Faithful, Trustworthy, and Wide Awake

November 19, 2023 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, awake, Broadway, chariots, Christ, church, dollars, faith, faithful, God, gold, Jesus, lazy, Methodist, milliion, Ohio, Partridge, sleepwalk, Street, thankful, thankfulness, thanks, thief, trust, trustworthy, United

Faithful, Trustworthy, and Wide Awake

November 19, 2023*

By Pastor John Partridge

Judges 4:1-7 Matthew 25:14-30 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

This week our nation sets aside a day to celebrate Thanksgiving. We will gather with family, probably eat too much, likely gain a little weight, and hopefully pause for a few moments to consider those things for which we have to be grateful, to whom we should be grateful for those things, and give thanks for what we have been given. This morning’s message is not specifically a Thanksgiving message. Instead, this morning’s message looks at three stories of faith and thanksgiving, but each is different from the other. None of them specifically mention thanksgiving, or giving thanks, or gratitude, but the idea is found there all the same.

We begin with the story of Deborah the prophet, the undisputed leader of Israel during this part of the period of the Judges. During that period, Israel would wander from God, and then, in times of trouble and distress, cry out for God’s help, follow one of God’s leaders, grow close to God again, and then repeat the cycle… over and over again. And so, in Judges 4:1-7, we read this:

^4:1 Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, now that Ehud was dead. ²So the Lord sold them into the hands of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. Sisera, the commander of his army, was based in Harosheth Haggoyim. ³Because he had nine hundred chariots fitted with iron and had cruelly oppressed the Israelites for twenty years, they cried to the Lord for help.

⁴Now Deborah, a prophet, the wife of Lappidoth, was leading Israel at that time. ⁵She held court under the Palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites went up to her to have their disputes decided. ⁶She sent for Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali and said to him, “The Lord, the God of Israel, commands you: ‘Go, take with you ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun and lead them up to Mount Tabor. ⁷I will lead Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his troops to the Kishon River and give him into your hands.’”

Ehud had rescued Israel from their domination by the king of Moab, but now that Ehud had died, Israel had again fallen away from God. This time, it was the Canaanites who began to oppress Israel, with Sisera as the commander of their army. The wealth of Canaan was displayed in their ownership of nine hundred chariots and their widespread use of iron during a time, during the Bronze Age, when bronze was the common metal used in weapons and tools. Steel had not yet been invented and iron was relatively rare and expensive. Canaan’s possession of nine hundred chariots fitted with iron was a display of wealth, power, and superior technology.

Horses were, and are, expensive to maintain, and Israel had very few, and no chariots at all. They wouldn’t have any until hundreds of years later in the time of King Solomon. But Deborah was smart, and this passage is evidence that she knew a thing or two about military tactics. Chariots are great weapons on the plains but not so good on rough terrain or mountains where they can’t maneuver. And so, her plan was to send an Israelite army of ten thousand to the top of Mount Tabor, and then draw Sisera and his chariots to the river at the bottom of that same mountain. In so doing, she created a battle in which the chariots have a difficult time maneuvering, can’t easily retreat across the river, and are forced to fight a superior force that is fighting from the high ground.

But the point that I want to make is that when much of Israel fell away from God, Deborah remained faithful. Deborah’s way of giving thanks to God is found in her faithfulness. She remembered what God had done, and she remained faithful to God, even when many others did not. And it was her thankfulness, and her faithfulness, that saved her entire nation.

We find an entirely different story of thanksgiving in Jesus’ parable of the ungrateful and unfaithful servant in Matthew 25:14-30. Once again, Jesus is telling a story of what things will be like on the day of judgement and says this:

¹⁴“Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. ¹⁵To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. ¹⁶The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more. ¹⁷So also, the one with two bags of gold gained two more. ¹⁸But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.

¹⁹“After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. ²⁰The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more.’

²¹“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

²²“The man with two bags of gold also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with two bags of gold; see, I have gained two more.’

²³“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

²⁴“Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. ²⁵So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’

²⁶“His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? ²⁷Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.

²⁸“‘So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags. ²⁹For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. ³⁰And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

We could say all kinds of things about our relationships with employers and employees and most of these that would likely be wrong… if we didn’t first remember that Jesus began this series of illustrations by saying “the kingdom of heaven will be like…” And so, as we read this parable, we must remember that the man who went on a journey is God, or perhaps Jesus, and the servants to whom he entrusted his wealth, are us. Next, it is important to note that the wealth entrusted to these servants is not a small amount. The New International translation obscures this by measuring the gold by the “bagful”, which I dislike, but other translations are only a little more helpful by using the original measure of “talents.”

This is one of those cases when reading the footnotes is helpful. A “Talent” is a measure of weight, and one talent is approximately 75 pounds. When we measure gold, we measure by the Troy ounce and there are 12 Troy ounces per pound. I checked at the beginning of this week and the current spot price of gold is $1,941.96 per ounce. That means that, in today’s dollars, each talent, or “bag” of gold would be worth $1,747,764, three talents are $5.2 million, and five talents are $8.7 million. I think it’s worth doing the math so that we understand that this is not chump change. These are sizable investments and even the servant who is given one talent has been entrusted with a lot of cash. Clearly, all three of these servants were highly trusted and believed to be capable of handling these substantial investments.

You may not be able to do much with a few tens of thousands of dollars, but there are a lot of investment options $1.7 million. You can buy land, buy businesses, hire caravans, start your own business, invest in other people’s businesses, or, as the man said upon his return, the very least that you could do is put it on deposit with the bank and collect interest.

But he didn’t. The unfaithful servant did nothing. He did zero work. He did no planning. There is no evidence that he asked for help. He only thought of himself. And, chances are, even though he didn’t spend the gold, he continued to draw his salary or otherwise live off the wealth of his master. And these are the reasons that the servant was, and is, considered to be untrustworthy and unfaithful.

It is also important to note that when Jesus says, “Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them” he is not talking about the poor. He is talking about those that have buried what they have been given. Faithful servants demonstrate their faith, and their thankfulness, by being trustworthy.

We find our last example of thanksgiving in 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 as Paul writes to the church in Thessalonica, where he says:

^5:1 Now, brothers and sisters, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, ²for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. ³While people are saying, “Peace and safety,” destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.

⁴But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief. ⁵You are all children of the light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. ⁶So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be awake and sober. ⁷For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night. ⁸But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet. ⁹For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. ¹⁰He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him. ¹¹Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.

In this short passage, Paul has three pieces of advice for the church. First, always live and act as if everyone can see you. Second, don’t sleepwalk through life. And third, always encourage one another and build each other up.

And so, what did we hear about thankfulness today?

First, Like Deborah, demonstrate your thankfulness to God by being faithful even when your culture and all the people around you are losing their faith.

Second, like the two faithful servants, demonstrate your thankfulness for what God has given you by being trustworthy and using whatever it is that God has given you, whether that is talent, money, skill, education, perseverance, compassion, love, health, or anything else. Do not bury the gifts that God has given you, but always use God’s gifts to expand his kingdom.

And third, demonstrate your thankfulness by being awake. Never sleepwalk through life. Every minute of every day, act as if the world is watching. And remember that life is hard. You aren’t the only person with problems so always encourage the people around you, encourage the people in your church and in your family of faith. Instead of being critical, do whatever you can, whenever you can, to build each other up.

I hope that you will think about these things as we gather with family and friends and sit around our Thanksgiving tables this week.

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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.™

A Fool’s Errand

November 12, 2023November 12, 2023 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, bride, bridegroom, Broadway, Christ, church, errand, faith, fool, fool's errand, foolish, God, groom, Jesus, Jordan, Jordan River, Joshua, Matthew, Methodist, Ohio, Partridge, Paul, promise, promised land, resurrection, river, Street, United, virgins, wedding, wise

A Fool’s Errand

November 12, 2023*

By Pastor John Partridge

Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25 Matthew 25:1-13 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

A great many years ago and likely still today, scouts attending their first year at scout camp, like me, would be sent to another troop and instructed to ask to borrow their left-handed smoke exchanger. There were snipe hunts, of course, but even then, most scouts were wise enough not to fall for that one. In high school upperclassmen would try to sell elevator passes to the freshmen, and in the Army, soldiers might be sent to the motor pool for some blinker fluid or other imaginary or non-existent gadgets or parts. These sorts of adventures as well as other more serious, but equally impossible, tasks, can be referred to as being sent on a fool’s errand.

The dictionary definition is simply: a needless or profitless endeavor.

