Before Our Lord Returns

[The following is the manuscript of my sermon delivered on the 30th of August, 2015.  Look for the video on our Vimeo channel, http://vimeo.com/pilgrimreformedchurch.]

Have you ever heard the expression, “That’s a sign of the times”?  It’s usually applied to an event that just occurred, something that indicates what should be expected given the times we now live in.  You’ve probably heard a lot of chatter the last few months and years, and perhaps even said it yourself, that there are a lot of signs pointing to that day when Jesus will return to the earth to take His church home.  Those who study the Bible fairly closely can enumerate and categorize current events into end-times prophecy.

Even casual readers of the Bible understand that some of the things happening today are clearly predicted in the Bible as leading up to Christ’s return.  Many people are familiar with the warning Jesus gave as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 24, verses 6 through 8, when He said…

6 “And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. 7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.”

--Matthew 24:6-8 (NKJV)

Jesus says not yet, the end is not here just yet.  Sadly, though, these occurrences are all too common, things that have happened throughout human history.  So we can’t really start our countdown clock based solely on them.

The Apostle Paul echoes part of what Jesus said, and then adds to it.  Listen and follow along as I read to you a glimpse of the possibly very near future and a warning, as Paul wrote and distributed in his 2nd letter to the Thessalonians, chapter 2, verses 1 through 12, from the Contemporary English Version of our Holy Bible…

1 When our Lord Jesus returns, we will be gathered up to meet him. So I ask you, my friends, 2 not to be easily upset or disturbed by people who claim that the Lord has already come. They may say that they heard this directly from the Holy Spirit, or from someone else, or even that they read it in one of our letters. 3 But don’t be fooled! People will rebel against God. Then before the Lord returns, the wicked one who is doomed to be destroyed will appear. 4 He will brag and oppose everything that is holy or sacred. He will even sit in God’s temple and claim to be God. 5 Don’t you remember that I told you this while I was still with you?

6 You already know what is holding this wicked one back until it is time for him to come. 7 His mysterious power is already at work, but someone is holding him back. And the wicked one won’t appear until that someone is out of the way. 8 Then he will appear, but the Lord Jesus will kill him simply by breathing on him. He will be completely destroyed by the Lord’s glorious return.

9 When the wicked one appears, Satan will pretend to work all kinds of miracles, wonders, and signs. 10 Lost people will be fooled by his evil deeds. They could be saved, but they will refuse to love the truth and accept it. 11 So God will make sure that they are fooled into believing a lie. 12 All of them will be punished, because they would rather do evil than believe the truth.

--2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 (CEV)

Let us pray…  Father God, we trust in You and in all You would tell us.  We have faith in Your love and Your promises.  Speak to us this morning, Lord, the message of Your will for each of us.  Touch our hearts with Your Holy Spirit and make us completely receptive to Your word.  In the blessed name of our Lord Jesus we pray.  Amen.


The Danish philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, tells a parable of a theater where a variety show is taking place.  Each act is more fantastic than the last, and is enthusiastically applauded by the audience.  Suddenly the theater manager comes forward.  He apologizes for the interruption, but announces that the theater is on fire and begs his patrons to leave in an orderly fashion.  The audience thinks this is the most amusing act of the evening, and they laugh and cheer thunderously.  The manager again implores them to leave the burning building, and he is again applauded vigorously.  At last he can do no more.  The fire raced through the whole building and the fun-loving audience with it.  "And so," concluded Kierkegaard, "will our age, I sometimes think, go down in fiery destruction to the applause of a crowded house of cheering spectators?"


Kierkegaard makes an interesting point that sometimes it can be difficult to tell what is an act and what is the truth.  His little illustration, this parable of the theater and its patrons, hits a bit too close to home.

Is the great Theater Manager on stage right now, begging us to get everything in order and escape the flames just ahead?  Will we heed His call before it is too late?  Or will we laugh and cheer, all the way to eternal damnation in the lake of fire?


How many of you believe that the Rapture will occur, that Jesus will come in the clouds to take home to heaven all who believe in Him as the Son of God?  How many believe the Rapture will occur before the Great Tribulation, when life gets really tough?

There is a lot of debate on both of those issues among Christians.  But there seems to be very little debate that the end of time, and of Jesus’ return, is rapidly approaching.  Many believe it will happen within our lifetimes.

Let’s start with what Jesus said as recorded by Matthew that I read earlier:  You will hear of wars and rumors of wars.  Yep, we’ve got that one covered.  We have a war raging or simmering somewhere around the globe pretty much all the time.

Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom.  Check, almost everywhere you look in some form or another, people are fighting each other.  And consider that when we read the word “nation” in our Bible, it usually refers to the people, even to an individual person.  And family, way too many people in the United States and across the globe are engaged in rising up against each other, into trying to divide each other into groups, into making us hate each other.

There will be famines and pestilences and earthquakes.  Again yes, somewhere, seemingly all the time.  Famines caused by droughts and floods and wars.  And pestilences in the form of drug-resistant viruses are on the rise and spreading.  We read and hear of earthquakes and tornados and mudslides and other natural disasters on a regular basis.

So does all of that mean that Jesus is coming soon?  Well…  maybe.  But not taken by itself.  Let’s look a little more closely at what Paul wrote to the church in Thessalonica.

Right off the bat, in verse 1, Paul lets us know that Jesus will definitely come back to the earth for His church.  He says “when” Jesus returns, not “if”.  When our Lord returns, we believers will all be gathered together with Him.

Now this is not an event that will likely go unnoticed, by either the believers who are “gathered up” nor by the non-believers who are “left behind”.  We will know, without a shred of doubt, when this happens.  So if this global event has not yet occurred, then we can be sure that Jesus has not yet returned.

If someone somewhere is making claims that Jesus has already come back, or worse yet that they are His next incarnation, then we have all the proof we need not to believe them, since we are still standing here and not with Him up in the clouds, as our Bible promises.  Paul warns us not to be fooled, no matter what these people might say, or who they give as their source.

