Cultivating a Spirit of Thanks-giving

Would you like to have more energy,
be more optimistic,
have more social connections
just be happier than people around you?

Would you like to be less depressed,
envious,
greedy,
or prone to addictions?

How about having more money,
sleep more soundly,
exercise more regularly,
and have a greater resistance to viral infections?

Would you like your children and teens to be less materialistic,
get better grades,
set higher goals,
complain of fewer headaches and stomach aches,
and feel more satisfied with their family, friends and schools?

I know this all this sounds too good to be true doesn’t it? But a decade long study published last year in the Wall Street Journal said that all of this is reflected in people’s lives when their lives are characterized by one thing - gratitude. A lifestyle of giving thanks leads to better attitudes, better health, better relationships and just a better life which is why God tells us in 1 Thessalonians 5:18 to give thanks in all circumstances. God commands us to give thanks because God knows that a lifestyle of thanks-giving is physically, emotionally, mentally and relationally good for us.


So how do we cultivate a deep spirit of thanksgiving? How do we order our lives so that gratitude flows from us in all circumstances? Well, we don’t develop this spirit of thanksgiving by eating turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce one day a year. That may be how we celebrate Thanksgiving but it is not how we cultivate a life of giving thanks. We cultivate a grateful heart and a thankful spirit by following the principles we see in the actions of the one leper who returned to Jesus. Luke 17 is the only place this story is told and it is a familiar one, Jesus heals 10 lepers but only one of them returns to say thank you. Jesus response to the leper is, your faith has made you well.

As I was reflecting on those words it struck me that all 10 lepers had faith in Jesus. All of them looked to Jesus for healing, all of them followed Jesus’ command to go and show themselves to the priest and all of them are healed, and so they all had faith in Jesus, so what is this faith that Jesus is talking about here. Maybe the faith Jesus sees and mentions here isn’t a belief in him, but a spirit of thanks giving. What set this man apart from the other lepers is that he was grateful for what was happening in his life and so he returned to Jesus to say thank you and it is that gratitude which Jesus sees here, and it is that grateful heart that brings a wholeness to this man’s life that the other 9 didn’t experience. But this wholeness in life doesn’t come from Jesus. Jesus doesn’t offer this man some kind of bonus healing because he returned to say thank you, what Jesus is saying is that because this man has a spirit of gratitude that guides his life – he is going to experience more wholeness and health than the other nine. So Jesus was saying here what a decade long study in 2000 years later has proved – those who are grateful will experience more wholeness and happiness in life. So what can we learn from this man about how to cultivate a spirit of thanksgiving.

The first things we see in this leper is that along with the other nine, he cried out to God in his need. Lepers were a pretty helpless group of people. They did not have the ability to make themselves clean. If a skin disease didn’t clear up quickly, then it was most likely going to be considered leprosy which meant that the person had to be cut off from the larger community so that the disease would not spread. That these 10 lepers were all together tells us that they had probably tried everything to get better and nothing had worked. So here they are cut off from the larger community, unable to get themselves clean or healthy on their own and so in desperation cry out to Jesus who they believe can help them. Not only had these lepers heard about Jesus power to heal but they heard that he was willing to heal the poor and outcast. While no one else would help them, they had faith that Jesus would so they humble themselves and cry out to Jesus.

Having a thankful heart and grateful spirit requires an element of humility. Giving thanks calls us to have a basic understanding that what we have and what we need in life isn’t always going to be found in ourselves so we need to look to God and others for help. I think the Pilgrims in that first thanksgiving had that same spirit. They knew they needed help if they were going to survive in this new land and so they humbled themselves before God but also reached out and took help from the natives who were here. It was the Native Americans who taught the Pilgrims how to use the resources of this land to help them grow crops and find food which enabled them to survive that first year.

So gratitude requires humility. Before we give thanks we have to acknowledge our own needs, but humility and crying out in times of need is not easy. Too often we see humility or acknowledging our need as a sign of weakness but in reality it is the first step toward giving thanks which is the key to a healthier life. So to really give thanks we need to ask ourselves what need we have today that God can meet? What power of God do we need to experience in our lives? If it is a need for healing or forgiveness or peace – God wants to help. If it is a need for physical support or inspiration or encouragement – God’s people want to help. The question is whether or not we will cry out to God and ask for help. Are we willing to stop trusting in ourselves to provide all that we need and start looking to God and others? Are we willing to stop thinking that we can do it all on our own and start asking people around us for help? We need to see this kind of humility not as weakness but as the pathway to giving thanks and experiencing wholeness and power in life.

So the lepers cry out to Jesus because they have exhausted every other option. There is nothing else they can do to help themselves so they turn to Jesus and Jesus tells them to go and show themselves to the priest who is the only one who can declare them clean. Now all 10 lepers have faith in Jesus power to heal so they all begin to make their way to the priest and as they go they are made clean, but it says that the one who returned to Jesus saw that he was healed. Now obviously all 10 saw that they were being healed, they could see their skin turning healthy and as they went they celebrated this healing but while the other 9 just kept going the one who had a grateful spirit stopped. He stopped the direction he was going, he stopped what he was doing and he took the time to really take note of what was going on in his life. He not only noticed that his skin was healing but he thought about why it was happening and who was responsible for it. He stopped and thought about what God was doing in his life and that is the second key to a thankful spirit.