As silly as it might sound, being sent on a fool’s errand, or sending ourselves on one, can be deadly serious. In Shakespear’s Hamlet, Act 5, Scene 2, Prince Hamlet discovers that two of his friends, Rosencranz and Guildenstern, are a part of a plot to assassinate him, and so he secretly makes a change to the letters that they are carrying so that they will be executed when they arrive in England. They are on a fool’s errand. They now carry a sealed message that, when opened, will result in their deaths. And these are the sorts of serious fool’s errands that we find in today’s scriptures. There are two, and each is different, but in each we discover the necessity of making good choices so that we can avoid the most devastating foolishness. We begin by returning to the story of Joshua and the people of Israel as they have entered the Promised Land and now face a fork in the road at which they must choose the direction that their lives will take. In Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25 we hear this:

^24:1 Then Joshua assembled all the tribes of Israel at Shechem. He summoned the elders, leaders, judges, and officials of Israel, and they presented themselves before God.

²Joshua said to all the people, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Long ago your ancestors, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates River and worshiped other gods. ³But I took your father Abraham from the land beyond the Euphrates and led him throughout Canaan and gave him many descendants.

¹⁴“Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. ¹⁵But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

¹⁶Then the people answered, “Far be it from us to forsake the Lord to serve other gods! ¹⁷It was the Lord our God himself who brought us and our parents up out of Egypt, from that land of slavery, and performed those great signs before our eyes. He protected us on our entire journey and among all the nations through which we traveled. ¹⁸And the Lord drove out before us all the nations, including the Amorites, who lived in the land. We too will serve the Lord, because he is our God.”

¹⁹Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the Lord. He is a holy God; he is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins. ²⁰If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you, after he has been good to you.”

²¹But the people said to Joshua, “No! We will serve the Lord.”

²²Then Joshua said, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen to serve the Lord.”

“Yes, we are witnesses,” they replied.

²³“Now then,” said Joshua, “throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.”

²⁴And the people said to Joshua, “We will serve the Lord our God and obey him.”

²⁵On that day Joshua made a covenant for the people, and there at Shechem he reaffirmed for them decrees and laws.

In the last forty years, Israel has escaped captivity in Egypt, been rescued by God from Egypt’s army, survived forty years fed by God’s hand in the wilderness, and now crossed the raging waters of a flooded Jordan River on dry ground. But now that they have arrived, they are faced with a choice. They can choose to either throw away all the gods that their parents brought with them from Egypt and serve God alone, or they can abandon God, take up the worship of the Amorite gods, blend in, merge, and disappear into the culture and the people that are already there. The second would be the easy choice. They would, effectively do as many people did, say that one god is as good as any other, and worship the god of the nations that were already in that place.

But the people of Israel, despite knowing that the first option is the harder of the two, choose to follow the God of Abraham, Issac, Jacob, and their forefathers. They choose to follow Yahweh because they have seen, with their own eyes, that the god of their ancestors is the real deal. Some of them were there when they crossed the Red Sea on dry ground, all of them had eaten the manna that God had provided in the wilderness, they had witnessed God’s protection from their enemies, and everyone there had watched the waters of the Jordan River pile up in a heap so that they could cross the river on dry ground. They knew that the God of Abraham and Moses was the real deal, and they knew that worshipping any other god was a fool’s errand. And so, they reaffirmed their commitment to follow God and to obey his decrees and laws.

And then, in the story of the ten virgins contained in Matthew 25:1-13, Jesus warns his followers that there is another way that we risk running a fool’s errand when he says…

^25:1 “At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. ²Five of them were foolish and five were wise. ³The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. ⁴The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. ⁵The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.

⁶“At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’

⁷“Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. ⁸The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’

⁹“‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’

¹⁰“But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.

¹¹“Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’

¹²“But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’

¹³“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.

The tradition of the Jewish people was for the bride and groom to be betrothed, and then the young man would return to his family and begin the construction of a home for his new bride, often as an addition to his parent’s home. And, only after construction was completed would the groom return for his bride and carry her away to the wedding and the wedding banquet. Obviously, the construction of a home does not have an entirely predictable timeline. The groom is likely working for his father or at some other trade each day, and then working on his new home in the evening or as time permits. The size of the addition might vary, as would the availability of building materials, how much help he might get from his father, siblings, or extended family, as well as the cost of any materials and his ability to afford them. All that to say that no one really knew when the groom would return.

Certainly, rumors would swirl, and the bride would hear that the groom’s family had begun preparations for the wedding guests, but the specific day and time of the groom’s arrival was unknown. And so, ten virgins, bridesmaids, or other young women who hoped to accompany the bride to the wedding took lamps with them while they waited. But only five of the ten were truly prepared. They considered that they might be waiting for a while, and they brought along extra oil for their lamps so that they could keep watch all night long. And so, while half of them dashed off in search of more oil, the groom and his friends arrived, gathered up those who had been prepared, and departed for the wedding. Those who were unprepared got left behind. Their journey to retrieve more oil had become a fool’s errand.

Jesus says that this will be how things are on the day that he returns. The groom, Jesus, has gone to prepare a place for his bride, the church, and he has been gone a long time. There may well be rumors that forewarn the world of his return, but we must not be caught unprepared. We cannot say that “I will put my trust in him… later.” And we cannot say that we will do the work of God’s kingdom… later.” Because, on the day of his return, there will be no second chances. We must be prepared, and we must be caught doing his work on the day of his return. Failing to do so… is a fool’s errand.

It’s important that we get this right. Failure to get it right means working hard but only pursuing a fool’s errand. But getting it right has an entirely different outcome. In 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 Paul says…

¹³Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. ¹⁴For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. ¹⁵According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. ¹⁶For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so, we will be with the Lord forever. ¹⁸Therefore encourage one another with these words.

Lately, many of us have felt that we have been attending far too many funerals. But although we experience grief because of the loss that we feel, when we say goodbye to our friends and family that know Jesus, we know that our goodbyes are temporary. Paul reminds us that the dead are not lost to us forever but only lie in the sleep of death until the day of Christ’s return, and on that day, the groundskeepers at our cemeteries will have a front row seat to the most amazing sight in all of history. The dead will rise, and then they, and all who remain alive in Christ, will follow them to join with Jesus and live with him forever.

This is our great hope.

Like the Israelites did as they entered the Promised Land, we remember the might acts of God that we have seen. We may not have witnessed the parting of the Red Sea, the daily sustenance provided by God’s manna, or the piling up of the waters of the Jordan River, but we have seen God provide in other ways. Each of us here can tell of times when God provided money to pay bills, or a shoulder to cry on, or a kind word, at just the right time, that changed our lives, or miraculous healings, or a frustrating delay that later prevented us from being in an automobile accident,. We each have our own stories, but like the Israelites, we know that following God, and following Jesus Christ, is the only path forward. Any other path…

…is a fool’s errand.

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Faith in the Flood

November 5, 2023 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, ark, boy scout, Broadway, Christ, church, covenant, crossing, death, demonstrate, example, faith, flood, God, Jesus, Jordan, Jordan River, Joshua, Matthew, Methodist, mission, national guard, Ohio, Partridge, Paul, promise, promised land, river, Street, United, work

Faith in the Flood

November 05, 2023*

By Pastor John Partridge

Joshua 3:7-17 Matthew 23:1-12 1 Thessalonians 2:9-13

There is an old joke about a flood and a faithful saint of the church. The weather forecast was for torrential rains and flooding and people were advised to evacuate. But when two sheriff’s deputies came to the door of this faithful saint asking them to leave, they simply replied that “God will provide.” And so, the rains came, and the flood waters rose. Soon the first floor of their house was under water, and they moved all their valuables up to the second floor. About that time, a Boy Scout came by in a canoe and offered to carry them to safety, but they refused and simply said, “God will provide.” It continued to rain and to flood waters continued to rise, and soon, this faithful saint of the church was sitting on their roof. And, as they were sitting on their roof, the National Guard arrived in a helicopter and offered to lift them out of their distress, but they again declined saying, “God will provide.” Not long after that, the flood waters carried that saint away and, when they were welcomed at the pearly gates of heaven they cried out, “God, why didn’t you save me?” And God replied, “Well, I sent two sheriff’s deputies, a Boy Scout, and the National Guard. What more did you want?”

I have always liked that joke because it’s funny and because it points us toward one of the church’s common failures. Well-known Croatian theologian Miroslav Volf said, “There is something deeply hypocritical about praying for a problem you are unwilling to resolve.” The question isn’t whether our lives will have storms and floods, the question is what we will do when we face them. That is what we see in Joshua 3:7-17, because as the people of Israel prepare to cross the Jordan River into the Promised Land, Joshua commands the priests to take a step of faith… right into the middle of the flood.

⁷And the Lord said to Joshua, “Today I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of all Israel, so they may know that I am with you as I was with Moses. ⁸Tell the priests who carry the ark of the covenant: ‘When you reach the edge of the Jordan’s waters, go and stand in the river.’”