Paul continues in verse 3 by noting that people will rebel against God, and I guess we can go all the way back to the Garden of Eden to see just how true that statement is.  But I believe that here, Paul is speaking of a very specific, very definite act of rebellion against God.  I think that in this passage, Paul is referring to the one we will call the Antichrist, the same Antichrist of the Book of Revelation.  This wicked one, this evil one, will come on the scene before Jesus returns and he will lead a rebellion against God, turning people away from God and over to Satan.

Verse 4 asserts he will even sit in God’s holy temple, in Jerusalem, and claim to be God himself.  Has any of this happened yet?  Nope.  In fact, the Temple in Jerusalem must be rebuilt first, before the Antichrist appears and before Jesus returns.

Verse 8 assures us the Antichrist will be utterly destroyed by Jesus upon His return.  But until that time, once the Antichrist has been revealed and before Jesus comes back, we can see in verse 9 that Satan will use the wicked one to work all kinds of miracles and wonders and signs, mimicking the ministry of Jesus when He walked the earth as a man.

The rest of this passage, verses 10 through 12, paints a dark and foreboding picture of what will happen to the lost souls, those who fall for these tricks of Satan and his Antichrist.  They will refuse to accept and love the truth of Jesus Christ, so God will harden their hearts and make sure that they are indeed fooled by the wicked one.  And all of them will be punished - every last one, including Satan and his Antichrist.  They will be punished because they would rather do evil than believe in the truth.


That sounds terribly harsh, doesn’t it?  Would God really do that, would he make sure some people will be fooled and thus condemned to eternal punishment?  Isn’t God a loving God?  If He loves all of His creation, how could He condemn anyone, even the non-believers?  How could He even go so far as to force the issue, there at the end just before Jesus returns?

I want to take a quick look at another passage, this time from the Old Testament, when God is dealing yet again with His chosen people, the children of Israel.  Listen as I read from 2nd Book of Chronicles, chapter 36, verses 15 and 16…

15 The Lord God of their fathers sent warnings to them over and over again by His messengers because He had compassion on His people and His dwelling place. 16 But they continued to jest regarding the messengers of God, despising His word and making fun of His prophets until the wrath of the Lord came up against His people, until there was no remedy.

--2 Chronicles 36:15-16 (MEV)

Very little has changed since those days long, long ago.  God still has compassion for His people - all His people, not just the Jews.  And He has sent us warnings time and time again, through His messengers and through many signs.  Christian preachers issue His warnings from pulpits all across the globe.  But too many people ignore His warnings.  They make fun of His messengers, and persecute them.  They despise His word.

And someday, just as happened in the days of the Chronicler, there will no longer be a remedy.  The full wrath of the Lord God will come up against His people, His creation.  Hearts will be hardened.  The lost will be fooled by the wicked one – God will make sure of it.  And all will be doomed to spend eternity in torment and pain in the lake of fire.


But right now there is still time.  We’ve already noted that Jesus hasn’t come yet because we, His believers, have not been called up to be at His side yet.  And the Temple in Jerusalem has not been rebuilt for the wicked one to sit in and claim himself to be God.  So we still have a remedy.  We still have a choice rather than “go down in fiery destruction to the applause of a crowded house of cheering spectators”, as Kierkegaard put it.

We must understand the scripture, God’s holy word, and not be fooled by the schemes and tricks of Satan.  We must continue to believe in Jesus as the one true begotten Son of God and follow the example He set for us.  We must love God, with all our heart and soul.  We must love others as we love ourselves.  And we must share the Gospel with them, so that they won’t be fooled either!  This is what Jesus commanded us, before He ascended into heaven to be with our Father – to make disciples throughout the entire world.

And we must do this now, while there is still time.  We must help save others while there is still a remedy.

We must act now… before our Lord returns.

Amen.


Let us pray…  Father in heaven, Your Son Jesus tells us that we are not supposed to know just when He will return to take His church home to be with You and Him in heaven.  He also says that even though we don’t know when it might happen, we are to always be prepared for it to occur at any time.  We are to have faith in You and Him, to continue carrying out His work on this earth, to keep loving and helping others just as You love and help us.  In other words, we are to follow Him and His example with each step we make, with every breath we take.  And then, when He does return, we will be granted safe passage home.

But Father, this waiting is really tough!  All around us we see so many horrible things going on.  Every day brings a new atrocity.  We constantly hear of persecutions, deaths, murders, and immorality running rampant in mainstream society.  Like the souls in heaven we cry out, “How much longer, Lord?  How much longer will You wait before You judge the earth?!?”  We strive to be strong in the face of adversity.  We try our best to hold out against the lies of Satan, to resist his temptations to join the rest of the world in serving his will and purposes rather than Yours, O God.  But we are weak and we fear we might fail if Jesus doesn’t come soon!

Hear us now, Father God, listen to our hearts, Lord Jesus, as we plead to you silently in the quiet of this place, as we come to You for strength and courage, as we repent of our sinful ways…

Lord God, please steady us in the great storm building all around us.  Please shield us from the fires sweeping through the world, consuming too many souls.  Deafen our ears to the siren call of Satan and lead us away from his temptations.  Keep our faith strong, our trust sure, and help us follow the path Your Son prepared for us with His very blood.  This we pray in the name of Him who gave His all for us, the precious name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, Your Son.  Amen.

We Gather Together

[The following is the manuscript of my sermon delivered on the 16th of August, 2015.  Look for the video on our Vimeo channel, http://vimeo.com/pilgrimreformedchurch.]

So, how many of you wonder if I’m confused about what time of year it is?  I must be thinking it’s Thanksgiving, with a message title like “We Gather Together”, right?

Well, Family, those three words should hold special meaning for us every time we Christians meet.  The old hymn says, “We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessings”.  But don’t we do that every Sunday?  I bet many of us do it every day.

Do you remember how I opened our service today?  My invocation began with, “We gather together now in the name of Jesus”.  And anytime we gather together in the name of Jesus, we can be assured He will join us.  Our first hymn and our Responsive Reading point to what we do when we gather together: we worship God and His majesty.

