proof

Covenant of a Clear Conscience

PastorPartridge Sermon , , , , , , , ,

“Covenant of a Clear Conscience”

February 18, 2018

By John Partridge*

 

Genesis 9:8-17                                   Mark 1:9-15                           1 Peter 3:18-22

 

 

Have you ever watched the news when there is a press conference to announce the end of a particularly difficult labor negotiation?  I don’t care if it’s the steel workers, or the school board, or a Major League Baseball franchise, there is one word that you seem to hear over and over during the press conference, and that is… contract.  I usually sounds like, “We’re here today to announce that all parties have agreed to this new contract.  Negotiating this contract was difficult and although everyone didn’t get everything that they wanted, everyone was willing to compromise to reach an agreement on this contract.  Thanks to this contract, we can all get back to work and be successful together.”  Doesn’t that language sound familiar?  It does, because the repeated word, “contract” is important, and it is one that the negotiators want to emphasize.

 

In our society, a contract is something with which we are familiar.  Almost all of us have signed contracts at one time or another.  We know that those contracts are legally binding on all the parties that sign them, and that there are penalties and even fines that can be incurred if anyone fails to live up to their part of the deal.  Now kick that all up a notch and you can better understand the biblical idea of a covenant.  A covenant was not just a religious thing; it was a legal one that was often used between nations.  Like contracts, covenants usually included a list of what was expected of each party as well as a list of what terrible things would happen to anyone who failed to live up to their part of the deal. The signing of a covenant was often combined with one or several animal sacrifices as a symbol to everyone that the signing of the covenant required the shedding of blood and the breaking of that covenant would also bring about the shedding of blood or death.

 

With that in mind, then I think we can better appreciate the significance of God’s words contained in Genesis 9:8-17, where God describes his promise to Noah, to all of humanity, and to all of creation after the global flood had ended.

 

8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: 9 “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you 10 and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth. 11 I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: 13 I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, 15I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. 16 Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”

17 So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.”

 

Just like those news conference we mentioned earlier, God mentions the word “covenant’ seven times in nine verses and in addition, repeatedly refers to “every living creature,” “all generations,” “never again,” and “everlasting.”  God wanted to make a point that this was a solemn promise that God intended to keep and that humanity never needed to worry about God going back on his promise.   At least from this one disaster, we were safe.

 

And then, thousands of years later, Mark records for us this story and the words of Jesus in Mark 1:9-15.

 

9 At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

12 At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, 13 and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.

14 After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15 “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”

 

Jesus went to John at the Jordan River and was baptized by him.  Following his baptism, Jesus went out into the wilderness for 40 days and was tempted by Satan.  But after all of that, the message that Jesus shared with the world was that the kingdom of God had come near and that everyone should repent and believe the good news.  With the coming of Jesus, heaven is torn open and comes to earth.  Instead of heaven being a place that was far away, the kingdom of God had come to earth and lived among humanity.  God was no longer far away, but as close as your neighbor, as close as your next breath, as close as your own heart.  God was no longer confined to heaven, but entered into the hearts of those who believed.  But the baptism of Jesus also symbolized something even more important and the Apostle Peter explains that in 1 Peter 3:18-22.

 

18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. 19 After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits— 20 to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, 21 and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand—with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.

 

In this passage, Peter speaks about God’s new covenant with his people, and that is the promise that comes through Jesus Christ.  Peter reminds everyone that since the days of Noah, water has been a symbol of salvation and rescue, but Noah and the ark only managed to rescue eight people.  With the coming of God’s new covenant, Jesus entered into the grave and revealed the truth to those who were imprisoned there (Note: theologians aren’t clear whether Peter was referring to the spirits of dead people who lived in the time of Noah, or if these were fallen angels who had been imprisoned by God).  But Peter makes the bigger point that baptism becomes for us a symbol of Jesus’ three days in the grave and his subsequent resurrection.

 

Baptism, Peter argues, is not about washing and cleanliness, and it isn’t even about ritual purification in the way that the Jews had traditionally done it.  Instead, baptism is a symbol that we take upon ourselves where we join with Christ in the grave (which is the water), pass through the trial that is death, and emerge from the water not only purified, but conquerors of suffering, trials and death, forgiven and resurrected to a new life in Christ Jesus.  It is because of this that we have received the new covenant of God through Jesus Christ, or what Peter calls “the pledge of a clear conscience toward God.”  Once we have received the gift of Jesus Christ and have given our lives to him, we no longer need to fear God, or worry about the sins that we have committed in the past because we are assured that we are a forgiven people who died with Christ and have left our guilt, our shame, and our sin in the grave behind us.

 

This is the gift that we have received.

 

This is the gift of the covenant of a clear conscience.

