Retreat Talk

Here is my talk for the Fall conference this weekend. I get to open the thing. Pretty exciting.

Welcome everyone to the Retreat. I was asked to give the first talk this weekend, which is really a lot of pressure. As many of you have seen and heard, the theme is the Ancient Path. This weekend is about bringing Christians together and trying to change this Valley and our campuses for Christ. Before I begin, let’s pray.

(prayer)

Okay, let’s begin. As I already said the retreat is called the Ancient Path. Here is where I am going to blow your minds. You may be thinking, as you have looked at the program of events, that we were going to be studying methods and means to become more spiritual. And in some way we will be, but as we go through the weekend, there is going to be an overarching mega theme, and that is, all of these things are about a person, for a person, directed at a person. We need to keep this in mind as we stay here until Sunday. As we sit in on talks about mission and church, worship and prayer, we need to remember that these are not the primary things we should take away. They are ways to become closer to a person, increase our love for a person, to be drawn us closer to a person. And who is this person I speak of. Well you may have guessed- it is Jesus.

What I want to do tonight is set the ground work for the rest of the talks. To do this, I think we need to look at some things Jesus has said about himself, so it isn’t just some dude standing on a stage talking. If you have a Bible, please turn with me in it to John Chapter 14. If you don’t have a Bible, don’t worry, all the text will be up on the screen to my left, you can follow along there. If you don’t own a Bible, come see me after the talk, and I will get you one, don’t be shy about it, we have many extras to give out.

The text we are going to be reading is in the Gospel of John which is in the New Testament, which is the second half of your Bible. Jesus is speaking to his disciples before he gets arrested. What he is going to do in this chapter of the book, and the ones following it, is give last minute advice and instructions. It is kind of like when your parents dropped you off at college for the first time. They kept giving you all sorts of words of wisdom. They may have seemed rushed. They were just trying to get everything out so you would hear it. This is what Jesus is doing here. He is throwing many things at his disciples since he knows he is going to be leaving them soon. And so he is giving them the last few things they really need to remember.

In John 14 he says

1 "Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. 4And you know the way to where I am going." 5 Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" 6Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him."

And here is the foundational text for tonight, and I hope the entire weekend. Most of us here are Christians, I would imagine, and so we hear these words and are not startled by them. We already know Jesus is the Way. But this text is more revolutionary than we may believe. Jesus is saying that he is the only path. As we think about way to interact with God, we may have many ideas. Many religions have many ways of finding God, of getting closer to Him. In fact, this weekend we are going to be talking about a lot of ways to interact with him. But Jesus says there is one primary way, himself. With out this, all else is for naught. The way to God is not through correct prayer methods, or worship songs, or meditation- not so say these things aren’t good. The way to God is through Jesus, and only through Jesus. Jesus says no one comes to the Father except through him. This is revolutionary. This is slightly offensive too, is it not? Maybe not to us, but to many other people around the world. C.S. Lewis touches on this in his essay, “What are we to make of Jesus Christ?” which I will be quoting from later.

As we go though the weekend and attend all these different seminars, again, we must remember what Jesus said about himself. His last words to his closest followers were not about how they should act, or correct methods to spread the Gospel, or how to do small groups. His last words were a reminder that he was the way to do it all. We can study all we want, and pray all we want, and evangelize all we want, and sing all we want, but if Jesus isn’t t the heart of it, nothing will come of it. Or rather nothing good will come of it in the end. What we need to remember tonight, this weekend, this semester, this year, is that Jesus is the Way. He is the Ancient Path. Everything else we talk about are road signs and signposts and directions. They are helpful to get us to our destination, but they are not the end. We need to use them and pay attention to what they say, but we are not on the trip to see them. We are on this trip to get to Jesus.

How many of us have ever taken a road trip? A few, good. I used to drive to Florida with my friends every spring break when we were in college. The first year we stopped at many places to take pictures. We stopped at boarder signs, you know, the “Welcome to (this state)” billboards, we stopped at South of the Border. We stopped at sign posts and for directions. Sometimes we took back roads to avoid traffic and really needed to stop for directions, getting lost in rural North Carolina- a few times. But none of these things, although cool, were the destination. They were places along our way. We didn’t stay at the truck stop we stopped at for directions, we found out where we were, and where we needed to be, and kept going toward our goal, Florida. This is how we need to view everything else we will be talking about this week. They are not bad; don’t hear me say that, they are quite beneficial if used properly. They make the trip more exciting and memorable. When me and my friends look back at our Spring Breaks, we have great memories of the trip. We have pictures of crazy things along the way, and it helps us to relive the adventure. We used them as they should have been used. It would have been foolish however to stop at the “Entering Georgia” sign and camp under it for a week and then drive back. That is not the purpose of the sign. The purpose is to help us get to our destination. So it is with all the devotions and talks this weekend. They are designed to get us to the destination. And that is Jesus. He is the way, the truth and the light.

Before I go on, I want to make a quick aside. I know some of what I just said can be controversial. I said that the only way to God is Jesus. If you are here and you have a problem with this, I encourage you to come speak with me or any of our speakers after this workshop. I am not as mean as people think I am, I promise, and the other guys I can vouch for too. I would encourage you to actually dig into the text and see if we do need to take Jesus and his words at face value- I think we do. We can talk after. Please don’t be shy. Now that I said that, I want to move on. An entire series of talks could be given on this text alone- and after all that set up and potential controversy, I am going to move on. Most of us are Christians, and buy what Jesus said here, and so I don’t want to harp too much on it. The actual talk for tonight is going to begin now, not 10 minutes ago as you all assumed when I started speaking. But I needed this mini sermon to set up my real talk.

See it is all well and good to get up here among Christians and say that Jesus is the way. But what does that really mean? What does it look like if we are to take this Ancient Path? How do we get on? That is what I actually want to talk about today.

If you still have your Bibles turn back to Luke chapter 18, verse 18-30. We read:

18 And a ruler asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" 19And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. 20You know the commandments: 'Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother.'" 21And he said, "All these I have kept from my youth." 22When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." 23 But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich. 24Jesus, seeing that he had become sad, said, "How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! 25For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God." 26Those who heard it said, "Then who can be saved?" 27But he said, "What is impossible with men is possible with God." 28And Peter said, "See, we have left our homes and followed you." 29And he said to them, "Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, 30who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life."

Here is where we are going to camp out the rest of the night. As we first read it, we may be tempted to read into the text something like the Poverty Gospel. The Poverty Gospel basically says that you can not be a Christian if you have lots of money. That is you are very rich, you should be giving all you own away to follow Jesus, and that unless you do this, you are not on the right Path. And that may be true of some people, maybe of even some in this room. There may be people who’s biggest stumbling block to Jesus is their wealth, and until they get rid of it, they will never understand the Gospel. But this is not the only valid interpretation of the text, as we shall see.

The other way we could read and misinterpret the text is to read something like a Prosperity Gospel into Jesus words. This basically asserts that if we give up our stuff, God will bless us with more. We can get this by reading what Jesus says to Peter as a promise that if we sacrifice for the Kingdom of God, we will receive much more, both now and in heaven. This too is not how this is supposed to be read though.

To truly understand what Jesus is saying here, what the Scripture is teaching us, we need to examine the text much closer. First, let us examine the rich young ruler. For one, we know he is Jewish. How do we know this, well there are a few give aways. First, he calls Jesus Rabbi. This tells us he knows something about the culture of the time. Jesus was a teacher, and in Jewish society, they are called rabbis. He recognizes Jesus position. This tells us he knows about the position to begin with. We also, a few lines later, see Jesus tell him that he knows the commandments. Only Jews would have been expected at this time to know the commandments. Jews would have dressed different than the Gentiles and Romans in Palestine at the time, and Jesus picks up on this, and assumes the man knows the commandments. The guy is Jewish. After Jesus tells him he knows the commandments, the ruler replies that he in fact does know them. More than this, he has followed all of them (although, as we shall see, this is doubtful). This confirms his Jewish heritage.

Why is this important? Well, for one, the Jews knew their Bible. They were the people to whom God entrusted his Word, and through whom all Scripture would be fulfilled. They were the people in “the know”. They were like Christians today. They knew about God, the Bible, etc. As we read this story, we need to keep in mind that this guy was probably like many of us. He went to church, did Bible studies, tried to live a good life. He was trying to follow God, kind of. We can even see this in his question. He is really seeking from a pastor who he seems to respect, what the next step of his faith must be. He has probably asked many other rabbis the same question in the past. How else would he have known to follow the commandments? Or about eternal life? My guess is that he was a very devout Jew.

