Saturday, April 30, 2016

4-30-2016



  Good Morning All!! 
      1 Corinthians 13:13, “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
   This is the last verse of, probably, one of the read passages of Scriptures.  Psalm 23, Luke 2, John 14, then probably 1 Cor. 13 would be the top to me.  This passage is most often read at weddings and it has a very airy and a feel-good quality.  This is one of the passages that scoffers and unbelievers look to when a Christian dare speaks of God’s law.  “I though you guys were all love and that stuff; what you are saying doesn’t sound like love to me.”  
        We use the word love very loosely.  I love my wife; I love picking apples; I love Canadian bacon and black olive pizza; but do I really equate these three as the same?  Some do.  What we need to do is to look at how we define love and how God defines love.
     We look at this passage as the definition of love.  What we see is that love, true godly love, is focused outward.  It is about me giving to you because I love you.  God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son; this is love.  True love is not focused on me but on thee.  Love is one thing; the other is lust.
    Lust in this situation is not just how we look at an opposite gender individual.  Lust is about satisfying me.  When we speak love words they are “you” or “them”; lust words are “me, myself and I”.  If you listen to couples who are seeking a divorce, you hear phrases like, “I fell out of love” or “I need my space” or “I feel the need to explore me”; all the focus is inward on my wants, my desires, and my satisfaction.  Love is about others.  So in many ways, chapter 13 does help us to define love.  It is patient, kind, bears all things, endures all things and never ends.  Lust does not.
    Unfortunately, many in the world see love as conditional.  Conditional love is lust; it is about meeting my wants first and foremost.  What is sad is that so many see this as love.  I’ll love you if you love me.  I’ll stay with you if you keep me interested.  True love is not a two way street; true love is me loving you with no strings or requirements.  That is love; anything else is lust.
    Can you love like that, I know I can’t.  Yet this is the kind of love which God wants us to have; the same love He has for us.  Fortunately, God’s love is this way for me; even when I sin (which is often) God still loves me.  He calls me back with his forgiveness and his love.  He continues to mold me and shape me to try and show this love to others.  When I deal with others, like the checkout clerk at Wal-Mart and I remember how God treats me, I try a little harder to be patient and kind.  I don’t do this because it earns me anything it simply brings me closer to Jesus.  The same is true for all of us.  These three remain; faith, hope and love; but the greatest of these is love.
Holy Father, your love is demonstrated in our lives at every turn.  Too often we miss it by rushing other directions or ignoring the signs.  Forgive us for being slow to love as we are loved.  Guard us and guide us by your faithful hand to love as you continue to shape us and mold us into your holy image.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.
God’s Peace,
Pastor Bret      

Friday, April 29, 2016

4-29-2016



Good Morning All!! 
       Genesis 2:15; “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
     We are in the season of the year when people are graduating from schools.  It might be a high school or tech school or college or university.  It might be a high school diploma or a degree in some major field of study; a bachelor’s degree or perhaps a master’s or even a PHD.  We have a practice of inviting our high school graduates to stand before the church and tell of their plans. 
    They are always so confident.  “I plan on going to this college and getting this degree and then getting a job doing this.”  Never any doubt, never a waiver.  Yet sometimes when you talk to the college graduates; they are a little less certain.  They are hoping to find a job, often any job just to pay the bills.  Their confidence isn’t quite what it was when they graduated from high school.  Some would call it reality; some call it a change of purpose.  Whatever it is; it happens.
     There are a lot of people who, when asked, are you happy with your job will reply, “No.”  They will reply how it seems to have no purpose or plan; they just go in do their job and come home.   They are left empty and this is often the source of discontentment.  This is what causes restlessness in our careers, in our marriages and in our lives.  This is what makes us to be wanderers and people who always think the grass is greener somewhere else.
     Sin removes from us our purpose.  Our purpose was to care for the garden; to take care of God’s creation.  Sin caused us to lose this purpose.  Instead we turned inward and desired only our pleasure.  In this action, we lost our real purpose and have been lost ever since.  Without even knowing what our true purpose was we grabbed at anything to see it as our purpose.  Solomon wrote about them in his writings in Ecclesiastes.  We seek meaning in philosophy or wisdom or knowledge but that leaves us hollow.  We seek purpose in pleasure or wealth, in control of things or by our self-lauded accomplishments but all these leave us empty.  We can only find our true purpose in God’s will and we find that because Jesus came to die to wipe away our sins and to return us to our true purpose.  The purpose he defined as loving one another.
    So now we, as Christians, once again know our purpose and that is to love one another and to share God’s love with one another.  It is our purpose to take care of God’s creation, all of it, until Jesus returns to make all things new gain.  We do this by loving one another and respecting what God has created. 
Father, in your love for us you created all things to sustain us.  Lead us to be good stewards of your creation.  Teach us to love so that all may benefit from you mercy. Guide us by your Spirit that we may be your caretakers.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.
God’s Peace,
Pastor Bret              

