EXODUS 32:1-16 [NLTse]
When the people saw how long it was taking Moses to come back down the mountain, they gathered around Aaron. “Come on,” they said, “make us some gods who can lead us. We don’t know what happened to this fellow Moses, who brought us here from the land of Egypt.”

2 So Aaron said, “Take the gold rings from the ears of your wives and sons and daughters, and bring them to me.”
3 All the people took the gold rings from their ears and brought them to Aaron. 4 Then Aaron took the gold, melted it down, and molded it into the shape of a calf. When the people saw it, they exclaimed, “O Israel, these are the gods who brought you out of the land of Egypt!”

5 Aaron saw how excited the people were, so he built an altar in front of the calf. Then he announced, “Tomorrow will be a festival to the Lord!”

6 The people got up early the next morning to sacrifice burnt offerings and peace offerings. After this, they celebrated with feasting and drinking, and they indulged in pagan revelry.

7 The Lord told Moses, “Quick! Go down the mountain! Your people whom you brought from the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. 8 How quickly they have turned away from the way I commanded them to live! They have melted down gold and made a calf, and they have bowed down and sacrificed to it. They are saying, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.’”

9 Then the Lord said, “I have seen how stubborn and rebellious these people are. 10 Now leave Me alone so My fierce anger can blaze against them, and I will destroy them. Then I will make you, Moses, into a great nation.”

11 But Moses tried to pacify the Lord his God. “O Lord!” he said. “Why are You so angry with Your Own people whom You brought from the land of Egypt with such great power and such a strong hand? 12 Why let the Egyptians say, ‘Their God rescued them with the evil intention of slaughtering them in the mountains and wiping them from the face of the earth’? Turn away from Your fierce anger. Change Your mind about this terrible disaster You have threatened against Your people! 13 Remember Your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You bound Yourself with an oath to them, saying, ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven. And I will give them all of this land that I have promised to your descendants, and they will possess it forever.’”

14 So the Lord changed His mind about the terrible disaster He had threatened to bring on His people.

15 Then Moses turned and went down the mountain. He held in his hands the two stone tablets inscribed with the terms of the covenant. They were inscribed on both sides, front and back. 16 These tablets were God’s work; the words on them were written by God Himself.

Sermon
“CALF OR CHRIST”
There’s a couple things I’d like to highlight from this Word of God to us today before getting into the main meat of the message.

First: Wait on the LORD. Patience is one of the many fruits showing that the Holy Spirit is alive and living within a Christian person. The people of Israel began putting pressure on Aaron to make an idol for them to worship because Moses had been on the mountain, with no word from him or from the LORD, for more than a month. At the heart of their demand for Aaron to do something so that they could worship God was unbelief: The LORD had worked wonders to free them from slavery in Egypt; the LORD had worked wonders to keep them safe and deliver them when Pharaoh’s army chased after them; and the LORD had provided food and drink for them miraculously as they traveled towards Sinai and the Promised Land. But, Moses is gone for a month and more, and not only do they quickly craft a statue in the form of a golden calf and begin worshiping it as their god (even though the Lord had told them not to), but they begin celebrating and partying in ways the LORD told them not to, as well. So, yes, it can be foolish to sometimes wait too long, but more often in the Scripture we see examples of the foolishness that comes from impatience, giving into our feelings of desperation, and from not waiting on the LORD…

Second: Do you see in verse 6 where it tells us that “The people got up early the next morning to sacrifice burnt offerings and peace offerings. After this, they celebrated with feasting and drinking, and they indulged in pagan revelry.” Well, let that be a lesson to us: Just because people are excited about something that they believe God is doing does not mean that God has any part of it. People have attributed much to Jesus over the years that, if they’d read and trusted their Bibles, they would have clearly known to have been selfish and brutal and idolatrous and not of Jesus at all. The LORD tells us in Scripture and shows in Jesus how to worship Him and how to celebrate and truly “party” well. If that’s not what’s clearly going on around you, stay out of it until God shows Himself to show you the Way.

Third, do you see how the LORD distances Himself from those engaging in unrepentant sin? That’s the LORD God’s attitude towards us apart from Christ: He disowns the people, speaking of them, not as His people but, as Moses’ people; and He’s prepared to destroy them for their selfishness and wickedness, for all the harm they are doing because they think they can decide what is best apart from Him. It is Jesus’ sacrifice, and His sacrifice alone, that has God persevere in calling us His people and calling Himself our God, even when we sin in our ignorance or weakness. It’s Jesus’ sacrifice, and His sacrifice alone, that keeps God from keeping us away from Himself and destroying us through death and Hell. And yet, it’s so much more than that! Jesus’ sacrifice has moved God to draw near to us and to draw us near to Him, as sons and daughters, as beloved, the apple of His eye!

But let me bring us back to the main message as I understand it this morning:
This record of the “golden calf” episode shows us that people are looking for something or someone to lead them. History shows us that we’ll follow tyrants, we’ll follow madmen (and ‘women), we’ll follow movie stars and superstars, even if they don’t know where they are going any more than we do, as long as we have someone to follow.

The LORD has never allowed His people to make a statue of Him or draw a picture of Him: Not anything that was ever to be worshiped or bowed down to, at least. Living and breathing human beings are and always have been the image God has given us of Himself. He won’t let us belittle that through statues and pictures and other lifeless images.
Of course, humanity has messed up God’s image in ourselves through our sinfulness. The very best of human beings are trash bags compared to the loving goodness of Yahweh Almighty: The Great I AM; the Great He Who Is! And so the LORD had to come among us in the Person of Christ Jesus of Nazareth, to show us Himself in person. And Colossians 1:15 says, “Christ is the image of the invisible God.” And later in Colossians Paul writes: “In Him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.” (2:9) Who or what has the LORD God provided so that people might rightly bow down before to worship Him? Jesus Christ. Anyone else? Anything else? … No.

Paul goes on to say, “And you have come to fullness in Him.” (2:10) Yes, you, Colossians, yes you, EPCMilfordites, you have come to fullness in Him.

The Father has given the Son into the world so that we can see His image in Jesus, and know Him and worship Him. And the Lord Jesus has poured out the Holy Spirit on those who trust in Him so that non-Christians can see Jesus in us and, through seeing Jesus in us, come to know the Father and worship Him.

All of us have that role to play: Living surrendered to the Holy Spirit – His fruit and His gifts clearly seen in each of us – in order to point people to Christ Who is pointing people to the Father. Of course, this is especially true for us, Elders and Deacons, because the people of God themselves are looking to us (in addition to all the non-Christian people around us looking to us) to see what the Christian life looks like lived out. To see what a godly husband looks like here in the 21st Century, and to see what a godly wife looks like. Christian-folks are looking to us to see how to faithfully live out the conflicts they experience in their marriages, and how to faithfully relate to their parents, and how to faithfully relate to their children. They’ve read about these things in the Scriptures, many of them, but Christ has given us to them, Elders and Deacons, to show them what it looks like to be faithful employers and employees, what loving God looks like day-by-day, what loving neighbor as self looks like day-by-day, …

And just as the Lord Jesus said that “by their fruits we would know them”, Christ’s people and the people around us will know we are Christians and will know Christ Himself as they see the Holy Spirit’s love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control being produced in our lives. We cannot have Christ live in us by His Spirit and keep participating in immoral sex, giving into impure thoughts, words, and acts, lustful pleasures, idolatry, witchcraft (not even so-called “white witchcraft” that’s so popular out there these days); we can’t keep quarreling, being jealous, bursting out in our anger, pursuing selfish ambitions, taking sides, giving into envy, getting drunk, wildly partying, and other “pagan revelries” like these. Christ doesn’t keep living in us if we keep participating in such things.

We, and those around us, can know whether or not we’re worshiping the LORD because our behavior will begin to be transformed from these types of “revelries” to God’s kind of “fruit”. And we, and those around us, can know whether or not we’re worshiping the LORD because, when we fall short, and people call us on it, we will regret our bad behavior and we’ll be sorry and we’ll repent…

Two things I want to specifically point out to all of you Elders and Deacons. (These things are equally true for any of us who are Christian leaders or seen by those around us as Christian leaders. But here in this place they especially apply to our Elders and Deacons.) Do you see how quickly the LORD responds when His peoples’ leaders intercede for them? The LORD is going to cast them off and destroy them, but Moses intercedes, and God changes His mind! So, carry the people before the LORD in your prayers. Pray for them in their needs. Pray for them in their failures. Pray for them in their rebellion. Pray for them to our God Who wants to forgive and Who has already forgiven us in Christ.