That is not to say that his line of questioning was completely innocent. Upon reading the text we get the impression that he knows the answer to his question already. He is expecting the answer so many other rabbis have given to him in the past- follow the commandments. Then he can say that he has, and walk away feeling good about himself. He can rest assured that yet one more teacher has confirmed that he is a good person. It almost seems like he wants to acclimation. He hopes Jesus will look at him, see how good he is, I mean, he says so himself, and then tell everyone else they should be more like this ruler. He has followed all the commandments, right?

And so he asks Jesus what he needs to do to get to heaven. But he doesn’t just ask. First he pads his question with some false compliments. Good teacher he says. And here is the thing about this, we get the impression he has not really met Jesus before, so the compliment is empty. He is doing it to loosen Jesus up a little so Jesus will like him better. At least that is what I take from it. We have all done this haven’t we? We go into a job interview or something else, and compliment the guys tie, or store, anything. We tell pastors before we talk with them how good their last sermon was, or how we love what they are doing. I am not saying don’t compliment pastors, in facts, I will be in the back to take all the compliments you want to give me after this talk, I am just saying, sometimes we butter people up so they like us more. And this ruler is no different. This may even be how he got rich. I find very successful people are much better at making me like them with false compliments than unsuccessful.

I think we also sometimes do this to God. How often when we are praying or talking to people about God do we throw in how good He is, but we don’t really mean it at the time. I mean, we know he is good, but, at least I am sometimes insincere. I want to get to the part of the prayer where I ask for things, so I give some time to talking God up to himself. I say things like you are so awesome and powerful, Almighty, etc, and what I am really thinking is, okay, get he formalities out of the way so I can get to my stuff. But that is an aside.

See, Jesus sees right through this. He calls the man out and asks him why he said he was good. This is kind of funny on so many levels. First Jesus really is good, and so maybe he is giving the ruler a chance to call it as it is. He is letting him try to figure it out. Jesus is seeing if this man can see what others can’t. He wants the ruler to see that he is in fact god, and only God is good, so therefore… But the ruler misses this. He misses a lot of things, we shall see. Even more funny though, had to be the rulers reaction. Have any of you said something that you really didn’t know why you said, and then had someone call you out on it? I have. It is really embarrassing if you don’t have an answer. This happens to me a lot in sports conversations. I don’t really watch sports, but I am a guy, so I need to know about sports. Very often I just watch SportsCenter and quote what they said. Usually I get away with it, but sometimes people ask why I think that, and I am I quite. We will be talking about basketball and I will say something like, well the Celtics are the best team in the NBA this year. And they will say, really, why do you think that. And I don’t think that. I mean, I do, because SportsCenter told me, but I haven’t done my own research or anything, so I really don’t know why I think that. So I stare at them and mutter and walk away embarrassed. T

That is the scene here. Jesus asks why the ruler thinks he is good. There must be a reason, or he wouldn’t have said it, right? If the ruler had been following him for a while he may have had an answer. “Well, I saw you feed 5,000, or exercise that demon, or heal all those lepers. That is a really good thing to do, Jesus. I am all for healing lepers miraculously. That is why I call you good.” But the guys is stumped. He doesn’t reply. Instead, Jesus continues. There is no conversation from the ruler. Just, I imagine, a deer-in-headlights kind of stare, a wide mouth, and silence. At which point Jesus begins speaking again, because of someone didn’t it would have been even more awkward.

There is another thing Jesus does here. The ruler, as I’ve already said, thinks himself good. I make this statement, and know I am right, because no one says they have kept all the commandments, unless they think they are good. He is looking for confirmation that he has done the right thing. Why else would he tell Jesus so quickly that he has followed the commandments? What Jesus does, is tell him no one is good, though. He is subtly telling the ruler that he is not good, even though he thinks himself so. This guy was biting at the chomp to tell Jesus he followed all the commandments and get the acclimation he deserved. And before the guy can do that, Jesus has already taken the wind out of the guy’s sails. The ruler doesn’t realize it yet, but it has happened. See, the ruler misses a lot. I think he may have come into money, rather than earning it himself.

Jesus then answers the ruler’s question. He does it kind of sarcastically. It is almost like Jesus knows the man already has the answer. And Jesus answers him in just that way. He says, “You know the commandments.” Why are you asking? I know you just want to show off. I know you aren’t really one of my followers. The ruler misses the entire conversation that Jesus is trying to have with him under the talking, and having his mind on showing off, tells Jesus he has done it all. I imagine he is pretty proud at this point. Have any of you asked a question in a class, knowing the answer, so that you can then Talk with the professor and show off. I know some of you have. I used to. That is the interaction here. And with out flinching, Jesus continues his answer.

He says, well there is one thing left to do. I am not sure if the ruler had heard this before. “One more thing to do, what could it be”, he is wondering. Is it tithe to Jesus church, he could do that. Wear different clothes, listen to different music, all these are ok. At this point the ruler is a little disheartened, but I imagine ready to what Jesus says. He was not looking for one more box to check, but of that is what it is going to take, well he will heck that box. And Jesus, knowing people’s hearts, seeing this man has money, and more than this, that he is attached to it unhealthily, says the final thing the ruler must do to inherit eternal life is to sell all he has and follow him. And we read that the rich man became very sad because he was very wealthy. And he went away disheartened, and Jesus felt bad for him.

And then Jesus says, “How hard it is for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.” And so we read it and thank God we are poor college kids or poor ex-college kids, and we go about our merry lives. Or we chastise those with money and feel bad for them, because it really is hard for the wealthy to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Or we react like Peter.

How does Peter react? Let’s look. Before we do though, I really need to set up Peter’s character in the Gospels. He is not the best guy. He is portrayed many times as bumbling, misreading the situation, and terribly ambitious. So let’s now see what Peter says to Jesus. Remember also that Jesus just essentially crushed this rulers hopes of eternal life. Now I don’t think the guy was totally hopeless, he actually heard Jesus words, and finally understands, but he goes away sad. He knows there is a tough decision ahead of him. And what does Peter say after this? He says, “We have left everything to follow you.” This is terrible timing, to say the least. It is in bad taste, rude, and many other things, not the least of which is just plain stupid. It is like when we were kids and we see another kid getting in trouble and we say, “Iti is a good thing I didn’t do such and such.” It is a way to beat the other guy down and at the same time lift ourselves up. It is a manipulation, and selfish. And it is very often how we react.

What Peter was doing was reminding Jesus that he was better tan that man because he understood more. He was holier because he did what Jesus told him to. And he was proud of his position, and wanted Jesus to raise him up in the same way the ruler wanted to be lifted up. We are no different. We are proud in the fact that we have given up stuff for Jesus and remind him occasionally that we have left everything to follow him, as if he didn’t know. Seriously, what is Peter thinking. He is looking for the same thing the rich ruler is.

“Hey Jesus, I have the right answer, pick me. I am not proud or foolish like that other guy, see, I left everything”. And what was Jesus supposed to say, “Oh, Peter, I didn’t realize you left everything! Wow, we have been together all this time, and man, wow, I am sorry. You…you really are holy. Wow. What has it been, 2 years, and this whole time, I had no Idea you left things. I though every night when we went to sleep on hills and in other peoples homes you secretly snuck back to your bed, or to an RV or hotel or something. Man… you really left everything… I am sorry I didn’t recognize this before. You really are making sacrifices. That other guy, he didn’t get it but, wow, you left everything? Really? Wow. Peter, you’re awesome. Know what, you should teach next week. Everything? Wow. How did I miss it? Wow. That’s all I have to say…Wow”

Really, what was Peter thinking? So, we too react like Peter or the ruler. We are proud that we have left things and want to make sure God knows, or we are disheartened because we don’t think we can. But this story isn’t about leaving all your material possessions, or your family. It is not about selling all you have and walking around in 1^st century Palestine. It is about riches and the cost of Christianity. Jesus is only telling the ruler to leave everything because that is his stumbling block. As Jesus does this, he is showing hi that he has not kept all the commandments, because he has elevated his money, or the security it buys, or the cool things, to the position of God. He is showing him that he has made an idol. And he is doing one more thing as well. He is teaching those around him a lesson- there is a cost to following Jesus. It is not a casual thing. There are consequences to it. Jesus has taught his before.