So we could and do say those three words – we gather together - quite often throughout the year.  And now I’d like to look at why we not only should say those words, be also do what the words imply: gather together.

Listen and follow along as I read from the Epistle to the Hebrews, chapter 10, verses 19 through 25, using the Contemporary English Version of our Holy Bible…

19 My friends, the blood of Jesus gives us courage to enter the most holy place 20 by a new way that leads to life! And this way takes us through the curtain that is Christ himself.

21 We have a great high priest who is in charge of God’s house. 22 So let’s come near God with pure hearts and a confidence that comes from having faith. Let’s keep our hearts pure, our consciences free from evil, and our bodies washed with clean water. 23 We must hold tightly to the hope that we say is ours. After all, we can trust the one who made the agreement with us. 24 We should keep on encouraging each other to be thoughtful and to do helpful things. 25 Some people have gotten out of the habit of meeting for worship, but we must not do that. We should keep on encouraging each other, especially since you know that the day of the Lord’s coming is getting closer.

--Hebrews 10:19-25 (CEV)

Let us pray…  Father God, we’ve come together this morning in the name of Your Son Jesus to worship You and to learn from You.  Speak to us through Your Holy Spirit that we might better understand Your message and Your will for us all.  In the blessed name of our Savior Jesus we pray.  Amen.


The Carolina Panthers have already started practices and the newspapers carry some tidbit about the team or a player almost every day.  High school and college teams will soon hit the field too.  And thus starts the annual frenzy known as football season.

So I thought it might be interesting to look at an only slightly tongue-in-cheek comparison between your typical football fan and your typical church-goer.  Now I’m talking “typical” here, and not saying that every football fan or every church-goer fits these statements.  Just typical, meaning some, or perhaps in some cases even the majority.  And if I happen to step on any toes, know that I’m tromping on my own as well.

• A typical football fan loves to win, loves for their team to win so they can have bragging rights.  A typical church-goer almost never wins someone to Christ.
• A typical football fan gets excited if a game goes into overtime, especially if their team had been losing up to that point.  A typical church-goer is likely to get a bit agitated if the service goes too much past an hour.
• A typical football fan is loyal to their team, no matter what.  A typical church-goer might stop attending, at least for a while, if things aren’t going the way they think they should go.
• A typical football fan dresses up in all the team sportswear and is easily recognized by their bumper stickers, pennants, and flags.  A typical church-goer may not be recognized as a Christian by the people they associate with on a daily basis.
• A typical football fan pays big bucks for tickets, travel, souvenirs, and refreshments at games.  A typical church-goer may give very little to their local church, rather than tithing.
• A typical football fan reads about their team as much as they can, using any and all available resources.  A typical church-goers seldom if ever reads from their Bible during the week.
• A typical football fan attends the game no matter how bad the weather.  A typical church-goer might just stay home if it rains.
• A typical football fan invites friends to come over and watch the game with them.  A typical church-goer likely never invites anyone to come visit their church.

Now there are possibly quite a few of us who fit the mold of a typical football fan – I myself love the game, especially college football.  But I sincerely hope not too many of us fall into that typical church-goer category.  After all, we’re all active church members here.  Right?


In verse 22 of our scripture reading this morning, the author of the letter to the Hebrews instructs us to come near God with pure hearts and with confidence born of our faith, keeping our consciences free of evil.  And he adds we must hold tightly to the hope we say is ours.

Just last week we looked at the definition this same author gave us of faith being the assurance of things hoped for.  Since our hope is in the Lord Jesus, we can indeed hold fast to that hope because of the covenant He made with us through His own blood.

And then the author adds we should keep on encouraging each other.  Even back when this letter was written, in the first century, our author noticed that many people had gotten out of the habit of meeting for worship on a regular basis.  In other words, they stopped going to church regularly.  Twice in those last two verses the author strongly says “we should keep on encouraging each other”.  And at the end of verse 25 he gives the most important reason: because the day of our Lord’s coming is getting closer, drawing nigh.

The author wants us to encourage each other to be thoughtful and do helpful things, in other words to show our love for one another as Jesus commands us.  But how can we encourage one another if we don’t get together?  Better yet, how can we keep on encouraging one another if we don’t gather together frequently, and I would add every chance we get?

We are encouraged to worship together to inspire each other, to strengthen each other, to help each other grow in our faith.  In effect, our author is admonishing us to join together as often as possible so we can keep each other on the right track, so we can help each other stay on that straight and narrow path that Jesus laid.  It’s a sad truth but it is very easy to lapse back into sinful ways if we don’t spend more time together, because we tend to hold each other accountable for our actions and our words.  We need to commune frequently, if for no other reason than to keep our faith strong and refreshed, to keep our hope alive.

Now this is not  “new” concept, even by first century standards.  Let’s go back to the days of Moses and his Old Testament writings.  Near the end of their long journey in the wilderness, Moses gave some final instructions to the children of Israel.  Listen to what he says in the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 31, verses 12 and 13…

12-13 Everyone must come—men, women, children, and even the foreigners who live in your towns. And each new generation will listen and learn to worship the Lord their God with fear and trembling and to do exactly what is said in God’s Law.

--Deuteronomy 31:12-13 (CEV)

Everyone must come to worship the Lord – men, women, children… even visitors!  If it was important that all believers gather together to worship in Moses’ time, if it was important for the first century Christian church, is it not at least as important for us today, when all around us we see the signs that point to our Lord’s return getting closer and closer?!?


The Apostle Paul speaks of the body of Christ, and how each member of that body must work together for the whole body to function correctly.  He does this by first looking at how the human body functions, with all its members – our eyes, our ears, our hands, our stomachs – though very different, still working together to make up the full body.  And then he sums it up in verse 5 of the 12th chapter of his letter to the Romans…

5 That’s how it is with us. There are many of us, but we each are part of the body of Christ, as well as part of one another.

