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Turn Back

Posted on by Sherrad Hayes in Preaching the Blessed Gospel

This is part of a series of sermon manuscripts I’ve preached while traveling to other churches. For more information, see the introduction to “Preaching the Blessed Gospel.”

Below is the manuscript of a sermon I preached on September 10, 2017 (14th Sunday after Pentecost) at Coker Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Coker, AL, just west of Tuscaloosa. As with all the manuscripts I post, the actual sermon varied in places. 

Image credit: Maarten van Heemskerck, The Prophet Isaiah Predicts the Return of Jews After Exile

Sermon Text – Ezekiel 33:7-11

“’As I live,’ declares the Lord GOD, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.'”

The people of Judah, the people of Ezekiel, were humiliated, disoriented in a strange land, and filled with guilt because their sin had put them there. It had been three hundred years since one king had ruled over all the tribes of Israel, and all that had been remembered for generations was a people of God divided among themselves. A hundred years earlier, their great-grandparents had seen from a distance the fall of the Northern Kingdom. They had heard the stories of how fellow Israelites from their sister tribes were conquered and taken into exile. They probably had heard the oracles from the prophets to the Northern Kingdom: Elijah, Elisha, Amos, Hosea, and Jonah. They had certainly heard the warnings from their own southern prophets: Isaiah, Micah, Zephaniah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Obadiah, Jeremiah – and Ezekiel.

The way of idolatry was filled with danger. The trust they placed in kings and foreign alliances was trust misplaced. Lack of faithfulness to the one, true God would have dire consequences. Conquest and exile and shame were the only possible outcomes from their eagerness to abandon the God who had given them life and a home and food and protection.

Six hundred years before the birth of Jesus, the time of exile for the people of the Southern Kingdom had come. Trusting in their own strength and disobeying God, they rebelled against Babylon and asserted their independence from that empire. Babylon invaded. One by one, the city lights of Judah were put out. Their homes were destroyed or abandoned. They and their children were marched off to the capital of the invading army, Babylon, like prized trophies. They watched as some of their children were dashed against the rocks. The few relatives and friends that were left in the land were destitute vassals of a foreign foe. And in this chapter of Ezekiel, the news comes that Jerusalem herself has fallen. And they are forced to sing songs for the pleasure of their captors.

By the waters of Babylon,

          there we sat down and wept,

          when we remembered Zion.

On the willows there

          we hung up our lyres.

For there our captors

          required of us songs,

and our tormentors, mirth, saying,

          “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

How shall we sing the LORD’s song

          in a foreign land?

If I forget you, O Jerusalem,

          let my right hand forget its skill!

Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth,

          if I do not remember you,

if I do not set Jerusalem

          above my highest joy!

Ezekiel, for his part, had delivered the warning from the LORD. The call Ezekiel receives in verses 7-9 in today’s passage are very similar to the first call Ezekiel had received in chapter 3. Ezekiel was the watchman. It was not Ezekiel’s job to stop the danger – it was his job to sound the alarm. It was his job to remain alert, awake, and pass along the things he had seen – the things he had received from the Lord – to the people. It was the people’s job to repent, to prepare, and to pray so that disaster might be avoided. The people did not. For 24 chapters, Ezekiel warns them of the danger that’s coming. The people do not repent. Now they sit in exile.

Have you ever sat in exile? Most all of us can probably remember a time growing up when our mama or daddy warned us not to do something. Then, instead of bailing us out, they let us reap the uncomfortable consequences of whatever stupid decision we had made. What about now? What harsh words have you said that severed friendships or even family relationships that you desperately miss? What lies have you said that have come back to break trust you had with another person? What things have you neglected only to have them turn into major problems?

And, perhaps even more pertinent to our Christian growth in sanctification, our Christian progress by the Holy Spirit at work within us to become more holy, more like Christ – do you really mourn for your sins themselves and not just the consequences of them? Do you hate your sin the way that God hates it?

It is easy for us to take the first verses of this passage and glorify ourselves as watchmen, pointing out the sins of other people. However, keep in mind that though Ezekiel condemns the actions of the nations in chapters 25 to 29, his primary call is to people of faith! His main condemnation is for people inside the community, inside the church, to call them to repentance. There is certainly the clear command from the Bible for us to lovingly correct one another – especially within the church. I certainly need to be called out, often, by sisters and brothers in Christ – pastors are no exception to this rule.

But we do not do this as specifically appointed watchmen, as Ezekiel was. Our command to call out warnings about wickedness comes because we are sentries who serve under the Master Watchman, Jesus Christ. If we view this text as primarily a call for us to point out every imagined flaw in others, then we forget the clear warning of our Watchman to us: “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”

Make no mistake – we are the wicked who need to turn from our way. Our Watchmen has warned us faithfully. And we warn others – and we should warn others – not as people with any kind of authority but, as D.T. Niles put it, “one beggar telling another beggar where he has found bread.”