A thankful spirit requires us to stop and recognize what God is doing in our lives and how God’s power and grace is helping us and moving us forward. Again, I think this is what the Pilgrims did that first thanksgiving. They stopped in the midst of a busy season to recognize what God had done during the past year and what God was doing in their lives at that moment. Think about what a busy time it was for the Pilgrims. While the harvest may have been over – they were still preparing for the winter and to take a couple of days out of their preparations to acknowledge all that God was doing is significant. Sometimes we tell ourselves that we are too busy to stop and reflect or too busy to stop and take note of all that God is doing in our lives but gratitude requires us to take this time.

I know that this coming week is usually a busy one for all of us. We have family visiting or maybe we are travelling to visit family. We have meals to plan, Christmas shopping to begin, football to watch and hunting trips to get ready for – it’s a busy time and it’s all good and fun things that we want to be busy with – but in the midst of it all can we take some time to stop and take note of what God is doing in our lives? What has God done in our lives this past year? How have we seen God’s power and how have we experienced God’s provision? What blessings has God provided for us and what blessings do we see as part of our lives today? We will never be able to give thanks if we don’t take the time to notice all the things that God is doing for which we need to give thanks.

And let’s not just look back and give thanks – let’s also look forward. I don’t think this one leper was looking back on his old life when he came to Jesus; he was looking to all the open doors and opportunities that this healing was going to bring him. He knew that this healing would help reunite him with his family. He knew this healing would open the door for him to literally be able to feel the touch and embrace of his loved ones. He would be able to connect to society once again, worship in the temple and eat at the table with his friends. So many open doors were in front of him and he was grateful for them all. Too many times at our Thanksgiving tables we only look back when we think about giving thanks and while that is a good thing to do, I would challenge us to also look forward. What is the open door and new opportunity for which we are thankful for today? How is God leading us into the future? What is God’s plan for us because God does have a plan for us – Jeremiah 29:11-13. God has a plan for our future and God wants to share that plan with us and we will hear about that plan when we stop and begin to take note of all God is doing in our lives.

So we cultivate a lifestyle of giving thanks by crying out to God in humility and stopping long enough to notice how God is meeting those needs and leading us into the future, but there is one more step in a lifestyle of gratitude that we see in this one leper and that is to physically give thanks. The leper stopped in his tracks, turned on his heels, returned to Jesus and fell face down on the ground in front of him to say thank you. These are not casual words of gratitude here, these are physical and intentional acts of giving thanks to God and we need to find intentional and physical acts of giving thanks that we can make part of our lives as well.

What physical way of thanking God can we embrace this week? Maybe it is taking a physical posture in times of worship, praise and prayer. Maybe when we pray we need to simply open our hands to God as a sign of humility or as a way of saying that we know that what we need in life will come from God. Maybe it will mean kneeling in prayer each morning or evening, or lifting our arms to God because we know that we need God to take us by the hand and lead us. Maybe the physical act is to literally count our blessings and write them out so that we can see all God is doing in our lives. I have seen a number of people on fb recently place in their status every day this month a list of things they are thankful for. Each day they are simply taking time to take note of what God has done and is doing in their lives and they are physically giving thanks.

Another intentional act might be to write out a prayer of thanksgiving to use in our family meal. My Grandfather did that and I am blessed to have those prayers, all written before I was born. These prayers were shared at the table with my family and they reflect the intentional sitting down and counting of God’s blessings. What a gift it might be to your Grandchildren if you wrote out a prayer of thanksgiving and began a tradition of passing those prayers on to your family. Another intentional act might be to read some of the psalms of thanksgiving and I have listed 7 of them in the next steps so we can read one everyday this week. Maybe we need to read it out loud as a prayer so we can hear with our own ears some of the things we need to be thankful for. We train and condition our hearts and develop a deep attitude of thanksgiving by intentionally and at times physically giving thanks to God. All of these intentional acts will shape our attitudes and cultivate the lifestyle of gratitude that we want to embrace.

I hope that this week won’t just be a time of visiting with family, eating food, shopping with the crowds or getting ready for camp, I hope this week we will work to cultivate a lifestyle of giving thanks that will carry us through the rest of this year and into the next. Giving thanks every day will change us, it will bring us more of the life we want to live and more of the life God has to offer.


Next Steps:
Cry out to God. Identify a need in your heart, life, or relationships that needs God’s grace and power. Name it to God this week.

Stop and take notice. Take time out of this busy week to stop and look at your life. Make note of all that God is doing. Make a list of the past and current blessings but also open doors and new opportunities God is giving you.