--Romans 12:5 (CEV)

The full and complete body of Christ, His church left on earth, is composed of many members: us and all those who follow Jesus as Lord.  We are all part of Him, and part of each other.  And all those many parts must work together for the body to be able to operate.

We are a diverse group, even here within this one local church known as Pilgrim Reformed.  And if you look across His entire body – at all churches and not just ours - the diversity among members is great.  Paul was not the only one to take note of the differences in the church’s members.  The Book of the Acts of the Apostles relates an encounter between the Apostle Peter and a Roman centurion named Cornelius.

Cornelius was a believer in God, but he was still a Gentile.  At that point in time, Peter, being a Jew by upbringing and tradition, tried to have little or nothing to do with Gentiles.  But the Lord showed him in a vision just how wrong that way of thinking is.  This is part of the exchange between Peter and Cornelius, as recorded in Acts chapter 10, verses 27 and 28…

27 And as he talked with him, he went in and found many who had come together. 28 Then he said to them, “You know how unlawful it is for a Jewish man to keep company with or go to one of another nation. But God has shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean.”

--Acts 10:27-28 (NKJV)

If we are all the creations of our almighty God, and if He loves each and every one of us as His dearest possessions, how can we look at anyone else as being common or unclean, if we ourselves are not “common” or “unclean”?  To put it bluntly, how can we consider someone else to be somehow unfit for us to associate with?  If they are believers, how can we say they are too different from us for us to offer them encouragement?

How can we refuse to gather together with another set of members of the body of Jesus Christ just because they might live in a different part of town or prefer another preacher or – heaven forbid! – follow a slightly different theology but still put their faith and hope in Jesus as Lord?!?  We can’t!  Or at least we shouldn’t, according to Peter and Moses and Paul and the author of the Book of Hebrews.


I can’t help but believe that one day, when I stand before my Lord, Jesus will look me in the eye and say, “Do you remember those Sundays when you went fishing instead of attending church?  Was it really more important to catch that bass than it was spending time with Me and worshiping our Father?  Was that time on the water more worthwhile than sharing fellowship with other believers?”

And I won’t be able to return His stare.  I’ll just stand there with downcast eyes shaking my head, unable to speak the simple word, “No”.

Now I know there are times when we just cannot be in church.  We’re on the road or we’re ill or we’re hospitalized or there is a family situation we just have to attend to or some similar circumstance.  I think Jesus will make allowances for those times, even if He may question our prioritization in some instances.

But you’re here this morning, with your fellow believers, worshiping God our Father, when you could be off doing any number of other things, and I bet God is smiling on you for it.  Of course, we’re used to being here.  We’re comfortable here around folks we know so well.

Tonight we have the opportunity to gather together with a larger body of Jesus, composed of members from other church families.  Some of them we know quite well and have known for years.  Others we just haven’t had the chance to meet yet.  They are all our brothers and sisters in Christ.  And we will all be gathering together in the name of Jesus to worship our heavenly Father God, to fellowship together, and together to share in the joy and love of our Lord and of each other.

This is not about duty or responsibility or doing something because it makes us look good by doing it or because our friends are doing it.  It’s about loving our Lord and each other.  It’s about wanting to spend more time together with our Lord and with each other.

All of us - different, but the same.  All members of one body, the body of our Lord Jesus.  Please join us all tonight at Paul’s Chapel.  Please take advantage of this opportunity to broaden your sphere of influence, to help encourage so many others, and to receive encouragement yourself.  For the day of our Lord’s coming is getting closer and closer.

Amen.


Let us pray…  Lord God, we’ve gathered here this morning in the name of Your Son Jesus Christ to worship You and to listen to You speak through Your Holy Spirit directly into our lives.  Help us Lord to always come here not out of some sense of duty or of what is right and proper for a Christian to do.  But help us to understand that we need to come because of love: the love You have for us, the love we have for You, the love we have for each other.

And Father, please show us how to broaden our circle of brothers and sisters by accepting other families into our own, because we are all part of Your big family.  We who believe in Jesus as Your Son and our Lord are all brothers and sisters, whether we attend the same worship service in the same building or not.  Help us expand our circle just as Jesus expanded the circle of believers to include all Gentiles as well as Jews, so that we might include all other church families and not just those we are comfortable with in our own family.  Help us to seek out opportunities to worship and fellowship with others when we can.  And most importantly, Lord, help us to put You first in our lives, ahead of any other priorities.

Hear us now, heavenly Father, as we come to You in the silence of this place to speak to You from our hearts what our words cannot say…

Father God, we do love You.  And we try so hard to love all those of our brothers and sisters in Christ.  We pray that others may see Your love working through us, that they might see Jesus in us.  Jesus tells us people will know we are His followers by our love.  May they also know by our associations with all believers.  This in the blessed name of Jesus we pray.  Amen.

I Believe

[The following is the manuscript of my sermon delivered on the 9th of August, 2015.  Look for the video on our Vimeo channel, http://vimeo.com/pilgrimreformedchurch.]

“Faith” and “belief” are words we Christians use fairly frequently.  They, in one form or another, appear very often in our Bible.  We could even say they form the foundation of our religion.  After all, the belief in Jesus as the Son of God is the very cornerstone of our Christian faith.

But just what is “belief” besides a concept?  What is “faith” in a world that demands proof?  Today I’d like to try to answer those questions and possibly more.  Listen and follow along as I read from the New Living Translation of Mark’s Gospel account of the life of Jesus, chapter 11, verses 12 through 14 and 20 through 24…

12 The next morning as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. 13 He noticed a fig tree in full leaf a little way off, so He went over to see if he could find any figs. But there were only leaves because it was too early in the season for fruit. 14 Then Jesus said to the tree, “May no one ever eat your fruit again!” And the disciples heard Him say it.

20 The next morning as they passed by the fig tree He had cursed, the disciples noticed it had withered from the roots up. 21 Peter remembered what Jesus had said to the tree on the previous day and exclaimed, “Look, Rabbi! The fig tree You cursed has withered and died!”

