True worship is largely a matter of listening. In church it is important that we listen to the sounds of word and song which may be heard here. There is, however, another voice, one inaudible to the physical ear, but a voice nevertheless. It is the voice of God.

In this room at this moment there are, in fact, many voices that we are not hearing. We could hear some of them if we brought in a dozen or so radios, half a dozen TVs and several CBs, and if we tuned all these to various wavelengths and channels. By means of these instruments, we could hear what is inaudible now.

But there is also that other voice. It is all around us here, and within us too. You cannot normally pick it up on radio or tune it in on TV or CD. The tuning mechanism is within you. And this tuning is not anything so simple as the flip of a switch or turning of a knob. The tuning is done by each of us within ourselves as we bring our whole attention into focus upon our Lord. So, as it were, let us tune ourselves to listen, let us become receivers to hear the voice of him who speaks.

The psalmist said something which each of us might well be saying just now: "I will hear what God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace to his people."

Imagine with me for a moment what it was like that first Christmas Eve, the night Jesus left heaven to go down to earth. Like any boy leaving home, Jesus left heaven. Perhaps the Father said something like this to him, "Now, Son, I’ve got to send you down to earth because my people have really messed things up. They are unhappy. Many are lonely and down on themselves. I want you to go down to give them new hope and to provide a way for their sins to be forgiven so that we can all get back together again."

So Jesus walked to the door of heaven, but before descending he turned and asked, "Father, what will I tell them?" And the good Heavenly Father put his arms around his Son and said, "When you get down there, all you need to do is tell them that I love them. That is all. Just tell them that I love them."

At Christmas all of us gladly hear these words of love: "For unto you," the angel said, "is born ... a Savior." He is ours, each one of us individually. In Christ the Father says, "I love you, Bill. I love you, Barbara. I love you, Jim, Bob, Peggy, Marge. I sent my Son unto you, Ralph, Betty, Fred." The baby Jesus is the Father’s message of love for each of us individually.

Listen carefully for the Good News God has for each one of you personally. Three simple, powerful, wonderful words, "I love you." Everyone presently having a hard time - remember that you are not alone: God loves you. Everyone feeling lonely or grieving should know that you are not alone, for God loves you. Everyone afraid of tomorrow and what the future might bring, you are not alone, God loves you.

"For unto you is born a Savior." "Unto you," the angel said. Oh, let the meaning of a personal Savior, Jesus, the Babe of Bethlehem, crash in upon your heart and your entire being. There is Good News for you, the Lord of the entire universe loves you personally. For Emmanuel, God with us, is truly with us. Rejoice and give thanks over God’s gift of love to you. Receive him and the peace of God the angels sang about that first Christmas will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting.

"Those who choose evil shall have their choice. Men who hate divine mercy shall not have it forced upon them, but (unless sovereign grace interpose) shall be left to themselves to aggravate their guilt and ensure their doom.

"They have loved darkness rather than light, and in darkness they shall abide. Eyes which see no beauty in the Lord Jesus, but flash wrath upon Him, may well grow yet more dim, till death which is spiritual leads to death which is eternal.

"What can be too severe a penalty for those who reject the incarnate God, and refuse to obey the commands of His mercy? They deserve to be flooded with wrath, and they shall be; for upon all who rebel against the Savior, 'wrath has come upon them to the uttermost' (I Thessalonians 2:16).

"God's indignation is no trifle. The anger of a holy, just, omnipotent, and infinite Being, is above all things to be dreaded; even a drop of it consumes, but to have it poured upon us is inconceivably dreadful."

Some of us can learn mercy by reading about it in the Bible. Many more of us, however, learn mercy by taking the plunge and doing it.

Such was the case with Sister Helen Prejean. Her story is told in the book Dead Man Walking, which recently came out in film. Sister Helen hears one day of a correspondence program with prisoners on death row. She decides to participate and begins writing, even though she's been told not to expect to hear anything in return. Much to her surprise, though, one of the prisoners does respond and catches her completely off guard by asking her to be his spiritual guide. Apparently his execution date was fast approaching, and he wanted some representative of God to be there for support over the next several weeks.

Sister Helen hesitates. It is one thing to do charity long distance. It is quite another thing to do mercy face to face with a convicted murderer. Gary had been sentenced to death by lethal injection for participating in the brutal rape of a young woman and the subsequent murder of both her and her finance. Sister Helen recoils at the very thought of meeting this rapist and murderer, let alone ministering to him. But a voice deep inside of her tells her she must go. So she does. The first several meetings are difficult. Gary comes across a whole lot more cocky and arrogant in person than he did in his letters. He refuses to admit his guilt and insists that he is the innocent victim of a corrupt legal system.

To make matters worse, Sister Helen is despised and publicly villified by the victims' parents for even spending time with Gary. How could she, a deeply religious nun, befriend this cold-blooded murderer! They are horrified and let her know that every time they see her. And yet, despite these difficult barriers, Sister Helen risks her name, her reputation, her own safety, to reach across them and embrace Gary with the love of God. And the more she perseveres in loving him, the more his defenses begin to crumble. Finally on the night before his execution, Gary confesses to his crime and asks for God's forgiveness. In a flood of tears, he thanks Sister Helen for all her love and support. He then tries to send her home, insisting that her work with him is done and that he is now ready to meet his Maker.

"No, that's okay," she responds. "I'll stay through the execution."

"But why?" Gary wants to know. "I'm only getting what I deserve."

"Because," she replies, "the last face I want you to see before you die is not one of hatred and vengeance, but one of love and mercy."

The next morning, Gary is strapped into place while Sister Helen and the victims' parents watch through the window of an adjacent room. Within a matter of minutes, the last lethal dose is injected and Gary is pronounced dead. Most of the by-standers breathe a sigh of relief. Some even begin to applaud. But Sister Helen alone stands there - with arms reaching out to Gary and a look of pure mercy on her face.

Some of us learn mercy by reading about it in our Bibles. But most of us, like Sister Helen Prejean, learn mercy by just doing it to those who least deserve it - to those who are unclean, who are despised and rejected by society. Learning Mercy . . .

The Hebrew people knew that Moses was on Mount Sinai, but it seemed to them that he had been gone much longer than necessary. All manner of mummerings arose within the ranks. Had he deserted them? Had something happened to him? Finally, it was decided that they would raise up Aaron as their new leader. Moreover, an idol fashioned in the form of a golden bull was set in their midst as the new object of worship. Unexpectedly, Moses returned. The scene which followed included at least three emphases:

1. Pronouncement. God utters a blistering assessment of the Hebrew people: "I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people" (32:9). Then follows an expression of his intention; "Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them" (32:10). As the Revelator was to put it centuries later, Israel had "forgotten its first love." Even as Moses was on the mountain top receiving the Ten Commandments, the people were fawning around the golden idol which had been fashioned from their own jewelry. It had been remarked that the people were just out of slavery ... they were tired of waiting on Moses to return to them ... they wanted to celebrate somehow and thank somebody. Not yet understanding the character of Moses’ God, they manufactured their own god to enable them to focus their celebration upon something. I believe the observation is correct inasmuch as we see latter-day versions of similar behavior, i.e., persons who want to celebrate life but are unable to understand the God of Christianity take unto themselves golden calves in some form or another. There are different causes of a stiff neck. Some are caused by sleeping in a draft, some are congenital, others due to injury or disease, and still others by arrogance and stubbornness. It is the latter malady to which God is referring in 32:9, the neck so stiff that it cannot bow to God. At the time of God’s pronouncement to Moses, the Hebrew people were in fact, in the words of Jonathan Edwards, "sinners in the hands of an angry God."

2. Intercession. Moses did not attempt to excuse his people, but instead undertook to intercede for them. He went to God in their behalf. I remember the story of the frail little country boy whose parents were so poor that they could not feed their family properly. The little boy , always undernourished, was sluggish and scarcely felt up to completing his assignments at school. One day the teacher announced the assignment and warned that anyone not completing it would be punished. Sure enough, the pale little youth failed to turn his work in when it was due. The teacher called him forward to the desk and told him to bend over. His hollow eyes looked helplessly at her as his bony body braced itself for a whipping. As he bent over, the bones in his back made little ridges in his shirt and his baggy pants were evidence of skinny legs and a tiny waist. The teacher raised the paddle. Suddenly, a little boy raised his hand and said, "Teacher, can I take his whipping for him?" That is a secular case of intercession. A theological case is "and while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us," and as the letter to the Hebrews suggests, Christ is "eternally interceding in our behalf."

