At the Foot of the Cross: Pastor Clint's Good Friday Message at Prairie View UMC

At the Foot of the Cross

What would you say at the foot of the cross, as Jesus breathed his last? The air having left his lungs. The spear having pierced his side. What would you say when this nearly naked man was being drug down from the cross, his blood still drip, drip, dripping from the wood into a puddle by your feet?

What would you say?

What would you say at the foot of the cross? What would you say there after you watched this man who you had heard of as a great teacher of his people was arrested, betrayed by one of his own disciples? This Jesus, having being grabbed from a graveyard as he prayed, the residue of blood on his brow from him having sweat blood in prayer? What would you say?

What would you say as you watched the faithful followers of Jesus move away from him after his arrest? After you saw them run away, some of them, if you trust in the truth of Mark’s gospel, as I do, without their clothes. These disciples, that he had poured his life into, when he asked them to pray for him, they kept falling asleep. What would you say?

What would you remembering that Jesus was brought before the Jewish authorities, them seeking to undermine his ministry? What would you say as you observed all the obviously false accusations about him? What would you think when they asked him if he was the Messiah, the Son of God and he said, ““You have said so,” Jesus replied. “But I say to all of you: From now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.” And then they said they were going to kill him. The gave him the death sentence? What would you do?? What would you say?

What would you say at the foot of the cross having watched all of this happen as the blood drip, drip, dripped down in a puddle by your feet.

What would you say? What would you say as you watched the Jewish leaders bring Jesus before Pilate? As Jesus stood before Pilate, Pilate asks Jesus if he is King of the Jews. And Jesus says, “you have said so”. Pilate has reservations and gives the people a choice on who to crucify, a criminal named Barabbas or Jesus? And the crowd, under the influence of the religious leaders among them cries for Jesus to be crucified, and for Jesus to set free.

What would you say?

Pilate’s wife comes to Pilate. She begs and pleads with him not to kill Jesus. Not to send him to the cross. She has had a dream. The dream told her he is an innocent man.

What would you say, knowing all this, if you were that soldier at the foot of the cross? What would you say as the blood came drip, drip, dripping down from the wood of the cross into a puddle by your feet as the people are taking Jesus’ lifeless body off of that cross.

What would you say as they whipped Jesus on that whipping block with that cat of nine tails, with pieces of bone, and rock and metal embedded in that whip, pulling out pieces of flesh each time they whipped him. Whipping him 39 nine times because if they whipped him 40 times it was supposed to be fatal? What would you say if you were a soldier there, watching all of that?

What would you say if you saw him attempting to carry his cross, not complaining, as he went through the streets walking toward Golgotha, the place of the dead. And then as Simon, the Cyrene, was pulled out of the crowd, began to carry the cross for Jesus as he stumbled up to the top of that city? What would you say?

What would you say as the placed his battered, beaten, and whipped body upon that rough hewn piece of lumber, slivers embedding themselves in the scars and the sores, blood spurting out as they nailed, nailed, nailed him to the cross. His hands and feet pierced. And then they lifted him up into the air.

While he hung there he breathed heavy. Most people on the cross die of suffocation. Their bodies slide down the cross and compress their lungs, making them incapable of breathing. In order to survive, they must push themselves up the cross, scraping themselves against the wood, in order to catch a breathe. This is why the other men at the cross had their legs broken. Once their legs were broken they can no longer push themselves up, and they suffocate. By the time they get to Jesus, he was already dead.

What would you say if you were at the foot of the cross, the blood of Jesus drip, drip, dripping on the ground next to you, forming a puddle at your feet?

What would you say as you listened to Jesus at the foot of the cross?

What would you think as you watched him suffer and he said, “Father forgive them, they know not what they do” As they mocked him, spat at him, gambled for his clothes, and sentenced him to death. Perhaps he was even speaking to that soldier at the foot of the cross, stoicly doing his job, and perhaps he was even speaking to all of us as we have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God? What would you say at the foot of the cross?

What would you think at the foot of the cross when you heard Jesus say to the thief crucified next to him that, “Today you will be with me in paradise?”

What would you say?

What would you say at the foot of the cross as Jesus told the disciple John and his mother Mary that they were now Mother and Son, seeking to take care of his mother and his friend as he hung up on the cross, hardly recognizable, barely able to sputter out the words he needed to say?