Turn in your Bibles to the last Text for tonight. It is earlier in Luke. Chapter 9, verse 57-62. We read:

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." 58And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." 59To another he said, "Follow me." But he said, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father." 60And Jesus said to him, "Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God." 61Yet another said, "I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home." 62Jesus said to him, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."

Now this text, like the last is not as dramatic as it first seems, yet is at the same time more dramatic then we believe. Jesus is not saying don’t go to work or don’t go to funerals. He is not saying we need to be homeless. Just like he is not telling us we need to sell all our things to follow him properly. What he is saying is that there is a cost to following him. There is a price to be paid to call ourselves Christians. There are things we used to do we can’t do anymore, and new things we have never done that we have to start doing. There is a walking away from things.

Too often, we like the rich young ruler, especially those of us in the church, think we have all the answers. We think since we read our Bibles, follow the commandments, are good people, we are all set. We think, like Peter, “well we left our old ways behind, so it is clear sailing form here on out.” And we remind God of these things. We pay Him lip service, but we really don’t know him. When he asks us why we think he is good, we stare at him with our mouths wide open, and then jump into our question, ignoring his entirely. We see him on the road and we say, “We will follow you.” But have we counted the cost? Have we sold all we have?

Jesus is telling us that there is a lot more to following Him, to walking this Path, than often we want. He is telling us that the Path he has for us is not safe and secure in the traditional worldly sense. The Son of Man has no where to lay his head. That isn’t very comforting. There is some uncertainty there. Jesus is not safe that way. We say we will follow him, but we have to go finish our old work. We need to say bye to our old life. And Jesus says if we do that, we are not fit. If we try to be safe, to always have our P’s and Q’s minded, to have a safety net incase this Christian thing doesn’t work out, we are not truly following Christ. We can’t take the comfort of the world with us.

One of the things Jesus is telling us in all these stories is that there is no middle ground. We are either with him, or not. There is a new life ahead of us, and we can never go back to it again. When we become Christians, we are leaving things behind. He says this when he calls himself the Way, he is saying this in this last passage, and he is saying it to the ruler when he tells him to sell his things and follow him. The old work we were a part of is not of us anymore, our old lifestyle is not for us anymore, our old safety is not for us anymore.

I said I would quote C.S. Lewis tonight, and now I will fulfill ,y promise to you. In his essay, “What are we to make of Jesus Christ?” he finishes the essay as follows:

“’What are we to make of Jesus Christ?’ There is no question what e can make of Him, it is entirely a question of what he will make of us. You must accept of reject the story.

The things He says are very different from what any other teacher has said. Others say, “This is the truth about the universe. This is how it ought to go,” but He says, “I am the Truth, the Way and the Life.” He says, “No man can reach absolute reality, except through Me. Try to retain you own life and you will be inevitably ruined. Give yourself away and you will be saved.” He says, “If you are ashamed of Me, if, when you hear this call, you turn the other way, I also will look the other way when I come again as God without disguise. If anything whatever is keeping you from God and from Me, what ever it is, throw it away. If it is your eye, pull it out. If it is your hand, cut it off. If you put yourself first you will be last. Come to me everyone who is carrying a heavy load, I will set that right. Your sins, all of them, are wiped out. I can do that. I am Rebirth, I am Life. Eat Me, drink Me, I am our Food. And finally, do not be afraid, I have overcome the whole universe.” That is the issue.

My question then for us tonight then is, “Have we counted the cost?” When we decide to walk this Ancient Path, have we taken a good look at what it is going to take? Foxes and birds have places to go, but the Son of Man has no where to lay his head. We can join the foxes and birds. We can follow the ways of the world and be secure. We can look to homes and cars and material things for our security, or we can decide to find all of that in the Way, the Truth, and the Life. It is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God than for a camel to enter through the eye of a needle.

Tonight, as we finish, I want us to ask ourselves if we have really followed all the commandments as we think we have. Are we as good as we wish? The rich young ruler though he had followed all the commandments, but what about the one where we were told not to covet, not to have idols? Can he really say that he followed that? Why was he so distraught when he was told to give it up? It is because that is where his security was. He worshipped his money, and he didn’t even realize it. He coveted others things, and wasn’t even aware. He was rich in the conventional sense of the word, and the money was keeping him from following the Path that would lead him to eternal life.

Where are we rich? What is it that we are looking to as our path to eternal life? What is it that we truly worship? These are the things I want us to think of tonight. Maybe we are monetarily rich, maybe we are rich with friendships, maybe it is relationships. Are we rich in our studies, putting our hope and pride in our grades and intelligence. Or possibly it is clothes that make us rich, always being in style, or our car, or we are rich in how good a person we are, making sure never to break a commandment. Maybe we are rich because we have followed Jesus, and we need him to know it. Maybe we are rich in our poverty, taking pride in how well we give all we have away. Is it athletics, artistic talent, political superiority? I tell you it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. What are we holding onto? What are we coveting? What are our Idols?

There is a price to be paid to call ourselves Christians. We must sell everything and follow Jesus. We must leave the dead to bury themselves, we must leave our old life, completely. We can not have one foot on the Ancient Path, and another on our own way. There is only one way to eternal life, the Way, and we must take it whole heartedly. Tonight, as we prepare for the rest of the weekend, I would beg us to take a look at ourselves and see where we have not followed Jesus. What are we holding onto? What would make us sad to give up if Jesus told us we needed to, to follow him. Where are we rich? What would make us disheartened? Jesus does not want part of us, or for us to be good- what Jesus wants is all of us, and all of us wholeheartedly devoted to him.

So I ask again, where are we rich? What do we love sometimes more than Jesus. What has gotten in our Way? Tonight as we end, I don’t want to just beat us over the head. The story doesn’t end there. There is hope. We still have the ability to sell all we have and follow him. He has not left nor forsaken us. HE is still right here, begging us to sell our things. He is still saddened when we don’t. He is still the Way, the Truth and the Life. He is still offering us eternal life, if we would just ask for it.

As we prepare for the rest of this weekend, I want to invite us to give up our riches. I invite us to ask for this eternal life. If you r here tonight, and you want to follow this Path, if you want to walk in the Way, I invite you to come up here to the front of the stage. If you are here and there are things in your way, things blocking our path, I invite you to come up here and give them up. If you are out there and want to commit to this person , or recommit, I invite you to come to the front of the stage. I invite all those who are weary and sick and weak and rich. Come follow this man. Come give up your wealth. Give up all the things that are in your way. I invite you to com up here and recommit to Jesus, to begin anew walking the Path. I invite you to come up and pray with me, as I pray for you. Don’t be shy. If you know there are things that are blocking your relationship with Jesus, riches you have that you can’t seem to get the courage to give up, come and lay them at Jesus feet tonight. He has overcome the world, he is offering new life, He is offering freedom. Come and follow the Path that leads to life and life abundant.

Let us Pray.

Creation to Christ Part 1

This week for MERCYhouse Nights we are beginning the semester sermon series titled From Creation to Christ. We will be walking through the entire Bible. Here is the first sermon, on Genesis 1. Hope you like it.

This week we begin our new sermon series, “From Creation to Christ”. We will be walking through the entire Bible, (high points anyway) in the remaining 12 weeks of the semester. This week we are going to be dealing with Genesis 1, the account of creation. Before we jump into the ancient Hebrew text, I want to first give a taste of the creation stories around the Mediterranean about this time.

The Babylonian creation myth goes as follows:

There are two ancient gods, Tiamat and Apsu. Apsu is a male, and is fresh water, Tiamat female and salt water. Many other gods are created and they live in Tiamat’s body, one of these is Ea. Like any children, these new gods make a lot of noise, and it is upsetting Apsu, who sets about to kill them all. Ea finds out about this plan and uses magic to make Apsu go into a comma, at which point he kills him. Ea becomes the new head god, takes a woman, Damkina, and they have a son, Marduk. Marduk is more of a punk than his family, and is even keeping Tiamat up at night as he plays with wind inside her body, where everyone still lives.

