God's Ultimate Blessing

What is the Ultimate Blessing of God? Many within and without Christianity surmise that such a blessing is riches, power, big houses and fleets of vehicles. Others say the ultimate blessing is nonstop good health, food and pleasure. 

A person viewing God’s ultimate blessing in those terms may be disappointed by Jesus’ statements at Matthew 5:1-12. There Jesus shows us that the ultimate blessing is about relationship with God.

In Psalm 24, David expresses his confidence in who God is and the ultimate blessing God imparts: an intimate relationship with Himself, the Most High God, Sovereign over all! That blessing comprises His saving grace, a right standing before Him, and His desire for us to live into His moral will. Ephesians describes that relationship with God as “in Christ;” in Him we are bathed in an outpouring of all spiritual blessings from His hand. (Ephesians 1) From those blessings come provision for all our needs. (Phil 4:19). 

In this ultimate blessing, we are drawn into His spiritual family and made joint heirs with Christ. We come to know God in that ultimate blessing as Father, and the more intimate Abba Father. Do we truly comprehend what God offers us – a blessing beyond anything we can ever imagine? (Ephesians 3:20-21; Colossians 1:9-14; 2:2) Too often, though, we short-shrift God’s blessing, His promised presence in our lives, because we don’t get what we want from Him. Brothers and sisters, God does not promise to satisfy our every fleshly desire and whim; His promise is to be always present with those who love Him, guiding us to His best for our lives. (Psalm 23; 139:1-6, 16-18)

As we live into God’s ultimate blessing, are we not filled with the desire to praise Him with our words and behavior, to be His living gospel, to not embarrass Him? We are His children, Christ’s siblings! Should we not pray and listen to Him, obey His Word? Jesus declares that obedience to God’s will and Word is the essence of worship. (John 14:15, 23-24) We are embraced in that relationship by the full Godhead, and there is nothing or no one – not even ourselves – that can separate us from that love. (John 10:28-29; Romans 8:35, 38-39) Are we living into God’s blessing? Do we understand that an intimate relationship with God and to glorify Him and enjoy Him forever is His greatest desire for us? Everything else flows from there. (Habakkuk 3:17-19; Philippians 4:4-7)

By contrast, the psalmist clearly admonishes in Psalm 24 that those who reject the LORD as Sovereign, and pursue a lifestyle contrary to His moral law, cannot enjoy that ultimate blessing of intimacy with Him. Let us never spurn God’s ultimate blessing, but continually seek His presence and learn His will! (Hebrews 6:1-6; Isaiah 44:22; 55:7; Psalm 32; Ephesians1:17-19)

Invitation to Dinner

When a person hosts a special dinner for a close friend or two, he or she takes time to set the table, making it inviting and comfortable, a delight to the eyes as well as to the palate. The best dinnerware is brought out, the chairs are clean and comfortable, the table dressed in the best linens or covers and perhaps have a ‘tablescape’ that complements the event. Such care is taken because the person loves his or her guests, wants them to be encouraged, to feel valued, and to thoroughly enjoy the fellowship to which they have been invited. The person is especially inclined to be intentional in setting the table when those friends are enduring difficult times. The fellowship time generates enhanced relationships, a tighter bond.

When what we know as Psalm 23 was being penned by David under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he was moved to write in the midst of great challenge – people were seeking his death. David was running for his life. In the entire circumstance of challenge, sadness, and despair experienced by David (the person who had wanted David killed was the King of Israel, and one whom David had drawn close to with a fondness seeing in the king a father-like figure). Can you imagine the rollercoaster emotions David had to be experiencing?

David turned to his Heavenly Father for comfort, companionship, and encouragement in such times of discouragement. When we experience difficulties and trials, a key impact is the opportunity for increased intimacy with our Heavenly Father. David describes the intimacy and blessing of a special time of fellowship with his Heavenly Father: “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.” Can we picture just what David is writing? Can we see the circumstance through his eyes? God the Father set the table and invites David. Although David was the servant and God the host, David’s Father God arranged a unique and special time of sweet communion and intimate fellowship in the midst of David’s severe troubles. God carved out special times of communion with David, and was committed to fellowship with him. God Himself sets the tablescape, bringing all the perfect accoutrements required.

