Epiphany III - The Call

Epiphany III

January 26, 2014

Fr. Philip Eberhart

The Call

Do you ever spend time wondering what the purpose of life is?   What the purpose of YOUR life is?  

I think we all have that innate desire for our life to have meaning and purpose.  The search for meaning has been the subject of countless writers, biographers and storytellers the world over for countless centuries.  It exists for all of us, as surely as the ache that we have inside for that "something more" - something beyond us, something transcendent.  Thus the "idea" that we call GOD is something that is "built in" to our core - we have an innate need to worship - so innate in fact that we do it automatically, kind of like breathing.

God, in creation, knit us together, the Psalmist tells us.  In that knitting, God placed within us threads of longing - longing to know and to be known by the ONE who created us.  We all have that longing.  We pursue that longing in a myriad of different ways and in a million different directions.

This morning's sermon is simply entitled, THE CALL.

It reflects not our search of the ways and directions of our heart's longing to know and be known, but the voice of the ONE, whom, if heeded, will answer that longing and fill us all with the meaning and purpose HE designed us to have.

At the root of the call that God has on a life is the love that God has for each of us and for our lives.  God designed us to be able to grasp that love - as the apostle Paul prayed it, "to know how high, and how wide, and how long and how deep is the love of Christ - and to experience that love in its fullness, though we cannot possibly grasp its fullness."  The New Living says, "Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God!"  It is an incredible, even an incomprehensible promise!  The love of God is so HUGE that we cannot possibly comprehend it - just to get a glance at it will change a life forever!

But there it is.  It is that glance, that grasp, as minuscule as it admittedly is, that changes everything.  Paul once again reflected on how that perspective changed things for him: 

After a long list of his accomplishments by birth and hard work, study and discipline, Paul says, "I once thought all these things valuable, but now I consider them worthless - quite like garbage or even dung, in comparison with the surpassing knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.  I have discarded it all that I might gain Christ and become one with Him! ... to KNOW HIM and the power that raised him from the dead - to come to suffer with him and eventually, to be raised like him from the dead.

Towards all this, Paul says, I firmly press - running so as to win the prize and receive this promise of life in Christ Jesus.

Friends, you see, - once we grasp the love of God everything else fades into the background - like a wash on a watercolor painting in contrast with the sharp lines of the love of God displayed on the Cross for all to see.

This is what we hear so clearly in Paul's testimony of his own life and his own call.  In our Corinthian reading this morning, Paul says it clearly:

Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power.

Paul's call was comprised of three elements:

The Gospel of Jesus Christ, The Cross, and The Power of the Cross

Our call is similarly structured, as is the call of every Christian in the world

==============

THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST

The Good News (that's what "gospel" means) of Jesus Christ

So what is the good news?

One of my professors and others have described it as Good News / Bad News / Good News:

Good news =  God created and loves you.  He designed you from the ground up!

                          He knows you "inside and out" - backward and forward, up and down.

                          Every thought, action, good and bad - He knows it before it even is.

                          And He loves you - with an everlasting love!  An unconditional love.  It just is.

and as one of my pastor friends, Gary Hines, says, "There is nothing you can do about it!"

BAD NEWS =  You (we) have told God to get away from us!  Leave us alone; don't mess with me.

                          I can do it myself!  We've done the exact opposite of what He says - disobeyed and rebelled.

                          Needless to say this caused a giant chasm!  Like the Grand Canyon except infinitely bigger!

[recently I watched a special about a tightwire walker who walked a wire all the way across the Grand Canyon!  True!]

                          NOT THIS GRAND CANYON!  There is no way for us to get there from here!  NO WAY ... in and of ourselves!

GOOD NEWS =  Jesus!  John 3:16 ... God so loved that HE GAVE!

                             He made a way for us to come back across.  A CROSS!  The only way across the divide is A Cross!

                             Jesus is the way.

==========

THE CROSS

We think that for God to straighten up our mess was a pretty simple thing!  But I want you to look at what it took.

The Almighty God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit, knew the end from the beginning - before creation God knew all

this was going to happen, and He made the provision for Salvation, even before Creation!  Jesus, was the "lamb

of God, slain from the foundation of the world."  The Son of God, was sent by the Father, to be born, to live and to

die.  

Wait a minute - GOD DIED? 

Yes and here is the secret to the power of the Cross:  God willingly gave himself up, in Jesus Christ, for our sin.

God took the sin of the world into His own heart, died to pay its penalty - the penalty which separates us all from Him.

He took our sin to the grave with Him and left it there, dead and gone.  Paid in full!  Jesus was executed on our behalf!

But that's only part of the story!

=============

THE POWER OF THE CROSS

The power of the Cross is the Resurrection of Jesus.  Jesus didn't stay dead - the grave could not hold him - death was

overcome - beaten!  Sin itself has lost its power, because of the Cross of Jesus.

