Sermon transcript, 22 March 2015

God writes in our hearts by Fr. Dana

Jeremiah 31:31-34, Psalm 51:5-17, Hebrews 5:1-10, John 12:20-33

Recording:  http://1drv.ms/1MtQDAj

There seems to be a theme running through all the readings, and that is what I would like to speak about this morning.

In the Old Testament reading we heard about a Covenant that is different than and goes beyond the original one that God made with his people: Jeremiah 31:31.  When God gave the first Covenant He wrote it down: we have the first five books of the Bible, the Law, the Ten Commandments.  People read it, forgot about it and went their own ways, and He had to keep calling them back, and sometimes He had to get severe with them.

But He is talking about something different here: “I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts” (Jeremiah 31:33).  That’s one of the ways in which Jesus fulfilled the Law, because He came and kept it – every bit of it, even the part that wasn’t written down – because His heart was God’s heart.  And when He was crucified, dead, buried and rose again, when He went to heaven, He promised the disciples that He would ask the Father to send the Comforter, the Paraclete, the One who walks alongside, and He came at Pentecost. That was the beginning of God putting His law in our minds and writing it on our hearts; because no longer does it depend merely upon what I can memorise, because the Spirit of God is in me.  The Spirit of God is in you, and He will bring to mind those things.

Listen

The key is, we have to be willing to listen.  I can busy myself with activities; I can even busy myself with activities for God: I can spend all the time doing things that I think God likes so that I have no time to listen to what He’s telling me.  Doing is not the answer.  If we truly desire to know His will, He will show us; and He has many ways of doing that.  We as human beings like things to be predictable, so when we find that there is one way that He has done it, we like to write a book about it and sell thousands of copies; and everyone wants God to work that way, because we’ve seen that He has worked that way once, so we know that He must work that way.  The problem is that God defies being put in a box.  “Well, if I pray nine Hail Marys…”  That may have worked for someone, even for multiple people – but that’s not a guarantee.  “If I spend an hour a day in prayer…” – that worked, but it’s not a guarantee.  “If I meditate and open my mind…” – be careful what you open your mind to, because God’s not the only one talking.

God refuses to be put in a box, but He does say – and you can take this to the bank (In other words, it’s as good as a cheque from God: you can cash it to the bank, he does have funds and it will get transferred) – “I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts”.  If we want to know His will, He will show us.  He may show us through godly counsel from someone else; He may show us directly through His Word; He may speak to us in the middle of the night or in the middle of traffic…  He can speak any way He wants and any place He wants.

But because other voices speak as well, how do we know it’s Him?  That’s one of the reasons God has given us the Bible.  He will never, ever tell us something that violates who He is and how He works as revealed in His Word.  His Word was His Word before it was ever written down.  His Word became flesh.  Jesus did not become the Bible; we don’t worship this book: it is not God.  It is God’s Word: He inspired and wrote every word of it; but it is not God.  We don’t bow down before the Bible; we bow down before God.  But this for us is His primary revelation of who He is.  That doesn’t mean we can pick out a verse and say, “This applies.  I wish above all things that you will prosper.  Yes!”  That’s only half the verse anyway…  But it is in here, and He will never tell us something that goes against His Word.  “Well, God told me that I need to divorce my wife and go shack up with two twenty-year-olds…”  You might have heard that voice, but that wasn’t God, because that violates about fifteen things that He has revealed to us in His Word.

A clean heart

If I write something on the wall with a black magic marker, if I did it on that wall you could see it; if I wrote it here, maybe you could, maybe you couldn’t.  If He’s going to write it on our heart, what does our heart need to look like?  Whatever colour He’s writing, imagine a contrasting colour.  In the USA you can find walls covered in all kinds of writing in all kinds of colours and styles, and if I wrote something there and say “Go and read what I wrote”, you’d have no idea.  What do we need for God to write His law on our hearts and for us to be able to distinguish it?

Clean!  (Psalm 51:10-12) We need a clean heart for God to write on.  That doesn’t mean He won’t write on a dirty heart, but how are you going to distinguish the dirt, the graffiti, sin, and Satan’s lies, from His Word?  We need to have a clean heart, and we need to keep it clean, because even after God has written His Word on our heart, Satan would love to come along, scraping over it with his garbage – and he does.  And the only way we can keep it clean is by confessing our sin, because every time we confess our sin He washes it clean again.  And no, this is not a legalistic thing, that if you confess your sin and die twenty minutes later, anything that you did between when you last confessed and when you died you’re going to go to hell for.  But you do continually cleanse yourself: you don’t take a bath or a shower once and say, “That does me good for the year” (I know there were periods in history when that was true, but that didn’t make them clean – they worse stuff to cover it up); and so we need to confess.

The good news is there is joy in His salvation (Psalm 51:12); however there are also trials, and that’s why the Psalm says, “Uphold me by your bountiful Spirit”.  God is bountiful; if we come to Him and say, “Help me: I’m really having problems; I’m drowning, I’m slipping away”, He won’t say, “Well, here, take the string that’s coming out of My rope and grab onto it”.  He’s not a stingy God – He’s a bountiful God.  He will reach down with His mighty right hand – and who is His mighty right hand?  Jesus! – and so there is joy in our salvation.  He is not stingy when it comes to giving us what we need.  I did not say “what I want”; what   I want may not be what I need.  There have been studies in America of people who win the lottery; the vast majority (not 51% but 80 or 90%) within a year are broke.  They get something they don’t know how to handle; and there are too many people willing to give them advice.  You have friends you never knew about when you come into money; and there’s a reason you never knew about them: because they never were your friends!  But God is bountiful in what we need.

A broken and contrite heart

So what do we give Him?  The Psalm tells us that as well (Psalm 51:16-17).  God established sacrifices: He told them exactly how to cut the lamb, what to do with the parts, where to sprinkle the blood, which parts should go to the Priest, which parts should be burnt on the altar, and so on.  But it wasn’t because He likes chicken or lamb – He was teaching.  What He really wants – and even David knew it – is a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart.

He’s not talking about a twelve-year old girl who’s been raped – not that kind of broken spirit.  He’s not talking about someone whose life has been demolished.  He’s talking about someone who knows that they are broken, that they are not perfect; someone who knows they don’t have all the answers: a spirit that doesn’t come to God like the Pharisee and say, “Well, I pray seventeen times a day and I give half of everything I get to the poor (at least, have of everything I record in the books)…”  Pride gets you nowhere.  When you can stand as the tax collector did, and have nothing positive to proclaim about yourself, and just say, “Father, I’m a sinner.  I don’t have anything worthwhile to give You; but everything I have and everything I am is Yours”, [see Luke 18:9-14] that’s the sacrifice God wants; and that’s the sacrifice He will use.

It’s the sacrifice of our will, to take the “I know what’s best for me; I know what I want”, give it to Him and say, “You know what’s best for me; I want what You want”.  It’s giving Him our pride: “I’m smarter than everyone in my class” or, “I can draw a human figure, and you can’t”.  When we give up our “I am” and “I have” and say, “It’s Yours: You gave it to me in the first place; anything I have that may be good, didn’t come from me – it came from You”, that’s a broken spirit.

A contrite heart is one that says “I blew it.  I wanted to the right things, and sometimes maybe I thought I was doing the right thing, but I blew it.  Maybe I even did a good thing, but I didn’t do the best thing, because I didn’t listen to You.”  Contrition, not pride.

The sacrifice of obedience

Under the Old Covenant, God required the physical sacrifice of the first, the best, the firstborn, the best lamb of the flock: before you sold any of them, pick out the best.  And that was completed in the sacrifice of His Son: God gave His firstborn, His only born, His only Son, his best.  Under the New Covenant this writing of the law in our heart is still in essence a physical sacrifice but it starts in the will.  It’s no less real than giving a lamb that was slain, but it starts here and is worked out in our body, in our lives.  That too was completed in Jesus Christ.