The other gods have had enough with Marduk, and convince Tiamat to take revenge for Apsu’s death. She recruits gods to her side, creates 11 monsters to help her, and remarries, declaring her new hubby, Kingu as having supreme dominion. The other gods chose Marduk as their champion, and his power grows. He then super inflates Tiamat with the wind he got as a child, and eventually she can’t move because she was too bloated. He then shoots an arrow into her heart, killing her, and takes the gods and monsters on her side captive. He smashed Tiamat’s head with a club, and then rips her body in twain. He uses half of her body for the earth, and the other half for the sky. He then sets about o create the natural order of things, using Tiamats spit for rain, and setting us seasons. Her nose formed rivers and her breasts mountains. And the story goes on.

This story isn’t unique either. The god’s of the ancient Mediterranean were second generation gods, being created first and then usurping and killing the others. We see this with Greek myth too. Zeus kills Chronos to become chief god. Zeus lived on Create well before “creation” happened, that is where he grew up and planned to overthrow Chronos. With the help of his mother, Zeus was able to rescue his brothers and sisters, whom Chronos, had eaten by inducing him to vomit them up, and then they wage war against him. The children won the battle and banished Chronos and his allies forever.

Egypt and other places are not much different. There are a pantheon of gods and goddesses, chaos is the ruler, infighting between the gods the law. And amidst it all, there is a little backwater hole in the wale called Palestine that had something very different. What we are going to see as we explore this text is a creation story that is different from any other. There is a God of order who has a plan. In many of the stories I just read, and others around the world, humans are an afterthought. In some stories, the gods seed accidentally falls on the ground, and we sprout up, in others it is their blood. What we are going to see today though, is a God who creates everything with a purpose. There is no accident. Order is the rule, rather than disorder. So without further ado, lets jump into the text.

We read in Genesis 1:

1In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

3And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. 4And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. 5God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

Before we get to the big themes of Genesis 1, and we will, I want to stop and discuss some minor, yet very important details. This text is probably the most well known, and little studied by those of us here today. We all know the creation story, and so we never read it. When we read it, we only read it, think it very nice, and go no deeper. The problem with this though, is that this story is so dense I could give an entire sermon series on it alone. We are going to try to hit a few of the major points as we go. Let’s dive in, shall we.

The first word in Hebrew of the Bible is the word Bereishit (pronounced berrasheet). The first three words are “Bereishit bara Elohim”. Many of the Bibles we have seen in our life, including the translation I just read translate this, “In the Beginning…” We all know this, right. The first sentence of the Bible is sort of iconic, isn’t it? In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth. However, this is a mistranslation. Some modern translations do have the correct interpretation of the words, the Anchor Bible, being one of them. What this sentence should read is “When God began to create the Heavens and the Earth.” This might not seem like a big deal, it may seem this is only semantics, but I think it is a huge deal.

Entire theologies have been built around semantics, as well as scientific proof that the Bible is false. And some of the strongest objections to the Bible’s validity are found right here because of a mistranslation. If we read the text “In the Beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth.” we have stated that the Earth was there from day one. We have a much more literal depiction of creation. This leads to the doctrine of a 6000 year old Earth, and Creationism. Let me pause here and say that this isn’t necessarily a wrong view. The text is certainly open to that interpretation. It is not, however the only interpretation of the text. Very often when I talk to people, they have made up their mind, and try to force me to take their perspective. This s true of everyone by the way, including myself. So Creationists on one side tell me that I have to interpret the text their way and build and entire theology around it, and scientist tells me that because Creationist interpret the text that way, they have disproved the Bible. What I am telling us today, is that the text may not be as open and shut as we have been lead to believe.

If we take the translation, “When God began to create…”, a whole new world is open to us. We don’t have to take the text literally, but possibly we can interpret it symbolically. We can see it not as setting up a Creationist Theology, but as standing in stark contrast to the other creation myths of the world. The text implies a plan from the very first sentence. When God began to create. Humans are not an afterthought. Creation is not just some dead gods corpse. There was a creative action that occurred. I am no saying that the story isn’t literal as well, I am just saying there is more here than others would have us believe.

I could spend all day in these verses alone, but I need to move on. The next thing we see is that the Spirit of God was upon the waters. This is the first reference to the Trinity in the Bible, and it happens on page one. We are going to see references to the Trinity throughout the Bible, including many in Genesis alone.

And finally we get to the act of creation itself. God says, “Let there be light.” And there is light. What we have, is again a God with a plan. Creation is not some accident. God speaks it into creation. In the ancient Mediterranean world, speech had much more power that it does today. Language was sacred, especially to the Hebrews. It was often believed if one could know the name of a god and speak it out loud, one could have power over them. If an oath was sworn, it was binding unto death. Language was held in the highest regard. It says something then, that God would create by speaking. Speech is a very rational and premeditated thing. It is the highest of human capabilities. Unlike creation coming from more primal behaviors- murder, or sex, or blood- in the Bible, it comes from the highest. It is the product of thought and direct action. Again, this is standing in contrast to all other myths.

The creation story goes on. To get a full appreciation of what is going on, I am going to read it once through. As I do this, listen. I mean really listen. Actually, before we read it, I should tell us all something else. There is a lot of controversy, not only in the first sentence of this story, but with the entire thing. Part of the reason for this controversy, is that we don’t really know how to read this story. There are parts of the Bible that are literal histories. When we get to Kings and Chronicles, we will see that they are written like history. We are told of real people doing real things. There is no poetry and little metaphor. As we read these texts, including the last half of Genesis, we get the impression that we are supposed to take them literally. There are also sections of the Bible that read much more like prose. If we look at the Psalms or Song of Solomon, no one would think we should read them literally. That are full of simile and metaphor. When Solomon says his lovers teeth are like goats, we don’t think that they are hairy, or her breast like rolling pastures, we don’t think of grass. We understand that this is poetry. Sometimes in the Gospels we are told where Jesus went, and we think, “this is a literal story”, and other times he tells us the kingdom of God is like a (fill in the blank) and we think, ”Jesus is creating an analogy.” This is something most of us do naturally all the time.

We are able to read poetry and know it is poetry and read first hand accounts and know they are to be taken literally. There is nothing controversial in this statement. Here is where the controversy is though. There is nothing like Genesis 1, not in the Bible, not anywhere else. As far as ancient literary techniques go, it is unique. So we don’t really know if it is supposed to be read as a history or as poetry. I think it is both, and I will explain why in a minute. First, most of us have heard this text before, but I want us to hear it as poetry.

6And God said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." 7And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. 8And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

9And God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." And it was so. 10God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.

11And God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth." And it was so. 12The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 13And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

14And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, 15and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth." And it was so. 16And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. 17And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

20And God said, "Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens." 21So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22And God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth." 23And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

24And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds." And it was so. 25And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

26Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
27So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

28And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth." 29And God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." And it was so. 31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. 3So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

If we read this as an ancient Hebrew poem, something very interesting happens. Here is how creation looks.

Day 1 God creates light, the Day and Night. Day 4 God creates the sun and moon, things that were to govern Day and Night and found there home in them.

Day 2 God creates the oceans and the sky. Day 5 God creates all the creatures of the sea and birds and flying things. He creates first the home for his creation, an then the things that will be there.

Day 3 God creates dry land and then plants to live on it. Day 6 God creates things that live on land, creeping things, beasts and livestock. He again, created the home for the creation, and then the things to live there. And after all of this he creates Man.

Notice too that everything God created was good. This is an aside now, but will be more important next week.

The way the text is set up, we clearly see a God of Order. He has forethought and plan. He is systematic in his creation, everything building upon the previous creation. We also get the idea that the text is rushing us toward the creation of Man. There is almost as much text about the creation of this one thing, as about every other day. There is a push. It is almost rushed, isn’t it. It seems to me like the author doesn’t really care about the other stuff too much, but cares about the way they were created and the reason. It is like a kid trying to tell you what happened to him, but first he needs to tell some set up that isn’t important. So God created the Heaven and Earth, and the sun, and the land, and all that stuff, then plants and birds, oh yeah, and fish, and see the order of things, and then he created animals, and then he paused for a second, and this is what happened. And the Author takes a breath.

What we see is an entire scene painted for this moment. The Human creation is special. It is different. Something happens that didn’t happen in all the other creative acts God just completed. God begins to speak differently than he did in the rest of the tale. He says “Let us make man in our image.” Now this statement, again, is an entire sermon. What we have is a singular God talking to himself, it would seem. There is nothing else created. This is the second reference to the Trinity.