Thank God. Find intentional and physical ways to thank God.
• Write a prayer of thanks (and use on Thanksgiving).
• Prayer walk your house and thank God for something or someone in each room.
• Take a posture of giving thanks during a time of prayer or thanksgiving: kneel, open your hands to God, bow your head, raise your arms.
• Read a Psalm of Thanksgiving (perhaps out loud) every day this week: Psalm 65, 95, 100, 103, 105, 108, 116

Parable of the Talents

(This sermon was preached the Sunday after the sex abuse scandal broke at Penn State University.  The news has effected everyone in our community (10 miles from PSU) and this message is an attempt to speak to a difficult situation.  My hope and prayer is that will be quick to listen and pray and slow to speak.)


One word that has come up again and again through the events of this week has been the word response. Whether it is the lack of response of people when they heard allegations of abuse, or the response of the Penn State Board of Trustees to a crisis, the response of students to all the news and events of the week, the response of a team called on to play a football game under difficult circumstances or the response of a community shocked and saddened by what is unfolding around us, response is the word that has been coming back to me again and again and I think it is the word which stands at the heart of Jesus parable of the talents.


In Matthew 25, Jesus tells the story of three servants who have all been given something very valuable by their master. While it is unclear exactly how much money we are talking about here, a talent of money was a huge sum. One talent may have been as much as 20 years worth of wages for a day laborer, so 5 talents could have been the equivalent to 100 years worth of wages, but the point of the story isn’t how much money they were given, it is that each servant was given of something of great value and when the master returned he wanted to know how responsible the servants had been with the resources entrusted to them. For the master, the key wasn’t the results, he wasn’t looking for a specific sum of money on his return, what mattered was if the servants had been responsible. How did they respond to the gift given to them? The focus of Jesus story isn’t the end result; it isn’t that the good servants doubled the money given to them, the question is were they good stewards of what God gave them. The question for us is, are we good stewards of all that God has given to us? What is our response to the treasure God has given us?

Now when I talk treasure here I am not primarily talking about money, I’m talking about all the resources that God has given us. God has given us the gift of life and so one of the greatest treasures we have is time. Do we use our time wisely? Do we make the most of every day and ever hour that God gives us? When opportunities to help those in need around us become available do we take the time to do it? When people are hurting and need someone to listen to them do we take the time to sit and allow them to share their burdens and pain? When someone needs encouragement do we take the time to offer words of hope and inspiration?

One of the amazing things about Jesus is that as focused and driven as he was in his mission of teaching, preaching and revealing to people the power and love of God, he also took the time to reach out to individuals who came to him. Jesus was always willing to allow himself to get interrupted by the needs of people. One day as Jesus was teaching a man was lowered into the house in front of him with the hope that Jesus would heal him. Jesus allowed his agenda and schedule for the day to be interrupted and he didn’t just heal the man, he forgave him as well. When Jesus was travelling the crowds would press in around him and again he would stop and offer healing and forgiveness to the unnamed people who came to him. When the disciples didn’t want Jesus to be distracted by the children, it was Jesus who didn’t see the children as a distraction – they were worthy of his time and attention. Jesus spent his time wisely, he took the time to listen and care for people and we need to ask ourselves if we are being responsible with the time God has given us. There are a lot of people in our community right now that just need to talk and share and maybe the best use of our time is to just listen.

God has also given each of us unique skills, abilities and passions that he calls us to use for his purpose. Each servant in Jesus story received a different amount of money – they each received a unique talent and so do we, we all have been given something valuable and unique, what is our response to these gifts? One of the most challenging times of my life was when I was working as a theater manager but knew that I needed to think more seriously about going into ministry which meant going to seminary. My Dad actually used this very parable to challenge me to not take the gift of faith given to me by God and a passion to serve God and people and not just bury that all because I didn’t want to go back to school. He challenged me to use the talents and passions God had given me wisely. God has given each of us different skills, talents, interests and passions and God will hold us accountable to how we use these gifts and again, God isn’t interested in how successful we are with them, it’s not the results that matter, it’s our response. Are we willing to just step out in faith and begin to use what God has given us for His purpose and glory?

Now being responsible with God’s gifts doesn’t mean we all go into full time ministry – it may mean stepping up to serve in some capacity in the church or in our community. Maybe it means working with children or visiting those who are sick or lonely. If the gift God has given us is music maybe a good response is to agree to sing in the choir or share our music in the schools or in nursing homes. We all have some skill, interest or experience to share and use for God’s glory and we need to make sure we are not burying this gift but taking steps of faith to use it for God and in ways that help God’s people.

In the parable Jesus tells the gift given to the servants is money and so we need to be honest and ask ourselves if we are being responsible with the financial treasure God has given us. The Bible is clear that God calls for a tenth of our income to be returned to Him as an offering (Malachi 3:10-12). If we are looking at our checkbooks and realizing that our response to the money God has given us is not good – if we are in debt, overdrawn and living beyond our financial means or simply not giving God the gifts he calls for, then our first response should be to tithe and begin to get our financial house in order. God has promised that when we step out in faith and give him what he calls for – he will provide for us. He may not provide all we want – but we will have what we need.

