I Will Go… Or Will I?

July 9, 2023 PastorPartridge Sermon Abraham, Abram, Alliance, Broadway, burden, Christ, church, cost, faithful, God, hard, Jesus, Matthew, Methodist, obedient, Ohio, Partridge, Paul, Rebekah, rest, righteous, Romans, sin, sleepless, Street, test, transform, transformation, trust, United

I Will Go… Or Will I?

July 09, 2023*

By Pastor John Partridge

Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67 Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30 Romans 7:15-25a

Throughout our lives we must decide in whom we will put our trust. When we are children, we trust our parents. In school, we often trusted our teachers. In college we trusted that the curriculum and all the agony that it put us through, would be useful and valuable to us upon completion. When we accepted employment, we put a lot of trust in the company that hired us, as well as the supervisors and managers that trained us and oversaw our work. And any of us who served in the military entrusted our lives to those persons who made our duty assignments and sent us to places down the street and around the world.

In recent weeks we have studied how Abraham was repeated tested by God. First God called Abraham to “go to a place that I will show you,” and then we read about Abraham’s conflicted emotions, and his trust in God, as he sent Hagar and Ishmael out into the wilderness, and then again when God tested his willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac. And those are just a few of the many examples from Abraham’s life. But, as we continue reading the story of Genesis, the family of Abraham continues to be tested by God. As Isaac matures to a marriageable age, his father worries that Isaac’s faith might suffer if he were to marry a Canaanite woman. And so, Abraham sends one of his trusted servants to go back to his home country, to find the descendants of the family that he left behind, and among them find a wife for Isaac.

It is almost certain that Abraham’s servant has never been to the place that he has been sent but he trusts that his master would not send him into great danger. At the same time, Abraham and Isaac trusted that this servant would be a good judge of character as his mission was, literally, to select the person with whom Isaac would spend the rest of his life. And so, in Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67, the servant finds Abraham’s extended family, meets a girl, and this happens…

³⁴So he said, “I am Abraham’s servant. ³⁵The Lord has blessed my master abundantly, and he has become wealthy. He has given him sheep and cattle, silver and gold, male and female servants, and camels and donkeys. ³⁶My master’s wife Sarah has borne him a son in her old age, and he has given him everything he owns. ³⁷And my master made me swear an oath, and said, ‘You must not get a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, in whose land I live, ³⁸but go to my father’s family and to my own clan, and get a wife for my son.’

⁴²“When I came to the spring today, I said, ‘Lord, God of my master Abraham, if you will, please grant success to the journey on which I have come. ⁴³See, I am standing beside this spring. If a young woman comes out to draw water and I say to her, “Please let me drink a little water from your jar,” ⁴⁴and if she says to me, “Drink, and I’ll draw water for your camels too,” let her be the one the Lord has chosen for my master’s son.’

⁴⁵“Before I finished praying in my heart, Rebekah came out, with her jar on her shoulder. She went down to the spring and drew water, and I said to her, ‘Please give me a drink.’

⁴⁶“She quickly lowered her jar from her shoulder and said, ‘Drink, and I’ll water your camels too.’ So, I drank, and she watered the camels also.

⁴⁷“I asked her, ‘Whose daughter are you?’

“She said, ‘The daughter of Bethuel son of Nahor, whom Milkah bore to him.’

“Then I put the ring in her nose and the bracelets on her arms, ⁴⁸and I bowed down and worshiped the Lord. I praised the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who had led me on the right road to get the granddaughter of my master’s brother for his son. ⁴⁹Now if you will show kindness and faithfulness to my master, tell me; and if not, tell me, so I may know which way to turn.”

⁵⁸So they called Rebekah and asked her, “Will you go with this man?”

“I will go,” she said.

⁵⁹So they sent their sister Rebekah on her way, along with her nurse and Abraham’s servant and his men. ⁶⁰And they blessed Rebekah and said to her,

“Our sister, may you increase
to thousands upon thousands;
may your offspring possess
the cities of their enemies.”

⁶¹Then Rebekah and her attendants got ready and mounted the camels and went back with the man. So, the servant took Rebekah and left.

⁶²Now Isaac had come from Beer Lahai Roi, for he was living in the Negev. ⁶³He went out to the field one evening to meditate, and as he looked up, he saw camels approaching. ⁶⁴Rebekah also looked up and saw Isaac. She got down from her camel ⁶⁵and asked the servant, “Who is that man in the field coming to meet us?”

“He is my master,” the servant answered. So, she took her veil and covered herself.

⁶⁶Then the servant told Isaac all he had done. ⁶⁷Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he married Rebekah. So, she became his wife, and he loved her; and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.

And so, not only did Abraham’s servant trust his master, and not only did Abraham and Isaac trust the servant, but Rebekah was asked to trust a man that she had just met, to leave her home, journey to meet a total stranger, whose family she had never met, so that she could get married and spend the rest of her life with them and almost certainly never see her parents, family, or friends, ever again.

That’s a lot of trust.

But trusting is hard.

And sometimes the people in whom you are asked to place your trust are not trustworthy. And that was, in large part, the situation that Jesus finds in the story of Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30. Although Jesus and the disciples were faithful Jews who attended services in the synagogues and observed the prescribed feasts and festivals at the temple in Jerusalem, Jesus also knew that following God was hard and not everyone had the faith of Abraham. And worse, Jesus knew that many times, the people who ran the Temple, and who led God’s people, were not the most trustworthy people. And in that story, Jesus speaks into the situation this way…

¹⁶“To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others:

¹⁷“‘We played the pipe for you,
and you did not dance;
we sang a dirge,
and you did not mourn.’

¹⁸For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ ¹⁹The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by her deeds.”

²⁵At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. ²⁶Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.

²⁷“All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

²⁸“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Jesus says that many of the people in that generation were like the children that demand that strangers play a game with them. Only they know the rules, they won’t explain the rules, and then they are angry that you didn’t play their game according to their rules. Jesus continues by explaining that the religious leaders of Israel have behaved exactly that way. They saw John refraining from food and drink, and they criticized him for doing so, but then Jesus came and did not refrain from eating and drinking, and they criticized him for that. Just like children in the marketplaces, the religious leaders of Israel were angry because John and Jesus had refused to play their games.

But Jesus also knew that many people really wanted to follow God and to have a good relationship with God, but the leaders of Israel had made the rules so confusing that it kept people up at night. The leaders had created a system of worship that was overly burdensome, time consuming, and still left people unsure of their standing before God. And into this confusion, Jesus says, ““Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Jesus says, “Following God, and having a good relationship with God is not as hard as you’ve been told. All that you need to do, is… trust me.” Trust me, and I will take away the burdensome rules and the sleepless nights. Trust me… and find… rest.

But Paul finds that even following Jesus can still be difficult. As we read just last week, Paul knows that even though we have grace and forgiveness because of Jesus’ sacrifice, we are not free to sin, but must still strive live a life of righteousness. But doing what is right can be hard. In Romans 7:15-25a Paul says…

¹⁵I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. ¹⁶And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. ¹⁸For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. ¹⁹For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. ²⁰Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

²¹So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. ²²For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; ²³but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. ²⁴What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? ²⁵Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!

When we read these words quickly, we find that these might almost be unintelligible gibberish. But, if we slow way down, read slowly, think about what we’re reading, and consider the meaning, we can dig down into it and get a better sense of what Paul was trying to communicate. And, if we’re honest, this is how Paul intended it to be. This isn’t a comic book, or even a newspaper, that has all the imagery and ideas distilled down into their simplest form that we can skim over, past, and through with little effort and no intellectual engagement. These are transformational ideas that require the focus of our minds and spirits.

And, when we do that, we discover that Paul is saying several things that create a logical progression of thought. First, Paul says that he keeps doing the things that he doesn’t want to do, and so he agrees that the law is good because the law helps to keep him righteous. For example, we know, intellectually, that driving too fast is dangerous, but without speed limits, we will almost certainly do so. We might not always obey the speed limits, but that boundary helps us to be conscious of our speed and keep everyone on the road safer. In the same way, the boundaries given to us in the law help us to be righteous.

