, and join humanity, and die, so that we would have a life and a home with the Lord, now and always.  

In our own unexpected journeys, we have choices to make.  Sometimes the options do not seem possible, as we strive for the good life, in ourselves, in our families, in community, even in churches.  But I am sure that what the Lord tells us, using the Bible, is possible.  We are taught what we can do.  We are promised what can be real.  

So one of my favourite texts about this would have to be from Deut 30 (15) See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity.   So said Moses, in his final speeches to the Hebrews.  

You can choose to obey all these laws from God, Moses tells them.  Not unlike what his successor, Joshua, said to the people a few years later, as they take over the Promised Land.  (Joshua 24:15)  ...choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."  

The choice to know and love and follow the Lord God is an important choice.   The first time we choose God, and every day afterwards.  There are other options.  But choosing God is the choice that brings life to us.

Hundreds of years later was the time of Jesus.  At one point in His itinerant preaching career, Christ had gathered hundreds of followers.  But his teaching became, one day, very demanding.  In John 6 we can read:  Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked the twelve, "Do you also wish to go away?" [There’s the choice!]  Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. (66-68)

Real choices are possible.  And they are possible when the word is near us.  Hear again what Moses said, in his final speeches before his death.  Speeches about all the laws and commandments for the life, their life of walking with the Lord God.  11 Surely, this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard for you, nor is it too far away.  The choice of the people, those thousands of years ago, was a real choice: they could step up and do right, do well, obey and live.   In the New Testament, the things Jesus teaches are possible for those who are His own.  God does not ask the impossible of us.  With God all things are possible.  

Real choices are possible because God creates the Community of Faith. Obedience is communal; and we support one another’s choices.  We follow the best pathways together, and our own personal choices can be lived out with the support of the family of God.

In his speech, Moses summed up:  If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. (30:16)  Moses was speaking to a whole nation, in a time of transition.  Here we are, a few thousand years later, and the same God is speaking to us, Windsor Baptist.  We can choose good steps and changes together, guided by our Lord.  

141 years ago we decided to stop renting pews and rely upon voluntary tithes and offerings to finance our ministry.  Over 100 years ago we decided to rebuild on this site after everything had burned. Over 40 years ago we started to have more than one Pastor on staff for the work of our ministry.  Today, we evaluate what we do in light of our present vision from the Lord, and prepare to make the real choices that are before us.

Real choices are possible because the various parts of obedience support the others.  Long ago, Moses spoke of  loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days (30:20).  The choice of the Hebrew people to obey the command as they entered the Promised Land was the choice to follow many, many instructions.  Not just one commandment.  There was the ten big commandments.  And then there was the multitude of other life rules, described in Exodus, and Leviticus, and reiterated in Deuteronomy.  All the parts of their good life with the Lord fit in with the other obedient ways.  Loving God helps loving one’s neighbour, and vice versa.  Worshipping God goes hand-in-hand with taking a day of rest for oneself and one’s household.  

Real choices are possible because there are steps and stages over time.  One thing that seems impossible to us today, may be possible in the future, after we have master some other task.  Loving my enemies - by actually wanting good things to happen to them - might be possible later, after I have grown to love myself rightly, and love my neighbours well.  One step at a time.

Along with that Old Testament bit, from Moses, we also heard from Paul, a Christian, in his first letter to the Corinthians - believers of Jesus in Corinth, Greece.  Paul wrote:  And so, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.  I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. (3:1-2)  It takes time to mature as a saved person, and as a disciple of the Master, Jesus.  

This special lecturer a week ago at Acadia really emphasized the need for pastors and preachers to focus upon growing Christians into mature believers.  Grow up, in Christ, don’t stay as babies in the Faith.  This takes time and attention… our whole lives.  

When children learn math, they learn to add and subtract.  The teacher does not say, “Because thou can not do fractions, thou shalt not do algebra” as if that were a rule.  One simply needs to be able to add and subtract and so forth before one is capable of algebra.  So it is in our personalities, our character.  I may only be able to choose to be generous and sacrificial with my money after I have been shaped by the Spirit into the kind of person who can deal well with anger.  Or I might need to take many steps of prayer and fasting before I am able to choose not to worry.   Real choices come in steps and stages, with God.

