How Can Life Have Meaning?

July 31, 2022*

By Pastor John Partridge

Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23 Luke 12:13-21 Colossians 3:1-11

What is your “why”?

At some point, most of us discover that our lives need a “why,” we need a purpose, we need something that gives our lives meaning. For some people it’s writing, or painting, or other kinds of creative endeavors. For others it’s building things or helping people. But if we don’t find something that gives our lives meaning, it can cause us to struggle emotionally, spiritually, and even physically. A life without meaning is a lot like planning a trip without having a destination, we wander from place to place, from one interesting thing, one shiny object to another, without knowing where we are going or why we are going there. It might be fun, it might be interesting, and it can consume the waking hours of our lives, but before long, we begin to wonder why we’re doing it.

When I was an engineer, I really liked my work. I liked the challenge, I (mostly) liked the people, I liked designing and building things, and it brought a great sense of accomplishment when I could go out on the loading dock and see us shipping out a machine that had once only existed in our imaginations and then only on paper but now was built, operational, and on its way to its installation. But at some point, in large part after 9-11, I began to ask myself if that was enough. We had built this great machine, but it was replacing another great machine that another engineer had imagined and built, thirty years earlier. And I didn’t have any trouble imagining that in another thirty years, everything that we had done, everything that we were so impressed with and proud of, would likewise be torn out, cut up, and sent to the scrap yard.

This place of reflection and self-doubt where we question the purpose of our lives is not unique to us in the twenty-first century and it is not unique to those of us in the post-renaissance or post-modern eras who have sought to be “self-actualized.” This human struggle to find meaning and purpose is at least as old as recorded history. In Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23 we read the words of King Solomon, the richest, most influential, and most powerful king that ever lived. And in these words, we hear Solomon thinking about his “why.” What is his purpose? What is it that gives this man of wealth, power, and influence a life of meaning? Solomon says:

²“Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”

¹²I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. ¹³I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. What a heavy burden God has laid on mankind! ¹⁴I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

¹⁸I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. ¹⁹And who knows whether that person will be wise or foolish? Yet they will have control over all the fruit of my toil into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless. ²⁰So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. ²¹For a person may labor with wisdom, knowledge, and skill, and then they must leave all they own to another who has not toiled for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune. ²²What do people get for all the toil and anxious striving with which they labor under the sun? ²³All their days their work is grief and pain; even at night their minds do not rest. This too is meaningless.

Solomon had it all. He had hundreds of wives who were some of the best looking, most intelligent, and fun to be with people that his kingdom had to offer, he had more money than he could spend, he led an economy and a military that influenced much of the known world, he had servants and subjects who could do almost anything that he asked, and by most definitions he had it all. And yet, he begins the book of Ecclesiastes by saying that everything is meaningless.

He studied academics, he learned wisdom, and found no meaning in it. He had seen foreign countries, met dignitaries from around the world, and accumulated more of life’s experiences than anyone living, and found no more meaning than chasing the wind. He worked to accumulate possessions, wealth, and power but knowing that one day all of it would be left to someone who hadn’t worked for it, found those things to be meaningless also.

So, if we don’t find meaning in the pursuit of wisdom and academic knowledge, or in sex and pleasure of all kinds, or in money, power, possessions, experiences, or influence, then what is it that can give our lives meaning and purpose?

This is the same question, and the same problem, that Jesus highlights in Luke 12:13-21 when someone asks him to help them settle a family dispute over their father’s estate.

¹³Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”

¹⁴Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” ¹⁵Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”

¹⁶And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. ¹⁷He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’

¹⁸“Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. ¹⁹And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’

²⁰“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

²¹“This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

Jesus listens to this request and then makes two statements. First that he is not the judge appointed to make such a ruling, nor does he desire to be, and second, that such a request is rooted in basic human greed. Jesus also warns that all kinds of human greed afflict us, and the accumulation of possessions and money is not how we are to build a meaningful life. Next, Jesus tells the crowd a parable about a wealthy man whose only focus was on becoming wealthier. But, just as Solomon pointed out, all that accumulated wealth would soon be left to someone else. The point of Jesus’ story is this conclusion: “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.” Jesus says that it is hopeless to build a life on the selfish accumulation of things if we are not rich toward God. It is hopeless to accumulate wealth or possessions, power or influence, wisdom or knowledge, sex, pleasure, or experiences, or anything else if God is not an integral part of our “why.”

But what is it then upon which we should build a life? What will give our lives meaning and purpose? And as we consider those questions, we find that this is exactly what Paul is considering in Colossians 3:1-11 as he expands on the teaching that we saw in the story of Jesus in Luke 12. Paul says:

^3:1 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. ²Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. ³For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. ⁴When Christ, who is yourlife, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

⁵Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry. ⁶Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. ⁷You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. ⁸But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. ⁹Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices ¹⁰and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. ¹¹Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.

Paul says that now, since you have put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ, have chosen to follow him, and he has raised us from death to life with him, then it matters what you do with your life. Aim is important. Where you point your life is important. The meaning and the purpose of your life is important. And to aim your life in the right direction, Paul says, we must point our hearts and minds on things above and not on earthly things like sexual immorality, impurity, evil desires, and greed. If we are to follow Jesus, then God calls us to get rid of things like anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language, and to stop lying to one another so that we begin to increasingly resemble God and not our old self.

In the kingdom of God, there are none of the divisions that turn humanity against itself. There is no longer a difference between Gentiles and Jews, between those who are circumcised and those who are not, between slaves and free peoples, or between the sophisticated, cultured, and civilized people of the developed world and those who are referred to as uncivilized barbarians from less developed nations. Those differences are all erased because Jesus Christ is everything that we have, and we can find Jesus Christ in every person that we meet.

Finding a life of meaning and purpose is all about focus. If we focus our lives on ourselves, our needs, wants, desires, and aim ourselves at selfishly fulfilling them, we won’t ever feel as if we have a fulfilling, meaningful life of purpose. Instead of focusing on today or tomorrow, we must shift our focus to eternity. Instead of putting ourselves in the center of the bullseye, we must put Jesus in the center and focus on the needs of others and not on self.

Solomon begins the book of Ecclesiastes in a place of hopelessness as he mourns the meaningless of life, but as we read the rest of the book, he repeatedly encourages his readers to enjoy life and to be content with what they have. And he concludes by reminding everyone to keep God in the center of their lives, to “fear God and keep his commandments” because in the end, “God will bring every good deed into judgement, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.” Solomon wasn’t dumb. He knew that selfishness emptied life of meaning and purpose. It is only when we keep God in the center of our lives, and focus on the needs of others, that we can point our lives at a place of meaning and purpose.

Before we can discover our “why” we must first remember that Jesus Christ is everything that we have.

Our search for a life of meaning and purpose must begin by remembering that that we can find Jesus in every person that we meet.

