Bearing Fruit Sermon April 28, 2024

Bearing Fruit

April 28, 2024

            I was probably about five years old.  It was late in the summer, it might have been Labor Day weekend, and my family was having a picnic.  We were having watermelon for dessert, and I was getting annoyed by all those little black things in the watermelon, so I asked my mom “what’s the deal with these little black things?”  My mom explained to me that they were seeds, and that if you planted them in the ground, you would get a watermelon plant that would give you watermelons.  Well, I thought to myself “how cool is that?”  And I like watermelon, so five year old me took one of the seeds and planted it in the back yard… in late August.  I went outside every day and watered my little watermelon seed, and two weeks or so later, a little watermelon seedling sprouted, and I was so excited.  I went and got my mom to show her the little seedling, and I asked her how soon we would get a watermelon.  My mom said “soon”, and so the next time that she went to the grocery store, do you see where I’m going with this?  She bought a watermelon, went out to the back yard, and put it next to my little seedling, then came and got me to show me the watermelon that I had “grown”.  Even though I eventually figured out that I hadn’t REALLY grown it, I was hooked on gardening, and from that time, all the way up until just a few years ago, I was an avid gardener.  While I lived with my mom and dad, every year I went out, prepared the ground, fertilized, planted the seeds, weeded, watered, and tended the garden, and every year we had corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, strawberries, and whatever other fruit or vegetable I felt like experimenting with that year. 

            Being slightly OCD, I always planted everything in the same place.  You know, corn belongs here, tomatoes belong here, cucumbers belong here…   But after a couple of years, I began to notice that my corn wasn’t doing as well as it had originally done.  The plants weren’t as tall, I wasn’t getting as many ears of corn, and it seemed to me that the corn didn’t taste as good.  So, I asked my mom about it and if I recall correctly, she took me to the library to look it up.  Anyone remember going to the library to look something up?  And I found out that corn takes a lot of nitrogen out of the soil.  I also found out that about two thirds of the nitrogen that corn takes from the soil, it will only take from sources that occur naturally in the soil, and will NOT take from fertilizer.  So, when you grow corn, fertilizing the soil doesn’t do a whole lot to help the corn.  The only way to get consistently good corn is to let the soil rest, and the way that you do that is to rotate your crops, so that your corn in growing in a different place every year.  When I started doing that, I began to have regular harvests of really good Silver Queen Corn. 

It turns out that soil has a profound effect on the quality and often the quantity of what grows in it.  I am not a wine drinker, but Jennifer is, and since we’ve been dating, we have visited a couple of vineyards, and, as someone who has always been interested in gardening, I have found it fascinating to discover some of the intricacies of wine making.  The soil and the weather cause the grapes to have a slightly different character from year to year and this affects the taste of the wine.  Vintners carefully prune their vines in the winter to remove new growth with the goal of having each vine produce the same number of buds every year.  If the vines are not carefully pruned, the quality of the grapes, and the wine, will suffer.  In fact, people often spend two or three years learning the right way to prune the vines, because it is a skill that is essential to producing quality fruit.

In our reading today, Jesus tells us that He is the vine, that we are the branches, and that the Father is the gardener.  Jesus says that the Father prunes the vine, breaking off every branch that does not produce fruit, and trimming the vine so that the fruit that is produced is of the highest quality.  So, as the branches, our lives are carefully pruned by God in order that we may produce the highest quality of fruit. 

So, the first question I have to ask is, how does God prune us?  Today’s reading tells us that Jesus’s teaching has made us clean, and that if we remain in Him, He will remain in us, and that in Him we will bear much fruit.  One of my favorite Christian commentators, Warren Wiersbe expands about what it means to remain in Christ:  “The abiding relationship is natural to the branch and the vine, but it must be cultivated in the Christian life.  It is not automatic.  Abiding in Christ demands worship, meditation on God’s word, prayer, sacrifice, and service – but what a joyful experience it is!  Once you have begun to cultivate this deeper communion with Christ, you have no desire to return to the shallow life of the careless Christian.”  So, just as a farmer nourishes the soil and rotates the crops to provide the best outcome for the harvest, God nourishes our relationship with Jesus, leading us to a closer walk with Him, steering us away from that which is detrimental to our relationship with Him, and helping us to avoid that which is detrimental to the kind of fruit that our lives produce.  Without Jesus in our lives, we can do nothing of value, but with Him, there is much that we can accomplish for the Kingdom. 