What would you say?

What would be going through your mind at the foot of the cross of Jesus when he cried out from Psalm 22, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Praying faithfully the prayer of the suffering he learned as a child.

What would you think when Jesus said that he was thirsty, there at the foot of the cross?

What would you say as Jesus proclaimed that he accomplished all that he wanted to do, as he looked up to heaven and said, “It is finished”?

What would you say as you heard Jesus say “Into your hand I commend my Spirit” as he was up there on the cross, and he had his last, wheezy death rattle and then froze stone cold dead on that cross?

And then, just when Jesus stopped breathing, the earth shook, the rocks began to split in two, the veil of the temple tore in two, and graves began to split open, and dead people began to start walking around, temporarily alive again. People that had been dead for a long time. Appearing to loved ones. Perhaps proclaiming Jesus as Lord.

What would you say if you were at the foot of the cross, with the dead body of Jesus hanging over you, and blood of Christ drip, drip, dripping down below you on the ground into a puddle by your feet.

Because, in a way, we are all today, at the foot of the cross. We are all observing Jesus’ death, even from several centuries distant from that moment. We all come to Christ through the cross, if we are to know him at all. We all must deal with what to say, what to do at the cross.

We all need to come to the cross, and take stock of our lives here, where Jesus died for our sins while we were still opposing him. And we need to ask ourselves, what really matters here.

Do our worldly accomplishments, how much money we have, how many trophies we have, how many titles we have really matter when we are standing at the cross? Is that really going to matter as Jesus is crying out, suffering to pay the price for our sins?

Take your petty arguments and grudges that you have had with your friends and family and neighbors. Take them to the foot of the cross. And as Jesus is wheezing and bleeding and a drop of his blood falls on your face, as he suffers and dies to give you new life and to teach you how to love God and your neighbor, take your arguments and grudges to the foot of the cross, and ask yourself, do they really matter there, as Jesus is dying for your sins and your transgressions, even as you turn away from him.

What would you say, as you stood at the foot of the cross, Jesus’s blood dripping down from the cross, forming a pool of blood at your feet?

I hope you would, and I hope I would, as I saw Jesus pay the price for the world’s sin, as he gave his life for a sacrifice for all of humanity who would believe, as he gave his blood to give you the free gift of salvation, I hope you would look up at this forgiving and suffering savior, who could have conquered the world but instead gave his life as a ransom for many, I hope you would say, I hope you will say with me and saints throughout the ages as we join our voices with the soldier at the cross, “Surely he was the Son of God”.

Therefore, Have Faith: Palm Sunday Sermon

Jesus is Greater, Therefore Have Faith

Today, if you have not figured it out, is Palm Sunday. On Palm Sunday a couple of millennia ago, Jesus marched into Jerusalem on a donkey colt right before Passover. Because of the Scriptures, people came to understand that Jesus was in fact claiming to be the Messiah. The place down palm leaves in front of Jesus and the donkey. They shout, “Hosanna, blessed in his he who comes in the name of the Lord.” The faithful cry out. Yet, the religious leaders are upset at this. They tell Jesus to make his disciples shut up. Jesus’s response is that if he tells his disciples to stop proclaiming his praises that the stones will cry out with the same praises. This of course does not please those in religious authority and they began to put in motion the difficult and painful days that are ahead with Holy Week. Days that culminate with Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross on Friday.

There is a statement often made about the Holy Week experience that says that the crowds acclaimed him on Palm Sunday, and then the shouted “crucify him” on Good Friday. In one sense this is true. The crowds said contradictory things. But, in another way, this truism is misleading. The crowds that sang Jesus’ praises on Sunday were the people who were longing to be delivered. The crowd on Good Friday was a different crowd with a competing agenda.

The crowd on Palm Sunday is a group of people who placed their hopes in Jesus Christ, saw their faith in him disappointed through death, and then revived through the events of Easter Morning.

In the Christian year, Palm Sunday is a welcome joyful respite in Lenten movement toward the cross. Palm Sunday reminds us to have the courage of faith, even when we cannot see the hope that we are longing for and the deliverance we are expecting within our grasp.

This is much the message of Hebrews 11.

For the last several weeks we have heard about the greatness of Christ. He is the one that the prophets had spoken about. He is greater than the angels and the priests. He is greater than the political powers that be and the religious powers that be. He is greater that our traditions and institutions. He is greater than all. And Jesus deserves our honor and worship.