The hurricanes that have been pounding Texas and Florida and the Caribbean have been tragic. And whenever one of these natural disasters strike, it seems that there are always Christians who want to explain why such a tragic thing would happen, to call out one sin or other that the community has committed to warrant such a disaster! Nowhere in the Bible, the only fully trustworthy oracle of God, do I see a specific explanation for hurricanes Harvey, Irma, or Jose developing in the Year of Our Lord, 2017! In so many ways, some of us are looking to point the blame instead of looking for ways to help; in so many ways, we criticize others for living in places where storms like this strike instead of offering shelter to those fleeing the storm. We give our efforts to explain why the storm exists instead of pointing to the Christ who calms storms. We say to others, “What sin did you commit to cause these winds and these waves?!” instead of saying what we both need to hear: “Look! Here is the One whom even the winds and the waves obey.”

Maybe these tragedies are extreme examples, but we cast blame for sin while ignoring our own all the time. Drug addict? Did it to himself. Lost your job over a lie? Did it to herself. Worried about being deported? Shouldn’t have come here illegally! We think we are offering warnings, but none of these come from humility in Christ. We forget the countless idols to which we are addicted, and we forget that if not for grace, we would be in the same spot. We forget the many lies we’ve told, lies for which only grace has kept us from bearing the consequences. We ignore the stranger, but we forget that when Christ says, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me” – the command has no concept of a distinction between legal status or no legal status. We forget that apart from the grace of God, we too were “strangers and aliens” to the Kingdom of God and we were brought in only because God did not follow the strict legal demands of the law but showed us grace in Jesus Christ!

Sisters and brothers, if we are to give any warning, we have to be so heartbroken over our own sin that we continually turn to God in Christ by the Holy Spirit. How many of you have been so broken by your own sin that you say with the people of Judah in exile in verse 10: “Surely our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we rot away because of them. How then can we live?” And note the plural here: “our transgressions, our sin, we rot.” How many of us can say as a church that we are deeply sorrowful for the sins we as a church have committed in the past? Our General Assembly issued a formal apology last year, but how many of us as Cumberland Presbyterians feel the transgression and sin upon us for legally segregating our black brothers and sisters in Christ? For pushing them away for 143 years? For 53 years the University of Alabama, a secular institution just down the road, has been integrated. And we feel no shame, no weight of transgression, for being hesitant about embracing full fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Christ?

“No regrets” is a popular slogan for the world, but not for a Christian. The people of Judah in Babylon regret in this passage. Are they fully there, yet? Not quite as the end of the chapter tells us. But they have a thousand bad decisions they wish to take back. And if we ever wish to offer warnings to the world, to tell the world it desperately needs Jesus Christ, we have to know the depths of our sin so that we can know the depths of how much we need Jesus. “How then can we live?” How could Jesus save someone so wretched as I am? Doesn’t he know what I’ve done? Even as someone who’s a Christian – doesn’t he know what I’m still doing? Doesn’t he know all of the ways in which I’ve failed him, neglected my brother, and hurt my sister? You who pass judgment on others, do you not do the same things? The warning from Ezekiel and from Jesus is for us! How can we then live, knowing what we’ve done to separate us from God? How can we talk about what others deserve when exile from God is exactly what we deserve?

Sisters and brothers, the good news is that God does not delight in the death of the wicked – wicked people like you, wicked people like me, and wicked people like the countless others we judge – but desires that all of us would turn away and live!

And the good news goes even deeper than that. The good news is that even in exile, God finds us!

And can it be that I should gain

An int’rest in the Savior’s blood?

Died He for me, who caused His pain?

For me, who Him to death pursued?

Amazing love! how can it be

That Thou, my God, should die for me?

This was the main point I wanted you to know from the sermons I gave last year on the three parables from Luke 15: The Lost Sheep, The Lost Coin, and The Prodigal Son – the turn that happens in repentance, the turning back to God that we all must do each and every day of our lives, only happens because God in Jesus Christ has already turned toward us and by his Spirit enables us to turn ourselves. Turn to him and live.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

 

The Baked Potato

Posted on by Sherrad Hayes in Reflections from Pastor Sherrad

This series is a collection of recipes called “The Church Potluck“

Growing up, my favorite place to eat out was a certain chain steak house named after a desert region in an Oceanian country that’s also its own continent . . . you can guess the one. Anyway, my third favorite item on the menu – beside the steak and the battered, deep–fried  onion – was the potato. I had never had a potato with salty crispy skin. I had never had a baked potato so fluffy. I didn’t even know what a chive was. But there they were, springing up like a grassy field on my potato . . .

For years, I wondered how to bake the perfect potato, a potato just like the ones I treasured at that restaurant. But which potato? There are so many! Do I wrap it foil?  I soon found that’s a recipe for slimy skin and soggy flesh. Well, as has been the case for so many of my culinary quandaries – Alton Brown came to my rescue. This is his potato. I’m just the messenger (with a few slight changes for personal preference). And I had the great privilege of cooking 110 of these monsters for our church membership celebration back on August 27.

Here’s how.

Ingredients

  • 1 russet potato*
  • oil to coat**
  • kosher salt

*Russets have the right kind of starch that yields a light, fluffy potato when cooked. They’re perfect for mashing and baking. 

**I use regular olive oil for flavor (do not use extra virgin as it might burn and would be a waste since most of the complex flavors would cook away). If you prefer, a flavor-nuetral oil like canola or vegetable would work just fine.