Our New Testament reading talks about Jesus (Hebrews 5:7-8).  You remember His tears in the garden; He sweated blood; He cried out to His Father, “If there is a way that You can take this cup away, please do!”  His were not half-hearted cries; this was not an “Oh well…” kind of prayer: He was praying fervently, He was sweating blood.  And yet the Father said no, and the Son learned obedience by the things which He suffered.

That doesn’t mean that before that He was disobedient: when He was in heaven with God, He and the Father and the Holy Spirit were in this dance of the Trinity, each one doing His part, working together just like the dancers we have, each one different and having a different thing to do but working together to make a beautiful whole.  He didn’t need conscious obedience: it was His nature just to flow with God.  But when He became human He left behind some of that, and He became a Man; and He chose obedience, and because He obeyed He suffered.

Do you remember the temptation?  Satan came to Him in the desert and said “Do this and the kingdoms of the earth are Yours.”  Satan didn’t have the authority to do that: he doesn’t own the kingdoms of the world – he has temporary custody of them but he doesn’t own them.  Jesus could have said, “That’s much easier than going to the cross” and done what Satan said, or He could have said, “Better than that, I’m going to take them!” – He had the power.  But He didn’t; He said, “I’m not doing it your way; I’m not even doing it My way; I’m doing it God’s way.”

In the garden, “He went a little farther, and fell on the ground, and prayed that if it were possible, the hour might pass from Him. ³⁶ And He said, ‘Abba, Father, all things are possible for You. Take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will.’” (Mark 14:35-37)  And God the Father took Him at His word.

The seed must die

And Jesus tells them this is going to happen in our Gospel reading (John 12:24).  If I go out into a wheat field and pluck one little grain off one stalk, I have a seed; it still has life in it.  But if I don’t plant it, it won’t grow, and it will never be more than that one seed in my hand.  But if I go to a field that has been ploughed and… [plant it]; it will grow, and there will be thirty, sixty or a hundred little grains on that head; and if they die and are planted in the ground, they too will grow.

Read John 12:25-26.  In the daily readings when Jesus was telling the disciples that He would be killed and rise again, and Peter says, “Man, don’t say that!  That’s not what the Messiah (the Christ) is supposed to do – You’re supposed to toss out the Romans; You’re supposed to redeem Israel; You’re supposed to make us great again; You’re supposed to save us!”  And Jesus rebuked him: “You’ve got Satan’s word, not God’s Word.  You’re not reading what God’s writing on your heart – you’re listening to something else.” (Mark 8:31-33)  He’s already said “I’m going to be like a grain of wheat, I’m going to die and I’m going to rise from the dead”, and after Peter has told Him, “No, You’re not going to do that!”, Jesus turns to the disciples and says, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” (Mark 8:34)  “It’s not just me that’s going to do this: I’m calling you to do exactly the same.”  For some them it resulted in exactly the same thing: some of them were crucified; most of them died: all but John, and Judas, who killed himself, were killed for the faith.  Jesus wasn’t lying: He said, “This is the way of the Father; this is what I’m going to do; this is what Messiah was born for!” [see John 12:27] “This is what I’m going to do, and if you’re going to let the Father write on your heart, this is what you need to be willing to do too.”

Dying produces a harvest.  Keeping – if I keep that little seed and put it in a safe, hide it away, I’ll always have a seed. There are seeds that were buried with the Pharaohs, and when they opened up the tombs and took them out, they still grew.  I could take that seed and seal it away, and in five thousand years I can take it out and plant it, and it will still die and produce a harvest.  But as long as it’s hidden away, I ain’t got nothing but a seed – it’s worth nothing but a seed.

The Holy Spirit helps us

This dying to self may result in a physical death: a “red martyrdom”, shedding your blood; or it may result in a white martyrdom: living fifty, seventy, or eighty years serving God.  God requires dying to self.  God wants to write His Law in our minds and our hearts: He wants to show us clearly what His will is, and that’s one reason He sent His Holy Spirit to be with us and abide in us (Romans 8:26-27: this is from the lectionary this past Thursday).

I don’t know about you, but I don’t have the strength to pray the way Jesus did in the garden: I’ve never prayed to the point of sweating blood, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do that.  But I do know that the Holy Spirit prays for me and for you, prays on your behalf just as fervently as Jesus did in the garden.  He doesn’t just go halfway: we have an abundant God, and so the Holy Spirit prays fervently for us.

And He, the Father, will write His word in our minds and in our hearts for us to see and to read, to understand and to follow – because He’s helping us to all that as well: He’s helping us to read, He’s helping us to understand, He’s helping us to follow… if we let Him.  All we have to do is make room for Him, make space.  Stop the stuff coming in from outside, pray that God would stop the stuff – the flesh – that comes from the inside, and the Holy Spirit stops what’s coming directly from the devil; so that we can read and hear and understand and obey the will of the Father.  May He accomplish that this Lent, to teach us, to discipline us, how to walk in his will in all that we do.

Sermon transcript, 15 March 2015

Come to the Light by Fr. Dana

II Chronicles 36:14-23, Psalm 107:1-2, 17, 19-21, Ephesians 2:1-10, John 3:14-21

Recording:  http://1drv.ms/1R5pzsM

Psalm 119, which is the longest Psalm of all, has a section for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet; but the important thing is what it says: read Psalm 119:1-8.  And I come out of my prayer closet and I start my day and immediately I fall on face, because I didn’t do that: I didn’t completely and utterly keep His commandments.  “How shall a young man cleanse his way?” (Psalm 119:9) God knows I wasn’t going to be able to do that!  Read Psalm 119:9-16, 25a. Even though I have all these desires to do what is right, to follow Your commandments, my soul cleaves to the dust – to the flesh, to that which is perishing, to that which is worthless and common.  Read Psalm 119:26-31. That’s where I want to be; don’t let me be put to shame.  I will fail; don’t let me be put to shame.

Read Psalm 119:32.  If you’re in an unfamiliar place and you don’t know where you’re going, you move slowly so you don’t make a wrong turn or a mis-step; but when you know where you’re going and you know you’re with the One who knows all things, then you can run and not worry about falling down.  That’s where I want to be.  Not that I don’t need Him: I don’t want to get to the point where I say “OK, God, I’ve got it now, I understand everything.  You just stand there and watch me do this.”  That always fails.  But if I’m yoked with Him, we can run: we can go as fast as He wants – and He can go a lot faster than I can, but I can keep up with Him if I’m yoked with Him.

Sin brings judgment

All the readings today describe life: even though we know the Law, even though we know what is right, even though we know Jesus Christ, we sin.  I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t.  Just like the Israelites, He tries to warn us: in the Old Testament it says that God rose early to send the prophets (II Chronicles 36:15).  It’s not as if God has a night and day and He slept and then got up at 4 am to send a prophet, but He’s putting it in human terms: “I did everything I could do; I didn’t just do what was convenient – I did everything, and they still didn’t listen.

In fact verse 14 says, “Moreover all the leaders of the priests and the people transgressed more and more, according to all the abominations of the nations, and defiled the house of the LORD which He had consecrated in Jerusalem.”  Not only did they sin personally, but they defiled the house of the Lord: the things they did in the house of the Lord were despicable, and unmentionable even – and there are places where that’s happening now.  The Lord sent warnings, but His people – including the leaders of the priests and the people – mocked the messengers of God and despised His words, until there was no remedy (II Chronicles 36:16).  They had gone so far that God said “I am patient and longsuffering, but you took Me past the boundary.  In Jeremiah 7:16 He said, “Don’t even pray for them any more: they’ve gone so far that it’s time for judgment.”

In this case He brought the Chaldeans against them, and they destroyed the people; they even took all the treasures out of the house of God and carried them off to Babylon, and then they destroyed the house of God (II Chronicles 36:17-18). “But this was Your house, God – how could You let them do that?”  I would think that would be the one place that would be left standing symbolically to show that You are still there and that you are greater than any army.  But He didn’t do that.  He said, “Even that has come between you and Me.  You raise up the house of the Lord and say “It’s awesome” – and it is – but then you disrespect it by what you do in it.  You disrespect Me.  You don’t follow Me: it’s only there to give you status.  OK, we don’t need that.”