3. Mercy. Certainly God was angry with the Hebrew people, just as he is vexed and saddened by those of us who become so stiff-necked that we cannot bow in an attitude of gratefulness for his leadership in our lives and the grace which always goes before us. It is often remarked, "When I stand before God in the judgment, I won’t ask for justice, I will ask for mercy." To be sure, none of us could survive the justice, but because of God’s promise to Moses, and the intercession of Christ, we do believe that there is hope for the sinner because a part of God’s character is mercy.

Born almost a decade ago in Yugoslavia, she responded to God's call on her life while still a teenager. A missionary's strong challenge to give her life to teaching in India resulted in her appointment to the city of Calcutta. Some months later she saw a sight which completely revolutionized her life, and would ultimately bring her worldwide fame as Good Housekeeping magazine's "Most-Admired-Woman" selection. What was the sight? A homeless, dying woman lying in the gutter, being eaten by rats. Compassion compelled her to beg an abandoned Hindu temple from the government, and convert it into a crude make-shift hospital for the dying. A comment of hers became her life's thrust: "If there is a God in heaven, and a Christ we love, nobody should die alone." This woman who established colonies for over 10,000 lepers in 28 cities was interviewed by Malcolm Muggeridge from the BBC News. "Mother Teresa, the thing I noticed about you and the hundreds of sisters who now form your team is that you all look so happy. Is that a put-on?" She replied, "Oh no, not at all. Nothing makes you happier than when you really reach out in mercy to someone who is badly hurt.”

Service is its own reward. True mercy begets genuine joy.

The greatest story of all time begins as silently as a single snowflake slowly drifting down into a quiet forest at midnight. "And in that region there were shepherds out in the fields keeping watch over their flock by night." Imagine the feeling of those shepherds as the sky filled with angels singing, "Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, good will toward men." No wonder they "came to the manger with haste" and arriving there they found the Holy Family. On the faces of our Lord’s parents was wonder and reverence mixed with gratitude and joy.

In the Ozark Mountains, I am told, there is an old legend that at midnight on Christmas Eve the cattle kneel in adoration of the Savior who came into their stable so many years ago. A part of the legend, however, is that they will not kneel if any human being is watching. That, of course, makes the story safe from prying, scientific eyes. We shall never be able to prove it or disprove it with our senses. But isn’t that the way Christmas is ... an intimate and ultimate experience which is forever beyond the eyes of proud minds.

Only the cattle know if they really kneel to the Savior at midnight - as only we ourselves know in the deepest regions of our hearts whether we too are really there at the manger. Christmas is kneeling time for the entire earth as the eyes of faith-filled hearts look upon the only-begotten Son of the Father. And as we look, our hard and distraught faces melt into expressions of joy and adoration. For those who kneel at the manger rise again, filled with the love of God which brings peace and joy to their lives.

The classic quote on mercy is that of Portia in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene I, lines 186-197.

The quality of mercy is not strain'd
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: It is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than its crown;
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute to God himself,·
And earthly power doth then show likest
God's When mercy seasons justice.

In Dr. R. Alan Culpepper's commentary on Luke, he ends the first two parables in Luke 15 with the following observation:

In both parables, rejoicing calls for celebration, and the note of celebration may be exaggerated to emphasize the point. Neither sheep nor coins can repent, but the parable aims not at calling the "sinners" to repentance but at calling the "righteous" to join the celebration. Whether one will join the celebration is all-important because it reveals whether one's relationships are based on merit or mercy. Those who find God's mercy offensive cannot celebrate with the angels when a sinner repents. Thus they exclude themselves from God's grace.

I think that this is a very important question for churches today. More than one congregational member has not rejoiced over the influx of new members in the congregation. The non-rejoicing criticism seems especially prevalent when the "found" are somehow different from the mainstream members.

In a cathedral in Copenhagen, Denmark, there is a magnificent statue of Jesus by the noted sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen. When Thorvaldsen first completed the sculpture he gazed upon the finished product with great satisfaction. It was a sculpture of Christ with face looking upward and arms extended upward. It was a statue of a majestic, conquering Christ.

Later that night, however, after the sculptor had left his fine new work in clay to dry and harden, something unexpected occurred. Sea mist seeped into the studio in the night. The clay did not harden as quickly as anticipated. The upraised arms and head of the sculpture began to drop. The majestic Christ with arms lifted up and head thrown back was transformed into a Christ with head bent forward and arms stretched downward as if in a pose of gentle invitation. At first Thorvaldsen was bitterly disappointed. As he studied the transformed sculpture, however, he came to see a dimension of Christ that had not been real to him before. It was the Christ who is a gently, merciful Savior. Thorvaldsen inscribed on the base of the completed statue, "Come Unto Me," and that picture of the Lamb of God in his mercy has inspired millions.

A man from El Paso lived a good four miles from the main parade ground at Fort Bliss. On most mornings you could hear the whump, whump, whump of the thirteen-gun salute which was sounded every morning at seven o'clock. But on some mornings you could hear the sound of the drum corps as they rolled their cadences.

However, if the morning was clear and still, as in the winter time when the air was crisp and cold, you could also hear the sound of the music of the army band, the blast of the trumpets, the wail of the clarinets, and the mellow tone of the horns.

On the mornings where only the cannon could be heard, the man knew the drum and the horns were still there, whether they were heard or not.

Our fathers, in their theology, heard the cannon and the drum, the stirring of the wrath of God. Modern ears have heard the soft music of the flute and the horn, but have not listened for the cannon and the drum.

John Newton, who wrote the hymn Amazing Grace back in 1779 certainly identified with the younger son, the son who wasted his inheritance. As a young man he left home and went to sea and there lived wildly and free. Like many people who abandon God, he was highly critical of the Christian faith, and spent much time tearing down the faith of the people he met as he went from place to place. It was only in later years that he realized that he had wasted his young life, and indeed not only wasted it - but in all that time he had been offensive to God and to all God-fearing people. And like the young prodigal, he repented and sought, in humility and submissiveness, to serve God for the rest of his days.

His resulting experience of God's forgiveness, of God's grace, is not only described well in the emotion packed words of the song he wrote, it is also to be found in his epitaph, an epitaph he himself wrote shortly before his death in 1807. He describes himself and his experience of God this way: "John Newton, clerk, once an infidel and libertine, was by the rich mercy of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the faith he had long labored to destroy."

How often has each of us struggled over an important decision? We considered the variety of alternatives; often we discussed the decision with our family and friends. Sometimes we prayed over it and sought God’s direction. "What would God want me to do?" we asked ourselves.

Unfortunately, there is much confusion about the subject of the will of God. The words, "It is the will of God," are used too freely. A catastrophe happens and people say glibly, "It’s his will." We sometimes do inappropriate things and pass them off by saying God willed that we did it. Many talk about searching for the will of God as if it were somehow lost and needed to be found.

First and foremost in God’s will is that all people be saved. The Bible tells us that God wills all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Throughout Scripture we find God desiring that everyone have the joy of Jesus as their Lord and Savior. To not have Jesus is to be firmly in sin’s control ... to have faith in the Son of God is to be alive to our full creative potential as he controls our lives. Through a cross and a vacant grave our salvation has been secured. Jesus, unlike any of the gods in other religions, is a personal God, and those who know him personally will be well on their way to know the Father’s will. To have said, "I believe in Jesus Christ as my Savior" is to have taken the first step.

Our second step in knowing the will of God is to be Spirit-filled. In Ephesians 5:17 we read, "Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is." To not be willing to understand the will of the Lord is to be foolish. Now what is the will? We continue to read in verse 18, "And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit." Now most of us are at least qualified to discuss what it’s like to be filled with wine or some other spirited liquid. To be drunk is to be controlled by the agent within. We act differently when we have the spirit within us. Likewise to be filled with the Holy Spirit is to be controlled also by an agent within. We have no more control over ourselves than we would have if we were drunk with alcohol. To be filled in the Spirit is to be dominated and controlled by the Spirit.