If you want to find your “why,” you must start with Jesus.

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*You have been reading a message presented at Christ United Methodist Church on the date noted at the top of the first page. Rev. John Partridge is the pastor at Christ UMC in Alliance, Ohio. Duplication of this message is a part of our Media ministry, if you have received a blessing in this way, we would love to hear from you. Letters and donations in support of the Media ministry or any of our other projects may be sent to Christ United Methodist Church, 470 East Broadway Street, Alliance, Ohio 44601. These messages are available to any interested persons regardless of membership. You may subscribe to these messages, in print or electronic formats, by writing to the address noted, or by contacting us at secretary@CUMCAlliance.org. These messages can also be found online at https://pastorpartridge.com . All Scripture references are from the New International Version unless otherwise noted.

An Adulterous Wife

July 24, 2022July 26, 2022 PastorPartridge Podcast, Sermon adulterous, adultery, Alliance, bride, bride of Christ, Broadway, Christ, church, faith, faithful, God, Gomer, Hosea, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Methodist, Ohio, Partridge, Paul, Street, unfaithful, United

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An Adulterous Wife

July 24, 2022*

By Pastor John Partridge

Hosea 1:2-10 Luke 11:1-13 Colossians 2:6-19

I want to be clear that despite the title, today’s message applies to both women and men. My title could have easily been, “An Adulterous Spouse” but aside from being admittedly more “clickable” on the internet, there are scriptural and linguistic reasons that it can, and should, be gender specific. And I hope that by the time we’re finished, everyone will understand why.

With that out of the way, for those of you who are already married, I want you to remember what it was like when you were still looking for a spouse. And for those of you who are not married, and who wish to eventually be married, or even if you can’t ever imagine wanting to be married, I invite you to imagine what it would be like to search for a person with whom you can share your life and build your dreams. So, whichever group you might be in, think about what qualifications you might look for in a life-partner. As a group, we would have a wide variety of potential requirements or at least highly desirable traits that we would be looking for in another person. But, without much difficulty, I would imagine that among those qualifications, absolutely none of us would list “likely to cheat” among the dreams and ambitions that we have for our future spouse.

But that is exactly what God told the prophet Hosea to add to his list.

As shocking as that might be, let’s read the story and find out why. We begin in Hosea 1:2-10 as God uses a highly unusual method to make a point, over the span of a generation, and send a message to the people of Israel that includes illustrations with whom they must live and interact on a regular basis.

²When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, “Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord.” ³So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

⁴Then the Lord said to Hosea, “Call him Jezreel, because I will soon punish the house of Jehu for the massacre at Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel. ⁵In that day I will break Israel’s bow in the Valley of Jezreel.”

⁶Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. Then the Lord said to Hosea, “Call her Lo-Ruhamah (which means “not loved”), for I will no longer show love to Israel, that I should at all forgive them. ⁷Yet I will show love to Judah; and I will save them—not by bow, sword, or battle, or by horses and horsemen, but I, the Lord their God, will save them.”

⁸After she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, Gomer had another son. ⁹Then the Lord said, “Call him Lo-Ammi (which means “not my people”), for you are not my people, and I am not your God.

¹⁰“Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘children of the living God.’

God’s instructions to Hosea, as he searched for a wife, was to choose a woman who already had a reputation for cheating and who was likely to cheat on him after he married her. This was hardly what Hosea expected when God had called him to be his spokesman and prophet. I am certain that Hosea expected that following God would include living a godly life that followed the Law of Moses, living a righteous life and, one would assume, having a wife that was similarly righteous. But God’s call, in this case, is for his prophet to marry a spouse that will cheat, leave him for extended periods of time, sleep with other men, and bear children with questionable parentage. And, despite the unexpected nature of God’s command, and despite how unusual, difficult, and complicated that it would make Hosea’s life, he did as God instructed.

This wasn’t a project that Hosea could complete in a week’s time. This wasn’t the usual kind of mission that God gave to his prophets of “Go to this place and say these words to this group of people.” Instead, God’s words were coming to the people of Israel as a demonstration, or an illustration, which was seen, every day, in the lives of Hosea and his family. God’s point was that Gomer’s unfaithfulness to Hosea represented Israel’s unfaithfulness to God, and so every time that she wandered off, or was missing from Hosea’s life, or was carrying a child that may, or may not, have been fathered by Hosea, everyone was reminded of their unfaithfulness to God.

Worse, the names of Hosea’s children were a daily reminder of Israel’s failures. The name of Hosea’s first son reminded the people of Israel that when Jehu was anointed as king, he took it upon himself to massacre the previous king, the king’s mother, and his entire family. Hosea’s daughter reminded the people that they were no longer loved by God, that God had withdrawn his blessing from them and would now give his blessing to the nation of Judah. And Hosea’s second son reminded Israel that because they had abandoned God, God would now abandon them. Every day, in ordinary, daily interactions from school to grocery shopping, to gossip, the people were confronted with their sins against God simply in the act of speaking or remembering the names of Hosea’s children.

That is a sad story, but it is also a warning. King David certainly knew that story and the lessons of that story were on his mind when David chose not to act on opportunities to take King Saul’s life. Even for us in the twenty-first century, it reminds us that our God is not just a god of love that loves everybody but is also a God of judgement, with high standards, who will remove his blessing from those who turn their backs on him.

I’m sure that someone will want to remind me that God’s standards of judgement changed with the coming of Jesus. But they didn’t. After the birth death and resurrection of Jesus, God did not change. God’s standards did not change. God’s definition of sin did not change. What changed is that when we stand before the judgement seat of God, Jesus has already paid price for the sins that we have committed. And it is because of that change that we are indebted to Jesus and why we live our lives in ways that express our gratitude to him.

How we do that, as well as warnings about how not to do that, are what Paul is talking about as he writes to the church in Colossae in Colossians 2:6-19 where we hear these words:

⁶So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, ⁷rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

⁸See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.

⁹For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, ¹⁰and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. ¹¹In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self, ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, ¹²having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

¹³When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, ¹⁴having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. ¹⁵And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

¹⁶Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration, or a Sabbath day. ¹⁷These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. ¹⁸Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind. ¹⁹They have lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.

Paul reminds us that receiving Jesus as our savior and choosing to follow him is just the beginning. We must also continue to live lives in him that are rooted in him, built up in him, and which are strengthened in faith and overflowing with thankfulness. Next, Paul warns us about where our life and discipleship can go astray. He says that we can be taken captive by our dedication to traditions that flow out of deceptive philosophy and spiritual forces that are not godly and which do not point to Jesus Christ. It was Jesus who saved us, and it is Jesus who is in authority over every senator, president, king, prime minister, emperor, czar, ayatollah, or anything else and it is Jesus who has authority over every angel, demon, ghoul, ghost, goblin, or any other physical or spiritual creature. Our sins condemned us to death, but we are alive because of the sacrifice, and the forgiveness of Jesus Christ.