22 Then Jesus said to the disciples, “Have faith in God. 23 I tell you the truth, you can say to this mountain, ‘May you be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and it will happen. But you must really believe it will happen and have no doubt in your heart. 24 I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you’ve received it, it will be yours.”

--Mark 11:12-14, 20-24 (NLT)

Let us pray…  Almighty God, fill us with Your Holy Spirit and touch each heart with Your incredible love that we might better understand the message You have for each of us this day.  Help us better see Your will for us, Your plan for our individual lives.  In the blessed name of Your Son Jesus we pray.  Amen.


Retired Reformed Church pastor Donner Atwood reports that one night a house caught fire and a young boy was forced to flee from his upstairs bedroom to the roof.  His father stood on the ground below with outstretched arms, calling out to his son, "Jump! I'll catch you."  He knew the boy had to jump to save his life, otherwise the fire would consume him.  All the boy could see, however, was flames, smoke, and blackness.  As you can well imagine, he was afraid to leave the roof.  His father kept yelling: "Jump! I will catch you."  But the boy protested, "Daddy, I can't see you."  The father replied, "But I can see you and that's all that matters."


The father was asking his son to make a leap of faith, to plunge into the unknown and trust that his father would catch him.  The father knew that was the only way his son’s life could be saved.

Our Father in heaven asks us to make a leap of faith, to jump off the roof while the rest of the world stands paralyzed in fear, or even mocks us for even considering such an act.  Our heavenly Father says it doesn’t matter that we can’t see Him – He can see us.  Our Father knows this is the only way we can be saved.  So we close our eyes and jump, trusting in His outstretched loving arms.

This is faith.


The Apostle John, in the 18th chapter of his Gospel, recounts for us a conversation between Jesus and Pontius Pilate, after Jesus' capture and during His so-called trial.  The Jews had accused Jesus of claiming to be a king, even above Caesar.  Pilate questioned Him, asking if He did indeed think Himself to be a king.  Jesus replied that His kingdom is not of this world, and Pilate grabbed hold of that with his best “Ah-hah!  Gotcha!” accusation.  Listen to how the exchange plays out as recorded by John in his Gospel chapter 18, verse 37…

37 “You are a king, then!” said Pilate.

Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to Me.”

--John 18:37 (NIV)

Pilate, refusing to cede the argument, countered with the cynical, “What is truth?”, before turning away and leaving the room.


Jesus used two key words in His response:  fact and truth.  We basically have three ways of expressing what we perceive as a fact or the truth.  Generally, if we can verify something with one of our five senses – if we can see it or touch it or smell it or taste it or hear it – if we can somehow prove it exists through our senses, we say we know it to be true.  Now we may not be absolutely, 100% sure since we are aware of optical illusions and other phenomena that can fool our senses, so we may qualify our answer a bit.

And there are those cases where we cannot fully rely on our five senses, nor provide any other sufficient proof, to verify the truth of their existence.  Those times we may say “I think it is so”, or “I'm pretty sure”, or “Well, yeah, most likely, but I wouldn't bet the farm on it”.  These could also be used for what I will call comparative facts, where your opinion and mine may differ.  Like, “I think it's hot in here, but I'm wearing this suit and standing up here in front of all of you and more nervous than a long tailed cat in a retirement home so it may not seem hot at all to you.”

And lastly, there are those times when you know something beyond even the glimmer of a doubt, although you have no proof for it whatsoever.  It is then that we exhibit true faith, and we say “I believe it to be true”.

The Book of Hebrews provides us with an excellent definition of faith, in the 1st verse of chapter 11…

11 Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.

--Hebrews 11:1 (NLT)

The author then goes on to say that the ancients were commended for their faith.  Abraham is presented as an example, citing that purely by faith, when called to head out to some place he would only later learn the location of, Abraham did just that.  He obediently followed God's instructions because he had faith in God.  In other words, Abraham believed.


I try to mix up our congregational and responsive readings each week, but quite often we stand and recite what is known as the Apostle's Creed.  While tradition has it that the creed was written on the day of or shortly after Pentecost by the Apostles themselves, most Biblical authorities today believe the authors to have been a group of close followers of the Apostles, written sometime within the first few centuries after Pentecost, during the Apostolic age.  So either way, it is safe to say that these statements of belief have been around quite a while, and have well stood the test of time.

But is this creed so old, and so often used, that we take it for granted, that we no longer listen to the words as we speak them, but instead chant them as a ritual, as a solemn duty?  That’s why I try to have us doing a different reading each week, so it almost seems as if we’re doing something new and maybe we’ll pay a little more attention to the words leaving our lips.

I love the Apostles’ Creed.  I feel it a very important part of my worship.  It states my reason for being a disciple of Christ and is right up there with my baptisms as an outward sign of my covenant with God.

But sometimes we get a little confused with parts of that proclamation of faith, so if you will indulge me, I would like to look a little more closely into this list of brief statements that together form the fundamental tenets of Christian belief.


“I believe.”  I am confident that what I hope for will indeed come to pass, and, in this case, sure of what I cannot see.  I have faith.  And by faith I know.  By faith I believe.


“I believe in God.”  Every time I see the sun set, or a baby's fingers, I believe.  When I hear a bird's song, or a breeze fluffing dry leaves, I believe.  I touch a snowflake, it melts in my hand, and I believe.  I smell the ocean's life, breathe in the earth following a rain, and I believe.  I can sip from a cool mountain spring, or bite into an apple right off the tree, and I believe.  All five of my senses offer proof of the existence of a living God, Who orders and controls each and every thing that ever was, is, and ever will be.

I can neither see nor hear nor touch nor smell nor taste God, no more than I can experience the wind itself except by its passing.  (And no, we do not smell the wind, but only the scents it carries.  Neither can we feel it, but only its effect on our skin as it passes.)  Yet I know the wind exists by what it causes, and I know God exists by the effects He creates.


“The Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.”  I also believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God, and that what it tells me I can accept as truth.  Jesus spoke of God as His Father, and instructed us to think of Him as our heavenly Father too.  And since the Bible tells us that God is the one God, the only God, we can know He is all mighty, all powerful.