The third and final step in discovering the will of God for our lives you’re really going to like; you’ll eat it up. It is to do whatever you want to do. That’s right. Do what you want when you have a decision to make. In the Book of Psalms we read, "Delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." Notice that it says the desires of our hearts are given to us by God when we delight in him. God puts the desire in our hearts so that what we want is really what God wants. His will becomes our will, and conversely, our will is his will. The third step is possible when we have taken the first step of believing and the second of being filled by the Holy Spirit. Having taken the first two steps and having become well-versed in Scripture, we follow our desires (really God’s) and live according to his will. We set out in life without fear, and as we make our way, he provides us with the necessary corrections along the course.

Leslie Weatherhead in his book, A Private House Of Prayer, suggests that the structure of the content of prayer be likened to a house of seven rooms. Each room is a division of prayer. There may be some duplication with ACTSS which we just discussed.

The first room is for the affirmation of God's presence. If prayer is a conversation with God, obviously it is necessary for him to be present. When we pray, are we aware of his presence or like Moses do we see only a burning bush? In a hymn Tersteegen sings, "God himself is present; let us now adore him and with awe appear before him." What applies to worship, applies also to prayer. When we pray, we are talking to a real person, not to an idea, or ideal, or ideology, or a theological concept. In prayer we are not talking to ourselves or to the ceiling. In spirit God is there to hear our prayer. We need to realize this and pray accordingly.

The next room is for the thanksgiving and praise. We have been blessed beyond measure and therefore to thank and praise God is in order. Before we begin our prayer, we need to review how good God has been to us. If we are bereft of blessings, our greatest gift is Jesus who loved us enough to die for us.

Go to the next room for the confession of sins. Sin separates us from God. Sin erects an impenetrable curtain which prevents us from seeing God. The separation prevents our hearing the voice of God. We come out of a dirty world with the dirt of sin clinging to us. Before we can be presentable to a holy God we need spiritual cleansing. Thus, in prayer we confess our sins and plead for his mercy.

The fourth room is labelled "Reception of God's grace." We have confessed our sins and begged for mercy. What is God's response? It is grace in terms of pardon and acceptance. At this time in our prayers we remember his promises to be with us always, to forgive us, and to bless us with the Holy Spirit.

Now it is time to go to the room of petition. We have the opportunity to tell God about our personal needs in our own lives, or in our family, or in our work. But, we have petitions not only for ourselves, but others want and need our prayers in their behalf. This takes us to the sixth room of prayer. When we pray for others, it is called intercessory prayer. When his co-worker, Melanchthon, was sick, Luther prayed for him: "I besought the Almighty with great vigor ... quoting from Scripture all the promises I could remember, that prayers should be granted and said that he must grant my prayer, if I was henceforth to put faith in his promises."

The effectiveness of a friend's prayer on our behalf depends on the relationship of the pray-er to God. James wrote, "The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective" (James 5:16). That is why we want a godly mother or a pious pastor to pray for us. Roman Catholics ask the saints and the Virgin Mary to pray for them. On the eve of a historic boxing match, a friend was visiting the champ in his hotel suite. During the conversation a murmuring feminine voice was heard. "That's my wife," the champ explained. "She's praying for me to win." "Oh, and I suppose you pray, too?" The champ replied, "My wife is more devout than I am. If God won't do it for her, He certainly won't do it for me."

The seventh room in the house of prayer is meditation. Some do not understand what meditation is and consequently do not know how to meditate. It is the act of reflecting, of silence, and listening to God. It calls for thinking about God and our relationship to him. It is a time to review past dealings with God. Then we reflect on how good God has been in those past dealings. After that, we remember God's promises to us: promises of peace, protection, and provision. Meditation can be summed up in three R's: review, reflect, and remember.

Coming home late one rainy evening, I was short on patience and a bit uptight. It was the pressures of ministry with too much to do and too little time to do it. That evening, I had planned to write a sermon on the joys of discipleship! As I began, I realized I needed a better frame of mind ... more joy in my own discipleship.

As I reflected on the topic, I was reminded that joy is neither something to be tied into weather, nor tied into a work schedule. There is no such thing as more joy-less work, more work-less joy. Christian joy should not be affected by wages: large raise - great joy, no raise - no joy. Joy in discipleship is something that transcends the ups and downs of living. It must be bigger than the shifting sands of existence.

Turning to the Bible, we see what it has to say about joy and its source. It says that there is fullness of joy in the presence of God. Real joy comes from moving into the presence of God and abiding in the love of Christ. When the spirit of God is alive in us, one of the blessings the spirit brings to us is joy.

A Japanese lady asked the headmistress of a mission school, "Do you take only beautiful girls in your school?"

"Why, no, we welcome all girls," was the reply.

"But I’ve noticed that all your girls are beautiful."

"Well," said the missionary, "we teach them to love our Savior Jesus Christ, and he gives them a look of beauty."

"I am a Buddhist, and I do not desire my daughter to become a Christian, yet I should like her to attend your school to get that look on her face."

Recently a distinguished Britisher said that he visited an American home that seemed to have everything - two cars in the garage, a beautiful living room with expensive furniture, a color TV set, a kitchen filled with the latest gadgets, and a large pool and beautiful patio. However, the lady of the house was reading a book entitled, How to Be Happy.

Happiness is to know the Savior. Joy in discipleship is not attachment to things but is attachment to Jesus. This is why Paul and Silas, after being beaten and thrown into prison, could pray and sing hymns to God and thereby witness to the prisoners who listened to them. Joy is a sign of the presence of God in one’s life. To be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ is to experience a deeper level of joy.

Christianity is a religion of joy and excitement. There is nothing unhappy about it. It is for people who want the joy that comes from being involved in something worthwhile. Once you taste the joys of discipleship, you’ll notice that your life will have more meaning. You will even want to return for a second helping.

Pride is the first of the seven deadly sins. One falls into pride when one lacks trust in God and his mercy and becomes arrogant, hypocritical, and self-centered.  Reinhold Neibuhr, who has been referred to as the twentieth-century theologian of sin, summed up humanity's basic sin our unwillingness to acknowledge our creatureliness, our self-elevation in one word, PRIDE. Neibuhr described the four types of pride:

1. The pride of power wants power to gain security for self or to maintain a power position considered to be secure.

2. Intellectual pride rises from human knowledge that pretends to be ultimate knowledge. It presumes to be final truth.

3. Moral pride claims that its standards for virtue test and measure all righteousness. Niebuhr observed that most evil is done by "good" people who do not know that they are not good.

4. Spiritual pride is self-glorification. It claims that "self's righteousness" conforms to God's righteousness.

Pride is the first of the seven deadly sins. One falls into pride when one lacks trust in God and his mercy and becomes arrogant, hypocritical, and self-centered. Reinhold Neibuhr, who has been referred to as the twentieth-century theologian of sin, summed up humanity's basic sin -- our unwillingness to acknowledge our creatureliness, our self-elevation, in one word: PRIDE.

Neibuhr described the four types of pride:

1. The pride of power wants power to gain security for self or to maintain a power position considered to be secure.
2. Intellectual pride rises from human knowledge that pretends to be ultimate knowledge. It presumes to be final truth.
3. Moral pride claims that its standards for virtue test and measure all righteousness. Neibuhr observed that most evil is done by "good" people who do not know that they are not good.
4. Spiritual pride is self-glorification. It claims that "self's righteousness" conforms to God's righteousness.

There was a man in England who put his Rolls-Royce on a boat and went across to the continent to go on a holiday. While he was driving around Europe, something happened to the motor of his car. He cabled the Rolls-Royce people back in England and asked, "I'm having trouble with my car; what do you suggest I do?" Well, the Rolls-Royce people flew a mechanic over! The mechanic repaired the car and flew back to England and left the man to continue his holiday. As you can imagine, the fellow was wondering, "How much is this going to cost me?" So when he got back to England, he wrote the people a letter and asked how much he owed them. He received a letter from the office that read: "Dear Sir: There is no record anywhere in our files that anything ever went wrong with a Rolls-Royce."