Directions

  • Heat oven to 350 degrees.
  • Thoroughly wash potato with cold, running water. Scrub with hands or a brush.
  • Pat potato dry.
  • With a fork, poke 3 holes on four sides for 12 holes total.*
  • Place potato in a bowl and coat lightly with oil.
  • Sprinkle potato liberally with kosher salt.
  • Line a sheet pan with foil and place it on the rack immediately below where the potato will be placed (to catch drippings).
  • Place potato directly on to the center rack of the oven above the sheet pan. DO NOT FOIL THE POTATO!**
  • Cook for 1 hour or until skin crisps and flesh is soft.
  • Keep whole until serving. Then slice open with a knife, and cut a grid into the flesh of the potato to allow butter/toppings*** to melt/fall into the flesh of the potato.

*The holes will allow steam to escape as the potato cooks. This is more about the texture of the final product than it is keeping the potato from . . . uh . . . exploding.

**The only way toward crispy skin is to keep airflow around the potato. This is why it’s placed directly on the rack. Foil not only blocks out the hot air, it keeps in moisture which makes the potato soggy.

***My favorite combo is butter, cheddar cheese, bacon bits, and chives. 

 

 

 

The Church Potluck: Introduction

Posted on by Sherrad Hayes in Reflections from Pastor Sherrad

When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire in place, with fish laid out on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, 153 of them. And although there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them:

“Come and have breakfast.”

– John 21:9-12a

Why have a church blog about food?

No one who has ever been to a Southern church potluck dwells on this question too long. Like our first century brethren before us, we know that food and fellowship go hand in hand. That’s why at the heart of Christian worship, there’s a meal.

Jesus cooked breakfast for his disciples.

And like a great many servant-leaders in our church (who’ve cooked far more meals for our members than I), one of the great privileges I’ve had while serving here is to cook. And at least some people have been kind enough (or polite enough) to ask me for some of the recipes I’ve used.  Since we have so many wonderful chefs, I thought I’d make a space on our church blog to share.

So, light the charcoal. Bake the bread and casseroles. Bring the fish.

“Come and have breakfast.”

The Kingdom through Tribulations

Posted on by Sherrad Hayes in The Act of the Holy Spirit

The following is the sermon manuscript I used on September 3, 2017, the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost. It will vary in places from the actual sermon preached.

For more on this series, see our Introduction. 

Sermon Text – Acts 14:19-23

“…Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.”

I doubt that’s anyone’s favorite Bible verse.

Derek and I are cynics at heart – that’s probably why we get along so well. We’d probably be full-blown cynics if not for the gospel. And part of that natural cynicism for us is a running joke about how people – including us, I don’t think Derek and I are exempt – pick their favorite Bible verses. We tend to pick the verses that only have aspects we can easily perceive as positive. We tend to pick the verses that we can easily take out of context and affirm what we already believe (or affirm what we already want to happen). We love Jeremiah 29:11, right? “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” (Even though the “you” in that verse should be read as “y’all” – plural. And the y’all should be read as “the people of Israel.” And the “plans for welfare, future, and hope” should be read as “plans for welfare, future, and hope fulfilled by Christ!” – not “plans for wealth, a good career, and a loving spouse.”)

Of the 31,102 verses in the Bible, Acts 14:22 is definitely in bottom third when it comes to favorite verses. If the verses of the Bible were picked like the NFL draft, this is a seventh round pick right here. Don’t get me wrong in all of this – if you have a verse from God’s true and perfect word that reminds you of the peace you have in Christ and encourages you to live your life in obedience to him, do not let me take that away from you! But we need to be reminded, often, of the full scope of God’s word for us, the full counsel of the Bible. Indeed, we probably need to be reminded more often by the verses and parts of the Bible we don’t like than the ones we do. The verses we love and the verses that make us uncomfortable are both equally God’s true word written for us.

Because regardless of whatever verse you might have picked to be your “life verse” – Acts 14:22 is a pretty good candidate to be Paul’s life verse: “…through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.” But not because he picked it! Remember, Paul was the one causing the tribulation! He approved of the stoning of Stephen; here we see Paul stoned himself. He traveled many miles to kill Christians; here we see others travel many miles to kill him. The victimizer has become the victim. The persecutor has become the refugee. The enemy of Christ has become his disciple and apostle. The reversal is as clear and as shocking as what Jesus said to Ananias at Paul’s conversion: “…he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”

Or as Paul puts it in his own words in 2 Corinthians:

“I repeat, let no one think me foolish. But even if you do, accept me as a fool, so that I too may boast a little….But whatever anyone else dares to boast of—I am speaking as a fool—I also dare to boast of that….Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one—I am talking like a madman—with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant? If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.”

Paul’s life showcased his own weakness to demonstrate the power of Jesus Christ through the working of the Holy Spirit within him. It was not a prosperous life, as the world understands prosperity. It was not his “best life, now” as we normally think of it. It was not a first century version of the American dream. No, his life was a dream and a hope of the eternal Kingdom of God.

Acts 14 is the conclusion of Paul’s first missionary journey – the first intentional attempt by the apostles to spread the gospel to the Gentiles. And, as has been a characteristic of Acts all along, wherever the disciples of Jesus go they are met with two reactions: many come to believe in the name of Jesus Christ, and others violently reject the name of Jesus Christ. These are the two reactions that remain to this day.