And… Real choices are possible because of God’s action with our actions. This is grace: God doing more in us than we can do alone.

We heard today more of what Paul wrote to his Christian friends who were disagreeing over their church leadership.   What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each.  I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.  So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.  The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each.  For we are God's servants, working together (5-9).

God gives the growth.  Others, mere humans, cooperated, did their part.  The Lord took that good work and worked real miracles in their lives!  So it always is.   We can choose good and right things because God is for us, not against us, and God adds to what we obediently do.  Have confidence, friends, in the Lord, who can do so much with the little we can do.  Our feeble efforts can be made into free-flowing miracles by our Mighty Saviour!

There was a man who got lost in the desert. After wandering around for a long time his throat became very dry, about that time he saw a little shack in the distance.

He made his way over to the shack and found a water pump with a small jug of water and a note.

The note read: "pour all the water into the top of the pump to prime it, if you do this you will get all the water you need". Now the man had a choice to make, if he trusted the note and poured the water in and it worked he would have all the water he needed. If it didn’t work he would still be thirsty and he might die. Or he could choose to drink the water in the jug and get immediate satisfaction, but it might not be enough and he still might die. After thinking about it the man decided to risk it. He poured the entire jug into the pump and began to work the handle, at first nothing happened and he got a little scared but he kept going and water started coming out. So much water came out he drank all he wanted, took a shower, and filled all the containers he could find. Because he was willing to give up momentary satisfaction, he got all the water he needed. Now the note also said: after you have finished, please refill the jug for the next traveller.” The man refilled the jug and added to the note: “ Please prime the pump, believe me it works”!  (Randy Leckliter, Sermon Central)

Little day-to-day choices, and our big choices, take faith in God. Trust that what is promised is real.  Confidence that our Redeemer is guiding and is active in the choices we make.  Belief in our hearts that there is an endless supply for our souls and bodies, as we walk with the Lord.  

Let us choose and act in the name of Jesus, the one who gives living water, the One who blesses us with the guidance of the present Holy Spirit.  With the Lord, anything is possible!

Let us pray.

Lord God of truth, we heard the words of Moses today.  We heard the words of Paul today.  We heard the words of Pastor Jeffrey today.  We heard our own thoughts.  Continue to speak, by Your Spirit, to our souls. Protect us from thoughts and impressions that we need not follow.  Keep our minds and hearts keen for Your truth and love.  We submit and praise You: speak, Lord, for Your servants are listening.  AMEN.

Cross Preaching

Cross Preaching

(1 Corinthians 2:1-12)  J G White

United Baptist Church Digby,11 am, Sun, Feb 9, 2014

Cross preaching; cross preaching.  No, this is not about an angry pastor.  It is about the heart of our whole message; and is it like Paul’s, about Christ crucified?  Can the story of Jesus dying be the root of our whole message - in speech and action?

How can a small church in Nova Scotia compete with the preaching and teaching available now - in books, on TV and the internet?  Ours is an information age.  Some religious believers idolize wisdom and learning, great preachers and right thinkers.  So it has always been.

In December I read Umberto Eco’s novel, The Name of the Rose.  And I watched the film again.  It is an in-depth historical novel - and a murder mystery - about monks in an abbey in the 13 hundreds.  It was a fascinating read.  The author paints a picture of this Medieval place of great learning, with an incredible library that draws religious pilgrims and scholars from all over Europe.  The monks who live there venerate knowledge and intellectual pursuits.  One day, a particular monk said he would be prepared to sin in order to procure a rare book.  He was not lying and not joking.  A monk should surely love his books with humility, wishing their good and not the glory of his own curiosity; but what the temptation of adultery is for laymen and the yearning for riches is for secular ecclesiastics, the seduction of knowledge is for monks.  

That is a very different religious world than the one I live in, within a Baptist congregation in rural Nova Scotia.  But today, more and more Christians are going after the wonderful wisdom that is available.  All the preachers on TV, and even more on the internet.  All the books written that can be ordered, or downloaded.  So we believers often subdivide into the groups of those who are followers of the many teachers out there… Charles Stanley, Frances Chan, Dallas Willard, John Piper, Jack Van Impe, and so on.  The greatest, and worst, and everything in between is available to us.  