Many times we think that time, talents and financial treasures are the only gifts God has given us, but the truth is that none of these are the most valuable – the most valuable gift God has given us is the gift of faith. God has not only revealed to us who He is, he has given us the knowledge of his love and grace and power. God has shown us that there is salvation and eternal life through faith and trust in Jesus Christ. God has blessed us with the gift of the church – the body of Christ – a community that brings hope and peace and encouragement to the world. God has given us this gift of faith and maybe more than any other gift today God is asking us how we will respond to this gift. Are we hording it for ourselves or investing it in others? Have we buried our faith it our own hearts or are we willing to share it with others with the hope that it brings more people into a relationship with God and into a relationship with the body of Christ – the church.

What we have seen this week is that we live in a broken and hurting world where people need the gift of faith. People need the grace and power and truth of God. Our broken and hurting community needs the comfort and peace of God and as God’s people we need to respond to the needs of the people around us and share the healing and hope that our faith provides. Are we sharing with others our belief in a God who brings healing and strength and new life to those who are broken and broken hearted? Are we sharing with people our faith in a God who calls for justice and yet offers mercy? Are we sharing with family, friends and neighbors our faith that the peace and love of God are greater than any force of evil or injustice in this world and that this peace and love can make a difference in our lives and bring healing to a hurting community? One of the most powerful and healing moments of this week was a moment of faith when players from Nebraska and Penn State knelt to pray. They not only drew upon their faith to bring healing, but they shared that faith for a world to see.

As we think about the response God is looking for from us today I want to take us back to our core values as a church. The core values of the church and of our church are to connect, serve and grow. Today, in the midst of all that is going on around us, we can make a difference in our community by helping people connect to God and to one another and we do this by reminding people that even in the midst of pain and suffering – God is right here with us. Maybe we need that reminder right now. Last week we heard from Isaiah 43 that when we go through difficult times, God is with us. Little did we know last Sunday how severe that fire or flood would be, but my hope is that there have been moments this past week when we have experienced the presence and power and peace of God and because we have experienced this for ourselves we can now share God presence, peace and power with others. When the future looks uncertain or we are feeling disappointed and disillusioned we need to remember and proclaim that God is still with us.

A faithful response to sharing our faith is to also serve those in need around us and we can serve people best right now by being willing to pray and listen. We need to pray for the victims of abuse, all victims of abuse because what we have seen and heard about this week brings up painful memories for all those who have been abused during their lives. We need to pray for all those involved and be willing to listen to those who are really struggling to make sense out of what is going on. As I have listened to people this week I have been amazed at how many people in our church and community are connected to different people involved in this situation. Just about everyone is connected to someone somewhere because the Penn State family is a big one and so right now there is a lot of pain. We need to listen to people when they are angry, disappointed and disillusioned and it is important for us to be quick to listen and pray and maybe slow, thoughtful and prayerful when we actually speak. Reading comments this week I fear that we talk too much and too quickly we end up saying things we might not want to say. I’ve read many words this week that do not reflect the depth of our faith and trust in God and so we need to choose our words carefully and spend more time listening and praying than actually speaking.

A faithful response to God will also be for us to grow deeper in our own faith by seeking God ourselves in the midst of the storm. We need to learn more about God’s teaching of grace and mercy as well as truth and justice. We need to allow our own hearts and lives to be shaped by God’s hand so that God can use us to help others. I believe that God wants to be at work in our lives, in our church and in our community right now in some very powerful ways. We have an opportunity to commit ourselves to those things that really matter, get our focus and perspective back on God and evaluate our lives to see how we are responding to the gifts God has given us. We can never forget that in Jesus story the master returned and all of the servants had to stand before him and given an account of what they did with the riches they were given and so will we. We will all have to stand before God someday and tell God how we responded to all that God has given us. I don’t know about you, but that is a sobering thought, I’m just thankful for the opportunity today and in the days ahead to revaluate my response and make changes that will honor God and the gifts God has given me.

For the past week we have been caught up in a whirlwind of how others have responded to various situations and so it is a good time for us to think about our response to God, to the gifts God has entrusted to us and to the faith that God has called us to share with others. It is in times like this that our faith needs to shine. It is in times like this that God is calling us to make the most of all he has given us. As the church – what will be our response? To children who need comfort and a community that needs healing – what will be our response? As servants and followers of Jesus who will one day stand before our master to give an account, what will be our response?


Next Steps

Connect
• Reflect on the following: Psalms 23, Psalm 139, and Isaiah 43:1-4, which remind us that at all times, God is with us. Share this good news to others.
• Pray for healing and hope for all in our community especially the victims of abuse and their families.

Serve
• Listen to the concerns, disappointments, fears and frustrations of others.
• Be quick to listen and pray and thoughtful when we speak.

Grow
• Take an inventory of our life to make sure we are responding faithfully to God’s generous gifts of time, talent and financial treasure.
• Step out in faith and find new ways to use God’s gifts according to God’s will.

What's holidng us back?