Just as fruits and vegetables are profoundly affected by the soil in which they grow, so it is that we require a solid connection to Jesus in order to be fruitful.  Ed Jarrett from Christianity.com has an important distinction to make on this point when he says “As disciples, we are told to remain connected to the vine, to Jesus.  And, if we do that, we will be fruitful. It is important to note here that bearing fruit is not another thing [we are] commanded to do. Instead, it is the result of remaining in Christ. If we are connected, we will bear fruit.”  And our lesson today tells us that in our bearing of that fruit, God is glorified. 

            So, what does our bearing of this fruit look line?  Dr. David Chancey tells us that the fruit that we produce is about three things.  “First is the fruit of Christian character. According to Galatians 5:22-23, our lives should be characterized by love, joy, peace, [patience], kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  Second is the fruit of Christian conduct. Right character results in right conduct.  Not only must we look like Jesus; we must act like Jesus.  Third is the fruit of converts. God wants us to take as many people with us to heaven as possible.”

Ultimately though, the truth is that bearing fruit looks different for each of us.  In Romans 12 Paul discusses this when he says “We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.” 

Even though fruit bearing looks different for each of us, the essence of all of our fruit bearing is love.  If we were to have read just a few verses further in our Gospel lesson this morning, we would have come to the part where Jesus tells us that “If [we] keep His commands [we] will remain in His love.”  And so love is an essential part of our bearing fruit.  The part that I just read from Romans 12 continues,” Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.”  And Paul makes an interesting choice here in his choice of the Greek word that he uses that we translate “good”.  The usual word used in Greek that we translate as “good’ is “καλός” (kalos) which means something that is pleasing or without defect, but Paul chooses instead to use the word “ἀγαθός” (agathos) which means something that is intrinsically good, or good to the core.  The good of which Paul speaks here is a good that flows from a heart that is deeply connected to Jesus.  As I so often say, it’s not about what we do, it’s about who we are.  Warren Wiersbe, commenting on today’s epistle lesson says of love “Love is a valid test of our fellowship and our sonship [or our daughtership] because God IS love.  Love is part of the very being and nature of God.  If we are united to God through faith in Christ, we share His nature.  And since His nature is love, love is the test of the reality of our spiritual life”.

            In a little while, we will be singing the Offertory.  Our offertory this morning is a song called “Live Like That”.  It’s a new song for the praise team, so you may find it unfamiliar, but I chose it because of its message and I would like to highlight some of the lyrics here.  In the first verse the songwriter asks:

Was I love

When no one else would show up

Was I Jesus to the least of us?

The second verse reads:

Am I proof

That You are who You say You are

That grace can really change a heart

Do I live like Your love is true

People pass

And even if they don’t know my name

Is there evidence that I’ve been changed

When they see me do they see You*

            The songwriter says that he wants to live like that.  Do we?  Are we willing to allow God to enrich our relationship with Jesus in such a way that our lives become ever more Christlike?  Wiersbe comments that “The branches do not eat the grapes; others do.  We are not producing fruit to please ourselves but to serve others.”  Just as Jesus said that He did not come to be served, but to serve, so it is for those of us who are reaching towards Christ likeness that our actions are geared towards serving the needs of the kingdom.

            Love God and love others.  This is the essence of our message today, in fact, according to Jesus, it’s the essence of the entire Gospel.  Our finest fruit is produced when we allow the love that God has for us, to shine in our own lives that others may see the joy and the beauty that comes from having a deep connection with Jesus.  When we stop and think about the grape vine, bearing fruit is, well, its most fruitful purpose.  As our connection with Jesus becomes ever deeper, our prayer is that bearing fruit will become our most fruitful purpose as well.

* CCLI Song # 6221421

Ben Glover | Ben McDonald | David Frey

© 2011 9t One Songs; Ariose Music; Mike Curb Music

For use solely with the SongSelect® Terms of Use. All rights reserved. www.ccli.com

CCLI License # 515123

I Have Other Sheep That Are Not of This Sheep Pen. Sermon April 21, 2024

For the last few weeks, we have been talking about the disciples not understanding what it was that Jesus was trying to teach.  While we have focused on Jesus’s death and resurrection, that subject was, by far, not the only thing that the disciples didn’t understand.  Last week we had a discussion about WHY the disciples failed to understand a lot of Jesus’s teaching.  Remember, we talked about how only God is capable of understanding the mind of God, and that we, as finite creatures, need the help of God’s Holy Spirit to even begin to comprehend God’s plan for us.  Bearing that in mind, we are going to take a look at today’s lesson from John and see what it is that the disciples missed this time.  As Rev. David Cotton once said, “They didn’t call them the duh-ciples for nothing!”

