consider the lilies

Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is really a blueprint for how to live a better life, but to experience this new life we have to be willing to make some changes and leave the old life behind. The problem is that old life is what we know and that old life has become so ingrained in us that leaving it behind often seems impossible. For example, worry, stress and anxiety have become so much a part of our lives that when we hear Jesus say, do not worry, or when we hear Paul say in his letter to the Philippians, be anxious about nothing we tend to shrug off these teachings as a nice ideal but neither practical nor possible. But what if Jesus really means what he says here? What if there really is another way to live life that is free from worry and anxiety and stress, wouldn’t we want to find that way of life? Wouldn’t we want to live that life? I hope that even if you are skeptical today that a worry-free life is possible, that there is a part of you that when you hear this, says, YES – I want to find that way of life.


My fear is that worry has become so much a part of our lives that we endure it as normal and inescapable and what we fail to remember is that this same worry and stress is literally killing us. Stress is a leading cause of all kinds of health issues and mental health issues and stress and worry contributes to the breakdown of marriages, families, friendships and finances. Stress and worry is killing us and yet what God wants for us is life and life abundant, God wants for us a life free from worry so Jesus offers us a better way, a healthier way, and it can be a real and practical way if we are willing to leave the old life behind. The first step in living a worry free life is to acknowledge that this kind of life is possible. Are we willing to take Jesus at his word and believe that not worrying is possible? .

For us to be able to do this, let’s be clear about what we are talking about, not worrying doesn’t mean that we don’t plan for or think about the future. Jesus was always thinking about the future, he was always planning for the day he would carry a cross – he knew it was coming and he worked to prepare his disciples for that day. Not worrying doesn’t mean not planning; we need to plan for our future. It’s ok to have a pension fund, and to put money into an IRA, it’s ok to save for a rainy day, it’s ok to plan for our children’s college fund – planning is good, God wants us to plan for the future and be prepared, he just wants us to do it with faith. He wants us to plan for the future but not trust in ourselves to provide for it all.

Not worrying also doesn’t mean we are not concerned. It’s ok to be concerned about people – I would be upset if we weren’t concerned about people or the situations we see around us because being concerned for others is a reflection of our love; we just can’t cross the line into worry because that betrays our love and faith in God. We can’t allow our concern to consume us – when that happens, when we allow our concern for people to cause us to wring our hands and lead us to places of hopelessness and despair then we have crossed the line from concern to worry. It is fine line that separates the two so we always need to be thinking and praying about where our heart is, but let’s be clear that concern and worry are not the same things, so it’s ok to be concerned.

Concern is good, Jesus was concerned about people. He was concerned about the well being of his disciples after he was gone so he prayed and asked God to send the Holy Spirit to help them. From the cross Jesus looked down and saw his mother and he was concerned about her which is why he asked his friend John to take care of her. It is good to be concerned, but we can’t allow that concern to consume us.

Now if we keep these two ideas in mind, that not worrying doesn’t mean not planning and it doesn’t mean not being concerned for others, then maybe we can begin to see that a worry free life is possible and we have to believe that it is or else we will never step out in faith to live it. Now I know what many of you might be saying right now, Andy, we have tried not worrying, and it just doesn’t work and I might agree with you. To just stop worrying is not going to work. Jesus doesn’t tell us to just stop worrying, he tells us to replace it. When we just stop something it creates a void, and as long as that emptiness is there – worry will return.

Look at Matthew 12:43-45. The message Jesus gives here is that evil will return unless we fill our hearts and lives with something more powerful, something good and of God. I think the same applies with worry. If we just tell ourselves to stop worrying, it may work for a day or two, but worry will always try to return and if we haven’t replaced it with something better, something stronger and of God, then worry will settle back into our hearts and minds, so instead of telling ourselves we have to just stop worrying, we need to think about how to replace worry, and that is exactly what Jesus says here.

Jesus doesn’t say do not worry – period, he follows up that command with this, consider the lilies. So we replace worry with what? – looking at the world around us and seeing how God cares for and provides for all that He made which should tell us that God will provide for us as well. We replace worry with faith in a God who created us and so knows our every need and will meet those needs. We replace worry with trust in a God who loves us more than the flowers of the field because unlike the flowers of the field we were created in the image of God. We hold a special place in God’s creation because we are God’s children and just as any good parent wants to provide and care for and love their children, God wants to do that for us and God will do that for us. So we don’t just stop worrying, we replace worry with faith and trust in the God who created us and loves us and knows our needs.

What’s interesting here is that Jesus says that those who don’t know God are the ones who are going to worry– look at Matthew 6:32.  The Gentiles or Pagans are those who don’t know God, they don’t see and believe in God as their creator and father so they have no one to trust but themselves and if we only trust ourselves to meet our needs, we are going to worry – but if we know God, how can we worry because if we really know God then we know that God loves us and will provide for us. We know that God has power and strength. So we replace worry with faith, we replace stress and anxiety with trust in an all loving, all knowing and all powerful God.

