rescue

Doors Flung Open

PastorPartridge Sermon , , , , , , ,

“Doors Flung Open”

April 24, 2016

By John Partridge*

 

Scripture: John 13:31-35                                Acts 11:1-18                           Revelation 21:1-6      

 

If I told you that I was going to attend a holiday celebration that included brass bands, John Phillip Sousa marches, parades, and fireworks, which holiday might you immediately think of?

I’m pretty sure that most of you guessed that was thinking about our nation’s July 4th Independence Day celebration.

If I talked about a day where we celebrated by gathering together, throwing a giant feast, and eating enormous quantities of turkey and ham, you would likely think of Thanksgiving.  And if I described a day when we exchanged gifts with our families and filled stockings by the fireplace, we would, of course, think of Christmas.

These days are days of remembrance like the Jewish feast of Passover and Pearl Harbor Day on December 7th. We remember the Alamo on February 23rd, VE Day on May 8th, and VJ Day on September 2nd, and September 11th. These are all days on which we remember specific events.  Some of these days we have deliberately set aside on our national calendars for that specific purpose.

To remember.

We set aside time every year to tell the same old stories and to pass them on to a new generation.  We do it every year so that we will not forget and so that our children and grandchildren will commit the stories to memory as well.

We want to remember, and we want future generations to remember, so that as families, as churches, as nations, and as we understand ourselves to belong to particular groups of people, we will never forget the stories that brought us to where we are and the stories that shaped us into becoming who we have become.

Although we do not have a particular date on the calendar to which we can point, our scriptures this morning describe a time that was, for us, just as momentous and just as transformational for us as a people as almost any of these other days.

We begin with the earliest of our scriptures.  It is a moment in which Jesus still lives but also one in which Jesus knows that his time is short.  In this moment, Jesus gives his disciples one of his final commands.  And, in this moment, Jesus intends to shape the character of his people for all time. (John 13:31-35)

31 When he [meaning Judas] was gone, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in him. 32 If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once.

33 “My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.

34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

The one thing by which Jesus wants his followers to be known… is the love that they have for one another.

The hallmark of the Christian experience is supposed to be love.  If unbelievers know even one thing about the followers of Jesus, it’s supposed to be how loving we are.

This really is huge and it has incredible implications for all of us.  Every decision that we make, both internally and externally, should be measured by asking ourselves, “Is this loving?”

Wow!

That’s just not how the world works.  And so this one thing, if we can do it, sets the followers of Jesus apart from the world, and that is exactly what Jesus intended.

Next, we read this story in Acts 11:1-18 (you might recall that I made reference to this story just last week).

11:1 The apostles and the believers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. 2 So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him 3 and said, “You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them.”

4 Starting from the beginning, Peter told them the whole story: 5 “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. I saw something like a large sheet being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to where I was. 6 I looked into it and saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, reptiles and birds. 7 Then I heard a voice telling me, ‘Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.’

8 “I replied, ‘Surely not, Lord! Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’

9 “The voice spoke from heaven a second time, ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.’ 10 This happened three times, and then it was all pulled up to heaven again.

11 “Right then three men who had been sent to me from Caesarea stopped at the house where I was staying. 12 The Spirit told me to have no hesitation about going with them. These six brothers also went with me, and we entered the man’s house. 13 He told us how he had seen an angel appear in his house and say, ‘Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter.14 He will bring you a message through which you and all your household will be saved.’

15 “As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them as he had come on us at the beginning. 16 Then I remembered what the Lord had said: ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’17 So if God gave them the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way?”

18 When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, “So then, even to Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to life.”

Peter had preached to people who were not Jews and he had shared meals with, and slept in the home of, Simon the tanner.  And then he had done the same thing in the home of Cornelius the centurion, a man who was not even remotely Jewish.  When Peter returned to Jerusalem, the other believers, most likely including several of the disciples, criticized Peter for stooping so low as to defile himself by associating with “those people.”  Everyone knew that God loved the Jews and hated the Gentiles.  What was the point of wasting time with them?  But Peter tells them his story.  Peter tells them how God had spoken to him and sent him there to tell the Gentiles about Jesus.  Peter tells the believers in Jerusalem that not only did he preach to the Gentiles, but that the Holy Spirit, in the presence of Peter and six other Jewish witnesses, had come upon the Gentiles and they began to praise God and speak in tongues just as the believers had on the day of Pentecost.  And suddenly everyone began to understand that a gigantic, cosmic shift had occurred.  Suddenly, they understood that the world had changed, that God was doing something new, and that God really did accept people from every nation if they would follow him and do what was right.

This was a day that changed the world.