In today’s lesson, Jesus declared Himself to be the Good Shepherd.  This shepherd imagery that Jesus used would have been reasonably familiar to the disciples as sheep were a very important part of the economy and the lives of the folks in first century Palestine, But I doubt that we have any sheep farmers among us today.  Show of hands?  Sheep farmers?  And so, before I continue, please allow me to give us just a little bit of insight about sheep and shepherds to help us to get a better idea of what it is that Jesus is teaching. 

Sheep, while not being the brightest creatures on the planet, are actually quite socially adept.  Sheep are able to recognize voices and faces, retaining these memories for years.  In fact, sheep probably have a better memory for faces and voices than people do.  Sheep have the ability to read human facial expressions, actually showing a preference for smiles. Sheep tend to maintain lifelong friendships with a select group of sheep in their flock.  Part of the sheep’s social makeup is that they are followers and will follow whoever they determine is their leader.  In a flock of wild sheep this leader will be whatever sheep in the flock is dominant, but domesticated sheep will accept the shepherd as their leader.  Sheep will run away in panic from voices that they don’t recognize, but when they hear the shepherd’s voice, they will come to them. 

            As far as the shepherd is concerned, the sheep rely on the shepherd for protection and guidance.  The shepherd keeps careful watch, looking out for sheep who stray, keeping the flock away from poisonous plants, avoiding predators, and sometimes carrying sheep who become injured.  Since sheep are easily frightened, the shepherd needs to have a kind and calming presence and must herd the sheep with gentleness and patience. The shepherd recognizes the individual voices of the sheep, would immediately know when a sheep was in distress, and would come to the aid of that distressed sheep.  The shepherd would be attuned to the sheep’s moods and would be quick to soothe a scared or anxious animal.  At night the shepherd will lead the sheep to the pen to sleep.  The pen has only one entrance, and the shepherd would sleep, lying down in the entrance, so anything that entered the pen had to go through the shepherd.  The good shepherd does literally lay down his life for his sheep every night.

            The more we understand about sheep and shepherds, the more we understand what Jesus is teaching us about His being the good shepherd.  The good shepherd cares deeply about each member of the flock, knows them individually, understands their needs, provides for them, cares for them, and protects them.  The members of the flock develop a deep and abiding friendship with the shepherd, know his voice and his face, follow him unequivocally, and trust him implicitly.  In this analogy, we see a wonderful picture of love, working in both directions, as the shepherd lovingly cares for each individual member of the flock and the flock lovingly follows without hesitation.

            And so, we come to today’s reading.  And I have to wonder how much of this discussion about sheep the disciples actually understood.  We already know that the disciples didn’t understand what Jesus meant when He said He would lay His life down for His sheep, and they continued not understanding this until Jesus gave them the gift of the Holy Spirit when He met with them AFTER His resurrection.  The disciples may well have had some understanding of Jesus’s discussion about the difference between the good shepherd and the hired hand.  Jesus had already proven Himself to be a loving and compassionate friend and mentor.  But one thing that we know for certain that they missed is something that, when the truth was revealed to them long after the resurrection, they were shocked at what was revealed.  In our lesson today, Jesus said “I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.”

            NINE YEARS after Jesus’s death and resurrection, (Nine years!)  Peter was sitting on a rooftop. He was hungry and he was waiting for dinner to be prepared when he had a vision.  In this vision, something like a large sheet was lowered from heaven, and the sheet was filled with animals that Jews were not permitted to eat (think… bacon).  To Peter’s shock and surprise, a voice from heaven commanded him to “kill and eat”.  “Surely not, Lord!” Peter replied. “I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.” The voice from heaven spoke a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”  This whole scenario was repeated an additional two times, then the sheet was taken back to heaven…  With Peter still wondering what this vision was all about, three men arrived who had been sent to see Peter by a gentile Roman Centurion named Cornelius. 