One of the interesting things about the Bible is that it doesn’t tell us a lot about the personal life of Jesus. We get very little information about his childhood and no information about those awkward teenage years. We don’t know anything about what Jesus did before he entered into the public eye at his baptism and even during his three years of ministry, which is what is recorded in the gospels, we really don’t know much about Jesus’ personal life, but we do know that he had some close friends because in John 11 there is a lengthy story about Jesus relationship with two sisters, Mary and Martha, and their brother Lazarus. We get the idea that while these three friends were not official disciples of Jesus, they were close. They may have provided a place for Jesus to stay when he was in Bethany, they may have provided food, shelter and money for Jesus as he travelled and ministered and they may have given Jesus a kind of sanctuary, or retreat when Jesus needed to get away from the crowds.


As Jesus is travelling, news comes to him that Lazarus has become sick and Mary and Martha want Jesus to come to Bethany and heal him. Jesus puts off going to visit Lazarus and in time Jesus learns that Lazarus has died. When Jesus finally arrives at their home, Lazarus has been dead for 4 days, which is long enough for the smell of the dead body to reach out of the tomb so that everyone in the community knows for sure that Lazarus is indded dead. As Jesus talks with Mary and Martha he asks them if they believe Lazarus will rise from the dead. They say yes we they know Lazarus will some day rise from the dead and be in heaven, but they don’t believe that resurrection will be here and now. Jesus says to them, but I am the resurrection and the life and again they say, yes we know that and we know Lazarus will rise someday, but it won’t be today. All of this disturbs Jesus. Lazarus death disturbs Jesus, the sisters’ lack of understanding that Jesus holds the power of life disturbs Jesus and so as it says in the shortest verse in the Bible, John 11:35, Jesus wept. And then the story continues in John 11:38-44

This story of Lazarus shows us that Jesus has authority over death and because of that power he calls for Lazarus to come forth out of the tomb, and he does. Lazarus is a dead man now alive and walking – but we see from the story here that Lazarus isn’t walking very well because he is all tied up in the grave clothes. In Jesus day they would wrap a dead body in strips of cloth before they would lay it in the tomb and those strips of cloth were now getting in the way of Lazarus experiencing the fullness of life. The cloth that was wrapped around his face kept Lazarus from seeing where he was going and the strips that bound his hands and feet kept him from being able to really move. The grave clothes were holding Lazarus back from living the life that Jesus had called him forth to live.

So what’s holding us back? What holds us back from living the life that God calls us forth to live? God has called us to rise up in faith and experience the fullness of new life. God has called us to leave the darkness of the world and step into the light of his grace and power. Jesus calls us to leave our lives of sin and experience forgiveness, to leave behind doubt and bondage and experience the freedom and love that he offers. Like calling Lazarus up from the grave Jesus is calling us to experience the power of new life… so what is it holds us back? What keeps us from walking with Jesus? What keeps us from seeing Jesus? What are the grave clothes that keep us from experiencing the power of life?

I wonder if what holds us back is our lack of faith in Jesus or our lack of faith in ourselves?

When Jesus arrived in Bethany, Lazarus had already died, in fact he had been in the grave for a couple of days and the distinctive odor of decaying flesh was coming forth from the tomb so everyone knows he’s dead and in the midst of the grieving and crying Jesus asks Mary and Martha if they believe and trust in him. Look at John 11:25-26. Mary and Martha believe in Jesus, they believe he has power, in fact earlier Martha said, I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him. They believe in Jesus, they believe in his power and love, and I think most of us believe in Jesus.

We believe Jesus has power, we believe he rose from the dead, we believe he raised Lazarus from the dead, we believe that he loves and forgives, our problem isn’t faith in Jesus, it’s faith in ourselves. We don’t question God’s love for others and we believe that Jesus forgives others; I think we struggle to believe that God can love and forgive us. It’s faith in God’s love for us that often holds us back from experiencing this power of resurrection, or new life.

Yet we ask ourselves, how can Jesus possibly love me after all I have done? Why would God wipe away my past, I don’t deserve to experience new life? Can God possibly forgive me for how I feel, what I think, and how I live today? And why would God call me forth to new life when I have nothing to offer him? I don’t think our problem is faith in the power of Jesus; it’s faith in ourselves, or faith that God really does love us enough to move in our hearts and lives to bring us life. I believe that some of the grave clothes that hold us back are our past failures, our present sin, and this thought that we have no presents – or gifts – to offer God.

I don’t know about you, but I know my past failures bind me up at times. We wonder how God could love us after all we have done? If you are asking that question today, you are not alone, I believe it is a question we all struggle with. We know who we really are and we know all the failures and sin of our past and when we sit down and think about those things it is hard to imagine how God could possibly call us to walk with him in new life. King David struggled with this. After David was confronted with the reality of his past failures which not only included adultery but conspiracy to murder, David said this to God. Psalm 51:3-5.