⁹Joshua said to the Israelites, “Come here and listen to the words of the Lord your God. ¹⁰This is how you will know that the living God is among you and that he will certainly drive out before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites and Jebusites. ¹¹See, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth will go into the Jordan ahead of you. ¹²Now then, choose twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one from each tribe. ¹³And as soon as the priests who carry the ark of the Lord—the Lord of all the earth—set foot in the Jordan, its waters flowing downstream will be cut off and stand up in a heap.”

¹⁴So when the people broke camp to cross the Jordan, the priests carrying the ark of the covenant went ahead of them. ¹⁵Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest. Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water’s edge, ¹⁶the water from upstream stopped flowing. It piled up in a heap a great distance away, at a town called Adam in the vicinity of Zarethan, while the water flowing down to the Sea of the Arabah (that is, the Dead Sea) was completely cut off. So, the people crossed over opposite Jericho. ¹⁷The priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord stopped in the middle of the Jordan and stood on dry ground, while all Israel passed by until the whole nation had completed the crossing on dry ground.

The Jordan River is at flood stage and is a raging torrent. So violently does it flow that Jericho isn’t even watching this border as closely as they might because Baal is the god of rivers and storms, and this was the season that they could see his power and knew that he was protecting them. After the adventure with the spies, Israel almost certainly knew that as well. Further, as one of the two spies who had lived through the 40 years in the wilderness, Joshua was personally aware of this. Nonetheless, God commands Joshua to tell the priests who carry the arc of the covenant, to “go and stand in the river.” Just go and stand in the middle of the raging torrent of the harvest flood. Worse, the banks of the Jordan are often not gentle slopes but rapid drop-offs that would be invisible in the muddy floodwaters. I’m sure that those priests had some concerns, but they also had faith in God and faith in Joshua. With the weight of the ark on their shoulders, and almost no chance of catching themselves if they stumbled, the priests do as they were asked and boldly step into the rushing water.

And the water stopped.

As soon as their feet touched the water, the water stopped flowing and piled up in a heap upstream of them and, as the priests stood in the middle of the riverbed, the entire nation of Israel crossed the river on dry ground. The people of God, and especially those priests weighted down with the ark of covenant on their shoulders, didn’t just pray for God’s deliverance and their entry into the Promised Land, they acted on their faith, and they stepped out into the flood.

But the priests and the leaders of the church aren’t always that faithful and aren’t always the best example for people to follow. That was the case in Matthew 23:1-12 when Jesus tells the people to live their lives differently than Israel’s leaders.

^23:1 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: ²“The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. ³So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. ⁴They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.

⁵“Everything they do is done for people to see: They make their phylacterieswide and the tassels on their garments long; ⁶they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; ⁷they love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to be called ‘Rabbi’ by others.

⁸“But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers. ⁹And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. ¹⁰Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah. ¹¹The greatest among you will be your servant. ¹²For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

Jesus says that although the teachers of the law and the Pharisees hold important leadership positions, and although the people must be careful to follow their instructions and do as the leaders teach, they should not live by the example that those leaders provide. Those leaders lived a life that was all about the show. They wore flashy religious vestments and large phylacteries, which were prayers or scriptures that were etched in silver, copper, or even on baked clay tablets. While rabbis routinely wore tassels on their robes, these leaders had to had bigger, and longer tassels then everyone else. And, whenever there was a banquet, or when they went to church, they had to have the most visible, and most important seats in the house so that everyone could see how important they were. But while they put on a good show, they didn’t live lives that demonstrated the things that they taught. Jesus said that the people who would be the greatest among them, would first be a servant to others. Following Jesus, honoring God, and living a life of faith wasn’t about looking good, it was all about having the humility to live a life that acted on faith and did the work of the kingdom of God.

That’s exactly the message that we hear Paul telling the people of the church in Thessalonica in his letter that we read in 1 Thessalonians 2:9-13 when he says…

⁹Surely you remember, brothers and sisters, our toil and hardship; we worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you. ¹⁰You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous, and blameless we were among you who believed. ¹¹For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, ¹²encouraging, comforting, and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory.

¹³And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe.

Paul asks the people of the church to remember the example that he and his fellow missionaries provided for them as they lived among them. They worked, and they worked hard, day and night, so that they would not be a burden to the church, but they also lived lives that were holy, righteous, and blameless. They did not rule over them as some leaders do, but encouraged and comforted them, and treated them as if they were their own children so that they could urge them to live lives that were worthy of the God who called them into his kingdom. Paul says that he and his associates continually thank God because the people of the church not only received the word of God but allowed God to work through them. They didn’t just accept Jesus and have faith in Jesus, they lived out their faith through their actions.

The people of Israel had faith in God and believed that he would lead them into the Promised Land, but the evidence of that faith was visibly seen when the priests carrying the ark of the covenant boldly stepped forward into the raging flood waters of the Jordan River.

While Jesus acknowledged that the people should be obedient to their leaders, he also told them that in order to honor God, they had to do better. Rather putting on a good show, a true life of faith is a life that serves others and demonstrates God’s love through the actions of the believer.

And Paul says much the same thing. The proof of the message that they taught was found in the way that they lived, and the proof that the church had believed was seen, not in the words that they spoke or in the worship of their people, but in the work that they did among those who did not believe.

We may laugh at the imaginary saint of the church that prayed to God but ignored two sheriff’s deputies, a Boy Scout, and the National Guard, but the truth is that faith demands that we do more than pray.

Real faith is found in the actions of the church.

Real faith is when we roll up our sleeves and get to work.

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Finding Nebo

October 29, 2023October 29, 2023 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, Broadway, Christ, church, crossing, death, Finding Nebo, Finding Nemo, God, Gospel, Jesus, lead, Matthew, Methodist, mission, Moses, Nebo, Nemo, Ohio, Partridge, Paul, promise, promised land, Street, United

Finding Nebo

October 29, 2023*

By Pastor John Partridge

Deuteronomy 34:1-12 Matthew 22:34-46

1 Thessalonians 2:1-8

Many of us are, by now, familiar with the 2003 Pixar animated movie “Finding Nemo” in which Marlin, an overprotective, single, clown fish father, pursues his son, Nemo, across the dangers of the vast Pacific Ocean in hopes of rescuing him from the scuba divers that captured him. It’s a good story. But despite the similarity of the name in the title, Nemo is not what we are looking for. Our story for today begins with an ending. At the end of Moses’ life, knowing that he will never set foot in the Promised Land that he has pursued for most of his adult life, he finds himself, not in the Pacific Ocean with a small clownfish named Nemo, but at the top of a mountain named Nebo. And, in an odd sort of way, we discover that, as the followers of Jesus Christ, we too are spending ourselves in pursuit of finding Nebo. As I said before, we begin this morning with an ending in Deuteronomy 34:1-12 where it says:

^34:1 Then Moses climbed Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab to the top of Pisgah, across from Jericho. There the Lord showed him the whole land—from Gilead to Dan, ²all of Naphtali, the territory of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Mediterranean Sea, ³the Negev and the whole region from the Valley of Jericho, the City of Palms, as far as Zoar. ⁴Then the Lord said to him, “This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.”

⁵And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in Moab, as the Lord had said. ⁶He buried himin Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is. ⁷Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died, yet his eyes were not weak, nor his strength gone. ⁸The Israelites grieved for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days, until the time of weeping and mourning was over.

⁹Now Joshua, son of Nun, was filled with the spiritof wisdom because Moses had laid his hands on him. So, the Israelites listened to him and did what the Lord had commanded Moses.

¹⁰Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, ¹¹who did all those signs and wonders the Lord sent him to do in Egypt—to Pharaoh and to all his officials and to his whole land. ¹²For no one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.

When you make the journey to visit Israel, once the present violence ends and peace returns, you will find that Israel is surprisingly small. For us in the United States we can compare it in our minds knowing that Israel is smaller than Massachusetts and slightly smaller than New Jersey. If you could make a non-stop road trip along its main highway, you could travel its entire length in less than six hours. And so, while there is, perhaps, some exaggeration in the account that we read in Deuteronomy, probably not much. From the top of Mount Nebo, with good visibility, Moses would have seen a great deal of the Promised Land that Israel was about to inherit. But Moses wasn’t going. He had come this far, but his time on earth was finished and, although God allowed him to see the land of Israel, he would never cross the Jordan River and set his feet upon it. Instead, Moses would be buried somewhere in Moab on the slopes of Mount Nebo and make a different crossing into his heavenly inheritance with God. Moses never crossed over into the Promised Land, but Moses’ legacy was that he listened to the call of God, obeyed the instructions of God, and led his family, his tribe, his community, and his people into God’s promise.