Did Christ finish His work? How dangerous it is to join anything of our own to the righteousness of Christ, in pursuit of justification before God! Jesus Christ will never endure this; it reflects upon His work dishonorably. He will be all, or none, in our justification. If He has finished the work, what need is there of our additions? And if not, to what purpose are they? Can we finish that which Christ Himself could not complete? Did He finish the work, and will He ever divide the glory and praise of it with us? No, no; Christ is no half-Savior. It is a hard thing to bring proud hearts to rest upon Christ for righteousness. God humbles the proud by calling sinners wholly from their own righteousness to Christ for their justification.

You are because I am. I was there from the beginning. My Father, God, and I fashioned the world that you enjoy. We hung the stars in the sky, scooped out the lakes, formed the mountains. But our genius was no more evident than when we made you. You are so magnificent. Consider yourself - your ability to think and reason. Do you realize how special you are? We had such a great thing going in the garden.

Unfortunately, the devil talked your forebears into trying to be like God, and they both fell for it. My Father and I had no choice but to show them the exit from Eden. Because of their sin, we had to face the decision whether or not to save what we created or to destroy it all. Save it, we decided. Later, in response to a promise made to your father Abraham, I, the son of God, was implanted by the Holy Spirit in a young virgin’s womb. They called me Jesus, for I had come to save you and all humankind from the consequences of your sins.

The plan of salvation was not complicated, although it was generous perhaps to a fault. You had sinned and continue to sin. It is your nature from the time of the Fall. Therefore, you cannot save yourself. Although some of you sin less than others, none of you is perfect. My Father demands perfection - he will not stand for any imperfection in eternity. Fortunately for you, my Father is also compassionate, and his love goes beyond human love. He wanted to reclaim you as his own, therefore, he decided to be inflicted with suffering and death. To accomplish this, he sent me - part of himself - to become a person like you and to receive punishment and death in your place.

Some of you only see me as an Alka Seltzer for an occasional headache, rather than a Savior for a whole new life. You call upon me and my Father for help only when all else seems to fail. Voices we haven’t heard in years make their way heavenward in dying breaths. Others make a puzzle out of our plan for your salvation. You continue to believe that you must add some of your goodness and righteousness (which is really in short supply by heaven’s standards) to my sacrificial death on the cross. Friends, I paid the price - one hundred percent at Calvary.

Can you imagine how I feel as your God, having humbled myself by becoming a human being, giving up heaven for a stinking stable, being misunderstood, mocked, tortured, spit upon, and hung, all because of you and your wretched sinfulness ... and then to have you believe that this was not enough. To have you, in your pride, believe that some goodness of yours would need to be added in order for the Father to receive you into heaven angers and disappoints me. You can do nothing to save yourself; I did it all because I love you. Please get it into your head, once and for all, I am your only way out of the pits of hell. As I said while I was with you on earth, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me!" May the Holy Spirit convince your hearts of my love, and may you understand that believing in me is the only way to be saved; sufficient in itself, needing absolutely no human works, no false pride, no human righteousness, nothing ... nothing ... nothing at all to be added to it. I died to purchase a place for you in heaven which I offer to you as a gift which you must receive totally and exclusively by faith.

In a large attractive office in a major city, a man worked for several months next to a small attractive woman. He had been there only a few days when he thought he'd ask her to lunch, which he did. The following day he asked her for dinner and they began a long dating relationship. They went to craft fairs together, since he liked to do that. They went to the ocean, which he also liked to do. They used to take long walks along the river.

He liked this relationship. He had lived for many years with his mother. In fact, it was only a few months after she died that he began dating his co-worker. Little by little, however, she began to dislike both the relationship and this man. She felt like she really wasn't herself when she was with him. She couldn't speak what she really felt. She rarely asserted where she wanted to go or what she wanted to do. She later said, "I just wasn't Sandra with him."

So she terminated her social, dating relationship with this man. Once she did, she began to feel like herself again. Her friends told her, "You're more like the old Sandra now."

Across the same town, in another office, a young man sat at his desk for eight years, struggling to manage his office work force. Outside he was a friendly, generous person. In the office he was the same way and his workers flattened him out, like steamrollers over an asphalt road. He worked long, long hours; he holed himself up behind his desk to keep all the records accurate; he just about wore himself out. Finally his friends told him, "Steve, you'd better get out of that job. You're not yourself anymore. Those people are eating you alive and you're not getting anywhere."

He protested, "But it's a good job. I make good money. And besides, it is what I do best. How can I even look for anything else?"

Then the company was sold. New management came in. All the supervisors were replaced and Steve found himself on the street. He was terrified. "To dig I am unable, to beg I am ashamed," he said. "What can I do?"

His friends told him they were glad he was fired. "At least you are your old self," they said. "And you'll find something. Just go for it." He did, and now he's doing better than he ever could have in the position he once felt he could never leave.

The steward in today's gospel lesson is like both Sandra and Steve. Sandra was not herself in that relationship. Steve was not himself in that job. Both were wasting away, losing that which was most precious to them both: their proper identities. Both felt they could not survive if they gave up something so close and precious as a relationship or a job.

In today's gospel lesson the steward's master calls him on the carpet. In Luke's mind, this Lord and Master is God. God always calls his stewards into question when they are wasteful of who and what they are. This steward is not just wasting his master's goods. The steward is wasting himself. Nothing is more precious in God's household than his steward's proper identity. This is God's gift to this steward, and he is wasting it. No wonder God calls him to account.

God does this to us all the time. He checks our relationships and he checks our jobs -- to help us make sure we are not wasting our identities where we are. This steward was. So God dismissed him. He had to get a new job and a new relationship. God does not tolerate our wasting who we are.

This dismissal turned the light on for the steward. "What shall I do? To dig I am unable, to beg I am ashamed." Finally he came to an assessment of who he was and what he could do. He came to value his own identity, one of his master's most precious goods.

He called in his master's creditors. "How much do you owe? One hundred barrels of oil? Take your bill and write 50." Did he cheat his master? Not at all. The commercial documents from that time indicate that 50 percent was the normal commission. He renounced what he thought he had to have to live on -- and he won friends for himself in so doing.

"How much do you owe? One hundred bushels of wheat? Take your bill and write 80." He did not cheat his master. He simply renounced his own commission. He gave up what he thought he needed to survive, and he survived much better without it. He zeroed in on his own identity, rather than on the commission he thought he had to have to survive.

Bruno Bettelheim, who has studied the survivors of the concentration camps in World War II, writes that those who survived were able to give up everything they thought they needed and, in so giving, they survived. Those who thought they would die if they had no clothing, no jewelry, no regular food, no books -- they did not make it.

Sometimes God will do to us what he did to this steward. He will strip us down to the very core of our existence to make us discover who we really are. He will bring us to a crossroad in life where we will be forced to say, "To dig I am not able, to beg I am ashamed." There God will reveal to us who we are. As we reach to him for help we will find ourselves renouncing our commissions -- whatever we think we need to survive but we really don't. God knows that.

Luther found himself in this position many times in his life. Once, as he began his study of law, he was struck down in a thunderstorm. Terrified, he cried out, "Dear Saint Ann, help me. I will become a monk." He quit his study of law and became a theologian instead -- the identity God wanted for him in the first place. He was wasting himself in law.

Later on, as a monk, he studied Paul's Epistle to the Romans. At that time in his life he felt he could not be Martin Luther unless he ended each day with a tray full of good works to present to God. In praying over Paul, he learned the difference between works righteousness and faith. He learned he was wasting God's gift of Martin Luther's identity in that daily tray full of good works.

He wrote: "Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that the just shall live by faith. Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through mercy and sheer grace God justified us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise." Martin Luther the Do-Gooder was reborn Martin Luther the Believer.

Today's gospel lesson introduces that curious term, "mammon," an Aramaic word which means: "that in which I put my trust." We are like Sandra, Steve, and this steward. How easy to put all our trust in relationships or commissions or a job. God will not let us do that forever. He will force us to give up those people and those things we feel are absolutely critical. In God's eyes they are roadblocks to the truth. He will take them away. Then we will discover our real identities as God's stewards, and him alone shall we serve. "

Instant cake mix at first was a big flop. The instructions said all you had to do was add water and bake. The company couldn't understand why it didn't sell until their research discovered that the buying public felt uneasy about a mix that required only water. Apparently people thought it was too easy. So the company altered the formula and changed the directions to call for adding an egg to the mix in addition to the water. The idea worked and sales jumped dramatically.