And lastly – and again this specifically applies to Elders and Deacons but is likewise true for us all – Just as Moses comes down the mountain not knowing what he’s walking into but bearing God’s Word into it, regardless, bear God’s Word into all your interactions with the people. Bear His grace, bear His mercy, bear His blessing, bear His image – restored in you through your faith in Christ – bear God’s Word in all your interactions with God’s people: God’s people in your homes, God’s people in your workplaces and neighborhoods, God’s people in God’s Church. Bear His Word to them, always…

EXODUS 23:20-33 [NLTse]
20 “See, I am sending an angel before you to protect you on your journey and lead you safely to the place I have prepared for you. 21 Pay close attention to him, and obey his instructions. Do not rebel against him, for he is My representative, and he will not forgive your rebellion. 22 But if you are careful to obey him, following all My instructions, then I will be an enemy to your enemies, and I will oppose those who oppose you. 23 For My angel will go before you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites, and Jebusites, so you may live there. And I will destroy them completely. 24 You must not worship the gods of these nations or serve them in any way or imitate their evil practices. Instead, you must utterly destroy them and smash their sacred pillars.

25 “You must serve only the Lord your God. If you do, I will bless you with food and water, and I will protect you from illness. 26 There will be no miscarriages or infertility in your land, and I will give you long, full lives.
27 “I will send my terror ahead of you and create panic among all the people whose lands you invade. I will make all your enemies turn and run. 28 I will send terror ahead of you to drive out the Hivites, Canaanites, and Hittites. 29 But I will not drive them out in a single year, because the land would become desolate and the wild animals would multiply and threaten you. 30 I will drive them out a little at a time until your population has increased enough to take possession of the land. 31 And I will fix your boundaries from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, and from the eastern wilderness to the Euphrates River. I will hand over to you the people now living in the land, and you will drive them out ahead of you.
32 “Make no treaties with them or their gods. 33 They must not live in your land, or they will cause you to sin against Me. If you serve their gods, you will be caught in the trap of idolatry.”

SERMON – “Dependent – Dependable”
After miraculously crossing the Red Sea, the Israelites began traveling to Mt. Sinai, in the Sinai Desert. The Lord had told Moses to bring the people of Israel to Sinai to worship Him once God had freed Israel from their slavery in Egypt. And it was in the Sinai Desert that they camped and constructed the Tabernacle from God’s directions (their moveable worship place), and collected the Ten Commandments and God’s other laws, and where the Lord prepared them for their new life in the land He had promised them.

But as you can see there wasn’t much for the Israelites at Sinai. Lots of mountainous terrain for pasturing their flocks and herds, and lots of level terrain for setting up their camps. And, as we saw in the first picture, too, enough bunch-grasses and spikelets and other desert-scrub to feed their flocks and herds, but not a lot of farmable land to sustain them.
So, it seems that this new life the Lord was seeking to lead them to was a dependent life: A life they were to depend upon Him to direct; a life they were to depend upon Him to provide for.

As we read this past week, because of the barrenness of Sinai, the Israelites had to depend upon God for the miraculous manna – what they called “bread from Heaven” – that the Lord sent to them every morning, and that they gathered to make delicious manna-bread and manna-cakes. And He proved Himself dependable. And they had to depend upon God for the occasional miraculous feasts of quail He sent their way. And He proved Himself dependable. And they had to absolutely depend upon Him for the water He’d provided that kept gushing forth from a rock and making large pools and small lakes out of the different plots around them: Enough to water their flocks and herds and to satisfy them all! The Lord was teaching His people to depend on Him, and He was proving Himself dependable!

And, in our reading, the Lord promises Moses that if the Israelites would carefully obey Him, following all the Lord’s instructions, then He would get in the way of those who tried to get in their way, and He would fight for them against those who wanted to fight them. And He would make sure they always had enough food, and roofs over their heads, and He would keep them healthy. There would be no miscarriages or infertility in their land, and He would give them long, full lives. And, He would make all the bullies and those trying to hurt them turn and run!

And sometimes God takes us to desert places, too, doesn’t He? Situations where we can’t help ourselves. We have no hope but Him. Nothing, but Him… And we can be tempted to curse those times, saying, “Lord, why have You forsaken me?” But, He’s not forsaking us. He’s teaching us to depend upon Him. And if we will depend on Him, He shows us that He is dependable…

When the Lord Jesus died on the cross, He didn’t ask us to do this or to do that so that He might achieve our salvation. No. He went to the cross and saved us all by Himself. Jesus took our sins and gave us His righteousness without any effort on our part. He simply asked us, “Do you believe?”

And when we believed, He sent us the Holy Spirit to nurture His supernatural life in us and bring us to perfect holiness a little bit at a time, all the days of our lives. And He asks us to cooperate with Him in that, but He’s doing the work in us!
In Philippians 2:12-13 the apostle Paul writes, “Work hard to show the results of your salvation.” He doesn’t say, “Work hard to be saved.” No. Jesus has saved us. No. He writes, “Work hard to show the results of our salvation!” And how do we show that? By “obeying God with deep reverence and fear.” And how are we able to obey God with deep reverence and fear? We’ll need to depend upon God, and He is dependable, because, Paul writes, “God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases Him.” We can depend on Him! He is dependable!

In 1 Corinthians 15:10, the apostle speaks about it this way, “Whatever I am now, it is all because God poured out His special favor on me—and not without results. For I have worked harder than any of the other apostles; yet it was not I but God Who was working through me by His grace.“

Hebrews 13:20-21 talks about such things this way: “Now may the God of peace—Who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, and ratified an eternal covenant with His blood—may He equip you with all you need for doing His will. May He produce in you, through the power of Jesus Christ, every good thing that is pleasing to Him. All glory to Him forever and ever! Amen.

Not one word of, “Get your act together, Ben!” No commands for any of us to work, achieve, or perform. No, the prayer of Hebrews 13 is, “May God equip you to do His will,” because you can’t do His will on your own. And “may God produce in you every good thing that is pleasing to Him,” because we can’t produce anything that is pleasing to God on our own.
God has forgiven you through what Christ did on the cross, and there is nothing you can do to make you more forgiven or to make you less, except by not believing it. The Holy Spirit is within you, applying the holiness of Jesus to your soul – even as we speak! – and you can cooperate with Him in that by not giving in to the temptations you might face, but you can’t make yourself more holy. That’s an inside job, and only the Holy Spirit can do such inside work.
Ours is to depend on Him. He keeps proving Himself so very dependable!

Praise Team: Would you come forward as we pray? …
Abba: You want to protect us but we get in Your way seeking to protect ourselves; You want to take care of us but we won’t let you, set on taking care of ourselves; You want to heal us but we interfere by hiding our wounds away, keeping them, if possible, even from You; we want to make a life for ourselves instead of accepting the life You have for us; we strive and connive for meaning and worth instead of acknowledging the meaning and worth we have as Your daughters and Your sons… Forgive us, Dependable One. Grant us the gifts and help we need to rely on You, wait on You, trust in You no matter the threats or trials. You have always shown Yourself to be so very dependable, and we worship You…

Genesis 48:1-20 [NLTse]
One day not long after this, word came to Joseph, “Your father is failing rapidly.” So Joseph went to visit his father, and he took with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. 2 When Joseph arrived, Jacob was told, “Your son Joseph has come to see you.” So Jacob gathered his strength and sat up in his bed. 3 Jacob said to Joseph, “God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me. 4 He said to me, ‘I will make you fruitful, and I will multiply your descendants. I will make you a multitude of nations. And I will give this land of Canaan to your descendants after you as an everlasting possession.’

5 “Now I am claiming as my own sons these two boys of yours, Ephraim and Manasseh, who were born here in the land of Egypt before I arrived. They will be my sons, just as Reuben and Simeon are. 6 But any children born to you in the future will be your own, and they will inherit land within the territories of their brothers Ephraim and Manasseh.
7 “Long ago, as I was returning from Paddan-aram, Rachel died in the land of Canaan. We were still on the way, some distance from Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem). So with great sorrow I buried her there beside the road to Ephrath.”
8 Then Jacob looked over at the two boys. “Are these your sons?” he asked.
9 “Yes,” Joseph told him, “these are the sons God has given me here in Egypt.”
And Jacob said, “Bring them closer to me, so I can bless them.”
10 Jacob was half blind because of his age and could hardly see. So Joseph brought the boys close to him, and Jacob kissed and embraced them. 11 Then Jacob said to Joseph, “I never thought I would see your face again, but now God has let me see your children, too!”

12 Joseph moved the boys, who were at their grandfather’s knees, and he bowed with his face to the ground. 13 Then he positioned the boys in front of Jacob. With his right hand he directed Ephraim toward Jacob’s left hand, and with his left hand he put Manasseh at Jacob’s right hand. 14 But Jacob crossed his arms as he reached out to lay his hands on the boys’ heads. He put his right hand on the head of Ephraim, though he was the younger boy, and his left hand on the head of Manasseh, though he was the firstborn. 15 Then he blessed Joseph and said,
“May the God before whom my grandfather Abraham and my father, Isaac, walked—the God Who has been my shepherd all my life, to this very day, 16 the Angel Who has redeemed me from all harm—may He bless these boys. May they preserve my name and the names of Abraham and Isaac. And may their descendants multiply greatly throughout the earth.”
17 But Joseph was upset when he saw that his father placed his right hand on Ephraim’s head. So Joseph lifted it to move it from Ephraim’s head to Manasseh’s head. 18 “No, my father,” he said. “This one is the firstborn. Put your right hand on his head.”