Now Cornelius and his family were all devout, God honoring people who prayed regularly and were well known for their generosity in giving to those in need.  An angel had appeared to Cornelius and said to him, “Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God.  Now, send men to Joppa to bring back a man named Simon who is called Peter.”  These are the men who showed up just as Peter was trying to figure out what that vision was all about.  Now, as I said, Cornelius was a gentile.  According to Jewish law, there was an insurmountable divide between those who kept the Law, and those who didn’t.  A ritually clean Jew would never enter the house of a gentile, or even keep company with gentiles, and that was just the Jewish theological argument against gentiles.  Culturally, first century Jews regarded gentiles as idolaters, sinful, and most important, UNCLEAN.  Gentiles did not keep the ritual laws that the Jews were required to keep and so contact with a gentile would make a Jew ritually unclean too.  On top of this, we add the resentment of the first century Jews over Roman rule, and the excesses of that rule that were abhorrent to the Jews.  So, to say that Jews regarded gentiles with disdain would be an understatement.  And it is with this understanding that we find Peter, Christian yes, but still an observant Jew, being called to visit the house of a gentile.

Peter, with several fellow believers from Joppa, went to see Cornelius.  When they arrived, they found that Cornelius had invited friends and relatives to his house and the place was packed… with gentiles.  Peter said to the group “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean.  So, when I was sent for, I came without raising any objection. May I ask why you sent for me?”  Cornelius told Peter the story about his visit with the angel and then told Peter ‘Now we are all here in the presence of God to listen to everything the Lord has commanded you to tell us.” 

            Peter first tells the assembly “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.”  He then proceeded to outline the Gospel for his listeners.  While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit was poured out on the gentile believers, and they began speaking in tongues and praising God.  The Bible tells us that “The circumcised believers (that’s Peter and his followers) were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles.”  But Peter, finally a step ahead of everyone, said “Surely no one can stand in the way of their being baptized with water. They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have.”  And so, the entire assembly was baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.  Finally, after nine years, Peter understood what Jesus was teaching when He said, “I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen”. 

            It’s interesting to me that this whole idea of Gentiles sharing in the blessings that God has showered upon Israel was so misunderstood, and the reason that I find this interesting is because all the way back in Genesis, when God called Abraham, God said “All the people of the earth will be blessed through you”.  In fact, I count 58 times in Genesis, Exodus, Joshua, 1^st Kings, 1^st and 2^nd Chronicles, Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, that the Hebrew Bible tells us that Israel will be a blessing to ALL people.  Somehow, practically everyone missed that.  (This is probably a really good example of how difficult it is to understand God’s word without the benefit of illumination by the Holy Spirit).  So entrenched was this prejudice against gentiles that even the first century followers of Jesus excluded gentiles from the assembly.  And even after Cornelius led the way for gentiles to be included, there was a big brouhaha over some Christians insisting that gentiles could only become followers of Christ after converting to Judaism, obeying the Law, and being circumcised.  It took a church-wide meeting led by Peter and James, the half-brother of Jesus to put an end to this requirement.  But ultimately, it was quite a while before gentiles were readily accepted into the assembly of the followers of The Way. 

            But you see, here’s the thing.  It doesn’t do any good to accept someone into the assembly unless you also accept them into your heart.  If you are going to accept them into the assembly, you need to love them also.  It doesn’t do you, or them. any good to accept them into the assembly unless you are willing to love them also.  From the boss and the best friend to the clerk and the janitor and the trash collector, if you are going to accept them into the assembly you also have to accept them into your heart.  From the loving and the caring and the compassionate to the difficult and the crabby and the cantankerous, if you are going to accept them into the assembly you also have to accept them into your heart.

            And so, the big question for us becomes, what is it that we have to learn from this?  Are there people who we are excluding from the assembly who we shouldn’t be excluding?  Are there people who we are excluding from our hearts who we shouldn’t be excluding?  Who among us gets to choose who God will accept?  Are we, the Christian Church in the 21^st Century willing to trust God to know who is or who isn’t called to faith?  Do we think that maybe 2^nd Peter 3:9 gives us a hint as to who God may choose to be included?  2^nd Peter 3:9 says, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead, he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” 

            If it is God’s desire that everyone come to repentance, is it possible that His grace might cover the sins of any willing heart that seeks Him, no matter who they are or what they may have done?  I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a universalist.  I do not believe that everyone will be saved, for the simple reason that I don’t believe that everyone has a willing heart.  But I do believe that the willingness of another person’s heart is not a matter for me to judge.  My job is not to judge, my job is to love.