Over time, all the amazing things that had been in the temple of God in Jerusalem – remember all those incredible things that Solomon had made: you can get descriptions of the basin, and the bulls that held it up, and the utensils and the gold and the silver and all the fantastic fabrics – where are they?  They’re gone.  As far as we know they don’t exist.  All of that, the glory of God in the presence of men – it’s gone: we can’t find it.  It’s probably been made into copper pipes, and who knows what.  That’s profound.

God’s restoration

And it remained destroyed for seventy years.  Then God called them back, using – amazingly enough – Cyrus, the king of Persia.  He didn’t even use a prophet from Israel – He used this king of Persia (II Chronicles 36:23).  He acknowledged God more than the Israelites did – that’s like turning on your radio to the worst shock jock rock station and having some DJ call you to the Lord.  What?!

That’s a microcosm of the way God works.  He shows us His presence, He gives us everything we need; we receive it, we stumble, we fall away… and He calls us back. It is described in Psalm 107:17.  They were fools because they knew what God’s blessing was like: they knew it, they experienced, they lived it – but they still went the wrong way.  “¹⁹Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble, and He saved them out of their distresses. ²⁰He sent His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.”  (Psalm 107:19-20)  The second lesson describes the same process (Ephesians 2:1-3). Paul includes himself in “we all”; we are no better: we were there too.  Again, we were lost; He came, He rescued (Ephesians 2:4-6).

And then the Gospel (John 3:16-18): Jesus didn’t have to come to bring condemnation, because they were already condemned.  We are already condemned if we do not believe in the name of the only-begotten Son of God.  Read John 3:19-20.  We have a choice: we can come to the light.  Jesus is the Light; He has given us the light, the light lives in us.  When we sin, we can lie: we can say “I didn’t”.  Remember Ananias and Sapphira: they sold the land, and because other people were giving everything, they came and gave then money and said “that’s all of it”.  They didn’t have to say that: they could have said “Here’s half of it”; no one would have looked down on them.  But they wanted to appear good, to appear better than they were, and so they lied.  And they ended up “six feet under, pushing up daisies”: in the grave (Acts 4:34-35, 5:1-10).

Confession

So what do we do?  We know that despite our best efforts we’re not going to be perfect; however much we want to be, we can never quite get there.  So what do we do?  We do what the Psalm talked about: we confess.  We confess every Sunday in our general confession, which accomplishes a lot.  But hopefully we confess at least in our hearts directly to God specifically the things that we do.

How many of you have gone through private confession to a Priest?  Don’t be embarrassed; there would probably be a similar ratio in some of the CEC churches in America….  It is a very powerful thing to go through.  I would like to let you know what happens in the Rite of Confession, which in the Book of Common Prayer is called “The Reconciliation of a Penitent”.  A penitent is someone who is sorry for his/her sins.  It has been a while since I have gone to Confession to another Priest or a Bishop (I prefer a Bishop: I prefer the authority, being accountable).  I have been a little delinquent; and I really long for that, because it is powerful.  No matter how many times I confess my sins to God every day – and I try to do several of the monastic hours, so I confess four to six times a day, and if  you do it that often you get a little more specific than if it is once a year: What did I do this last year?  What did I do in the past three hours?  Well, I spoke to my wife this way… and God can bring some things to mind that you might not get to otherwise – Even though I might do that, there are some things, and some of those individual things are actually patterns, and I might need to confess that pattern, because it is a stronghold in my life.

One of the strongholds in my life is rolling my eyes when someone says something; it is particularly bad when that someone is my wife, especially when my children see it; that is total disrespect: “There she goes again…”  It is not because she said something wrong; it’s just that I was expecting something different: the problem is mine, not hers.  And it has taken a long time to address that.  For example, that is something to confess before God: a pattern.  When I do that, I say, “Yes, Father, I know it was wrong; I’m sorry”, and He forgives me.  But I need to deal with “What is it that causes me to do that?  What is that controlling issue that causes me to think that what’s in my mind is more important than what’s in her mind?”

So let’s imagine: I go to the Bishop.  In a perfect scenario, we would be in an empty church, the Bishop would be sitting inside the rail, and I would go up and kneel at the rail.  Since we don’t have that, it works in an office with two chairs or somewhere where it’s private.  I, as the penitent, say, “Bless me. Father, for I have sinned.”  In the Catholic Church you would add, “and it has been six years, four days and thirteen hours since my last confession” (not in that detail, but it has been a long time).  And the Priest or Bishop would say, “The Lord be in your heart and upon your lips, that you may truly and humbly confess your sins; in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”  So it’s not just you, but the Lord stirring stuff up in there for you to confess.  So I begin: “I confess to Almighty God, to His Church, and to you, that I have sinned by my own fault [it wasn’t that woman You gave me, as Adam said] in thought, word and deed, in things done and left undone [it sounds like Sunday mornings]: especially… [now it’s not like Sunday mornings] I’ve been doing this…  I’ve been disrespecting my wife… [and whatever else the Lord brings to mind].  For these and all my other sins which I cannot now remember [because there are a lot which I cannot remember] I am truly sorry.  I pray God to have mercy on me; I firmly intend amendment of life; and I humbly beg forgiveness of God and His Church [now we’re done, right?  No…], and ask you for counsel, direction and absolution.”

There’s the big difference: on Sunday morning when I confess with you, I have control: I listen to things in my mind that I’m confessing, and that’s it.  The Priest gives me absolution – and it’s real: I’m not saying it’s not real – and sometimes perhaps  God can speak to me individually and say, “You need to do something about that”, and hopefully I’ll listen.  But if I’m sitting in front of a Bishop, or you’re sitting in front of a Priest, and that Priest or Bishop is filled with the Holy Spirit – this is why we are the CEC, three streams, and not just the Liturgy: if it’s just the Liturgy, the Priest says “You’re forgiven” – but the Holy Spirit prompts the Bishop to say, “Why do you suppose you do that?”  “Well, when I was younger I always got better grades than everyone else, and everyone came to me for advice, so I just got into the habit of thinking I knew more than other people.”  “This sounds like pride.”  I start squirming.  So the Lord leads him to ask more questions.  “Do you do this to anyone else?”  “I don’t know, perhaps once or twice, but I can’t think of any.”  “Then why would you do it to your wife?  Why do you think it’s OK to do it to your wife, when you wouldn’t do it to your boss… or anyone else?” Now I’m on the spot: I have a question I can’t answer; but there’s something there…  And he will pursue that, and we’ll talk about it, and maybe it’ll take two minutes, or maybe it’ll take twenty minutes; but hopefully he’ll let the Holy Spirit speak, and I’ll let the Holy Spirit speak, and the Holy Spirit will say things to me that he’s not and I’ll share those, and we’ll get the real picture.

And then, before he pronounces forgiveness, he’ll say, “Here’s what I think you need to do” – and it’s not “Put ten pounds for the next six weeks in the offering”: we’re not talking about that kind of manipulation.  “Have you confessed to her?”  “Well, she knows I do it, and I’ve apologised to her…” “That’s not what I asked.”  So he prods me in the right direction, by the nudging of the Holy Spirit, until he gives me good counsel.  “The next time it happens in the presence of your children, stop right there and talk about it with your children: talk about what we’ve talked about, and what the problem is, and why it’s not right.”  Now he’s given me a responsibility, not just forgiven my sins, but “We need to attack this; we need to overcome this.  We need to follow the process, which is to go to the person that you’ve offended and speak to him/her first – and if it wasn’t first, then it’s next.”