But God’s promise to his people was about more than land. As Israel had struggled during their captivity in Egypt, they cried out to God for a rescuer that would carry them out of Egypt to freedom. And God heard the prayers of his people, and sent Moses to lead them out of Egypt, across the desert, through the years of wandering in the wilderness, and right the edge of the Promised Land. But throughout many years of suffering, in the land of Israel, under the yoke of other oppressive nations such as Babylon, Greece, Egypt, and Rome, the people of Israel again prayed to God and looked for a rescuer, a messiah, that would, once again, bring them freedom and prosperity. The seeds of that hope for a messiah were contained in the writings of the prophets, but it was not always understood how it would happen, or who the messiah would be. And that’s how Jesus can ask a question that stumped the biblical scholars of his day when they come to him to present a question with which they hope to test him in Matthew 22:34-46 where we read this:

³⁴Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. ³⁵One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: ³⁶“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

³⁷Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’³⁸This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’⁴⁰All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

⁴¹While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, ⁴²“What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?”

“The son of David,” they replied.

⁴³He said to them, “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’? For he says,

⁴⁴“‘The Lord said to my Lord:
“Sit at my right hand
until I put your enemies
under your feet.”’

⁴⁵If then David calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be his son?” ⁴⁶No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions.

The puzzle that Jesus puts to the Pharisees is the kind of a problem that often causes us to get stuck in the twenty-first century. While Jesus’ question seems simple to us it was a serious problem to these biblical scholars because it required that they get past their own cultural biases to answer it. In a culturally patriarchal system of honor, it was understood that fathers were always greater in prestige and honor than their sons. If a grandfather or great-grandfather could have, somehow, come back from the dead, that elderly person would automatically become the head of an entire clan of his descendants and all his sons, grandsons, and everyone else would be expected to defer to them and honor them. But although the scholars know that the Messiah would be a living descendant of David, referred to as “the son of David,” their cultural bias prevents them from understanding how, in Psalm 110, David refers to his descendant as his Lord, and thereby gives his descendant honor and defers to him as someone greater than the greatest king that Israel ever had. The Pharisees could simply not understand how a son of David could be greater than David and so, they misunderstood what, and who, the messiah would be. For us, although we have our own cultural blind spots, we understand that Jesus was, and is, God’s promised Messiah, he is the son of David, and he is David’s lord because he is the son of God.

But, twenty-one centuries later, what does that mean for us? If we follow God as Moses did, and we accept Jesus as our lord, and follow him, then what why does all that matter? It matters because, like Moses, we are trying to find our mountain top, our Nebo, but like the Pharisees, we can’t quite figure out what that means. But Paul did, and he explains it to the church in Thessalonica in 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8, saying…

^2:1 You know, brothers and sisters, that our visit to you was not without results. ²We had previously suffered and been treated outrageously in Philippi, as you know, but with the help of our God we dared to tell you his gospel in the face of strong opposition. ³For the appeal we make does not spring from error or impure motives, nor are we trying to trick you. ⁴On the contrary, we speak as those approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please people but God, who tests our hearts. ⁵You know we never used flattery, nor did we put on a mask to cover up greed—God is our witness. ⁶We were not looking for praise from people, not from you or anyone else, even though as apostles of Christ we could have asserted our authority. ⁷Instead, we were like young children among you.

Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, ⁸so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well.

Paul’s message is that life wasn’t perfect. Everyone knew that sometimes the lives of Paul and his associates had faced some significant suffering. They had been arrested, beaten, and thrown into prison on many occasions. But despite their suffering, with the help of God, they dared to continue telling others the story of the gospel regardless of the opposition that they faced. Their motivation wasn’t to trick anyone, to get rich, or for any other impure motive, but simply to share the message with which they had been entrusted by God. Their goal was to share the gospel, and their lives, with the people to whom God had led them.

Moses, Paul, Silas, Timothy, and many others were seeking to find their Nebo, to lead their family, their tribe, their community, and their people into God’s promise, which they now understood as the promise of Jesus Christ. And that’s the mission that has been passed down to us. Because we are the people who, like Paul, have been entrusted with the gospel, the people who have met Jesus, and who have believed in him and have put our trust in him, we too are seeking our Nebo. As we have been reminded on this All-Saints Day, our time on earth is short and won’t last forever and one day we too will cross over into God’s promise as Moses did, and as these saints of the church have done.

Our mission, our hope, and our calling is to lead our people to God’s promise through the message and the gospel of Jesus Christ…

…before it’s our turn to cross over.

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The Tax Trap

October 22, 2023 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, Broadway, caesar, Christ, church, corrupt, God, government, Jesus, judgement, Matthew, Methodist, Ohio, Partridge, Paul, sin, Street, tax, United, vote

The Tax Trap

October 22, 2023*

By Pastor John Partridge

Exodus 33:12-23 Matthew 22:15-22 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

Leadership is intimidating.

That is to say, leadership can be intimidating if you have the humility to pause and think about the impact of what you are doing.

The first time that I recall having any real leadership was in the early 1990’s when I had returned to my Army Reserve unit from my advanced training in my MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) and was expected to lead one of the monthly classes that were held to keep everyone fresh on our required skills. Since I had so recently returned from training, I was therefore the most qualified to teach one or two of the classes. I was still a Private First Class, and I had sergeants, staff sergeants, and just about everyone else in “my” classroom for fifteen minutes. As I continued to do this over the years, my rank, and my skills, advanced and I became more comfortable doing it.

But then on July 4^th, 2004, I stood in front of the gathered people of the Johnsville United Methodist Church for the first time as their pastor. This was, once again, entirely new and, at that time, despite being over 40 years old, I had very little training as a pastor. But, once again, with time, experience, and more training, leading God’s people became a little easier.

But regardless of whether it was in the early 1990’s or in 2004, I always knew that I wasn’t alone. There were senior noncommissioned officers who could help me if I stumbled while I was teaching classes in my reserve unit, and in every church that I have served, there have always been patient, competent, congregations, volunteers, and staff to help me do what I do. Leadership is always intimidating, but the idea of leading… alone… would be terrifying.

But that is exactly what is foremost in Moses’ mind as he has a conversation with God in Exodus 33:12-23.

¹²Moses said to the Lord, “You have been telling me, ‘Lead these people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, ‘I know you by name and you have found favor with me.’ ¹³If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people.”

¹⁴The Lord replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”

¹⁵Then Moses said to him, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. ¹⁶How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”

¹⁷And the Lord said to Moses, “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you, and I know you by name.”

¹⁸Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory.”

¹⁹And the Lord said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. ²⁰But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”

²¹Then the Lord said, “There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. ²²When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. ²³Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.”

The first thing out of Moses’ mouth is, “I can’t do this alone.” Those aren’t his exact words, but that is clearly the idea when he says, “whom will you send with me?” And God’s response is, I will go with you, and I will give you rest. God promises that his presence will be so tangibly real, that Moses will never feel as if he is alone and he will be comforted, and be able to sleep at night, because he knows that he is not alone.

Why does that matter?

Well, if you are in any kind of leadership position, you can find comfort in that. But there are other reasons that we’ll get to in a few minutes.

Next, we come to yet another story of the Pharisees trying to trick Jesus into saying something stupid that would either be a criminal offense or would be offensive and reduce his popularity with the people. There’s some back story to this that helps us make sense of that, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, let’s look at this story from Matthew 22:15-22:

¹⁵Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. ¹⁶They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by others because you pay no attention to who they are. ¹⁷Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial taxto Caesar or not?”

¹⁸But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? ¹⁹Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, ²⁰and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?”

²¹“Caesar’s,” they replied.

Then he said to them, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

²²When they heard this, they were amazed. So, they left him and went away.

This was the tax trap. First, you will note that the Pharisees don’t come to see Jesus in person. Instead, they send their lackeys that are less well-known so that Jesus might not recognize this as a trap, and second, they send along with them the Herodians. Which may cause us to ask, who the heck were the Herodians? And that’s a good question that the bible doesn’t answer very well, but which history does. We know that the ruler of Israel at the time of Jesus’ birth had been Herod the Great, and the current ruler was one of his sons, Herod Antipas. And so, the Herodians were Jews, who had sold out to the Romans, to the culture of the Romans, and to the plan that Herod had for their nation. To make a connection to the United States of the twenty-first century, these were the people who were more interested in conforming to the culture of Hollywood, and to their political party than they were in conforming to the laws of Moses and the prophets. They were born Jews but were culturally Roman. The plan clearly was that if Jesus said that good Jews shouldn’t pay Roman taxes, which was a prominent idea in some Jewish circles, then the Herodians would charge Jesus with a crime. The argument in some Jewish circles was that because Rome was immoral and acted counter to the beliefs of Israel, that paying taxes to Rome was therefore immoral. Further, because Rome circulated coinage that bore graven images that were prohibited by scripture, that using such coinage was sinful and a corrupting influence.

But Jesus’ interpretation was different.