One of my favorite moments in the Passion of the Christ is the moment that the soldier spears Jesus side on the cross,

and immediately he is showered with a spray of blood and water, as John testified.  Now that is probably movie license

but it is one of the most amazing moments for me - it is what it means for us to be "washed" in the blood of the Lamb!

And it happened in the movie to the very one who pierced our Lord!  

We are that one!  We are those who drove the nails and cast the lash at the whipping post!  We are the ones who cried out

for blood and who freed Barabbas!  We are the ones whom the blood of Jesus Christ was spilled by - and the ones that the 

blood of Jesus Christ was spilled for.

The Power of the Cross is the life that we have been given IN HIM.   "He who knew no sin, became sin for us, that we might become, In HIM, the very righteousness of God!"

This is the Power of the Cross.  This is the Good News of the Gospel.

So what?

Well the so what is that like the disciples that Jesus called in our gospel reading we are being called to "Follow Me, and I

will make you Fishers of Men."  I will make you fish for people!

Our opening collect says it this way:

Give us grace, O Lord, to answer readily the call of our Savior Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation, 

that we and the whole world may perceive the glory of his marvelous works.

Friends, the Call that God has for each of us is this and simply this:  to tell the story.  Good News - Bad News - Good News

God has made a way for us to come back - to come back across the divide we created by our sin - to come by the way of The Cross.  To accept the work that Jesus has done on our behalf and to come back into a relationship with God, our loving creator.

That is what it's all about.  All of our life is so busy and distracted that we forget.

It's all about this one thing.

And today if you are listening and you've never understood this, or have never come to the end of this universal search for God and His love and meaning for your life.  You can come now.

All it takes is "yes, Lord, I believe and I receive your offer of salvation."

It is Good News!  Indeed.

Shall we pray:

"Lord Jesus Christ, You stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace."

I stretch out my arms and receive your embrace Lord.  No other has loved me the way you have loved me.  I receive your love.

(silence)

Now, so clothe me in Your Spirit, Lord Jesus, that I might reach my hands out to others, and to bring them to know and love you as I have.  I answer your Call, Lord.  Let me by a witness, by your Spirit's power, to your love and grace and faithfulness, all my days.

In Jesus name and for the sake of His Kingdom we pray,

Amen.

Sept 18, 2011 - Live a Life Worthy

Sept 18, 2011
Live a Life Worthy
Fr. Philip Eberhart

This week I’ve been reading some of the new research from the Barna Group on the spirituality of America in our post 9/11 culture. He has a new book coming out in Feb of next year and the research is being hinted at in articles now prior to his book release.

Our scriptures this morning give us a challenge: Paul in his letter to the church at Philippi urges his hearers to “live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ.” I think I would like to spend a few minutes reflecting with you what that meant to Paul and what it might mean to us today in our lives.

Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi was a letter to a church he loved. Its frowned upon for grandparents to say “so and so is my favorite grandchild.” But I think it is fairly clear that Philippi and the church there held a special place in the heart of the Apostle. They were a church that struggled mightily, as did most first-century churches, against the forces of the day – pagan worship, persecution from both Jewish and Roman quarters, and the every day lure of non-religious pursuits, that we all struggle with.

Paul here is urging his hearers to live their lives “as citizens of heaven”. That is the heading for this section in the NLT and it’s a phrase that Paul uses later in the letter, in his famous section on losing your self to gain Christ in Chapter 3. And I think that it’s a worthy subject for us to look at in more depth. We live in a time and place that is “depth challenged!” One of the articles I read this week from Geo. Barna, was entitled “Self-Described Christians Dominate America but Wrestle with Four Aspects of Spiritual Depth.” It doesn’t take a lot of research in fact, for us to know that we as American Christians struggle in the area of making our faith REAL in our day-to-day lives.

Paul has some thoughts on this in our passage this morning. He indicates that there are four metrics by which he will know that they are living a life worthy of the Gospel. Look at the second half of our reading with me: In fact let’s read that paragraph together:

Only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come and see you or am absent and hear about you, I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel, and are in no way intimidated by your opponents. For them this is evidence of their destruction, but of your salvation. And this is God's doing. For he has graciously granted you the privilege not only of believing in Christ, but of suffering for him as well-- since you are having the same struggle that you saw I had and now hear that I still have.

SO THAT I WILL KNOW…
1. That you are standing firm in one spirit,
2. That you are striving side-by-side with one mind for the faith of the gospel, and
3. That you are not intimidated by your opponents.
        And Paul adds, almost as an afterthought, as a P.S.:
4. That He has granted you the privilege not only of believing, but of suffering for Him as well.

So the four from Paul are…
Standing as One; Striving Side-by-Side, Without Intimidation, in Suffering for Christ.

How do these things manifest themselves in our lives?
“Standing Firm in One Spirit:” “Real spiritual unity,” one of our early AMiA bishops said, “is a weapon of mass destruction for the kingdom of Satan.” I believe that Oneness, what Christ prays for in John 17, his final great prayer over his disciples, “that they might be one, Father, as you and I are one!” -- Oneness is a gift of the Spirit of God to the Body of Christ. It is something we have by virtue of our position EN CHRISTO - IN CHRIST. But we have to access that gift and live into it with intentionality; thus Paul’s admonition to his hearers in Philippi to “stand firm in One Spirit.” We must choose to stand together or we will surely “fall… apart!”