But more than this, it says that humans are special. We are not just another animal created for the land. God stopped. It is as if he has finished the background to his painting, and now is time for the portrait. He steps back and looks. “Everything is good, lets move on to what we really wanted to do.” And he makes man in His image. There are many things I could talk about with this. Here are some of them. God is three persons in one, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and we kind of are too. We are Mind, Body, and Soul. God is a God who creates, and we too create. God is a rational God of order, and humans also possess these qualities. One of the reasons language was held so high in Hebrew culture is because we were created in God’s image, and he created with Language. It was believed that we too, create with language.

There are a few other things that we will get to next week as well. What is important for us here, is that we are special. We were set apart. There is a divine spark in us that the rest of creation doesn’t have. And more than this, the text goes on. Not only does God talk about this last creation, and then make it in His image, he then speaks to it. He tells man to fill the earth and subdue it. That he has dominion over it. These verses have also been misread by many people. They have been read to prove that we can destroy forests and pollute as much as we want, and more recently they have been used to support an environmental agenda. Neither of these are true. The truth is something much better, much more special.

It is true that we have been given power of the Earth. God presented man with a home, and a gift. This doesn’t give us free reign to pollute though. We are not being appreciative of the gift if we squander it. On the other hand, environmentalism is a pagan value. Mother Earth as a living thing that we need to hold up and respect is not what we see in this text. We have the right to subdue it and have dominion over it. Humans are the pinnacle of creation, not Nature, and as such are given divine rights over it. That is not to say we shouldn’t recycle or reduce our waste or not pollute. But we need to have proper motivations for it. We are dong it as grateful children who want to keep their gift in as good a condition as possible, not as people who need to bow down to a mother goddess.

And after God speaks to man and gives him this divine mandate, the text takes an interesting turn. One of the poetic tools that was being used throughout Genesis 1 is the ending of a creation with it is good. On Day six, we see that it is good before God ends creating for the day. We see him reflect at only the creation of land animals, read it is good, and then we have the special account of the creation of people. And then God speaks to them, and gives them a gift, and then he steps back for a final time in the text. We read that God saw all that he had created and saw that it was very good. We the reader, the first time reading this as a poem, should expect that it was good. That has been the literary device used thus far. But we are unexpectedly told it was very good.

This may mnot be shocking to us today because we have heard this story so many times, but literarily it is. It changes the entire mood of the text. We see a dramatic turn. What we see is a completion of work, and a God to is not only pleased with what he has done, but ecstatic. And then he rests. This reminds me of my art. God is an artist. Many of you have seen my art work up at MERCYhouse. I am always proud of what I create. I look back and think it is good. I have a plan in my mind before I set about to draw, start at a point and work out. There is order and rationality involved. If you have ever painted, you know that the easiest thing to do is to start the background first. You paint it in, wait for it to dry, and then move to the next closer object. This is akin to the creation we read here. But the analogy isn’t done. Some of my painting series are even more telling. The paintings up on the walls right now took about a week to do. I painted many at a time, working on background of one, while I did foregrounds of others. I also had all of them sketched out before I began. I was asked to have art done for Easter Sunday a few years ago, and these are what I came up with. They are abstract stations of the cross. As I finished each painting, I would frame it, take a picture, and send the picture to my wife. I would step back and see that they were good. I was proud of each piece. And then I finished all of them, and hung them on the walls. And I thought it was very good. I saw, not only each individual creation, but the series as a whole. And I was proud. This is the picture that we are to have of God as well. Each thing was good, but he finishes his piece de résistance, Man, sees the whole thing finished, and is super pleased. It was very good.

And then he rests. After I finished these 10 paintings, I took a deep breath, stepped back, saw what I had done, and stopped. I stopped creating, stopped thinking, rejuvenated. I sat down and looked upon my work. And I do this with every piece. After I show them to people, take pictures, etc. I very often like to sit and look at them. There is a picture I created of a man in my living room, many of you have seen it. It is hanging over my TV. I did it over half a year ago, and still I enjoy coming home and staring at it. Resting. Knowing that it is very good. What we see in these last few verses of Genesis 1 is a God who is proud of what he has done. Again, this is in stark contrast to other creation mythologies who have gods arguing about what to do with pesky humans, trying to kill them, and finding them extremely annoying. This is not the God of the Bible. He is the proud parent, creator, artist.

Now I said that this was both poetry and history. I want to wrap up here. Many people will have you believe that you need to take this story literally. That God only took 6 days to create. That the order laid out in the Bible is a science. I am not saying you can’t believe this. I know people who do. I am friends with them. It is a valid interpretation. Scientists will tell you that they can prove the earth was not created in 6 days, and so all the Bible is therefore false.

On the other side, there are people who will tell you that most of Genesis is closer to myth. C.S. Lewis, who I agree with on most things, calls these stories true myth. They will say you shouldn’t take any of these stories literally, but pull the principles out of it.

One camp wants to read only poetry, the other only history. I disagree with both. They are both right and wrong. The truth is something so much richer, so much fuller, so much more true. The truth is that these stories should be read as both poetry and history. The creation story tells us in a poetic way how God created everything. It shows us a plan, forethought, and a means. He speaks everything into creation. If we only read this as poetry, we loose something. We loose the fact that we are special. That God created everything with his thoughts and words. That he gave us the Earth as a gift. That we are special, created in his image. If we read it only as history we loose just as much. We miss the subtly to the creation. We miss that the days correspond to each other. We miss some of the mystery and nuance, some of the subtly and mystique.

As we leave here tonight, what is important isn’t whether the Earth is 6000 or 4 billion years old, whether God used evolution to create or not, whether the Earth was there on day 1 or day 4. What is important is that creation was planned, logical, and ordered. And what is more important than this, is that we are its pinnacle. We are special. We are created in God’s image. We are not some byproduct of probabilities and mutations, we are the reason for everything else. Creation was given as gift to us. God stopped both before and after we were created, and said that is was very good.

If you are here today and you feel unimportant, miniscule, insecure, I want to tell you that that those thought are all lies. We are very important. We are not just another animal. We are created in God’s image. Often when I think about the size of the universe or the smallness of atoms, I wonder how God could take notice of me. I think we may all feel that way at times. With over 6 billion people, a world so large, and a solar system so gigantic, I wonder how could God care. I wonder why he would care about my problems, about my sorrows, about my joy. With a galaxy so large, a universe so large I wonder why God created us. I count up the numbers of cells in my body, on this planet, the number of atoms in creation, and I wonder how God even thinks twice about humans.

But the truth of this text is that he not only cares, but all the other things are for us. It is not that he is busy dealing with the rest of creation, and we are a happy afterthought- the rest of creation was for us. We are the pinnacle of creation, and the reason for it all. He set about on day one to create something marvelous and beautiful and wonderful for us. We are not unimportant or small, we are loved and cared for. We are the part of creation that God though about, conversed with, gave gifts too. We are not just another naked ape, we are God’s beloved, made in his image, valued by him. This is the truth we need to take away today. We are infinitely valuable to God. We are his Magnus Opus. We are important to him.

If you’re here today and you don’t feel this way, I encourage you to cry out to him. He will listen. He is not a distant creator. He is intimate and personal. He didn’t create at first from far away, and he is not far away now. His Spirit is still hovering. He is still doting over his creation, looking at it, and smiling. Ask him to come closer to him, and move closer to him. He is faithful. He will listen.

Let us Pray.

This weeks sermon

Here is this weeks sermon- Preview Sunday. hurray.

Last weeks sermon was called “Making of a Movement Part 1: Know and be Known”, this week we continue this idea, with “Making of a Movement Part 2: Pray, Give, Go”. I want to first give a few disclaimers before we jump into the sermon this week. I have agonized over this sermon for a few weeks, mainly because I will be talking about money. The first thing I need to say is that if you are here and you are not a Christian, forget the money talk. The parts that deal with giving to the church and missionaries aren’t for you. Church is free. So please don’t here just another pastor talking about money. I hope the sermon isn’t conducive to that thought anyway, but I just wanted to be clear. When I am talking about money in this sermon, it is for people who call themselves Christians and are part of this church, not anyone else.