Do we aspire to that kind of intimacy with God as David did? When we are facing trials so much bigger than us, and possibly in deep pain, do we thank God that He is always present and so willing to share intimate time with us? Do we find the grace of God in the tablescape of His desire to enjoy the opportunity to ‘sit’ with us and bring us the peace and contentment of a relationship with the Prince of Peace, God of Love? (compare Luke 24:13-15, 28-32) Don’t put the opportunity aside, saying you will get around to spending time with God; RSVP now to God’s invitation to fellowship with Him. The table is set just for you.

Patient Waiting

Living our Faith

Ours is an ‘instant everything’ culture, where patient waiting is a challenge even for Christians. Psalm 130 and Mark 5 intentionally offer us a stark contrast. 

Stepping into those readings, we first witness the incessant striving of the people – the psalmist cries out to God repeatedly from the depths of his soul; the synagogue leader and the woman with the chronic illness have both been praying for what seems like an eternity for healing. Then we note that the psalmist has learned to wait for the LORD, the Sovereign God, the Living God, in whose hands is all of time. He finds deepening trust and hope in God’s word of promise, and profound grace, mercy and forgiveness. The synagogue leader Jairus in the Mark passage has by career and heredity known of God, prayed to God the regular prayers of his people, however, in this season his prayer life changes. His relationship with Yahweh in this time of waiting on His mercy has grown more personal because of his daughter’s illness (do you think Psalm 130 was a continual prayer for him?). The woman in the Mark passage has endured a devastating illness that her culture and the law exacerbates so that she is forced to live in the shadows, to abandon meaningful relationships, and is bankrupted by medical bills. She awaits God’s healing, doing all the law allows, crying out to Yahweh incessantly for twelve lonely, painful years. God answers both of their prayers in an unexpected, personal way in Jesus. 

At the beginning of Mark 5, Jesus’ healing of a demoniac initiates a groundswell of proclaiming of the Gospel throughout the region by those who witnessed the miraculous healing  – the telling of the good news of God coming to His people. Jairus and the woman hear about what Jesus has done and believe He is the answer God has sent in response to their pleadings. For Jairus his seeking Jesus could mean a loss of job and reputation, but he knows doing nothing could cost him more. His faith pushes him to boldly go to Jesus and fall at his feet, seeking mercy and redemption. The woman knowing that her willful violation of the law could cost her her life, nevertheless walks stealthily in faith for just a touch from Jesus. And look how Jesus uniquely answers each one! 

Can't you feel the woman’s fear, then divine joy, as Jesus restores her publicly, Jesus who has seen and known her true value to the Father and by grace and in mercy forgives and redeems her life? Can't you feel Jairus’ complex emotions as he hears his daughter has died, but is immediately reassured by the same Jesus who redeemed the woman known throughout the community as a lost cause? Can't you feel your heart pound as you walk into his house where his dear child is laid out in death until that same Jesus calls her back to life right before your eyes? 

Had both Jairus and the woman not waited in faith, would they have experienced these outcomes? As the psalmist explains, their waiting was purposeful. The waiting on the God of all Creation, the anticipation that He would act based on His word, was an opportunity for each of them to grow in faith and trust. They could see with eyes of faith God’s answer was certain in Christ, and found not just physical restoration, but a divine revelation of God himself and an eternal blessing. What blessings have we missed because of impatience? What if we see waiting as an opportunity to trust our Sovereign God, to let Him use our seasons of waiting to uniquely act in our lives to push our faith forward?

Christmas Pictures

[This homily was shared on the morning of Sunday, December 31, 2017 to a local congregation who was celebrating a Youth Sunday]

PRAYER – Father let your book live for us. Let us see you in it, let us see our Savior, and let us see ourselves as you do. Let the book live for us. In Jesus name, Amen.

Merry Christmastide. What a morning of blessings; isn’t always a blessing to have our young adults and our future young adults bring us the Word of God? Amen?

Friends, brothers and sisters, we are indeed blessed with multiple blessings this morning and by God’s grace, throughout this day. For in our readings and lessons for today, God has given us a panoramic picture, a series of snapshots, a gallery of pictures of His Good News, of the Gospel of Christ! We have only seen a few today, but there so many more pictures in God’s Word. We can categorize the pictures in this way – in the Old Testament we have prophetic pictures and prefigurements of Christ; in the Gospels, He is presented and gives substance to those prophetic pics; in Acts He is proclaimed and those pics shared, in the letters or epistles the good news of Christ is explained, and in the last book we receive the grand pic of revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ. So many pictures! John says in his Gospel that if all the pictures or accounts of  Christ’s earthly life were recorded, no book  could contain them all!