Second, after a lot of confusing language about what he wants to do in comparison to what he actually does, Paul concludes that because of the sin that lives inside of him, he is incapable of consistently doing good.

Simply put, we just can’t do it by ourselves.

But Jesus stands ready to walk with us, and to help us to do better and to overcome the natural evil that lives within us.

Like we saw with Moses, his servant, Isaac, and Rebekah, scripture repeatedly tells us stories about trust. Our relationship is built on our ability to trust in God.

Paul admits that trusting is hard, and that the sin and evil that is inside of us makes it impossible to be consistently good. We, like Paul, must admit that we simply cannot do it alone. We must surrender control, offer our lives as a living sacrifice to God, and trust Jesus to transform us into something better.

It is Jesus who says, trust me, and I will take away the burdensome rules and the sleepless nights.

Trust me… and find… rest.

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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 quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.comThe “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Unreasonable Demands

July 2, 2023July 6, 2023 PastorPartridge Sermon Abraham, Abram, Alliance, bad, boss, Broadway, Christ, church, cost, debt, faithful, God, honor, Jesus, Matthew, Methodist, obedient, Ohio, Partridge, patron, patronage, Paul, righteous, Romans, sacrifice, sin, Street, test, United, unlikely, unreasonable

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Unreasonable Demands

July 02, 2023*

By Pastor John Partridge

Genesis 22:1-14 Matthew 10:40-42 Romans 6:12-23

Have you ever had a bad boss?

At my last secular job, the company president, and one or two others, were known to publicly chastise, criticize, and even berate employees, and even supervisors and shop foremen, for mistakes they believed those employees had made. The first time I saw such a thing, I remembered that one of the very first, foundational, and fundamental rules that we had been taught in Non-commissioned officer school, was to always praise your subordinates in public, but criticize and correct them in private. The results were what you would expect, such encounters lowered morale for entire departments and even for the entire shop floor. Worse, some of those employees, especially shop foremen, soon found other employment for fewer hours and more money. Would they have started looking for a job if they had been criticized in private? Maybe, but I’m sure that such encounters helped them to make up their minds to leave.

But stories about bad bosses can be found all over the internet. The Reddit website has entire forums dedicated to the stories of employees, and their bad bosses. Of course, many of those stories end with the employees quitting and telling those bosses to “get stuffed.” But those stories resonate with us, especially if we had a bad boss, and especially if we felt that we had to put up with it because of the economic or other conditions in which we found ourselves.

But what if God is the one who is being unreasonable?

That’s what we appear to be seeing in the story of Genesis 22:1-14. This is the story about God’s command that Abraham sacrifice Isaac as a burnt offering. But the story is all kinds of wrong, in all kinds of ways. We’ll get to that, but first, let’s read the story…

^22:1 Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!”

“Here I am,” he replied.

²Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”

³Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. ⁴On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. ⁵He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.”

⁶Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, ⁷Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?”

“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.

“The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”

⁸Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together.

⁹When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. ¹⁰Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. ¹¹But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”

“Here I am,” he replied.

¹²“Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”

¹³Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ramcaught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. ¹⁴So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”

Those of us who are familiar with this story, through regular repetition, have likely made our peace with it, but there’s still something about it that bothers us. In this case, it is our familiarity with the story that blinds us to some of the problems that present themselves in it and, as such, it’s likely that anyone who is unfamiliar with this story will take issue with several things while they read it. First among these is that God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, but this is the same God that throughout the Old Testament, strongly, and repeatedly prohibits any kind of human sacrifice. Second, God promised Abraham children, and now asks that Abraham sacrifice the only child that he has left. Third, as we heard last week, God promised that Abraham would have heirs through Isaac and that Isaac’s descendants would become a great nation. Fourth, again as we heard last week, Abraham had already sent Ishmael away, so Isaac is all that he has left. And fifth, at this point, Isaac must be nearly in his teens, so Sarah, who was already over one hundred years old when Isaac was conceived, must now be somewhere between 110 to 120 years old. Although all things are possible with God, if it was unlikely for a 100-year-old woman to have a baby, having a second one at 120 would seem to be even more unlikely.

For all these reasons, it seems like God’s command to sacrifice Isaac is not only unreasonable but violates God’s agreement with Abraham in a several different ways.

And yet…

Abraham does not complain. Abraham knows all about all these issues and I am certain that all of them had to be swirling through his mind. But Abraham does not object or rebel against God. Abraham knows that the death of Isaac would break God’s promise, destroy his marriage, cancel his future, and erase his legacy.

But Abraham obeys and is faithful. Even though obeying God violates everything that Abraham knows to be true, destroys everything that he holds dear, and erases everything that he has spent his entire life building, Abraham obeys anyway. Even though Abraham can’t see a way that God can possibly make this insanity work, Abraham trusts that God is faithful, will honor his promises, and will find a way through.

But if we look at Matthew 10:40-42, we find something that is the same, sort of a test. Jesus says…

⁴⁰“Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. ⁴¹Whoever welcomes a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. ⁴²And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.”

Jesus says that if you offer hospitality to those who are doing the work of God, potentially in your home, but also in small acts of kindness like sharing your food and water, that you will share in the rewards that God will give them for their faithfulness. Welcoming the servants of God, is a gift to God and hospitality given in the name of God is rewarded by God. But doing so comes at a risk, and at a cost to you. The people to whom you offer hospitality may well be strangers, and you might not understand their mission. But your understanding and your comfort are not prerequisites to your obedience.

And finally, we return to Paul’s letter to the church in Rome exactly where we left off last week in Romans 6:12-23, as Paul connects our behavior and our actions to our faithfulness, and to our indebtedness, to God. Paul says…

¹¹In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. ¹²Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. ¹³Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. ¹⁴For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.

¹⁵What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means! ¹⁶Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? ¹⁷But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. ¹⁸You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

¹⁹I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness. ²⁰When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. ²¹What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! ²²But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. ²³For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life inChrist Jesus our Lord.

Paul’s point is that we are called to offer our lives as a sacrifice to God. How we live, how we act, and how we behave are all sacrifices and gifts that we give to God as acts of faithfulness and obedience. Further, Paul emphasizes that while we were once slaves to sin, we are now slaves to righteousness. This isn’t just a useful turn of phrase for the purposes of illustration. In the Roman world, Paul, and everyone else, lived in a culture of honor and patronage. In that culture, when a patron, or other wealthy person, aided you in a business transaction that you could never have put together for yourself, or paid a debt on your behalf that you could never have paid without their help, you became, as a matter of honor, indebted to them.

While, legally and technically, your debt had been paid, you now owed your life and your honor to your new patron. While you could ignore their requests, doing so would be dishonorable and would mark you as an ungracious scoundrel. This is the language that Paul uses in several of his books because it was language that is seen in many Greek and Roman texts and so we know that it was common language that everyone in the ancient world would have readily understood and accepted.

I could explain at some length, but the summary is that because Jesus paid a debt for us, because he substituted his life in place of ours, we now owe him a debt of honor. We owe God our gratitude, our faith, and our obedience. And so, we are expected to behave like Abraham, to obey even when doing so seems impossible and to have the faith that God can, and often does, accomplish the impossible.

Set aside sin.

Obey God.

Trust that God is faithful, will honor his promises, and will find a way through.

And offer your entire life as a living sacrifice to the glory of Jesus Christ and to the building of his kingdom.

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Abandoning Good

June 25, 2023June 29, 2023 PastorPartridge Sermon abandon, Abraham, Abram, Alliance, Broadway, Christ, church, God, good, good enough, great, Jesus, Jim Collins, Matthew, Methodist, Ohio, Partridge, Paul, Romans, Street, United, unlikely

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Abandoning Good

June 25, 2023*

By Pastor John Partridge

Genesis 21:8-21 Matthew 10:24-39 Romans 6:1-11

Author Jim Collins, in his 2001 bestselling book, Good to Great,” famously said that “Good is the enemy of Great.” The argument behind this evocative statement is that too many organizations, and people, are willing to settle for less than what they could attain and accept “good enough” because they don’t want to do the hard work that it takes to become really great. But, while that might be a popular way to think about moving from good to great as a business, or even as a church, the message of scripture uses even stronger language to warn us of settling for “good enough” in our spiritual lives personally.