Christianity is more familiar and more recognizable to the people around us than it was in Colossae in the time of Paul. Our holidays and our celebrations are not as alien and strange to our neighbors and friends than they once were, but still, people often find what we do to be out of the ordinary. They don’t understand why we pray, or why we fast, they think we’re weird, or even lazy because we don’t want to do certain things on Sunday, or at Christmas, or Easter. They think it’s a waste for us to give gifts and offerings to the church when we could use them to buy a car, or jewelry, vacations, or fun toys.

But Paul says that we should ignore their judgement because the little things that we do as a part of our worship are shadows of a larger reality. They remind us that that the world is bigger than what we see and that the governments and powers of this world are not ultimate powers of the universe, that the physical world still bends to the reality of the spiritual world, that God is in control, that Jesus sits on the throne of heaven, and that all that we are, and all that we have, belongs to him.

Paul reminds us that there will always be false teachers who think too much of themselves, who claim to have visions, or claim special spiritual insight, and who will lead us toward the worship of angels and other false beliefs. Those people, Paul cautions, have lost their connection to Jesus, the head of the church, and the head of the body of Christ. And like our physical bodies, when the head is disconnected, growth stops, and death soon follows.

The accusation of Hosea three thousand years ago remains relevant. The adulterous wife that he was talking about wasn’t ever a woman, it was always the church. Both then and now, it was always us. Because the church is the bride of Christ, we can see ourselves as the wandering Gomer as we wander, become faithless, and pursue other interests and put other gods, other hobbies, money, cars, houses, work, or anything else in first place instead of Jesus. To put anything other than Jesus in first place, with priority, is to risk losing our head.

Stay close to Jesus. Live your lives in Jesus. Stay rooted and grounded in him, be strengthened in the faith that you were taught, and be overflowing with thankfulness. Test everything. Don’t hold on to traditions that aren’t godly. Keep hold of worship, and all our little spiritual rituals, holidays, and practices because each of them reminds us of who we are, and whose we are.

God hasn’t changed. God’s standards haven’t changed. God’s definition of sin hasn’t changed. And the need for us to remain faithful, and the importance of faithfulness, hasn’t changed. Because when we stand before the judgement seat of God, the only thing that will save us…is Jesus.

We are the bride of Christ.

Don’t leave him at the altar.

Don’t be… an adulterous wife.

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Truth, Conspiracy, and Living Worthy (Part 2)

July 17, 2022July 26, 2022 PastorPartridge Podcast, Sermon Alliance, Amos, Broadway, Christ, church, conspiracy, division, faithfullness, fake news, God, hypocrite, hypocrites, Jesus, Jesus Christ, love, Methodist, neighbor, neighbors, Ohio, Partridge, plumb line, politics, Street, two-faced, United

Truth, Conspiracy, and Living Worthy
(Part 2: What is a Worthy Life?)

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Click here to watch the livestream of this worship service: https://youtu.be/Y5HMv4fbSRI

Click here to watch the closing benediction: https://youtu.be/znZWSsxIBlg

July 17, 2022*

By Pastor John Partridge

Amos 8:1-12 Colossians 1:1-14

We live in a nation, a world, and denomination that is filled with division.

That seems obvious to even the casual observer and even more obvious to anyone who reads, or watches, the news. Last week we talked about how the followers of Jesus Christ are called to live and to love in a divided world, we heard God’s calling to Amos, how God’s patience has limits, how God intended to measure the people with a plumb line to see who was straight and who was crooked, and we heard Jesus’ example of the Good Samaritan that shows us how our love and mercy can, and should flow across the lines of division that surround us. (All this can be found in last week’s message here: https://pastorpartridge.com/2022/07/10/truth-conspiracy-and-living-worthy-part-1/)

But how else are we called to live? What is it that God wants to measure in us? What is it that tries God’s patience? And what would it look like if we lived our lives in a way that was worthy of the God that we claim to follow?

Those questions cover a lot of ground so let’s get started by hearing God’s explanation to Amos and the charges that God was bringing against his church and his people that we find in Amos 8:1-12.

^8:1 This is what the Sovereign Lord showed me: a basket of ripe fruit. ²“What do you see, Amos?” he asked.

“A basket of ripe fruit,” I answered.

Then the Lord said to me, “The time is ripe for my people Israel; I will spare them no longer.

³“In that day,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “the songs in the temple will turn to wailing. Many, many bodies—flung everywhere! Silence!”

⁴Hear this, you who trample the needy
and do away with the poor of the land,

⁵saying,

“When will the New Moon be over that we may sell grain,
and the Sabbath be ended that we may market wheat?”—
skimping on the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales,
⁶buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals,
selling even the sweepings with the wheat.

⁷The Lord has sworn by himself, the Pride of Jacob: “I will never forget anything they have done.

⁸“Will not the land tremble for this, and all who live in it mourn?
The whole land will rise like the Nile; it will be stirred up and then sink like the river of Egypt.

⁹“In that day,” declares the Sovereign Lord,

“I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.
¹⁰I will turn your religious festivals into mourning and all your singing into weeping.
I will make all of you wear sackcloth and shave your heads.
I will make that time like mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day.

¹¹“The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “when I will send a famine through the land— not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.
¹²People will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the word of the Lord, but they will not find it.

God says that his people go to the temple, sing songs of praise to God, leave the church, and then trample the needy and abuse the poor. They worship God but are impatient and can’t wait for the religious holiday to be over, they can’t wait for the sabbath to be over so they can get back to work and make more money. And when they go back to work, they lie, cheat, and steal because, to them, money is a greater god than the God of Israel. They cheat their customers, they cheat the poor, they ignore God’s command to share and to help the poor among them even to the point of sweeping up and selling what’s spilled on the floor rather than allowing the poor to glean it. So much do they ignore God’s commands about the poor, that they are unforgiving and deliberately drive the poor into bankruptcy so that they can buy the needy as slaves by purchasing debts as small as the cost of a pair of shoes.

Can you imagine being sold into slavery for a debt as inconsequential as a hundred-dollar pair of shoes? That was the world in which Amos lived. And God’s judgement is that he will never forget anything that they have done. As he always has, God will stand up for the poor and the needy and God will bring punishment to those who have abused them. God says that he is removing his blessings from them and sending all manner of punishment and declares that there is a day coming when no faithful priests will remain to teach the truth.

God’s patience with his two-faced, hypocritical people is at an end and the poor will be avenged. When they have lost the money that they desired more than God, through their suffering, perhaps they will learn the meaning of mercy, compassion, and love.