19 But his father refused. “I know, my son; I know,” he replied. “Manasseh will also become a great people, but his younger brother will become even greater. And his descendants will become a multitude of nations.”
20 So Jacob blessed the boys that day with this blessing: “The people of Israel will use your names when they give a blessing. They will say, ‘May God make you as prosperous as Ephraim and Manasseh.’”

Sermon
Words have power. What we say matters. The Lord Jesus’ half-brother, James, writes that our lips speak both blessings and curses, and that it should not be so! The Lord Jesus warns us to be careful about even the most insignificant word we speak, because they matter. In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth with words. And across the Bible, even filling up our readings these past weeks across Genesis, we see the power of blessings spoken and coming true! What we say matters, and the Lord God has called us to be a people who bless and are a blessing!

The Bible is filled with blessings: God blessing people; fathers blessing children; kings blessing God’s people and God’s people blessing kings! Here, in our morning’s reading, we see Grandfather Jacob blessing his son, Joseph’s, boys, Manasseh and Ephraim.

“Blessing” is a powerful word across the Bible and across our culture. It can be belittled to simply refer to any nice thing that happens to us or that we’d like to have happen to another. And yet, at the same time, it still echoes with a sense of the divine, the eternal, and the supernatural!

With so many people posting #BLESSED because they got what they wanted or because things are going their way, it’s interesting to me that, of the 112 references to the words bless, blessing, or blessed in the New Testament that none of them refer to material prosperity. Consider these passages:

“God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for Him… God blesses those who mourn… God blesses those who are persecuted for doing right… God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you and say all sorts of evil things against you because you are My followers…” (Matthew 5:3–4, 10–11)
“Blessed are all who hear the Word of God and put it into practice.” (Luke 11:28)
“What [blessings] for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sins are put out of sight.” (Romans 4:7; quoting Psalm 32:1)
“God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation…” (James 1:12)
“Blessed are those who die in the Lord from now on… Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding feast of the Lamb.” (Revelation 14:13, 19:9)

There is no hint of material prosperity or perfect circumstances in any New Testament reference. On the contrary, blessing is typically connected with either poverty and trial or the spiritual benefits of being joined to Jesus by faith. Makarioi is the Greek word translated “blessed” in these passages, and it means “to be fully satisfied”. It refers to those receiving God’s favor, regardless of the circumstances.

So, what is blessing, then? The Bible seems to portray blessing as anything God gives that points us to Him: Anything that draws us closer to Jesus; anything that helps us surrender in greater ways to the Holy Spirit; anything that helps us relinquish the day-to-day and hold on more tightly to the eternal.

We’re reading through the Old Testament as a church this 2017. (The daily readings are in our Bulletins each week, or you can follow along in The Daily Walk devotional if you’d like some commentary on what we’re reading.) A couple weeks ago, when reading Genesis 12, we read the blessing the Lord God spoke over Abraham, saying, “And I will bless you… and you shall be a blessing… and in you shall all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.” So, as we see Jacob blessing his grandkids today and remember God calling Abraham to bless and be a blessing, I think the Father has been blessing us to bless, as well.

So, let me teach you how to bless someone. (I’m not just talking about saying, “God bless you,” to someone, though when we say that with authority it is a powerful gift. But, no, I’m talking about personally and powerfully asking the Lord to bring about, in some person’s life, that which will point them to the Father, draw them to Jesus, help them surrender more to the Spirit, and/or to let go of the temporal and hold on to God.

You can do it in very formal ways or fairly informal ones. You can raise your hand up over someone or you can lightly place your hand on their head or shoulder. (Always ask permission before touching someone, even to give them a blessing. Sadly, for some people, being touched has not been a good thing.) And then ask God’s blessing on them, or ask His protection for them. Have you ever seen the face of a grandparent light up when one of the grandkids comes in the room? Well, ask that they would know how the Lord’s face lights up like that when He looks upon them. Ask that they’d know and embrace His grace, and that they’d have confidence to pray knowing that He wants to give them good gifts. That they would know His wholeness, health, peace, welfare, safety, soundness, tranquility, prosperity, perfectness, fullness, rest, and harmony; that they would know that everything needed to bring them to God and keep them close to Him forever has been provided for in full!

Send notes of blessing. Offer prayers of blessing during your own prayer times. And, of course, reach out to bless that baby, or that person who’s struggling that the Lord just drew near, or that one who for some reason the Lord is simply drawing your attention to. Bless, as is our calling and our privilege in Christ!

Now, I want us to pair up. Find someone next to you or in front of you or behind you… (I know, if you’re shy you hate this kind of stuff. But I hope the Lord will surprise you with this…) If there’s nobody nearby you then move around to wherever you can partner-up with another. Just the two of you, please…
Anybody not have a partner? because then I’ll partner with you…
Now that we’re two-by-two, consider your partner and ask the Holy Spirit how you can bless this person. (I’ll give you a minute to ask the Holy Spirit and to then listen to the Holy Spirit.) …

Now, let’s raise our hand over, or, if we have permission, let’s place a hand gently on our partner’s head or shoulder, and speak the blessing that comes to us for them. After the one person is finished, it’ll be the other person’s turn to put their hand up or on and give their blessing… (It doesn’t have to be long, but it might be…) Let’s bless each other…

Words have power, and what we say matters. And God wants us to ask Him for good things; for great things! Great families, financial wealth, and good health are all wonderful gifts we can ask God for and even thank God for, but they are not His greatest blessings. God’s greatest blessing always rests in God Himself. When we have Him, we are truly #BLESSED.

INTRODUCTION
What’s the most important thing in the world to you? Grab a piece of paper, or a pew envelope, or a corner of your Bulletin, and write down the most important thing in the world to you…

GENESIS 22:1-19 [NLTse]
Some time later, God tested Abraham’s faith. “Abraham!” God called.
“Yes,” he replied. “Here I am.”
2 “Take your son, your only son—yes, Isaac, whom you love so much—and go to the land of Moriah. Go and sacrifice him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will show you.”
3 The next morning Abraham got up early. He saddled his donkey and took two of his servants with him, along with his son, Isaac. Then he chopped wood for a fire for a burnt offering and set out for the place God had told him about. 4 On the third day of their journey, Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. 5 “Stay here with the donkey,” Abraham told the servants. “The boy and I will travel a little farther. We will worship there, and then we will come right back.”
6 So Abraham placed the wood for the burnt offering on Isaac’s shoulders, while he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them walked on together, 7 Isaac turned to Abraham and said, “Father?”
“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.
“We have the fire and the wood,” the boy said, “but where is the sheep for the burnt offering?”
8 “God will provide a sheep for the burnt offering, my son,” Abraham answered. And they both walked on together.
9 When they arrived at the place where God had told him to go, Abraham built an altar and arranged the wood on it. Then he tied his son, Isaac, and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. 10 And Abraham picked up the knife to kill his son as a sacrifice. 11 At that moment the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”
“Yes,” Abraham replied. “Here I am!”
12 “Don’t lay a hand on the boy!” the angel said. “Do not hurt him in any way, for now I know that you truly fear God. You have not withheld from Me even your son, your only son.”
13 Then Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught by its horns in a thicket. So he took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering in place of his son. 14 Abraham named the place Yahweh-Yireh (which means “the Lord will provide”). To this day, people still use that name as a proverb: “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”
15 Then the angel of the Lord called again to Abraham from Heaven. 16 “This is what the Lord says: Because you have obeyed Me and have not withheld even your son, your only son, I swear by My Own name that 17 I will certainly bless you. I will multiply your descendants beyond number, like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will conquer the cities of their enemies. 18 And through your descendants all the nations of the earth will be blessed—all because you have obeyed Me.”
19 Then they returned to the servants and traveled back to Beersheba, where Abraham continued to live.

SERMON
Abraham was extremely wealthy. Kings considered him to be too powerful for them. He had so many workers, servants, and slaves that once – having armed them all – he defeated the combined military forces of several city-state nations! (With God’s help, of course.) The Bible talks about Abraham “camping” in different places, but Abraham’s “camps” must have been the size of large towns and city-states themselves!
But he had no son; he had no heir. Abraham had no children at all. One of his servants would end up inheriting his massive estate.

And then Isaac was born.