            Yes, the Pastoral Epistles do speak of correcting error in the church, but discerning error in the church and working lovingly to address that error is absolutely not the same thing as making judgments about who we think will or will not be accepted by God.  There is not a one among us who is worthy to stand here today in God’s presence.  We are not here because of anything that we have done.  We are here because of what HE has done.  We are here because we have accepted the gift of grace that God has so lovingly bestowed on each of us.  Are we willing to accept the fact that God’s grace will be poured out according to His good pleasure on anyone He so chooses?  Let us all not call impure, that which God has chosen to make clean.

Then He Opened Their Minds Sermon 2024.04.14

Then He Opened Their Minds

April 14, 2024

            Last week we talked about how we come to faith, and we focused on how personal witness is one of the primary ways that we come to know Jesus.  I mentioned the other two ways, the witness of the Word, and the witness of the Holy Spirit, but we were focused on personal witness.  Since our reading from John last week is paralleled in today’s reading from Luke, I’d like to continue my thoughts from last week.  Though there are some differences in the details of last week’s and this week’s passages, most scholars agree that both of these passages describe the same event.  If we were to harmonize these two readings, one of the most noticeable differences in detail between the two would dovetail into a pretty good explanation of what happened.  In Luke we read that Jesus told the disciples “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.  Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.”  In the reading from John we are told “And with that [Jesus] breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit'”.  So, taking the two passages together we find that the way that Jesus opened the minds of the disciples so they could understand what all of the scriptures had to say about Him, was to give them the gift of the Holy Spirit.

            Today I would like to focus on one of the other ways that we come to faith, and that is through the witness of the Holy Spirit.  But what, or more accurately, WHO is the Holy Spirit?  When we talk about the Holy Spirit, I’m not sure that all Christians are always on the same page.  There was a big charismatic movement in Christianity in the late 20^th century, among many such movements over the years, and so we may find that there are some questions relating to the work of the Holy Spirit between some of the Spirit’s more charismatic works and some of the Spirit’s more day to day works, and while I will talk a little bit later about the charismatic aspect of the Spirit’s work, right now I would like to zero in on the work that the Sprit did for the disciples in today’s reading, and also does for us as the illuminator of the Word. 

Dr. Jonathan Pennington tells us that “The Spirit of God alone comprehends the thoughts of God.”  Makes sense, right?  The Bible tells us in multiple places that God’s ways are not our ways and since God is infinite, it really isn’t possible for us to fully understand God, but we already know that, and God knows that too, and God would never expect us to do the impossible task of understanding Him on our own, and so God gives us understanding, and He does that through the work of the Holy Spirit.  So, just as Jesus had the Holy Spirit open the minds of the disciples, the Holy Spirit works in each and every one of us in exactly the same way, to help us to understand that which is critical to our faith, to understand that which God knows that we need to understand in order to know and to follow Him.  David Schrock explains this beautifully when he says “The only way a [person] can rightly understand the mind of God is to have God Himself reveal Himself to [that person].  This occurs first in conversion (when we first believe), but then progressively in sanctification as the Spirit continues to instruct the saints through God’s Word”. 

And so, the Holy Spirit may not be quite as mysterious as we thought.  In fact, the Holy Spirit is no more, and no less mysterious than God, or Jesus themselves, because the Holy Spirit is co-equal with God and Jesus as one third of the trinity.  And explaining the Holy Spirit’s role within the trinity, the theologian, Dr. Arnold Come says, “The Holy Spirit is understood strictly in Trinitarian terms. The Trinity is a doctrinal way of referring to the three ways God has of being God — all three simultaneously, and each always in active relation with the other two. This means that our experience of God as Holy Spirit always involves also our relation to God as Creator (Father) and to God as Mediator-Savior (Son).”  And so, if we are thinking that the Holy Spirit only works in charismatic ways, that’s really not entirely accurate.  A lot of what the Spirit does, He does quietly as He guides us in our Christian walk, illuminating the scriptures and advising our actions.  This may be a relief for some of us to know if are uncomfortable with some of the more demonstrative forms of Christianity.  Presbyterians didn’t get the nickname the “Frozen Chosen” for nothing!  I suppose that there are corners of our Christian world where Presbyterian worship seems to them to be somewhat devoid of the Spirit, but you all may be surprised to hear what the theologian B. B. Warfield had to say about the founder of the Presbyterian faith, John Calvin.  “The doctrine of sin and grace dates from Augustine, the doctrine of satisfaction from Anselm, the doctrine of justification by faith from Luther, [but] the doctrine of the work of the Holy Spirit is a gift from Calvin to the Church.”   Yes, our heritage as Presbyterians is built on the foundation of Calvin’s understanding of the theology of the work of the Holy Spirit instructing and guiding us.  Or, in Calvin’s own words, “We cannot come to Christ unless we be drawn by the Spirit of God.  And without the illumination of the Holy Spirit, the Word can do nothing,”