Jesus said that if Ceasar’s face was on the coin, then pay Ceasar what was due to Ceasar, but pay to God what belonged to God. In Jesus’ interpretation, the scriptures demanded that faithful people should follow God with all their heart, with all their soul, with all their mind, and with all their strength. That is what was owed to God. It is your choices and your morality that are important.

Hold on to that idea because we’re going to come back to that in a minute, but this connects us to Paul’s message to the church in Thessalonica that we hear in 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10:

^1:1 Paul, Silas,and Timothy,

To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:

Grace and peace to you.

²We always thank God for all of you and continually mention you in our prayers. ³We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

⁴For we know, brothers and sistersloved by God, that he has chosen you, ⁵because our gospel came to you not simply with words but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and deep conviction. You know how we lived among you for your sake. ⁶You became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you welcomed the message in the midst of severe suffering with the joy given by the Holy Spirit. ⁷And so you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. ⁸The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia—your faith in God has become known everywhere. Therefore, we do not need to say anything about it, ⁹for they themselves report what kind of reception you gave us. They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, ¹⁰and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.

What Paul says is important, but I also think that how Paul said it is important. You will note that Paul does not simply say that we remember you because of your work, your labor, and your endurance. What Paul says is that we remember you to God because of the work that we have seen in you that was produced by faith, because of the labor that you have done that was prompted by love, and by the endurance that you have shown that was inspired by hope. This is the work that God is doing because his people love him with all their heart, with all their soul, with all their mind and with all their strength. They are doing the work of the kingdom because of their faith, because of their love, and because of their hope and not because it was what was culturally expected, or because of some other sense of ethical, moral, or cultural obligation. When we remember James’ teaching that faith is revealed by works, this is that. Faith came first, but because the people had faith, it inspired them to work, labor, and hope.

So, how do we tie this all together and make sense of it?

Jesus’ challenge to the tax trap points us toward self-reflection in several directions. Two thousand years ago the fear was that taxes, especially using money with graven images on it, was a corrupting influence that faithful Jews should avoid. But Jesus says that it isn’t. Paying taxes isn’t inherently sinful, nor are we automatically guilty of the sinful or immoral acts of the government. Of course, this is held in tension with several other scriptures that say that we will, as a people, be held responsible for the sins of our nation. There’s no way we have the time to even try to sort that out so I’m not even going to try.

But our point of personal self-reflection and struggle is to remember that a sinful government doesn’t necessarily corrupt us personally. But the reverse is also true, such that the righteous acts of government do not make us personally righteous. It is a good thing for the government to feed the poor, but the Roman government did that. It is a good thing for the government to care for the elderly and a host of other things, but none of the things that the government does, relieves us of doing the things that God has commanded us to do. Whether our government is good or evil, we are still obligated to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the widows and orphans, speak for the immigrants and the voiceless, and to do the work of the kingdom of God. On the day that we stand in judgement before God, we will be judged by what we have done, and what we have left undone and that includes how we voted, and when we chose not to vote.

But the second point of connection here is that, like Moses, and like the pastor of a church, God knows that we cannot do all these things alone. We are a part of a community of faith. We can do great things, sometimes impossible things, because we work together… and because God promises to go with us.

We are not alone.

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Addicted to… Rules?

October 8, 2023 PastorPartridge Sermon addicted, addiction, Alliance, Broadway, Christ, church, commandments, faith, God, gods, Jesus, love, Methodist, Ohio, Partridge, Paul, pharisee, rules, Street, United

Addicted to Rules

October 08, 2023*

By Pastor John Partridge

Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20 Matthew 21:33-46 Philippians 3:4b-14

In 1985 radio stations everywhere were playing the debut of Robert Palmer’s new hit song, Addicted to Love. That song will be familiar to those of us in a particular age group, but it begins like this:

The lights are on, but you’re not home
Your mind is not your own
Your heart sweats, your body shakes
Another kiss is what it takes
You can’t sleep, you can’t eat
There’s no doubt, you’re in deep
Your throat is tight, you can’t breathe
Another kiss is all you need.

Whoa, you like to think that you’re immune to the stuff, oh yeah
It’s closer to the truth to say you can’t get enough
You know you’re gonna have to face it, you’re addicted to love.

Robert Palmer may have taken a certain amount of artistic license, but just this week I had a conversation with a friend about how some people simply can’t stand to live alone, and that can lead them to making bad choices and being in a relationship with someone who isn’t good for them, and sometimes one bad relationship after another.

Addiction, of any kind, even an addition to something that is normally good, can be a bad thing. Addiction, even to something good, takes things too far and winds up being harmful. And that’s one of the things that we will find as we read and think about today’s scriptures. We begin with what God intended for good, the ten commandments. Most of these commandments are regarded as good things, even by people who do not share our faith, and even by people who have no faith at all. Prohibitions against theft, murder, adultery, and false witness, just to name a few, are almost inarguably good things. But can such prohibitions go too far? Before we get into that, let’s begin at the beginning and just read the words of Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20.

^20:1 And God spoke all these words:

²“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

³“You shall have no other gods before me.

⁴“You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.

⁷“You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.

⁸“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. ⁹Six days you shall labor and do all your work,

¹²“Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

¹³“You shall not murder.

¹⁴“You shall not commit adultery.

¹⁵“You shall not steal.

¹⁶“You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

¹⁷“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

¹⁸When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance ¹⁹and said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.”

²⁰Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.”

Saying things like, “don’t take things that don’t belong to you,” “don’t murder or hurt other people, or that it’s not good to even wish you had the nice things that your neighbor has,” are not that controversial. Even honoring your parents, when they deserve it, is something that most of us can generally agree on. But we can understand why people who do not share our faith, or who don’t believe in God, would take issue with rules about gods, idols, taking God’s name in vain, or keeping the sabbath. Other than those rules that are specific to our worship of our God, I think most people would agree that these are reasonable rules and, in fact, most of these rules end up being codified in the laws of cities, states, and nations around the world.

But that’s where the trouble starts. Or, perhaps, if we think of it another way, perhaps that’s where the addiction starts. In an attempt to ensure that the people of Israel would always follow these ten rules, the leaders of Israel wrote more rules that regulated life, or put fences around the rules, so that people wouldn’t, even accidentally, break these ten commandments. (pause) But even that wasn’t enough for some people. After Israel had been carried into captivity in Babylon for seventy years, returned to Israel, and rebuilt their nation, the leaders began to understand that their exile had been caused by Israel’s disobedience to God. And so, at some point, the people that we know as the Pharisees in the time of the New Testament accumulated an even longer list of rules that built fences around the fences that had been built around the rules. And while some of the Pharisees were legitimately trying to keep Israel on the straight and narrow and stay close to God, others began to become more devoted to the rules than they were to the God they were supposed to worship. And it was exactly that sort of thing that had the Pharisees up in arms about the popularity that Jesus had with the common people and the background to exchanges such as the one we find in Matthew 21:33-46, (which immediately follows our passage from last week in which Jesus said that Prostitutes and tax collectors were getting into heaven before the Pharisees)where we hear Jesus say:

³³“Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. ³⁴When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit.

³⁵“The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. ³⁶Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. ³⁷Last of all, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said.

³⁸“But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.’ ³⁹So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

⁴⁰“Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”

⁴¹“He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, “and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.”

⁴²Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:

“‘The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
the Lord has done this,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’?

⁴³“Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. ⁴⁴Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.”

⁴⁵When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them. ⁴⁶They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet.

One of the first things that we should probably notice is that Jesus may very well be foretelling his own death in this parable since it isn’t hard to understand that as the son of God, he is the son of the landowner of Israel. The second thing to notice is that, even though the priests and the Pharisees may not have understood Jesus’ allusion to being the son of the landowner, they clearly understood that he was talking about them and that they were the ungrateful tenants in the story. Everyone understood that Jesus was accusing Israel’s leadership of not giving to God what was expected and due. The accusation is clear that the leaders had violated several of the commandments, that they had put themselves ahead of God, that they had made money, power, and influence into an idol, and that they were, generally, unfaithful.

The contrast to the priests and the Pharisees is found in the life of Paul, after his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus. After Paul’s conversion, he sees the rules, and his former addiction to the rules, in an entirely different light. In Philippians 3:4b-14 he says…

If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: ⁵circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; ⁶as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.