With that out of the way, I think we can proceed. As you just heard, this week we will be talking about money, but not just money. We are again going to be talking more about starting a movement. There was so much text I could have chosen for today, I have to admit I was a little daunted when I began. I eventually settled on Acts 2:41-47. This is for a couple of reason. Before we get into the reasons for choosing this text, let’s read it. Turn with me to your programs. We read:

41So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. 42And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

Before we go on, we should put this text in context. We are in the book of Acts, which was written by Luke, the same guy who gave us the Gospel of Luke. He was a doctor who converted to Christianity, travelled around with Paul, the writer of many New Testament books, and planter of church all around the Mediterranean. He is writing the book to give an historical account of Jesus life and the early church gathered from talking with first hand witnesses, and his own experiences, to give to his friend Theophilus. The book of Acts specifically describes the early church and church planting movement. It begins with the resurrected Jesus still on Earth. He gives final instructions to the new church, which has about 120 people at that time. He leaves to heaven, and the church is on its own.

The early church was told to wait in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit came upon them, and so they retreated into houses and worshiped and prayed together. During one of these prayer sections, the Holy Spirit did com, and some very interesting things happened. I must digress for a moment. The early Christians were in Jerusalem, as I said, but what we often don’t know is that there were many people in Jerusalem at this time. In fact, there was a festival called Shavuot going on which meant Jews from around the world would have tried to make it to the city. There were peoples from all nations and tongues. Jerusalem was crazy. I imagine it is akin to move in day at Umass. It is all quite during the summer, you can drive on the roads, everyone is more or less culturally homogeneous. The same people are at Rao’s everyday, same people at Bueno. It is beautiful. And then, one day, around the same time every year, the town is invaded. Parents and freshman roll in, don’t know where they are going, back up traffic, speak with weird accents, wear clothes that are distinctly not Amherst, don’t drink their coffee at Rao’s, like some sort of cultural heretic. It is crazy. There are a multitude of cultures and even languages with foreign exchange students not knowing the provincial slang and speaking in high English. It is awesome. If you have been here for a summer, you know what I am talking about. This is roughly equivalent to what is happening in Jerusalem at the time. People have come from all over for this harvest festival, and with them, different cultures and languages. And in the middle of all this mayhem and craziness, there are 120 disciples of Jesus just hanging out and praying, waiting for the Holy Spirit.

Remember, they didn’t even know what they were really waiting for. Nothing like this had ever happened before. So they waited and prayed, and something cosmic happened. Something like tongues of fire came from out of the sky and descended upon these 120. And they all began speaking different languages. They in fact began speaking the languages of all the visitors. Each man could hear the disciples’ message in his own tongue. After this Peter stands up to explain to all the people what has just happened, and ends up giving the first sermon of all time. And this is where we pick up the text. We read that many heard his sermon and were baptized. And in one day the church went from 120 to 3120 men, give or take. It is important to note that these conversions may have only counted the men. Women were not that important in the ancient world, and as such, much of the Mediterranean wouldn’t have counted them. I am not saying it is absolutely the case, but it is possible that, if only men were counted ( which may be probable because usually the women are specially mentioned in Scripture) the actual number of converts was closer to 6-10,000. Children also were a marginalized group and may not have been included. What I can say for certain, is even 3000 in one day is a good day for a pastor. Also we know that this moment right here is the birth of the church, and that is the main reason that we are looking at it today, instead of the many other passages of scripture we could have chosen.

As we try to start a movement, there is no more fitting place for us to start than where the first church movement did. Let’s begin by seeing what the Apostles and early church did as a light into what we must do. The first thing Luke tells us after he talks about the conversion of the people is that they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, to fellowship, to breading of bread, and to prayer. I am not going to really talk about all of these devotions, as we at MERCYhouse call them, but if you go to a housechurch you will learn all about them. Like how I snuck a pitch for housechurch in the middle of a sermon, clever, huh? Anyway, one of the things we see the new believers dedicating themselves to is prayer. This is also the thing we see the disciples dedicating themselves to before this event called Pentecost. We read in Acts 1:12-14

12Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away. 13And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. 14All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.

Prayer is something that was held in high regard by the church since the beginning. I think we should stop here and discus prayer since it is in the title of my sermon. Before we do, I need to confess that I am not the best pray-er. When I really think about it logically it doesn’t really make sense to my hyper-rational western mind. How can God, the Ruler of the niverse, really want input from me? How can I change his mind? Etc., etc., etc. That is not to say I don’t pray, but I often think that prayer is only for me and doesn’t effect other things. The problem with this outlook on prayer is that it is not Biblical. Throughout the Bible devout men pray and God listens. We see it at Sodom and Gomorrah where Abraham pleads with God and God changes his mind. We see it with Moses who constantly intercedes for the Israelites. We see it with David and Solomon, who pray constantly and have their prayer answered. We see it with Jeremiah who begs God to remember his promise when the Israelites are in Exile by the Babylonians. He prays that God would restore Israel, and we see God listen and raise up Ezra and Nehemiah to restore the Temple at Jerusalem. We see it with Isaiah and all the prophets. We see it with Jesus too. Jesus is always in prayer, even teaching his followers how to do it, and in his model, he asks for his daily bread. The last night with his disciples he tells them to pray for anything they need. Paul tells us throughout his letters to pray in season and out of season, and asks for prayer in specific things.

My sometimes rational ideas of prayer are destroyed when I hold them up to Scripture. Many men smarter than myself have grappled with this problem of prayer. Do we actually change God’s mind? Is it just that the more we pray the closer we get to God and so know better what to ask for, so when it happens we see it as answered prayer, but it was actually in God’s plan all along? And there are many other solutions as well. I am not going to tell you I have an answer. I am going to quote C.S. Lewis though. In his essay on Prayer he says the following:

May seem like coincidence, but I know that when I pray the coincidences are much more frequent. (Paraphrased. The real quote will be in sermon)

We are told to pray constantly. And if you are a western academic like myself, you may struggle with the same metaphysical questions about prayer that I have just laid out, or others. I could give a very technical theological argument to try to convince us all that we should pray, but I think some examples of prayer in action are a little better. My first example is this passage in Acts. All the people did at first was pray, and when the time was ready for action, Peter knew what to do. If he had just gone back to his old life and not prayed could he have been as ready to step up and lead the church as he was?

In more modern times we have movements like the Haystack Revival. For those of you who don’t know what the Haystack Revival was, I will explain it. It began at Williams College in Williamstown Massachusetts in 1806. Five students at the college decided to begin a prayer meeting at the school and a storm blew in as they were praying. This caused them to find refuge under a haystack. As they talked and prayed they got the crazy idea to go to foreign countries as missionaries and spread the Gospel. The next year the first modern missions trip set sail for India. These five men are responsible for founding the first missions board to send people abroad, and are credited with the birth of modern missions. And it all started with prayer.

Similarly we can look at people like Phoebe Palmer, a woman who lived in the mid 1800’s. She began a small prayer group with 2 other women, that 6 years later would get here world wide recognition, sprouting prayer meetings around the country, and according to records, responsible for over 25,000 conversions.

I don’t here have time to speak about the first or second Great Awakening, men like Henry Ward Beecher who stands at Amherst College, Jonathan Edwards who preached in Northampton, or Martin Luther who said he prayed one hour a day, unless he was busy, in which case he prayed two. There were prayer meetings in New York City that began as a few dedicated men and turned into 50,000 across the city, most of who were not Christians when the entered, but were when they left. This was called the Fulton Street Revival. It was begun by a business man on September 23 at noon as a way to change his city for Jesus. He held it in the business district and advertised it all over the city. At the first meeting, 6 people showed up, 30 minutes late. Then there were 14, 23, and 40 over the next few weeks, respectively. It exploded all over the city. Within a few months there were thousands praying. This movement swept through the entire US, and estimates credit about 1 million conversions in the US out of a population of 35 million to this prayer meeting, with 10,000 conversions a week coming from New York City alone for a few months.

So as we look back at history with our modern enlightened view of prayer, we need to remember that every movement, every one, began with a few followers praying in a room. I don’t know how it works, but like C.S. Lewis, I know it works. If we are to truly start a movement, we need to begin on our knees. How can we think we need not pray for this movement, when that is where the Apostles started. How can we look at the history of the church and be so smug. We can’t. We need to pray, and pray daily for this movement. We need to pray for this church, for MERCYhouse, for Amherst, for our campuses, for our friends, for our family, for our Valley. If our foundations aren’t here, then everything else is for naught. I don’t know how it works, but I know it works. When I start arguing with myself about the efficacy of prayer, I have to come back to this. I have seen it work in my life. I have prayed for people and things, and they have come. I prayed to get sober, and I did, I prayed for friends and they were baptized in this church, I have prayed for things as miniscule as a parking spot, and they been granted it.