That's how some people react to the plan of salvation. To them it sounds too easy and simple to be true, even though the Bible says, "By grace you have been saved through faith...; it is the gift of God, not of works" (Eph. 2:8-9). They feel that there is something more they must do, something they must add to God's "recipe" for salvation. They think they must perform good works to gain God's favor and earn eternal life. But the Bible is clear we are saved, "not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy" (Titus 3:5).  Unlike the cake-mix manufacturer, God has not changed His "formula" to make salvation more marketable. The gospel we proclaim must be free of works, even though it may sound too easy.

If we look through a piece of red glass, everything is red. If we look through a piece of blue glass, everything is blue. If we look through a piece of yellow glass, everything is yellow, and so on. When we believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior, God looks at us through the Lord Jesus Christ. He sees us in all the white holiness of his Son. Our sins are imputed to the account of Christ and his righteousness to our account.

The primary point of this parable of the two sons is about having a change in heart, not just about saying or doing the right things. The following stories might illustrate this point.

Once there were two couples. Couple A were married in a large, beautiful church ceremony. They pledge life-long faithfulness and love to each other in the moving words of their vows. However, their life together has been one of abuse both physical and verbal. They both have been unfaithful to each other.

Couple B live together. They had no public ceremony. They signed no marriage license. They spoke no vows in the presence of witnesses. However, their life together is a loving and affirming relationship. They have remained faithful to each other.

Which couple would you say is doing the will of God?

Both need change of hearts -  couple A in the way they act towards each other and couple B in their attitudes about the importance of the words in a public ceremony.

Another analogy might be with those who attend church and say all the right words, but whose lives fall somewhat short of John's "way of righteousness" and others who live exemplary lives; but who want nothing to do with "organized religion" and the public expression of their faith.

Both need "a change of heart".

Gracious God, how blessed we are to live and serve as a community of Your people. Gifted with the beauty of creation surrounding us, lead us into significant relationships that nurture and challenge us, as we experience the promise of life, and are grateful. 

Lead us now, O God, as we seek, in this season of Lent, to journey with our eyes fixed on Jesus. 

Lead us in righteousness, that our journey might be a journey in which we embrace Christ's ways of compassion and justice, grace and mercy, hope and right living. 

Lead us, God, in peace, as we seek to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. 

Fill us with a peace that passes all human understanding, a peace the world cannot give to us, neither can it take away. 

But, holy God, let us never be satisfied with personal peace alone. Lead us into paths of peacemaking and reconciliation. And God, we pray that You might soften the hearts of those world leaders who are far more inclined to wage war than to seek peace.

God, where there is brokenness, form us into instruments of forgiveness.
Where there is despair, make of us channels of Your hope.
Where there is division, may we be empowered to bring healing and wholeness.
Where darkness abounds, grant us courage to walk in the light, our eyes fixed on Jesus, the light of the world.

God of healing and compassion,

We hold before You now those in special need of Your healing touch …

God, make us mindful of those among us this day who silently hold hurts and brokenness within them. Teach us to look into one another's eyes and hearts.

We pray for those experiencing pain in their significant relationships, those who are yearning for new beginnings in life. We pray, O God, for young people facing untold pressures and challenges, and for older persons seeking to come to terms with limitations and losses. Whatever our life situations, O God, lead us in paths of right living, our eyes fixed on Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we pray. Amen.

If there's one thing we Americans value above everything else, it is freedom. We cherish, guard and exercise our freedom, and woe be unto those who threaten it in any way. We're even willing to go to war to defend freedom, whether it's ours or someone else's. We are the world's self-appointed watchdogs of freedom.

But Jesus says there's a higher value than freedom. The first words the writer of the Gospel of Matthew has Jesus speak are not about freedom, but about obedience to the will of God. That's what righteousness is all about, according to the gospel writer. Matthew uses the word righteousness seven times in his story of the life of Jesus, always connecting righteousness with being obedient to the will of God.

When Jesus comes to John the Baptist to be baptized in the Jordan, John protests. "It really should be the other way around here. You should be baptizing me. Why are you doing this?" And Jesus replies, "Just do it, John; for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness."

Perhaps you remember the cartoon strip, Calvin and Hobbes. Calvin is a little boy with an overactive imagination and a stuffed tiger, Hobbes, who comes to life as his imaginary friend. In one cartoon strip, Calvin turns to his friend Hobbes and says, "I feel bad I called Susie names and hurt her feelings. I'm sorry I did that." Hobbes replies, "Maybe you should apologize to her." Calvin thinks about it for a moment and then responds, "I keep hoping there's a less obvious solution." We have trouble accepting those whom God accepts because we take God's acceptance for granted and God's forgiveness as our right.

We are much like the elder brother who preferred justice to mercy. We have worked for what we have (or so we think), and it's unfair that everyone else should not have to do the same. We have earned God's favor (or so we think) by "staying at home." We have merited his acceptance by the good life that we live. So how dare God receive and accept our sinful brother who has returned home saying he's sorry.

The first scripture selection relates the healing of a man "who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech." Although nothing is mentioned regarding the faith of the man who was healed, faith was yet an active ingredient in the healing as exhibited by those who resolutely brought the man to Jesus. In verse 34, the phrase "looking up to heaven," underscores the intimate relationship with God that Jesus brought to that moment. Similarly, I have read that when Francis of Assisi preached, he never looked at his hearers, but instead fixed his eyes upon the sky as if expecting Christ to appear before he had completed the next sentence. Jesus, "looking up to heaven," apparently sought to acknowledge and intensify the power of God in his life for this moment of healing.

In our second passage, faith again is important to the healing, but this time it is the faith of the person to be healed, Bartimaeus. By faith, Bartimaeus cried out to Jesus even after being rebuked by those around him: "but he cried out all the more, Son of David, have mercy on me" (v. 48). Although blind, he threw off his cloak and ran to where Jesus was standing. Jesus said, "What do you want me to do for you?" and by faith Bartimaeus replied, "Master, let me receive my sight" (v. 51). Jesus’ reply underscores the point; "Go your way; your FAITH has made you well" (v. 52).

A congregation I once served included a young man who had been deaf from birth. He was a big, robust, handsome fellow whose sweet spirit enabled him to smile easily. During worship, he stood for the hymns and responsive readings, and participated as best he could in the entire service. During the sermon, his eyes were steadily fixed upon my lips, and in those few times when he was unable to lip-read what I was saying, he would turn to the young lady beside him and "sign" for clarification. I remember the day that he and the young lady came to my study to make plans for their wedding. She asked such questions as necessary and signed to him at intervals. As I spoke, she continued to interpret, even though he seemed already to understand. During the wedding ceremony, they held written copies of the vows and signed their pledges to each other. Before I left that congregation to acccept another appointment, the young man underwent an operation which enabled him to hear his first sounds. That was the first step. By God’s grace, one day, perhaps even now, he will be able to listen to all those things which you and I have grown accustomed to. Although different than the deaf man who was brought to Jesus, it will be a genuine miracle of healing, and it will have been done for one who has cried out from the silence in faith.

We are far removed in time and space from ancient Jericho where our Scriptures relate two of our Lord’s healings. However, as a society and as individuals, we yet stand in need of the healing touch.

Charles H. Scott’s familiar hymn says it well; "Open my eyes that I may see, glimpses of truth Thou hast for me ... Open my ears that I may hear voices of truth Thou sendest clear." And then the all-important third verse concludes, "Open my mouth and let me bear gladly the warm truth everywhere."

Perhaps you have heard the story of the man who came to the gates of heaven to be greeted by St. Peter. Peter asks the man if he can give a brief history of his life with an emphasis on the good deeds he had done in order to gain entrance into the kingdom of heaven. "You will need 1000 points to be admitted," Peter tells the man.

"This will be a cinch," the man thinks to himself, "I've been involved in church from the days of my youth." Then he begins to list his activities for Peter. He was an officer in his youth group, served in every possible position he could as a youngster. Was on the Church Council and every committee the church had to offer. His list was extensive.

"Very impressive," Peter smiles at the man. An angel standing with them also smiled and nodded as he tallied the points and then whispered in Peter's ear. Peter tells the man,

"This is quite striking we seldom see men of your very good works. You will be pleased to know that you have 327 points! Is there anything else you can think of?"