That brings us some clarity and understanding about what tries God’s patience, and how God measures us, but we still need to better understand how that translates into living justly in the twenty-first century. What would it look like for us to live a life that is worthy of the God we claim to follow? And for that, let’s turn to Paul’s letter to the church in Colossae found in Colossians 1:1-14, where we hear these words:

^1:1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

²To God’s holy people in Colossae, the faithful brothers and sistersin Christ:

Grace and peace to you from God our Father.

³We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, ⁴because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people— ⁵the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel ⁶that has come to you. In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world—just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace. ⁷You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on ourbehalf, ⁸and who also told us of your love in the Spirit.

⁹For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, ¹⁰so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, ¹¹being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, ¹²and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified youto share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. ¹³For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, ¹⁴in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

This is an example of a good church, and it is one with which Paul is pleased, publicly praises, prays for, and for which Paul gives thanks to God. And it is a church that people are talking about. While Paul is in prison, or at least house arrest, in Rome, he hears stories about the things that they are doing. Some of these stories came from Epaphras, a Gentile convert who was mentored by Paul, and who now is a preacher, teacher, evangelist, and church planter in Greece, but Paul’s words make it sound as if this was not the first time that he’d heard good things about what was happening there. People were telling stories about the church in Colossae, and they were stories about their faith and their love for their neighbors and for one another. And people weren’t just telling stories about them, the church was bearing fruit, it was evangelizing, sharing the stories of Jesus and the gospels, and people were coming to faith because of the love and the grace that they saw in the people of the church.

That doesn’t mean that they were left on their own. Paul, Timothy, and their ministry team, continue to pray for them, support them, mentor them, answer questions, guide them, offer advice, and whatever else they can to help them learn and grow. Paul wants this entire church to become worthy of the Lord, Jesus Christ. And Paul explains what he means by “worthy” so that everyone will know what that looks like. Living a life that is “worthy” means living a life that pleases God, that bears fruit by exhibiting the fruits of the Spirit and by reproducing their faith and bringing new people to faith in Jesus. Living worthy means doing good works, regularly and continually growing in knowledge, building up to great endurance, learning great patience, and giving joyful thanks to God who qualified you to share in his inheritance.

God cares about what his people are doing and how we live our lives. His patience has limits, and he will measure us with his plumb line to make sure we stay on the straight and narrow and not get warped and crooked. God calls us to overcome the divisions that surround us by loving the people with whom we disagree, and even loving our enemies, as much as we love ourselves. But living a worthy life isn’t just a one-time rescue mission or something that we do occasionally. Living a life worthy of Jesus Christ is a lifetime commitment to pleasing God, bearing fruit, doing good, growing in knowledge, and growing in endurance, patience, and thanksgiving to God.

You see, a few verses later, in Colossians 1:28-29, Paul explains that the goal isn’t just for us to become better people, and it isn’t just to love our neighbors. Paul says:

²⁸He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. ²⁹To this end I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.

The end goal of living a life worthy of Jesus Christ isn’t just focused on me and isn’t just focused on the local church. The end goal isn’t even to bring people to faith in Jesus Christ, although that’s certainly part of it. The goal of living a worthy life is to present… everyone to God, not just as converts and believers, but to present… everyone… to God as… fully mature disciples. Paul says that it is that goal toward which he is strenuously working, and toward which the church is called, with all the energy of Jesus Christ that works within us and through us.

The goal isn’t just to be lifeguards that pull drowning people out of the water. The goal is to pull everyone out of the water, and then train them, educate them, and mentor them, until everyone is a lifeguard. It is, I admit, and enormous task. It’s too big for any one of us to accomplish alone. That’s why we can’t be Lone Ranger Christians. We must all work together, as the church, through the power of Jesus Christ, and the Spirit of God that lives within us, to make and mature disciples for Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

That is how we overcome division.

And that is how we live lives that are worthy of Jesus Christ.

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Truth, Conspiracy, and Living Worthy (Part 1)

July 10, 2022July 26, 2022 PastorPartridge Podcast, Sermon Alliance, Amos, Broadway, Christ, church, commandment, conspiracy, divided, division, fake news, God, Good Samaritan, Jesus, Jesus Christ, love, Methodist, neighbor, neighbors, Ohio, Partridge, plumb, plumb line, politics, Street, United

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Truth, Conspiracy, and Living Worthy

(Part 1: Neighborly Division?)

July 10, 2022*

By Pastor John Partridge

Amos 7:7-17 Luke 10:25-37 Colossians 1:1-14

There’s a word that we have been using more in the last few years than we have in the last few decades. That word is…

…Division.

There are divisions between races, between political parties, divisions over guns, abortion, supreme court justices, election results, inflation, corporate greed, government corruption, as well as the ongoing division within our denomination. And within those divisions, everyone thinks that they are right, that they have exclusive access to the truth and that any information that disagrees with their viewpoint is part of a conspiracy of some kind. I’ve seen internet memes about Supreme Court conspiracies, presidential election conspiracies (from at least two entirely different points of view), gun control conspiracies, tax conspiracies, gasoline conspiracies, pandemic conspiracies of all sorts, and there were even a few flat earth and faked moon-landing conspiracies throw in.

I’m not going to even try to wade into that mess except to say that psychologically speaking, it’s easier to say that something is a conspiracy, than it is to admit that we simply don’t understand how something could, or did, happen. Instead, this morning I want to look at where the followers of Jesus Christ should be, what position we should take, when everyone around us is drawing lines in the sand and taking sides. We begin this morning by reading the words of the prophet Amos. I think the words of Amos sound particularly relevant and familiar to the twenty-first century world that we see in the news every day. You see, Amos was a sheep herder and a tree trimmer who was called by God to speak the truth to a nation, a church, a government, and a king that didn’t want to hear the truth. And in Amos 7:7-17 we hear these words:

⁷This is what he showed me: The Lord was standing by a wall that had been built true to plumb, with a plumb line in his hand. ⁸And the Lord asked me, “What do you see, Amos?”

“A plumb line,” I replied.

Then the Lord said, “Look, I am setting a plumb line among my people Israel; I will spare them no longer.

⁹“The high places of Isaac will be destroyed
and the sanctuaries of Israel will be ruined;
with my sword I will rise against the house of Jeroboam.”

¹⁰Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent a message to Jeroboam king of Israel: “Amos is raising a conspiracy against you in the very heart of Israel. The land cannot bear all his words. ¹¹For this is what Amos is saying:

“‘Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel will surely go into exile, away from their native land.’”

¹²Then Amaziah said to Amos, “Get out, you seer! Go back to the land of Judah. Earn your bread there and do your prophesying there. ¹³Don’t prophesy anymore at Bethel, because this is the king’s sanctuary and the temple of the kingdom.”

¹⁴Amos answered Amaziah, “I was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. ¹⁵But the Lord took me from tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ ¹⁶Now then, hear the word of the Lord. You say,

“‘Do not prophesy against Israel and stop preaching against the descendants of Isaac.’