After he’s given me counsel and told me some things that I need to do to help overcome this sin – not just the incident but the pattern – then he says, “Our Lord Jesus Christ, who has left power to His Church to absolve all sinners who truly repent and believe in Him, of His great mercy forgive you all your offences; and by His authority committed to me I absolve you of all your sins, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  And then he says to me, “The Lord has put away all your sins”; and I say, “Thanks be to God”.  And then the last thing: he says to me, “Go in peace; and pray for me, a sinner.”  This is not a power trip for the Bishop or Priest who is hearing Confession and granting absolution; it’s a ministry that the person giving also needs to receive.  That’s humbling, the first time a Bishop says that to you… because the Holy Spirit’s in it.  The Bishop knows it’s true, and when the Priest says it to you, the Priest knows it’s true.  We don’t confess to you what we do wrong, but we know well that the things you confess to us aren’t any worse than the things we confess: we aren’t any better.

Give God a chance

So I encourage you to go to Confession sometime: give God a chance – especially if there are things in your life that you have been wrestling with for a long time, things that just don’t seem to let go of you; even something in the past that you confessed to God and you were forgiven for, but “No, I still feel guilty; every time I do something the enemy reminds me, and I just can’t get rid of it”: that’s another good reason.  Give God a chance; and if you do, I think you’ll find that God uses that, and you might want to do it more often.  And that’s OK: I don’t mind being busy.

Read Ephesians 2:8-10.  We confess to get rid of the sin in our lives and to get rid of its power over us to continue sinning.  But it’s not our works; it’s not that we do better and better – it’s His grace.  We are saved by grace, we are forgiven by grace – not so that we can be content; we are saved by grace for works: to do the works of the Kingdom.  And God wants to free us up to do those works without the shackles of the past, without the chains of sin or the chains of guilt from past sins.

And so I encourage you, go to Confession.  If you want to find out more, feel free to ask, and we’ll find some time to talk about it.  It’s powerful: it’s a Sacrament.  There are seven Sacraments in the Church.  It’s a Sacrament, just like the Eucharist is a Sacrament, just like Baptism is a Sacrament, just like Anointing for healing is a Sacrament, just like Marriage is a Sacrament.  A Sacrament is a physical act that has God’s power in it.  And so I encourage you.  I encourage myself: I need to find someone that I can confess to regularly.  It’s hard when your Bishop is far away – but that’s no excuse.  Let us all seek His forgiveness, use all the power and the tools at His disposal for our benefit, so that we can follow more closely; and we won’t get into the trap that the Israelites did.

Sermon transcript, 8 March 2015

Don’t quit – press on by Fr. Dana

Exodus 20:1-17, Psalm 19, Romans 7:13-25, John 2:13-25

Recording:  http://1drv.ms/1Oy81qB

Last week we talked about Satan’s war of attrition: he tries to wear down our resistance, faith and good walks.  He tries to do this in many ways: through relational conflicts, the pressure of life, and sin…  But this was a sub-topic under the general heading: “Satan cannot win.”  He’s already defeated; all he can do is convince us to quit – and sometimes he’s successful.

But there are other ways in which Satan tries to convince us to quit.  One of them is discouragement: he tries to make the goal of our high calling look so far away and so high and so unattainable that we are convinced that we can’t reach it; and if we can’t reach it, why even try?   In today’s Old Testament lesson we heard the complete reading of the Ten Commandments, including some of God’s commentary on them.  That’s only a piece of what he has for us, and when you put that together with all the corollaries, statutes, explanations, and everything else you find in the Bible, it sometimes seem to be too much, too far beyond our reach.

The attributes of God’s proclamations

The Psalm today has some things to say about God’s proclamations:

• “The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul” (Psalm 19:7a).  The Law of the Lord is His design upon which all creation operates, like the Law of gravity.  If I hold something up and I drop it, it falls.  The Law that God gives us is not “Thou shallt not have any fun”, but, “This is the way the world is designed to operate; and if you want to be all that I have called you to be, you need to operate by these Laws.”  That Law converts the soul.  The Law is a mirror (see James 1:23-25): we look at the Law and look at ourselves and say, “Ugh! That doesn’t look very pretty!”  Galatians 3:24 says that the Law doesn’t save us, but it brings us to Christ: it’s our teacher.  It says, “Here’s the right answer; now you try.  No, that‘s the wrong answer – here’s the right answer.”  It is a perfect tutor; if we follow it, we will learn from it.  And we can learn from our mistakes when we don’t follow it.
• “The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple” (Psalm 19:7b).  If you are called into court to give a testimony, you are declaring what you have seen to be true.  You are saying, “I was there; I saw this; this is what happened; and I swear it’s true”.  Numbers 23:19 says, “God is not a man, that He should lie”: He will not tell you something that is not true, to get you to do something.  If God says it, it’s true.  If we’ll simply accept His testimony, rather than trying to re-interpret it so that we don’t have to, we will gain wisdom.
• “The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart (Psalm 19:8a).  Statutes are the written enactment of a law: a governmental authority passes a law, and then they write statutes that define how we will enforce that law.  The statutes of the Lord are the written enactments of His Law: they tell us how to live in His love.
• “The commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes” (Psalm 19:8b).  If I go to my boss and he says, “I want you to do this”, I do it – as long as it is not immoral; but my Bishop won’t do that, so I don’t have to worry about that.  A commandment is an instruction to do something, a direct order: nothing hidden, very straight, no hidden agenda, just “do it”.  Those commandments help us understand how the world works.
• “The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever” (Psalm 19:9a).  “Fear” has a lot of definitions.  Some people truly are afraid of the Lord: they don’t want to see Him, hear Him, touch Him or think about Him, because it is too terrifying; and that’s really because they don’t know Him that well.  But there is a healthy fear of the Lord: the Lord holds us in the palm of His hand, He has our eternal destiny in His hand; and so to have a healthy respect for Him and His authority and His power is a good thing.  It’s not dirtied by Him being selfish: He’s not holding you by the neck and saying, “If you don’t do that”, and squeezing…  He holds our temporal and eternal future; and that would be a scary thing if it were not for the fact that his desire for us is purely for our good.  Read II Peter 3:9: that’s His heart.  If not everybody comes to repentance, it isn’t His fault, because He gave us free will.  If everyone did what he wanted, everyone would be saved.
• “The judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether.” (Psalm 19:9b)  A judgment is a judge’s decision: “Here’s the law; here’s how it applies in your case; and therefore you are guilty” / innocent / whatever…  As one who cannot lie, we can trust his decisions to be right in every situation.  If you give your whole salary this month to the Lord and say, “If I give You this, I want this job”, or an Audi, or whatever, it will not sway Him.  He cannot be bribed or coerced.

This is the end of the list of the attributes of God’s pronouncements, but then the Psalmist has a few more things to say about all of these things:

• In Psalm 19:10 he is saying, “All these things that I just told you are really awesome are more desirable than gold.”  People want gold, because with it they can get what they want do what they want, and look better than other people.  God says “What I have is even more valuable than that; not for selfish reasons, but they are more valuable to you and for your future and your destiny than all the gold and the world is for your desires.”

And they are sweet; it is not as if when you acquire these things you’ll have a miserable life.  You read them and say “Oh my God, how can I ever do that?  I can’t follow all of that!”  But He says as you do, you’ll find that it’s sweet.

Sometimes God tells us to do something, and we say, “No way!”  There was this guy named Jonah:  “I want you to go to Nineveh, Jonah.”  That was a commandment; and Jonah said “No!” and headed off to Tarshish, and you know how well that went: the ship was in a storm, they tossed him overboard and he was swallowed by a fish.  Then he went and did what God told him to do: “Tell them that if they don’t repent, I’m going to destroy their city”.  Guess what: they listened to him and they did it; and Jonah was angry!  He gave lip service to God: “I know what You’re going to do: You’re going to look stupid.  I’m going to tell them that all these bad things will happen to them, and they’ll repent, and You’ll forgive them, and I’ll be standing there with egg on my face as if I lied.”  If he’d got with the programme, with why God sent him to Nineveh…  In fact at the end God tells him what was going on, but unfortunately we don’t get Jonah’s response, so we don’t know if it convinces him (see Jonah 4:11).