Abraham was 100. His wife, Sarah, was 90. But she miraculously became pregnant and she gave birth to Isaac!
And we can, perhaps, imagine how the sun must have risen and set on Isaac! After a lifetime of waiting Abraham finally had a son! He and Sarah finally had a son! And then the LORD commanded Abraham to offer the boy to Him as a sacrifice…
The very first of the Ten Commandments is “You must not have any other god but Me, says the LORD.” (See Exodus 20) And the Lord Jesus followed that up by saying, “Whoever comes to Me and does not hate father and mother, wife, husband, and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be My disciple.” (That is, when compared to our love for the Lord that our love for everyone and everything else must seem like hate—even our love for our fathers and mothers, our wives, husbands, and children, our brothers and sisters—and yes, even our love for our own lives must seem like hate compared to how much we love the Lord! Otherwise, Jesus says, we cannot be His disciples. And, I think we can know we have another “god” besides the LORD in our lives when we find that we don’t hate that one or that thing in comparison to our love for the Lord. As a matter of fact, I think we know we have another “god” in our lives besides the Lord when, if something happens to that one or that thing, then we get mad at the Lord and stop trusting Him and even, perhaps, start hating Him because of it!

Look at what you wrote on the pew envelope or piece of paper… If that person died, or if that thing was stolen or broke or was taken away, or if you lost the health you treasure or lost the job you love or was suddenly unable to do this or that thing that you love to do – whatever it is that you value most here in the world – if that was taken from you would you hate God for taking it (or for taking them)? Or is your love for our Father truly so great that, in comparison, you really do hate all else, and you truly would trust Him and surrender to Him the loss of even that which you consider most precious?

I remember, years ago, walking through a busy parking lot with my wife, Amy. We were waiting to cross at an especially awkward intersection when Amy saw an opening and ran across. It was like my life flashing before my eyes as in slow motion I saw a car that she hadn’t seen, and she was running right into its path. In that heartbeat I remember being so filled with my love for her and wondering if I would ever trust God again if He took her from me. In the next heartbeat I remember realizing that, if the devil could get me to hate or lose faith in God by hurting Amy, that then Amy would never be safe from the devil, because he would know that he could always use her to get in-between the Lord and me. And in the next heartbeat I realized that I needed to surrender Amy’s life and welfare into God’s hands: That her in His hands – alive, dead, sick, healthy – was the only place where she would ever truly be safe. And that she in His hands was the only place where I would ever truly be safe. And then the moment was over. The car braked. Amy made it safely to the other side. And I followed soon after.

God sometimes gives us opportunities to show Him, to show ourselves, and to show the watching world that He alone is the most important thing in our lives, and that nothing else is even close. And sometimes He does that by providing opportunities for us to “sacrifice” what may be competing with Him.
Of course, He’s worth it.

The Lord is merciful and compassionate, slow to get angry and filled with love that never fails. He is good to everyone and showers compassion on His entire creation. (Psalm 145:8-9) Yes, He is rich in mercy and He loves us so much that, even though we were dead because of our sins, He gave us life when He raised Christ from the dead. (Ephesians 2:4-5) No, He doesn’t deal harshly with us, even though sometimes we deserve it. He has removed our sins from us as far as the east is from the west! He is tender and compassionate to those who revere Him, for He knows how weak we are… (Psalm 103:10, 12) He is good, and so ready to forgive, and so full of love that will never fail for all who ask Him for His help. (Psalm 86:5)
Yes, He is worth it!

I want to invite you to make a sacrifice to the Lord right now. I want you to sacrifice to the Lord that which you wrote down on that envelope or piece of paper at the beginning of the message. I’m going to invite this morning’s Ushers to come get the Offering Plates and collect that which is most important to us in this world: Just fold your piece of paper in half and place it into the Plate as a sacrifice to the Lord. (If you’re not ready to sacrifice your most-loved one or thing then feel free to put in a blank envelope and blank piece of paper, if you’re self-conscious about it, and be asking the Father to help you sacrifice it to Him as the week goes on…) But, Ushers, won’t you come and gather our sacrifices to our God…

[Have them give the Plates to me. Spread them across the top of the Lord’s Table. And give the Plates back to the Ushers.] [Sing the Doxology.] [Then lead in a sacrificial prayer over the sacrifices.]

JOHN 1:1-5 [NLTse]
In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He existed in the beginning with God. 3 God created everything through Him, and nothing was created except through Him. 4 The Word gave life to everything that was created, and His life brought light to everyone. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.

GENESIS 1:1-3, 6, 9, 14-15, 20, 24, 26, 31 [NLTse]
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.
3 Then God said, “Let there be light.” …
6 Then God said, “Let there be a space between the waters, to separate the waters of the heavens from the waters of the earth.” …
9 Then God said, “Let the waters beneath the sky flow together into one place, so dry ground may appear.” …
14 Then God said, “Let lights appear in the sky to separate the day from the night. Let them be signs to mark the seasons, days, and years. Let these lights in the sky shine down on the earth.” …
20 Then God said, “Let the waters swarm with fish and other life. Let the skies be filled with birds of every kind.” …
24 Then God said, “Let the earth produce every sort of animal, each producing offspring of the same kind—livestock, small animals that scurry along the ground, and wild animals.” …
26 Then God said, “Let Us make human beings in Our image, to be like Us…
31 Then God looked over all He had made, and He saw that it was very good!

SERMON
God begins revealing Himself to humanity from the very first words of the Bible. He reveals Himself as creator, and He reveals that He Himself had no creator. He reveals that His image is not borne by winds or seas or by grass or trees or by sea-creatures or air-creatures or land-creatures, but that human beings alone – male and female – bear His likeness. The Lord reveals about Himself that He desired to create everything good, and that everything He created was, indeed, very, very good.

The Lord also reveals Himself as a Trinity.

In our reading from Genesis this past week (that we’ve also read this morning), the Bible opens saying, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…” and it goes on. But it’s important for us to know that the word for “God” here is plural, literally, “In the beginning gods created the heavens and the earth…” However, we can’t translate that sentence that way because the verb “create” is singular. That is, one God – Who is revealing Himself as being more than one Person – created the heavens and the earth. Clear as mud, right?

We see evidence of this again later in chapter 1 when this same God says, “Let Us make humankind in Our image, according to Our likeness…” (V. 26): Here, again, is the One God speaking of Himself in the plural!
How does this work? What does this mean?

We get to understand this reality that the Lord is trying to reveal about Himself to us better when we turn to the Gospel of John (which is why we read from John first). John writes, “In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He existed in the beginning with God. 3 God created everything through Him, and nothing was created except through Him.” (Vv. 1-3) We find out later in John that Jesus Christ is this so-called “Word” Who was in the beginning with God and Who Himself was (and is) God and through Whom everything that’s been created was created.

And we see this in Genesis, too, because “in the beginning” we see God beginning to create the heavens and the earth, and we see the Spirit of God hovering over the formless and empty heavens and earth, and we see God speaking the Word and see the heavens and the earth take on form and become no longer empty through the Word. So, here in the first two verses of the Bible we see this One Who speaks of Himself as We: God (Whom later we are taught to call and know as “Father”), Jesus Christ (Whom John reveals to be God’s Word), and the Holy Spirit (the Spirit of God)! A tri-unity Bible scholars have called it over time: The Trinity; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

And we see evidence of this elsewhere across the Bible, as well. The Bible speaks of the Father as God (Philippians 1:2). The Bible speaks of Jesus as God (Titus 2:13). And the Bible speaks of the Holy Spirit as God (Acts 5:3–4). Are these just three different ways of looking at God, or ways of referring to three different roles that God plays? The answer must be no, because the Bible also indicates that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct Persons.

For example, since the Father sent the Son into the world (John 3:16), He cannot be the same person as the Son. Likewise, after the Son returned to the Father (John 16:10), the Father and the Son sent the Holy Spirit into the world (John 14:26; Acts 2:33). Therefore, the Holy Spirit must be distinct from the Father and the Son.

The baptism of Jesus is another example: We see God the Father speaking from Heaven and God the Holy Spirit descending from Heaven (in the form of a dove) as Jesus, God the Son, is coming up out of the water (Mark 1:10–11).
Open up your Bulletins to the picture shown there at the bottom of the left-hand flap. That the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct Persons means that the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is not the Father. Jesus is God, but He is not the Father or the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God, but He is not the Son or the Father. They are different Persons, not merely three different of looking at God.

Maybe you’ve heard people say, “If Jesus is God, then He must have prayed to Himself while He was on earth.” But the answer to this objection lies in simply applying what we have already seen. While Jesus and the Father are both God, they are different Persons. Thus, Jesus prayed to God the Father without praying to Himself. In fact, it is precisely the continuing conversations between the Father and the Son that give us the best evidence that They are, indeed, distinct Persons with distinct centers of consciousness.

Another serious error people have made is to think that the Father became the Son, Who then became the Holy Spirit. But John 1:1-3 and Genesis 1:1-2, clearly show that this cannot be true: God always has been and always will be three Persons. There was never a time when one of the Persons of the Godhead did not exist. They are all eternal.
Of course, while the three members of the Trinity are distinct, this does not mean that any is inferior to the other. And the doctrine of the Trinity does not divide God into three parts. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are each fully God. They are equal in power, love, mercy, justice, holiness, knowledge, and all other qualities.