¹⁷“Therefore this is what the Lord says:

“‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the city, and your sons and daughters will fall by the sword. Your land will be measured and divided up, and you yourself will die in a pagancountry.
And Israel will surely go into exile, away from their native land.’”

The first thing we hear is God showing Amos a plumb line. Not everyone may be familiar with this simple device, but masons, carpenters, and builders of all kinds use these things to make sure that what they are building is straight and not curved, bent, angled, or warped. God’s patience has limits and God has had enough of the corruption of his church, his priests, his people, and even Israel’s king and says that he is going to measure them all and see who is built the right way.

Once Amos begins to deliver this message from God, Amaziah the priest, who is supposed to be a representative of God, tells the king that Amos is spreading fake news and is raising a conspiracy against the king. Amaziah continues by telling Amos to go home and make money prophesying somewhere else. Amos, of course, isn’t paid to preach. Contrary to Amaziah’s assumptions, Amos isn’t on the government payroll, he isn’t on the take, and he doesn’t prophecy for profit. But Amaziah, although he is a priest, obviously works for the king and for the government, but not for the truth and not for God. And, because he wears the robes and vestments of the priesthood, but shills for the government and tells God’s prophet to shut up and go away, God levies a particularly nasty judgement and curse against him.

And again, as we live in a world where preachers are accused of being “in it for the money,” where every politician claims that God is on their side, where everyone lays claim to their own individual brand of truth, and where every voice of opposition is labeled as a conspiracy, the words of Amos sound eerily familiar. But what should we do about it? What truth should we believe?

A part of our answer for today comes from Jesus’ encounter with a church theologian who specialized in interpreting the Law of Moses. As we will see, he didn’t come to Jesus because he didn’t know the answer, he came because he wanted Jesus to agree with him and validate his opinion. We hear these words in Luke 10:25-37:

²⁵On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

²⁶“What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

²⁷He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

²⁸“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

²⁹But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

³⁰In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. ³¹A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. ³²So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. ³³But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. ³⁴He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. ³⁵The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’

³⁶“Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

³⁷The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

This man is a theological lawyer. His expertise and experience are likely in interpreting and applying the Law of Moses to modern society and court cases though he is not described as a magistrate or a judge. And so, as I said, we might best understand his work as both a theologian and a lawyer. In any case, he didn’t just want an answer, because he understood the scriptures well enough to find the answer for himself, what he really wanted was for Jesus to tell him that he was right. Our scripture says that “he wanted to justify himself.” He wanted Jesus to tell him that he was right, his interpretation was right, that his life was right, and that he didn’t need to change anything to gain eternal life. That’s what he wanted.

And doesn’t that sound familiar in our twenty-first century world? How often do we do that as individuals, or see it done by politicians, members of Congress, or even in the church? How often do we only listen to the echo chambers of social media, or biased news, so that we can hear opinions that agree with our own and confirm that we’re “just fine” the way we are? It happens constantly. But Jesus’ answer doesn’t do what the lawyer wanted. Jesus is not an echo chamber. Rather than validate the man’s opinion, Jesus exposes his bias and challenges him to examine an entirely disturbing way of looking at things.

In the traditional scriptural interpretation, your neighbor was any other descendant of Abraham, Israelite, or Jew. Gentiles, backsliders, sinners and the unclean were not neighbors. But Jesus creates a story in which an enemy of Israel was the hero of the story who sacrificed his time, his money, and his convenience to show compassion to a Jew and likely to save his life. In Jesus’ opinion, your neighbor isn’t the person who looks like you, or who goes to church with you, who believes like you, or who even comes from the same country as you. Jesus turns the rules and the law on its head by saying that our neighbors aren’t even people who like us, but instead are all the people of the world up to, and including, our fiercest enemies. And folks, if you haven’t already figured it out, the reason that this turns the culture of Jesus’ day on its head, and why it still turns our twenty-first century culture on its head, is that this is not the expected answer and not the way that any of us usually think about the world and our place in it.

This conversation with Jesus started with a statement of law, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind;’ and ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” But if my sworn enemy is my neighbor, if my boss that hates me is my neighbor, if the guy that lets his dog poop in my yard is my neighbor, if abortionists and pro-lifers, black lives matter and the Ku Klux Klan, Iranian, Iraqis, Russians, Ukrainians, Muslims, atheists, Catholics, Presbyterians, United Methodists, Global Methodists and everything in between are all my neighbors, then my life just got a lot more complicated because Jesus wants me to treat them, and love them, the way that I love myself.

That’s about as far as we’re going to go today, but we will resume, continue, and hopefully conclude, this topic next week. But for today, let me leave you with these thoughts:

All our divisions, whether they are between political parties, divisions over guns, abortion, supreme court justices, election results, inflation, corporate greed, government corruption or the ongoing division within our denomination, all look a lot different if, and when, we remember that all the people on the “other side” are our neighbors. And because Jesus says that they are our neighbors, and because we are commanded to love our neighbors as much as we love ourselves, it completely re-frames how we treat them and refocuses everything that we do, and how we live our lives.

We live in a nation, and a world, which is filled with division, but we are commanded to love as if it isn’t.

Read the rest of this two-part message, “Truth, Conspiracy, and Living Worthy: What *is* a Worthy Life?” here: https://pastorpartridge.com/2022/07/17/truth-conspiracy-and-living-worthy-part-2/

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Freedom is Seldom Free

July 7, 2022 PastorPartridge Podcast, Sermon Alliance, Broadway, Chris Martin, Christ, Christian, church, disciples, freedom, God, Jesus, Jesus Christ, July 4, Martin, Methodist, Ohio, Partridge, priorities, priority, Street, United

Freedom is Seldom Free

July 03, 2022

Rev. Chris Martin

My dear friend, Rev. Chris Martin, heard that our son Jonah and his girlfriend would be visiting from Texas, took me aside, and essentially told me that he would be preaching this week so that I could take the time to enjoy being with my family and not worry about preparing a message. As it turned out, there would be another, more tragic reason that I would need to be with my family that week. My sincere thanks to Pastor Chris as he was not only listening to his heart as he made his generous offer to preach, but must also have been listening to the whispers of the Holy Spirit who knew that our family would need it.

Click on the links below to watch this worship service or listen to the podcast as Pastor Chris explain why…

…”Freedom is Seldom Free.”

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Missions is Where?

June 28, 2022 PastorPartridge Podcast, Sermon Alliance, carol, Christ, Christine, church, followers of Jesus, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Methodist, missions, Tobergte, Topping

Missions is Where?