Some of that is how we can understand the difficult story of Genesis 21:8-21. It is hard for us to be sympathetic to the cause of Abraham in this story because, to us, and to our sensibilities, it seems that Abraham and Sarah are being harsh, cruel, and unfeeling. In that story, we see a dark and jealous side of Sarah that is difficult for us to grapple with in a person that we regard as a biblical hero.

⁸The child grew and was weaned, and on the day that Isaac was weaned, Abraham held a great feast. ⁹But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking, ¹⁰and she said to Abraham, “Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.”

¹¹The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son. ¹²But God said to him, “Do not be so distressed about the boy and your slave woman. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspringwill be reckoned. ¹³I will make the son of the slave into a nation also, because he is your offspring.”

¹⁴Early the next morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy. She went on her way and wandered in the Desert of Beersheba.

¹⁵When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes. ¹⁶Then she went off and sat down about a bowshot away, for she thought, “I cannot watch the boy die.” And as she sat there, she began to sob.

¹⁷God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. ¹⁸Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”

¹⁹Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So, she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.

²⁰God was with the boy as he grew up. He lived in the desert and became an archer. ²¹While he was living in the Desert of Paran, his mother got a wife for him from Egypt.

There are only two things that make this story even a little bit easier for us to come to grips with the actions of Abraham and Sarah. The first is that Abraham genuinely struggles with the idea of sending his own flesh and blood, his seed, his son, out into the wilderness. And it is wilderness. Having only recent visited what is known as Abraham’s well in Beersheba (Be’er Sheva) it is in the middle of miles and miles of… nothing. Yes, people live there, but there is nothing there except desert, dirt, and rocks. To help you imagine what it’s like, it’s a cross between the desert and the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. It is hot, rugged, and altogether inhospitable. The second thing that helps our understanding is that before they were sent away into the desert, God reassured Abraham that he would take care of Ishmael, bless him, and raise up a nation through him.

But why did it happen at all?

Abraham by this time was wealthy. He had so many herds of sheep and camels that he needed hired men and servants to care for them all. Surely, he could have afforded to feed and clothe one more child. That would have been good. But Sarah didn’t want good. Sarah wanted what was best for her son, Isaac. You see, even though Hagar was a slave, because she had borne Abraham a son, she was, legally, equivalent to his wife Sarah. Legally, Ishmael, as the first-born son, might even have been entitled to receive the inheritance of the first-born which, with two sons, would have typically been two-thirds of Abraham’s estate. The only legal way to prevent that from happening was for Abraham to divorce Hagar, disown her and her son, and send them away. As hard as it was for Abraham, and as hard as it is for us to understand, Sarah was ruthlessly in pursuit of what was best for Isaac.

And, for what it’s worth, modern-day Arabs, who believe themselves to be the descendants of Ishmael, reverse this story and believe that it was Isaac that was sent away, and that Abraham raised Ishmael as his legal heir.

Even today, it is hard for us to set aside good enough in our pursuit of what is great, or to set aside what is good so that we can reach for what is best. In Matthew 10:24-39, Jesus teaches a lesson that is, in no uncertain terms, hard. It isn’t really that difficult to understand, but it is unquestionably hard for us to be obedient in living it out. Jesus says,

²⁴“The student is not above the teacher, nor a servant above his master. ²⁵It is enough for students to be like their teachers, and servants like their masters. If the head of the house has been called Beelzebul, how much more the members of his household!

²⁶“So do not be afraid of them, for there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed or hidden that will not be made known. ²⁷What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. ²⁸Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. ²⁹Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. ³⁰And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. ³¹So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

³²“Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. ³³But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.

³⁴“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. ³⁵For I have come to turn…

“‘a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—
³⁶ a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’

³⁷“Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. ³⁸Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. ³⁹Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.

Jesus begins by reminding us that if Jesus is our master, and he himself has been called the devil by his opponents, then we, as his followers, should expect the same treatment. Children follow the pattern of their parents, and the bad habits or bad behaviors that they learn may well be worse in them than they were in their parents. But what Jesus demands of us, is that we follow him to the best of our ability… and that’s where this gets hard. Jesus doesn’t demand that we pursue him until we arrive at “good enough,” but until we get to what’s best. And, to get to what’s best, we may have to leave behind things that we care about and things that we love. As important as family is, we must put God, and the truth of God, in the place of first importance in our lives. Making anything more important than God, making anything more important that our relationship with, and our obedience to, Jesus Christ will cause us to lose God entirely. But surrendering what we want, surrendering “good enough,” even if that means losing valuable and treasured relationships with family and friends. But, when we surrender what is “good enough,” we will discover the life that God intends to give us.

In Romans 6:1b-11, Paul equates settling for “good enough” with sin. Paul says that we just can’t keep on doing things that we know are wrong just because we know that Jesus will forgive us. He says…

^6:1 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? ²By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? ³Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

⁵For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. ⁶For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— ⁷because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.

⁸Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. ¹⁰The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

¹¹In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Paul says that when we choose to follow Jesus, we begin an entirely new life. He says that our old life died on the cross with Jesus, and our sins died with it. And so, for us to move from good to great, for us to live our best life, we can never settle for “good enough.” We must be changed and transformed from the person that once were and relentlessly pursue the greatness that God has in store for us but to do that, we must abandon anything that prevents us from reaching God’s best.

Jim Collins said that “Good is the enemy of Great” and the message of scripture is that we must not settle for “good enough.”

We must, at all costs, abandon good, so that we can pursue something better, because settling for “good enough” will prevent us from reaching God’s best.

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Moving on Up… to Caesarea

June 21, 2023 PastorPartridge Blogs Bible, Caesarea, elite, governor, Herod, Israel, King, new, New Testament, Paul, peasant, poor, poverty, rich, scripture, testament, wealth

View of the Mediterranean Sea from Caesarea

Moving on Up… to Caesarea

I remember watching situation comedy, “The Jeffersons” on television in the late 1970’s. The show was a spin-off of All in the Family and centered around the lives George and Louise Jefferson after George builds a chain of dry cleaners and his newfound upper-middle class income allows him to move into a luxury high-rise apartment instead of the old neighborhood in which he had grown up. The show was reliably funny but, for me and many others, one of the memorable things that stuck with us was the theme song, “Moving on Up.” (I hope you’ll forgive me if you get that song stuck in your head for the rest of the day.)

It was that song that has been stuck in my head as I think about the things that I saw in Caesarea by the Sea, or Caesarea Maritima, on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea in Israel. I had been there before but having spent a significant amount of time over the last couple semesters reading and studying, seeing it all again from this new perspective, and touring those ruins with other students, led by our professor,Dr. David deSilva, I saw many things differently. But while travel always changes us, we can’t always anticipate how we will be changed.

During this visit, the thing that struck me at many of the sites we visited, but particularly at Caesarea, was the incredible gulf that existed between the rich and the poor before, and during, the New Testament period. I’d read about it, and I thought that I understood it, and prior to this trip I certainly could have explained and even preached about it. But this time something was different.

Certainly, Caesarea has a lot going for it and King Herod had every reason to want to build a city, and a palace, here. Being on the sea it has a beautiful view, and an agreeable climate, and with the construction of one of the ancient world’s largest seaports, Caesarea became a center of trade and travel, a center of government, and along with those things became quite wealthy. Caesarea had a beautiful theater, concert hall (an Odeon), an almost impossibly enormous temple of Augustus that dominated the city, an oval track for horse (or human) racing (known as a circus), and even a 10 mile (15 km) long aqueduct to fill the ornate public fountains, flush the toilets, and make sure that no one would ever run out of drinking water. Many buildings were architecturally, over the top gorgeous, and some were known to be covered in imported marble. Fish, wine, and delicacies imported from around the known world were available.

Herod built his palace on a spit of land protruding into the sea just around the corner from the theater and had every luxury available including a cold pool, sauna, and an almost Olympic sized, freshwater swimming pool that was carved out of solid bedrock. After Herod’s death, his palace was used by the governors, procurators of the Judaea Province. Among these were the prefect Pontius Pilate, and Governor Antoninus Felix, that we read about during Paul’s trial in Acts 23, and Governor Porcius Festus who heard Paul’s defense there in Acts 25.