 

And so as we leave this place and move forward into the future, we are left with two tasks: First, we should rejoice and give thanks to God that we have been given such an invaluable gift.  And second, because this gift is so incredible, we must not keep it to ourselves but instead we must find ways to share this good news with our neighbors, our friends, our family, and with all the world.

 

What will you do with your gift?

 

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* You have been reading a message presented at Trinity United Methodist Church on the date noted on the first page.  Rev. John Partridge is the pastor at Trinity of Perry Heights in Massillon, 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 may be sent to Trinity United Methodist Church, 3757 Lincoln Way E., Massillon, Ohio 44646.  These messages are available to anyone regardless of membership.  You may subscribe to these messages by writing to the address noted, or by contacting us at subscribe@trinityperryheights.org.  To subscribe to the electronic version sign up at http://eepurl.com/vAlYn.   These messages can also be found online at https://pastorpartridge.wordpress.com/. All Scripture references are from the New International Version unless otherwise noted.

 

This is Proof

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“This is Proof”

October 01, 2017

By John Partridge*

 

Exodus 17:1-7                        Philippians 2:1-13                              Matthew 21:23-32

 

 

Have you ever know someone who was a big talker but not much of a do-er?

 

In Texas they joke about people who are “All hat, and no cattle.”  They talk big, they wear cowboy boots and wear a big hat, but they couldn’t tell a dairy cow from a beef cow if their life depended on it.  We respect people more, and their message is more effective, if they believe in what they are doing and prove it by investing their time, and their money, in their projects.

 

Although I’ve talked about him before, Elon Musk, the founder of Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, believed that a private company could build rockets, and launch satellites into orbit cheaper and more efficiently than the federal government and the existing system of government contractors.  So strongly did he believe in this idea, that he invested more than half of the fortune he had made as an executive at PayPal when it was sold to EBay, over $100 million of his own money, and started SpaceX to prove it.

 

In an entirely different vein, I once watched a documentary about monks (I don’t recall if they were Catholic or Orthodox) who so firmly believed in alleviating the suffering of the desperately poor, that they didn’t just operate a mission to support such a neighborhood, they rented apartments in the same buildings as the poor did, and lived among them in the same crime stricken, gang plagued neighborhood.  It’s one thing to ‘helicopter’ in help, and it’s something else entirely to prove it by becoming one with those who suffer.

 

These are the kinds of stories that I want you to have in mind as we begin our scripture reading from Exodus 17:1-7 where we find the people of Israel, still complaining, this time about water…


17:1The whole Israelite community set out from the Desert of Sin, traveling from place to place as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. 2 So they quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.”

Moses replied, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the Lord to the test?”

3 But the people were thirsty for water there, and they grumbled against Moses. They said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?”

4 Then Moses cried out to the Lord, “What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me.”

5 The Lord answered Moses, “Go out in front of the people. Take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. 6 I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink.” So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7 And he called the place Massah [which means quarrelling] and Meribah [which means testing] because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the Lord saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

 

Here we see two entirely different responses to the same experience.  The people see the desert and they feel their thirst and they respond with frustration and fear.  But Moses sees the world differently.  He sees the same desert and he feels the same thirst, but his response is a quiet confidence that God sees, that God knows what they need, and that God intends to handle it.  Moreover, when God’s solution of going out in front a thousands of people and smacking a rock with a stick, sounds almost totally ridiculous, Moses doesn’t hesitate.  Instead of seeing the world and responding to it, out of fear and frustration, Moses sees the world through a lens of faith in the God that has already done so much.  Even when God tells Moses that the solution to their problem is to collect the leaders of the nation, and go out and smack a rock with a stick, Moses answers not only with the faith and confidence that God will do it, he backs it up with action.  Moses goes out, gathers up the leaders of Israel, and smacks a rock with a stick.  And, in the middle of the desert, water comes flooding out of the rock so that all of the people, and their livestock, have enough to drink.

 

Moses had enough faith to risk looking ridiculous and smacks a rock with a stick in front of the leaders of Israel and thousands of people.

 

In Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi, he outlines ways that the church, and its people, can live out, and demonstrate their faith. (Philippians 2:1-13)


2:1 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!

9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

 

12 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.

 

First of all, Paul asks the church to be of the same mindset as Jesus Christ.  Jesus was the Son of God, a member of the Trinity, and was a witness to the creation of the world, and yet, when God commanded him to give up his royal status, to clothe himself in frail and mortal humanity, Jesus responded out of humility and obedience.  Jesus valued faithfulness and obedience as being greater considerations than position and power.  Paul encourages the people to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling” which means to treat Jesus Christ, and what he has done for us, with trust, faith, and with deep and abiding respect.  Paul says that God works in you so that he can accomplish his goals.

 

And finally we come to Matthew 21:23-32 where Jesus exposes a key failing of the Pharisees.

 

23 Jesus entered the temple courts, and, while he was teaching, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him. “By what authority are you doing these things?” they asked. “And who gave you this authority?”