Because Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection is at the crux of all history, because Jesus made a way out of no way to offer us salvation, and because he is our intercessor and our advocate with our Heavenly Father, we are called to trust Jesus. Our as Hebrews 11 says, to have faith.

That is what faith means you know…trust.

Hebrews 11 offers us several examples of heroes of faith. These heroes of the faith demonstrated trust in God in the middle of sometimes mysterious and sometimes trying circumstances.

Abel had faith, and to demonstrate his faith he brought an offering.

Enoch had faith as well. He walked with God, and then God took him home to heaven without experiencing a traditional death.

Noah built an ark. He built the ark before he experienced rain. God said there was going to be a flood, so he needed to build the ark. So that is what he did.

Abraham headed out the promised land. He went trusting that God would show him where that promised land was.

Each of these journeys of trusting God seems to have a similar trajectory or pattern. This structure of their faith development has a lot to teach us about how our trust in the savior can grow as we journey through life.

First people with faith each face unique challenges. Noah is asked to build a boat. Abraham is asked to travel to a new land and live in tents. Enoch is challenged to walk closely with God in a wicked generation. Abel is challenged to discern an appropriate sacrifice.

Each of us face unique challenges in our faith journeys as well. We are single parents wondering when we are going to catch a break. We are struggling with our health. We are caregivers to loved ones that sap most of our energy. We are trying to keep our addictions at bay. We are battling against depression. We are lonely. We are broke. We are grieving. Our children are making messes of their lives. Our marriages are struggling, or worse yet crumbling. We are praying, and yet our prayers don’t seem to be answered.

The story of faith often begins in difficult, unique and challenging circumstances. In our lives it often begins when we come to an end of ourselves and discover a deep and abiding need for the presence of God in our lives.

Hebrews 11:1 says that faith is being confident of what we hope for, and certain of what we do not see. This means, in part, that when we live out our faith we live beyond our present circumstances. We realize that we face unique difficulties and circumstances, but that our unique difficulties and circumstances do not define us, but rather they are vehicles through which God can work by his grace to change us and to better us, and to deepen our faith and make us whole.

We think we have life figured out. Then circumstances send us for a loop. We wonder what to do, and where to turn next. Somehow, in that moment, great or small, the Spirit wriggles his way into our lives. And we begin to look to one that is greater than us. And we find hope and purpose as we live a new kind of life. A life of truly trusting in Jesus. A life of putting our faith in Jesus Christ.

Second, faith calls us to trust without all the answers. Faith calls us to look at the current difficulties, even if difficult to do, and to trust that God is at work even when we do not understand how he is working. It is not faith when you have the script of your life in front of you, and you have a guarantee of what is coming next in every circumstance. Faith challenges us to trust that God is at work fulfilling his promises even it makes very little sense. When Hebrews 11 says that faith “is being confident of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see”, part of what it is saying is that we live in dependence on God as believers, confident that God will keep his Word, but not always knowing when or how he will do that.

This is where, at times, worry can snuff the life out of our ability to trust. When we trust God, we seek to be faithful and put it in his control. When we worry we are like a pit bull that locks on to its prey, jaw locked shut until we shake the life out of whatever circumstance or concern we have grabbed a hold of. Faith does not spell out all our circumstances. It asks us to trust in every circumstance however.

Third, faith calls us to action. Noah builds. Seth harvests and gives. Enoch walks. Abraham goes. Faith is an action word. It is not a sentiment. Faith doesn’t sit still. Faith lives a life that wagers on God’s goodness and God’s trustworthiness by organizing our decisions and behaviors around When we realize that Jesus is greater than all authorities and all circumstances that are in front of us, that we find the courage to trust enough to live in a way that reflects that trust in him. We do so by:

·         Obeying Scripture even when it doesn’t make sense.

·         Loving people who have been our enemies or who have not treated us lovingly

·         Serving people in our community because Jesus said the greatest among us is the one who serves.