Ruins of Herod’s Palace with mosaic floors and pool.

It was the goal for local and provincial elites to move up to places like Caesarea. There was an enormous disparity between the “haves” and the “have nots” and even between the “wealthy” and “average.” Most of the population were rural peasants that eked out a subsistence level of survival, farming, and fishing in rural areas like Nazareth. There, it wasn’t uncommon for a house to only have one room for an entire family, while larger families might have two, or even four. In Jerusalem, the home of an important, and somewhat wealthy person, might have four rooms and possibly a little larger. Wealthy rulers and government officials made up only 2 percent of the population. Perhaps another 5 percent were “retainers,” career military, lower government functionaries, and household servants for the 2 percent. Merchants and most of the priestly class were basically just “less poor” than peasants, but not anything close to wealthy, and artisans may have had even less income than the peasants.[1]

While we might consider the accommodation in Caesarea to be primitive, and they certainly would not meet our standards of sanitation, many of us would still find it to be nicer than many twenty-first century cities. Caesarea was the place that important and wealthy people dreamed of living. But the lifestyle of the wealthy was so far removed from the experience and expectation of the average person, that it wasn’t even a dream. There was no “middle” class. Two percent were fabulously wealthy and lived a life of luxury, five percent lived well in service to those wealthy people, and everyone else barely made enough money to eat. There was no upward mobility. There was no “moving on up.”

There was only grinding poverty.

Seeing that, understanding that, and grappling with what that means, changes the way that we read the gospels, the stories of the New Testament, and all of scripture.

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[1] Sakari Häkkinen, Poverty in the first-century Galilee, Department of New Testament Studies, Faculty of Theology, University of Pretoria, South Africa

Eulogy and Obituary for Paul R. Cope

April 4, 2023April 4, 2023 PastorPartridge Eulogy Alliance, Broadway, Chris Martin, Christ, church, Cope, Eulogy, faith, Jesus, John, Methodist, Obituary, Partridge, Paul

Eulogy for Paul Cope

March 31, 2023

by John Partridge

(Note: You can find the live stream of this memorial service here: https://youtube.com/live/X8K5O0xwOwY?feature=share )

Paul Cope was born in Alliance, Ohio on August 31^st, 1926, to Paul and Mabel Cope. He graduated from Alliance High School, and although he was not mechanically inclined, started driving a city bus in Alliance when he was only 16 years old. Paul served in the Navy for two and a half years during World War II, first at the Great Lakes Naval Station, our nation’s largest Navy base, and the basic training facility for every sailor we’ve trained since 1911 and then was stationed not far away at the Glenview Naval Air Station outside Chicago, which, until 1995 was a naval aircraft training facility. Paul eventually rose to the rank of Seaman First Class. After the war, Paul got back to work. He was married to Kathryn and then widowed with two children when she died suddenly at the age of 24. Not long after that, Paul met Shirley at her place of employment, which was possibly the electric company. Shirley said that her first impression of Paul, was that his ears made him look “like a taxicab with both doors open.” That may not be the most positive first impression, but they were married in September of 1951. Shirley immediately took over the care of Paul’s children, who were then 3 and 5, and eight or nine months later, added Cindi.

Paul was always busy. As the president of Cope Furniture, Paul consistently worked 12 hours a day, every day, except Sunday, where you can be sure that you’d find him at Christ Church. And, after church, you would find him having a Sunday lunch with his grandparents followed by a game of UNO. That tradition of making Sunday a family day still runs in the family because of Paul’s inspiration and guidance, but with everyone’s busy schedules, it’s gotten harder to do.

In the few years that I’ve known him, I knew that Paul was kind of quiet guy, but his family told me that he’s never really talked much because Shirley always did it for him. One day last year, Paul surprised Cindi and Andy when the normally quiet Paul suddenly announced from the backseat, “You know, men and women don’t think alike.” No one is sure what inspired such an announcement, but clearly, he was thinking about something profound. Paul was always a bit of a ladies’ man, and although he settled down and was faithful to one woman, he still liked to look at pretty girls and did not apologize for it.

As a family, they often went camping in the summer or they went to Florida together. Amy remembers spending Spring Break with her grandparents at Jensen Beach in Florida and Paul could almost always be found relaxing during the popular neighborhood cocktail hour holding a martini with one green olive. At home, despite Shirley being unable to swim, Paul had a boat and often took the whole family water-skiing on Berlin Lake. At one time, Paul also had an automatic shift motorcycle with matching gold helmets for he and Shirley. I’m told that, whenever Paul wanted something, he would pursue it, relentlessly, until Shirley, or Cindi, or whomever, gave in and he got it. This is how he got his motorcycle, his motor-home, his boat, new cars, assorted toys, and even a leaf blower when he already lived at Copeland Oaks that has its own groundskeepers.

There is also the story of Paul’s riding lawn mower. Paul liked mowing his yard, I think, but one day, before the advent of safety interlocks, he got off of his mower to pick up some sticks, with the mower still running, and managed to mow a toe or two. With blood streaming from his foot, Paul calmly walked into the kitchen and, Cindi tells me, this image of her father is why, to this day, that she does not care for the sight of blood.

Paul was always a part of his grandchildren, and great-grandchildren’s lives. When Shirley worked at Cutty’s Paul changed diapers and babysat his great-grandchildren. The funny thing is, that before his grandchildren were born, and maybe before his great-grandchildren were born, Paul had never one changed a diaper. And so, on his first try, and Cindi never quite figured out how, while he got it on, it was on completely backwards. Paul was supportive of his family at every activity that he could and he had season tickets to their football games just so that he could watch the band at half-time at all the home games.

In the last few months there were many changes to Paul’s life. He wasn’t too happy about giving up his car and despite the explicit orders of his doctor, he complained about it and insisted that we go ask Bobbi Wright because, Paul said, “She will tell you that I’m a good driver.” And, shortly before this most recent decline, Craig asked Paul if he was okay with moving from his villa to an apartment in the assisted living building. Paul answered that he knew that it was coming, and probably should have happened sooner.

In the end, Paul was a man who loved his life, who lived it well, and had fun doing it. He loved his family and would do almost anything for them. He knew what he wanted, he worked hard at whatever he did, and was faithful to his wife, to his family, to his friends, to his Jesus, and to his church. The old joke is that you should live your life so that the preacher doesn’t have to lie at your funeral, and Paul Cope did that and more. We often say that the mission of the church is to change the world, and if those of us who remember Paul can live our lives as faithfully as he lived his, we will do exactly that. Paul Cope was just one man, he could not change the world by himself, but he definitely changed his corner of it and made the world a better place for everyone who knew him.

Memories of my Dad

(by Marsha Miller)

My Dad was one of a kind! Without him and Mom, I would be what I am today.

They took very good care of me, Cindi, and Howard. They taught us how to be obedient to everyone, no matter what. They taught us how to respect and treat everyone as we wanted to be treated!

We always had food on the table to eat and you had better eat it or go hungry! Mom always made sure we not only had clean clothes to wear and that we had clothes to wear.

Dad was a great grandfather and a great great-grandfather. The all loved him very much.

Paul R. Cope

“A Sweet and Gentle Spirit”

March 31, 2023

by Rev. L. Chris Martin

Dear friends in Christ:

We gather here in this sacred and familiar place to worship the God of the ages in loving memory of Paul R. Cope. As I have thought about Paul’s life since his passing into eternal life a little over two weeks ago, I realize that what stands out as most memorable about this kindhearted and considerate man, over the fourteen years I have known him, was his sweet and gentle spirit. Paul was almost always the first person to arrive for the Searcher’s Class, the adult class I have been privileged to teach for the past twelve years. Paul was a man of few words so that when he did have something to say, we all listened. It was a true delight to share the classroom with him.