So I could repeat Paul’s words as my own to Windsor Baptist, or Digby Baptist:  I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. Who am I, to speak!?

I’ve not been a person nervous in the pulpit.  I’m calm about public speaking.  But I seldom have felt successful in the pulpit.  Yet I have certainly seen our God doing good work around me.

On my desk I have, typed up, a Prayer for Sermon Preparation.  Most weeks at some point I read through it and am guided in my conversation with the Lord, as I prepare for preaching.  Part of the prayer says this:

I confess I am seeking to be so innovative and attractive, rather than allowing for the attractiveness of Your word and cooperating with Your Spirit.

It is quite tempting, on a day like this one, for the guest preacher to try and show off in his sermon, without being too flashy.  Tempting for a congregation to present itself as so friendly, and enthusiastic, and ready for changes.  It’s like the courtship between and guy and a gal: impressing one another.

The Apostle Paul claimed he had spoken to people in Corinth with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that their faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.  Faith is not a response to human persuasion, it is a gift from God. Faith does not depend on how talented we are in selling our Church, it comes when the Spirit urges a human soul.  

We keep struggling with the tension between persuading people to become Christians - like us - and leaving the convincing work to God the Holy Spirit.  We live in an Age of Persuasion, after all.  That was the name of a weekly CBC radio program, which is now called Under the Influence.  A little radio show that tells stories about marketing, advertising, persuading people.  

Any of you watch the Superbowl last Sunday?  I did: the one football game I will likely see all year.  And it seems part of the draw to watch is the high-end commercials during the game.  Commercials for Pepsi, for pistachio nuts, for various fancy cars, even a commercial for a religion: Scientology.  

I believe our Faith cannot depend on how we market it, sell it, advertise it.  Our best ‘marketing’, so to speak, will be your life and my life.  Our speaking and listening.  Our actions as the hands and feet of Jesus.  It is His power in us that will be convincing.  It will be the Holy Spirit He sent who will speak to the hearts of others, through our simple witness, our basic compassion.  We preach the cross in our day-to-day lives: this is the best preaching of the cross.  Lives that point to the Lord.

A kindergarten teacher gave her class a "show and tell" assignment of bringing something to represent their religion.  The first boy got in front of the class and said, "My name is Benjamin and I am Jewish and this is the Star of David."

The second boy said, "My name is Joey. I'm a Catholic and this is the Crucifix."

The third boy said, "My name is Tommy and I am Baptist and this is a casserole."

That story may not be true, but, is it true?  It can be easier for us to invite someone to a church supper than to invite them to meet Jesus Christ, the crucified One.

The apostle Paul was determined to be focused on Jesus, Jesus executed.  He said this to his friends in the Church of Corinth, Greece.  A new little congregation in a big, old city of the ancient world.  He writes these words we’ve heard today in the midst of his opening chapters about the divisions among the believers there.  They seem to have split into groups, each hailing a different leader or founder.  Paul. Appollos!  Peter!!  Christ!!!

So in the midst of this, Paul speaks here about his own ministry, when he was one of their founding pastors, just a few years before.  He writes about not having spoken with eloquence, lofty words, wisdom, and the like.  He did not want the message of God - Jesus dying on the cross - to be overshadowed.  Paul did not want to be so showy that people would follow him; he wanted people to trust and follow Jesus.  

This material at the beginning of First Corinthians really speaks to me now.  We are, at Windsor UBC, facing a leadership conflict: between another pastor who is there with me, and most of the deacons.  Just this past week we each met with two mediators who came from our Baptist Convention staff.  I’m hopeful for these first good steps towards some reconciliation.  But I am quite concerned for the leadership team of my church, and the whole congregation who now knows something has been going wrong.  And I am concerned for their well-being amid the possibility of my leaving them in the not-too-distant future.

Ours is a different leadership conflict from that in Corinth 2000 years ago, but the solution will be similar. We will all need to be humble before the cross of Christ, and face up to our own sins to find forgiveness and understanding.  