There is nothing God cannot do, nothing that is beyond His power, no force that can prevent Him from accomplishing His great plan.  Not only did He create this earth upon which we live, us, and the plants and animals we share earth with, He created the sun that warms us and all the stars and planets and moons that speckle our night sky.   He created the angels to worship and serve Him, and heaven where they all reside.  He even created Lucifer, who turned on God and now torments us all with his misguided and self-destructive desire to be greater than God.  I believe that everything there is, God created.


“And in Jesus Christ His only Son, our Lord.”  It is sometimes a little difficult to think of our all-powerful God as a small human baby, but that is exactly how He came into our world in the flesh.  God understands that many folk have trouble believing in something they cannot see or touch.  Time after time He has witnessed how easily we fall into idol worship of one form or another.  So He knew that for us to more easily believe, He would need to give us something physical.

Because He loves us so much, He came to us in the flesh, as His only Son, to walk among us, live with us, suffer our pains, dream our dreams, and ultimately die at our hands.  This is our one true Lord, Jesus Christ.


“Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary.”  For God to become flesh, to take the physical form of a man, it was necessary to be born of a human woman but fathered by God Himself.  So the third form of God, the third member of the Holy Trinity, entered Mary and planted the seed within her that would grow to be our Lord and Savior.

But even the Son of God needed an earthly father.  So Joseph humbly obeyed God's angels and accepted the special circumstances of the birth of Jesus, and raised Him as his own, teaching Him the ways of the world while providing Him a solid religious upbringing.


“Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried.“  As Jesus grew into a young man, He also grew into the role for which He was born, the role He tried to explain to Pilate as I read earlier.  Jesus shared the truth with the world of man.  He taught the true way of life.  He promised eternal life to those who would only believe.  And He made enemies, great and powerful enemies who sought to silence Him, no matter what it took.

So they arrested Jesus and handed Him over to the governor assigned by Rome, for the Jews had no authority to put a man to death but the Romans indeed did.  It is significant that we can, through this article of faith, pinpoint with great certainty the time when Jesus suffered and was put to death, because we can determine when Pilate ruled over the Jews by researching independent, non-Biblical documents and records.  This places our Lord’s death as an event in earthly time, not something that simply happened “long ago”.

While in Roman hands, Jesus was beaten mercilessly, the flesh literally ripped from His body.  He was ridiculed and derided, was spat on and jeered at.  And He was nailed to a rough-hewn cross, upon which His earthly body took its last breath and died.

His corpse was taken from the cross, cleaned, wrapped in funeral cloths, and interred in a newly excavated tomb.  The entrance was blocked and sealed by a huge boulder and guards stationed to watch over it so no one would take the body away.


“He descended into hell.”  Jesus went to the place of the dead.  Jesus was really, truly dead.  His mortal body ceased all functions.  There was no illusion involved, no sleight of hand.  Jesus went to where all people go who die, for He was dead.

For those who think death is final, as most did during the time of His walk on earth and many still do today, this would be the end of the story of the Man of Nazareth.  Jesus went where the dead all go, never to return or be seen again.


“The third day He rose again from the dead.”  Now this is the point that makes every Christian heart sing!  Even death could not hold our Lord!  Through Jesus, God showed us that He can conquer death, that anything is within His power.

Jesus did return, he was seen again, in the flesh and by many people - hundreds of people.  His wounds could be seen and touched, His voice heard.  This was no apparition, no mirage, no illusion.  This was the living, walking, talking Jesus Christ once again!  The boulder was pushed from the tomb and the declared-dead Jesus walked right out.

Had our Lord not risen from the grave, there would be no Christian faith today.  Instead we might have an interesting story of a man from somewhere around the Sea of Galilee who preached a little here and there and supposedly did some pretty amazing tricks.  But no, that is not the case.  Now we know for sure that our God lives!  He defeated death and rose from the grave and walked among us once again!


“He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God, the Father Almighty.”  Once His work upon earth was done, once doubtful man was assured of His defeat over death, Jesus bodily arose into heaven.  He went back home and we know that there He rejoined God His Father and sits at His right hand.  The Son and the Father, both part of God, equals with the Holy Spirit in the form of the Holy Trinity.


“From thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.”  In the book of Revelation, Jesus revealed through John that He would come again one day, and would at that time sit in judgment of all mankind, both those still living on that day and those who had died and gone on before - both the quick and the dead.

It won't matter if you are dead or alive at that time, or when you died.  You will stand before Jesus.  Your name will be searched for in the Book of Life.  You will be separated, either to Christ's right to enjoy eternal life with Him and His Father, or to His left where you will be cast into the lake of fire, there to spend an eternity in torment.  Matthew assures us of this in the twenty-fifth chapter of his Gospel.


“I believe in the Holy Spirit.”  This is the third aspect of God, the third person of the Holy Trinity.  The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit share equal power and authority in the Trinity, yet each has specific functions or roles as directed by God to assist mankind.  The Holy Spirit is that aspect of God who was sent after Christ's ascension to fill man and become part of him.  His role is to guide us, to speak God's word into our hearts, to give us courage and strength, to console us and comfort us.  The Holy Spirit is God's gift to us, to continue Christ's mission of teaching us the true way.


“The holy catholic church.”  Many people are confused by this phrase, and some even take offense at it.  But this is not what they think it is.  This does not refer to the Christian sect known as the Catholic Church, capital “C”, or any of its variations.

The word “catholic” in general means something that is universal in extent, involving all, of interest to all.  In this sense, in this phrase, it pertains to the whole Christian body.  So when I say I believe in the holy catholic church, I mean that I truly believe in the entire church of Christ, serving as the body of Jesus left on earth to fulfill His great commission. It means that I believe that Christ intended God's word to be available to us all, His plan to be intended for us all, and not just some select few.  I believe in the complete and universal love of God.