Paul was a reliable and predictable sort of guy, the kind of person one could count on to do whatever he agreed to do and to follow through on whatever responsibility he knew was his. Having served as a Seaman First Class in the United States Navy in World War II surely helped to teach Paul the need of completing the tasks before him in an efficient and reliable manner. It was a lesson that he never forgot through his long and fruitful life.

Paul had been married to the love of his life, Shirley, for 59 years at the time of her passing in March of two-thousand eleven. Shirley was so full of life, living each moment of each day fully, and loving and caring for every member of her family in ways that cause the precious memories they have of her to this day. Paul’s memories of the years of their married life sustained him through the last twelve years of his life where Paul lived each day remembering the happiness of the years he spent with his beloved Shirley. Paul thoroughly enjoyed his two daughters and their extended families, and his son, Paul Howard, who preceded him into eternal life.

In addition to what I have shared to this point about Paul and the life he lived, Paul was also a treasured child of God, loved by God with an unconditional love. Just a few days before he passed into eternal life, Paul said to me while he was hospitalized in Alliance, “I really don’t understand why I am here, I’m not sick.” That was a day that Paul seemed to rally, after which his health began to fail. I am convinced beyond any doubt that Paul realized in those last few days of his life that it was time to go home to God, where he could be reunited with his treasured Shirley and the others that preceded him into eternal life.

One of the songs that sustained Paul and the members of his family in recent days was a song first written by John Newton in 1779. The song is “Amazing Grace.” In 2006, Chris Tomlin wrote an addition to the original song. After the second verse, that reads: “Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved. How precious did that grace appear, the hour I first believed.” Tomlin added these words: “My chains are gone, I’ve been set free, My God, My Savior has ransomed me. And like a flood his mercy reigns. Unending love, amazing grace.”

The last verse reads: “The earth shall soon dissolve like snow, the sun forbear to shine. But God, who called me here below, will be forever mine.” To this verse, Paul would add: “My chains are gone, I’ve been set free. My God, my Savior has ransomed me. And like a flood his mercy reigns. Unending love, amazing grace.” Paul now lives for all eternity, wrapped in unending love and amazing grace. But his sweet and gentle spirit lives on in our memories.

Amen.

Obituary for Paul R. Cope

August 31, 1926 – March 15, 2023 (age 96)

Paul R. Cope, age 96, passed away on March 15, 2023.

He was born on August 31, 1926, in Alliance, to Paul W. and Mabel (Roath) Cope.

Paul graduated from Alliance High School in 1944. He was the owner and President of the former Cope Furniture. Paul served honorably in the United States Navy as a Seaman First Class in WWII.

Paul was a member of Christ United Methodist Church where he was in the Hallelujah Bell Choir, the church choir and was a member of Searchers Sunday School Class. He also helped make peanut brittle at the church for many years and was a Boy Scout Master of Troop 50 for three years. Paul was a former member of Alliance Rotary Club, Washington Ruritans and BPOE #467.

Those left to cherish his memory are his daughters, Marsha Miller of Arizona, and Cindy (Andy) Magda of Alliance; nine grandchildren, eighteen great-grandchildren; great-great-grandchildren; a sister, Patricia Ludwig; and two nieces.

He was preceded in death by his parents; his wife, Shirley G. Cope, whom he married September 16, 1951, and who passed on March 12, 2011; and his son, Paul Howard.

A celebration of life will be held at Christ United Methodist Church on Friday, March 31st at 11:00 a.m. with a visitation one hour prior. The service will be co-officiated by Pastors John Partridge and Chris Martin.

In lieu of flowers memorial contributions may be made to Christ United Methodist Church Music Department, 470 E Broadway St. Alliance, Ohio 44601, or the Copeland Oaks Foundation, 715 S. Johnson Rd., Sebring, Ohio 44672.

Arrangements are entrusted to Cassaday-Turkle-Christian Funeral Home 75 South Union Ave Alliance, Ohio 44601.

Neighbors Know?

January 22, 2023January 22, 2023 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, Broadway, Christ, church, darkness, fulfill, God, Isaiah, Jesus, joy, light, Messiah, Methodist, neighbors, Ohio, Partridge, Paul, prophecy, spirit, Street, United

Neighbors Know?

January 22, 2023*

By Pastor John Partridge

Isaiah 9:1-4 Matthew 4:12-23 1 Corinthians 1:10-18

Patti and I have a friend who was once talking to his next-door neighbor on his phone while searching for a particular kitchen gadget. His neighbor, looking out her kitchen window, which window was opposite his kitchen window, and only six or eight feet away, told him, on the phone, in which drawer he would find the thing for which he was looking. Yikes. Our friend and his wife bought a curtain for their kitchen window the very next day and they moved to a suburban neighborhood with much larger lots as soon as they were financially able to do so.

Obviously, that’s an unusual occurrence, but few of us could argue that our neighbors probably know things about us that few other people know. They see us come and go, they know our schedules, they know when lights in certain rooms typically are turned on and off, they notice when we aren’t home and when our schedules change from our normal habits. I am almost certain that many of your neighbors know that you are here this morning and that you typically go to church on Sunday mornings because they’ve seen you leave and return, and probably noticed that you were dressed for the occasion. But what else have your neighbors noticed? That’s a loaded question that I want you to think about while we consider our scriptures for this morning. We begin in Isaiah 9:1-4, where we hear God’s prophet share yet another prophecy about the future messiah.

^9:1 Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future, he will honor Galilee of the nations, by the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan—

²The people walking in darkness have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
a light has dawned.
³You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy;
they rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest,
as warriors rejoice when dividing the plunder.
⁴For as in the day of Midian’s defeat, you have shattered
the yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders,
the rod of their oppressor.

In a moment, we will hear many of these same words reflected in the gospel of Matthew, but before we do, notice that God says that the messiah’s arrival will be as if the sun had dawned on a dark and dreary world. Light would come to darkness, joy would come to sadness, enemies would be shattered, oppression would be thrown off, and burdens would be lifted. And by quoting extensively from that passage in Isaiah, Matthew proclaims that Jesus was that messiah, that the new day Isaiah spoke of had finally dawned, that the light had come, and that the future was already looking brighter. Matthew 4:12-23 says,

¹²When Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, he withdrew to Galilee. ¹³Leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum, which was by the lake in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali— ¹⁴to fulfill what was said through the prophet Isaiah:

¹⁵“Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali,
    the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan,
    Galilee of the Gentiles—
¹⁶the people living in darkness
    have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of the shadow of death
    a light has dawned.”

¹⁷From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

¹⁸As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. ¹⁹“Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” ²⁰At once they left their nets and followed him.

²¹Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James, son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, ²²and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.

²³Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.

Matthew begins by quoting enough of the passage that we read from Isaiah, that every Jew who read, or heard his words would immediately recognize it as a messianic prophecy, but in doing so, Matthew connects Isaiah’s description with Jesus, and therefore identifies Jesus as the promised messiah. But next, Matthew says, “From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.””

A light had dawned. Hope was reborn. The Spirit of God, working from within the body of Jesus Christ, was at work in the world… and people noticed. When Jesus said, “Follow me,” Simon and Andrew, and James, and John, dropped what they were doing, walked away from their jobs, away from their family businesses and away from their families that depended on them and followed Jesus. And Jesus travelled across the region of Galilee teaching, healing, and proclaiming the news that the rescue of God’s people had come.

When the Spirit of God came, people noticed.

And, as odd as it may seem, I think that is at the core of what Paul is trying to say in his first letter to the church in Corinth. The people in the church weren’t getting along, and Paul’s criticism is that their division is getting in the way of what God was trying to do among them. (1 Corinthians 1:10-18) Paul said:

¹⁰I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought. ¹¹My brothers and sisters, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. ¹²What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas”; still another, “I follow Christ.”

¹³Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? ¹⁴I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, ¹⁵so no one can say that you were baptized in my name. ¹⁶(Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don’t remember if I baptized anyone else.) ¹⁷For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

¹⁸For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

Paul’s point is that we should be united in purpose and not be divided in ways that distract us, and distract our neighbors, from our primary mission of spreading the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. To those of us who have heard, and have accepted him, that message carries the power of God. This is the power that was seen, and felt without words, by the disciples that Jesus called and by the people who came from all over the region of Galilee to hear Jesus teach, preach, and heal.