It’s sweet if you do what God asks you to do.  When I get to heaven, I want to be there when Jonah talks to the people of Nineveh and they hug him and they thank him for saving their lives and their souls: I think he’ll have a different opinion.

• Read Psalm 19:11.   A warning is like a sign that says, “Don’t keep going: it won’t be good!  Don’t do that!”  They keep us from going astray – if we heed them.  All the flashing billboards in the world won’t stop us if we don’t heed them.  But again we can learn by our mistakes.  If we heed them and keep them, we will then receive the greatest reward of all: not just an awesome, sweet life here – not by the world’s standards: I’m not talking about money – but also an awesome eternity with Him.

We can’t do it, but…

OK, you’ve convinced me: these things are wonderful – but I still haven’t got a chance in Hades’ hotspots of keeping them all; I can’t do it.  Impossible; forget it.  Satan says, “You know you can’t do it: you can’t even get up out of bed, go downstairs and eat breakfast for ten minutes without bad thoughts, cursing the toothpaste, cursing your boss…”  It doesn’t take long before we fall.  So how do we do this?  And that’s just the Old Testament; in the New Testament, Jesus piles it on…  Paul says of God that those “whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son” (Romans 8:29)… Wait a minute!  This is the Son who went to Jerusalem, was arrested, was spit on, was whipped, wore the crown of thorns, and was crucified – I’m supposed to be conformed to… What, are you joking?  And I thought the commandments were bad!  No way!  That’s impossible!”  That’s exactly what Satan wants you to think: “That’s impossible!  Give it up; forget it.  ‘Eat, drink and be merry, because tomorrow we die.’ (I Corinthians 15:32)…”

But Jesus has the last word: read Matthew 18:2-3.  It’s impossible the way you are: you can’t keep the Law, you can’t be conformed to the image of Christ; you can’t do it.  Read Matthew 18:4.  How does that help?  We are to become like little children.  Here is a trick question:  What do children spend most of their waking time doing?  Whatever they are doing, when they are playing games, watching TV, talking to you, or reading, they are gaining information: they are learning.   Read Galatians 3:24-25: we learn from our mistakes, we learn from the Law, we keep getting input; and as long as we keep on getting up every time we fall, we are making progress: we only stop making progress when we don’t get up.  We don’t lose until we quit; if we don’t quit, we don’t lose.

But what’s this about becoming like a little child, and we’re no longer under a tutor?  Under the Old Testament, they only had the Law: all they could do was try to do the right thing, stumble, get up, learn from your mistake, and go on.  God the Father knew that was not enough: you can’t learn enough even to do it right most of the time, much less all the time.  So He sent His Son Jesus Christ in the flesh to become one of us…

1. To show us the way: This is how you do it.  That’s fine, but I still can’t.  I have a much clearer picture now, because I have Jesus’ life.  Even the disciples who walked with Him for three years still couldn’t do it right.  Peter – “I don’t know the man!” – Peter, how can you deny Him?  You’ve been one of His best friends for three years and you said you would die for Him, and now this servant girl says, “Do you know Him?” – “Who? I’ve never seen Him before in my life!”  Way to go, Peter, man of faith and power!  Living with Jesus for three years didn’t make Peter able to do it.
2. But Jesus didn’t come just to show the way: He came to pay the price for all the mistakes, all the sins that we’d committed, to erase the slate every time we fall down and get back up – every time.
3. Not only that, but then when He ascended to the Father, He said, “I will ask the Father and He will send you the Comforter, the Holy Spirit.  You won’t have Me walking beside you any more, but you’re getting a great deal: God the Holy Spirit will be living inside you, showing you the way from inside, and making it possible for you to do all that I’ve asked – even to be conformed to My image.”

And it works.  You don’t believe it?  Look up to the video of the 21 Coptic Christians who were beheaded a week or so ago.  What were their last words?  ISIS thinks that showing you that video will intimidate the hell out of you; but it will inspire you.  It’s possible to be conformed to the image of Jesus if we let the Holy Spirit take over.  If we keep Him in the back seat and just listen to His instructions and sometimes do them and sometimes not, that won’t get us there; but if we humble ourselves – “OK, I’m getting out of the driver’s seat.”  God is not my Co-pilot – God is my Driver.  God is in the driving seat, and He’s driving: “Wherever You want to go, just do it.  And just hang onto me, because I may try to leap out; hang onto me, keep me in” – the Holy Spirit gives us the ability to do.

Confess

We’ve received the Holy Spirit; does that mean that from now on I’m perfect?  Definitely not: I still make mistakes; I still sin.  Sometimes I don’t have the strength to get up, but I have the Holy Spirit and He picks me up and dusts me off.  I go to Confession and the blood of Jesus washes me and I’m white again.  The Holy Spirit says, “OK, back to the car, let’s go”; and we keep going.  You can do that too.

Paul confirms this in Philippians 3:12-14; he’s talking about doing the right thing.  (“I haven’t apprehended it” means “I haven’t grabbed it, I don’t have my hands on it yet”.)  The key to this is Jesus’ instruction on becoming like a little child.  As soon as I say, “That was just a little sin; I don’t need to worry about that”, the next one is a little bigger, but I don’t need to worry about either; and pretty soon I’m carrying this whole chain of sins behind me that I’m ignoring.  That is not what Paul is talking about when he says “I forget the things that are behind”.  The only way you can forget those is to bring them out of the dark, put them on the altar, and say, “I did that, and I’m sorry I did that, and I don’t want to do it again.  Help me!”  He forgives me, and now they’re forgotten.  They’re not just forgotten by me: God says, “I’ve put them as far away from you as the east is from the west” (How far is that?  Head east, and tell me when you get to the west – you’ll never get there), putting our sins in a place where our sins cannot torment us, where they cannot drag us down.  Satan cannot use them to tell us, “You can’t do it.  There’s no way. Just look at yesterday. Yesterday proved that you can’t do it.”  There’s nothing there from yesterday: they’re as far as the east is from the west; this is a new day.

There is only one place like that, and that’s the mercy seat of Christ, covered by His blood; and there’s only one way to get them there: read James 4:6-10 (verse 8 speaks of confession).  He will lift you up – not you, not me.  That’s what Lent, this purple season, is all about: saying, “You’re right: I can’t do it, no way, unless You help me, unless You live in me.”  Psalm 119:35 says, “Make me go in the way of Your commandments, because that is my delight.”  “God, there will be times when I do not want to go Your way, but I’m taking this opportunity right now that when that situation comes up and I tell You I don’t want to do that, don’t listen to Me – I’m lying.  My real heart is to follow You, and it’s just the situation that makes me want to run.  Make me stand.  I give You permission to overrule my will, because my real will is to follow You.  Do it, please!”  And He will lift you up.

Conclusion

In this Lent, as the world is trying to drive you down the motorway at 110 miles per hour and there’s traffic all around you (and I’m talking spiritually, not physically on the highway), slow down, get out of the fast lane, pull into the lay by, turn off the engine, get out of the car, walk out into the meadow, sit down and listen to God.  Spend time with the one Being in all the universe who knows you most and loves you best.  Confess, rend your hearts and not your garments, confess the things you know, confess…  “God, I know that there are a lot of things that I don’t even notice, or that I do notice and my mind suppresses because I can’t handle thinking about them.  I confess those things too; cleanse me of those.”  And let Him wash you clean, pick you up, and set you back on the path.  Because His heart for us is to succeed – not the world’s success; His success, according to His judgments and His precepts and His commandments and His Law – and there is nothing that’s sweeter than that, I guarantee it.

Let not your heart be troubled: go to Him, be with Him, confess to Him, and receive from Him; and rise up; and Easter will be different than it’s ever been for you before.