We can avoid the competition that divides a fellowship by remaining weak before the power of God, remaining simple before the Divine wisdom.  As Isaiah 55 says, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. Whether we are trying to reach people for Jesus, and bring them into the fellowship, or we are simply trying to get along together in the work of the Lord, we can stay on track with humble submission to God’s way.  His way, in Jesus, was actually to become weaker Himself, and even get killed.  This is our story, our preaching of the cross.  

Walking with the Lord could be described as a journey into weakness.  I’d like to quote Jean Vanier, known best as a founder of the L'arche communities.  This is from an interview titled, “Become Weaker.”  

He speaks of a friend… who [worked] in palliative care.... He was asked to help one of the head of the Mafia who was in prison in the States, who had a cancer of the [esophagus].  And this guy obviously had a story of abuse when he was a [child]: verbal, physical, sexual abuse. So, [as] adults, you just had to get rid of [that]. Weakness was a horror, so you had to be powerful.  You enter the Mafia or you enter gangs to have a consciousness of power; and all weakness was horror.

But my friend was saying, as [the man’s] sickness continued, he became weaker, and my friend said: we became... best friends.  He said weakness was not a horror, but it was a moment of communion, of peace, and so on.  

Our message is rooted in the story of the cross of Jesus, where we see God at His weakest, eh?  If the Cross of Christ is at the centre of our message, in all the ways we preach it - by word and deed - then we have a truly counter-cultural message.  And counter-cultural methods too.  

A person puts his or her personal faith in God from a position weakness and not knowing everything.  From the place of a real need for forgiveness, for healing, for purpose, for love.  God does the planting and growing of that faith in a person.

Then, as a believer, one serves the Master, Jesus, from a similar position: humbly, not strong enough, not a know-it-all.  God’s wisdom and greatness is so good and available to us, in Jesus Christ. Our message to the neighbourhood does not need to depend upon us.  We can depend thoroughly upon our Lord, and be used by God.  As Paul teaches us, the message of the Cross of Jesus starts off as foolishness in people’s eyes.  Then God moves in, and the story of the cross becomes the greatest power of God.  

And we Christians join together in like manner, as those who rely on Christ to unite us, on the Holy Spirit to guide us, on God the Father to give common purpose.  

Paul once said: My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.  May it be so for us, today. 

Christ Crucified

Christ Crucified

(1 Corinthians 1:18-31) Windsor UBC, J G White

10:30 am, Sun, Feb 2, 2014

A kindergarten teacher gave her class a "show and tell" assignment of bringing something to represent their religion.  The first boy got in front of the class and said, "My name is Benjamin and I am Jewish and this is the Star of David."

The second boy said, "My name is Joey. I'm a Catholic and this is the Crucifix."

The third boy said, "My name is Tommy and I am Baptist and this is a casserole."

It is better for us to claim the cross as our symbol, eh?

Last Sunday morning here, I ended with 1 Corinthians 1:18, which today is our beginning.   For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. What powerful things does our God do for us by the Cross, by the sacrificial death of Jesus?  Four things are listed in one sentence at the end of this chapter. (30-31)

He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord."  

Wisdom: Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God.  We gain some true wisdom by knowing Jesus Christ and the salvation of our souls.  

26 Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.

Eugene Peterson paraphrased this, saying:  I don't see many of "the brightest and the best" among you… and, decades before, Clarence Jordan put it this way, in his Cotton Patch Version of Paul’s Epistles: It appears as though God deliberately selected the worlds “morons” to show up the wise guys, and the world's weaklings to show up the high and mighty, and the world's lowly and rejected – the nobodies – to put the heat on the somebodies.   

Salvation does not depend upon being the brightest lightbulb, being well-educated, having a certain IQ.  God’s wisdom is enough; and it is simply seen in what Jesus has done for us.

Also, the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, because what Jesus did can appear very unwise.  He got arrested by the local authorities during a religious festival.  He and His disciples has just observed a feast called the Passover, and after dark were out in a nearby orchard.  When some of his fellows rose up to fight and defend themselves, Jesus said ‘put down your sword.’  Then, Jesus gets tried and questioned, amid being tortured and treated badly.  He does not fight back.  And when He is finally hung on a cross to suffer and die, He does not call on the divine powers at His disposal.  We sometimes sing the scripture, Matthew 26:53, this way:

He could have called ten-thousand angels

to destroy the world, and set Him free.