If there is one passage which most clearly brings all of this together, it is Matthew 28:19: “Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” First, notice that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinguished as distinct Persons. We baptize into the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Second, notice that each Person must be God because they are all placed on the same level. In fact, would Jesus have us baptize in the name of a mere creature? Surely not! Therefore each of the Persons into Whose name we are to be baptized must be God. Third, notice that although the three divine Persons are distinct, we are baptized into their one name (singular), not into their name-s (plural). The three Persons are distinct, yet only constitute one name. This can only be if the three Persons are all one God.

We experience the Trinity because the Father has sent the Son and because the Father and Son send the Holy Spirit. We participate in the Trinity as we receive eternal life from the Father in the name of the Son through the Holy Spirit.
So the Trinity is to be our pattern: We are to be like it, joining together the one and the many. The church is the new humanity being re-made in the image of God. In the church we are striving – through the Holy Spirit – to express the plurality and unity of God; to be the individual and to be the congregation without compromising either. As Paul wrote, “In Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.’ (Romans 12:5)

At the end of his Gospel John records this prayer of Jesus’: “That they will all be one, just as You and I are one—as You are in Me, Father, and I am in You. And may they be in Us so that the world will believe You sent Me… So they may be one as We are one. I am in them and You are in Me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that You sent Me and that You love them as much as You love Me.” (17:21-23)

God’s image in humanity has been marred by sin and death, so now God’s New Covenant people – individually and together made new in Christ – are His image in the world. The Church is to reflect the Trinity. We’re to love one another; share with one another; rejoice and mourn with one another; share our lives. We’re to make decisions with regard to the church when those decisions affect the church just as the church is to help us make our own personal decisions even when those decisions will only affect us personally.

Jesus says that when the world sees our Trinity-like life that it will know that Jesus was indeed sent by the Father to save the world. So, the challenge is this: When the world sees our life together as Evangelical Presbyterian Church, does it see a sign of God’s salvation in us? Does our life together show our neighbors, friends, families, and coworkers the tri-une reality of God?

PASTOR: INTRODUCTION

As our reading begins, the Lord Jesus is at table with His disciples. They are celebrating the Passover, what’s come to be called “the Last Supper” among Christians.

During this Worship-meal, the Lord has told them that He knows one of them is planning to betray Him. At this, the disciples each begin denying the charge, asserting their strengths and the great things they’ve done as evidence that it could not be them. And soon, the question as to which of them was planning to betray the Lord gets lost in their squabbling over which of them had the most valuable strengths and had done the greatest things…

ELDER READS: LUKE 22:24-34 [NLTse]
May the Lord add His blessing to the reading of His Word…
24 A dispute also arose among [the disciples] as to which one of them was to be regarded as the greatest. 25 But [Jesus] said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those in authority over them are called benefactors. 26 But not so with you; rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves. 27 For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.

28 “You are those who have stood by Me in My trials; 29 and I confer on you, just as My Father has conferred on Me, a kingdom, 30 so that you may eat and drink at My table in My Kingdom, and you will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

31 “Simon, Simon, listen! Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, 32 but I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” 33 And [Simon Peter] said to Him, “Lord, I am ready to go with You to prison and to death!” 34 Jesus said, “I tell you, Peter, the cock will not crow this day, until you have denied three times that you know Me.”

PASTOR BEN’S SERMON
Peter is weaker than he thinks.

The disciples are arguing amongst themselves as to which of them is greatest – having the greatest gifts, being the most valuable to Jesus, … – but the Lord interrupts them to let them know how weak they really are: That each of them will have turned their backs on Him by the end of that very same day.

Notice that the Lord doesn’t criticize them or berate them for their coming failures? No. Weakness is the human condition. And all kinds of weaknesses are acknowledged everywhere across the New Testament.

Jesus told His disciples that, in contrast to the spirit, the flesh is weak (Mark 14:38). Paul said that those who are poor are weak (Acts 20:35). The Corinthian Christians were weak in social status (1 Corinthians 1:26–27). Romans tells us that Jesus died for us while we were still weak, that is, while we were ungodly and lacked any possibility of deserving any kind of good (Romans 5:8). And we see that we are also often weak when we pray, lacking the words, lacking the know-how (Romans 8:26). And some Christians are spoken of as being weak because they judge others (Romans 14:1–4). Add to this the physical weaknesses Paul seems to speak of in different places (ie. 2 Corinthians 10:10), and his “thorn in the flesh” – whatever kind of weakness that was (2 Corinthians 12:7), and all the different types of troubles we can experience and find ourselves helpless – weak – in the face of (2 Corinthians 12:10).

If there were one broad explanation for weakness, it seems that it would be to lack: Being weak means we don’t have what it takes; we’re not sovereign, we’re not all-knowing, we’re not invincible; we’re not in control, we can’t be everywhere at once, and we can so very easily be stopped from doing the things we want to do and even be stopped from doing the things we feel God has called us to do…

If the Lord seems to so completely understand how weak we are – how lacking we are – then there must be a purpose for such weaknesses? There must be a goal or an aim for why our weaknesses exist, and why times of weakness come? Why insults, hardships, persecutions, calamities, troubles? Why can’t I find a job? Why does my dad have cancer? Why can’t I have children? Why do I have no friends? Why is nothing working in my life? Doesn’t God see? Doesn’t God care?
First, let’s remember that, as we’ve said, the Lord Jesus understands that we are weak: He understands our weaknesses. The Letter To the Hebrews makes clear that Jesus faced all the same types of weakness and times of weakness and lack that we do, the difference is that during such times Jesus didn’t give in to sin. So, the Lord’s not surprised by our what we can’t do and what we can’t be, He doesn’t condemn us for being weak: He’s experienced every single human weakness Himself. He just wants us to be like Him when we face weak times, and not give in to sin.

Because Satan wants to use times of weakness in our lives to destroy us and to destroy everything around us. Which is why it is OK to pray for relief when we’re feeling weak. After all, God doesn’t delight in our suffering! But Satan does and so he must be resisted.

That being said, God does have a purpose over and through Satan’s harassment in our times of weakness: The Lord’s seeking to develop our humility. Not the kind of humility that gets people saying they’re not good at something when they clearly are, but the kind of humility that reminds us Christian folk we need God. Peter was in danger of pride and becoming all puffed up with himself – “Lord, I am ready to go with You to prison and to death!” – and so God took steps to keep him humble: “Peter, the [rooster] will not crow this day until you have denied three times that you know Me.”
Our God and Father – the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ – thinks our being humble – knowing our need for Him – is more important than our being comfortable. Clearly, He finds our being humble – our knowing our need for Him – more important than our convenience and our being free from pain. God will give us a mountain top experience in Paradise, and then bring us through anguish of soul to protect us from thinking that we have risen above the need for total reliance on His grace. So His purpose in our times of weakness is our humility and lowliness and living in total reliance on Him.
Of course, the Father is also seeking to draw attention to the grace and power of His Son through our weaknesses. And sometimes He does that by granting us supernatural ability by the Holy Spirit or by miraculously delivering us from our troubles and trials! But sometimes He does that by leaving us in our weaknesses, but giving us what we need to endure and even rejoice in our tribulations. (We need to let God be God here. If he wills to show the perfection of Jesus’ power in our weakness instead of by our escape from weakness, then we need to trust that He knows best. Hebrews 11 is a good guide here. It says that by faith some escaped the edge of the sword (v. 34) and by faith some were killed by the sword (v. 37). By faith some stopped the mouths of lions, and by faith others were sawn in two. By faith some were mighty in war, and by faith others suffered chains and imprisonment.)

It is critical to remember the truth of God’s sovereign grace when we are weak in the face of hardships and calamity. We must remember that God is in control of Satan, of kings and prime ministers and dictators, of bosses and employees, of husbands and wives, of kids and parents, of neighbors and coworkers and friends… Nothing can happen to the sons and daughters of God – those trusting in and following Jesus Christ – that God does not design with infinite skill and infinite love for our good and His glory. (Let me say that again: Nothing can happen to the sons and daughters of God – those trusting in and following Jesus Christ – that God does not design with infinite skill and infinite love for our good and His glory.)

(With our reading this past week in mind, it’s interesting to me that, the Lord Jesus, facing His Own greatest time of weakness and hardship and suffering – the days leading up to the cross – that He spent His time attending Worship Services (as we see Him always in the Temple and celebrating the Passover), He spent His time in the Word (as we see Him quoting Scripture, correcting misunderstandings, and teaching truth), He spent His time in prayer (as we see Him going off alone, and agonizing in the garden), and, He spent His time serving others and giving God the glory for it!
(So, I am hoping that 2017 will be a year for us – sons and daughters of God on account of our trust in and following of Jesus Christ – where each of us grows more faithful and steadfast in Worship, more committed to Bible-reading and application, more practiced in disciplined and informal prayer, and more active in serving each other and those around us and giving God the glory for it!)