Paul and Barnabas have sailed from Antioch in Syria – where the first church outside of Israel was founded and where the disciples were first called “Christians” – westward to the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, and up into what is now modern-day Turkey. From there they go into another city called Antioch, Antioch in Pisidia, and then they start going further Southeast.

Paul and Barnabas preach at Iconium, but the people are divided and they are forced to flee the city. So they go to a city called Lystra to preach. There, instead of being forced to flee, the people think they’re gods! As Paul is preaching, the Holy Spirit heals a crippled man after Paul sees the man’s faith and tells him to stand up. So, as any good pagan would do if he thought he just met Zeus and Hermes in person, the town priest gets some oxen and moseys them out to the city entrance to make a sacrifice. Now the last person in Acts who was thought to be a god was King Herod, and when Herod failed to correct the people, an angel of the Lord struck him down and he was eaten by worms. So – rather than go through that – Paul and Barnabas tear their clothes and explain to people, “Hey, pay attention to what we’ve been saying. We’re not the living God!”

(That always bring me comfort as a preacher, by the way. Because when I want to get frustrated or wonder why it seems like some people just won’t listen, no matter I hard you try, I know it happened to Paul and Barnabas, too!)

But even with the second explanation, they still have a time trying to convince the folks at Lystra to, you know, not make sacrifices to them. That is until some people come from Antioch in Pisidia and the place they just fled from – Iconium. The folks from Antioch walked about 100 miles to stone Paul. And apparently this convinced the folks at Lystra, because they go from wanting to worship Paul to wanting to kill him in an instant! They stone Paul, think he’s dead, and leave him for it.

But Paul is not alone. Barnabas and other disciples – not the Twelve, but the new ones there in the town gather around him. And just as miraculously as the crippled man Paul healed in that same town, by the power of the Holy Spirit Paul stands up!

He enters the town again – because, you know, after you’ve been stoned almost to death you need a little bit of rest, right? But the very next day, he gets up and starts walking to the town of Derbe that’s about fifty miles away! My physical therapist wife would be proud. He and Barnabas continue to preach the gospel, and many are made disciples.

Now at this point in the story, it would be easy for Paul to keep traveling southeast to Tarsus, his home town. It also would have been easy for them to call it a day, keep going southeast by land and get to Antioch in Syria where this whole trip started. Not a bad first trip.

But the work is not done. The persecution they faced in these cities is the same persecution the new disciples face. When Jesus gave the apostles the command to evangelize, he said, “Make disciples.” He did not say, “Make converts.” Paul and Barnabas knew that to be a disciple of Jesus Christ meant a life-long commitment. It was something that required consistent day-to-day faithfulness – not just a one-time decision!

So, they go back. It was perfectly acceptable for them to flee as refugees from the persecution they were facing in those cities. Indeed, as we’ve seen earlier in Acts, this flight from persecution is how the gospel started to spread to the Gentiles in the first place! But now the Spirit is calling them back, back to the places where they almost died to preach to those who almost killed them. They comfort and encourage the new disciples – not by denying the harsh realities to which their new faith calls them – but by saying that the Kingdom of God is worth it. Christ is worth it for them to endure any kind of tribulation. Paul and Barnabas appoint elders to lead these new churches; they fast and pray over them. Then, they take the long, back-tracking route to where their missionary journey started.

“…Through many tribulations we must enter the Kingdom of God.”

Those are true words of encouragement and peace. They may not seem like it – oh how we desire our creaturely comforts! We fail to see those words as encouraging because we often fail to see how many tribulations Christ himself endured. And more than that, we fail to see the Christian life as a call to enter into the tribulations of Christ so that we might also enter into the Kingdom of Christ.

“I have been crucified with Christ! It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me,” Paul would go on to tell us. The old self must be put off for the new to be put on. We must be buried with Christ in order to rise with him to newness of life.

This does not mean seeking out tribulations. Whenever they can, Paul and Barnabas flee when persecution comes so that the work might continue. But what it certainly does not mean is that we abandon our faith, reject our hope, or hide the light of Christ within us. Life is frustrating enough. Ask the people in Houston! Ask one of our brothers and sisters in this congregation who is agonizing over poor health, or estranged family members, or mourning or preparing the loss of a dear friend. Calamity and disaster and disease and death will continue to strike in a world that remains in rebellion against the one true God.

The tribulations we face in the world are not signs that God is not sovereign – that God remains aloof or distant or not in control. Nor are they signs that God is a sadist – that God delights in killing people or sending natural disasters or is constantly trying to tempt us. God does not tempt us, as James tells us, and God does not delight even in the death of the wicked but desires that all should turn and worship him! No, these tribulations are signs that the world – though still under God’s sovereign control – opposes God because of the Fall and because of sin. “The servant is not above the Master,” Jesus tells us. If the world opposes God, and we are for God, then we can expect the world to oppose us. We can expect to face many tribulations. This is the reality for us who follow Christ. But Christ tells us, “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

Notice how Paul, by the power of the Holy Spirit, handles these tribulations. He is wounded! But he does not hide himself in his wounds. He does not deny they exist – he takes rest when he needs it – and he does not suffer his wounds alone. He turns to the community, and the community surrounds him. He neither wallows in self-pity nor does he just “suck it up” and move on. He lives in recognition of his wounded-ness within the community, and by the power of God’s own Spirit, he continues moving forward in faith obedient to the command of God. He is weakened by his stoning, but his weakness is not something that stops him. Instead, it is the very thing that forces him to rely less and less on himself and more and more on God’s Holy Spirit so that he can proclaim that in his weakness the power of God is demonstrated! In his weakness, in his insufficiency, in his suffering through tribulation, in the scars he bears from the tribulations of his life he walks onward in faith – even back to places of danger.