But, as we have been discussing for the last several weeks, this is also the same Spirit of God that came upon you on the day of your baptism, that lives within you, and that goes with you everywhere you go. And, just as people noticed, and felt, the presence of the Spirit of God in Jesus, and in the disciples, they are going to notice that same spirit in each one of us. Your neighbors may not know where you keep your gravy boat, but they do know things about you. You can bet that they know whether you go to church on Sunday, they know if church attendance is an occasional or a regular thing, and they know if the way that you live your life reflects the teachings of scripture even if they’ve never opened a Bible.

The problem that Paul was addressing in the church at Corinth was that internal division and arguing was distracting the followers of Jesus Christ from their mission, and at the same time was disguising the Spirit of God from the people around them. Like us, Paul knew that the people in the church weren’t perfect, but his encouragement then, and now, is for the people of the church, for us, to do better. Your neighbors, your friends, and the people around you know things, and notice things about you. They notice when you mow the lawn two days later than usual, they notice when you forget to take the trash to the curb, they notice when you’re caring for your grand-dogs, and they’re going to notice the Spirit of God that lives within you.

The kingdom of heaven has come near… because it lives in each of you.

Our mission is to do the best we can not to disguise his Spirit and screw up what God is doing.

And so, the question we need to ask ourselves is this:

Do your neighbors know?

And if not, why not?

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The Ghost of Baptism Past

January 15, 2023 PastorPartridge Sermon A Christmas Carol, Alliance, baptism, Baptist, Broadway, Charles Dickens, Christ, church, Dickens, Ebeneezer, fulfill, future, God, Isaiah, Jesus, John, Messiah, Methodist, Ohio, Partridge, past, Paul, present, prophecy, Scrooge, Street, transformation, United

The Ghost of Baptism Past

January 15, 2023*

(Baptism of the Lord)

By Pastor John Partridge

Isaiah 42:1-9 Matthew 3:13-17 Acts 10:34-43

In Charles Dickens’ 1843 novella A Christmas Carol, Ebeneezer Scrooge is visited by three spirits over the course of an evening. These visits, by the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future, serve to remind Mr. Scrooge about the real meaning of Christmas, and of life, rather than his miserly devotion to the accumulation of wealth at all costs. In a way, today’s message borrows from that format as we visit scriptures from before, during, and after the life of Jesus Christ, that tell us something about the deeper meanings of baptism in our past, our present, and in our future. We begin with God’s promise of his spirit, eight centuries before Jesus’ birth, found in Isaiah 42:1-9.

^42:1 “Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
    my chosen one in whom I delight;
I will put my Spirit on him,
    and he will bring justice to the nations.
²He will not shout or cry out,
    or raise his voice in the streets.
³A bruised reed he will not break,
    and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.
In faithfulness he will bring forth justice;
⁴    he will not falter or be discouraged
till he establishes justice on earth.
    In his teaching the islands will put their hope.”

⁵This is what God the Lord says—
the Creator of the heavens, who stretches them out,
    who spreads out the earth with all that springs from it,
    who gives breath to its people,
    and life to those who walk on it:
⁶“I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness;
    I will take hold of your hand.
I will keep you and will make you
    to be a covenant for the people
    and a light for the Gentiles,
⁷to open eyes that are blind,
    to free captives from prison
    and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.

⁸“I am the Lord; that is my name!
    I will not yield my glory to another
    or my praise to idols.
⁹See, the former things have taken place,
    and new things I declare;
before they spring into being
    I announce them to you.”

Isaiah says that the coming messiah will be filled with God’s spirit and bring justice to the world but will be so gentle that he will not do any further damage the most fragile among us. Moreover, God will not only call his people to right living, but will hold their hands, call the Gentiles to become a part of his family, and will rescue those who are imprisoned by jailers or by their infirmities.

Last week we talked about how God would use the Messiah to open the doors of his kingdom to the Gentiles, but for our purposes this morning, take a moment to notice how Isaiah declares the promise to put God’s spirit in and upon the Messiah that he would send. And with that in mind, we move forward to the moment of Jesus’ baptism, and the moment when God fulfills that promise in Matthew 3:13-17.

¹³Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. ¹⁴But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”

¹⁵Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented.

¹⁶As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. ¹⁷And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

Jesus tells John that he has chosen to be baptized even though he, as the perfect messiah, had no actual need of baptism. Rather, Jesus chooses to be baptized because it is necessary to fulfill God’s promises that the Messiah would be called to righteousness and to model obedience to God for all who would follow him. And the moment that he rises out of the waters of the Jordan River, the heavens open, the Spirit of God descends, lands upon Jesus, and God audibly proclaims this love for, and his satisfaction with, Jesus and the work that he is doing.

But if the words of Isaiah speak about the spirit of baptism past, and the Spirit of God at the Jordan River appears as the spirit of baptism in Jesus’ present, then what does that leave us for the spirit of baptism future? For that, let us jump ahead another few years to a month or two after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, and we find Peter as he speaks to a gathering international crowd, Jews, and Gentiles from across the known world, on the day of Pentecost in Acts 10:34-43.

³⁴Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism ³⁵but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right. ³⁶You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, announcing the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. ³⁷You know what has happened throughout the province of Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached— ³⁸how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.

³⁹“We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a cross, ⁴⁰but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. ⁴¹He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen—by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. ⁴²He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. ⁴³All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

Paul’s point is that God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit and then appointed us to follow in his footsteps. When we choose to follow Jesus, are baptized, and join God’s family as the brothers and sisters of Jesus, we, like Jesus, are baptized and filled with the Spirit of God. We are therefore empowered by God, to go out into the world and do the work of Jesus Christ and the work of God’s kingdom. Jesus commands us to preach to the people his future, and of our present, to tell them that Jesus is the one whom they will face on the day of judgement, that it is Jesus about whom the prophets were writing, and that forgiveness comes to everyone who believes in him and puts their faith in him.

In the story, A Christmas Carol, the overnight experience with the three spirits of Christmas past, present, and future, transformed Ebeneezer Scrooge and changed the direction of his entire life. As the followers of Jesus Christ, our experience with the Spirit of God through baptism, past, present, and future, is similarly transformational. Just as the spirits did in A Christmas Carol, God does not intend to leave us in the same sorry state in which he found us. Baptism is a transformational moment when we receive the anointing and the presence of the Spirit of God, and we are commanded by Jesus Christ to be his witnesses, to share the good news with the people around us so that they too can be rescued and adopted into God’s family.

Ebeneezer Scrooge wasn’t visited by the spirits of Christmas so that he could stay the same miserable creature that he always was. Likewise, we were not baptized to that we could stay the same as we were and do the things we had always done. Our baptism is transformational.

God does not intend for us to stay the same.

God intends for us to change the world.

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Hidden Knowledge

January 8, 2023January 15, 2023 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, Broadway, Christ, church, Ephesians, fulfill, God, hidden, Isaiah, Jesus, kings, knowledge, magi, Messiah, Methodist, Ohio, Partridge, Paul, prophecy, secret, Street, United

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Two Minute Benediction – “The Explosion of Epiphany” https://youtu.be/QHE4D8cyeNA

Hidden Knowledge Podcast

The Explosion of Epiphany

Hidden Knowledge

January 08, 2023*

(Epiphany)

By Pastor John Partridge

Isaiah 60:1-6 Matthew 2:1-12 Ephesians 3:1-12

If you watch the headlines, or start surfing the internet, you will occasionally see fantastic headlines or posts in the comment sections of your friend’s posts, claiming that the church is repressing the truth, that there are banned books, deliberate conspiracies of secrecy, and all sorts of hidden knowledge. Over the centuries and millennia, many groups have launched new heresies, cults, and religions claiming that they had access to hidden knowledge that no one else could obtain. In every case, their claims are heaping piles of hogwash.

While I was in seminary there were several times when the tabloid style headlines claimed that there was some new revelation from a “newly discovered” or “hidden” gospel that had recently come to light, and our professors would just tiredly point out that the artifact in question had been known to theologians for centuries and that dozens of books had already been written about it. The early church fathers, in the first centuries after Jesus, repeatedly fought against sects that preached that they alone held secret knowledge and every time, what they really held was some misinterpretation of scripture that everyone already knew about.