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Click here to watch this worship service: https://youtu.be/canAvRnWnAM

June 12, 2022

Pastor Christine Tobergte

(teenager’s voice by Pastor Carol Topping)

Since I (Pastor John) was attending meetings at our United Methodist church’s East Ohio Annual Conference all week, my dear friends Pastor Christine Tobergte and Pastor Carol Topping graciously stepped in to bring this week’s message so that I wouldn’t have to worry about writing a sermon on my laptop during business meetings or worship services. I can’t offer you the text of this message, as I usually do, in part because I don’t have it, but also because the skit that is in it is copyrighted material (you should see a copyright disclaimer below, and in the video, showing that we *do* have permission from the publisher to stream and podcast it).

You can watch this message or listen to the podcast by clicking appropriate link above.

COPYRIGHT: “On Missions” taken from Girl Talk with God by Susie Shellenberger.
Copyright © k2001 by Susan Shellenberger. Used by permission of HarperCollins Christian
Publishing. http://www.harpercollinschristian.com.

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Roe v. Wade and the Church

June 27, 2022June 27, 2022 PastorPartridge Blogs abortion, action, church, followers of Jesus, James, Jesus, Jesus Christ, ministry, mission, neighbors, Roe v. Wade, SCOTUS, show up, Supreme Court, unity, watchmen

Roe v. Wade and the Church

June 26, 2022*

By Pastor John Partridge

I watched an online clergy forum as pastors debated what they should say about this week’s Supreme Court decision overruling Roe v. Wade. There were, of course, a myriad of opinions and I felt led to weigh in as well. My opinion was to assume that half of your congregation is pleased with the decision and half of your congregation are disappointed, or mournful, or worse. Among us today are those who have had abortions. Among us are those who have struggled with infertility. Among us are Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, and a whole spectrum of other things. As a whole, and as a group, we are conflicted on this issue.

But, whatever your feelings, be sure that you register, and that you vote for those people who best represent your positions.

After that, regardless of all that, there are things that, as the church, that we should agree on, and that should unite us as the followers of Jesus Christ. At Youth Annual Conference this week, the message to our young people emphasized our need to “show up” in ministry to the world. This is also the emphasis of Jesus’ brother, the apostle James when he wrote James 2:14-16.

¹⁴What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? ¹⁵Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. ¹⁶If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? ¹⁷In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

Our mission is the thing that unites us as the followers of Jesus and regardless of our feelings in this issue, we recognize that this decision will make life more difficult for our neighbors. We recognize that this is likely to make life harder for people who are already struggling.

And so, regardless of what happens in Washington, or in Columbus, we must not simply say “Go in peace, keep warm and well fed.” We must not cast our vote in November and think that we have done our duty and do nothing else. We must be a people of action. We must be the people who “show up” for our neighbors. We must be not just people of faith, but people whose faith is inseparably connected to deeds and actions.

We are the watchmen in the walls of our city.

We must watch over our neighbors. We must, now more than ever, care for the poor, the hungry, single mothers, and young families. We must act, both with our deeds and with our wallets, to make sure that no child goes to bed hungry, that no parent needs to choose between healthcare and feeding their children, or between feeding their children and eating themselves. We must do what we canto make sure that counseling is available, affordable, or even free to those who struggle because of poverty, rape, incest, abuse, or any of a multitude of ways that this change in the law will ripple outward and make life harder for our neighbors.

Whether you think that this week’s Supreme Court decision was good or bad, the end result… for ALL of us, is that we must focus on our mission. We must be the watchmen on the walls of our cities. We must care for those around us.

Because if our faith is not inseparably connected to action… then our faith is dead.

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Freedom and Focus

June 26, 2022July 26, 2022 PastorPartridge Podcast, Sermon Alliance, Broadway, Christ, church, disciples, Elijah, Elisha, focus, freedom, God, groupies, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Methodist, Ohio, Partridge, priorities, priority, Street, United

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Freedom and Focus

June 26, 2022*

By Pastor John Partridge

2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14 Luke 9:57-62 Galatians 5:1, 13-25

Have you seen the demonstrations of the capabilities of some of the new cameras? I’m talking about the new phones with three lenses and a few other high-end cameras. One of the neat tricks that they can do is known as “variable focus.” In days past, you could turn the lens to change the focus, but whatever you focused on, once you took the picture, that was what you had to live with.

But variable focus cameras not only take the picture that you saw, but several more, from different angles, and the technology allows you to change the focus of the picture after you’ve already saved it in memory. For example, you take a picture of some friends at a wedding, and after you get home you notice another person, in the background, doing something interesting. A few years ago, you would just have to wonder who that was, or what it was that they were doing. But with this technology you can open yesterday’s picture, zoom in, and refocus on the person in the background.

It’s a lot like real life. We can choose what we want to focus upon. Our eyes do that naturally, but we do that with the way that we live our lives as well. I used to work as an engineer, but the focus of my life changed. Or consider Alfred Nobel. Mr. Nobel was a brilliant scientist who spoke six languages, earned his first patent at the age of twenty-four and eventually held 355 patents for a wide variety of discoveries. But his best know patent was for a safe method of using nitroglycerine as an explosive, in other words… dynamite. That patent made him a wealthy man, but when a newspaper erroneously wrote his obituary before his death, they referred to him as a “war profiteer” and he didn’t like it. Mr. Nobel didn’t want his legacy to be one of destruction, and so he created, and gave his entire fortune to, the Nobel institution, so that annual prizes would be given to those persons who “conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.” Alfred Nobel changed the focus of his life, and it made a difference to the world.

With that in mind, let’s read today’s scriptures and, as we do, let’s look for where we can see the focus of the people in them. We begin with 2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14 and the story of how Elijah ends his time on earth and passes the mantle of his ministry onward to his apprentice Elisha.

^2:1 When the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal. ²Elijah said to Elisha, “Stay here; the Lord has sent me to Bethel.”

But Elisha said, “As surely as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” So, they went down to Bethel.

⁶Then Elijah said to him, “Stay here; the Lord has sent me to the Jordan.”

And he replied, “As surely as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” So, the two of them walked on.

⁷Fifty men from the company of the prophets went and stood at a distance, facing the place where Elijah and Elisha had stopped at the Jordan. ⁸Elijah took his cloak, rolled it up and struck the water with it. The water divided to the right and to the left, and the two of them crossed over on dry ground.

⁹When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Tell me, what can I do for you before I am taken from you?”

“Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit,” Elisha replied.

¹⁰“You have asked a difficult thing,” Elijah said, “yet if you see me when I am taken from you, it will be yours—otherwise, it will not.”

¹¹As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind. ¹²Elisha saw this and cried out, “My father! My father! The chariots and horsemen of Israel!” And Elisha saw him no more. Then he took hold of his garment and tore it in two.

¹³Elisha then picked up Elijah’s cloak that had fallen from him and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan. ¹⁴He took the cloak that had fallen from Elijah and struck the water with it. “Where now is the Lord, the God of Elijah?” he asked. When he struck the water, it divided to the right and to the left, and he crossed over.