But, alongside that, and with Peter and the other Eleven in mind, I hope, in 2017, that each of us will also give attention and effort to finding our weaknesses and maximizing their God-given purpose. That is, I hope we’ll stop complaining when we find ourselves in times of weakness, those trouble that we can’t do anything about. I hope we’ll stop complaining – to God and to the people around us – about our shortcomings, about our temptations, about what we have or what we don’t have, about all that we’re no good at, etc… Instead, I hope we’ll look for ways to turn our times of weakness into times for showing those around us how much we trust in Christ to give us what we need and get us through. And I hope we’ll look for ways to turn our weaknesses themselves into ways we can draw people’s attention to the strengths of Jesus Christ! That is, because you can’t do this, that, or some other thing, then what has such a weakness put you in the unique position of being able to do for Him? Because you can’t read lots of books quickly and easily, can you read God’s book deeply and live it more fully? Because you can’t be very active, can you pray more or study and be able to teach others or have a phone-calling or letter-writing or email-sending ministry? Because you can’t have kids of your own or because your kids are out of the house and you miss them terribly, can you be a mom or dad to other people’s kids, serving in the Nursery or Sunday School or Youth Group or some other ways? …

The Bible makes clear that deepest need you and I have when we are weak and facing troubles is not quick relief, but the confidence that what is happening to us is part of God’s greatest purposes in the universe: Growing our humility, the heart-felt knowledge that we need God very badly; and, drawing people’s attention to the grace and power of Jesus Christ—the grace and power that bore God the Son to the cross and kept Him there until God’s work of love was done.
These are what God is building into our lives through times of weakness and our weaknesses…

Let’s sing our praises!
Let’s stand for The Doxology…

The Gospel of Luke 6:20-38 [NLTse]
20 Then Jesus turned to His disciples and said, “God blesses you who are poor, for the Kingdom of God is yours. 21 God blesses you who are hungry now, for you will be satisfied. God blesses you who weep now, for in due time you will laugh.
22 What blessings await you when people hate you and exclude you and mock you and curse you as evil because you follow the Son of Man. 23 When that happens, be happy! Yes, leap for joy! For a great reward awaits you in Heaven. And remember, their ancestors treated the ancient prophets that same way.

24 “What sorrow awaits you who are rich, for you have your only happiness now. 25 What sorrow awaits you who are fat and prosperous now, for a time of awful hunger awaits you. What sorrow awaits you who laugh now, for your laughing will turn to mourning and sorrow. 26 What sorrow awaits you who are praised by the crowds, for their ancestors also praised false prophets.

27 “But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you. 28 Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you. 29 If someone slaps you on one cheek, offer the other cheek also. If someone demands your coat, offer your shirt also. 30 Give to anyone who asks; and when things are taken away from you, don’t try to get them back. 31 Do to others as you would like them to do to you.

32 “If you love only those who love you, why should you get credit for that? Even sinners love those who love them! 33 And if you do good only to those who do good to you, why should you get credit? Even sinners do that much! 34 And if you lend money only to those who can repay you, why should you get credit? Even sinners will lend to other sinners for a full return.

35 “Love your enemies! Do good to them. Lend to them without expecting to be repaid. Then your reward from Heaven will be very great, and you will truly be acting as children of the Most High, for He is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked. 36 You must be compassionate, just as your Father is compassionate.
37 “Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn others, or it will all come back against you. Forgive others, and you will be forgiven. 38 Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full—pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back.”

Sermon
Anybody here like fast food? Amy and I were vegetarians for a while in our early marriage. But every day, when we took a walk together, we would pass by this McDonald’s and have to smell the French fry aroma… (I’m convinced they pump that smell out of their restaurants to torture and entice those walking by…)

After about a month of sticking so well to our Black Bean and Cheese Enchiladas with Ranchero Sauce and Eggplant Parmesan and Three-Bean Vegetarian Chili we couldn’t take the smell any more: We went in, ordered a large fry, and… “Ahh!”

I’m more of a Wendy’s-guy these days, [take out Wendy’s bag] but I still love French fries. And yet, something always seems to get confused when I order. Because the cook always serves me up an order of fries that looks like this [taking the typical fries out of the bag], when, in my head, my order of fries looks like this! [Take the “God-sized” order out of the bag.] [Set the two boxes of fries on the Lord’s Table.]

In our reading from Luke, the Lord speaks of four conditions in which people can truly know His blessing when they are following Him. He says, “Blessed are you who are poor… blessed are you who hunger now… blessed are you who weep now… and, blessed are you when people hate you.” And yet, who wants to be poor or hungry? Who wants to cry all the time or be hated by everybody around you? These are situations we want to get out of! These are situations that make us think that God is against us; that we’ve done something wrong that He’s punishing us for!

But the Lord Jesus says that such circumstances are okay to be in and go through in life. He says that such times are not a sign of God’s disfavor, they are just a part of life in this sinful world. In fact, He tells us, when you’re in such circumstances, know that God is with you to bless you: So, persevere and keep trusting God; because the Kingdom of God is yours, and in due time you will have more than you could ever possibly imagine, be satisfied, you will laugh, and you will be proven right in front of all those who did you wrong…

Of course, the Lord is not saying that every poor person or hungry person, mourner or outcast will have a place in God’s Kingdom. He is saying that Christians are much better off being poor, being hungry, crying all the time, and being excluded, rejected, and hated (if that is their circumstances), while following Him and being a part of His Kingdom than being rich, fat, happy, and popular, while satisfying their own desires and not being a part of His Kingdom.
That is why they were “blessed”.

In contrast with the disciples who’d given up everything to follow Jesus were those people who refused to follow Him if it meant they had to give up anything at all. Their things and their status was more important to them than Christ and eternal life. They didn’t understand the gravity of the situation confronting them: Heaven or Hell! When having to choose between the world’s happiness and success and the Kingdom’s happiness and success, they chose the world. And so the good things they knew in this life would be the only good things they would know. In the world to come it would all be taken from them…

The Lord Jesus goes on to share seven aspects of unconditional love. They are each supernaturally empowered. A person can’t truly love like this on their own, only in Christ. And such love is proof of the Holy Spirit and Christ’s righteousness upon a person.
1. Jesus said, “Treat lovingly those who are openly hostile towards you.”
2. He said, “Do good towards and treat well those who passionately dislike you.”
3. “Always build up and say good things about those who are always being nasty towards you and putting you down.”
4. “Ask the Lord’s help for and blessing on those who are actively hurting you.”
5. “Don’t take revenge on or try to get even with those who hurt you.”
6. “Give freely to all who ask and even to those who want to take.” And,
7. “Treat others the way you want to be treated.”
With all the talk about “bullying”, have any of us parents taught our kids to respond to bullies in these ways? That’s the path of blessing. That’s the way of love. One of the fundamental principles of the universe is that what we plant we will harvest. (Call it “karma” or say that “what comes around goes around”, but it is a simple fact of life that)
• Showing mercy leads to being shown mercy. (And showing great mercy leads to being shown great mercy!)
• Judging others leads to being judged. (And condemning others leads to being condemned.)
• Forgiving others leads to being forgiven. (And forgiving others even their horrific offenses will lead us being forgiven our horrific offenses.)
• And, giving to others leads to being given to. (And giving generously, lavishly, and overflowingly leads to being given to generously, lavishly, and overflowingly.)
The measure we give in showing mercy, judging others, giving and forgiving is the measure we will receive…

The world has small, medium, large, and sometimes even “Super-size”. But Jesus is coming, and He wants us, Christians, to be showing everyone around us “God-size” while we wait for Him: Pressed down, shaken together, and running over. The Kingdom of God is at hand!

Luke 1:67-80
As our reading begins, John the Baptist has just been born…
May the Lord add His blessing to the reading of His Word:

67 Then his father, Zechariah, was filled with the Holy Spirit and gave this prophecy:
68 “Praise the Lord, the God of Israel, because He has visited and redeemed His people. 69 He has sent us a mighty Savior from the royal line of His servant David, 70 just as He promised through His holy prophets long ago. 71 Now we will be saved from our enemies and from all who hate us. 72 He has been merciful to our ancestors by remembering His sacred covenant—73 the covenant He swore with an oath to our ancestor Abraham. 74 We have been rescued from our enemies so we can serve God without fear, 75 in holiness and righteousness for as long as we live.

76 “And you, my little son, will be called the prophet of the Most High, because you will prepare the way for the Lord. 77 You will tell His people how to find salvation through forgiveness of their sins. 78 Because of God’s tender mercy, the morning light from Heaven is about to break upon us, 79 to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide us to the path of peace.” 80 John grew up and became strong in spirit. And he lived in the wilderness until he began his public ministry to Israel.
The Word of the Lord…

Sermon
When friends, coworkers, husbands and wives, and others end an argument or a fight these days, you can hear one ask the other, “So, are we good?” And sometimes the other person can be heard saying, “Yeah, we’re good,” even when they’re still holding a grudge and things really aren’t “good”.