But in today’s scripture, Paul seems to claim that there is indeed secret knowledge about Jesus. Or that there was, past tense, secret knowledge. Or maybe he just seems to be saying that, and we need to slow down and read it again more carefully. In any case, before we get to Paul, let’s back up eight hundred years, and listen to the prophet Isaiah in this passage from Isaiah 60:1-6, where he says:

^60:1 “Arise, shine, for your light has come,
    and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.
²See, darkness covers the earth
    and thick darkness is over the peoples,
but the Lord rises upon you
    and his glory appears over you.
³Nations will come to your light,
    and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

⁴“Lift up your eyes and look about you:
    All assemble and come to you;
your sons come from afar,
    and your daughters are carried on the hip.
⁵Then you will look and be radiant,
    your heart will throb and swell with joy;
the wealth on the seas will be brought to you,
    to you the riches of the nations will come.
⁶Herds of camels will cover your land,
    young camels of Midian and Ephah.
And all from Sheba will come,
    bearing gold and incense
    and proclaiming the praise of the Lord.

Isaiah tells of a day when God will send a light into a world that is filled with darkness, a king so filled with the glory of God that nations and kings will flock to worship him and to listen to him. But think about what he said for just a moment. Yahweh was the God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He was the God of one family who made up the twelve tribes of Israel, but Isaiah says that a king is coming who will be so great, that other kings, and other nations will bow down and worship him. These would, by necessity, represent people who were not family, who were not sons and daughters of Abraham, and who were not, therefore, Jewish at all. That represents a significant change from the status quo of a people who traditionally looked down on, and avoided, Gentiles as much as possible. But then comes the Christmas story, the birth story of Jesus, and in Matthew 2:1-12, we hear the first fulfillment of Isaiah’s words:

^2:1 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magifrom the east came to Jerusalem ²and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”

³When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. ⁴When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. ⁵“In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:

⁶“‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
who will shepherd my people, Israel.’”

⁷Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. ⁸He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”

⁹After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. ¹⁰When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. ¹¹On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. ¹²And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

Magi, high ranking government officials representing at least one foreign government, travel to Bethlehem to deliver gifts and worship the new king that they saw foretold in the stars. We retell this story every Christmas, and it seems so familiar that it has become ordinary. But the familiarity of the story causes us to forget how big a deal this really was. These men were not Jews, or members of the twelve tribes of Israel, in any way the children of Abraham. They were foreigners, strangers, outsiders, and Gentiles. Jesus was barely old enough to walk when, through him, God had already begun to use him to fulfill the promises of scripture and to invite the outsiders and foreigners into his family. And after Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, that fulfillment explodes into the world as we can see in the words of the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 3:1-12:

^3:1 For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles—

²Surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you, ³that is, the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly. ⁴In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, ⁵which was not made known to people in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets. ⁶This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.

⁷I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power. ⁸Although I am less than the least of all the Lord’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ, ⁹and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. ¹⁰His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, ¹¹according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. ¹²In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.

And here is where Paul discusses the mystery of faith that was revealed to him. It wasn’t some sort of “secret knowledge” or any information that had been hidden in code in the Hebrew alphabet, or the writings of scripture. The mystery was that Jesus did exactly what God had told everyone that the Messiah would do. Jesus was the agent, rescuer and king of his people that invited the outsiders, the outcasts, and the foreigners into Abraham’s family just as Isaiah had written. The mystery really wasn’t what God did, or that he did it, because through Isaiah and his other prophets, God had made it abundantly clear that these were his intentions all along. The mystery of history was how God would bring fulfillment to these scriptures. The revelation was that God chose to do these things through Jesus Christ.

Paul’s great calling was to share the good news of Jesus Christ with the Gentiles, but also to connect the dots that had been written by the prophets and show the Jews that this was what God had intended all along. The big deal that we miss in the Christmas story is that, for us, the climax isn’t the birth of Jesus, the Messiah of the children of Abraham. The big deal is the arrival of the magi who announce to the world that the doors have been opened to the Gentiles. The arrival of the magi is the moment in scripture where God fulfills his promise to invite the outcasts, outsiders, and foreigners to be adopted into the family of Abraham and be grafted into his family tree.

The big deal in the story of magi, is that this is the moment when the story really matters to us because the moment that those outsiders, outcasts, foreigners, and Gentiles are invited in, is the moment when you and I become a part of the Christmas story, and the moment when we were invited to become a part of God’s family.

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The Demands of Hope

November 27, 2022 PastorPartridge Sermon Advent, Alliance, Broadway, Christ, Christmas, church, demand, God, hope, Jesus, Methodist, Ohio, Partridge, Paul, return, Street, United, when

The Demands of Hope

November 27, 2022*

(1^st Sunday of Advent)

By Pastor John Partridge

Isaiah 2:1-5 Matthew 24:36-44 Romans 13:11-14

When we read from the books of the prophets, we often mislead ourselves into believing that God’s prophets were important, or powerful, and even well liked during their lifetimes, but often, the experience of God’s prophets was just the opposite. Often the words that they carried were messages of God’s displeasure, news of punishment, impending disaster, doom, and death. And as a result, the prophets of God were often disliked, unwelcome, beaten, imprisoned, or banned entirely from the temple or from the king’s palace. In 1 Kings 18:16-18, Ahab the king of Israel went to meet Elijah on Mount Carmel and “when he saw Elijah, he said to him, “Is that you, you troubler of Israel?””

But sometimes the messages of the prophets held good news. Sometimes their messages contained guidance, blessings, and hope. And as we begin this season of Advent, those are the messages that we find as we read from Isaiah 2:1-5 that says:

^2:1 This is what Isaiah, son of Amoz, saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem:

²In the last days

the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established
as the highest of the mountains;
it will be exalted above the hills,
and all nations will stream to it.

³Many peoples will come and say,

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
    to the temple of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
    so that we may walk in his paths.”
The law will go out from Zion,
    the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
⁴He will judge between the nations
    and will settle disputes for many peoples.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
    and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
    nor will they train for war anymore.

⁵Come, descendants of Jacob,
let us walk in the light of the Lord.

The message of Isaiah is a message of hope. God says that there will be a day when God’s people are not afraid to hear his words, a day when they will seek him out, listen to his voice, learn from him, and accept his judgements. And in that day, wars will end, soldiers will come home, and the world will at, last, know peace.

But God’s promise from Isaiah comes to us from almost three thousand years ago. Since then, we have seen the coming of Jesus Christ, but our modern world is still far too familiar with suffering, pain, disease, disaster, and death. God’s people, from that time until now, have asked the same question, “When?” When will Jesus return? When will we see the end of famine, disease, violence, pestilence, and war? When, O Lord, will we see the peace that you have promised?

And the answer to those questions is the same today as it has been from the time that Jesus’ own disciples asked the same question in Matthew 24:36-44. And Jesus said:

³⁶“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. ³⁷As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. ³⁸For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; ³⁹and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. ⁴⁰Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. ⁴¹Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.

⁴²“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. ⁴³But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. ⁴⁴So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.

The simple answer to the question of ‘when’ is “We don’t know.” But what we do know is that the arrival of Jesus in at the second coming will look much as it did at the time of his birth in Bethlehem. Even though his coming was repeatedly foretold by God’s prophets through the ages, and even though the people of Israel were intimately familiar with those scriptures, and even clung to the promise of those words, no one was ready. Almost no one was watching for his arrival and, although there were some, few people recognized the birth of Jesus for what it was.

And the warning of Jesus is that when he returns, things are likely to be similar. No one will know when he will arrive but because his arrival will be so unexpected, like a thief in the night, we must live expectantly. We must keep watch and live as if he might return any time at all, even today. But in Romans 13:11-14, Paul explains that living expectantly demands more of us than just keeping watch saying…

¹¹And do this, understanding the present time: The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. ¹²The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. ¹³Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. ¹⁴Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.