Everyone knew that today was the day that God would take Elijah from the earth. Elijah knew, Elisha knew and, in the verses of scripture that we skipped, hundreds of Israel’s prophets along the path of their journey also knew and asked Elisha to be sure that he knew (He did). But along the way, several times, Elijah tells his apprentice to stay behind and Elisha, however obedient he might normally have been, flatly refuses to be anywhere except where Elijah is.

Elisha is completely focused on loyalty, respect, and honor.

As a result, Elijah asks what he can do for Elisha before God takes him away, and Elisha asks that he be twice as spiritual, twice as godly, twice as powerful, twice as devoted, and twice as close to, and twice as focused on God as Elijah had been. Elijah knows that this is not a gift that he can give and so he tells his friend that if God allows him to see him as he is taken from the earth, then he will know that God has given him this gift. And he does. As proof that God has given him this gift, on his way home Elisha repeats the miracle that Elijah had just performed when he slaps the Jordan River with Elijah’s coat, the water parts like the Red Sea in front of Moses, and he walks to the other side on dry land.

We see the same focus on priorities and… well… focus, in Luke 9:57-62, as the time came for Jesus to be taken up from the earth.

⁵⁷As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”

⁵⁸Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

⁵⁹He said to another man, “Follow me.”

But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”

⁶⁰Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”

⁶¹Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.”

⁶²Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”

This passage draws a distinction between the different sorts of people who followed Jesus. We usually talk about Jesus’ disciples, but in this passage, we also meet people that we would, in modern language, refer to as Jesus’ groupies. They were enamored of Jesus and what Jesus was doing but Jesus makes it clear that they are only attracted to the idea of what he is doing and not to the reality of what he was doing. To the first case, Jesus simply reminds the man that Jesus and all who follow him, are homeless. There is no healthcare plan, there is no home base of ministry, there is no wealth, and there isn’t even a definitive destination for their journey together. And in the next three cases, Jesus’ responses all ask that these groupies reconsider what their priorities really are. To be a disciple, rather than a groupie, requires a complete and dedicated focus. A farmer that looks back, or becomes distracted, while plowing a field will not be able to plow straight lines but will instead plow a field with wandering furrows.

But why is that important? Why do wandering furrows matter? Why does focus matter?

Those questions are answered by Paul as he writes to the church in Galatia to explain how the followers of Jesus Christ should use the freedom that Jesus paid for with his life (Galatians 5:1, 13-25).

^5:1 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.

¹³You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. ¹⁴For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”¹⁵If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.

¹⁶So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. ¹⁷For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whateveryou want. ¹⁸But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

¹⁹The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery; ²⁰idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions ²¹and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

²²But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. ²⁴Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. ²⁵Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. ²⁶Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

Paul reminds the church that Jesus has purchased our freedom and the reason that he spent his life to do that was… freedom. Paul cleverly repeats those words, saying that we were set free for freedom, in order to remind us that if we do not stand firm in what we believe, then we will give up what we have gained, give away our freedom, and return to our slavery voluntarily. Yes, we are free. But Paul’s reminder is that using our freedom to serve ourselves, to pursue a life of pleasure, or to be argumentative, angry, and destructive with one another, takes us back to the slavery that we once escaped. Rather than practicing immorality, impurity, worshipping idols of stone, fame, money, or work, witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, rage, selfishness, division, envy, drunkenness, and free sex, the followers of Jesus Christ are called to live lives of service to the people around us, to love our neighbors, and be loving, joyful, kind, agents of peace, goodness, and faithfulness, and to be calm, faithful to God, and to one another.

How we use our freedom, is what distinguishes Jesus’ disciples from groupies.

How we use our freedom reveals our priorities and our focus.

If we focus on the wrong things, we throw away the freedom for which Jesus paid so dearly and return, voluntarily, to a life of slavery to sin and death.

Our freedom has been bought and paid for by the blood of Jesus. But the only way that we will be able to keep it is to stand firm and keep our focus on the mission in front of us. If we lose our focus, our paths will wander and take us places that we never want to go.

Can you hear Jesus asking?

Are you disciples or are you groupies?

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No Point in Waiting

June 16, 2022 PastorPartridge Blogs church, covid, covid-19, denomination, division, evangelism, faith, followers of Jesus, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Methodist, mission, pandemic, procrastinate, procrastination, schism, split, work

No Point in Waiting

June 01, 2022

By Pastor John Partridge

It occurred to me that many of us, myself included, have often used the pandemic and our current denominational stress as excuses to put off doing the important work of the church. We decided that we didn’t want to invite people to church because, well, we weren’t having in-person church, or because we were only having parking lot church, or because we were afraid that they might not want to come because they’d heard about the division within our denomination. But the problem with that kind of procrastination, is that it’s and excuse that never ends.

Every one of us has heard Harry Chapin’s 1974 hit song, “Cat’s in the Cradle.” In it, the man telling the story always promises his son that he would find time for them to be together, but he never did. And at the end of the song, the son is exactly the man that his father was, and repeatedly promises that one day they will find the time to be together. But sadly, we all know that they never will. We hear a similar tale in Robert Bloch’s story “That Hellbound Train.”

In it, a young hobo, Martin, makes a deal with the devil and exchanges a trip to hell for a watch that will allow him to stop time at the happiest moment of his life. And at each of his happiest moments, his wedding day, the birth of his children, Martin debates whether he should use the watch and stop time or if an even happier moment is yet around the corner. And, in the end, Martin never manages to use the devil’s watch before he dies.

Our reaction to our current crises seems to be the same.

We all thought Covid was going to go away in a few weeks, or months, and here we are, more than two years along that road, and still the end is not yet in sight. We keep hearing promises that our denominational confusion will end at “the next General Conference,” but I remember that my pastor and mentor, Linda Somerville, had the same hope when elected as a delegate to the 2000 or 2004 General Conference. Even now, even as churches are choosing to leave our denomination and form another, I simply do not believe that the end is anywhere in sight.

What I’m trying to say, is that there is no point in waiting to do the things that we know that we must do. We know that our church must continue to do the work of Jesus Christ, we know that we must continue to reach out, to be agents of healing and hope, and to continue the mission that Jesus Christ has given to us in Alliance, in Ohio, and in the world. We know that we must grow, we know that we must become an invitational church, we know that we need to reach out to our neighbors, coworkers, family, and friends. We know that we must show them the love that Jesus has shared with us, and invite them to be a part of Christ Church, and a part of Christ’s eternal kingdom.

There’s never going to be a “perfect” time. We don’t know when, or even if, this pandemic is going to end, or what the new normal will look like on the other side of it. We have no idea when, or if, the division within our denomination will end, or if it will just transmogrify into some new kind of debate.