But God’s not like that. He wants us to know – to be assured – when we are “good” with Him and when we are not.
Under the Old Covenant, God created a “way” for His people to be in right relationship with Him. This “way” was dependent upon people obeying God’s commands, His Law.

Let’s take a look at this by opening our Bibles to Deuteronomy 30:15-18…
After Israel’s exodus from Egypt – when God set them free from their slavery there (about 1,200 years before Christ) – Moses preached to them as they were getting ready to enter the land God had promised to give them, the land we today call “Israel”. And Moses preached these words that are now recorded in Deuteronomy 30,
“Listen! Today I am giving you a choice between life and death, between prosperity and disaster. For I command you this day to love the Lord your God and to keep His commands, decrees, and regulations by walking in His ways. If you do this, you will live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you and the land you are about to enter and occupy.
“But if your heart turns away and you refuse to listen, and if you are drawn away to serve and worship other gods, then I warn you now that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live a long, good life in the land you are crossing the Jordan to occupy.”

So, through Moses, the Lord was giving His people a choice: Life or death. And, how did Moses say that the people could be assured of a prosperous life in good-standing with God? Showing God they loved Him by obeying His commands.
Now, that’s not all that different from how Jesus would later talk about how we relate to God: In John 14:15 the Lord Jesus said that if we love God we’ll obey His commands. But look at verses 17-18 and we see the difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant: What did God say would happen to His people if they didn’t keep His commands? He says that they would be punished for their sin: God would punish them with death for their disobedience.
Now, God is unchanging. There really isn’t a “God of the Old Testament” and a “God of the New Testament”, as some will say. No. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And yet we can tend to think that God was harsher in the Old Testament and more forgiving in the New Testament.

But this isn’t really an accurate way of thinking about God. God showed compassion and grace all throughout the Old Testament, as time and time again Israel disobeyed and turned from following Him. God even allowed for the sacrificial system so that people could have their sins paid for by the life of an animal instead of their own lives.
Even so, under the Old Covenant, if you didn’t obey all of God’s commands – if you sinned against Him – you were unable to completely clear that debt you owed God. You could sacrifice animals, but you had to sacrifice them again and again, never being truly clean; never really being “good” with God.

How many of you wanted something that saw someone else having today? I mean, did you see someone’s dress and think: I wish I had that dress? Anyone here look at someone else’s car and think: I wish I had that car? Did you look at someone else’s parents or someone else’s kids and think: I wish they were mine instead of the ones I have? (Don’t raise your hands…) Have any of you been worried at all today? Anyone here had feelings of worry about our nation? Had worries about money? Had worries about the health or safety of any of your loved ones?

I ask you all that because it’s all sin: Wanting what others have or being worried about how-things-are or about what-might-happen is sin. And sin always comes between us and God. And since God’s commands tend to show us just how often we’re sinning, the Law really just showed Israel how impossible it was to be at peace with God because sin was always there and because sin always got in the way!

But the prophets said that “The Old System under the law of Moses was only a shadow, a dim preview of the good things to come, not the good things themselves. The sacrifices under that system were repeated again and again, year after year, but they were never able to provide perfect cleansing for those who came to worship.” The Old Covenant was good because it provided a way for God’s people to know Him. But it wasn’t perfect. From the beginning God had planned to put into motion a perfect plan, a new “way”, a New Covenant.

This is where Jesus comes in.
In our Scripture reading, John the Baptist’s dad, Zechariah the priest, is filled with the Holy Spirit, praising God as he anticipates the birth of Jesus Christ. Because in Jesus, Zechariah says,
• The Lord has visited and redeemed His people;
• According to Zechariah, the Lord Jesus is a mighty Savior!
• Jesus will save God’s people from our enemies and from all who hate us;
• In Jesus Christ we have been rescued from our enemies so we can serve God without fear, in holiness and righteousness for as long as we live!
And how will Jesus do all of this? How will He bring to us this great salvation? Through the forgiveness of our sins.
As Zechariah thinks about the Lord Jesus’ birth he says, “the morning light from Heaven is about to break upon us! To give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide us to the path of peace!”
In the Old Covenant, the blood of animals paid for the sins of the people. But these sacrifices needed to be offered over and over again, and were a constant reminder of the distance between God and His people because – as we showed in asking about wanting what others have and worrying – just as we constantly sin, God’s Old Covenant people constantly sinned. However, as God’s Son, Jesus’ life was the perfect offering to cover the sins of all people once and for all.
Jesus is the new “way”. He doesn’t point to the new “way”. He doesn’t represent the new “way”. He doesn’t teach us the new “way”. He is the new “way”!

In His love and wisdom, God sent His only, perfect Son to die in our place. This ushered in a New Covenant, one marked by grace through faith in His sacrifice to forgive us our sins. If we believe in Jesus and accept His sacrifice on our behalf, we are once and forever saved from our sins.

It’s not, “Did I do more good today than I did sin?” No. We don’t have to keep track of our sins, beating ourselves up for each and all the ways we’ve failed and fallen out of step with God. No. We are covered: Once on the cross, and for all of our sins – once and for all – we are covered. Through Jesus’ selfless sacrifice on the cross for us, we can have peace with God – even while we’re sinning – for eternity. And, as we’re sinning, and we’re realizing that we have peace with God, even so, it makes us want to stop sinning: [To the Lord] “I don’t want to do that to You!”

When the angel announced Jesus’ birth to the shepherds, what did the angel say? The angel said he had “good news” that would bring “great joy” for all God’s people: A Savior has been born! With His death and resurrection, Jesus forever took away the burden of our sins and created a new “way” of relating to God, through Himself, through His once and for all sacrifice!

Christmas is a celebration of the Lord Jesus’ birth, but is also be a celebration of the freedom we have to be God’s children. We don’t have to work to be His children, we can just be…

On account of the birth of Jesus Christ, we have been rescued from our enemies – including sin and death and self-condemnation – so we can serve God without fear, in holiness and righteousness for as long as we live.

Mark 14:32-42 [NLTse]
32 They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” 33 He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. 34 “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” he said to them. “Stay here and keep watch.”

35 Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. 36 “Abba,[f] Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”
37 Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Simon,”he said to Peter, “are you asleep? Couldn’t you keep watch for one hour?38 Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
39 Once more he went away and prayed the same thing. 40 When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. They did not know what to say to him.

41 Returning the third time, he said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. 42 Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!”

Sermon
For years, when I thought of prayer, I saw it as an obligation: A discipline that needed to be a part of my daily routine if I was to be a good Christian. I will never forget the day God decided it was time for me to grow out of that small thought.
I was struggling with God! Over the years I had found myself having discussions and arguments with God. It didn’t make a difference to me that He had always proven right in the past, this time He had definitely got it all wrong!

I was hurting, and I was resentful of the Lord’s absence and silence in the midst of my crisis. I was afraid to be honest about my resentment, so it took me a while before I dared to boldly make my complaint. But, eventually, my complaints poured out like a torrent as I listed my faithful efforts to deal with the circumstance. I remember being amazed to hear myself defend and promote myself before God. It was obvious to me that I had done my very best but God remained unfeelingly absent!

As I recall, I was amazed at His response to the ways I was feeling so sorry for myself and to the ways I was being so critical of Him?! Because, as I wound down, I had a growing sense of the presence of Jesus. He seemed to be almost tangibly near to me.

I had the sense that Jesus had been graciously waiting for me to finish! In response to my self-righteous litany of personal faithfulness, my heart heard Him say: “That’s right, Benjamin, you did all those things and much more than you remember! BUT, do you know why you did those things?” The Holy Spirit then opened my eyes to see our wonderful Father “high and lifted up”, sovereign and loving.

“You have prayed many prayers,” He said. “And not one of them has fallen unheard before Me. And I am going to answer above and beyond what you have thought to pray, Benjamin!” He then informed me that the only reason I had even thought of the prayers I had prayed was because I had “glimpsed dimly” what He had shown me in His Own heart! He was teaching me that when I felt like praying it was because He had initiated the prayer!

I have always felt a close affinity with David! His walk with God was so spontaneous, so loving and trusting, so vulnerable, so appealing to me that I have always aspired to be like him. One day I was reading 2 Samuel 7, thoroughly enjoying the conversation David was having with our God, when – it seemed like for the first time – I read David’s words in verse 27, “For You, O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, have revealed this to your servant, saying, ‘I will build you a house.’ Therefore, your servant found it in his heart to pray this prayer to You.”

The Father had taught me that when I felt like praying that it was because He was calling me to prayer. Now He was teaching me that what I prayed for He had inspired! And immediately other Scripture came to mind: “…without Me you can do nothing…” “…we do not know what we should pray for as we ought…” GOD INITIATES PRAYER and GOD INSPIRES PRAYER! He shows me when and what to pray!

Prayer has never been the same for me since. I saw that, while my prayers can be merely the expression of my own ideas, if I choose, that prayer is intended to be a transfer of God’s thoughts and plans into my heart!
The Father wants me to share His heart!! He wants me to be a part of what He is doing! Prayer is intended to be at our Father’s impulse! At His inspiration!