And then, finally, in the Revelation of the Apostle, John heard Jesus say that he was making all things new. (Revelation 21:1-6)

21:1 Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!”  Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

6 He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life.

Far too often, people ignore the book of Revelation because they think that everything in it happens in the future and that makes it irrelevant to the people of the present age.  But listen carefully to the tense of the verbs in this passage.  John says “I saw” past tense, and a voice from the throne said, “God’s dwelling place is now among the people” – present tense, “He will wipe away every tear” – future tense, and finally, “I am making everything new” – which is a little harder, but, this is the Present-Continuous tense, which means that it is now happening, and it continues to happen in the future.

And so, yes, some of what we read in Revelation is prophecy for the future, but much of it is vitally important to us in the here and now.  What this short passage tells us is that the future will be vastly different than the present, but also that God is, at this very moment, in the process of transforming the entire world.  God no longer lives far away, but even now, makes his home among human beings in the hearts of his followers.  It is no accident that these ideas are presented at the same time.  The presence of God, in the hearts of the followers of Jesus Christ, is intended to be an engine of transformation.  God intends of us to be a part of his plan to dramatically change the world that we live in.

And so, even though you won’t find a day on the calendar for it, these moments are times that we try to regularly remember because these were moments in which the entire world was changed, and these are moments that help us to define who we are, where we come from, and where we are going.

We must always remember that the followers of Jesus Christ, if they are known by anything at all, are to be remembered by how much they love.  Every decision that we make, both within the church and outside of it, should be measured by asking ourselves, “Is this loving?”

We must always remember that there was a time when we were the outsiders.  We were once the people that everybody hated.  We were once the people who everyone was sure would never amount to anything in the eyes of God.  All the good church people were absolutely certain that God hated us and that we were eternally unredeemable.

But God invited us in.

God’s plan was to throw open the gates of the city, and to fling open the doors of his temple so that people from every race, every tribe, every nation, and every language would be welcome.

And more than that, we must always remember that changing the world isn’t something that God intends to do some time in the distant future.  God is changing the world, one life at a time, at this very moment.  God has come down to earth and taken up residence in the hearts of those who love him and God intends for us to be a part of his plan to change to world.

God intends, not only to transform us, but to work through us, so that we become engines of transformation, working together, loving together, to change the world…

…One life at a time.

 

 

 

___________
Did you benefit from reading this?
Click here if you would like to subscribe to these messages.

 _______________

 

* 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 athttps://pastorpartridge.wordpress.com/. All Scripture references are from the New International Version unless otherwise noted.

The Five – ‘R’s

PastorPartridge Sermon , , ,

“The 5 ‘R’s”
October 25, 2015
By John Partridge

Scripture: Job 42:1-6, 10-17               Hebrews 7:23-28                  Mark 10:46-52
I want you to go back in your memory and remember second grade. Can you picture it?

I will be willing to bet that education looks different now than when you were in school and the same has often been true for much of history. Education keeps changing as society, and the needs of society, change. When the pioneers were migrating west, they often lived far from other families and, out of necessity, simply educated their children at home as best they could. When enough families lived within a few miles of one another, close enough for the children to walk, or ride horseback, to a school, then the parents would do their best to pay a teacher for their children, even if some of them could only pay their way by contributing chickens, eggs, or other farm produce.

Much of the news today seems to keep coming back to the benefits or the problems in education due to a program called Common Core. Before that, everyone was up in arms about “new math.” But those of us who have been around for a while can all remember that before all the politics, education was all about the “Three ‘R’s.” The spelling is terrible, but of course the three ‘R’s are Readin’, ‘Rightin, and ‘Rithmetic.

Some things, however, do not change over time. This morning we are nearing the end of the story of Job, and there we find a model, a map of sorts, that describes the path from sin to forgiveness. That path, which we find in Job, can itself be described by four ‘R’s and then later, the writer of Hebrews will add one final ‘R’ to our list. And then there is a test. Jesus meets Bartimaeus, a blind man, and asks a hard question that all of us, regardless of education, must be prepared to answer.

We begin by returning to the story of Job. Of course, last week we heard God reprimand Job, verbally taking Job to the woodshed, for assuming that he had any right to make demands upon God. We rejoin the story this morning to hear Job’s humble reply (Job 42:1-6, 10-17):

Then Job replied to the Lord:

2 “I know that you can do all things;
no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
3 You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’
Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me to know.

4 “You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.’
5 My ears had heard of you
but now my eyes have seen you.
6 Therefore I despise myself
and repent in dust and ashes.”

10 After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before. 11 All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house. They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the Lord had brought on him, and each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring.

12 The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys. 13 And he also had seven sons and three daughters.
Job’s reply outlines the first four steps along the path from sin to forgiveness. First, Job says “I know that you can do all things.” Job recognizes (Recognition) that he has made a mistake. Second, Job says “ I… repent in dust and ashes” and so step two is Repentance.