So, for the sake of understanding, let me talk a little bit about the charismatic works of the Holy Spirit.  I have to confess, that when I first became a Christian, I was told by a very theologically conservative Christian friend, that the charismatic events described in the New Testament were events that were unique to that time, and that as Christian teaching became more prevalent, charismatic acts like speaking in tongues or ecstatic behavior, or mass healings were no longer applicable; no longer theologically necessary in modern Christianity.  And I may have gone on continuing to believe that were it not for a dear Christian friend of mine.  Without violating privacy by going into too many details.  This friend had a rather difficult life, caring for a severely disabled child.  As we became friends, I discovered the fact that this friend had spoken in tongues, and not once, but often.  And to me, this made perfectly good sense, because I was able to see this as a loving God, providing grace equal to a person’s great need.  Does that make sense to you?  Can we understand how God might choose to use His Spirit in an extraordinary way to fit an extraordinary need?  Since that time I have known of instances of miraculous healing where people probably had no chance of being healed, and yet they were.  And I’ve seen miraculous changes in people’s lives when the Spirit moved them in powerful ways, and the conclusion that I have drawn from all of this is that I never again want to be one to limit in my mind what I think that God can do.  His ways are not my ways, but I do trust His love to the point where I know that He will provide grace equal to every need of all of His beloved children.

I’d like to return to the words of Dr. Arnold Come from a very excellent discussion that he had about the Holy Spirit that was printed in a publication of the Presbyterian Mission Agency, “The Holy Spirit is God’s most intimate, powerful and mysterious presence with and in us.  God, as Creator gives us our very existence and life, and sets the context and course in which we are to live it out. But this working of God is hidden, at a level not open to our discovery or direct awareness.  God, as Word, speaks to us through the wonders of nature and the discoveries of science, through the proclamations of prophets and the great events of history, and ultimately reveals the very being of God, and God’s will for our lives through Jesus the Christ. But all this remains somehow external, outside of us. We may know the way we should go, but lack the will to follow it. We need a deeper, inward helping. So the God who created us, and who, when we lost our way, took the step to come after us in Jesus Christ in order to open the way to eternal life, now takes a further step. He invades our inmost central being by the power of his love, enabling us to see that all that he has done and is doing in Christ is for us, out of love and compassion for us.”

So, if the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives is “hidden”, or “not open to discovery or direct awareness” then how are we to know if the Spirit actually IS active in our lives?  This is really the easiest question that I’ve asked all month!  Does anyone have Galatians 5:22 and 23 memorized?  If you are so inclined to memorize a verse of scripture, this wouldn’t be a bad one to memorize.  In Galatians five, the Apostle Paul, is writing to the church in Galatia and discussing what a life lived by the Spirit looks like.  Paul tells us that those who are living by the Spirit exhibit the work of the Spirit in their day to day lives, and that the evidence of having the Spirit active in their lives is that they show the fruits of the Spirit, which are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. 

I speak often about the fact that our Christian walk is not about what we do, but about who we are in Christ.  I speak of the importance of having a heart that is being transformed into a heart that looks like God’s heart, and all of this of which I speak is the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  It is the Spirit that teaches us and guides us into living a life that pleases God, with the end result that these fruits of the Spirit are exhibited in us not as a matter of behavior, but because these fruits are produced by a heart that the Holy Spirit is in the process of transforming into a heart that loves as God loves.

            And so, as the Holy Spirit works in each of our lives, our call as Christians is to strive for Christ-likeness; to seek in every aspect of our lives to display the love, the justice, the empathy, and the compassion of Jesus to a world that is in desperate need of experiencing that love for themselves.  In describing his conversion experience, John Calvin said “God, by a sudden and unexpected conversion, subdued and brought my mind to a teachable frame”.  Like John Calvin, may each of our minds be brought to a teachableness that allows the Holy Spirit to guide us into living lives that glorify God and living lives that act as living witnesses to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Seeing Is Believing Sermon 2024.04.07