David is thinking back to his past and knows that God is right when he passes judgment on him – he is guilty. We are all guilty. We have all failed, and yet God still loves us and God forgives. In fact David goes on to say this in Psalm 51:7. It is only if God washes us that we can be clean. We can’t erase our past – but God can. We can’t wipe away our failures, but God can and God does if we will hear God’s call and step out in faith to take hold of God’s love.

While we may be able to overcome our past failures, we then begin to wonder how God can forgive us for the sin we commit today. So many times the words of David are our words, my sin is every before me. Or the words of Paul echo in our hearts and minds, the good I want to do I don’t do and those things I don’t want to do – I do, what a wretched man I am. Even if we can overcome our past, we then struggle to believe God could love and forgive us because of the sin we see in our lives today.

One of the things I have come to realize is that Jesus always called people who were caught up in sin. Every single person Jesus called to follow him, every person Jesus reached out to heal, every person Jesus loved and forgave was a sinner – every single one – and that sin, their sin, did not keep Jesus away. This means that our sin does not keep Jesus away. Our sin does not keep God from loving us; it doesn’t keep God from calling out to us in the grave of our sin like Jesus called out to Lazarus in his own grave. Many times we think that God is so holy, pure and powerful that he can not enter into the darkness of our lives, but he does Jesus shows us that he does. God came into the darkness and sin of this world to forgive and God still comes into our darkness and sin of our lives to forgive and bring the light of love and freedom. Look at Psalm 139:11-12. Even the darkness of our sin is not dark to God – it doesn’t keep God away and it doesn’t keep the power of God’s love away. God is right here with us if we would just believe – not believe in God, but believe in God’s desire and ability to love and forgive us, if we would just believe we would begin to walk in freedom and life.

If the grave clothes of our past failures or present sin don’t bind us up, then it might be our struggle to see how we can walk with God when we don’t think we have anything to offer Him. Why would call me to new life? How could God possibly use me when I have no gifts or abilities to offer him? Well, let’s go back to Lazarus for a moment. When Jesus called Lazarus from the grave, what did Lazarus have to offer Jesus? He had nothing – he was dead – literally dead – he had nothing to offer Jesus in that moment but grave clothes: failures, sin, death, and yet… Jesus called him forth, why? Because Jesus loved him and Lazarus only response to Jesus, his only gift to offer in return was love.

We need to understand that God doesn’t call us to new life and Jesus doesn’t forgive and love to get something in return. God isn’t looking for presents and offerings from us; Jesus doesn’t want any gift but one – our hearts. Go back to Psalm 51:16-17, God doesn’t want an offering as much as God wants our hearts and lives. In fact, after Lazarus rises from the grave we never hear about him serving God, becoming a teacher or evangelist or even waiting on Jesus as a servant, the only time we hear about him again is in John 12:2 where once again Jesus is at Lazarus home and while Martha is serving the dinner, Lazarus is at the table with Jesus. Lazarus is simply sitting by Jesus side. God doesn’t raise us up and offer us new life in order to get some kind of present in return – he offers us life because he loves us and it’s time for us to not just believe in Jesus but to believe in his love for us.

One final word here, when Jesus says take off the grave clothes, he isn’t talking to Lazarus, he is speaking to the people who are around Lazarus which means that we need to help one another remove the obstacles that keep us from walking with Jesus. We need to help one another let go of past failures and present sin and we do that by reminding one another that God loves us and forgives us. We need to share with one another the truth of God’s love and grace and we need to be willing to offer that forgiveness and grace ourselves.

Now I believe that as we help take the grave clothes off of others, we experience the power of God for ourselves. Think about what it must have been like for the people who walked up to Lazarus as he comes out the tomb and they began to untie him. They were experiencing themselves the power of Jesus’ miracle and we have that same opportunity every time we look at someone and tell them that their past failures and present sin can not keep God from loving them. We experience the power of God’s love and grace ourselves every time we share that love and grace with others and that not only unties them it helps set us free as well.

So as we close today, I want us to share in God’s promise of love and forgiveness together and allow these words and this message to help us remove our grave clothes so that we can be set free.
Isaiah 43
I have called you by name and you are mind.
When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
When you pass through the rivers,
They will not sweep you away
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be burned,
the flames will not set you ablaze.
Because you are precious and honored in my sight
And I love you.

Next Steps:
Identify the grave clothes in your life. Is it your:
Past (failures)
Present (sin)
Presents (a sense of having nothing to offer God)

Read and reflect on these words of God’s love and forgiveness:
1. Psalm 103:8-14
2. Isaiah 43:1-7, 49:15-16
3. Jeremiah 29:11, 31:3
4. Zephaniah 3:17
5. John 3:16-17
6. Romans 8:31-39
7. 1 John 4:10-11

Pray.
Lord Jesus, help me to hear your voice calling me to live a new life. Give me the strength to leave my failures and sin behind and to trust your love to bring freedom, healing and life. Thank you that you have the power of life over death and thank you for sharing that power with me today. Help me to walk by faith and in faith today and everyday. AMEN