The poor soul breaks into a cold sweat and begins to reach deep for every single act of kindness he could think of. He listed them as the angel scratched furiously on his angelic clip board and nodded his head in admiration. Peter looks at the clip board and says, "This is quite exceptional! You now have a total of 402 points. Can you think of anything else?"

The distressed guy strives to recall good deeds like the time he helped a little old lady across the street. He finally arrives at a grand total of 431 points and cries out... "I am sunk! There is no hope for me! What more could I have done? O Lord, all I can do is beg for your mercy!"

"THAT," exclaims Peter, "Is a thousand points!"

So also, the tax collector in Jesus' parable finds his hope in the grace and mercy of God.

A story related to this text has a group of the very pious waiting in heaven for the judgment. As they are waiting and complaining about the wait, they begin to see some of the "sinners" they knew on earth coming into the waiting room: a corrupt politician, an itinerant woman who had been convicted of shoplifting numerous times, a prostitute, a drug addict, a man who spent most of his life in prison, etc.

With each of these arrivals, the feeling of hostility increased in the first group. They glare at the others. They talk among themselves. Within a short time, words were spoken to those others, "What makes you think you're going to get in with that evil, sinful life you lived on earth?"

"We're relying on the mercy and grace of God. What makes you so sure you're going to get in?"

"Our good lives, of course." They turned their backs to the others.

Time began to drag on for the first group. They began to complain to one another. "If those other people get in, there's no justice. After all the sacrifices we've made. It's not fair."

The Lord arrived. He turned towards the first group, "I understand you've been wondering why there has been no judgment."

"Yes!" they cried out. "We want a judgment. We want justice."

"The judgment has already taken place. You've judged yourselves. By judging these, the least of my brothers and sisters, you have judged yourselves. In rejecting them you have rejected me. You have shown yourselves unworthy of the kingdom of God."

Hare says something similar in his conclusion to this section: "We are defiled, Jesus tells us, by the unloving words that spring so readily from our mouths."

If I told you to pull out a piece of paper and write on it who you say Jesus is what would you write? We all have some answer; we all have some images of Jesus. Some of them are the images we learned as children in Sunday school which have proved troubling and we don't' have anything to replace them with. Sometimes we dismiss Jesus on the basis of what we knew about Jesus at age six. Some of us have never examined the evidence for ourselves.

One of my main goals in preaching is to gain a fresh hearing for Jesus, especially among those who believe they already understand him. I'm sorry to tell you this, but you probably don't. Because what happens sometimes is that presumed familiarity has led to unfamiliarity. Jesus is sometimes obstructed by clouds of well-intentioned misinformation.

But ultimately, rather than give you my answer to the question I'd rather challenge you to answer the question for yourself because that's the only answer that matters. Is he Messiah? If that's what you think, what does that mean? Jesus clearly didn't' fit into what a Messiah was expected to be. Messiahs were supposed to have power, were supposed to take charge, were supposed to set things right and free the Jews from political expression. But Jesus refused to stiff arm anybody. He refused to dominate or to take up arms.

Is he Savior? OK. But what is he saving us from and what is he saving us to? Some people clearly had no interest in being saved. When Jesus said the poor are precious and the rich are in big trouble, only those on one side of that equation found it intriguing.

Is he Teacher? Surely, but is that all?

Who do you say he is? Messiah, Savior, Lord, shaman, teacher, friend, prophet, prince of peace?

Now, as you try and answer that question, don't be too alarmed if you cant' nail it down. Even those of us who wrestle with the question regularly find it difficult, because Jesus is sometimes downright incomprehensible; he is often enigmatic, ambiguous. From the very beginning, who Jesus was, what he was about, was far from self-evident. There were people who stood face-to-face with Jesus and said, "This is God incarnate." There appear to be many more who said, "This man is nuts." Although I think that for most of us, the biggest issue isn't that we've listened to Jesus and found him incomprehensible; it's that we've listened to him and found him too damned difficult.

In October 1987, one year old Jessica McClure of Midland, Texas fell down an abandoned well. She was found on a ledge 22 feet below the surface. There she was, crying for her mother, in the cold darkness of this well. Her plight captured the attention of the entire nation. The people of the town gathered to rescue her. Hour after hour for two and a half days they worked. Federal Express flew down a special drill bit to aid in the rescue. You may remember the hour that she was rescued. It was on a Friday night when the TV images broke in to show the dramatic pictures. Anyone who did not have a tear in their eye when that little child was pulled out is hopeless. Saved, thank God, she was saved.

Friends, each one of us are in the same condition morally and spiritually as that little girl. We have fallen into the darkness of sin and there we are trapped. We cannot extradite ourselves, although the tragedy is that we think that we can. Someone must dig and dig until we are released from this darkness and despair. What we need is a Savior.  That is what Jesus did for us on the cross. By his death he redeemed us from the consequences of sin. In Christ, God did for us what we would never have been able to do for ourselves.

It was Christmas Eve 1875 and Ira Sankey was traveling on a Delaware River steamboat when he was recognized by some of the passengers. His picture had been in the newspaper because he was the song leader for the famous evangelist D.L. Moody. They asked him to sing one of his own hymns, but Sankey demurred, saying that he preferred to sing William B. Bradbury's hymn, "Savior Like a Shepherd Lead Us."

As he sang, one of the stanzas began, "We are Thine; do Thou befriend us. Be the Guardian of our way." When he finished, a man stepped from the shadows and asked, "Did you ever serve in the Union Army?"

"Yes," Mr. Sankey answered, "in the spring of 1860."

"Can you remember if you were doing picket duty on a bright, moonlit night in 1862?"

"Yes," Mr. Sankey answered, very much surprised.

"So did I, but I was serving in the Confederate army. When I saw you standing at your post, I thought to myself, 'That fellow will never get away alive.' I raised my musket and took aim. I was standing in the shadow, completely concealed, while the full light of the moon was falling upon you. At that instant, just as a moment ago, you raised your eyes to heaven and began to sing...'Let him sing his song to the end,' I said to myself, 'I can shoot him afterwards. He's my victim at all events, and my bullet cannot miss him.' But the song you sang then was the song you sang just now. I heard the words perfectly: 'We are Thine; do Thou befriend us. Be the Guardian of our way.' Those words stirred up many memories. I began to think of my childhood and my God-fearing mother. She had many times sung that song to me. When you had finished your song, it was impossible for me to take aim again. I thought, 'The Lord who is able to save that man from certain death must surely be great and mighty.' And my arm of its own accord dropped limp at my side."

A marshal in Napoleon's army, a man who was devotedly and enthusiastically attached to him, was mortally wounded in battle. As the last struggle drew near and he lay dying in his tent, he sent for his chief. Napoleon came. The poor man thought his emperor could do anything. Perhaps he even sought to put him in the place of God. So he earnestly pleaded with his leader to save his life. The emperor sadly shook his head and turned away. But as the dying man felt the cold, merciless hand of death drawing him irresistibly behind the curtain of the unseen world, he was still heard to shriek out, "Save me, Napoleon! Save me!" In the hour of death, that soldier discovered that even the powerful Napoleon could not give him physical life.

So often in our world, when we are in peril, we reach out to the earthly powers around us who cannot help us, instead of to the Lord God our Savior, who can save and heal us.

Many years ago, Thomas K. Beecher once substituted for his famous brother, Henry Ward Beecher, at the Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, New York. Many curiosity seekers had come to hear the renowned Henry Beecher speak. Therefore, when Thomas Beecher appeared in the pulpit instead, some people got up and started for the doors. Sensing that they were disappointed because he was substituting for his brother, Thomas raised his hand for silence and announced, “All those who came here this morning to worship Henry Ward Beecher may withdraw from the church; all who came to worship God may remain.”

The example of godly leaders is helpful, but only the Savior is worthy of our worship and devotion.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta once was asked, "How do you measure the success of your work?" She looked puzzled for a moment and then replied, "I don't remember that the Lord ever spoke of success. He spoke only of faithfulness in love. This is the only success that really counts."

It has been pointed out that the Church is always one generation from extinction. If we don't spread the Gospel, it will be just one generation away from disappearing from the face of the earth. It's a compelling idea, isn't it? It enhances our sense of Christian responsibility. We need to get out there and work for the Gospel or the Church could fade into history.