·         Having the courage to carry out our mission without immediate fruit or results, believing that as we step out in faith God will meet us there

·         Trusting God to provide for our needs even when provision is slow in coming

·         It has the courage to tithe even when it is difficult to let go of the security and comfort (much less toys) that the money we are giving would provide if we kept a hold of it

Finally, faith takes the long view. The writer of Hebrews says that Abraham was content to live in tents because he knew that he was headed toward an eternal city whose architect and builder was God. Abraham did not get caught up in the tyranny of the urgent. He looked at things from an eternal perspective, knowing that God would bring everything together in his good time. There were some things, in fact, where Abraham lived in a way that he trusted God to work through his life after his days were done.

Hebrews 11:6 says that persons who have faith must believe God exists and believe that God rewards those who seek him.

This means to me that we need to trust that God will bless us, even when our situation does not look like a blessing. Living in faith is living in the assurance that God is faithful, even if his timing is not my timing.

It is powerful how many of the examples of the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11 faced daunting circumstances. Trials that would have caused many of us to run away or quit. Yet they remained faithful. Through mocking. Through torture. Through martyrdom. They stood strong. They lived in trust is a God that is good and is working together all things for the good of those that love him and are called according to purpose.

As a church body, as Christian believers, we should do the same. We should not only have faith, we should exercise faith and live by it through trusting Jesus with our whole lives. Amen.

Fire

Abbot Lot came to Abbot Joseph and said: Father according as I am able, I keep my little rule, and my little fast, my prayer, meditation and contemplative silence; and according as I am able I strive to cleanse my heart of thoughts: now what more should I do? The elder rose up in reply and stretched out his hands to heaven and his fingers became like ten lamps of fire. He said: Why not be totally changed into FIRE?
(from Wisdom of the Desert by Thomas Merton)

Monday, 23 November..From about half past ten at night until about half past midnight..
FIRE
GOD of Abraham, GOD of Isaac, GOD of Jacob
not of the philosophers and of the learned.
Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace.
GOD of Jesus Christ.
My God and your God.
Your GOD will be my God.
Forgetfulness of the world and of everything, except GOD.
He is only found by the ways taught in the Gospel.
Grandeur of the human soul.
Righteous Father, the world has not known you, but I have known you.
Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy.
(Blaise Pascal's Memorial, sewn in coat near heart, found upon his death)

God, I pray thee, light these idle sticks of my life and may I burn for Thee.
(Jim Elliot's journal later martyred as a missionary in Ecuador.)

I grew up in logging country. I remember that everywhere I looked as a child there were trees and farmland. My mother's side of the family homesteaded along the Umpqua River in Douglas County, just a little north of Roseburg, OR in a small unincorporated town called Melrose. It was and is beautiful country. Evergreen trees are everywhere as you head up the hills.

Forest fires are real possibilities in Oregon, just like they are in this area of the country. As a matter of fact, the forest service creates fires in certain areas, especially areas that are less harvested by logging companies. These fires are called control burns. And, even if Smokey the Bear does his work and keeps men and women from creating forest fires, fires are created by lightning during summer thunderstorms.

As a matter of fact, forest fires are essential to the health of the forest. It is hard to fathom, but it is the truth. We tend to think of health as stability. Yet, true health in communities of animals and plants in the forest is about new life and growth. A forest gets dense, and it becomes so choked with living things that there is no room for new life. Organisms begin to die due to both disease and attrition. The forest begins to die. A fire comes. And while a fire may not be easy on a forest, the fire saves the forest and the living things that depend on it. My uncle in Oregon has recently gotten into hunting mushrooms. Do you want to know where the mushroom harvest is plentiful? Mushroom hunting is best in the second growth forests between Tillamook (known for its cheese) and Portland Oregon that had a major forest fire about years ago.

As Christian communities and individuals we often strive to survive instead of thrive. We want to maintain the status quo instead of grow. We say "we have never done it that way before" or "I am not sure I comfortable with trying something new." If left to ourselves, we will destroy the church. All you have to do is look through history. So let us pray. Let us pray for fire in our individual lives and in the life of our church . I will be asking for the FIRE of the work of the Holy Spirit among us, igniting passion, mission and new life.

I will also be asking God to fan the flames of holy passion in my life as well.so that I do not look back and see that what once burned so brightly is now just a few dimly glowing coals. Fire can be messy and unpredictable and go in all sorts of directions you never expect. But the power of the fire of the Holy Spirit is what strengthens, purifies, recreates, and renews.