Living on the Edge ~ Overcoming Evil

What almost kept me from experiencing the amazing view of Fontana Lake and experiencing a little taste of life on the edge was my fear of climbing an 80 foot open stairway to the top of a fire-tower, but what keeps many of us from really living life on the edge and experiencing the best God has for us isn’t a fear of heights, or a lack of money, or being stuck in the wrong job or without a job all together. The greatest obstacle to our experiencing life on the edge is our unwillingness to forgive. As we have worked our way through Romans 12 I hope that one thing has become clear, living on the edge comes when we are in right relationships. It starts with a right relationship with God where we are fully surrendered to him, it continues with a right relationship with the world around us where we limit the power of the messages we receive from this world that are not from God. Experiencing the fullness of life comes when we are in a right relationship with ourselves which means seeing ourselves the way God does and then working to establish strong relationships with our family and friends within the body of Christ. God has created us to be in healthy relationships. Life is found in healthy relationships so when we are unwilling to forgive those who have hurt us it not only keeps us from experiencing a relationship with that person, it keeps us from experiencing the fullness of any relationship and therefore keeps us from experiencing the life God wants for us.


A number of years ago I had a friend who hurt and disappointed me and our friendship did not end well. For years I held on to the bitterness of that relationship and all that happened was that I began destroying myself. Not only was that anger and resentment eating me alive, it was keeping me from entering into new and life giving relationships with others. As long as that bitterness burned in my heart there was no room for love to develop toward anyone. Many people have talked about how anger is like a cancer on our soul that slowly eats away at everything until it destroys all of our relationships and it true, bitterness and an unforgiving spirit doesn’t hurt anyone else, it only hurts and destroys us and to remove that cancer we have to be willing to forgive and Romans 12 begins to show us what forgiveness looks like.

Before we read this last section, I want us to get practical for a moment and so I am going to ask you to think about the person who has hurt you the most or the person that today you are struggling to forgive. It might be a parent or a child; it might be your spouse, or an ex-spouse. It might be the bully who terrorized you as a child, an employer who destroyed your self-esteem, a coworker who has not been honest about you or a friend who disappointed you. As we think about this person, or persons, let’s hear God’s word - Romans 12:14-21.

Now your first thought in hearing this scripture might be to think that this kind of action toward those who are persecuting us is just not possible, but it is. God would not give us these commands and directions if it were not possible, so we need to take this teaching seriously and this is not just the teaching of Paul – this is the teaching and example of Jesus. In Jesus sermon on the mount, which is another message that God gives in order to help us understand what it looks like to live life on the edge, Jesus says: Matthew 5:43-45.

So Jesus is also clear that we need to be willing to forgive our enemy but even more powerful than his teaching is his example. When Jesus was betrayed and deserted by his friends he didn’t become bitter. When he was falsely accused, beaten, forced to carry a cross and finally crucified, Jesus didn’t lash out in anger or hold a grudge against those who persecuted him, in fact, from the cross Jesus says, Father forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing. Both the teaching and the example of Jesus show us that God’s will for us is to forgive and the reason God wants us to forgive is that forgiveness opens the door to life. It was Jesus willingness to forgive on the cross that led to the resurrection and new life so we see that for all of us forgiveness leads to life.

If we want to experience the power of resurrection, or life on the edge, we need to be willing to forgive and Romans 12:14 begins to show us what forgiveness looks like. Now to bless someone means that we wish them well and desire God’s blessing, God’s riches and God’s mercy to be a part of their lives. To curse someone is to wish and even ask God to bring about their destruction. Our natural instinct is to curse those who persecute us. We want them to get what they deserve, we want them to hurt because they have hurt us, so the thought of blessing those who have hurt us might seem impossible and if we left it up to our feelings it would be, but the first step in blessing those who curse us, or overcoming the evil that is directed toward us by others is to simply make the conscious decision to forgive.

Romans 12:14 is a command not a suggestion. Bless those who persecute you is not just a good idea God wants to offer us – it is a command that God is giving us. It’s the same with Jesus teaching in Matthew 5. Love you enemy is not a suggestion, it is a command and since God commands us to do it – it can’t be something that requires us to feel like doing it because we can’t always command our feelings. We may never feel like forgiving someone, we may never feel like blessing them, but our feelings don’t matter – this is not a matter of the heart it is a matter of the mind and will. We need to make the decision to forgive and allow God to bring the change of heart in his time.

So can you make the decision today to forgive the person you were thinking of a moment ago? Can we step out in faith and say, God I want you to bless this person, or God I am making the decision today to forgive this person. I’d encourage you to go home or even at the close of worship today to pull out the next steps and complete step #2. God, today I am asking you to bless… and then fill in the name. The first step to overcoming the evil that is aimed at us is to begin a process of forgiveness and love directed toward those people. I’m sure Jesus didn’t feel like forgiving those who had just driven nails into his hands and feet, but he said the words, he made the decision to forgive and I wonder if it was the power of saying the words that helped Jesus truly forgive and love his enemies.