Perhaps you have heard the old story about Jesus appearing in heaven just after his resurrection. Jesus is giving a progress report on all that has happened while he was on earth. Moses is there and he asks him, "Well Jesus, did you leave things in capable hands?"

Jesus responds, "I did. I have left behind Mary and Martha and Peter and the other disciples.

"Moses said, "What if they fail?"

Jesus said, "Well, I have established the Church and filled it with the Holy Spirit and they will carry on."

And Moses said, "What if they fail?"

Came the reply, "I have no other plan."

There's a great tension there. God is at work here in our church but we've been given the keys of the Kingdom. We have work to do and Christ calls us to it. The prophet Micah put it this way: "do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with thy God."

I think it was Charlie Brown who said, "I love humanity! It is people I can't stand!" Yet the costly love that Jesus embodies involves an intimate encounter with God's fierce and holy love. It involves pouring out self for real people, sinners all, with all their real-life quirks, faults, smells, and flesh-and-blood sins. 

That harried young mother in the doctor's waiting room (or maybe the next pew): perhaps loving her as yourself means offering to watch the toddler while she feeds the baby. That person in line at the bank who's stumbling over the English language and struggling to understand deposits and withdrawals: could loving him mean stepping out of line and helping him get it straight? That next-door neighbor struggling to keep his marriage together, that daughter who pushes your buttons every ten minutes, that husband scared of being laid off these are the ones who desperately need the strong saving love, the compassion and mercy, the challenge and holiness and presence of Jesus. In those moments, dare to risk being rebuffed or inconvenienced. Dare to look foolish and make mistakes. Dare to love God and that person, even if it wrings your heart with pain to do so. It's what we've been created, redeemed, and commanded to do. Hang your whole life on love, for the truth is, it's God's love, active in you. And his love will never fail.

God’s kind of happiness, as defined in the Beatitudes of our Lord, represents a radical reversal of almost everything we have ever been taught about the meaning of happiness! Look at the Beatitudes again and contrast them with what we have been taught.

"Happy are those who know they are spiritually poor." We have always been taught to define happiness in terms of wealth.

"Happy are those who mourn." We have been taught that happiness means never experiencing anything that causes us grief.

"Happy are those who are humble." We have been taught that happiness is defined in terms of aggression and the competitive spirit.

"Happy are those whose greatest desire is to do what God requires." We have been taught that happiness lies in the desire to conform to the values of our own society.

"Happy are those who are merciful to others." We have been taught that the quality of mercy is a sign of weakness.

"Happy are the pure in heart." Tell that one to the guys and gals at work!

"Happy are those who work for peace." We have been taught that happiness is defined in terms of preparedness for war.

"Happy are those who are persecuted because they do what God requires." We have tended to call such people fools or fanatics!

"Happy are you when people insult you and tell all kinds of evil lies against you because you are my followers." We tend to say, "Don’t get mad, get even!"

We say it again: God’s kind of happiness reverses almost everything we have been taught about happiness. But if one of us has to be wrong — either us or God — you can be sure that it isn’t God.

The following is an attempt by  Dr. Earl Radmacher and Gordon McMinn to identify and define spiritual gifts centered around teaching.

1. Prophecy: setting before people the Word and wisdom of God persuasively.
2. Encouragement: drawing alongside to comfort, encourage, rebuke, and lead someone into insight toward action.
3. Teaching: laying down in a systematic order the complete truth of a doctrine and applying it incisively to life.
4. The message of wisdom: Locating formerly unknown principles as well as combining known principles of God's Word and communicating them to fresh situations.
5. The message of knowledge: Arranging the facts of Scripture, categorizing these into principles, and communicating them to repeated or familiar situations.
6. Service Gifts. Contributing: Giving most liberally and beyond all human expectation. Mercy: Being sensitive or empathetic to people who are in affliction or misery and lifting internal burdens with cheerfulness.
7. Helps: Seeing tasks and doing them for or with someone in order to lift external burdens.
8. Distinguishing spirits: Detecting a genuine or spurious motive by distinguishing the spirit-source behind any person's speech or act.
9. Evangelism: Communicating the gospel with power and persuasiveness as well as equipping the saints for evangelism.
10. Leadership Gifts. Leadership (executive ability): Standing before people and inspiring followers by leading them aggressively but with care.
11. Administration (legislative ability): Standing behind people to collect data, set policy, and develop plans which will guide a course of action with wisdom.
12. Faith: Seeing through any problem to the Ultimate Resource.

What about the so-called sign gifts, such as healing and speaking in tongues, referred to in today's text? To us, Hebrews 2:4 suggests that they were intended to be confirming signs for the Apostles, and ceased with them. Others feel they are still for today, but if so, one thing is clear: they are given sovereignly by the Spirit for specific purposes and are the exception, not the rule.

I have asked myself this week, "Who are my enemies, and who do I feel justified in putting outside my circle of concern?" I have found the words of Thomas Merton most helpful:

“Do not be too quick,” he wrote, “to assume that your enemy is a savage just because he is your enemy. Perhaps he is your enemy because he thinks you are a savage. Or perhaps he is afraid of you because he feels you are afraid of him. And perhaps if he believed you were capable of loving him he would no longer be your enemy.

"Do not be too quick to assume that your enemy is an enemy of God just because he is your enemy. Perhaps he is your enemy precisely because he can find nothing in you that gives glory to God. Perhaps he fears you because he can find nothing in you of God's love and God's kindness and God's patience and mercy and understanding of the weakness of men.

"Do not be too quick to condemn the man who no longer believes in God. For it is perhaps your own coldness and avarice and mediocrity and materialism and sensuality and selfishness that have killed his faith.”

In other words, who I label as enemy may say more about me than about them.

When Count Nicholas Zinzendorf was a young man, he had an experience in an art gallery that changed his life forever. He was born an aristocrat and had always known wealth and luxury, and he was an extremely gifted individual. Zinzendorf had been reared and trained for a diplomatic career in the Court at Dresden. Beyond all of this, it has been said of him that he was a child of God. One day, on a trip to Paris, he stopped for a rest in Dusseldorf; during his stay in the city, he visited the art gallery. There he caught sight of Domenico Feti's painting of the crucified Jesus that he calls "Ecce Homo." The artist had written two short lines in Latin beneath the painting: 

Hoc feci pro te:
Quid facid pro me?

This is what I did for you:
what have you done for me?

As the story goes, when his eyes met the eyes of the thorn-crowned Savior, he was filled with a sense of shame. He could not answer that question in a manner which would satisfy his own conscience. He stayed there for hours, looking at the painting of the Christ on the cross until the light failed. And when the time arrived for the gallery to be closed, he was still staring at the face of Christ, trying in vain to find an answer to the question of what he had done for Christ. He left the gallery at nightfall, but a new day was dawning for him. From that day on, he devoted his heart and soul, his life and his wealth - all that he had - to Christ, declaring, "I have but one passion; it is Jesus, Jesus only." The sight of the crucified One "high and lifted up" on the Tree made a sudden and permanent change in his life, and the resurrection bore fruit then and there in his heart and soul. 

Historical Note: Nikolaus Ludwig, Reichsgraf von Zinzendorf und Pottendorf (26 May 1700 – 9 May 1760) was a German religious and social reformer, bishop of the Moravian Church, founder of the Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine, Christian mission pioneer and a major figure of 18th century Protestantism.

Someone said that...

Money will buy:
A bed, but not sleep.
Books, but not brains.
Food, but not appetite.
A house, but not a home.
Medicine, but not health.
Amusement, but not happiness.
Finery, but not beauty.
A crucifix, but not a Savior.

What kind of wealth do you want? We celebrate the wealth of God's love in Jesus Christ. The wealth of God's love brings us what the wealth of the world cannot touch: Peace, understanding, fulfillment, life. These things are eternal.

The Prussian king Frederick the Great was widely known as an agnostic. By contrast, General Von Zealand, one of his most trusted officers, was a devout Christian. Legend has it that during a festive gathering the king began making crude jokes about Christ until everyone was rocking with laughter all but Von Zealand, that is. Finally, he arose and addressed the king: "Sire, you know I have not feared death. I have fought and won 38 battles for you. I am an old man; I shall soon have to go into the presence of One greater than you, the mighty God who saved me from my sin, the Lord Jesus Christ whom you are blaspheming. I salute you, sire, as an old man who loves his Savior, on the edge of eternity." The place went silent, and with a trembling voice the king replied, "General Von Zealand I beg your pardon! I beg your pardon!" And with that the party quietly ended.