This trove of pictures of the Gospel about this Dynamic gift in Christ, is made special by the One giving it – God, And by those who are able to receive it, to value it, to know its worth, to treasure and ponder it. Not everyone is able to receive it this way. The apostle Paul knew the value of this gift of the good news, as he writes by the Holy Spirit in Romans 1:16, he says there For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation. He treasured this good news, he kept this picture close to his heart, and allowed it to work in him to the glory of God and our benefit.

We who follow Christ and who also treasure these pictures of the good news recognize that in Christmas we are reminded of our Father’s faithfulness, His everlasting love for us. A picture of that can be found in Genesis 22 – I encourage you to read when you get home. Because Jesus speaks to that picture, noting that it was fulfilled in Him nearly two thousand years after the picture was ‘taken’, and fulfilled in the same place, when he says what is recorded at John 3:16. Most of us know this scripture by heart, so I invite you to recite it now, to give words to that picture, how you learned it. “God….”

While the world takes the sense of Christmas as a one-off annual event, we who are followers of Christ are blessed to anticipate that each and every time we gather for Holy Eucharist we celebrate and remember Christmas in Christ's first advent, as we await his coming in glory.

The power of God for salvation contained in the multitude of snapshots in God’s Word, as noted earlier, will not be the experience of all persons to whom the Dynamic Gift of Christ is given, as today’s Gospel lesson  in John reminds us. The world could not receive Christ – even those of his own people, yet God graced those who would receive him with power to become His children, children who repeatedly reflect on the panorama of pictures in God’s Word. How are we using this gift of power?

As recipients of this power of God, we are blessed to recognize that we have something much more superior to what the world promotes as the ‘spirit of Christmas’, which despite the weeks of promotions, proves to be elusive and then fades after all the tinsel, shiny lights, are disposed of. Brothers and sisters in Christ, we know and we treasure – if you are listening say Amen – we know and we treasure that we who have accepted this dynamic gift of Christ as Lord & Saviour have been gifted with the Eternal Spirit of Christ, Emmanuel – Christ in us and with us. Amen? He empowers us to discern the many pictures of the good news, enables us to live like children of God in His power, to love like Christ – we can’t do it without Him! 

To understand Jesus’ depictions of that Spirit in John 14, 15, 16, and the pictures of who that Spirit is and what He does in us as explained in the letters to the Ephesians, Colossians, to the Romans - especially in chapter 8, and to the Galatians particularly at chapter 5 where we are given a picture of what it looks like to submit to His Spirit.

Brothers and sisters, these Gospel pictures and more have been given to us to treasure and ponder!

Speaking of pictures, how many of you have a smart phone – raise hands. Just about everyone. With our smart phones we are able to take a gazillion pictures. I have an android phone which has an app called Gallery where the pictures are stored. What app does the iPhone use? Ok. I don’t know about you but I run out of capacity to hold all the pictures I take but they are so precious – they are my memories. Thinking of precious pictures, can you imagine the scene there at the manger (Luke 2), of the shepherds visiting Mary and Joseph and gifting them with the revelation that they received personally from the angels and the overwhelming joy they experienced. We are told that Mary took those 'pictures,' those awesome accounts of this heavenly revelation and treasured them in the gallery of her heart. She didn’t  just store them, she pondered them and allowed them to work a faith in her – a faith that would help her endure tough times to come.

We have been gifted by God over the days, months, and years with so many pictures of His reconciliation plan – His Gospel and its operative power. If we would but close our eyes and see them with our hearts. Believers who have that Eternal Spirit of Christ, don’t worry – he has capacity enough to store all of those pictures for us in the gallery of our hearts. When we open our hearts, and allow the Spirit to sketch upon them God's saving Gospel those images dwell richly in us. Those Spirit-shaped images can work a faith in us for our tough times ahead. We are not just to store them like a museum collection that we keep covered up – we are to use & share these gifts from God with others, show them the pictures God has instilled in us. For them to see the power of that gift that the eternal Spirit makes operative in minds hearts our lifestyles, in our lives at work and in school, in our families. Not just at Christmas season but every day. At every gathering of God’s people. So that all may know and by God’s grace come to receive this Dynamic Gift in Christ that we treasure, to have their own gallery of pictures.. Amen? And Father…