As his followers, hope demands that we do more than just wait and watch for the return of Jesus Christ. The time has already come for us to get busy with our preparations for his return because the world is already two thousand years closer to his return than it was in the time of Paul. But how do we prepare? What is it that we should be doing? And Paul’s words still ring true with us today. Setting aside the deeds of darkness means we should not just stop doing evil, but also stop encouraging and supporting the people that do.

That means that we should stop doing evil but should also stop doing things that are morally and ethically questionable, or that otherwise can be found in the grey areas of ethics and morality. Stop watching television shows, going to plays, and paying to see movies, which glamorize immorality regardless of how popular and funny they might be. Stop rationalizing your behavior by saying that it’s just a little harmless entertainment. Stop supporting politicians that do a few good things, but live as if morality isn’t important.

Instead, live lives that are good, decent, ethical, and moral. Be known withing your profession as someone who won’t cut corners, or behave immorally or unethically, even if doing so costs you something. Don’t go places and do things just because they feel good, do things, and go places that are good. Rather than just waiting and hoping for Jesus to do it, we should work to end famine, disease, violence, pestilence, and war. As you make your everyday choices of how to live your life, where to spend your money, and how to spend your time, consider whether you would invite Jesus to go to those places, and do those things with you. If you would feel uncomfortable going to that place, or watching that movie, doing that thing, or making that decision with Jesus standing next to you, then don’t do it. Clothe yourself with Jesus Christ and live as if he was walking beside you in everything that you do.

Because he is.

God’s message of the promised messiah, given through his prophet Isaiah, is a message of hope.

Knowing that Jesus could return at any moment, fills us with hope.

But hope demands something from us.

If we have this hope, if we believe that these words are true, then we must live lives of expectation.

And doing that will change the way that we work, the way that we play, the way that we spend our time, and the way that we spend our money.

If our hope is real, then we must live our lives as if it is.

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Which Shepherd Are You?

November 20, 2022November 21, 2022 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, Broadway, Christ, Christ the King, church, faith, flock, God, good, hell, Jesus, Luke, Methodist, mission, Ohio, Partridge, Paul, shepherd, Street, under-shepherd, United, wolf

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Which Shepherd Are You?

November 20, 2022*

(Christ the King Sunday)

By Pastor John Partridge

Jeremiah 23:1-6 Luke 23:33-43 Colossians 1:11-20

I saw a cartoon the other day about pyramids. The joke was simply that instead of thinking that aliens were needed to explain why cultures around the globe chose to build pyramid shaped structures, maybe it was just because everyone figured out that this shape allowed them to make an enormous building that didn’t fall over. It wasn’t aliens. It was physics.

In any case, while we don’t build as many pyramids as once did, we do use pyramids to describe a lot of things. “Pyramid schemes” are bad because, as investment vehicles, only the people at the top ever make any money. But most businesses, non-profits, not-for-profits, military units, charities, churches, scout troops, and almost everyone else, use some kind of pyramid shaped organizational structure. There is one, or at least a very small number of people at the very top, then more people that report to them, then an even larger number of people that report to them, and so on. Sometimes those pyramids are quite large and sometimes they are flatter. The Catholic Church has the Pope at the top, then cardinals, then archbishops, bishops, and then priests (I think), and our church is a little shorter without a pope, we have bishops, district superintendents, and pastors. But that’s not exactly right, but we’ll come back to it before we’re finished.

Years ago, when I first read The Pilgrim’s Progress, by John Bunyan, I encountered a word that I had never seen used before. While its component parts were all familiar, the assembly was new to me. The word that I met, and have grown to appreciate over the years, is… “under-shepherd.” The idea is familiar to any of us with experience with pyramids and organizational charts. There’s a shepherd, and then there are subordinate shepherds that work for the shepherd who are therefore under-shepherds. The concept is simple enough, but it is a useful, and meaningful, way of thinking about our relationship with Jesus. This is, I think, particularly true as we read God’s words to the prophet Jeremiah in Jeremiah 23:1-6 when he says:

^23:1 “Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture!” declares the Lord. ²Therefore this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says to the shepherds who tend my people: “Because you have scattered my flock and driven them away and have not bestowed care on them, I will bestow punishment on you for the evil you have done,” declares the Lord. ³“I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them and will bring them back to their pasture, where they will be fruitful and increase in number. ⁴I will place shepherds over them who will tend them, and they will no longer be afraid or terrified, nor will any be missing,” declares the Lord.

⁵“The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will raise up for Davida righteous Branch,
a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land.
⁶In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety.
This is the name by which he will be called: The Lord Our Righteous Savior.

Obviously, in the time of Jeremiah, Jesus had not yet come, but even so, even as far back as the book of Genesis, God was often referred to as the shepherd of his people. But more to the point, the rulers of the nation and the leaders of the church were called to be, and were known as, the shepherds of God’s people. And some of those under-shepherds were not behaving… shepherd-ly. The leaders of God’s people were scattering and destroying God’s sheep and God was taking it quite personally. Because of their actions, God declares a curse and a punishment upon them for the evil that they had done. God says that he himself will regather a remnant of his flock and will find new shepherds who will do what shepherds are called to do. They will care for the people under their authority, they will have a spine, and will stand up against the enemies and the dangers that face them, and they will protect their flock so that none of them are afraid or go missing. In fact, it is at this point that God declares that he will raise up the good shepherd, a righteous branch from the root of David’s family tree, who will do what is right, who will reunite the nations of Judah and Israel, and who will be called, The Lord, our righteous Savior.

And although it may not seem like it at first, that is the image that we have of Jesus in his last moments on the cross. Although he is dying, the good shepherd gives his life for his sheep. In Luke 23:33-43, we hear these words:

³³When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. ³⁴Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.

³⁵The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.”

³⁶The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar ³⁷and said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.”

³⁸There was a written notice above him, which read: this is the king of the jews.

³⁹One of the criminals who hung there, hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”

⁴⁰But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? ⁴¹We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”

⁴²Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

⁴³Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

Even in his last moments, with one of the last breaths that he had left in his body, Jesus was rescuing the lost and, with his dying breath, he gave his life so that he could rescue God’s sheep. Jesus is the good shepherd, the righteous branch of David’s line that God promised to his people. He is the king of kings, the ruler of the nations, and the rescuer of all humanity. But, as I often ask, what difference does it make? How does any of that teach me what I need to know to get through my day today? How does that offer me guidance on how I live my life? And we find the answer to some of those questions in Paul’s letter to the church in Colossae in these words from Colossians 1:11-20.

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.

¹⁵The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. ¹⁶For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. ¹⁷He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. ¹⁸And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. ¹⁹For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, ²⁰and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Paul’s prayer for the church was that they would be filled with a knowledge and an understanding of God’s will for their lives, mission, and ministry so that they could live lives that were worthy of God and would please God in every way. Paul prayed that the church would be strengthened with God’s power, have great endurance and patience, and give thanks to God for qualifying the church to share in the inheritance of eternity in heaven. But Paul also prayed that the church would bear fruit through every good work, and daily grow in their knowledge of God. I want to repeat that part for emphasis. Paul prayed that the church would bear fruit through every good work and grow in their knowledge of God.

And then, Paul repeats the resumé of Jesus and reminds everyone that Jesus is the Messiah, the good shepherd who rose from the dead, and sits on the throne of God as he seeks to rescue all people, reconcile all who are lost with God, and make peace throughout all creation.

All of that, from Jeremiah, to Luke, Jesus, and Paul, serves to remind us that our role, our mission, our place in the pyramid organizational chart, as the followers of Jesus Christ and as the members of his church, is to be under-shepherds. It is our work, not to scatter and destroy God’s sheep, but to gather them and protect them with our lives, to grow his flock, to rescue the lost sheep, to risk everything that we have to recover the ones that have wandered, to bear fruit, to grow God’s flock, to do good works, to grow in the knowledge of God, to be filled with great endurance and patience, and to give joyful thanks to God.

As the good shepherd has rescued us, let us, as under-shepherds, spend our lives rescuing others, growing, and caring for his flock, so that we might live lives that are worthy of God and please him in every way.

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