Thursday, April 28, 2016

4-28-2016



Good Morning All!! 
       Luke 7: 14; “Then he came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.”
     One of my favorite comic strips has always been “Peanuts.”  Each character brings something to the story of life.  Charlie Brown is every man who struggles to be anything over plain old common.  Linus has a philosophical streak that sees the depth of life.  Lucy has a self-centered importance while Snoopy brings about a life celebrating aura that leads to adventure and mischief.
    One of my favorite involved Lucy and Snoopy.  Lucy is bobbing for apples at the Halloween party when she bites an apple and pulls it from the water.  On the other end, Snoopy is biting the other side.  When Lucy realizes that her lips are touching Snoopy’s lips, she goes crazy.  She runs around shouting, “Ugh!  My lips touched dog lips!!  Get the disinfectant, get the soap and water’ call the doctor, sterilize everything!! Ugh I have dog germs!!”  Snoopy just sighed.
    In the time of Jesus, if a Jewish wanted to enter the Temple, he had to remain ceremonial clean.  This involved some very fastidious washing of hands and dishes but it also involved avoiding things that were considered unclean.  This included certain kinds of meat and animals.  It included touching non-Jews and it included touching dead bodies.  A Jewish man, who wants to enter the Temple, should react to a dead body the same way Lucy reacted to kissing Snoopy.  He should run as far from the body as possible.
   Yet in our verse for today, Jesus intentionally goes to the dead young man and touched the bier or coffin or whatever the body was being carried on to the burial plot.  He should have avoided it in order to stay clean.  Jesus was a rabbi; a man known for his teaching in the Temple and the local synagogues.  By touching the body, he would deprive many from hearing his teaching for at least seven days.  He went to the dead body, on purpose, in order to bring about healing; to bring about life.
    Often, when this story is studied, we focus on the mother.  She was a widow and this was her only son.  We stress how difficult life for her would be from now on but the man was dead.  He had no future.  He had nothing to look forward to; he was dead and soon to be placed in the ground to decay.  Anybody could have helped the mother but only Jesus could help the man. You and I are like the man; only Jesus can save us.
     Jesus left his heavenly home and entered into humanity.  He entered into all the uncleanness, all the pain and suffering in order to heal you.  He entered this world, touched all of its uncleanness in order to give you life; to keep you from the decay of sin.  Jesus came to give you life and to bring you back into his holy family.  He came and touched you to give you hope and no one else could help.  Jesus came and gave his life so you would live eternally.
Gracious Father, you sent Jesus to touch my life and to change me from the dead and corrupt body of sin to your beloved child.  Keep me in your arms and in your grace.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.
God’s Peace,
Pastor Bret       

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

4-27-2016



 Good Morning All!! 
        1 John 1:7; “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
    Do you remember reading the book “The Scarlet Letter”?  Hester Prynne has a baby by a man other than her husband so she must wear the scarlet letter “A” and is shunned by her Puritan community.  Throughout the story, we see Hester become more contemplative on human nature.  Her absent and cold-natured husband appropriately takes the name of Chillingworth, while her paramour Dimmesdale suffers physically and emotionally from hiding his part in the affair.  As is often the case, she bore the brunt of the public shame and humiliation.  He suffered silently as his conscience worked him into a physical state that he eventually dies because of his guilt.  Some of those who witness his death claim that he too had the letter “A” on his chest.
    It is a powerful look at relationships on many levels.  It looks at personal, interpersonal, community as just a few of the relationships viewed.  It is quite a read but it is not much of a life.  As I have gone through life, I have met and known people who were each of these characters.  Maybe you have known some of these types as well; perhaps you have experienced a portion of your life as if you lived in the book.
    There are times when we feel like Hester.  Something happened and everyone is aware of it.  It caused embarrassment for your family and for you and you have been branded as such.  You were or are the outcast and you feel it.  You hear the whispers and feel the stares.  You have been “marked” and while many claim to have forgiven you years ago; no one forgets.
    Maybe you feel like Roger Chillingworth.  You are the wronged party.  Someone somewhere did something to harm you in some way.  It may have been an assault on your reputation or a lie that stuck.  Perhaps someone took something that was yours and damaged it and left it broken for you and you are stuck with it.  The guilty parties may or may not have been punished but you still feel empty.
    Perhaps you feel like Arthur Dimmesdale.  There is something in your past that is hidden.  Nobody else knows but if they did; they would lose all respect for you.  You would go from being liked, trusted and popular to the most despised person in the community.  The trouble is that the guilt that weighs you down is unbearable. 
    These are all the sins we live with but only because we just can’t think that God would truly forgive these sins.  Yet that is exactly what God does.  He forgives the sins which mark us, which weigh us down, which cause us to be bitter and hateful.  God releases us from sin in order that we may live a contented life.  God frees us because of his great love for us.  If you find yourself in this bitterness or suffering; let it go.  Your Father in heaven has and he frees you to do the same.
Father, move those who are hurting to see their freedom in your grace.  Guide us to release the pain and the anger and open our hearts and our lives to your love.  In Jesus we pray, amen.
God’s Peace,
Pastor Bret