Sermon transcript, 1 March 2015

Don’t lose the war by Fr. Dana

Genesis 22:1-14, Psalm 16:5-11, Romans 8:31-38, Mark 8:31-38

Recording:  http://1drv.ms/1KyXUhF

Read Revelation 12:7-12.  The Church is at war; it has always been at war, whether the world is at peace or not.  Our enemy is Satan, the accuser, the father of lies (John 8:44), the one who comes only to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10).  The good news is, he cannot win: he is already defeated; therefore the only thing that he can do is to convince us to give up the fight.

You don’t lose until you quit

You don’t lose until you quit.  Satan fights a war of attrition.  Attrition is a wearing down by friction, a reducing in number, size or strength.  In today’s Gospel (Mark 8:31-38), Satan tries it against Jesus.  Jesus was telling His disciples that He “must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” (Mark 8:31)  That did not meet Peter’s idea of victory, so he took Jesus aside: “Jesus, what are you saying?  That’s crazy, that’s not God!”  Jesus returns the rebuke: “Get behind Me, Satan! For you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.” (Mark 8:33)  Satan was tempting Jesus through Peter to do it His own way.

Fortunately it didn’t work.  It didn’t work when Satan tempted Jesus in the desert; it didn’t work in the Old Testament with Abraham.  There are some famous Christian scholars who get everything else right but get this story wrong.  They say, “Abraham’s so stupid; he should have known God’s not like that – God would never ask that!”  Wrong – God asked that of Himself.  “You were willing to give up your firstborn and only son, the son of the promise, the son that you didn’t believe I could give you, but I did, and I promised I’d make you the father of many nations, and now I asked you to kill him, to sacrifice him on the altar, and you were willing to do that.”  Abraham was not fatalistic.  I can’t imagine as a father doing what Abraham did.  Isaac said, “Dad, there’s the wood, there’s the fire – where’s the lamb?”  “Son, you’re the lamb.”  No – he says, “God will provide for Himself the lamb…” (Genesis 22:8).  He didn’t know how God was going to do it – maybe he would sacrifice Isaac and God would raise him up – he didn’t know; he just knew God was going to do it.  And so Satan’s lie to try to get Abraham to quit didn’t work. 

When Satan wears us down

There are times when Satan’s lie does work.  Samson fell in love with Delilah, a Philistine, and her friends said, “Find out the secret of his strength”, and so three times she asks him.  The first time he says, “If you bind me with seven fresh bowstrings…”  She tries and it doesn’t work.  “If you bind me with new ropes…”  It doesn’t work.  Samson is denser than granite.  She asks him again – “if you bind seven locks of my hair together…”  She does it, and it doesn’t work.  Samson is so blinded – or maybe it was just God’s purpose…  She asks him again, and he tells her.  Guess what happened – she did it, and he was as weak as a kitten!  Satan wore him down, through a woman.  Do not take this as a permanent pattern – it goes both ways: men are not immune to being used this way, and women are not immune to believing them.  The point is, Satan works that way, and sometimes he succeeds.  Fortunately with Samson, God got revenge in the end. (Judges 16:4-30)

My previous Bishop, Mike Davidson, describes this dream (I don’t remember whose dream it was): “I was being harassed by an ugly old man of very small stature. I grabbed him and began to throw him around with very little effort.  Then I wanted to see what his facial features were, and was shocked to realise he was wearing many layers of masks. I removed one after another, never exhausting the supply. It seemed I was literally well able to manhandle this little guy, but after some time I began to tire and only realised the object of this little altercation was to wear me out and to use up my time and take my focus from more important issues facing me.”  Ask yourself, “How much time do I spend wrestling this little guy and trying to take masks off?  How much time in my life do I waste battling ineffectively with the enemy over something that’s not important?”  This never-ending battle will wear us out, just as it wore down Samson.

Satan wears us down in many ways – hopefully not through a “significant other”, but in many ways.  He can wear us down through relational conflicts: conflicts with people, with our children, with other church members… Oh!  That never happens, does it?  We never get upset with other church members, do we?  …people at work, other drivers (have I hit a nerve yet?)  He wears us down through the stress and pressure of life – remember last week all those little oatmeal flakes, all those things that come after us and stay after us and won’t let us go…  And he wears us down through sin.  How mighty and full of faith are you after doing something that you knew was wrong?

Live the Word of God

How do we fight?  We fight the way Jesus did while He was in the desert for forty days.  You might say that was basic training.  What did He do?  He used the Word of God: He didn’t just quote it – it’s not that if you just quote the Scripture, Satan will leave: Satan quoted Scripture to Him! – that’s a good start, but it’s not enough; you have to live it.

• For example, in relational conflicts, how do we fight that?  Matthew 18:15-17: “Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.”  No – wait a minute!  I’m sure it says, “Go and tell everybody you know what he did to you.”  That’s not fighting – that’s giving in; that’s making the fight bigger than it is, and a whole lot harder to resolve.  “Go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother.”  This is the first step every time.  It tells you what to do if that doesn’t work; but that’s the start.
• What about fighting against stress and pressure?  Matthew 11:28-29:  Buck up, dude!  Deal with it, get over it!  No – Jesus says, “Come to Me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”  Rest is not laziness, because the next sentence is, “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”  There are other places where Jesus talks about yoke; it’s a wooden beam with usually two harnesses and, in this context, two oxen.  If you had a new ox you always put the new, young ox in with the oldest and wisest.  The oldest ox is slow, but he’s methodical, and he’s stronger, and he never quits; the youngest ox has all the energy but no focus.  Jesus says, “Get in the yoke with Me: I’ll calm you down, and we’ll learn to pull together.”  That’s where the peace is; there may be a time of sleep, but it doesn’t last forever.
• How do we fight sin?  Matthew 5:23-24.  This is the converse of Matthew 18:15-17: your brother didn’t do anything to you – you did something to him.  We do this in some sense in Confession before the Eucharist: we give an opportunity to confess our sins.  It’s not quite going and dealing with it, but hopefully the Holy Spirit will prick your heart to go and deal with it.  Confess before offering and before receiving the Eucharist.  In that confession, in order to be reconciled to your brother, repentance must be real.  If you say “I’m sorry” but you don’t change your behaviour, it doesn’t mean anything – and they know it.  That’s why when John the Baptist saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for Baptism, he said, “Welcome; God bless you.”  No – he said, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?  Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance…” (Matthew 3:7-8)  If you repent, do something different – don’t repeat.  That doesn’t mean that if you commit the same sin twice you’re going to hell; with all of us it’s a process.  If we’re yoked with Christ, God is pulling us along, and we learn, and sometimes we make the same mistake twice, but we don’t say we’re sorry and have no intention of changing.

You must take the offensive

Notice something in common with all these actions: they’re all something that you need to do.  They’re not, “God, fix me; I’m waiting here until You do.”  The reason is that no one can win a war, a football game or even a cricket match, by playing only defence – you can’t: you must take the offensive.  If you play only defence, you are Samson: you are ripe for picking, because Satan will keep hammering at you and wearing you down until you quit or you lose.  I say again, Satan cannot win; and yet will all know people who are losing the fight every day.  Satan can’t win, but we can lose.  They aren’t losing their salvation necessarily, but they are becoming casualties of war: their injuries make them give up.  Even though God has already won the war, still there are thousands and thousands of casualties: through sin, through selfishness, through unwillingness to admit that they need help…

Now there’s a “guy thing”: “I’m strong, I’m a man of God, I don’t need anybody, I’ve got it all together.  Now would you like some help?  No, I don’t have an answer for that; I can’t help you.”  That’s false: if we can’t admit that we need help, we’re already losing.  Read Isaiah 5:13-15.  Hell is bigger than it really is, the mouth of hell is huge – but it’s not: it’s Satan trying to convince you.  Pomp is pride: “I’m clean, I’m good: see these nice garments?”  If you’re proud of who you are, and you don’t need anything else, you’re heading towards the mouth of hell.  That’s not meant to scare you – it’s a warning: don’t do that!  Each one who is proud will be humbled: you’ll find out what your state really is.