Now let’s talk about how we can actually do this, one way is to literally replace worry with worship. Jesus says seek first the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness and the truth is that if we spend more time seeking God in worship and his word and through prayer, then what fills our heart and mind is a deeper faith and a greater trust. The more we worship God the more we will know God, and the less we will worry because we will know God’s love and power are real and part of our lives each and every day. So if we want to experience a worry free life we need to live a worship filled life, we need to replace worry with worship, and worship doesn’t have to just be once a week, we can worship every day by spending time in prayer, and reading God’s word and reflecting on that word with devotions like the upper room.

We can also replace worry by remembering how God has provided for us in the past. There is a reason why the #1 command in the Bible is to remember - it’s because God knows that as we remember, as we literally fill our minds with the memories of how God has been present with us and provided for us in the past the more we will trust him and look to him for to meet our needs for today and tomorrow. If we look back into the Old Testament, God says to the people of Israel again and again to remember what he has done for them. They were to remember how God led them out of slavery, remember how God brought forth water when they were thirsty and provided bread and meat when they were hungry. They were to remember how God parted the Red Sea and rescued them when Pharaoh and his army were closing in on them. Whenever Israel became afraid or worried about their situation God told them to remember. Look at Psalm 77:1-15.

What we see here is someone who is struggling with worry, they can’t sleep, they cry out to God in despair, they are stressed and anxious and so what do they do? They seek the Lord, they think about God, they meditate on God, they remember the days of old when God was with them, they remember the promises God has kept in the past and they call to mind the deeds of the Lord and remember his wonders. Like the psalmist we need to replace worry with remembering all the times God has helped us in the past. I would suggest that if we really struggle with worry that we literally sit down and do this, make a list of all the times God has heard our prayer and helped us make it through something we never thought we would make it through. Write it down and keep it someplace handy so that when worry and stress begin to creep we can take it out and remember that God has been with us in the past and God will be with us in the midst of our struggles today and tomorrow.

I was thinking that many times God told his people to make a monument to help them remember how he had provided for them. When the people of Israel finally crossed the Jordan River to enter into the Promised Land God told the priests to pick up stones from the river bed (which, by the way, God had parted so they could cross over on dry ground) and use those stones to build an altar to remind them of how God had provided for them, so maybe we need to build our own monuments. I’m not thinking about building an altar, I’m thinking about looking back and finding a moment in time where you know with certainty that God was with you or a moment when God helped you. Write down that date, or the place or any word that will help you remember that moment and then place that card or post-it note on the fridge or mirror so we are constantly reminded that God has been there for us in the past and God will be there for us in the future. The more we remember God, the less we will worry about the problems we face and it’s not because the problems go away, it’s because we remember that God has helped us overcome past problems and God won’t leave us now.

After last week’s sermon about loving our enemy and letting go of anger, a number of people came up to me and said, that is not an easy thing to do and about all I could say is I know, but I do believe it is possible. I hate to say this, but if you think loving your enemy was hard, try living a life free from worry! This is not easy but I do believe it is not only possible, I believe it is the life God wants for us and Jesus would not have given us this teaching if it were not possible. Jesus shows us the way here and it’s not to stop worrying – it’s to replace worry with worship. During a time of great stress in Jesus life, before his arrest and crucifixion, what does he do? He goes off to worship – to pray. Jesus replaced worry with worship and when he leaves the garden of Gethsemane he is at peace even thought he knows the cross is near. Jesus shows us the way. We need to replace worry with worship and we need to remember all the ways God has been with us and helped us and provided for us in the past. When worry begins to creep in, take the time to consider the lilies, look around at the world and see all the ways that God cares for, loves and provides for his creation and remember God has you are more valued and loved by God than anything else in creation. Remember God, worship God, because the more we know God as our creator, the more we trust God as our Father and the more we believe that God has faith in us, the less worry, stress and anxiety we will experience. It is possible – this worry free life is possible if we will commit ourselves to following the way of Jesus.

Love your enemies...

When we think about being a Christian and what it means to follow Jesus, the one word that seems to define our faith is love. We are to love God, love others, love our parents, love our neighbor, love the little children, and love the least, the last and the lost in our community. In many ways the whole Christian life is about love. The way of life for the followers of Jesus is the way of love and so love needs to penetrate every relationship we have – there can be no exceptions, which is why Jesus says in his Sermon on the Mount, love you enemy. Listen to Jesus teaching from Matthew 5:43-48.