April 7, 2024

Seeing Is Believing

            I’m going to do something a little bit different this morning.  I’m going to start at the end of the lesson and work my way backwards.  The reason that I want to do this is because the end of today’s lesson is the most important part as it relates to us, and so I would like for us to have the main focus of the lesson in the front of our minds right from the start.  The verse to which I refer is 20:29 “Then Jesus told him, ‘because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’”

            The disciples were locked in a room together.  The Jewish authorities had just arrested Jesus, tried Him (Illegally, I might add), turned Him over to the Romans, and had the Romans crucify Him.  The disciples were undoubtedly terrified that the Jewish authorities would be coming for them next, and so, they were in hiding.  And there, behind carefully locked doors, Jesus suddenly appeared among them.  When we read the parallel account of this story in Luke, we read that the disciples were frightened because they thought that Jesus was a ghost, or an apparition.  Jesus greeted them by saying “Peace be with you”, and to calm their fears and to prove that He was not a ghost but was indeed flesh and bones, He showed them the wounds from the crucifixion in His hands and side.  But right now, we have a small problem.  You see, the apostle Thomas wasn’t there.  After Jesus had left and Thomas had returned, the other disciples told him “We have seen the Lord!”  And Thomas, quite famously (or infamously) replied “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

            Poor Thomas!  He has been remembered for this for over 2000 years and will continue to be remembered for this for who knows how many more years.  To add insult to injury, we sometimes call skeptical people “Doubting Thomases”.  Poor Thomas!  But before we dismiss Thomas for his lack of faith, I’d like for you all to pick up the nearest pew Bible and open it to John chapter 11.  The story in John 11 tells us that it was late in the ministry of Jesus and that the Jewish authorities were already plotting how to kill Him.  When Jesus heard that His friend Lazarus was ill, He decided to go to Bethany, which is Less than 2 miles from Jerusalem, to see Lazarus and to comfort his family.  The disciples were deeply concerned for Jesus’s safety, and maybe even more so for their own, and were trying to talk Jesus out of going there.  “A short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you are going back?” the disciples said to Jesus.  Then Thomas said (would someone please read verse 16 for me?  [Then Thomas (also known as Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”]

            So, we can see that Thomas is courageous and maybe not as clueless as we may have been led to believe, but just as we discussed last week, accepting the fact that Jesus had absolutely died, and was now absolutely alive again, is a really hard thing to accept.  It was hard for the disciples when He first appeared to them, remember, they thought that He was a ghost!  It was hard for Thomas who didn’t have the opportunity to see Him at His first appearance to the disciples, and it’s hard for us who never had the advantage of living with Jesus, seeing His miracles, and hearing His teaching first hand.  “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed”.

            Finally, a week later (and probably a VERY difficult week for Thomas) Jesus appears among the disciples again, this time with Thomas in attendance.  “Peace be with you” Jesus greets them again, then He turns to Thomas and says, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”  Thomas, now having seen irrefutable visual proof, replied to Jesus “My Lord and my God!”  He finally got it, but Thomas didn’t accept Jesus’s resurrection on faith, he accepted it on proof. 

            But let’s not be too hard on Thomas.  At least three times in the Synoptic Gospels, once after the feeding of the five thousand, once just after the Transfiguration, and once on the road to Jerusalem just before Palm Sunday, Jesus told the disciples plainly that He would suffer, be rejected by the Jewish authorities, be killed, and rise again.  The first time Jesus did this we are told that Peter rebuked Jesus, saying “Never, Lord!  This shall never happen to you!”  The second time He did it we are told that the disciples didn’t understand what Jesus was saying, but were afraid to ask Him to explain, and the third time they are again reported as not having understood.  In John’s Gospel we are told that Jesus alludes to His death at least four times.  So, none of this should have been news to the disciples and yet somehow, they still failed to understand what Jesus was trying to teach them.  And then they continued not to understand until they actually encountered the Risen Jesus… Thomas apparently a week after everyone else.  But it wasn’t just Thomas.  Among the disciples, none of their belief came from faith, it all came from the irrefutable proof of encountering the risen Jesus.  “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed”.

            So, the question that should be on our minds at this point is, if the disciples didn’t understand all of this in spite of being personal witnesses to the life and teachings of Jesus, in spite of having been told exactly what was going to happen in advance, how then are we, who never had the benefit of personal witness to these things, supposed to understand and believe?  This is a difficult question, but one that is important for us to answer.