⁷But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. ⁸What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ ⁹and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith inChrist—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. ¹⁰I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, ¹¹and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

¹²Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. ¹³Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, ¹⁴I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Paul was a Pharisee. He followed the rules, he was born into the right kind of family, went to the right kind of schools with the right kind of teachers, he, and his family, followed all the prescribed rituals, he dedicated his life to enforcing the rules, he hunted down Jews who had chosen to follow Jesus and prosecuted, and imprisoned them for their failure to follow the rules. He was there watching the coats of the men who stoned Stepehen in Jerusalem and, I think we can safely say, that he was addicted to the rules. But, after he met Jesus, his addiction was broken, and he saw the rules in an entirely different light. I don’t want you to misunderstand, Paul still followed most of those rules. He still thought that they were an important part of his faith, but the rules were no longer an addiction, and they were no longer something that was more important than faith. His addiction, and the value that he once put on the rules, money, power, and influence, he now valued no more than garbage. In fact, the word that we translate as “garbage” is the name of the valley below Jerusalem where the sewers emptied, where dead animals were thrown, and where the remains of sacrifices were burned. It was a place of disgusting filth and that was the value that Paul now placed on his former addiction.

Addiction, of any kind, even an addition to something that is normally good, takes things too far and winds up being harmful, and that’s true whether you’re addicted to love, rules, tradition, sex, money, power, politics, authority, fame, fortune, comfort, prestige, sports, hobbies, family, or anything else that you might put ahead of God.

God said ““I am the Lord your God… You shall have no other gods beforeme.”

Even if those gods seem like good things, we cannot put them ahead of God.

It’s important that we get it right.

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Is The Lord Among Us… Or Not?

October 1, 2023 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, Broadway, Christ, church, complain, desert, Exodus, faith, God, Jesus, Methodist, Ohio, Partridge, questioning, Street, suffer, suffering, test, testing, uncertainty, United, whine

Complaints and Test Questions

October 01, 2023*

By Pastor John Partridge

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

Have you ever had a time in your life that you just wondered what God was up to? I’m thinking about a time in your life when things were weird, difficult, or nearly impossible, and you wondered why you were there, why God was allowing those things to happen, or how those things could possibly fit into God’s plan for your life. There is a curse in Deuteronomy 28:23 that calls up an image of the heavens being made of bronze so that prayers just bounce off without reaching God and some of us have had times that felt like that too, that our prayers went nowhere and remained unanswered. And, because we have passed through difficult times, we appreciate the pain and the struggle of others that are facing those trials today. And that’s why, as much as we spoke last week about the whining and complaining of the Israelites in the desert, we completely understand how they might struggle with a lack of faith when facing that kind of hardship. It is during these difficult times that we ask hard questions and that’s exactly what God’s people did in 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. ²So 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?”

³But 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?”

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

⁵The 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. ⁶I 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. ⁷And he called the place Massah [which means testing] and Meribah [which means quarrelling] because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the Lord saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

Is the Lord among us… or not?

If we’re honest, that’s a question that we have asked before, personally, as a church, and as a denomination.

Is the Lord among us… or not?

During our personal struggles with divorce, drugs, alcohol, physical or emotional abuse, unemployment, the loss of loved ones, physical illness, mental illness, depression, and a host of other things, we may well have asked ourselves if God had forgotten us. As we have watched our denomination tear itself apart, we may have asked if we had gone so far wrong that God no longer cared, and certainly, as a church that once worshiped hundreds every Sunday, and that had to build an education wing just to make room for all their children, at some point, or at many points along the road to having only fifty in worship some Sundays, we have probably asked… Is the Lord among us… or not?

But you will notice that the story of God’s people did not end when they asked the question. The story didn’t end in the desert, but neither did God miraculously rescue them before they had spent forty years in the desert and learned a few things about faith and trust. Despite their questions, and despite their struggles, God never abandoned his people, and we have confidence that God has not, and will not, abandon us either.

But in Matthew 21:23-32, the chief priest and the elders asked Jesus a different sort of question.

²³Jesus 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?”

²⁴Jesus replied, “I will also ask you one question. If you answer me, I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. ²⁵John’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?’ ²⁶But if we say, ‘Of human origin’—we are afraid of the people, for they all hold that John was a prophet.”

²⁷So 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. ³²For 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.

Do you see the difference in the kind of question that the elders are asking in comparison to the question that God’s people were asking in the story of Exodus? In Exodus they just wanted to know if God had abandoned them, but here, the priests and the elders are asking “who gave you permission” to say the things that you are saying? They aren’t concerned about God being with Jesus as much as they are concerned about power structures, and who gave permission. Worse, having asked the question, the elders are so concerned about how the people would react to their answer, that they refuse to answer Jesus’ question at all. For them, politics, power, and appearances are more important than honesty and integrity. And when Jesus sees that, he tells a parable that reveals the truth. Because the elders of the church love politics and power more than they love God, the tax collectors, prostitutes, and other outcasts who repent are moving up the line and entering the kingdom of God ahead of them because the outcasts understood that a life of obedience to God was more important than money, power, politics, or appearances.

This understanding is the key to the message of Paul that we find in Philippians 2:1-13 when he says…

^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, ²then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. ³Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, ⁴not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

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

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

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

¹²Therefore, 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, ¹³for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.

Paul says that he would be filled with joy if the church would just work together, love together, and look to the interests of others rather than their own. The key to a healthy church, and to healthy relationships is to have the same mindset as Jesus, to live and to love like Jesus. We work out our salvation by allowing God to work in us and through us. God works in us as he transforms us into the likeness of Christ, and through us as he works in the world to accomplish his mission and purpose.

Despite our questions, despite our struggles, and despite our complaining, we have confidence that God has not, and will not, abandon us. But we must fight against our culture and the way that we are told that world works, and remember that a life of obedience to God is more important than money, power, politics, or keeping up appearances. Our goal is not to be important, influential, powerful, famous, rich, or to be adored and admired. Our goal is to be obedient so that God can transform us into his image, and work through us for the transformation of the world.

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Suck It Up!

September 24, 2023 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, attitude, Broadway, Christ, church, complain, cost, desert, Exodus, faith, God, Jesus, manna, Methodist, Ohio, Partridge, prison, Street, suck it up, suffer, suffering, unfair, unfairness, United, whine

Suck It Up!

September 24, 2023*

By Pastor John Partridge

Exodus 16:1-15 Matthew 20:1-16 Philippians 1:21-30

How long does it take you to get a bad attitude?

For example, if you had an absolutely great day today, on par with getting a great promotion at work, getting married, watching one of your children being born, or maybe the ribbon cutting for your own business or the completion of a project in which you invested years of your time, blood, sweat and tears, how long do those good feeling last? After you have one of those “mountain top” experiences, how long can it be before you get grumpy and have a bad attitude again?

I know that sometimes, it doesn’t take much. Sometimes you can have an absolutely awesome day, come home, step in dog poop in the front yard… when you don’t even own a dog, and before you even get in the door you are on a collision course for a full-on grump.

And that seems to be exactly what we’re looking at in our scripture lesson today from the story of the Exodus. The official lectionary selection skips the first verse, but I put it back in because it tells us just how long much time has passed between the really awesome things that happened to the people of Israel, like the Passover, their rescue from slavery, their journey out of Egypt and into freedom, witnessing the physical manifestation of God in the pillar of cloud and fire, the parting of the Red Sea, and the destruction of the Egyptian army. These were all awesome and amazing things and, if you recall from last week, everybody swore that because of what they had witnessed, they would choose to follow God.

But those things began on the fifteenth day of the first month of their new year and as we read together, I want you to notice that the part of the story that we’re reading today from Exodus 16:1-15, happens on the fifteenth day of the second month. Only one month after Passover, and maybe a week after the crossing of the Red Sea.

^16:1 The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt. ²In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. ³The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”

⁴Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. ⁵On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days.”

⁶So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, “In the evening you will know that it was the Lord who brought you out of Egypt, ⁷and in the morning, you will see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we, that you should grumble against us?” ⁸Moses also said, “You will know that it was the Lord when he gives you meat to eat in the evening and all the bread you want in the morning, because he has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we? You are not grumbling against us, but against the Lord.”

⁹Then Moses told Aaron, “Say to the entire Israelite community, ‘Come before the Lord, for he has heard your grumbling.’”

¹⁰While Aaron was speaking to the whole Israelite community, they looked toward the desert, and there was the glory of the Lord appearing in the cloud.

¹¹The Lord said to Moses, ¹²“I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Tell them, ‘At twilight you will eat meat, and in the morning, you will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God.’”

¹³That evening quail came and covered the camp, and in the morning, there was a layer of dew around the camp. ¹⁴When the dew was gone, thin flakes like frost on the ground appeared on the desert floor. ¹⁵When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was.

Once the pressure was gone and the excitement wore off, just as it does for the rest of us three thousand years later, the realities of ordinary life slapped the children of Israel right in the face. Once they had crossed the Red Sea, they were still in the middle of a desert and much like human beings have always done, even in the best of situations, and even after one of the most incredible mountain top experiences in the history of the world, they started to complain. Our scripture said that the entire community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. (reading with the most whiney voice you can imagine) “It’s too hot. There’s not enough water. We ate better when we were slaves. We would be better off if we were dead. You only brought us out here to die.”