One of the problems I think we often have with this teaching is that we want to start talking about what it means on the global level where loving our enemies simply doesn’t seem to make any sense. How do we love Osama Bin Laden? How do we love a terrorist whose only goal may be to blow themselves up and take as many people with them as they can? What does love look like when we consider some of the incredible violence we see taking place on our southern border that is fueled by gangs and drugs? When we take this teaching of Jesus and try to apply to national security issues or global political and economic struggles, it gets complicated and overwhelming and so we want give up on it all together, but we can’t give up on it because this teaching of Jesus doesn’t go away and it doesn’t change. Jesus said, love your enemy and so we have to wrestle with what this means and what it looks like in our lives, but to do this, let’s not start with using this teaching to solve global problems, let’s start a little smaller. If loving our enemy is the goal, what is the first step in getting there? Maybe the first step is to learn how to love our neighbor with the understanding that our neighbor isn’t just the person who lives next door, in fact, according to Jesus, our neighbor is someone who may be very different from us and even someone who makes us feel uncomfortable.

Jesus answers the question who is my neighbor when he tells the story of the Good Samaritan. In that story a Jewish man is travelling along a road when he is beaten up and left to die. When the Jewish priest, someone who is very much like the injured man, comes down the road, he doesn’t stop to help, and when a Jewish Rabbi comes by, again, someone who would have felt very comfortable helping his Jewish brother in need, he also doesn’t stop but keeps on going. Now when the Samaritan comes along and finds the injured Jewish man along the side of the road, he stops to help. When Jesus asked his listeners who the real neighbor was, they answered the one who showed mercy, the Samaritan.

Now what’s important to know here is that Samaritans and Jews did not like each other. There were long standing and deep hostilities that existed between these two groups of people so when Jesus tells this story he is saying that our neighbor isn’t defined as someone who looks like us, acts like us and someone we feel comfortable with, our neighbor isn’t someone we necessarily would want to spend time with, our neighbor is often that person who makes us feel uncomfortable. Our neighbor is someone we may not like, and someone we might not choose to be around. We may not consider them an enemy but we certainly don’t count them as a friend, but they are our neighbor and we are called by Jesus to know them, serve them, help them and love them and so as we seek to love our enemy, maybe the place to start is to learn how to love our neighbor.

What will it look like for us to love our neighbor? What will it take for us to just get to know our neighbor? When I look at my own life and my own circle of friends and acquaintances I have to be honest and say that most of them in some way look like me, act like me and they are people I am comfortable with. I don’t interact with a lot of people who Jesus would say are my neighbor, so how do I begin to build and establish those relationships? Can we reach out and build relationships with people who are not like us?

The author Dave Gibbons says in the world we now live, the single best thing a church can be doing is to rally behind kingdom values and vision rather than skin color and socio-economic status, and that means we need to intentionally include people in our lives that make us uncomfortable. If we can’t do that, if we can’t take the time and expend the energy to get to know people who are different than we are, then let’s be honest and say that we will then never be able to love our enemy. So can we venture into those places we don’t like to go and do those things we don’t like to do and be with people who make us uncomfortable so that we can get to know them, serve them, help them and love them? I would say this is the first step toward learning how to love our enemy.

The second step is to learn how to let go of our anger. If we go back and look at Jesus sermon on the mount, we find that this call to love our enemy doesn’t come out of the blue, in many ways Jesus has been building up to this moment with other teachings and one of those teachings says that we need to let go of our anger, look at Matthew 5:21-22. We will never be able to love our enemy if we can’t first get our heart right toward them and getting our heart right means letting go of the anger and hurt and bitterness that we often hold on to. Now again, let’s not worry about how to do this with international terrorists until we have first learned how to do this with our family and friends. The sad truth about our world today is that there is a lot of anger that people hold on to. Many people are afraid and unhappy and are just looking for someone to blame and so we get angry at the people around us. It could be a boss who takes advantage of us at work, a spouse who doesn’t understand us, a friend who has let us down or maybe even someone in the church who has disappointed us. It can also be the person who cuts us off in traffic, the clerk who is too slow in the check out line or the waitress who got our order wrong. There is a lot of anger out there today and my guess is that many of us are walking around angry and frustrated and upset with someone about something and the question we have to ask ourselves today is this: are we willing to begin to let go of the anger?

Letting go of anger and hurt and disappointment doesn’t happen instantly just because we decide to do it, but nothing will change in our hearts and lives until we first decide to do it, to let it go. God can not bring healing and God can not bring the blessing of his peace until we are first willing to let go of our anger and pain. Think about it this way, as long as our fists are clenched in anger, frustration and rage – we can not receive God’s grace and if we can not receive God’s grace we will never be able to love others and if we can’t love others there is no hope of loving our enemies. So while things won’t instantly change when we decide to let go of our anger, can we at least make the decision right here and now to let it go and then ask God to help us not pick it up again so that our hands and hearts will be empty and open to receive God’s grace and love.