            Where does our faith come from?  How is it that each of us has come to sit in this church this morning, or have come to log into Zoom so that we can be part of the virtual assembly?  Well, somewhere along the line, we were each introduced to Jesus.  Each of us had someone, a parent or a friend, who cared enough about us to tell us who Jesus is, why Jesus is important to them, and why Jesus should be important to us.  You see, personal witness is one of the three primary ways that we grow into the faith.  The other two ways are through the witness of the Bible and through the witness of the Holy Spirit.  But personal witness is by far the most important when it comes to our initial introduction to Jesus.  Yes, there are some who will pick up the Bible out of curiosity and find faith there, and occasionally the Holy Spirit will do something so unmistakable in someone’s life that they can’t ignore it, and they come to faith that way.  But for the most part, personal witness is the avenue through which we come to know Jesus. 

            When I lived in Boston, I worked with a gentleman named Roy.  Roy was a Christian and was the most relentlessly joyful person I have ever known.  He’s also one of the best friends I have ever had.  Roy was never the least bit shy about sharing with me what Jesus meant to him, and yet in the three years that we were friends, he was never once overbearing.  In spite of his seemingly never-ending witness, I never once felt like he was trying to convert me.  He was simply a man whose life was infused with joy, had no problem sharing that joy with others, and had no problem attributing that joy to his relationship with Jesus.  When Jesus told us to “Go and make disciples”, I have a feeling that Roy was exactly what He had in mind.

            Once Roy had inspired enough interest in me to want to know more, I began reading a Good News Bible that Jackie had given me for Christmas one year. The Good News Bible is a modern English translation that is much easier to read than that King James Bible that I had owned since childhood, and where I might have abandoned my fledgling Bible study if I had struggled over the language of the King James, I found that Good News Bible that Jackie gave me really easy to read and understand.   Now, at the time that Jackie gave me that Bible, I remember that my response (silently, mind you) was “What in the world did she give me this for??”  And yet that gift became important to me at the exact, right time.  Are we starting to see how this works?  Roy was faithful to share his gift of joyfulness and friendship with me, without ever knowing that I would someday became a Christian.  And Jackie was faithful to share that Bible with me even though I didn’t really appreciate it at the time.  She had no way of knowing whether it would ever matter to me or not, but she gave it to me anyway.  Eventually both of those gifts did matter… a lot.  And then last week I spoke of my friend Fred, who guided me and mentored me in the faith.  And so, my answer to the question of how am I, who never had the benefit of personal witness to Jesus’s teachings and example, supposed to understand and believe?  Is that Jesus was made real to me by my encounter with Him through a group of friends who were faithful to share their faith with me. 

            And so, we see that finding the answer to the question of how we are supposed to come to faith on faith alone is important for two reasons.  First, we want to answer the question for ourselves, so that we can come to a solid understanding of what the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus means to us personally.  But then, once we have a grasp on this answer for ourselves, we want to be able to use what we have learned and experienced to help others to come to an understanding of what all of this means to them. 

            But how do we do this?  How are we to be the people through whom our friends and acquaintances are able to personally experience the risen Jesus?   I have a card in my wallet that I have been carrying with me for over forty years.  Yes, it’s pretty beat by now.  But the card has printed on it a dictionary definition of the word “Coincidence”.  After spelling the word phonetically and declaring it to be a noun, just like any dictionary entry would do, it defines the word as “When God does a miracle and remains anonymous”.  I would imagine that most of us have had experiences where, even though we may not have recognized it at the time, we can look back and see how God was at work in our lives through that experience.  Maybe it was just one of those coincidences.  But as we grow in faith, we learn to recognize that these coincidences are the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  After all of the personal witnesses, and all of the Bible studies, it’s the work of the Holy Spirit that competes the task of giving us the irrefutable proof of the fact that God is alive and active in our lives.  

            Sharing our faith really shouldn’t be scary… at least not too much.  But it should be gentle.  We’re not talking about knocking on doors or accosting random strangers on the street here.  What we’re talking about is being relentlessly joyful, or relentlessly kind, or relentlessly helpful, or relentlessly whatever it is that God has given you that makes you so very special in His sight.  It’s about being ourselves, and letting the love that God has lavished on us, shine through our actions and our lives in a way that allows others to be able to see and experience that love also.  As Madeleine L’Engle so eloquently said.  It’s about “showing people a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it”. 

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”  When we allow ourselves to become the hands, and the feet, and the voice of Jesus, we become the people who make Jesus real in the lives of others.  We become the reason that they are able not to see… and yet to believe.