The first quote from the Desert Fathers makes an important point. For the fires of renewal and new life to come into our lives, we need to let God have his way with all of our lives. Half-hearted propriety and moderation must be incinerated by a passionate trust and a blazing hope. Like Pascal says, the fire of the spirit will move us from being fans of the gospel to participants in the gospel. Like Jim Elliot, it will focus and define our lives individually and corporately.

Come Holy Spirit and Blaze Among Us!

Greater Than Our Sacrifices: Sermon through Hebrews

Greater than the Sacrifices

The worship in the temple would hardly be recognizable as a worship service to people like you and I today. Or at the very least, if would not resemble anything we do in worship today. A series of rooms that went from the outer court to the inner court, each allowing fewer and fewer people in them. Animals squeaking and bleating as they are killed. An odor of meat burning over a fire and smoke. No air conditioning. Hot. No pews. Everyone standing. Crowds of people. Women not allowed into the center of worship. And then as you walked out of the formal part of the temple, teachers here there and everywhere, with people around them teaching about the Scriptures, holding court if you will. Places to give. People asking for prayers, alms, healing. Ram’s horn being blown. No public restrooms. Ritual cleansing stations like believer’s baptism baptismals outside of the sanctuary so to speak, where children are dedicated and where people purify themselves. All of this talk of sacrifices seems rather foreign really, I think.

Yet it is this worship and the sacrifices that are offered in these worship services that the preacher takes on when he begins to teach and preach in Hebrews 8 and 9. Throughout the teaching, the author of Hebrews says that God gave the Israelites all of these rituals and sacrifices in the Old Testament. All of these rituals and sacrifices, in fact, taught the Israelites important things about God’s holiness. But they were all incomplete. Sacrifices were imperfect, so that they had to be offered again and again. But they were pointing, from the beginning, toward something greater that was to come.

The prophets of Israel promised that at some point in the future that God would establish a new covenant with his people. The law would be written on people’s hearts, and would flow out of their faithful lives. They would receive forgiveness, and they would form a new community marked by love. Love of God and worship of God. Love of neighbor and service to neighbor.

This promise was ultimately fulfilled by Jesus Christ. When Jesus was nailed to the cross, as we discussed last week, he himself became THE sacrifice. THE sacrifice that paid the price for our sins. THE sacrifice that brought forgiveness for all who believe.  THE sacrifice that paid our ransom from the bondage of sin and set us free. And thus, there is no more need to offer bulls or birds for sacrifices from now on. Because Jesus was the fulfillment of all that was promised.

You see, all the ritual and religion that the Hebrew people had, all of the traditions, they all had a purpose to help us to know and understand who God was, at least a little bit. And when Jesus comes, as God in a bod, as the ultimate Word from God and ultimate sacrifice for our sins. Jesus shows himself to be greater than the sacrifices. Greater than our sacrifice. And greater than what the sacrifices represent.

So then, the question becomes, now that we have discussed the esoteric nature of ritual sacrifice, what does this passage mean for us? And what does this truth of Jesus being greater than our sacrifices mean?

To understand this, we need to look at the context of the people that the book of Hebrews was written to. These were folks that were a part of a church that had people of Jewish background. And so, they were people who were familiar with these rituals. More than familiar, they were people who, at one time, had understood adherence to the law and these rituals as central to their faith. The sacrifices and the law were meant to point us to God. But, for many people, the ritual took the place of the relationship, the tradition became more important than trusting the Lord. So, for a while, placing their faith in Jesus changed this. But, because they had a propensity to replace relationship with religion, the author of Hebrews had to remind them of the fact that Jesus was greater than the sacrificial system. He had to combat the tendency religion slowly was beginning to take the place of a relationship with Jesus in their hearts and minds, so that they could return to their first love, and to true faith.

It happened to the Hebrew people. It happened to the Jewish Christians that Hebrews is written to. And, friends, the same thing can happen to us. The same thing does happen with us. We as well need to remember that Jesus is greater than our traditions, our rules, our ritual and religiosity. He transcends them and speaks prophetically to them. And Jesus calls us together as a church into a movement to transform the world through the grace and truth we find in him. He does not call us together to be a sanctified civic club or to perform some set of odd rituals in the hope of waking and pleasing the almighty.

The idea of religion at its core is not altogether bad. The word religion comes from the same root as ligament. It means to religament, reattach people to one another. But when the human systems of doing this reconnecting take the place of the person of Jesus, then it all falls apart. Jesus + nothing= everything. Everything without Jesus = nothing.