In many ways what we are talking about here is the process of forgiveness. Can we forgive those who have hurt us? Forgiveness doesn’t mean we act as if nothing happened and it doesn’t mean we allow ourselves to get hurt over and over again, but forgiveness is making the decision to let go of our anger towards others and then asking God to help us learn how to really love those who have sinned against us. This process of letting go and asking God for his grace is what we pray for each and every week, isn’t it? In the Lord’s Prayer we ask God to forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who have sinned against us. Forgiving those who have sinned against us - letting go of the anger we hold on to – is not just one of the steps in learning how to love our enemy, but it is essential if we are going to receive the forgiveness of God. Again from his sermon on the mount Jesus says, (Matthew 6:15) if you will not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive you. We need to make the decision today to let go of our anger and start learning to forgive so that God will forgive us and then give to us the love we need for others.

The third step in learning how to love our enemy also comes from Jesus Sermon on the Mount. Look at what Jesus says right before the command to love your enemy, Matthew 5:38-42. What Jesus says here is that love for our neighbor and love for our enemy can’t just be feelings or emotions, love has to be lived out. Love always has to be lived out Jesus gives here three examples of what love for an enemy might look like: he says if someone strikes us on the right cheek we should turn to them the left. Now this has less to do with physically being hit and more to do with learning how to not retaliate when we are insulted, and then the next two examples both talk about how we should be willing to give more and do more when we are asked for anything.

What I’d like to do is give a few more examples of what love for our enemy might look like today. In 1987 Walt Everett’s 24 year old son, Scott, was shot and killed. For almost a year afterwards, Walt’s emotional state moved from rage to depression. He found it difficult to even go through the motions of his work as pastor of a United Methodist Church in Hartford, CT. It was at the sentencing of Mike Carlucci, the man who murdered Scott that Walt heard Mike express remorse for what he had done, and in that moment Walt felt God nudging him towards forgiveness. Walt describes his journey as the most difficult thing he has ever had to do.

Walt wrote to Mike on the first anniversary of Scott’s death and that letter began a series of correspondences, which led to visits and finally to Walt’s testifying on Mike’s behalf at his parole hearing. Based on Walt’s testimony, Mike obtained an early release and went to work for a trucking firm where his boss described him as one of the best employees he ever had. Walt and Mike have grown in their relationship and often speak together at universities, churches and community groups about the healing power of forgiveness for both the one forgiven and the one forgiving. Walt is now a retired minister who lives in Lewisburg and I have heard his story and am amazed at the power there is when someone is willing to reach out and learn what it means today to love their enemy.

The second story is the one we see in the picture this morning. For those of you that may not remember this moment it was when Pope John Paul II met with Mehmet Ali Agca, the man who tried to kill him in 1981. This picture was taken 2 years after the assassination attempt and it shows Pope John Paul II meeting with Ali Agca in prison and the two men began a friendship that lasted for many years. In fact the pope met with his family and when the Pope became ill near the end of his life, Ali Agca and his family sent him a letter saying that they were grieving and that the Pope had become a great friend to their family.

Another amazing example of loving our enemies came not long ago from the Amish in Lancaster County after the school shooting. Charles Roberts killed five Amish school girls and then himself and it was the Amish community that went to Roberts family to offer them forgiveness and comfort. When I hear stories like these or see pictures like this, I realize that only thing enables us to live this way, or to love this way, and that’s God. Honestly, we can’t do this on our own, but we can do this with God’s help, which is maybe why Jesus doesn’t just say, love your enemies. He doesn’t give them command and end it there, Jesus goes on and says, and pray for those who persecute you. It is only prayer and the strength and power of God that can calm us down when we are attacked, that can motivate us to give when we are being taken advantage of and forgive even when all we have or all we love has been taken away. The only power that makes these kinds of scenes possible is the power of God and so we need to pray for those who persecute us and we need to pray for our enemy because prayer is the forerunner of mercy. Prayer will lead us to God’s love and it is God’s love for us and God’s love flowing through us which can help us love our enemies. So as we think about loving our neighbor, letting go of our anger and turning our love into action – let us pray.

You are the salt of the earth...

This past week a study came out that said most Americans consume too much salt. New dietary guidelines recommend that our daily salt intake should be no more than 1,500 mg, which is ½ teaspoon, or, seriously, just a pinch. In our society, salt is the evil enemy that leads to high blood pressure and an increased risk of strokes, diabetes and heart disease. With salt becoming public enemy #1, it’s hard to hear this call of Jesus to be the salt of the earth and see it as an invitation to be anything good, but obviously salt in Jesus’ day was seen much differently. For Jesus, salt was a valuable commodity, in fact there are some who say that a roman soldier’s salary was paid to him in salt. We even have the expression of someone being worth their salt, which means they are worth the pay they receive. If roman soldiers weren’t actual paid in salt, their salary was seen as an allowance to purchase salt because at that time salt was a valuable and necessary, but it was hard to find. Salt’s main purpose in those days was as a preservative, it was used to keep meat from spoiling, so while salt for us is seen as bad, and too much is even worse, in Jesus day salt was good and so Jesus called his followers to act as salt in the world around them.