24 Jesus replied, “I will also ask you one question. If you answer me, I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. 25 John’s baptism—where did it come from? Was it from heaven, or of human origin?”

They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ 26 But if we say, ‘Of human origin’—we are afraid of the people, for they all hold that John was a prophet.”

27 So they answered Jesus, “We don’t know.”

Then he said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.

 

28 “What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’

29 “‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.

30 “Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.

31 “Which of the two did what his father wanted?”

“The first,” they answered.

Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. 32 For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.

 

The first part of this story illustrates the thinking of the Pharisees.  They did not have the courage of their convictions.  Their primary concern was not to get the question right, but to make sure that they didn’t look bad.  They weren’t looking for spiritual answers; they were looking for political advantage.  And once everyone sees them waffling, Jesus hits them with the parable in the second half of this story.  Jesus compares the Pharisees with the son who said that he would obey, but who stayed home and didn’t do anything.  Even worse, he compares tax collectors and prostitutes to the son who at first appeared to be disobedient, but later repented and did what his father had asked.  That’s really where we feel the twist of the knife in the story.  The Pharisees were the church leaders.  They were the political leaders.  They were the guys who led the people and told them what to do and how to live.  They were the ones who had a strict moral code with hundred of rules to insure that they appeared to be godly.  And they were the ones who held themselves up as examples of godliness that others should follow. And yet, Jesus smears them by saying that they are not righteous, that they are not doing what God has asked them to do, and that they did not repent and change their ways when John the Baptist showed them how disobedient they really were.  Even worse, Jesus tells them that tax collectors and prostitutes, people who were some of the worse scum that the Pharisees could imagine, were entering the kingdom of God ahead of these men who believed themselves to be super saints, models of perfections, and paragons of virtue.

 

But this is a hard story for all of us.  In Christianity, particularly in Protestant Christianity, we often say that we are saved by faith and not by works.  And that’s true… but.  Just as we saw last year when we studied the book of James, this parable of Jesus reminds us of an uncomfortable truth, and that is that genuine faith will be reflected in our actions and in our obedience to God.  It was, after all the son who said “no” to his father, who turned out to be the faithful one.  Although we are saved by faith, our salvation is revealed through our actions and through our obedience to God.

 

A Christian simply cannot be “all hat and no cattle.”

 

We, like Elon Musk, must put our money where our mouth is.  We must, like those monks living in the inner city, live lives that reflect our true beliefs.  We may not sell our homes and move into the inner city, but the way that we spend our money, the way that we spend our time, that way that we use our talents and abilities, and the way that we live, every day, should be a visible demonstration of our obedience to God.

 

Our actions are the proof of our salvation.

 

 

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* You have been reading a message presented at Trinity United Methodist Church on the date noted on the first page.  Rev. John Partridge is the pastor at Trinity of Perry Heights in Massillon, 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 may be sent to Trinity United Methodist Church, 3757 Lincoln Way E., Massillon, Ohio 44646.  These messages are available to anyone regardless of membership.  You may subscribe to these messages by writing to the address noted, or by contacting us at subscribe@trinityperryheights.org.  To subscribe to the electronic version sign up at http://eepurl.com/vAlYn.   These messages can also be found online at https://pastorpartridge.wordpress.com/. All Scripture references are from the New International Version unless otherwise noted.

 

“Prove It!”

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“Prove It!”

March 19, 2017

By John Partridge*

 

Exodus 17:1-7                        John 4:5-42                            Romans 5:1-11

All of us want proof.

All of us have been asked to do a lot of things by a lot of people.  But while it’s easy to do the simple things, we often need a little more information and support for the bigger things.  For example, in any of my previous secular jobs, if my boss asked me to go down to the accounting department and pick up some paperwork, it wouldn’t be a problem.  I could just leave my desk, walk over to the accounting department, and, even if I had no other information, I could ask around until I found what it was that my boss needed.  In the worse possible case, I might have to call her, or walk back to her office, and ask for more information before returning to accounting to find the paperwork.

But if my boss asked me to go to pick up that same paperwork, personally, from one of our clients in Italy, then I would need a lot more information up front.  Why me?  Why can’t it be mailed or faxed?  Are we combining this trip with a regular business trip when we would normally visit this client?  When do I leave?  How long will I be gone?  How are my expenses being handled?  For big jobs, you need more information.  Similarly, the more that you are asked to do, the more informed you like to be and the less you know, the more you worry about the things that you don’t know.  This is true even in environments where trust is assumed and where people are accustomed to following orders.  It isn’t hard to imagine that when the 101st Airborne division was first surrounded at Bastogne during WW2, that soldiers wanted to know when they were going to get more food, and ammunition, and when they might, or if they might, expect to be reinforced or relieved.