He could have called ten-thousand angels,

But He died alone, for you and me.

Was this wise?  We who have received the blessed impact of Jesus’ sacrifice know how wise and powerful this submissive action was, the sacrifice of God for humans.  God’s wise way of reaching people and saving us is not anything humans would have thought up as strategic or even possible.  Yet, the message of the cross is the... power of God.

Jesus became for us Righteousness. We have things made right because of the Cross: we are made right with God, made right with ourselves, made right with one another.  Because the ways we do wrong are overtaken by the ways Jesus does what is right.

In the next letter, Second Corinthians, we can read: For our sake God made Jesus to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)  It is hard to live rightly; we cannot do it on our own.

To live rightly with one another is the challenge of human life.  To fix things when broken is not simple.  In relationships, I mean.  

I think of an image, a scene from the movie, Ordinary People, based on the novel of the same name.  The story of an ordinary family, a woman, a man, two teenage sons.  Or, rather, one son; the other died in a boating accident; and the three that are left struggle with the grief and guilt and a mess of emotions.  It is a family breaking apart.  

And I see the scene where the mother, who never expresses her emotions, always keeps up appearances in the nieghbourhood, breaks a plate in the kitchen.  "I do think this can be saved; it’s a nice, clean break," she says.  Crazy Glue might mend a plate, but there is no quick fix for a fractured human life.  

Our brokenness can be saved… by God.  There is no simple way for us to save ourselves.  The ways we don’t do right can be touched and rebuilt by our Lord.

So, as it says here, we have nothing to boast about in and of ourselves.  We have Jesus to boast about.  Our righteousness, our being right and doing right, is like filthy rags, Isaiah chapter 64 says.  But, the cross of Jesus can bring us into a place of being counted right.

Sanctification. This means holiness: to be made holy, be special, be separate.  In the simplest terms, this is being improved, by God.  This improvement is ongoing, by the work of the Holy Spirit of God. It is when we put ourselves in the hands of God that we get clothed in righteousness and holiness.  

It is Superbowl Sunday.  This is not a religious holiday, though, with the festivities today one might think so!  And undoubtedly, quite of few Seattle Seahawks fans will wear the green and blue clothing of that team, and many Denver Bronkos fans will wear blue and orange.  The fans of a sports team identify with the actual team by the clothing, the team colours, and then cheer their team on with determination.

But it is not by our own Christian determination and efforts that we get clothed with holiness.  It is by the grace of God that we begin to resemble and shine with the pure goodness of the One we love, who died for us.  The cross, the death of Jesus, has the power to transform us.  Simply putting a t-shirt on with a Christian message will not make us holy, nor coming to worship on Sundays.  Renewal of the inner person matters, and is the work of God, so we cooperate with the Spirit in His work.  

Amazingly, it is as Jesus bleeds and dies that the way is paved for us to be reunited with the Holy God. In Judaism, the religion of the Messiah, a dead body was unholy, unclean.  In Jesus, Holy God comes down into unholiness, and dies… so we can be holy again, and be with God.  

Fourthly and finally, Redemption.  Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.  This means to compensate for something bad, or to exchange something by paying, or to set free.  This is why the Bible talks of Jesus’ dying to pay for us, or, for our sins.  We get set free from the result of our wrong; Jesus ‘pays the price.”

Anyone here originally from New Brunswick?  Have you noticed that New Brunswick has a different culture from Nova Scotia?  The big highways we call 101, 102, and so forth, they call 1, 2.  We eat clams; they eat fiddleheads.  And there are redemption centres in New Brunswick - for recyclables.  

Well, in the theological sense, Windsor Baptist is a ‘redemption centre,’ a people and a place for freedom from evil and wrong to be provided.  A fellowship building ourselves upon the Cross of Jesus, where He is the One we rely upon to bring us back from the damages and powers of sin.  

The Choir has sung Chris Tomlin’s song…

He became sin Who knew no sin

That we might become His Righteousness

He humbled himself and carried the cross

Love so amazing; Love so amazing.

Jesus Messiah, Name above all names,

Blessed Redeemer, Emmanuel,

The rescue for sinners, The ransom from Heaven,

Jesus Messiah: Lord of all.