We as a church have many traditions. We pray the Lord’s Prayer every Sunday. We sing the doxology after the offering. We have a worship style in the morning where multiple Scriptures are read. We take the offering after the message. We sing songs that have words in the middle of these little lines and little dots, and most of the songs are written in this little book. And we have this record of when we have sang each song for the last 10 or 15 years so that we do not repeat the same songs too often. We pass an offering plate from person to person while we are seated. We pass the peace. We preach a message. We try to get out of here as close to an hour as possible.

None of those traditions in our worship are bad things. For some of us, some of these traditions are really meaningful. But if we are not careful, we can mistake our traditions for the gospel. We can mistake our religious practices for Jesus himself. So then, as we practice our faith we need to ask ourselves, are these traditions meaningful, do they do the work of transforming our lives and hearts, and allowing us to grow in Christlikeness. Are our traditions helping us fulfill our mission as a church that has been given to us by God? And if it is not, then why are we doing it?

We could have the best preacher in the world. We could have the most remarkable choir. Our building could combine the best of every worship space. But if the presence of the Spirit is not bringing us into the presence of Christ when we gather, then it is all hollow and empty. It is knowing and being known by Christ that matters. Not our traditions.

Jesus is greater than our traditions.

Also Jesus is greater than our rules.

In the time of the Hebrews, the rituals of the temple were prescribed by the Old Testament law, and by other laws that the leaders and scholars added to the rules in order to help people from ever breaking the rules in the Bible.

We can mistake the rules for the faith itself.

Sometimes we do that through being legalistic about the faith.

I remember my first Sunday in Colorado Springs. It was my tradition to bring pick up a fancy coffee one day a week, Sunday, and drink it throughout worship and Sunday School. Actually, it was not just my tradition. In the church I served in Montana everyone, especially in the early service, came in with coffee in their hands, trying to warm up as the heater kicked in early in the morning. But in Colorado Springs, when I walked in with my coffee on Sunday morning I was cornered by a member of the Properties Team there. What are you doing? Who do you think you are? Do you know what problems you are causing? You would of thought I went and passed gas in the pulpit while reading the Scriptures (also not forbidden by Christ or Scripture). There rule about coffee kept them from being hospitable, loving and accepting. Instead they decided to shame the newcomer at their church.

We add in all these rules that are not in the Bible, or that are a part of the OT law, and we try and place all these rules on people. Don’t dress like this, dress like that instead. Don’t have your hair like this, have your hair like that instead. Children are to be seen and not heard. Work seven days a week. Don’t say Hallejah during Lent. Don’t drink and smoke and chew, and don’t run with those who do. Man made rules.

Jesus is greater than our rules.

Or we start thinking that our life together is about making bylaws and policies. And then policies about the policies. And we can think that by doing so, we are living out our faith, when in fact we are mistaking religious activity for a relationship with Jesus Christ.

We have books of rules that we organize ourselves by.

Not all of this is bad. It helps to have some structure so that somebody will know what in the heck is going on. But the book of rules, the organizational structure, this is not nearly as important as growing in our faith and inviting others on a journey of following Jesus.

More and more people are leaving the church every day because the beauracracy of church has taken the place of being church with one another. Because, when they are not careful, Christians worship the institution instead of the incarnate Christ. They see their traditions as gospel. They see their rules as substitutes for relationship. And the Way of Jesus becomes unrecognizable in a community that bears his name.

Jesus is greater than our rules.

Jesus is also greater than our church activities.

We need some of you to serve on church committees. But, Jesus did not live, die, and go to a cross so that we could serve on a committee at church. Serving on a church team is not a sign of spiritual maturity.

Meetings may be necessary, but they are not a replacement for discipleship. We have to make plans to get things done, but they are no substitute for a relationship with Jesus.

Jesus is greater than our building.

We are blessed with a beautiful building as a church. But our faith is not tied to a church building. The beauty of this building may add to your worship experience and bring you great comfort. But if this building is more important to you than knowing Jesus and living Jesus than it is an idol.

The mission of church always trumps the methods of doing church.

Jesus is greater than any of our institutional structures.

And so knowing Jesus and making him known should permeate everything we do. It should be the standard that everything else, every tradition and rule, every ritual and activity, should return to.