It is exactly that sort of desperation, and that sort of questioning, that we see in our first scripture this morning from Exodus 17:1-7.

17:1 The whole Israelite community set out from the Desert of Sin, traveling from place to place as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. 2 So they quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.”

Moses replied, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the Lord to the test?”

3 But the people were thirsty for water there, and they grumbled against Moses. They said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?”

4 Then Moses cried out to the Lord, “What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me.”

5 The Lord answered Moses, “Go out in front of the people. Take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. 6 I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink.” So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7 And he called the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the Lord saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

 

We often criticize the people of Israel for a lack of faith, but I honestly believe that most of us, and most normal people, would behave almost exactly the same way.  Granted, they were escaping from slavery, but they were being led by a man that few of them knew other than from old stories and legends and they had left behind a place where water was abundant and they were wandering in a place that was, quite literally, a desert with no water at all.  And as they got thirsty, and as they worried about their children and their livestock, and they began to complain and to ask questions about when they might see water again.  In the end, the people were demanding proof that if God was indeed with them, then Moses, or God, or somebody, should prove it.

 

And God does.

 

Moses strikes the rock, in front of all the leaders of Israel and water came out of the rock and provided all of the people, and all of their livestock, enough to drink.

 

Now we know that this is not always how God operates.  In fact, most of the time God simply allows events to play out and chooses not to get actively involved.  But on those occasions when God chooses to get involved, things get interesting in a real hurry.

 

Our scripture passage from the gospels this morning is a long one.  It is probably among the longest passages that we find during the course of the year, but during the seasons of Lent and Advent, as we prepare ourselves for the celebrations of Easter and Christmas, the lectionary uses these longer passages to help us remember the great stories of scripture.  For a few weeks we stop sipping from scripture and pause to drink deeply.  And so, this morning we read from the gospel of John and we remember the time when Jesus met with a Samaritan woman (John 4:5-42).

 

5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph.6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

17 “I have no husband,” she replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband.  18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

27 Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”

28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did.  Could this be the Messiah?” 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him.

31 Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”

32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”

33 Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”

34 “My food,” said Jesus “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35 Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. 36 Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. 37 Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. 38 I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”

39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41 And because of his words many more became believers.

42 They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”

 

The Jews and the Samaritans disagreed on a great many things.  In fact, they hated each other so much that it was only the presence of the Roman army that kept them from violent attacks on one another.  But the Samaritans knew that one day the Messiah would come and explain everything, and they knew that when he came, that the Messiah would belong to them as well as to the Jews.

 

And Jesus simply says, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

 

And for them, the world literally changed in an instant.

 

The Samaritans were waiting for proof that the Messiah had come.  The woman at the well knew a lot about men and she demanded proof that Jesus was more than just another man.  The people in town didn’t take her at her word, they came to meet Jesus in person and get proof.

 

And Jesus gave them the proof that they wanted.

 

And, “many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony.”  They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”

 

We aren’t so very different.

 

The claims of the Bible and of Jesus are incredible and we often find ourselves thinking and acting just like the Israelites or the Samaritans.

 

We want proof.

 

And so, in Romans 5:1-11, Paul says this:

 

5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!11 Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

 

Paul says that the proof we want is to be found in the death and resurrection of Jesus.  Jesus didn’t wait for us to “get good” or even to “get better” before he was willing to give up his life and die in our place.  Jesus died for us while we were still sinners, while we were still the enemies of God, so that we would have the chance to be rescued.

 

We no longer have the opportunity to demand proof from Moses or from Jesus in person.  We have to rely upon eyewitness testimony, but many of us also have personal experiences that testify to the presence and the providence of God.  Just in the ten or twelve years that I have been a pastor, I have met several people who ought to be dead, people of whom the doctors said, “We can’t explain why you are alive.”  Many of you can tell the same kinds of stories.

 

Jesus is not dead.

 

He died, he was buried, he rose from the dead after three days, and he lives and reigns still today.  He knows our thoughts and he hears our prayers.  And, if we pay attention, he still offers proof through answered prayer and through our lives, and the lives around us.

 

Every day, God offers us proof… in our lives, in our friend’s lives, and in the world around us.

 

All we need to do is pay attention.

 

 

 

 

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* You have been reading a message presented at Trinity United Methodist Church on the date noted on the first page.  Rev. John Partridge is the pastor at Trinity of Perry Heights in Massillon, 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 may be sent to Trinity United Methodist Church, 3757 Lincoln Way E., Massillon, Ohio 44646.  These messages are available to anyone regardless of membership.  You may subscribe to these messages by writing to the address noted, or by contacting us at subscribe@trinityperryheights.org.  To subscribe to the electronic version sign up at http://eepurl.com/vAlYn.   These messages can also be found online at https://pastorpartridge.wordpress.com/. All Scripture references are from the New International Version unless otherwise noted.