But apparently God was still in a good mood because he heard their whiney complaints and, in the evening, he sent flocks of quail that covered the camp, and in the morning, he sent flakes of dew that dried like bread. No one had ever seen anything like it before and so they asked, “What is it?” which has been transliterated from the Hebrew as… manna. Manna literally means, “What is it?”

God had promised to care for the people of Israel, and he fully intended to keep that promise even if they whined about it.

Whining, grumbling, and complaining seem to be part and parcel of human life and have been since before humans developed language. The Israelites grumbled within a week or two of witnessing one of the most amazing rescues in the history of the world and, in Matthew 20:1-16, Jesus tells a parable in which he predicts his followers will grumble and complain about heaven itself. This is important because this parable is literally about us, about our church, and about how we feel entitled to tell God how to conduct his business.

^20:1 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. ²He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

³“About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. ⁴He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ ⁵So they went.

“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. ⁶About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’

⁷“‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.

“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’

⁸“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’

⁹“The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. ¹⁰So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. ¹¹When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ¹²‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’

¹³“But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? ¹⁴Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. ¹⁵Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

¹⁶“So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

The owner of the vineyard goes into the marketplace around six o’clock in the morning to the place where day laborers congregate looking for work and he hires everyone that he can find. He still doesn’t have enough people to get the work done as quickly as it needs to be done, and so he returns every three hours for the rest of the day and, each time, hires everyone that he can find. His only promise to them is that “I will pay you whatever is right.”

At the end of the day, the guys who worked for one hour were given a denarius, which was the common amount for a full-day’s wage. So, of course since these guys got a full day’s pay for one hour of work, the men who had been there longer, and especially the ones who had been there for fourteen hours, simply assumed that they would get more. But they didn’t. And they grumbled, whined, and complained about it. And, if we’re honest, you would certainly hear the same complaints today about fairness, favoritism, and preferential treatment, and all sorts of other accusations.

But the landowner said, “Didn’t you agree to work for one denarius? And didn’t I pay you one denarius? And don’t I have the right to pay my employees generously if choose to do so? So, are you angry because I am generous?” And that message kind of sticks in our craw and rubs our twenty first century, American sensibilities wrong. To us that sounds unfair. But what’s worse, is that at the beginning of the story, Jesus said, “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out…” That makes our discomfort over this apparent unfairness worse, because basically Jesus just told us that the landowner is God and it’s God who is acting in ways that we perceive as being unfair.

There’s more, but hold on to that for a bit until we read two paragraphs from Paul’s letter to the Philippians 1:21-30 where he says:

²¹For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. ²²If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! ²³I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; ²⁴but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. ²⁵Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, ²⁶so that through my being with you again your boasting in Christ Jesus will abound on account of me.

²⁷Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in the one Spirit, striving together as one for the faith of the gospel ²⁸without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved—and that by God. ²⁹For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him, ³⁰since you are going through the same struggle you saw I had, and now hear that I still have.

By this time in Paul’s life, his health is failing. As he writes this letter, he is most likely on house arrest in Rome, but he has, on quite a few occasions, been imprisoned in far worse places like Caesarea, Ephesus, and a few others. Some of those prison cells were just cold, damp, dark, pits in the ground. Paul’s eyesight was failing, and his health was poor, and he says that he can either live and work, or he can die and be with Christ. But whatever happens to me, you should quit complaining and live lives that are worthy of Jesus Christ. Paul says, you are going through the same struggles that I had, and still have. You are not the first to suffer or struggle. Get over it.

The message of Exodus is that God sees us when we struggle. Yes, God sent food, but no, God did not rescue the people of Israel from the desert for another 40 years.

The message of Jesus’ parable of the workers is that God can, and will, do what he wants regardless of whether we perceive that as being unfair. The convict at the penitentiary who chooses to follow Jesus moments before his death sentence is carried out, may well get the same reward as some of us who have followed him, worked for him, and sacrificed for him for our entire lives.

And the message of Paul is that we aren’t the first people who struggled from time to time. But when we face struggles and suffering, we should do our best to live up to the examples of the people who have gone before us.

In summary, the message of scripture is to get over it, quit complaining, quit grumbling, stop acting as if we’re entitled to more than we are, trust God to be generous, and just get on with doing the work of God’s kingdom, “striving together as one for the faith of the gospel.”

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At What Cost?

September 17, 2023 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, Broadway, choice, choose, Christ, church, cost, disciples, faith, follow, God, Israel, Jesus, Methodist, Moses, Ohio, Partridge, patron, patronage, Peter, Red Sea, Street, United

At What Cost?

September 17, 2023*

By Pastor John Partridge

Exodus 14:19-31 Matthew 18:21-35

I would guess that everyone here probably recalls the story in Luke chapter 14 in which Jesus challenges the crowd to count the cost of choosing to follow him and that choosing to do so means that they must take up their cross when they do. In that story, in Luke 14:28, Jesus says:

²⁸“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? ²⁹ For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, ³⁰ saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’

That’s simply good advice for a great many things. Before we go on vacation, we should have a good idea of what it’s going to cost and what we might spend on souvenirs, snacks, drinks, and other incidentals. Before we choose a college major, we should consider how much that education will cost and what kind of a career, and salary, is likely to come from that career.

But although Jesus saying “take up your cross” is the story that springs to mind when we think about counting the cost of following Jesus, it isn’t the only scripture in which counting the cost is an important part of God’s message to us as his followers. We begin this morning in Exodus 14:19-31 as the people of Israel flee from their abuse at the hands of the Egyptians, and escape across the Red Sea.

¹⁹Then the angel of God, who had been traveling in front of Israel’s army, withdrew and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from in front and stood behind them, ²⁰coming between the armies of Egypt and Israel. Throughout the night the cloud brought darkness to the one side and light to the other side; so, neither went near the other all night long.

²¹Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, ²²and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.

²³The Egyptians pursued them, and all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots and horsemen followed them into the sea. ²⁴During the last watch of the night the Lord looked down from the pillar of fire and cloud at the Egyptian army and threw it into confusion. ²⁵He jammed the wheels of their chariots so that they had difficulty driving. And the Egyptians said, “Let’s get away from the Israelites! The Lord is fighting for them against Egypt.”

²⁶Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen.” ²⁷Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing towardit, and the Lord swept them into the sea. ²⁸The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen—the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived.

²⁹But the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left. ³⁰That day the Lord saved Israel from the hands of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the shore. ³¹And when the Israelites saw the mighty hand of the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant.

Remember that although Israel was enslaved to the Egyptians, they had lived there for eight hundred years and, other than Moses, who had lived in Midian for forty years, there was no one who had known anything other than a life in Egypt. Following Moses, even in pursuit of freedom, meant leaving behind everything that they had ever known other than the family and the faith that they took with them. In this reading, the account of the exodus says that the pillar of cloud came between the armies of Egypt and Israel, and we must understand that describing Israel at this point as an “army” is figuratively describing Israel’s size and nothing else. No one on the side of Israel, again except for Moses, had any training with weapons other than farm implements and the slings that shepherds used to drive off wild animals. Egypt brought an army of soldiers and warriors, but they faced an Israel that was little more than a rabble of untrained men, women, children, and farm animals that had fled with little organization into the night.

As they did on the night that they painted the blood of lambs on the doorposts of their homes, the people of Israel faced a choice as they stood on the shores of the Red Sea. They had chosen to follow Moses into the wilderness, but now they were faced with the first accounting of the choice that they had made. They realized that the cost of following Moses might just be death at the hands of the Egyptian army. But at that moment they witnessed the presence of God, physically present as a pillar of cloud and of fire, standing between them and the Egyptians. And during the night, God divides the sea and makes for them a place to walk across the bottom of the sea on dry ground. And after they had reached the other side, they witnessed the destruction of the army that that, only hours earlier, had filled them with fear.

Witnessing these events was a turning point for the people of Israel. Before they had chosen to pursue freedom from their cruel taskmasters and from slavery. But now they chose to worship God and to put their trust in him, and in his servant, Moses.

Considering how long some of us have been following him, sometimes we still wonder just how much it’s going to cost us to follow Jesus. I’m not kidding. Even the disciples, after spending years with Jesus, were still trying to find the boundaries and limits to the cost of discipleship. That’s exactly what we see happening as Peter asks Jesus a question that has become famous in Matthew 18:21-35 where we hear this:

²¹Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”

²²Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.

²³“Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. ²⁴As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. ²⁵Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

²⁶“At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ ²⁷The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt, and let him go.

²⁸“But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.

²⁹“His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’

³⁰“But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. ³¹When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.