There’s no point in waiting.

There is no benefit to procrastinating or kicking the can down the road.

The only thing that makes any sense, is for us, to do the things that God has called us to do…

…today.

Blessings,

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Past Pain, Present Gifts

May 29, 2022July 26, 2022 PastorPartridge Podcast, Sermon Acts, Alliance, beating, blessing, Broadway, Christ, church, future, gift, gifts, God, Jesus, Jesus Christ, John, kindness, love, Methodist, Ohio, pain, Partridge, past, present, purpose, Revelation, revenge, share, Street, struggle, struggles, surprise, thrashing, unconventional, unexpected, United, unusual, violence

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Past Pain, Present Gifts

(formerly – Violence, Division, and Unexpected Gifts)

May 29, 2022*

By Pastor John Partridge

John 17:20-26 Acts 16:16-34 Revelation 22:12-17, 20-21

Mary Todd Lincoln was crazy. Okay, that’s not entirely true. Mary Todd Lincoln, the wife of President Abraham Lincoln, was a sufferer of an undiagnosed mental illness and was extraordinarily difficult to live with. By making a long-distance examination from historically documented accounts, historians of today guess that Mary Todd Lincoln may well have suffered from bipolar disorder and, in an era far removed from a diagnosis, let alone a treatment of any kind, her disorder often made life in her household unpleasant.

Other husbands of that era might have, and sometimes did, have their wives and family members with such a disorder committed to an insane asylum. Many of them clearly were not insane by our modern standards but were simply so difficult to live with that they were removed to the care of someone else. Abraham Lincoln didn’t do that. He loved his wife Mary, he cared for her, and he found it within himself to withstand her rages, outbursts, depression, and other manifestations of her disorder.

Our nation benefited from his suffering. Historians speculate that the mental fortitude of Abraham Lincoln, forged and strengthened through years of caring for Mary, and enduring the suffering that went with it, made him singularly qualified to stand against the stress, arguments, negotiations, and other mental and emotional difficulties that were thrust upon him during the American Civil War. Anyone who had not lived through what he had already endured, might not have been able to cope with the demands of the presidency in that era.

In an odd sort of way, his suffering was a gift.

But what does any of that have to do with us? Well, before we get to that part, let’s begin at the beginning and remember when Jesus explains what the purpose of life will be for his disciples and all who would choose to follow him. We hear that story in John 17:20-26 as Jesus prays…

²⁰“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, ²¹that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me, and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²²I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— ²³I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

²⁴“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.

²⁵“Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. ²⁶I have made youknown to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”

In this short prayer, there are a few things that I want to highlight. First, Jesus asks that our relationship with God be the same as his, that just as God is in Jesus, we might also be in them. More specifically, Jesus says that he passed the glory of God that had inhabited him, on to his followers so that we might be one, in the same way that Jesus and God are one. And because of the glory of God that dwells within us, and because of our unity of purpose and togetherness, that the world would know that God loves us.

Second, Jesus asks that his followers would be able to come to where he is, and to see his glory. And third, that Jesus’ purpose in revealing God to us, was so that we might be filled with the love of God. And we can see that this last one, combined with Jesus’ command to go into all the world and preach the good news, tells us that God’s goal is not to rule the world, but to fill the world with his love.

But how do we do that? How do we reveal God’s glory and God’s love to the world around us? Certainly, there are more ways to do that than we can count, but one particularly dramatic way is found in one of Paul’s missionary journeys recorded in Acts 16:16-34 where we hear this:

¹⁶Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a female slave who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. ¹⁷She followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” ¹⁸She kept this up for many days. Finally, Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment, the spirit left her.

¹⁹When her owners realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities. ²⁰They brought them before the magistrates and said, “These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar ²¹by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice.”

²²The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten with rods. ²³After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. ²⁴When he received these orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

²⁵About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. ²⁶Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose. ²⁷The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. ²⁸But Paul shouted, “Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!”

²⁹The jailer called for lights, rushed in, and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. ³⁰He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

³¹They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.” ³²Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. ³³At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his household were baptized. ³⁴The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God—he and his whole household.

I cannot even begin to count how many sermons can be, and have been, written about this passage. But for today, I want to look at two specific things. First, that this earthquake was extraordinarily specific. It was strong enough to wake everyone up and to shake the foundations of the prison, but where earthquakes ordinarily collapse buildings and jam doors shut, this one unlocks and opens doors, opens padlocks, loosens chains, and releases feet bound in iron stocks. That is particularly specific and not at all the way that earthquakes and other natural disasters usually work, and this is how we see God in the story.

Second, when the jailer discovers that this has happened, he draws his sword to kill himself rather than be tortured to death, which was what usually happened to anyone who allowed a Roman prisoner to escape. But Paul hears the sword come out of its sheath, knows what the jailer intends to do and calls to him that everyone is still there. Once again, this must be an act of God. Even if Paul and Silas convinced the other prisoners not to escape, the chances of no one leaving are so slim that this is also evidence of God’s hand because they were all there.

And the jailer comes to faith in God because he saw, with his own eyes the hand of God at work in the world on behalf of Paul and Silas. He witnessed that the doors were unlocked, the chains loosened, and the iron shackles unbound, and he witnessed the power that kept a jail full of prisoners from escaping when the doors stood wide open. And he experienced the simple act of human kindness that Paul showed to him. All that Paul had to do to escape was to leave. All that Paul had to do to get revenge for the beating that was inflicted upon him was to remain silent. But Paul did not remain silent. He did not try to escape or to pursue revenge. Instead, Paul showed kindness to the jailer.

And he, and his entire household, were saved.

And we connect the dots by remembering the words of Jesus that we find in John’s Revelation contained in chapter 22:12-17, 20-21. Jesus said:

¹²“Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done. ¹³I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.

¹⁴“Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city.

¹⁵Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.

¹⁶“I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give youthis testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.”

¹⁷The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes, take the free gift of the water of life.

²⁰He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.”

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

²¹The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen.

The important idea here are that there will be a judgement but that anyone can come into the kingdom of God. Everyone is invited and sharing the gift of eternal life is a gift that each of us can give to all the people that we care about.

God’s goal is to share the message of the gospel throughout the entire world so that the world is filled with God’s love. Paul brought that jailer and his family into the kingdom of God simply through an act of kindness when anyone would have understood his desire for revenge. And sometimes, suffering and pain are the doorway through which we must pass in order to receive an unexpected gift.

Abraham Lincoln’s struggles made him strong enough to bless a nation.

Paul and Silas’ suffering allowed them to rescue the jailer and his entire family.

What can you do this week, to point others toward the kingdom of God?

How might the pain of your past bless others in the present, or in the future?

How many of the people around you might you give the gift of God’s love?

And how many of those people are separated from eternal life by one… simple… act of kindness?

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