Satan is literally trying to wear out the people of God: he’s putting some to sleep with a lack of love; he’s making some comatose with a lack of concern for the lost and the broken; he’s infecting some with selfishness and greed: looking out for their own pleasure rather than God’s will and plan… and the problem is, they’re fighting Satan’s war.  When you fight an enemy, don’t let them choose the time and the place: they will set up an ambush; they will set up the battlefield to their advantage.  Satan does this: don’t sit and wait for him to attack.  He will: you won’t have to wait long; but don’t do that, because you give him the advantage.  Don’t fight Satan’s war – fight God’s war.  Don’t fight defence all the time – take the fight to him: through prayer and fasting.  That’s what Lent’s about: have I been lax, have I been sitting around letting life go as it flows?  It’s a time to look: maybe I’m not fighting.  Take the fight to him through prayer and fasting: for yourself, for your spouse, for your children, for your parents, for your family, for your church, for your nation…

Pray

 You’ve probably heard many times the admonition, “Put on the whole armour of God” (Ephesians 6:11), and that’s right: “the belt of truth… the breastplate of righteousness… the shoes of the preparation of the Gospel of peace… the shield of faith… the helmet of salvation… and the sword of the Spirit” (Ephesians 6:14-17) – and that’s all you’re quoted.  What’s the next verse?  “…praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit…” (Ephesians 6:18) Once you’ve got all the armour on, OK, you’re dressed, but you’re not fighting yet.  You don’t fight until you start praying: actively praying against the enemy, not waiting for him to attack and then, “O God, save me!  O God, help me!” – you’re playing defence.  You do have to play defence, because he will swing at you anyway; but if that’s all you do, you will lose, you will become tired: “I’ve been hit a thousand times!”  Maybe you’ve heard the old Chinese saying, “Death by a thousand cuts”; it doesn’t take a stab through the heart.  Have you ever had a paper cut?  It hurts: for three days, because at the end of your finger it takes a long time to heal.

Pray always; take the battle to him.  “God, show me what Satan is doing in my life.  Where has he invaded Your territory, that I haven’t noticed?  Show me how to fight him, show me what I need to do.”  Maybe it’s fasting, maybe it’s doing something different, maybe it’s not watching this, maybe it’s not turning on that channel, maybe it’s not drinking this, maybe it’s not going to these places… whatever it is.  “Show me how to fight; help me take the battle to him.”  Then we’ll start making him tired; he won’t be able to call all the shots.  He’s a little more powerful than we are, but he’s not more powerful than He is.  If we fight in our own strength, we’ll lose; but if we fight in His strength – if we’re yoked with Him: wherever He goes, I go, whatever He does, I do – we won’t lose – we will win.  And that’s important to know when you look outside, and you look in the newspapers, and you look on the internet, and you think, “What the hell is going on in this world?  What are people thinking?  Why isn’t anyone doing anything?”  They don’t know what to do.  This is how you take the battle to Satan: prayer.

Prayer is not just talking to God.  Being yoked to Jesus is not, “Faster, faster, shall we go over here?”  That’s not prayer: prayer is listening as well as talking; it’s obeying as well as requesting; it’s receiving forgiveness and comfort from Him for our wounds, for our sins; it’s receiving encouragement and strength from Him, that we can go on, that we don’t have to quit, that there is a future; receiving instructions and counsel from Him.  That is fighting the battle.

Know the Scripture, be able to quote it, or otherwise know where to find it – that’s great; but live it.  If you only know it and you don’t live it, you’re not fighting.  May it not be so of us.

Sermon transcript, 22 February 2015

“Lent is not a haircut – Lent is pruning” by Fr. Dana

Recording:  http://1drv.ms/1KyZAYr

The Lord spoke to me this week and told me, “Lent is not a haircut – Lent is pruning.”  If I go to the barber and he cuts my hair, it doesn’t matter how short he cuts it – he could cut it all off and shave it bald – but in a few weeks or months it would look just as it does now.  There would be a temporary change, but then it would be back to where it was.  If that’s all Lent is, why do we do it?

But that‘s not what Lent is – it’s a pruning.  Suppose you have a tree that starts growing would look balanced and even.  You prune the tree to change its shape and direction.

In Lent we can give up something – not so that we can go around saying “I can’t have that – I gave up chocolate for Lent” and people can think “Wow!  S/he’s really strong!”  Jesus says when you fast, don’t have a sad face, but wash, smile and be happy, because if you go around with a long face and people say, “Oh, he’s such a spiritual man: he must be in deep sorrow”, that’s your reward. (Matthew 6:16-17)  That’s not God’s idea of giving something up: His idea is to remove things that cause us to grow crooked.  That could be lots of things; certainly it’s sin – hopefully you don’t wait till Lent to give up sin – but it could also be things that aren’t necessarily bad: food, certain foods, TV, Facebook (now I hit a nerve!)… things that we become dependent on instead of depending upon God.

Lent is also a time to take on some things.  If you give up something, it makes room.  If I give up something, it takes time, so now I have more time.  Good – I can do whatever I want: I can sleep longer…  No – that’s not the purpose.  I’m called to take on something, not so that people will see, but if I drink a Starbucks coffee every day – triple latte, over the rainbow – I now have a lot more money to spend – on myself?  No – doing the Lord’s work.  But I know I’m not to go around saying “Look at me…” because Jesus also said when you give – when you do good – don’t make a show of it, but do it in secret; because if people say “Yes – you’re the man!”, that’s your reward.  He says do it in secret and I will reward you. (Matthew 6:1-4)

But it’s not just for the period of Lent.  Remember, we’re pruning.  We change our behaviour during Lent, and we learn some things: God speaks to us, He deals with us…  And at the end of Lent, if we say, “That was great; now it’s Easter and I’m going back to the way it was”, then we only had a haircut.  In a week or a month we’ll look just as we did before.  That’s not Lent.  If at the end of Lent we look just as we did before Lent began, Lent had no purpose – at least, not the purpose that God intended.  Perhaps we continue doing without some things: perhaps we gave up TV, and we go back to watching TV, but not near as much as before; we found out that we could live without it.  Perhaps we spent ten more minutes in prayer (it doesn’t have to be a long time: God rewards a little bit) and we can keep those ten minutes: don’t give them back.  Now Lent is starting to have a purpose and an effect in our lives.

Re-ordering our priorities

Lent is designed to re-order our priorities, from doing what we want to do, to listening more and doing more of what He wants us to do.  Read Psalm 25:4-5: “Replace my patterns with Your patterns; make me more like Jesus”.

Do you know what I mean by priorities?

I have a jar, a potato, an orange, a kiwi, and oatmeal.  Suppose this jar is your life, and you can fill your life with all kinds of things.  For example, God can be in your life (I’m not saying that God is a potato); the potato can represent God in your life: He’s big and touches all the areas that are important.  The orange represents your family: you may be married; you may have children… people who are important to you.  The kiwi is your role: if you’re working it may be your career; if you’re not working, you may be a mother or a caregiver.  The oatmeal represents everything else in your life; these things usually scream a lot louder than the others: they demand attention.  “Help, I need you!  Come, fix this!”  In America we call this “the tyranny of the urgent”: you’re doing something important, then something little comes along and hounds you until you stop and address it.

You have a life; your life has a certain capacity.  How do you fill your life?  [Fill the jar with oatmeal.]  Well, these things are urgent; we’ve got to get them out of our hair, right?  These are all of those annoying, nagging things in life that have to be dealt with.  And so we fill our any more.  So that’s fixed.  Let’s see now – I’ve got a job, I’ve got to go to work; if I don’t go to work, I don’t get paid; if I don’t get paid, I don’t support the family.  [Place the kiwi in the jar on top of the oatmeal.]  Oh yes, the family – the ones I’m working for.  [Place the orange in the jar on top of the kiwi; it doesn’t completely fit.]  Wait a minute – I don’t even have room for all the family.  We can’t go to the park on Saturday – I’ve got to work… sorry…  [Notice that there is no space left for the potato.]  Oh, God – sorry, God; I’ll give you 30 seconds while I’m in the shower; I can do two things at once…

If that’s how we fill our life, based on how loudly they clamour for our attention, we’ve got problems.  What if we take a different approach?  [Empty the contents of the jar.]

