Today is the first Sunday of Advent, a season on the church calendar that begins our collective journey that ends at Christmas morning with the birth of Christ. As we take this long walk together, we will spend the next few Sundays telling and retelling the Christmas story. The story should sound familiar as, no doubt, you’ve heard it many times before. But after such a difficult year, a year unlike any other, my prayer is that the story takes on new meaning and offers a renewed hope. All good stories have a plot, plot twists, unexpected characters and a hero. Today, however, we start simply by setting the stage. It turns out that our 2020 experience gets us closer to the setting of Christmas than you might realize.
Understanding Gratitude
Gratitude as Virtue
Though we are still a few weeks from Thanksgiving, it is good to spend time reflecting on gratitude. Rather than dedicate one day to giving thanks, let us spend time in a season of gratitude. Let us train our eyes see the goodness of God where we once saw nothing. Let us train our hands to give back because of the gifts that have been given to us. And let us train our hearts to praise God with joy for ways small and large that we have been blessed. If we can do this, we might just find a bounce in our step, a smile on our face, and a nearness to the heart of God.
With a Grateful Heart
Committed
To live a life of character requires making certain commitments. Commitments are bonds that we refuse to yield upon. Paul gives us an example of a committed life in Acts 14 as he faces persecution and near death for the sake of the gospel. This is a literal hill he was willing to die on, and he nearly did. He was committed: committed to the gospel, committed to the truth of Jesus Christ, committed to carrying out a call upon his life to take that gospel as far and wide as he could even if it meant risking his own life. For what are you willing to die? And what do your commitments say about your character?
Trivial Pursuits
What would I need to offer you to convince you to give up everything in your life? A big enough pile of cash? A life of ease? Fame? Is there anything that could possibly cause you to give up everything you have built in this life? To answer these, you would need to evaluate what is most important to you, what gives your life meaning and purpose, and what you’re willing to leave behind. The New Testament is filled with examples of Jesus asking us to examine our deepest loyalties, to consider our pursuits, and to seek the kingdom above all these.
Jesus' Grace and Truth
John’s gospel opens up with two key words about Jesus’ character. It says he was “filled with grace and truth.” The grace of Jesus is the favor that he bestows upon all people irrespective of status or position, whether sinner or saint. We all need Jesus’ grace, and this is a hallmark of Christian doctrine and teaching. But Jesus’ “truth” is an important corollary to his grace. Jesus’ grace is not “cheap grace,” to use Bonhoeffer’s term. The grace of Jesus stands in the penetrating light of truth, and it is this truth that exposes just how costly it is.
God's Holy Love
Today, we begin a series on character. The old maxim, "Character is who you are when no one is looking, certainly applies," but the character I want to begin with is not ours but God’s. God's character is revealed throughout Scripture and serves as an important starting point for understanding the ways our own character has been misshapen. As creatures created in the image of God, God’s image reveals something deep and true about who we were created to be. So this morning we begin with what I believe to be at the center of God’s very character: Holy Love.
The Vineyard
New Heart, New Spirit, New Life
Ezekiel challenges his readers to turn from their ways and to seek to live just and righteous lives. He encourages them to make for themselves a “new heart” and a “new spirit.” But we know, because the New Testament teaches it over and over again, that the fulness of this is only possible through the one who offers new life by laying down his own. It is only possible through an act of mercy and forgiveness through Christ’s atoning death. Nevertheless, when Ezekiel concludes this passage with the injunction to “turn and live,” it is a magnificent foreshadowing of the grace to come through Jesus who enjoins us to “repent and be forgiven.”
Not Fair
What connects today’s two Scripture passages is something we all do: complain. The Israelites are “grumbling” that they do not have enough food for their journey out of Egypt, and the vineyard workers in Jesus’ parable are “grumbling” that they have had to work longer and harder than others for equal pay. Arguably, both complaints are legitimate . . . if insufficient. God does not mind our questions and, perhaps, even a little complaining. But complaint is not the end of the road, it is a marker along the way toward gratitude and faith. Complaint takes the form of honesty, but it is often an honesty that is too small. It is an honesty that does not recognize the rightful place of thanksgiving, gratitude, humility, and trust. It is there that we wish to find ourselves.