As Paul would later tell the Philippians, “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”

Everything that he was, everything that he had, everything that he wanted to be was stoned with Paul at Lystra. And so should it be for us. For the Kingdom of Christ is worth it. Thy Kingdom come. Amen.

Seeing in the Spirit

Posted on by Sherrad Hayes in The Act of the Holy Spirit

The following is the sermon manuscript I used on July 30, 2017, the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost. It will vary in places from the actual sermon preached.

For more on this series, see our Introduction. 

Sermon Text – Acts 9:1-19a

There is at least one question our text this morning begs you to answer.

Do you see Jesus?

Every morning I wake up and I stumble to find my glasses. I hate it. When I was in the third grade, I remember wanting glasses so I could look cool like I thought my best friend at the time looked. Sure enough, in the fourth grade, I started having to sit closer to chalkboard. I had to go to the eye doctor, and I had to get glasses. Now, I can’t see the big “E” on the eye exam chart without them. I always say the same thing: “I know it’s an ‘E,’ but I can’t see it.” I can’t even see my glasses in the morning before I put them on! If I don’t put my glasses in the exact same place each night before I go to bed, I stumble around like an idiot trying to find them. I kind of want to go back and slap my third-grade self for making such a stupid wish!

My reality is that I cannot see without them. The world is so distorted to me without my glasses that I cannot function without them. I would be a serious danger to others if I tried to drive without them.

At the start of this passage, Saul is a blind man barreling down a crowded highway in a semi-truck. In verse one, he’s not physically blind – yet – but make no mistake: Saul is just as spiritually blind here as he will soon be physically. And dangerous. Yes, Luke chooses to introduce this famous apostle, whom we most often call Paul, Luke’s friend and traveling companion, the man who would go on to write half of the New Testament…as a murderer. Because that is who Saul is. His blindness is no excuse.

As we saw from a couple of weeks ago, he approved the murder of Stephen, and now we see him breathing murder. Like Cain (the first murderer who rose against his brother) Saul’s lungs are filled with the breath of hatred and death instead of the Spirit of life that comes from God. What makes it worse is that he has legal (and what he thinks is godly) justification for what he wants to do. There is no one and no conscience within himself to stop what him.

If you were watching this narrative as a movie or a TV show, you would think that the director was setting up Saul to be the great villain of this story. Here is the man whom the heroic apostles must struggle against and endure. Here is the one who is going to create some dramatic tension for us to see the great heroism and perseverance of these Christians in the face of the persecution.

But as Derek and I have said many times before, the apostles are not the heroes of Acts. Though church tradition has called this “The Acts of the Apostles,” there is no main character here other than the Holy Spirit. The great villain of Acts doesn’t become the great villain he’s set up to be! Instead, Saul defeated by the real hero of this book – Jesus – just as this villain’s persecution is about to get started in earnest. And he is defeated not by Jesus killing him (though certainly we should talk about this being the time that the old Saul dies and the new Saul in Christ is born). But Jesus defeats Saul by causing him to see.

The light of almighty God shines on him. And in that light, he sees that by persecuting Jesus’ followers, he is persecuting Jesus himself. And in that light, he sees that by persecuting Jesus himself he is murdering the very God he thought he followed. But this light that shines isn’t clear to everyone. We know from the details here and from the other places Luke recounts this story in Acts, Saul’s companions see the light, but they don’t see Jesus. They hear a voice, but it’s not clear that they’ve heard or understood the words. How is it that Saul saw Jesus?

One of the symptoms of severe sleep deprivation is hallucinations. One military school I attended is infamous for this, and there are stories of students trying put imaginary coins in trees thinking they’re coke machines. I have not had a Damascus Road experience quite like Paul, but I have had an I-85 experience. This might come as a bit of a shock to you, but I was a nerd in college. My poor college decisions don’t involve drinking and driving but driving after being up too many hours studying and writing. I remember one finals period when I drove from my home in Lanett to Auburn and stayed on campus two nights to try to finish everything. I had some periodic naps on couches, more 5-hour energy drinks than I’d care to admit to, and took a shower at the gym. When I had finally turned in my last paper, I started the drive back to go to bed. It normally took about 35 minutes. At four in the morning after being more or less awake for 60 hours, driving back felt like three hours. Thankfully, there weren’t many cars on the road, but the ones that were – I swear looked like space ships!