By using this image of being the salt of the earth Jesus is saying several important things. First and foremost Jesus is saying to his followers that they are valuable. While a lot of Jesus messages focused on the confession of sin, and he did call his followers to deny themselves and even take up a cross, none of this was because people weren’t worthwhile or because they had no value, quite the opposite. In Jesus eyes, everyone had value and worth and purpose. This is really one of the bedrocks of Jesus teaching that we often overlook. We talk a lot about sin and sacrifice and suffering when we talk about what it means to follow Jesus, but Jesus worked hard to lift people up and help them see that they had infinite value to God. When Jesus reached out to heal lepers, when he spoke with women and when he welcomed children into his arms he was making a radical statement about the value of people. When whole groups of people were simply disregarded and told they had no standing before God – Jesus came along and told them that they were loved by God.

In a culture that often didn’t lift up people’s human rights or dignity, Jesus reminded everyone that they had value and that they had a place in the kingdom of God. When we consider the world around us today, maybe we need to recapture that fundamental message of Jesus and remind people that they are valuable. I heard someone say this week that no matter who we are, we are somebody’s child, we are someone’s son or daughter and even if there is on one in this world who would claim us as their own, God does. I’m not sure I ever looked at Jesus statement, you are the salt of the earth, and thought of it in terms of Jesus saying to his followers you are valuable and important, but it is true and this statement was simply one more way that Jesus lifted up and encouraged those who followed him.

But Jesus is certainly saying more here. We aren’t just important and valuable to God; when Jesus says we are salt he is giving us a purpose and a responsibility. Again, in Jesus day salt had one main purpose; it was used as a preservative. To put it simply, salt was rubbed on meat to keep it from rotting so what Jesus is saying to us is that our interaction with the world around us needs to make a difference, we need to help our culture and community from rotting. We have to work for and preserve what is good and Godly around us. As salt we are to bring life – God’s life – and love and hope and peace into our world, and take note here that this is not an option or suggestion, it is a statement of fact. You are the salt of the earth, Jesus says, not you can be or you should be, but you are, but we will only be that salt when we are living our lives for Jesus Christ.

Look at where Jesus placed this teaching; it comes right after the section we heard last week called the beatitudes. In the Beatitudes, Jesus lays out the attitudes we need to embrace in our hearts and lives if we want to experience the fullness of God. He tells us that we need to be poor in spirit – which means not trusting in ourselves but in God. We need to be meek and merciful, we need to work for peace and hunger for righteousness. The consistent theme of the beatitudes is that we need to surrender ourselves to God and live in a way that reflects the values and the desires of God. If we will do this, we will be the salt of the earth. If we will live the way God calls us to each and every day then we will be living a life that makes a difference in the world around us and our words, actions and attitudes will help keep the world from rotting.

As we think about being the salt of the earth Jesus says we need to think about the power of purity, look at Matt. 5:13.

Jesus talks here about salt losing its saltiness, which is hard for us to understand because the salt we use never loses its saltiness and the reason it doesn’t is because it is pure, this salt has no impurities, but salt in Jesus day wasn’t pure. Salt came from many different sources and depending on where it came from it carried with it many other minerals and substances and it was these impurities that would make salt lose its saltiness quickly and once salt lost it’s saltiness it couldn’t be used as a preservative, it actually wasn’t good for anything except to be thrown out into the streets. So what Jesus is saying here is that if we are going to be the salt of the earth, then we need to pure, so let’s talk about the power of purity.

Now when we talk about purity here, we are not talking about being morally perfect – we are talking about being authentic and real. Are we willing to be genuine followers of Jesus, which doesn’t mean we never fall or fail, it simply means that we are honest? As followers of Jesus we will make mistakes and we will struggle with sin. It will happen and God knows this, so what God is looking for isn’t perfection, its honesty. When we fail, are we willing to be honest and confess our sin? Are we willing to be real with people about our shortcomings and honestly talk about God’s forgiveness and grace? Are we willing to share with people what we struggle with when it comes to our faith? God is looking for this kind of honesty.

The harshest words that Jesus had for people were not for those who failed or even those who were caught in the most public and wretched of sins – those were the people Jesus loved the most and they were often the ones Jesus publically forgave and welcomed as his followers; no the people that Jesus was the most critical of were the people who simply were not being honest and real about their lives and their faith. It was the hypocrites, those people who professed to love and follow God and yet didn’t do either, who Jesus called snakes and vipers and whitewashed tombs. If we are going to make an impact in our culture for God, if we are going to reform and even transform our community for good, if we are going to make a difference in people’s lives, it won’t happen because we are perfect, it will happen because we are willing to be real with them about our relationship with Jesus. When it comes to being the salt of the earth we need to understand the power of purity, there is power that comes when we are real with people and willing to share with them what we know and what we don’t know.