In a letter to the church in Ephesus later Paul refers to our partnership in “maintaining the unity of the Spirit, in the bond of peace.” Our spiritual unity (the gift of Christ) is held in the vessel of our human relationships in the Body of Christ, person to person and life on life.
Choosing “peace” is the clear weapon of choice in the war with have with our own flesh and with the devil’s warfare against our unity in the Body of Christ.

“Striving Side by Side with One Mind for the Faith of the Gospel”:
Paul tells us in the Ephesian letter as well, that we fight not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, and spiritual evil in the high places. Part of our preparation for the warfare we are engaged in the Kingdom of God, is figuring out who the enemy is! Look around you. Is there anyone here that you need to say “I’m not your enemy” too? Maybe we need to take the “Peace” seriously when we pass it as it is the primary weapon in this warfare we have with our flesh and with the Devil. “Striving Side-by-side” means we are facing the same way, together – with one mind: and our focus in on the “faith of the Gospel!!” Our fight is never with one another! It is in the world and FOR the GOSPEL of JESUS CHRIST! Our focus is on the gospel and on taking it forward into the world. It is amazing the clarity that warfare brings.


“And Are In NO WAY INTIMIDATED by your opponents.”
One of our groups is studying the new book from Max Lucado, entitled FEARLESS. I’m hearing good reports and I think I’m gonna pick up a copy myself to read on vacation. Fr. Edward, as a result of his ordeal in the jail in Colorado Springs, describes himself as now having No Fear!

IN NO WAY INTIMIDATED! Where are you on the intimidation scale? When you are faced with an opportunity to speak to someone about faith, what happens in your stomach?

And finally, Paul adds, all this is GOD’S DOING! Because by His Grace He has granted you the glorious privilege to suffer for him.

OH… THANKS LORD!
UM… LORD… WE DON’T DO SUFFERING HERE IN AMERICA!

And that might be our greatest problem! When we suffer we have a tendency to run or at least… to whine. We move naturally away from that which is probably the most powerful tool in Christ’s hands for the shaping of our lives – one that Paul considers to be a supreme sign of God’s grace!! He calls it a “gracious privilege!” One in which all Christians get to take part. And one which most Christians in America avoid, and in so doing, we avoid the maturity that comes with it.

George Barna in his article on his website, lists four obstacles to spiritual maturity in America:

COMMITMENT: While those who self-identify as Christians in America have largely made an initial commitment to Jesus (81%), only 1 in 5 in actively investing in their own spiritual development (18%). Just a few more describe themselves as “completely dependent on God. (22%) We know intuitively that there is more than most of us are experiencing, but few in America seem willing to dig for the treasure!

REPENTANCE: We are well up the scale as well in “asking for forgiveness (64%)” but the second half of repentance is actually turning from the activities of sin, handing control over to Jesus! Only 1 in 8 (12%) have been gripped by the desperation of their sinfulness, and even less (3%) have come to a place where they have surrendered control of their lives to God.

ACTIVITY: We tend to confuse religious activity with spiritual maturity. 4 in 10 participate regularly in “church, prayer & bible reading”, but when we dig deeper we find far less activity: sharing the faith with a non-Christian, fasting, time of spiritual reflection, and even less frequently: solitude, sacrifice, acts of service, silence, scripture meditation and memorization. We tend to be a “mile wide and an inch deep!”

SPIRITUAL COMMUNITY: This may be where American independence has bitten us worst! We don’t seem to take the concept of a community of faith very seriously in America. Only 1 in 5 even believes that there is a connection between our spiritual maturity and being in a community of faith! Only 1 in 3 admit to having talked with another Christian about their own sins. Vulnerability and accountability are not popular in the western church experience.

SO WHAT?
Paul urges us to live our life in a manner worthy of the Gospel and further identifies the markers of that life: Standing firm in One Spirit; Striving Side by Side for the Gospel of Jesus; Not being intimidated by our opponents and Suffering for Jesus! Do these seem to be a bit anti-thetical to what we’ve just heard about our tendencies in America?

I will grant you that we are a little different here at REZ, but we want to be different! We want to be change agents in this culture! God is calling us to be different! And I believe that God expects us, as Paul did in his letter to the Philippians, to live a life worthy of His Gospel: To stand together as ONE by His Spirit; To strive for the Gospel Side-by-Side! To be FEARLESS and to come to the reality of suffering, seeing it as a grace-gift, not as an inconvenient or unwanted.

Let us pray that we can live lives worthy of the Gospel Of Jesus and that we can overcome our American, easy-believism and our aversion to suffering, accountability and vulnerability as we live our lives openly, in front of one another and the world, for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

Amen.