“The communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins.”  Here, the saints are all those who suffered, were persecuted, were put to death for their belief in God and in Jesus Christ our Lord.  Throughout time, even to this day, people of God, brothers and sisters of Christ, have suffered great physical and emotional pain, even death, simply because of their beliefs.  The forces of Satan cannot stand such faith, so they torture those who will not be deterred from God.  At the time of final judgment, these saints will be granted life eternal by Jesus, and we who believe will be among them.  Our communion together will be complete.

And we all can be forgiven of our sins, just as Jesus forgave so many when He walked among us.  If we believe in Him, admit our sins, and truly repent of them, He will forgive us and stand for us before God at our judgment.  Again, forgiveness is not for some select few, but for all who believe and who repent.


“The resurrection of the body.”  Just as Jesus bodily rose from the dead and walked among us again before ascending into heaven, He promises we will also be resurrected in the flesh.  The graves and the seas will give up the bodies of the dead and they will stand before our loving Judge.

Jesus promises death will not hold us captive, just as it did not hold Him.  Just as He walked from the grave, so will we.  We were created in the image of God, and in His image will we live forever.


“And the life everlasting.”  This is what Christians live for, what we long for.  Life after death.  Eternal life.  And we usually mean eternal life with Jesus, living in the new heaven and the new earth.

But the final judgment also promises eternal life for those who do not believe, who did not repent.  This is a life of everlasting fire and torment, the punishment promised for the beast, his false prophet, and Lucifer himself as well as all their agents of evil both alive at that time and dead.

I believe in the life everlasting, so I understand that I can choose to suffer eternal torment, or live forever with my Lord and Savior.  I choose Christ.

I believe.

Amen.


Let us pray…  Almighty God, we do believe in You, as our Father in Heaven, as our Lord Jesus the Son of God, and as the Holy Spirit living within us and guiding us through life.  And Father, we understand that faith is not something that we generate within ourselves, but that it is a gift from You, a gift out of Your great mercy and grace, a gift that offers us the means of our salvation.  We acknowledge that only through Your grace might we be saved and not by anything that we might do or give.  Our belief in Your Son Jesus and our faith in Your word are all we need.

Help us, Father, to be more faithful in our faith, to be more gracious while in Your grace, to be more forgiving under Your forgiveness, to be more loving in Your love.  Help us to cast aside all our fears, all our worries, all our anxieties, and trust in You to see to all our needs now and beyond.  Help us trust and obey, that our faith might grow within us.  Help us trust that our faith can move mountains, as long as our faith is in You and Your mighty power.

Hear us now, loving Father, as we speak to You silently from our hearts, offering our thanks and seeking Your help…

Father God, thank You for Your wonderful grace and the gift of faith.  Thank You for the path through You Son’s cross that leads to our salvation.  And thank You for Your love, the very foundation of Your grace and our faith.  This in the blessed name of Jesus we pray.  Amen.

A Work In Progress

[The following is the manuscript of my sermon delivered on the 2nd of August, 2015.  Look for the video on our Vimeo channel, http://vimeo.com/pilgrimreformedchurch.]

The first two Sundays this month, we looked at freedom and liberty.  We didn’t focus so much upon freedom as a nation but freedom as a people, as saved people.  We learned that true freedom is granted by Jesus through our belief in Him as the Son of God.

And last Sunday, like many Sundays before, we looked at what it really means to love others as Jesus loves them – as He loves us.  We spoke of agape love, sacrificial love, the love that Jesus has and showed for us – the love made evident at the cross.

This week, the Apostle Paul will show us how those two combine and work together within us to help us grow and mature.  Listen and follow along as I read from the New Living Translation of Paul’s letter to the Galatians, chapter 5, verses 13 through 24…

13 For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. 14 For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 But if you are always biting and devouring one another, watch out! Beware of destroying one another.

16 So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. 17 The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. 18 But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the Law of Moses.

19 When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, 21 envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.

22 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to His cross and crucified them there.

--Galatians 5:13-24 (NLT)

Let us pray…  Father God, move Your Holy Spirit throughout this room and touch each heart hearing or reading these words that we might better understand what You would tell us this morning.  Open our eyes that we might see, open our ears that we might hear, open our hearts that we might receive Your message today.  In the glorious name of Your Son Jesus we pray.  Amen.


California-based researcher George Barna authored the book The State of the Church: 2002.  For this in-depth report on the church, Barna conducted a survey of self-pronounced Christians and here’s what he found out about their knowledge of the Bible.  Now remember: these are Christians.

• 48% could not name the four Gospels.
• 52% cannot identify more than two or three of Jesus’ disciples.
• 60% of American Christians can’t name even five of the 10 Commandments.
• 61% of American Christians think the Sermon on the Mount was preached by Billy Graham.
• 71% of American Christians think “God helps those who help themselves” is a Bible verse.

Barna noted that, "Americans revere the Bible, but by and large they don’t know what it says. And because they don’t know it, they have become a nation of biblical illiterates."


Just like the people in this Barna poll, Christians today are far too ignorant of the Word of God.  It’s no wonder 21st century Christians are failing to finish their marathon race.  No wonder Christians by the thousands are falling prey to the false teachers of our day.  They are being fed junk food and don’t feed themselves on the true Word of God.  They are desperately in need of a solid diet of good food, of Scripture.  We need to get into "spiritual shape"!  And you know what happens when all we eat is junk food.  We grow, but in all the wrong ways.


Our scripture passage this morning opens with the application of a concept we have been looking at recently, and closes with the expected results of following through on that application.  And all in between are ways we can make this work, paths we can follow to smoothly go from verse 13 right to verse 24.  There are also some warning signs of paths we should avoid at all costs.

Basically, what we’re talking about here, is a plan for growth, and for growth in a right and proper direction.  This is the same type of plan we try to lay out for our children, so they can grow to be good people.  But what Paul gives us here is a plan for spiritual growth.

Jesus spoke of this earlier, giving a clue as to what Paul would provide us.  Listen to what He tells us in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 9, verses 23 and 24…

23 Then he said to the crowd, “If any of you wants to be My follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross daily, and follow Me. 24 If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for My sake, you will save it.”