Let’s go by importance.  What’s most important?  If I love my family, God had better be first.  He gets first place, first time, first finances, first consideration, first devotion. [Place the potato into the empty jar.]  Then family: love your wife; honour your husband; love your children: they’re next.  [Place the orange on top of the potato.]  That role has to go in there too: I have to do something with my life.  [Place the kiwi on top of the orange.]  The three important things are in there; what about all the annoying stuff, the things that have to be done?  Stop and pray – You and me, God, let’s address these things… pray some more… [Pour the oatmeal into the jar, shaking it at times so that it fills the empty gaps around the other contents.  It all fits.]  It all fits – if you put God first, look what happens: amazing!  That’s how God wants us to live our life; He’ll help us to deal with all those annoying things.

Think about your life: which method do you use to fill your life?  If it isn’t this way, are you really surprised that you go crazy, that you don’t have time, that you don’t have finances, that you don’t have energy, or that you don’t have the emotional fortitude to deal with all the people, events and stuff in your life?   Can we learn something from this?  The great thing is that this applies to every area of our life.

• If we give God first in our time, He will add hours to the day.  He won’t make the day longer than 24 hours, but He will help us to go through the day doing the things that are important, addressing those things that need to be addressed and letting go of those things that don’t need to be addressed.
• It’s true of our emotional energy: if we worship the Lord – that doesn’t mean that every morning you have to get out the keyboard and sing: that isn’t the only way you worship; prayer is worship; talking and listening to God is worship – He restores our soul.  He gives us what we need for the day, including emotional supply.
• It’s also true in our finances: if we give God first, He will provide what we need.

Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also

In fact, according to Scripture, our priorities are a measure of our heart (Matthew 6:21).  Where do you spend your time?  That’s where your heart is.  Where do you spend your money?  That’s where your heart is.  Where do you spend all your emotional energy?  That’s where your heart is.  If you spend the greatest amount of time and effort making money, that’s where your heart is.  If you spend the greatest amount of your money accumulating things for yourself, that’s where your heart is.  Wherever you apply your energy, your money and your time, that’s where your heart is; and He says give Him first place (Matthew 6:31-33).  You don’t need a £200 dress.  Put the potato in first.  Give God first: time, talent, treasure, emotions, all of it.

Read Malachi 3:10.  A tithe is not what guys wear around their neck; it is the first 10 percent of your earnings.  In the OT since it was mostly a bartering economy it was mostly crops, animals and food; that’s why it says bring them into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house.  That’s where the Priests’ food supply came from; people’s tithes went to support those who worked in the temple.  We know that He wants the first 10% because it’s reflected in what He says about the sacrifices that people were to bring: He says bring a perfect, unblemished animal – not the scruffy leftovers after you’ve sold all the good ones, the lame ones, the one that’s a funny colour, the one that only has one eye… (Malachi 1:8, 13)  God asks for our best – our first 10%.  Only 10% – look at your tax bill: when was the last time the government only took 10%?  What is the VAT rate?  Why does the State deserve more than God does?  Yet He only asks for 10%.

But He is saying: “Give it to Me first, and I will provide for you: I will bless you with all these things.”  This is not bribery even though some people preach that.  It is a promise to you, so that you can trust in His Word and His provision, instead of thinking “If I let go of this I will starve”.  He says, “I will provide; I will give you a harvest”; He doesn’t want us to give grudgingly – “All right, You asked for it, here it is, that’s gone – now I’ll see if I can live on the other 90%.”  Read II Corinthians 9:6-7.  If a farmer plants seed only in one little garden spot, it will only bear grain in one spot; if he plants seventeen fields with it, seventeen fields will be full of a crop.  But that’s not the point: “God, I don’t know how You’re going to provide, because I really need this, but I’m going to trust You.”

Some will preach “Give in order to get”: “If you send in this much, I guarantee that sometime this month someone will give you ten times that much.”  God never does that: He never, ever, ever appeals to your greed in order to get you to do the right thing (“Don’t have sex before marriage: I’ll make you rich”) – He tells you what’s right.  He’s not trying to manipulate you – He’s trying to teach you how He works.  Jesus said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (John 14:15); He doesn’t say, “If you want to get rich, keep My commandments”.

The tithe is a good example; because where your treasure is, there your heart is also.  Edye and I have tithed through good times, bad times and unemployed times.  I was unemployed for over a year in one stretch, and He still provided.  If I received $10,000 a month, we tithed that; if I received $122 a month, we tithed that: He doesn’t ask for more.  That doesn’t mean He isn’t pleased if we give more.  Remember the widow who put the two mites in the temple: she didn’t give 10%; she gave 100%, and Jesus commended her for it.  The point is that God has always been faithful to provide – not always exactly what we wanted (“I’m believing for this house” – “I’ll give you this one”.  “I’m believing for this great job” – “We’ll give you this one, and you have to move 3,000 miles away.”), but He’s always given us what we needed, because He knows what we need, better than we know ourselves.  We still tithe: we receive a salary from the church; 10% of that goes to the Diocese.  Bp. Elmer tithes: 10% of what he receives goes to the Province; and the Province tithes: 10% goes to the Patriarch.  That’s what frees people up to do the ministry, and helps us (like Foundation Day) to plant new churches, to loan money to churches to have their own building; that’s what helps us to send money to poorer countries to help them out, so we can do the work of the Church, the work of Christ; that’s how the work of the Church gets done.

God starts with us where we are; He’s not asking us to do what we can’t do, but He’s asking us to do what we can; He’s asking us to put the potato first.  Finances is an example; you can do the same thing with time: “I have to get up early in the morning; I have to rush to catch the tube; I have to go to work, and it’s crazy and they don’t give me a lunch hour; and I don’t get home until 9, and I have to eat, and then there’s that show that only lasts 30 minutes but I’ve got to see it every night; and then I’m so worn out that I’ve got to go to bed, and then I’ve got to get up and do the same thing again.  Sorry, God – ain’t no room for the potato.” God says, “Change – give Me a chance.”  That’s what Lent is about: give God a chance.  For the six weeks of Lent, give up that 30-minute show; take a break at work and pray, sitting at your desk in the office; or whatever the Lord leads you to do.

We have a choice

When we fill our lives, we have to make choices.  We have a choice.  “Oh, but my job is this, and I have to do that…”  Is that the only job you could have, that it has to take 16 hours a day?  I’m not condemning you, or saying that’s the case; but there are always options to change what you’re doing, to change your priorities: to change our priorities to match His priorities; and that’s what Lent is for, so that when we come out of Lent we look different, we walk differently, we act differently, our heart is different.  Our heart will be more aligned to God’s priorities and the ministries that he wants to do through the church, through you individually – You have a ministry: I don’t care what you do for a living, whether you’re married or not, whether you’re 12 years old or 112 – God has a ministry for you, but you have to be sensitive to Him and sensitive to your surroundings for Him to do that.  But that’s His heart, for those ministries to happen.

And so I ask that you would seek God and ask, “What is it that You want me to do for Lent?  What do I need to do to start looking at my priorities (even if I’m not ready to change yet)?  What do I need to look at?  What are You telling me?”  And I pray that you will pray for all of us – for each of us individually, for the church, for the Rector’s Council, for the Bishop and the Bishop’s Council, the Patriarch and the Patriarch’s Council – that we will all do that same thing.  What are we doing that we shouldn’t be doing?  What’s not right in our heart?  What priorities need to change?  And then if we’re sensitive and we obey and we start walking the way He says – yes, we’ll still stumble and make mistakes, but He’ll change us, and through us He will change the world.  That’s what He did with the early Church: the Bible says they turned the world upside down (Acts 17:6).  That’s my challenge for Lent.  Don’t let Lent be a haircut – let Lent be a pruning that changes you and changes me forever.