When I think about the people who have had the greatest impact on my life and faith, I realize that it is not the people who were moral giants or people who gave the impression that they never sinned; it was the people who were honest with me about how they simply tried to follow Jesus. When I think of those men and women, I realize that they were poor in spirit, they confessed and mourned their sin, they didn’t have all the answers but they wanted to know more – the hungered and thirsted for God. They were merciful with me and their mercy and love was a reflection of Jesus. There is power in purity and if we want to be effective salt that works to make an impact in the lives of the people around us then we need to take seriously this power and be willing to be authentic with those around us. Even here at church we need to make sure we don’t act more righteous and holy than we are, we need to be willing to be honest and vulnerable and real about our lives and our sin and our salvation that comes from Christ alone.

Not only does Jesus say we are the salt of the earth but he also says that we are to be the light of the world. Notice again that it is not a suggestion, it’s not you should be the light of the world or you can be the light of the world, it’s you are the light of the world, and again we are the light that reflects Jesus and shines in the darkness when we are openly and honestly living our lives for God. If we want to be the most effective light we can be then Jesus says we need to understand the power of availability, look at 5:15-16.

When Jesus says that we don’t light a light and then hide it under a bushel but instead place it on a lamp-stand to shine in the darkness he is telling us that we need to make ourselves available to God by going into the dark places of our world. Think about it, the power of light is that it penetrates the darkness, a light shining in an already lit room doesn’t make any difference, so if want to make a difference in our world then we need to not just be content to live boldly for God here in the brightness of God’s people but out there in the world where living for God is noticeable because it is different, and where the light of our faith can make a difference.

The truth is that there is a lot of darkness in the world today that God is calling us to go to. There is the darkness of hunger and poverty, the darkness of injustice and the oppression of women and children around the globe. There is the darkness of depression and loneliness, the darkness of hopelessness and isolation felt by people of all ages. There is the darkness of violence, the darkness of despair, the darkness of disease and death. There is the darkness of doubt and brokenness and sin all around us and God is calling us to go to that darkness and just live lives of faith. If we will go and live authentic lives as followers of Jesus – we will be a light that brings hope, a light that brings possibility, a light that brings love and truth and life. What is the darkness that God is calling you to go to? What is the darkness that God is calling us as a church to go to? We are all called to shine the light of Jesus in the darkness, so where are those dark places that God is calling us to enter?

As salt we need to understand the power of purity, the power that comes when we are honest and real about our lives and our faith, but as light we need to understand the power of availability and be willing to go into the darkness that lies all around us, but there is one more power we need to understand if we want to be salt and light. When we get serious about living for God in this world, things will get messy. Think about it, when we act as salt we are coming up against the brokenness of our world trying to reform and preserve, so it will get messy. When we shine light in the darkness it means that we are living in the dark places where there is sin and pain and despair, so being salt and light is messy and difficult and the problems we face will be beyond our ability to fix, but they are not problems beyond the ability of our God. Our God is greater than any problem or any darkness in this world, so as we live as salt and light we need to understand the power of prayer.

Ultimately, the power that will reform our culture and make a difference in the darkness doesn’t come from us, it comes from God. I am constantly reminded that the power to change someone’s heart or life doesn’t come from me, it doesn’t come from anything I will say or do, it comes from God. The power to preserve our community doesn’t come from us, it comes from God and the light that will guide people to Jesus ultimately doesn’t come from us – it comes from God living in us, so as we seek to be salt and light, we need to first be people of prayer asking God to reform and transform us and then through us and through the power of God working through us, change our community and world.

Next Steps:

• Identify one relationship where the power of purity (being honest and real about your faith) can make a difference.

• Ask God to show you the specific darkness that he is calling you to, and then outline ways you might be able to go into that darkness with the light of Christ.

• Pray for God to move in you and through you so you can be salt and light this week.

The Way of Blessing

When Jesus called Peter, Andrew, James and John to leave behind the security and comfort of their nets, boats, business and families in order to follow him, I’m not sure they really understood what this new way of life was going to look like. They knew Jesus was calling them to be part of something big and new and powerful and if we look at what happened right after they dropped their nets and followed Jesus, we see that is exactly what they experienced. Look at Matthew 4:23-25. People’s lives were changed. They were healed and helped and soon huge crowds started to travel with Jesus, and as his fame spread, these new disciples could have gotten the idea that life and ministry with Jesus was going to lead to earthly success and power and position. So Jesus leads them and all his followers up to the mountains were he quickly sets the record straight. In Matthew 5, Jesus begins to lay out for his followers what a new life with God is going to look like, and as we see, it definitely does not look like what we see in the world around us. In many ways, the passage we just heard, known as the beatitudes, outlines for us a new way of thinking and living that we need to embrace and commit to if we are going to follow Jesus, and while this new way of life often goes against the teaching of the world, the good news is that if we will follow this new way - we will be blessed.