--Luke 9:23-24 (NLT)

“Take up your cross daily and follow Me”.  He’s telling us not to stick with our old ways, our old life.  If we do, we won’t gain eternal life in the end.  Isn’t that a good plan for spiritual growth – to follow Jesus daily?

Now this is also a growth plan based first and foremost on faith, faith in God and faith in Jesus as His Son.  A little earlier in his letter to the Galatians, in chapter 3 verses 8 and 9, Paul gives us a hint of how God views our faith and the reward we can expect from it…

8 What’s more, the Scriptures looked forward to this time when God would declare the Gentiles to be righteous because of their faith. God proclaimed this good news to Abraham long ago when he said, “All nations will be blessed through you.” 9 So all who put their faith in Christ share the same blessing Abraham received because of his faith.

--Galatians 3:8-9 (NLT)

It is crucial that we note and pay attention to one very common thread in each of the scripture passages I’ve read to you so far: we have an active role to play in this growth plan.

For us, the easiest part is in what I just read in Galatians chapter 3 when Paul instructs us that we must put our faith in Christ in order to share the blessing Abraham received because of his faith.  We have faith in Jesus, don’t we?

The more difficult role is what Jesus gave us in the Gospel of Luke: to take up our cross daily and follow Him.  That means to accept our burden and obey Jesus as our true Lord and Master – not just to be church-goers but to be the actual hands and feet of Jesus Christ on earth!

And then we have verse 24 in today’s reading of Galatians chapter 5 for what I think can be the most difficult task for us.  If we truly belong to Christ, we must take all our worldly passions and desires, all our sinful ways, and nail them to that cross.  We must crucify the flesh, the old self, the person we were, before the new person can be born.

When we accept Christ, we spiritually become like children once again, and that’s why we need this spiritual growth plan.  We need a plan that takes us from what we were to what Jesus wants us to be.  In his letter to the Ephesians, chapter 4 verses 11 through 16, Paul puts it in just those terms…

11 Christ chose some of us to be apostles, prophets, missionaries, pastors, and teachers, 12 so that His people would learn to serve and His body would grow strong. 13 This will continue until we are united by our faith and by our understanding of the Son of God. Then we will be mature, just as Christ is, and we will be completely like Him.

14 We must stop acting like children. We must not let deceitful people trick us by their false teachings, which are like winds that toss us around from place to place. 15 Love should always make us tell the truth. Then we will grow in every way and be more like Christ, the Head 16 of the body. Christ holds it together and makes all of its parts work perfectly, as it grows and becomes strong because of love.

--Ephesians 4:11-16 (CEV)

Family, it’s time we grow up.  It’s time we stop acting like children.  Everything we’ve looked at so far this morning requires definite action on our part.  Having and keeping faith in Jesus, following Him, leaving our old selves behind, crucifying our old ways to that cross we carry, quit allowing ourselves to be deceived by people who just tell us the things we want to hear, love everyone around us with a true, sacrificial love – these are all purposeful acts.

None of this just happens to us like magic.  These are all things that we must do on purpose.  If we want to live a life that’s filled with meaning, we have to learn to live life on purpose.  We have to be the new person, with a new nature that God is creating within us.  As God creates that new person, our bad habits get replaced with good ones.

Just as change comes with aging, integrity comes to us slowly, event by event through the choices we make in life as we keep our priorities right with God.  Webster defines integrity as adherence to moral and ethical principles, a soundness of moral character, honesty, the state of being whole or entire, a sound, unimpaired, or perfect condition.  Perfection comes slowly, with each choice we make, growing only with those right and righteous choices.

And what better example of perfection can we hold before ourselves than that of Jesus our Christ?  We need to keep our hearts full of love and free of unforgiveness.  We must move beyond the conditional love that the world knows and emphasizes, and move toward the unconditional love that Jesus shows.

All of this points to the truth that when we accept Jesus, the transformation into the “new person” probably won’t be instantaneous.  Scripture tells us that when we acknowledge Jesus as our Lord and Master that we are “made into a new creation”.  But making something is a process.  Even God took six days to make the world and all that is in it.

When we accept Jesus, when we confess Him as the Son of God and proclaim Him our Master, we become a work in progress.  There are things we have to do to help that process along.  The choices we make can advance that progress, or detract from it.  We have free will - we can choose as we’d like.  But to move in the right direction, toward perfection, we need to choose wisely.

First and foremost, we must practice unconditional love, unconditional forgiveness.  And then our “fruit trees” of the Holy Spirit will start to bloom and bud and bear good fruit.

What fruits do others see in us?  Lusts of the flesh?  A bickering and quarrelsome nature?  Jealousy and selfishness?  Fits of rage and outbursts of anger?  Putting other things before Jesus and God?  If so, then we need to increase our output of love.  We need to be more patient and kind, more generous and good, more faithful and in better control of ourselves.

We need to grow up, starting right now.  But remember: this won’t happen overnight.  And that’s OK…

We’re a work in progress.

Amen.


Let us pray…  Lord Jesus, we are a work in progress and You are the role model we should all try to emulate.  You set the example for us.  If we ever hope to come even close to perfection, then we must follow You.  We cannot sit back and wait for You to perform a miracle and make a shining new creation out of us, for our Father God has given us the free will to do as we please.  We know what most pleases You, Lord.  Please help us be pleased by what pleases You.

Help us, Lord, to be more loving, as You love.  Help us to be more forgiving, as You forgive.  Help us to see others as You see them, as beautiful and beloved creations of our heavenly Father.  Help us take control of our lives and live them by Your example, making the choices that are right in the eyes of God and growing toward the perfection that is You, Lord Jesus.

Hear us now, please Lord, as we speak to You silently from our hearts, giving You our thanks, repenting of our sins, seeking Your forgiveness and Your help…

Father God, You gave us Your only Son that we might be saved.  He is perfect, Father, and He set the example we must follow to some blessed day attain perfection ourselves.  Help us stay true to the path He laid as we follow Him through this life.  This in the blessed name of Jesus we pray.  Amen.