Abba was showing me that prayer was both natural – from me – and supernatural – from God! That, when praying rightly, that God is bridging the gap between Himself and me!

Jesus said, “Ask, and ye shall receive.” James said. “You do not have because you do not ask…or ask amiss.” I think we instinctively know that we can ask. And we know that we should not ask amiss (selfishly). What we often don’t know is that God simply wants us to want what He wants!

As I received the revelations that God initiates and inspires prayer, as I recognized that I was actually praying what originated in God’s heart, I realized that that meant that God desired the answer to those prayers more than I did! And the immediate result was, “Thank You, Father, for what You are going to do!”

Whenever I would face a situation that seemed discouraging, difficult, or even devastating the Holy Spirit would remind me of the reality of God’s heart filling my heart. I would then change my prayer from, “Please, God…” to “Thank You, Father, for what You are going to do!” And problems became possibilities: Possibilities for God to act!

Romans I shows us the importance of such thanksgiving to God. Human beings have become futile thinkers and human hearts have darkened because we have not thanked God! Thanksgiving is an attitude God has designed us for and intends for us to choose! Praying from a place of thanksgiving – for what God has initiated and inspired – is vital to a healthy relationship with our Father! It is living in reality! It is choosing to believe that God’s promises and faithfulness are more real than our circumstances.

“For the things that are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” (2 Cor. 4:18)
Burdensome and heavy prayers become outpourings of faith, hope, and love for our Father as we give thanks for what He is doing in our troublesome and wearying circumstances. Prayer is a joy and our privilege!

Introduction
Our Scripture this morning is from Mark 9:1-13. The Lord Jesus has just been teaching His disciples about self-sacrifice, the importance of living according to the Father’s will and not their own, and telling them about His return, saying, “If anyone is ashamed of Me and My message in these adulterous and sinful days, the Son of Man will be ashamed of that person when He returns in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”

Mark 9:1-13 [NLTse]
Jesus went on to say, “I tell you the truth, some standing here right now will not die before they see the Kingdom of God arrive in great power!”

2 Six days later Jesus took Peter, James, and John, and led them up a high mountain to be alone. As the men watched, Jesus’ appearance was transformed, 3 and His clothes became dazzling white, far whiter than any earthly bleach could ever make them. 4 Then Elijah and Moses appeared and began talking with Jesus.

5 Peter exclaimed, “Rabbi, it’s wonderful for us to be here! Let’s make three shelters as memorials—one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 6 He said this because he didn’t really know what else to say, for they were all terrified.
7 Then a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is My dearly loved Son. Listen to Him.” 8 Suddenly, when they looked around, Moses and Elijah were gone, and they saw only Jesus with them.
9 As they went back down the mountain, He told them not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. 10 So they kept it to themselves, but they often asked each other what He meant by “rising from the dead.”

11 Then they asked Him, “Why do the teachers of religious law insist that Elijah must return before the Messiah comes?”
12 Jesus responded, “Elijah is indeed coming first to get everything ready. Yet why do the Scriptures say that the Son of Man must suffer greatly and be treated with utter contempt? 13 But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they chose to abuse him, just as the Scriptures predicted.”

Sermon
With all of the busy-ness of life in the first-century world, and with all of the busy-ness that surrounded Him on account of people wanting to hear Him teach and come to Him for healing, the Lord Jesus valued time alone with His Father in Heaven. In our reading, the Lord Jesus has taken three of His closest disciples – Peter, James, and John – and hiked up a mountain to get away from the crowds and activity and the pressures and demands of the world to be alone together.

Luke tells us that the four men were praying, but that Peter, James, and John had fallen asleep. When they woke up they saw the Lord transfigured, as Mark describes Him: His clothes dazzling-white, and that looking at His face was like looking into the sun at its brightest!

Mark tells us that Moses and Elijah were there talking with the Lord Jesus when they awoke. (How they knew the two to be Moses and Elijah – if they heard the Lord call them by name, or if the Holy Spirit gave them this knowledge – we don’t know.) But Luke tells us that they were talking with the Lord about His soon-coming death and resurrection from the dead.

Mark tells us that all of the sudden they were enveloped by a cloud, but Matthew’s account makes clear that it was not a dark storm cloud or even a misty, foggy cloud. Matthew says it was a “bright” cloud, the shekinah of God – the cloud of His glory! The cloud that led Israel through the desert to the Promised Land. The cloud that rested on the Mercy Seat beneath the golden cherubim in the Temple’s Holy of Holies. When you see a halo around someone’s head, that symbolizes the shekinah of God. The Lord Jesus’ dazzling appearance here on the mountain is the shekinah of God showing the disciples His true nature! And Peter, James, and John heard God’s voice around them in the cloud, saying, “This is My Son Whom I dearly love. Listen to Him!” (But, “listen to Him” came with the nuance of not just always hearing what Jesus had to say but also always doing and acting on whatever it was He said.)

I quickly mentioned above that the Lord Jesus’ dazzling clothes and flashing, blinding face was the shekinah of God showing the watching disciples His true nature. This word “transfigure” that we use to describe the change in Jesus that took place on the mountain, comes from the Greek word metamorphoo, where we get our word “metamorphosis”.

Metamorphoo speaks of someone or something’s inner characteristics being made visible. When referring to a person, metamorphoo is describing how one’s outer appearance begins to more truly represent that person’s inner nature.

For instance, people who receive Jesus Christ as their Savior and who seek to follow Him daily as their Lord often become more joyful and peaceful inside. That inside joy and peace is often noticed by those around them in the ways these new believers handle difficult situations, and because they can tend to smile more and seem more relaxed. You can often hear of people asking new Christians, “It seems like there’s something different about you.” That is metamorphoo: There is an outside difference that is reflecting their new inside nature.

And the Lord Jesus was metamorphoo’d in front of Peter, James, and John.
The Lord Jesus’ outward appearance was that of the Man of Sorrows, the One acquainted with bitterest grief (Isaiah wrote of Him). To the world, the Lord Jesus was a travel-stained itinerant preacher claiming to be the Jewish Messiah. What the world saw was a peasant from Galilee, wearing homespun clothes, the son of a carpenter.

But in His metamorpho-sis, Peter, James, and John saw His true inner nature exposed: God the Son; the dazzling glory of the essence of His deity that He possesses co-eternally with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit! The Lord of Glory! It shone through His humanity and even out through the clothing He wore!

So, what are some ways that this touches us and our lives here today?
Well, first of all, the apostle Paul writes to the Colossians that each one of us who have given ourselves to Jesus Christ by trusting in Him to save us has Jesus’ nature inside of us, our “hope of glory” in this life; our “hope of glory” in the life to come! (1:27) The Lord Jesus told His disciples to expect Him to begin living in us – and to expect His glory to shine from us. He told them this on the night before He was crucified, when He prayed to the Father, “I have given them the glory You gave Me, so they may be one as We are one. I am in them [Father] and You are in Me.” (17:22-23) And as John wrote to the church in his first letter, “Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but He has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He really is.” (3:2) So, there is an aspect of us, Christians, that is glorious right now, and yet an aspect of us that will not be fully glorious until Christ appears.

Now, we are not God, so we can not and should not expect the unbridled manifestation of the Lord Jesus’ metamorphoo, but Luke does add the detail that both Moses and Elijah were “glorious”, perhaps not to the same degree the Lord Jesus was blindingly glorious, but glorious nonetheless. And so – Christ in us and us in Christ – we, too, can expect the metamorpho¬-sis of gloriousness to shine forth from us – and more and more – as we live for Jesus and grow in Him daily.

And we do that, as the Father called Peter, James, and John to in the shekinah-cloud, by “listening to Jesus.”
As I quickly mentioned earlier, this phrase, “listen to Him” most literally conveys the idea of always listening to Him. And yet, it is not just the idea of always merely hearing what the Lord Jesus says to us in His Word or by the Spirit, but of, always doing and acting upon what He says.

Too often we, Christians, second-guess Jesus. “I know You’ve told me to forgive the person, Lord, but…” “I know You’ve told me to give generously to all those who ask, Lord, but…” “I know You’ve told me to bless those who curse me, and to pray for my enemies, and to do good to those who’ve harmed me, but…” “I know You’ve told me to stop getting drunk, but…” “I know You’ve told me to stop making work a priority over You and my spouse and my family, but…” “I know You’ve told me to never worry and to never fear this world, but…”

We know what He’s said to us across the Scriptures, but we make our excuses for not always doing and acting upon what He’s said. But all that keeps His glory from shining forth from us.

Of course, we can do the same thing throughout each and every day when the Holy Spirit prompts us to stop and pray for someone or to stop and pray with someone or to go here or to do that. Too often we can object, “But, Lord..!” ? We must not…

Jesus says, “Anyone who listens to My teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds [of life] beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock. But anyone who hears My teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods [of life] come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.”

Let’s listen and follow.

Let’s be glorious!