³²“Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. ³³Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ ³⁴In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

³⁵“This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

Peter asks a question about forgiveness, but Jesus knows that he is really asking about where the limits are and so he answers the first question, but he elaborates with the parable that follows. The parable that Jesus tells, expands our understanding of forgiveness, but also disabuses us of any thoughts that Peter, or us, might have had about limiting the cost of our choice to follow Jesus.

The example that Jesus used would have been, at least in principle, similar to what the disciples knew, understood, and witnessed every day in their culture as a part of the Greco-Roman system of patronage. In that system, almost everyone was a client of some patron, and clients were expected to mirror and emulate the values of their patron. If your patron was generous, and you wanted to please him, and you always wanted to please your patron, then you would also be generous to the same causes that he supported but at the level that would be expected for a person of your status. And so, in Jesus’ parable, it is unsurprising that the king, as well as the servants, all expected that the client who was shown mercy would, in turn, show mercy to someone who owed him money after being shown such extraordinary mercy by his own patron.

What may have been surprising to the disciples, and to anyone else hearing this story in the first century, was that our relationship with God was so much like the cultural system of patronage. Because we have chosen to follow Jesus and, pledged our loyalty to him as our patron, we are expected to adopt, and to mirror, his values. Because our God is merciful and forgiving, we are not just asked, but expected to be merciful and forgiving. So strong is this expectation, that Jesus says that he will reject us, and revoke his forgiveness of us, if we fail to be forgiving of others. That is not only a big deal regarding forgiveness, but if that is that standard by which we are judged regarding forgiveness, then it isn’t difficult to imagine that this is how God wants us, sorry, expects us, to mirror the other values that we have witnessed in God and in the life of Jesus Christ.

The people of Israel discovered that there was a cost to following Moses out of Egypt and that having done so, God expected something of them. There was a cost to following God.

Even though the disciples had known Jesus, walked with him, talked with him, listened to his teaching, and lived their lives with him for several years, they still sometimes grappled with what it meant to be his followers and to understand the cost of choosing to follow him.

As we read scripture, we discover the same things that the Israelites did as they crossed the Red Sea with Moses, and that the disciples did as they learned from Jesus. We discover that, like them, we cannot follow Jesus part-time or halfway. Following Jesus demands that we invest everything that we have, that we are 100 percent sold-out, and go all-in. We are expected to be as forgiving as Jesus, as merciful as Jesus, and in every other respect, model our lives after him and mirror his values.

Jesus expects nothing less. Because in the story we read from Matthew, Jesus was deadly serious. We’re either all in…

…or we’re out.

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This IS That Day

September 10, 2023 PastorPartridge Sermon Alliance, Aragorn, autopilot, behavior, Broadway, Christ, church, faith, God, Gondor, Jesus, JRR Tolkien, judgement, Lord of the Rings, Methodist, Ohio, Partridge, Paul, Rohan, speech, Street, This is not that day, Tolkien, United

This IS that Day

September 10, 2023*

By Pastor John Partridge

Exodus 12:1-14 Matthew 18:15-20 Romans 13:8-14

Near the end of the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, the few forces that remain from the nations of Rohan and Gondor march to the gates of Mordor, the center and capitol of Sauron the undead who is spreading a plague of evil across Middle Earth. The forces of good have been fighting in pitched battles for weeks and are hopelessly outnumbered, but here they will take what may just be their final stand against evil. But before the battle begins, Aragorn, the future king of Gondor, gives this speech:

Hold your ground! Hold your ground. Sons of Gondor! Of Rohan! My brothers! I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of Men fails, when we forsake our friends, and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields when the Age of Men comes crashing down, but it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand, Men of the West!

It is a rousing speech, even though it doesn’t appear anywhere in the original books by J.R.R. Tolkien. But Aragorn’s emphasis is that a day may come when everyone’s fears are realized and evil overcomes the world.

But this is not that day.

I begin with Aragorn’s speech this morning because, although the emphasis is different, it bears a striking similarity to God’s message in today’s scripture passage in Exodus 12:1-14. For eight hundred years Israel had lived in the nation of Egypt and, for many hundreds of those years, Israel had been enslaved by their Egyptian masters and subjected to backbreaking labor. For hundreds of years the people of Israel had prayed that God would rescue them and although God had heard their prayers, finally, as we read last week, God sent Moses to deliver them from Egypt and lead them to God’s promised land. And this is God’s speech:

^12:1 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, ²“This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. ³Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household. ⁴If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat. ⁵The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats. ⁶Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the members of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. ⁷Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the door frames of the houses where they eat the lambs. ⁸That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast. ⁹Do not eat the meat raw or boiled in water, but roast it over a fire—with the head, legs, and internal organs. ¹⁰Do not leave any of it till morning; if some is left till morning, you must burn it. ¹¹This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the Lord’s Passover.

¹²“On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. ¹³The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.

¹⁴“This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord—a lasting ordinance.

God’s speech to Moses and Aaron was to be passed on to all the people in much the way that Aragorn gave his speech to the troops under him. God said that this is the day. After hundreds of years of slavery, prayers without number, cries to God for mercy, and an unending and undefeatable hope in God’s rescue, now is the time. This is so important that it will reset the clock and the calendar, and this singular event will now mark Israel’s new year. God’s people are called to be ready, eat as if their departure might be at any moment, to have their bags packed, their shoes on, and be ready to walk out the door into their new lives in an instant. And in this moment, as a part of their preparation, they are to paint the blood of their sacrificial lambs on the doorframes and lintels of their homes as a sign of their faith and trust in the God who was rescuing them from slavery and death. Israel had prayed for a day of rescue and redemption, and this was that day.

But before they could cross over from the old and into the new, before they could cross over from slavery to freedom, they had to show God a sign of their faith. They had to physically perform an action that revealed their faith in God before being welcomed into the new order of things. And that’s a part of what Jesus is describing to the disciples in Matthew 18:15-20. It isn’t anything as big and as impressive as the speech that God gave to Moses and Aaron, but it represents an action that the followers of Jesus Christ needed to perform as a demonstration of their faith. Jesus said:

¹⁵“If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. ¹⁶But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’¹⁷If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

¹⁸“Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

¹⁹“Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. ²⁰For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”

Jesus said that as his followers, and as his church, he knew that we were not always going to get along and weren’t always going to get things right. And so, when we hurt one another, or whenever we crossed lines of sin or behavior that we shouldn’t, Jesus commands us to call each other out, to help one another to correct our mistakes, and get back on the right path. This passage is all about church discipline. Jesus says that we are to make every effort to correct the behavior of our fellow believers, but whomever we throw out of the church would be out of his church. In other words, our actions here, especially in church discipline, have eternal impact.

But how we behave isn’t about following rules, it’s about the way that we live our lives in much the same way as God commanded the people of Israel in the days before the exodus. In Romans 13:8-14, Paul explains that how we live our lives, and the actions that we take, are an outward sign of our faith just as it was when the people of Israel painted the blood of their lambs on the doorposts of their homes. Paul says:

⁸Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. ⁹The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁰Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law.

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.

We are to live as if the commandments of God matter. Rather than painting blood over our doorposts, the mark of our belonging should be seen by the people around us in the way that we live. Get out of debt, stay out of debt, don’t loan money to one another, pay your debts off, or forgive the debts that you hold against others, but do what you need to do to zero it out. Paul says that because the law is intended to prevent harm, then love is the fulfillment of the law. We are to obey the commandments, not by making ourselves crazy following hundreds of rules, but by simply loving others as much as we love ourselves. I don’t like to be hungry, so I understand that I should take action when the people around me are hungry. I don’t like injustice when it happens to me, and so I fight against injustice everywhere. This applies to everything that we do, from injustice, to unfairness, to discrimination, and flowing through every area of our lives. If we haven’t liked it when it happened to us, or if we wouldn’t like it if it were done to us, then it is our duty and our mission to make sure that it doesn’t happen to anyone.

Simply because that’s what love looks like.

The last part of this passage is a wake-up call much like we use on children as we get nearer to Christmas. In February, none of us give a lot of thought to Christmas. We aren’t Christmas shopping, and our children aren’t thinking that it’s necessary to behave because Santa “sees you when you’re sleeping” and “knows when you’re awake.” As far as Christmas is concerned, in February we’re just going through life on autopilot. And it’s that kind of awake, but unconscious, living from which Paul is trying to shake us awake. We cannot allow ourselves to function on autopilot and go through life in a fog because we’ve convinced ourselves that the day of judgement will be months, years, or decades in the future. As the calendar pages flip, we are ever closer to judgement and salvation than we have ever been. For that reason, we must prepare ourselves by living lives that we wouldn’t be afraid to see projected on the jumbotron at a stadium or broadcast live on the television evening news.

Because even though we’ve been waiting for a long time, one day, sooner than we think, we’re going to wake up and hear God say…

…this is that day.

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Pastor Partridge

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