Now you may be asking yourself what good is it to make this statement if our heart is not in it – good question. The answer is that forgiveness doesn’t come in one big step – instead it is a long slow process. Making the decision to forgive and asking God to bless is just the first step and Jesus then gives us the second step. Go back to Matthew 5:44 pray for those who persecute you. Prayer is the second step in overcoming evil through forgiveness and it may be the only step we take for weeks and months and years to come, but I will guarantee you this, if we pray on a regular basis for those who have hurt us or those who are persecuting us - something will happen. Those directing evil at us may not stop – those who have hurt us may not suddenly see the error of their ways and come to ask us to forgive them, but something will change because we will change. As we pray, our hearts soften and in time our feelings toward those who have hurt us will also soften so that forgiveness will flow naturally from our lips and our hearts.

While prayer is the second step, Paul shows us that we need to take this further. In Romans 12:15 Paul says, rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. Now when we read this verse we need to remember that Paul is not talking about mourning and rejoicing with our family and friends - that’s easy. We don’t need to be told to do that because we will naturally do that. What Paul is saying here is that we need to rejoice and mourn with those who are persecuting us, that’s the context here. Paul is talking about our relationship with those who are working against us, our enemies, so when our enemies rejoice we are to rejoice and when they mourn we are to mourn. Now let’s be clear that Paul is not talking here about political relationships, he’s talking about personal ones. The call to mourn and rejoice is a call to reach out in a personal way to those individuals who have hurt us and while again this seems impossible – if we will step out and do it, we will experience the power of God.

Corrie Ten Boom and her sister Betsie were Christians who were sent to the Ravensbruck concentration camp during WWII because they helped hide Jews in their home. Betsie died in that camp and their story is told in the amazing book, The Hiding Place. After the war, Corrie travelled around Germany talking about her experience in the camps and the power of God and at one of those meetings she recognized a man in the audience and realized he had been one of the guards at Ravensbruck. The guard came up to Corrie after her talk and introduced himself as one of the guards from the camp she had been in, "But since that time," he went on, "I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well.” That’s when he extended his hand and said, "Will you forgive me?"

Corrie said she stood there and remembered her sister Betsie who had died in part because of his work and wondered how he could ask her to erase her sister’s slow terrible death simply for the asking? And for what seemed hours Corrie wrestled with the most difficult thing she ever had to do. Corrie said, “The message that God forgives has a prior condition: that we forgive those who have injured us and so I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion,” she said. “Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. " So very mechanically she stuck out her hand and took the hand of the guard and in that moment Corrie said an incredible thing took place. “The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.

"I forgive you!" I cried. "With all my heart!"

For a long moment we grasped each other's hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God's love so intensely as I did then.

God brought healing and power to Corrie because she was willing to mourn with this man as he confessed his sin and rejoice with him in his experience of God forgiveness and new life. This is living on the edge and it is not easy, but as we see, it is where the power of God is and it is what brings us the excitement of life.

So what might it look like for us to rejoice with those who have hurt us? Several years after my friend and I parted ways I got a call from him and he asked if we could get together. When we did, he shared with me that he was thinking about entering graduate school and wanted to know if I would be willing to write him a letter of reference. I have to tell you that I felt like I was being used and I wanted to say no, but to follow Jesus meant to let go of my bitterness and even though I didn’t feel like doing it, I gave him the reference and learn a little bit about what it means to rejoice with those who rejoice.

Maybe rejoicing with those who rejoice means sending a note when we hear about something positive happening in their lives. Maybe it is offering a word of grace when we see them and know something good is going on. And we mourn when they mourn by offering words and notes of encouragement when we know they are going through a difficult time. Now let me say that some pain and some circumstances may require us to keep our distance from those who have hurt us, and in those relationships we need to stand back and simply pray, but those prayers can help us have an attitude of joy if we see real change in the lives of others, and those prayers can cause us to weep when we know they are truly hurting.

Paul gives more direction on how to treat with our enemy in Romans 12:20a. Again, these are not easy things to do and we need to get involved in situations like this only after we have spent some serious time in prayer and maybe after we have asked others for their counsel and support – but if this is where God is leading us, we need to walk this journey because this is where we will find life.

The resurrection of Jesus shows us that we can overcome evil with good. When we make the decision to forgive, when we pray for those who have hurt us and reach out to bless them in words and actions we begin to break the power of evil and begin to experience the life God wants for us. Jesus did all of this and while it was not an easy road, at the end was resurrection and new life. Living on the edge is not easy, it involves surrender, sacrifice, service, forgiveness and love, at times it involves carrying a cross – but in the end we stand victorious – in the end we experience life.


Next Steps
Connect:
• Begin the process of connecting with (forgiving) those who have hurt you (or are persecuting you) by naming them today.
• Identify a friend who will walk with you as you seek to offer forgiveness.

Serve:
• Make the decision today to forgive the person you identified above.
• Write out the following prayer: "God, today I am asking you to bless __________________________________.

Grow:
• What will it mean to rejoice and/or mourn with the person who has harmed you?
• Can you step out in faith and offer this love and grace this week?