Roger Simms, hitchhiking his way home, would never forget the date May 7. His heavy suitcase made Roger tired. He was anxious to take off his army uniform once and for all. Flashing the hitchhiking sign to the oncoming car, he lost hope when he saw it was a black, sleek, new Cadillac. To his surprise the car stopped. The passenger door opened. He ran toward the car, tossed his suitcase in the back, and thanked the handsome, well-dressed man as he slid into the front seat. "Going home for keeps?" "Sure am," Roger responded. "Well, you're in luck if you're going to Chicago." "Not quite that far. Do you live in Chicago?" "I have a business there. My name is Hanover." After talking about many things, Roger, a Christian, felt a compulsion to witness to this fifty-ish, apparently successful businessman about Christ. But he kept putting it off, till he realized he was just thirty minutes from his home. It was now or never. So, Roger cleared his throat, "Mr. Hanover, I would like to talk to you about something very important." He then proceeded to explain the way of salvation, ultimately asking Mr. Hanover if he would like to receive Christ as his Savior. To Roger's astonishment the Cadillac pulled over to the side of the road. Roger thought he was going to be ejected from the car. But the businessman bowed his head and received Christ, then thanked Roger. "This is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me."

Five years went by, Roger married, had a two-year-old boy, and a business of his own. Packing his suitcase for a business trip to Chicago, he found the small, white business card Hanover had given him five years before. In Chicago he looked up Hanover Enterprises. A receptionist told him it was impossible to see Mr. Hanover, but he could see Mrs. Hanover. A little confused as to what was going on, he was ushered into a lovely office and found himself facing a keen-eyed woman in her fifties. She extended her hand. "You knew my husband?" Roger told how her husband had given him a ride when hitchhiking home after the war. "Can you tell me when that was?" "It was May 7, five years ago, the day I was discharged from the army." "Anything special about that day?" Roger hesitated. Should he mention giving his witness? Since he had come so far, he might as well take the plunge. "Mrs. Hanover, I explained the gospel. He pulled over to the side of the road and wept against the steering wheel. He gave his life to Christ that day." Explosive sobs shook her body. Getting a grip on herself, she sobbed, "I had prayed for my husband's salvation for years. I believed God would save him." "And," said Roger, "Where is your husband, Mrs. Hanover?" "He's dead," she wept, struggling with words. "He was in a car crash after he let you out of the car. He never got home. You see I thought God had not kept His promise." Sobbing uncontrollably, she added, "I stopped living for God five years ago because I thought He had not kept His word!"

What is fruit? Actually the question ought to be phrased in the plural: What are fruits which a Christian can bear? The N.T. gives several answers to the question.

ONE, a developing Christian character is fruit. If the goal of the Christian life may be stated as Christlikeness, then surely every trait developed in us that reflects His character must be fruit that is very pleasing to Him. Paul describes the fruit of the Spirit in nine terms in Galatians 5:22-23, and Peter urges the development of seven accompaniments to faith in order that we might be fruitful (2 Peter 1:5-8). Two of these terms are common to both lists: love and self-control. The others are joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, virtue, knowledge, endurance, piety, and brotherly love. To show these character traits is to bear fruit in one's life.

TWO, right character will result in right conduct, and as we live a life of good works we produce fruit (Colossians 1:10). This goes hand in hand with increasing in the knowledge of God, for as we learn what pleases Him, our fruitful works become more and more conformed to that knowledge. When Paul expressed how torn he was between the two possibilities of either dying and being with Christ or living on in this life, he said that living on would mean fruitful labor or work (Philippians 1:22). This phrase could mean that (1) his work itself was fruit, or (2) fruit would result from his work. In either case, his life and work were fruit. So may ours be.

THREE, those who come to Christ through our witness are fruit. Paul longed to go to Rome to have some fruit from his ministry there (Romans 1:13), and he characterized the conversion of the household of Stephanas as the first fruits of Achaia (I Corinthians 16:15).

FOUR, we may also bear fruit with our lips by giving praise to God and thankfully confessing His name (Hebrews 13:15). In other words, our lips bear fruit when we offer thankful acknowledgement to the name of God. And this is something we should do continually.

FIVE, we bear fruit when we give money. Paul designated the collection of money for the poorer saints in Jerusalem as fruit (Romans 15:28). Too, when he thanked the Philippians for their financial support of his ministry, he said that their act of giving brought fruit to their account (Philippians 4:17, KJV).

From the ancient Greeks we learn of a troubled and broken old man who made pilgrimage to the foot of Mount Olympus to make intercession with the gods who were believed to inhabit that mountain. The emaciated pilgrim was met by a priest who said to him: "Do you not know that the gods who sit atop Mount Olympus will never look upon the form of a dying man?"

Contrast this, if you will, with a scene at another mount, the mount called Calvary. Here a dying man, a thief in fact, turns to Jesus in the throes of death, beseeching mercy, and Jesus says to him, "Today you will be with me in paradise."

We come, you and I, to this place and hour of worship, seeking aid, imploring help from beyond ourselves. Thank God it is not to Mount Olympus we come, but to Mount Calvary. And we are welcome. The Christ who has himself died here is ready to look upon the form of any man, or woman, living or dying. His compassions do not fail. So we come as we are, certain that his mercy knows no bounds.

Wangerin has a wonderful story, called "Matthew, Seven, Eight, and Nine" about how he tried to stop his son Matthew from stealing comic books. He tried various uses of the law over several years and continued to fail. Finally, he resorted to something he rarely used: a spanking. He did it deliberately, almost ritualistically, and he was so upset when he finished that he left the room and wept. After pulling himself back together, he went in to Matthew and hugged him. A number of years later, Matthew and his mother were doing some general reminiscing, and Matthew happened to bring up the time when he kept stealing comic books. "And you know why I finally stopped?" he asked. "Sure," she said, "Because Dad finally spanked you." "No!" replied Matthew, "No, because Dad cried." Wangerin concludes with these words:

"Hereafter, let every accuser of my son reckon with the mercy of God, and fall into a heap, and fail. For love accomplished what the law could not, and tears more powerful than Sinai. Even the Prince of Accusers shall bring no charge against my son that the Final Judge shall not dismiss. Satan, you are defeated! My God has loved my Matthew."

A few years ago someone came up with an ingenious acrostic for the bible. B.I.B.L.E. means Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. I really like that. The Bible is our basic instruction book for life and relationships. Oh, I know, you can't turn to an index and get direct advice about how to deal with your straight A student who suddenly decides they want to pierce their eyebrows or dye their hair clown orange. Or a child who has decided that the only thing they can eat is a diet of quail eggs, coconut water, kiwi and tabouli. It doesn't give direct answers about what movies we should let our children see or what curfew we should set for what age.

But it DOES speak to us of a loving caring God. It is filled with stories of loving caring parents. It does show by example what loving relationships should be like. It does tell us the ramifications of disobedience and disrespect. And it does talk about grace, love, mercy, forgiveness, and about giving and sacrifice.

Hugh Redwood was a British journalist. He described a time when he was under a terrific strain and pressure because of terrible decisions that he had to make. He didn't want to make them. He didn't know which way to turn. One day he was invited to give a speech in another town. His host arranged a little reception before the event in his house so that he could meet some people. During the reception the host said, "You look weary and tired. Would you like to escape from all of this chatter and be by yourself?" He said, "Yes."

He was taken upstairs to a sitting room, where there was a fire in the fireplace and an easy chair pulled up to the fire. He sat down. Then he noticed at his elbow a little table next to the chair, with a Bible opened to the 59th psalm, where there is a verse that reads, in the King James version, "The God of my mercy shall prevent me..." In the old King James English, "prevent" means "go before." Hugh Redwood said that somebody had written in the margin after that verse this paraphrase: "My God in his loving kindness shall meet me at every corner."

Redwood said that was like light shining in the darkness of his life, and he was encouraged to go on, confident that God is at work, preveniently, even when we are not aware of it. Which is why we are asked to wait, be patient, have hope. Because there are only two kinds of time: the time of preparation, and the time of fulfillment.