The church is a movement of people called about by God to be Christ’s representatives in the world. Bringing light to darkness. Bringing hope to people in despair. Bringing forgiveness to lost causes, and grace to people who thing they have gone too far from God and are forgotten.

We are called to enjoy God forever. To worship him in Spirit and in truth. And if our traditions get in the way of that for us, or get in the way of that for others, then they simply are not that important.

What is important is knowing that Jesus came to earth, led a sinless life, died and rose again in victory, ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God. And he did this so that we can find new life and new hope in him.

Whatever leads us to Jesus as the cross is essential. Whatever leads us away from that is expendable. It is as simple as that.

Jesus is Greater Than Moses: Sermon Series on Hebrews

Jesus Is Greater Than Moses

This morning, we are doing a little catch up on our biblical content. We have been looking at the book of Hebrews during the Lenten season, and we have been looking at the greatness of Christ. In the book of Hebrews, the author of Hebrews preaches a sermon where he identifies other authorities in the lives of people, and then establishes how Jesus is even more authoritative.

Then, the preacher tells us why this kind of thing matters, and how we can apply what we have learned to our lives.

The first argument we will look at today is that Jesus is greater than Moses.

This statement is huge in the Hebrew mind. Moses was the George Washington of the Hebrew faith, and had massive moral authority for the people of Israel. For those of you who don’t remember let me refresh you about the story of Moses, which you will find in Exodus and Numbers most prominently. Moses was born in Egypt. Moses as a child was an Israelite that providentially was raised in the household of the Pharoh, or in today’s nomenclature, the King. He discovers his heritage, as a son of Hebrews slave, and in a fit of rage, kills one of the slave drivers. He then spends decades as a fugitive in the wilderness.

God meets Moses miraculously in the desert, and calls him back to Egypt to confront Egypt to let his people go. Eventually, Moses leads the Israelites through this escape from Egypt, and on his lengthy round about trip to the Promised Land. While they were on that journey, God delivers to Moses the Law, which was the moral code for the Hebrew people.

Hebrew spirituality revolved and continues to revolve around what happened during the Exodus, under the leadership of Moses. And thus, Moses was appropriately revered by Jewish people.

The preacher in the book of Hebrews commends Moses, but speaks of Moses as a servant to Christ.

It speaks of Moses’ work as good, but Jesus’ work as greater, and the completion of what God has done.

Specifically, Moses’s life leaves a legacy of the delivering God’s people from bondage, and delivering to God’s people the Word of God. And, the Scripture says, Moses’s leadership in delivering God’s people was both a shadow of and a sign pointing to the deliverance that comes through Jesus Christ.

In this passage, the preacher in Hebrews uses the metaphor of home construction.

I have never built a house. I have spent time with people who have, especially in my family. When my Uncle Steve, who is a civil engineer, built his new home, he designed it himself, did a lot of the work, and subcontracted out the rest. When I would enter the house for the first couple of years after they built the house, my aunt and uncle would point out two things that they specifically were excited about regarding the design of the house. One was how well-insulated and “air-tight” the house was. My uncle was an energy-rating inspector on the side. So, they insulated that house way beyond the industry standard.

The second thing they were excited about had to do with air-flow as well. It was the strength of the exhaust fan in the downstairs bathroom. It was this big, loud contraption that both offered a comfortable amount of privacy, and insured that no unpleasant odors would escape, but if you were not ready for it, you might have thought you left a house and entered an airport hangar or something.

Now, when it came to giving credit for the house’s strength’s, a little credit went to the subcontractor that helped with some of these things, but most of the credit went to the person who paid for, designed, and implemented the plan for the construction of the house. My uncle.

In the same way, Moses was faithful. But he was simply playing a small role in the big plan that was initiated by the Triune God at the beginning of creation, and finds it pinnacle and power in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ.

Moses delivered the people of God from the slavery to the Egyptian empire. It was awesome and miraculous. The deliverance of God’s people from the bondage of slavery shows us God’s will to set his people free. But God’s deliverance in Moses points to a greater deliverance that we find in Christ dying and rising again on our behalf. When Christ does this, he dies to deliver us from the bondage and hopelessness of being stuck in sin, and he died in order to offer us the gift of eternal life.

Moses also goes to Mount Sinai and receives the law. God speaks to God’s people through Moses sharing God’s Word. Jesus, the Scripture says, is the Word. Through Moses we get the words about God. In Jesus, God gives us himself as the living word.