This word, blessed, that Jesus uses 9 times here, can also be translated as happy, but it doesn’t mean being happy the way we usually think about it. For us, happiness is all about our circumstances. For many people around here, when the Steelers win, they are happy. When we get a new job we are happy, when our family and friends remember us and treat us well, we are happy, but the kind of happiness Jesus is talking about transcends our circumstances. The blessing that Jesus is talking about is a peace and joy and contentment in life that endures through good times, difficult times and even the worst of times. The blessing Jesus is talking about has nothing to do with worldly success, power, profit or prestige and it has everything to do with our experience of God’s presence, power and love at work in our lives. So if we want to be blessed, if we want to experience the fullness of life that God has for us, and if we want to be truly happy, then we need to follow the way of blessing that Jesus outlines here.

Now while so much of Jesus teaching can be difficult to understand, the truth is that this way of blessing is pretty straightforward and it all starts with being poor in spirit. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Now being poor in spirit has nothing to do with being poor financially. Being poor in spirit means acknowledging that what we need to find lasting happiness, joy and peace is not going to be found in us or in the world around us but in God. In Luke 18 we hear the story about a man who came to Jesus looking for this kind of blessing. He was rich, well educated and very faithful to God, his family, church and community, and he asked Jesus, What must I do to inherit eternal life? In other words, he wanted to know what he had to do to receive God’s blessing. Now this man was feeling pretty confident in himself and in his abilities because when Jesus told him that he needed to keep God’s commandments he replied, I have kept them all since I was a child. This man was feeling pretty strong in spirit, he was feeling confident in his own ability to do everything the right way and thus earn God’s blessing, and so Jesus looks at him and hits him with this truth, if you want to be perfect, go sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor and then come follow me. What Jesus told this man was that to experience the blessing of God, we have to stop trusting in ourselves and in our own ability to live life the right way and start trusting in God alone.

Now it says that the rich man left Jesus sad because he had great wealth. It doesn’t appear from the story that he ever followed Jesus and I’m not sure that it was his love of money that kept him from Jesus and experiencing the blessing of God as much as it was his love of self. Maybe it wasn’t his big bucks that held him back but his big head. This man thought he could earn God’s blessing by being good and following the law but no matter how good we are we can’t earn God’s blessing. There is no right ritual, doctrine, devotion, or living that earns us God’s blessing. God’s blessing only comes when we stop trusting in ourselves and start trust in God alone. That’s what Jesus means when he says blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who are willing to stand before God not trusting in their own gifts, goodness and abilities but instead are willing to trust in God’s mercy and love alone. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, this is the first step in the way of blessing..

The second step in this way builds on the first one. The reason we don’t stand before God in our own strength, goodness and ability is because we are sinners and we need to acknowledge this and turn from our sin. If we look back at Matthew 4:17 we see that the message Jesus consistently proclaimed was repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near. Now repentance means to turn away from our sin but I’m not sure we will turn away from our sin until we see just how bad our sin is. When our eyes and the eyes of our heart are open and we come face to face with just how deep and strong our sin is, we will mourn and that is the second step in this way of blessing - Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. Jesus isn’t talking about being sad because of the losses we experience in life; he is talking about mourning our sin because we see how completely our sin cuts us off from experiencing the blessings of life we find in a relationship with God.

So the question becomes, when was the last time we mourned because we saw the fullness of our sin? I’m afraid we don’t mourn our sin because we are too busy justifying and rationalizing it. Look at the story that Jesus tells in Luke 18:9-14.

What the tax collector is doing here is justifying his sin. He was looking at his own life and comparing himself to others, and when he did that he told himself that he wasn’t really that bad and he certainly wasn’t as bad as some of the people he saw around him, and because he wasn’t that bad he thought God should bless him. Like the rich man, he wanted God to bless him because of what he had done, he wanted God to reward him but God’s blessing is not earned; it only comes when we are poor in spirit and acknowledge our sin. So if we want to experience the blessing of God it will only come after we confess our sin and begin to feel the power of God’s forgiveness. Just as God comforts those who mourn the pain of loss, so God forgives those who truly confess and repent of their sins. Part of what is included in the blessing God wants to give us is the gift of forgiveness, but that only comes when we confess our sin. When we get honest with God about our sin, God is able to forgive and with that forgiveness comes freedom from guilt and shame and when those are taken away we experience more of the fullness of life – we are happy or blessed. So we need to start getting honest about who we are and confess our sin to God because when we confess our sin the bible says that God is faithful and just and will forgive us of our sin. Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted.