Third, many of Job’s friends had stayed away from him because they believed that he had done wrong and that God was punishing him. But after Job repented, these friends realized the truth of Job’s innocence. I am calling that step “Redemption,” because it returned to Job the friendships that should have belonged to him all along.

Fourth, God poured out blessings on Job and returned to him twice as much as what had been taken from him. While God doesn’t always bless his followers with money or tangible things, or especially not to this degree, there is always a blessing that comes to us because of our repentance. This step, in which we are blessed by God, I will call “Restoration,” in which we are restored to God’s kingdom and favor.

But, all of this happens in the Old Testament and so, no matter how wonderful it is, and no matter how well it describes the path from sin to forgiveness, it remains incomplete. Because Jesus Christ came to complete the work that God began with the people of Israel, we cannot complete this transformation from sin to forgiveness without him. In Hebrews 7:23-28, we find the fifth ‘R’ and complete the path from sin to forgiveness.

23 Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; 24 but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. 25 Therefore he is able to save completely [the meaning of “completely” in the original Hebrew also means “forever”] those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.

26 Such a high priest truly meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. 27 Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. 28 For the law appoints as high priests men in all their weakness; but the oath, which came after the law, appointed the Son, who has been made perfect forever.

Because Jesus Christ is our high priest forever, he is able to save completely and forever. He is always there to intercede for us, to stand up for us, before God. Because Jesus is able to save us, I call this last ‘R’, Rescue. We committed high crimes and treason against God and all of our priests, and all of our pastors, were humans that were full of human weakness and imperfection. But Jesus was perfect and so he alone was able to sacrifice himself in our place so that we could find forgiveness and rescue.

But once we meet Jesus, what is it that we really want?

In Mark 10:46-52, a blind man named Bartimaeus cries out help, but before Jesus will help him, Jesus asks him an obvious, but very difficult question. Once again, this is a story we have read many times and in our familiarity, we often skip through it without realizing that there is a hard question for us as well.

46 Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (which means “son of Timaeus”), was sitting by the roadside begging. 47 When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

48 Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

49 Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.”

So they called to the blind man, “Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you.” 50 Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus.

51 “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked him.

The blind man said, “Rabbi, I want to see.”

52 “Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.

Bartimaeus calls out to Jesus by shouting, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” There are two reasons that Bartimaeus would have used this title. First of all, it is genealogically correct. Jesus is a descendant of David and so, technically, is a ‘son of David.” But we don’t often see people in scripture refer to one another by their family names. We don’t see the disciples described by which of the twelve tribes that they were born into except for a few rare occasions. So why here and why now? Because not only is “Son of David” genealogically correct, it is also a title that recognizes that Jesus is from the family of kings. In calling out to Jesus as the “Son of David,” Bartimaeus calls out, not only to the man who is walking past, but also to the king that he will become.

Jesus hears, stops, and calls the man to him, but when he comes, Jesus asks a hard question.

“What do you want me to do for you?”

This is the question that, at first, seems so incredibly obvious that we just skip right over it. But this is the pivotal question in the entire story.

What do you want me to do?

Bartimaeus has already asked for Jesus’ help. He has already expressed some belief that Jesus would be the king of Israel or at least some other position of power and authority. But what is it that he really wants? It could be that, being accustomed to begging, what he wants is some kind of financial gift. Or maybe food. Or maybe some other gift that he might ask from any other human being that walked past. But Jesus wants to know, is Bartimaeus asking for something that men can give, or something that only God can give.

Jesus wants to know if Bartimaeus believes in who he really is.

And Bartimaeus asks Jesus, not for money and not for anything that humans could give him, but for the one thing that he truly needs, and the one thing that only God could give him.

“Rabbi, I want to see.”
And so, we arrive at the hard question that Jesus asks from each of us.

“Why are you here? What is it that you want?”

Jesus wants to know what you want from him. Jesus wants to know who you think he is. Do you want something that the world wants? Do you want something that you could get through hard work, or from other human beings? Are you just asking so that you can take a short-cut?

Or are you asking for something that only God can give?

When we come to Jesus, the path from sin to forgiveness may include redemption and restoration, but those things may, or may not, include financial blessings. God may choose to bless us with money and material things so that we can pass them along and be a blessing to others.

But he may not.

Jesus wants to know if you are asking for the one thing that only Jesus could pay for, and only God can give you.

Rescue.

Job was blessed, but only after he repented and surrendered to God.

Bartimaeus was healed of his blindness, and more than likely was able to get a job, provide for his family, and live a better life. But only after he recognized that Jesus could give him the one thing that only God could give.

Whatever God has in store for us, however much, or however little, will only come to us when we recognize who he really is, and ask him for the one thing that only God can give us.

Forgiveness.

Jesus is asking us, “What is it that you really want?”