Don’t mishear me. I am not saying prayer is a magic button. That if you do it right, you will get what you want. There have been many things I have prayed for and been denied. When I prayed for parking, it was just a little confirmation that I needed that day that God was there. When I prayed for my friends, it was much more cosmic. What I am saying is that God wants us to start in prayer. That somehow, when we pray, things can happen. This area, the Pioneer Valley, is full of people who prayed and changed the world. 3 of our colleges were founded by Christians who prayed that they could make a difference. The second Great Awakening began right here. The Haystack Revival. We, today, are asking for nothing less that these people did. We are asking that our Valley, over 600,000 people would be changed through the Gospel. We need to begin such a task in prayer, both begging that God would change this Valley, seeking His will in how to do it, and confession of our fallenness and weakness.

And we need to pray together. These movements were not started by a single guy praying in a closet silently to himself. They were started by a group that prayed together. And so must we. That is not to say don’t pray by yourself, but don’t pray only by yourself. Very often when I tell people this I hear things like, :”It is awkward”, “I don’t like praying out loud”, or “My mind wanders to much.” I have this to say- get over yourself. The ancient Israelites always prayed 2 ways. Do you know what they were? Out loud standing up, and out loud laying prostrate on the ground. That is all. The Apostles who were in that upper room surely prayed out loud with each other. We know about Jesus last prayers before his execution because he was speaking with others. We need to pray with each other if this movement is going to go anywhere. I don’t want to beat us over the head here. I want to call us to something bigger. We are not getting over ourselves simply to pray out loud. We are doing it to start a movement. 6 men praying together so set on fire New York City through just prayer meetings alone, thousands converted every week! Thousands! 120 guys praying together in Jerusalem 2000 years ago converted 3000 in one day, and began something that would sweep through the world. Doesn’t that seem better than praying to ourselves in our beds with the lights out quietly? Doesn’t that beat us being embarrassed about what we should say. I want to here call us to something higher, better, holier. We are to pray and pray fervently and trust God will use it. He has so many times in the past, and he will again. Wouldn’t it be better to be part of that movement? To look back 50 years from now and see hundreds of thousands of people worshipping Sunday afternoon and know that God used the prayers that we prayer here and now!

And what came of all this prayer and worship that the new converts participated in? We read in Acts 2:43 that awe came upon every soul. I don’t know about the rest of us, but I certainly want to be a part of that. I have had awe come upon me a few times in my life, and it is what has kept me going when things get hard, it is what has made me want to plant a church, it is what has kept my faith alive. But notice, the movement doesn’t stop there. I think this is one of the problems with the Christian church today. We stop at awe. We pray, and worship, and go to Bible studies, and we have our conversion experience, and then we stop. That is not how we start a movement. That is not where the disciples stopped. We read in Acts 2:44-45

44And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.

Here is where I talk about giving, the second word in my sermon title. Now these are somewhat tricky verses, right. They say that the disciples were selling all they had and giving to all who had need. Does this mean that we should do the same? I don’t think we need to apply these verses literally to our lives. In fact, if you hear a preacher telling you to sell all you have and give it to him to distribute, I would say you are most likely in a cult and should get out as soon as possible. These verses aren’t teaching us to give away everything, necessarily, but they are illuminating. What they do say is that there is a proper response to this awe that we get to experience. There is a next step after prayer.

What these verses are painting is the makings of a movement. There is sacrifice involved. In American Christianity today, I speak in generalities, and there are always exceptions, we forget this. We have been to content to stop at awe, and not respond in kind. We, and I include myself in this, often are selfish and self seeking. We look at what God can do for us, and often forget our role in the equation. We often forget that God answers prayers with people. I want to give an example from my own life. When I joined staff, Sarah and I brought with us lots of debt. We both had well paying jobs before, and so we charged a lot of things on credit, because there was always another paycheck. And then Sarah got pregnant and she decided she wanted to stay at home with the kid, so we lost one paycheck. And then I was called to staff, and so quit my well paying job with a guaranteed check every two weeks for the uncertainty of ministry. Last summer due to various circumstances, we were barely able to live. It seemed like we would never get out of debt, and we were destined to be poor. Sarah and I ask our housechurch and a few others to start praying that God would pay off our debt so we could minister more effectively. Soon after someone we know came into money, heard about our problems, and gave us 8,000 dollars to pay off all our creditors. We didn’t ask this person to do it, and we were even shy about taking the money. But they had prayed and wanted to do it.

I am not saying all of you should give me 8,000 dollars, but this is the kind of community we have to have, that the early church had, if we are to start a movement. They gave as any had need. The church saw some starving, and selflessly gave to help them eat. They saw brothers without clothes, and took the burden of buying them pants. They were the church to each other. That story I just told you, isn’t unique to me either. I know of many collections at MERCYhouse given to people who were struggling anonymously. I can’t tell you all of them here, but many of you were privy to them. And it has effected the people around them drastically, as it effected those around the early church.

As I thought about how to preach about money and giving there were many roads I could have taken. I could talk about tithing (giving 10 percent) as a discipline that we just need to do. I could talk about many of the times Jesus spoke about money; I could go to places like Ezra or Micah where money is directly talked about in the Bible. But none of these seemed to satisfy. I could beat all of us over the head and talk about how it is the Christian duty to give, or I could not mention it at all, and hope that people know what to do. I could be heavy handed or limp wristed. Neither of these satisfies. So instead, this is what I am going to say. If you are a Christian, you need to give money somewhere, to a church, to missionaries, to Christian Charities. If you don’t know where to start, the Old Testament puts a rule at ten percent. So if we were in ancient Israel, we would give ten percent of our income away to God. Paul is Corinthians says that this may not be the rule for Christians, and says that we should give as we are able. But we need to remember why we are giving.

We are not giving just to give, or because God will be mad at us if we don’t. We are not giving money so that God will bless us either. If we are to believe many preachers on TV, if we sow our faith seed, God will multiply it, and we will be financially blessed. The truth is, this may happen to you, I don’t know, but it also may not. We don’t give to get. That is manipulation, and not what we see in the book of Acts. The truth is that giving is often going to cost us. There is a sacrifice involved. To be able to give to MERCYhouse, and now this church, we had to get rid of the internet and cable at my house. There was sacrifice involved. Maybe we have to eat out less often, or in my case, drink regular coffee instead of delicious Carmel Macchiatos from Starbucks. The people in Acts were selling their things for others to have something. There is sacrifice involved.

We are not giving out of fear, or out of some divine manipulation to get more. The reason we need to give and be generous is something so much more beautiful. There are three reasons we need to give, and I will go through them quickly. The first reason is because God first gave to us. He gave us the free gift of grace through his son Jesus. He gave to the point of dying. When we give to those in need, and to the church, we get to be the agents by which God is still giving grace. When my debt was paid off, it was grace. I didn’t deserve it. What I deserved was to suffer for my irresponsible spending. When I ask the person why they gave it, their response was that they liked giving grace. They were able to do for me what God did for them. That is the first reason why we need to give. Why wouldn’t we, when we look at it like this. We get to be Jesus to people. We get to impact their lives. We get to show them the Gospel, not in some hypothetical way, but really show them. We get to have the rubber meet the road.

As we do this, we will very often encounter the second reason to give, it is worship. We get to worship God through our giving. When we give to the church or other organizations, we are making sacrifices for God. We get to meet him in that place. This is an aspect of giving that we very often forget in our modern Christianity, but it is something the ancients of all religions knew. In the book of Ezra, king Darius, the ruler of Babylon gives Ezra not only permission to rebuild the Temple, but a gift to be offered as worship to God. In Hinduism and Buddhism today, the very way you worship is to bring actual gifts to the altars of the gods. In the African Church the offering is very often at the front of the church and people dance and sing as they put their money in. What they knew and know that we have forgotten is giving is a way of worship. It is a visible way to tell God, and the world, that he is valuable to us. That he matters. He is not an after thought. He does not get the scraps, but the first fruits.