Saul did not hallucinate this vision of Jesus. When Saul was knocked down into the dirt, he was snapped out of his hallucination to see reality. This was not some vision that was somehow separated from the “real” world we live in. No. Saul was given a glimpse of something – or should I say, someone – who was more real than the dirt on the ground he felt when he fell. John in his Gospel tells the story of the disciples who were gathered together in a locked room after Jesus had died. Suddenly, Jesus appeared amongst them – not as a ghost or a vision, but as a flesh-and-blood human being  who allowed Thomas to touch and feel his wounds. How did Jesus get in the door? The risen Christ was more real than the door and could not be contained or stopped by it!

So too, the risen Christ could not be contained or stopped by Saul’s hallucination of how he thought the world really was. The Holy Spirit opened Saul’s eyes to see! The others experienced a real event, but without the Spirit, they were more blind than Saul.

Do you see Jesus?

Sisters and brothers, everything that Saul did in the passage that was worthwhile and good – his obedience in entering the city, his praying, his fasting, his baptism, the breaking of the fast – was done because he had seen Jesus.

It’s not the other way around. Saul didn’t find Jesus by preaching Jesus, or suffering for Jesus’ name, or being baptized, or praying, or fasting. All of these things are very good, but they did not come first! Saul did not get baptized in a t-shirt that said, “I have decided!” No one told Saul, “Congratulations!” or “I’m so proud of you!” after he was baptized. Jesus saw Saul first and by the Holy Spirit, Jesus caused Saul to see him. That murdering Saul, who was killing Jesus all over again by sending the followers of Jesus to be killed was chosen by Jesus to be the Apostle to the Gentiles.

No wonder Saul later wrote, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast.”

Do you see Jesus? Squinting will do you no good – sisters and brothers, he is here in this place! He is here because he has promised to be where two or more are gathered in his name. He is here because he has promised and not because we’re so great apart from him. He didn’t say he would be here only if the hymns were ones we liked, or the people were people we liked, or if we thought the preaching was inspired or inspiring. He is the Lord who decides where he will and will not go.

He is here, whether we experience him or not, and the times when we don’t feel like we experience him in worship are the times we most need to be knocked down in the dirt! Those are the times we need to be blinded by his light! Those are the times we need to have the scales fall from our eyes.

So often, we try to chase after some worship “experience” where we feel close to Jesus and don’t see the Jesus standing right in front of us, calling us by name. We nit-pick.  We lose our contentment in the present Immanuel, God with us, because we become so focused on chasing experience or complaining about what’s not right that we fail to thank God for his very presence. We think what we do here is mundane. Not miraculous. Certainly far from the Damascus road.

But that distance is in our mind’s eye – not God’s. We need the Holy Spirit to open our eyes. We need the Holy Spirit to show us Jesus.

And indeed he is here. “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” If Jesus is so intimate with his disciples, so close to them that when they are faced with persecution and murder and death, he says that it is his own persecution and his own death – as he says to Saul – then how can we doubt that he shows up to what seems like an ordinary, peaceful Sunday morning? And if he is here – how can we do anything but fall to the ground, shaken by the light of his presence.

How can we not – like Ananias – see Christ at work in our sisters and brothers, especially those sisters and brothers whom we don’t like, whom we criticize, even those who have wronged us in the past. Paul had people Ananias loved handed over to be killed. And the first word Ananias says to Paul is “brother!”

Sisters and brothers, the Holy Spirit has opened our eyes to see Jesus. He has opened our eyes to see Jesus standing right in front of us, telling us that he will never leave us nor forsake us. He calls us by grace – not what we have done! Even the vile things we did this week cannot separate us from the reality of Christ’s presence with us now and always. Just as Saul later wrote: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord!”

Sisters and brothers, see the risen Christ at work here and in one another and be at peace. Amen.

Our Advent-ing God

Posted on by Adam Borneman in Advent, Advent with Barth

Rev. Adam S. Borneman is a dear friend to Homewood CPC and currently lives in Atlanta, GA with his wife Jessica and daughters Maggie and Hanna. He will be contributing to the HCPC blog regularly beginning with this post.

 

If there’s one time of year that reminds us that God is the primary agent, subject, actor, or any other term that highlights God’s initiative over ours, its Advent. We didn’t “figure out” God from our lived experience. Our lived experiences only reveal to us our limited capacity for knowing God and the necessity for God to move toward us if we are to know him at all. “Ex nobis, pro nobis, in Christo,” (Outside of us, for us, in Christ) Martin Luther once put it.

And so, the eternal triune God, who is above, beyond, and outside of us, graciously creates us and perennially moves toward us in love. With this in mind, we begin to see more clearly that the birth of Jesus of Nazareth isn’t the only “advent.” It is a – or perhaps the – climactic moment in the life of Triune God who is always advent-ing toward each of us and toward the whole world in ways that are mysterious, beautiful, and often difficult to grasp. The season of Advent is simply an opportunity for us to focus on how God reveals to us that he is, in a sense, always coming to us.

God has always been showing up on his own initiative in “fleshy” ways: at creation taming the waters, walking in the garden of Eden, as three men at Abraham’s door, as Jacob’s wrestling partner, an angel on several occasions, and as a “Word” that “comes” to various patriarchs, kings, and prophets. And may we not overlook Israel’s designation as “the Son of God,” called to embody and give witness to God’s grace, justice, and steadfast love before the nations. These are all very “fleshy” movements of God toward the world in love. Whether these instances mark appearances of the second person of the Trinity in some form is a conversation for another day, but we would do well to keep them in mind was we reflect on God coming to us.