Embodying Forgiveness
Forgiveness is one of those topics that shows up throughout the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. It appears all over the Hebrew Bible in the form of sacrificial offerings, the Day of Atonement, and any number of passages that tell us that we serve a God who is slow to anger and quick to forgive. In the New Testament, forgiveness is a theme of Jesus’ ministry and teachings, and it shows up in the parable for today. It is at the cross, however, where Jesus embodies forgiveness by taking the sin and brokenness of the world upon his own shoulders, and he bids us to go and do likewise.
Wake Up Call
Romans 13 may appear to be about politics and power because it begins with a call to obey governing authorities, but by bookending a brief statement about “the authorities” with two clarion calls to the transformed life, Paul is effectively dwarfing the importance of Roman power and prestige in favor of offering a “wake up call” to the Roman church to that which matters most. He wishes to remind them that light is breaking through, the world that is filled with darkness is passing away, and as the author of Revelation puts it, “the kingdom of the world is becoming the kingdom of the Lord” (Rev. 11:15). It’s time to wake up!
Transformed
At the beginning of Romans 12, Paul calls us into the flames of sacrificial living. That is, he calls us to be a “living sacrifice.” The image is stark and evocative, and it plays with the themes of life and death. After all, sacrifices aren’t supposed to live, are they? But, then again, someone who dies a torturous death isn’t supposed to live either, and yet that’s the fundamental claim of Christianity. Of course, Paul doesn’t stop there. He connects being a “living sacrifice” with being transformed, and it is Romans 12:9-21 where he describes, very clearly, what the transformed life looks like. Let’s dig in!
Gifted
Today we talk about the gifts of grace we’ve all been given. In Romans 12, Paul talks about these gifts as necessary parts of being in community with one another. Our giftedness is an essential part of what it means to be the body of Christ. Sinclair Ferguson says that these gifts are not for us, but for others. “They are gifts of service, not self-advancement.” As a congregation, we need to talk about what it means to use our gifts, especially during this difficult time.
Praying and the Battle
Sword of the Spirit
Though we will conclude the Armor of God series next Sunday with a sermon on prayer, which is how Paul concludes this section of Ephesians 6, today we talk about the final piece of armor: the “sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” The two key elements here are that the sword is both “Spirit” and “word of God.” This is not our sword but is the sword God gives us through the giving of the Spirit and the Word of God. The interplay between Spirit and Word of God is of critical importance because both of these are necessary to wield the sword well. Let’s dig in!
The Helmet of Salvation
“Have you been saved?” This question would certainly sound one way if there was a burning building behind you, and it was asked by a television news reporter to you, with lights flashing all around you, and a group of firefighters standing close by. And the same question would sound completely different if you were at a church camp meeting, and a camp counselor was asking you the same words. The word salvation is a buzz word used throughout the Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments, and it’s usage varies depending upon the context. This morning, let us dive deep into what “the Helmet of Salvation” might mean, and why it is of vital importance to us.
The Shield of Faith
Today we talk about the shield of faith. Faith, like the other words we have looked at in the armor of God, has been shrunken down to mean less than it does when it appears in Scripture. For the authors of scripture, faith is an action word. It is not just a belief that sits in the head, as if Scripture is merely asking you to believe that God, Jesus, and the stories of Scripture are real. Faith is trust and allegiance that leads you to live your life according to the fact that God, Jesus, and the stories of Scripture are real.
Shoes of Peace
“Peace” is one of those words we hear around Christmastime, like Joy, and Love, and Hope. It’s an ideal that we’re all seeking and hoping for. It’s something that we want in our personal lives, and it’s something we want for our world. I mean, who’s against peace? No one. But when God calls us to put on the armor of God, God doesn’t only want us to desire peace, God wants us to go out and make peace. To be peacemakers in our world.