Once we stop trusting in ourselves and get honest with God about our sin, we will move to the third step in the way of blessing and that is to become meek – blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth. When most people hear the word meek they think it means being weak and a pushover, but it doesn’t. Being meek doesn’t mean being a doormat, it doesn’t mean that we don’t see any value or worth in our lives, it means that we see great value and worth but that we are willing to surrender our lives to another. I find it interested that Jesus puts this beatitude here, after mourning, after we acknowledge that we are sinners because when we begin to see the fullness of our sin it can become easy for us to think that we have no value or worth to God, but we do. We do have value and worth before God, God loves us more than we can imagine, and when God calls us to confess our sin it is not a call to see ourselves as weak and worthless, it is a call for us to be meek and surrender our rights and our lives before God. Being meek goes beyond just being humble, it means being willing to surrender our rights. When I think of someone who is meek, I think of someone who chooses to be gentle and patient even when they have every right to be angry and insist on their own way. I think of someone who willingly gives control of their lives to God because they know that God’s way is the better way.

In trying to think of an example someone who clearly shows us what it means to be meek, the only person who comes to mind is Jesus and the place where Jesus shows us what meekness really looks like is when he goes to trial. After Jesus was arrested he stood trial before several different people and every time he stood before the leaders he was falsely accused and he could have easily defended himself and said that he was innocent, but he didn’t because he knew these trials and eventually the cross was God’s will and God’s way, so he gave up his rights and surrendered himself fully to God. Being meek is not an easy thing to do, it is not just giving up or giving in, being meek means giving over our rights so that God’s will and God’s way can be accomplished. Jesus didn’t give up after he was arrested – he gave over his rights so God’s that will could be done. Jesus didn’t give up on the cross; he gave over his right to be defended by every angel in heaven so that God’s will could be accomplished. When we begin to see meekness as a giving over of our rights - we see that it requires an incredibly strong faith and trust not in ourselves but in God – which is why we will never be meek until we are first poor in spirit.

Again, we see that there is an order to Jesus way of blessing and as we surrender ourselves to God we will move to the fourth step and stop pursing the things of the world and begin to hunger and thirst for righteousness, or for the things of God. Max Lucado tells a story which illustrates why pursing the things of God and not the things of this world is so important. One day when Max’s daughter Andrea was about 3 years old and she jumped into one of those play areas filled with small plastic balls. After playing for a while she grabbed a huge arm load of balls and tried to get out of the pit. As you can imagine, the problem she had was that with her arms so full she couldn’t get the balance she needed in the middle of all those balls to stand up and walk out of the pit. Every time that she would wiggle her way to a standing position and try to take a step, she would lose her balance and simply fall over, and every time she fell over she sank deeper and deeper under the sea of plastic balls, and as Max watched all of this he thought to himself, great, she’s got what she want’s and she’s going to hold on to it, even if it kills her.

What are those things that we hunger and thirst for in this world that we hold on to even if it know that will kill us? What are those things God is calling us to let go of so we can stand up and walk with him into new life? Each of us hunger and thirst for things in this world that we think will make us happiness. We hunger for wealth, we thirst for security, we long for the nicest homes, newest cars, fastest phones and most productive investments, but the truth is that in the end none of those things can bring about the lasting joy there is when we walk with God. When we can let go of all those things in this world that we hunger and thirst for and begin to hunger and thirst for more of God, we will find more of God. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for God, because when we do, we will find God.

We spend a lot of time and energy trying to figure out how to be happy in this world, this month’s reader’s digest has yet another article on what we need to do to find lasting happiness and while there are lots of good ideas out there Jesus has shown us the way, but the way is difficult because it goes against what much of the world says. Happiness or blessing isn’t found in ourselves or in anything in the world around us, it is found when we let go of everything in this world and grab hold of God. The blessing of God comes when we let go of the idea that we can do it on our own and get honest with God about our sin and need for God’s mercy. The blessing of God comes when we surrender our lives to God and start pursing the things of God.

If we will live the way Jesus teaches us here then he says we will be blessed, but if we live this way of blessing then I believe that the rest of Jesus teaching here will begin to develop in our lives. When we stop trusting in ourselves and start trusting in God’s grace and pursing the things of God we will find the mercy to offer others, we will have a pure or a focused heart that will help us see God, and we will work for peace and live for Christ no matter what goes on around us or who works against us. The more we follow these first 4 steps in Jesus way of blessing the more we will experience the last 4 blessings that Jesus talks about, but it all starts when we stop trying to find happiness on our own or in this world and start turning to and trusting in God alone.



The next steps this week are more reflective because what Jesus is calling for is a change of heart and attitude, so this week take some quiet time to reflect on your life and begin to identify the following:

• What is it that I hunger and thirst for and how does this compare to what Jesus hungered and thirsted for during his life on earth?

• What “right” do I need to give up? (Is it the right to an apology, the right to a job, possession, standard of living or life-style I see in someone else?) How will giving up this right help bring in God’s kingdom?

• Make a list of the sin you can identify in your life (be honest and thorough) and then confess it all to God. While this can be uncomfortable, remember Psalm 103:8-14 and 1 John 1:9.

• Daily pray the “sinners” prayer found in Luke 18:13, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

• What do I trust in that I need to let go off so that I can trust God more?