It’s easy during Advent for us to slide into the temptation of thinking “I need to get closer to God this Advent.” My advice would be to stop trying so hard. Sure, pick up that advent devotional, light a wreath, sing hymns. Yes and Amen. I’m doing the same. But these are only ways of acknowledging that God has always been moving toward us and that, in Jesus of Nazareth, God has come become supremely, shockingly, and intimately close. Mary initially thought it impossible, and I think we still do. God’s movements toward us often happen in ways we don’t anticipate or expect, but always in ways that are ultimately for our good and the good of the whole world. What’s more it’s all God’s initiative, not ours. And that will always be the case. So take a deep breath, know that the Son of God is drawing close, and rest in the grace of God’s advent.

A Year of Worship: Advent

Posted on by Sherrad Hayes in Reflections from Pastor Sherrad

While the world is already busy celebrating “Christmas,” the Church waits for Christ’s advent.

My sister could never wait for Christmas. She was the baby, so she always got her way – despite my disapproval as the elder brother and self-appointed guardian of “family tradition.” Opening presents on Christmas Eve after the evening service evolved into opening them before . . . and then to before lunch. One year, I think we opened some on December 23rd. Some years later, my own hypocrisy and impatience were exposed when a certain ring burned a hole in my pocket, and I caved, and I gave my then-girlfriend-now-wife her present three days before Christmas.

No one likes to wait. Waiting is surrender to someone else’s timeline.

We structure our time by our whims. Certainly, there are demands made of us and our time that we must honor. Certainly, there are circumstances that limit the control we have over our own time. Yet even the busiest among us – even those of us who are chained to schedules and alarms and calendars – reserve our right to make final decisions about how we structure our time. The world around us can offer its input, we can look to the norms of others, but ultimately, we turn up the Christmas music in October if we feel like it! (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)

God’s time is not our time. It is not our time in the same way that God’s ways are not our ways nor his thoughts our thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9) The emphasis in Scripture is not so much that God is timeless – that God stands impervious and indifferent to time. God reigns over time.

For us who serve Jesus as Lord, we acknowledge his complete Lordship over “our” time. Jesus is not simply one more demand placed on our schedules; it’s even wrong to say he’s the most important demand on our schedule. God has bought all of our time for a price, the price of his beloved Son, just as God has bought our very souls. (1 Corinthians 6:20)

The Church Year is our reminder that God is sovereign over time, that we should make “the best use” of our time (Ephesians 5:16) in a walk of holiness, and, ultimately, that God has redeemed our time through Jesus Christ. This is why the Church Year is shaped by the life of Christ himself. From birth to burial to resurrection to reign, every day of the Church Calendar is meant to fix our present eyes on the historic works of Christ so that we see him shining in eternal glory. Following the Church Year means repentance and surrender.

Advent (“coming”) is the Church’s time of penitential, hopeful waiting for God to fulfill God’s promises in Jesus Christ at the right time, his time. (Romans 5:6) It starts the Church Year as a reminder of how the faithful of Israel surrendered to God while waiting in hope for the Messiah. It is a reminder that, even today, we are eagerly waiting for Christ’s return. “Surely, he is coming soon. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20)

The Five Solae: Solus Christus

Posted on by M. Derek Jacks in The Five Solae

solus christus

In Scripture alone we know we are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

In Acts 4:12, Peter and John make the clear proclamation of where salvation is found: “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” What is that name? It is Jesus Christ.

In Christ alone. This means that because Jesus is our Savior, then he is our Lord. If he calls us to move, we move. If he commands us to go, we go. If he tells us to act, we act. No questions.

When the citizens of Rome would greet each other in the streets during the time of the Early Church, those citizens would say to one another, “Caesar is Lord!” It was the type of “hello” and “goodbye” that a hearty “Roll Tide” or “War Eagle” has become in our time and place. When the first Christians were greeted with “Caesar is Lord”, their response was markedly different. Instead of affirming what the worldly powers proclaimed, the early Christians would respond with the words, “Jesus is Lord!”

These words were treason. They threatened the security of the state. They struck at the heart of “law and order” as the political powers understood it. Why? Because the political leaders during the time of the Early Church believed that they themselves were divine. They had, in their estimation, a connection with God and that meant that their decrees and leadership must be followed and worshipped. But Jesus was God. And the followers of Jesus could not serve both the world and God (Matthew 6:24)

The Protestant Reformation was centered upon the truth that man is saved by Christ alone. This means that our lives and service are dedicated to Him alone. The heresy that we as individuals can merit salvation by what we do must always be defeated in our lives. In his Letter to the Galatians, Paul fought against the idea that faith in Christ must be accompanied by works of the flesh (circumcision) to be true. Martin Luther fought against the idea that monetary donations to the church ensures salvation of the soul. In our day, we must always fight the idea that any political or social idea is necessary for us to have and understand rightly salvation in Jesus Christ.

It is clearly and definitively in Christ alone that we have salvation. He is the bridge, the door, the way to eternal life. He is the Christ. May we never forget the sufficiency of Jesus for our salvation and life. Amen.