The months where I didn’t know how I was going to give money, but did anyway, have been the months that I have been the closest to God. I have had to rely on him to make the rest of my life work out- and to this date it always has. Those months where I looked at my bills and at my paycheck and said it would never work, but gave money away anyway are the months that at the end I had an excess somehow. Those are the months I have clung to God more, cried our more, worshiped more. We give not out of fear or manipulation, but out of love and affection. We give to increase our relationship with God. We give, because He first gave.

There is one more reason to give, I think. The disciples gave because they saw the movement coming. They did not give just to give. They gave because they saw if the didn’t the church would die. They gave because they owned the vision and felt it incumbent upon them to do all they could in their power to see the vision realized. And that is why, the Christians here, should give too. We are talking about changing a Valley of 600,000 people, 43 cities and towns, and 1200 square miles. This is going to take pastors and evangelists and gas and buildings and heat and electricity and programs and Bibles and computers and food and clothes and homeless shelters and halfway houses and detoxes and battered women shelters and helping people with rent and sending people to seminary and conferences and many other things we don’t even know about yet. And all of this takes money. If we are committed to this vision we need to give. We need to give of our time, talent, and treasure. Now most of you are already giving, so I don’t want to beat it too much, but it is this attitude of giving that is going to help change people’s hearts.

A group of Christians, who quite literally put their money where their mouth is, is what this Valley needs. To often we pay lip service to charity, and are stingy, and the world knows it. To often we want the church to take care of social problems, but won’t help out with our own resources. The movements we have been talking about, they began with prayer, but most of those men and women gave as well. They paid pastors to go to the next town and start yet another church, they paid missionaries to go to India so they could not have debt sailing over, they rented space, and helped the poor, all with money given to the church. We need to give to see this movement start.

Don’t only hear we need to give though. I want you to hear more what we can do. In 182 in London England one man named William Booth began preaching to the poor and don trodden in London Streets. By 1867 he was employing 10 people. By 1874 there were 1000 volunteers and 42 staff. Between 1881 and 1885, 250,000 people were converted because of this movement. Today the organization he started, the Salvation Army, is all over the world. Because people gave they were able to each the poor, giving them a better life and eternal life. I am calling us all to give today because it really can change the world. It has happened. The possibilities of outreach and ministry are endless. But it is going to take more than me and my family. It is going to take an entire army of people, giving their time to help others, their talents to serve God, their treasure to pay for it all. This call to give is not so I can get rich or the church can have some new fence. It is a call to join a movement. I am only able to do what I do because people form all over the country give to me. My salary is 100% donated by people outside the church. We need to give so the next person can be funded too. So the next church planter can get to work. So the next church, and the one after that, and the one after that can start.

This call to give is a call so much higher than just being obedient or afraid. It is an invitation to align ourselves to God, to worship him, to be part of his army. There will be sacrifices we have to make, yes, but there will be treasures abounding we could never have anticipated. We may be stretched and stressed, but we will know an intimacy and love with God that we couldn’t have imagined before. The call to give is a call to join something that is so much bigger than we. It is call to be Christ to those who most need him. It is a call to set this Valley on Fire once again.

Before we end tonight, there is one more thing we need to do to partner with God in this making of a movement. Turn back one last time with me to your programs. We read at the end of Acts 2:

46And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

The final ingredient is Going. See, after they prayed, and fellowshipped, and broke bread together, after they gave as each had need and helped each other from with in, they didn’t stay there. They didn’t send Peter only to go preach again to the masses and see how many people he could bring back to their little church building. They went to the Temple. We may object because the temple was the place of worship. We may think that this just describes them going to a worship service together, but we would be missing many things. The Temple wasn't only the place of worship for someone living in Jerusalem. It was also the town square, flea market, and coffee shop. The Temple is where all business was conducted. It was surrounded by shops and restaurants. What this is describing are people who are on the move. They are going.

In Acts 1:8 the final instructions Jesus gives to his fledgling church is that once the Spirit comes upon they that they would be his witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the Ends of the World. The Spirit came upon them, and now they are fulfilling this mission that Christ commanded they fulfill. They are being witnesses in Jerusalem here. They are not holed up gloating about how holy they are, or talking theology all day, or discussing the direction the church should take. They are out on the field, interacting with people, going to where they are, meeting them on their terms, and telling them about this Jesus who was crucified.

This must be us as well. Now that is not all they did. They came back at night and broke bread together, which here refers to communion and something that only members of the Church were allowed to take at this time. There is a balance. They are coming back to be with believers, but spending their days with those who are not Christians. I am not saying here that we should only hang out with non-Christians, we clearly need fellowship too. But when fellowships is not balanced with mission, we are not with Jesus anymore. These early Christians understood this, and so they went out and preached the good news.

I am also not saying we need to go to Rao’s with out Bible and start street preaching. Peter definitely did that earlier in Acts, but it was called for then. What we read here is simply that they are going to the Temple. I imagine they have friends there, and family. They are buying things and bartering and talking, and amidst all of this, they have to talk about their conversion and what has been happening. How could they avoid it. Some where poor and now have money, so they surely would be praising God and explaining to people where the money came from. Some were rich and were selling their things. Surely people would ask questions, and surely they would explain why the sudden change and why they are now selling all the things they used to hold so dear. They had a change and the people noticed, and the only thing this early church did was go out and be available and unashamed.

We too must go to the Temple unashamed. Very often we think evangelism a dirty word. It is something that must be awkward that we do to strangers. Much more effective is just to live and be available. Go about our daily business, but with intent. We don’t go to the market simply to buy things, but to buy things, and be salt and light. If we Go, God will bless it, just as he had so many times in the past.

John Wesley, a Pastor in the 1700’s in England, and the founder of the Methodists is renowned for this. He would ride his horse through the country and speak to anyone and everyone he could. This is during the rise of the Industrial Revolution in England, and there were many dirty and dangerous places. John was known for going to them. During one trip he went to one of the local coal towns. These places were known for violence. They were very hostile to outsiders and people begged him not to go. He entered the shanty town, worse than any ghetto in America today, and began preaching. As he was finishing up he recounts how these men, whose faces were blacked to the core from years of work underground in coal mines, began to have streams of white running down their faces. These men, who were known for running into the civilized parts of town looting them and retuning to their shanties, who were so fearsome even the police wouldn’t enter, who’s violent society was feared around the world, were crying at the Gospel. Their tears were wiping the years of dust and dirt off their faces. John understood that we need to go, even if it seems dangerous, even if it seems hopeless.

As we finish today, I again want to not beat us over the head and say we have to go. I want to call us to a vision of what it could be like if we went. The men in Acts who went to the Temple did not go in vain. We read that they received favor with the people and the Lord added to their number daily. It as not an exercise in futility. People’s lives were changed. When John Wesley entered the coal town, the men’s hearts that were so hard were softened to tears. When all the people I have talked about today went, people came to know Jesus. The Haystack Revival started churches all over the world where there never was one before, when the Fulton Street Revival went to the neighborhoods of New York City and the world, they left a wake of conversions behind. When the Salvation Army left England and came to America, it created a movement throughout the world.

And when we go out, we too can impact this Valley in the same way. It may seem daunting. It is. The task is too big for just us. That is why we are trying to start a movement, not just of us, but of many, many more. I am telling us to Go, not just so we feel good about ourselves and can say we spent X amount of hours being a good evangelist, I am saying Go, because God uses the faithful. The early churches numbers were added to daily. What these new converts say were devout men and woman who prayed constantly, gathered together, gave generously, and lived like they talked. They encountered the redeemed life, the Church in action, the Living God.

This week, I tell us to Pray, Give and Go, not because God will be mad if we don’t, but because he will rejoice if we do. We have the opportunity to be used by the Almighty to change lives. If we truly believe that God has redeemed us, given us all things, brought us to the kingdom of light, given us an inheritance and a new life, how, I ask, can we not offer it to everybody we see. How can we be ashamed or embarrassed to share this Gospel, how can we be stingy with out gifts and money, how can we not want to talk with Him daily. How can we not pray for this Valley, this Town, these Campuses. The call today is not to do these things out of fear or discipline, but to do them with Joy. Remember the calling we have, remember the God we have, remember the New Life we have.

Tonight is a call to join a movement that can change so many lives in the same way ours was changed. Tonight is an opportunity to be part of something so much bigger than ourselves. Tonight is the beginning of something that will change the world.

Let us pray