So then, the author of Hebrews says, encourage each other while it is still today. Help each other stand strong and endure. Although we may be journeying through a wilderness of sorts, we have the opportunity to know and trust the Lord. To have a relationship with Jesus. And that is better than a list of rules and regulations.

Jesus Greater than the Priests: Sermon Series on Hebrews

Jesus is Greater than the Priests

Priests have an interesting job, especially in the context of the ancient Hebrew people and the book of Hebrews. These people who were priests were what the Scripture calls “intercessors”. Priests, by biblical definition, go to God on the people’s behalf, and come to the people on God’s behalf, proclaiming God’s Word and sharing with the people what God says.

Priests stand in the gap.

There were many priests who did their job faithfully. They offered prayers and sacrifices. They led people in worship. They did a lot of church work.

But the one who can ultimately stand in the gap for us in Jesus.

Scripture and orthodox Christianity teaches us this. Jesus was fully God and fully human.

The Bible is very clear that Jesus was a human being. A flesh and blood human being. Like you and me, he lived and breathed, ate and slept. He got hungry and tired. He got discouraged and frustrated. He felt lonely and rejected. He faced temptation just like we did. Yet, the Scripture says, he did not sin.

He is also fully God. Sinless. Holy. With all of the power of the Godhead in his hand. And right now the resurrected Jesus sits at the right hand of God. And he is able to intercede for us, to stand with us. Christ is the one who knows what we go through.

The preacher says that when he was on earth that he was advocating for us. Praying for us. Interceding for us with the Father.

The preacher, the author of the book of Hebrews, says that he is doing the same thing for those who place their faith in him right now.

Our sin had created a gap between us and God. There was nothing we could do to bridge that gap. So Jesus came. As God in the flesh. Fully human and fully God Jesus lived a sinless life. Jesus died. And Jesus rose again in victory. In doing so he paid the price for my sin and your sin, and made a way for us to be in relationship with God if we will only place our faith in him.

The preacher also says that we can approach the throne of God with boldness in prayer. He says that because Jesus can be our intercessor, we can have the openness and courage to come to him with all our needs, and all our heartache, and everything that we are.

He is able to be the perfect intercessor because he is fully God and fully man, this is true.

Even more though, he is our sacrifice.

That is why we come to this table, with thanksgiving. Jesus saw what we needed before we even knew we need it ourselves. He laid down his life for us so that through his sacrifice he could break down the wall that separated us from God. He paid the price. He brought us from darkness into light.

We are nothing without our high priest, Jesus. But with Jesus, we have everything.

And so we come to this table. With somber recognition of his suffering, but also with great thankfulness.

Because when we say Jesus is greater than the priests, we know that Jesus is greater because he has overcome sin and death through the power of his blood.

Thanks be to God.

Book Review of Great Commandment, Great Commission by Paul Borthwick

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<b>Great Commission, Great Compassion: Following Jesus and Loving the World</b><br />
by Paul Borthwick<br />
ISBN 978-0-8308-4437-1<br />
IVP Books<br />
Reviewed by Clint Walker<br />
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I have read several books on united God's command to be compassionate through acts of mercy and justice with the command to make disciples and evangelize. I applaud them all, although after reading many of these kinds of books, I have become overly familiar with the material they share. <b>Great Commission, Great Compassion</b>, however, is different.<br />
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One thing that I noticed about this book is that its target is more formational that informational. While sharing the biblical foundation for both the Great Commission and the Great Commandment, Paul Borthwick also give word pictures and numerically organized practices to form his readers heart to live out the call to share the gospel in word and deed.<br />
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Then, after communicating need and forming the hearts of its readers <b>Great Commission, Great Compassion </b>moves its readers toward an concrete action plan. This action plan, called "lifestyle imperatives" combines spiritual disciplines of folks that are truly mission minded with concrete lifestyle changes that allow persons to engage in mission. Starting with simply being teachable and looking at the world differently, Borthwick moves people toward hospitality, generosity, advocacy and action.<br />
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This would be a great resource to teach from. Points of the book can be easily committed to memory, and the processes here are helpful in developing a step by step plan of growth in a "whole gospel" Christian. <b>Great Commission, Great Compassion </b>deserves a wide readership.<br />
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