 

The Five Solae: Sola Fide

Posted on by Sherrad Hayes in The Five Solae

One of my wife’s “favorite” memories from growing up as a Christian youth in the ‘90s is the Audio Adrenaline song “DC-10”:

If a DC-10 ever fell on your head,

Laying in the ground all messy and dead…

Do you know where you’re gonna go?

Straight to Heaven? Or down the hole?

From this twenty-five-year-old song, to the revivals of two hundred years ago that started our denomination, to the “Hell Houses” of last month – many well-meaning (though sometimes questionable) evangelistic efforts have asked the question: “Do you know where you will go if you died tonight?” It’s so common, many of us probably think that personal assurance about where we will go after death is a basic mark of being “saved.”

Yet this question, if asked to even a faithful Christian in Europe in the early 16th century, would not prompt assurance – it would provoke fear. Luther spent most of his monastic life dreading the righteous judgment of a holy God. The Church of Luther’s day certainly taught grace. You received grace at baptism, through the Eucharist, the other sacraments, prayers, good works, etc. But whether or not an individual had accumulated enough grace to attain salvation upon death was anyone’s guess! The Council of Trent, formed by the Roman Catholic Church as a response to the Reformation in 1547, put it this way:

If anyone says that man is absolved from his sins and justified because he firmly believes that he is absolved and justified, or that no one is truly justified except him who believes himself justified, and that by this faith alone absolution and justification are effected, let him be anathema.

When Luther looked at himself and asked if he had received enough grace to find salvation, he saw only wretchedness and the fear of eternal damnation. Yet in Scripture, he found the only way of receiving saving grace: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.” (Ephesians 2:8)

The unmerited grace of God is the only reason for salvation. And this unmerited grace is received through faith – through believing and trusting – that God has actually done what God has said he has done. Martin Luther found the way to peace and assurance with God through this faith: “The law says, ‘Do this,’ and it is never done. Grace says, ‘Believe in this,’ and everything is already done.” (Heidelberg Disputation, 1518)

For Cumberland Presbyterians, faith is neither a “good work” nor a way to “merit salvation,” but it is a “response to God, prompted by the Holy Spirit, wherein persons rely solely upon God’s grace in Jesus Christ for salvation.” (Confession of Faith, 4.08-09) Faith itself is a gift from God, not of ourselves. And it is through this gift of faith alone whereby we can have assurance that everything needed for our salvation by grace alone has already been accomplished in Christ Jesus alone. Glory to God alone, now and forever! Amen.

The Five Solae: Sola Gratia

Posted on by M. Derek Jacks in The Five Solae

sola gratia (2)

In Scripture alone we know we are saved by grace alone.

I probably speak for most people when I say two intolerable states of mind in our world is ungratefulness and entitlement. To be ungrateful is to deny the giver the proper gratitude for gifts given. To be entitled is to believe you deserve those gifts. It is truly soul-draining to have to live among ungratefulness and entitlement.

Ephesians 2 points us to the cure for ungratefulness and entitlement for the Christian. In this section of Paul’s letter, he clearly spells out the foundation of our life in Jesus Christ. Jesus clarifies the truth about who we are as God’s people. You see, our lives do not belong to us. Every one of us have been saved by Jesus, but the battle we wage in the Christian life is not forgetting where we came from. If we have all been saved by Jesus from sin and death, we know that we have an eternal home with Him. But that eternal life does not first begin when we die. Eternal life has already begun. And if it has already begun, then how and why do we live?

Scripture teaches us very clearly that God is holy. It teaches us that we are a fallen people. It teaches us that this fallenness separates us from God. And if we take this truth seriously, we begin the attempt to find out how to repair the division caused by our sin. But Scripture also teaches us that there is nothing we can do to repair the rift between us and God. As it is, we need a miracle. We need something other than we can give. We need grace.

Grace is defined as the “unmerited favor of God”. Where do we find such a thing as grace? Contrary to our plans and schemes, we cannot purchase it, nor can we earn it. It is a gift. If it were an answer to the question “What can I do to be saved?” the short answer would be “Nothing in your own strength and power, but only the grace of God can save you.”

Jesus is the embodiment of the grace of God. He takes on our sin and death and defeats both definitively. He then extends this victory over sin and death to his people. Grasping the grace of God in Jesus Christ is professing that all our strivings to be made right before God are ineffective. No good work, regardless of how great it is, can save you. Instead, it is only the grace of God in Jesus Christ that saves.

When we forget the grace of God in Jesus Christ, we live ungrateful lives ignoring the giver of the precious gift of salvation. We see our blessings as the result of our own efforts. We then do not worship with gratitude. We might even slip into the realm of believing we are deserving of the good gifts of God. Because we have done this or that, then somehow God owes us for our good work. Yet again, this is another affront to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

May we live with gratitude to God by understanding that while we were yet sinners, Jesus died for us. May we life knowing that our good deeds are not work deserving of eternal compensation. Instead, may we see the life changing truth of Ephesians 2: it is by grace that we are saved, so that we may walk in the good deeds God has already done. This makes the content of our lives a source of glory and joy to God alone. Amen.