Sunday, June 29, 2014

Receive

A Sermon delivered to St. Timothy Lutheran Church, Charleston, WV
 on 6/29/2014 and based on Matthew 10:34-42

Have you ever felt excited and happy - and terrified at the same time?
I know I have! We used to live north of Chicago, not too far from Six Flags Great America theme park in Gurnee, Illinois. Whenever we went there, we’d immediately head for the latest and greatest ride. Currently, the park boasts the world’s tallest, steepest and fastest wooden roller coaster. Here’s a picture of it. 



Here are some other things that are exciting and scary at the same time.
A Wedding: (Cindy and I in 1977!)


Having a baby (Me with daughter Leah in 1979)

Giving the car keys to your teenage daughter: (Leslie in 200?)

And that’s how I feel about our practicing our subject for today. I’m excited about it, and even blessed when I actually do it, but if I really think about it gives me pause,  to say the least.  

If you haven’t guessed it by now, it involves the word ‘Receive’, from our text in Matthew 10:40,41: "Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me. the one who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet's reward, and the one who receives a righteous person because he is a righteous person will receive a righteous person's reward." 

There are two Greeks words for ‘receive’ in play here. The first is ‘Dechomai’ (de kohm a he) – to Give Access to someone – as a visitor.  It also includes the idea of Hospitality, or welcoming someone – especially a stranger.  

The second is ‘lEpsetai’ (Lepset a He) – to obtain or to get.

So the sense of the text is ‘the one who grants access or hospitality… shall obtain or get the reward…

This passage always puts me in mind of the Shunamite woman in
2 Kings 4:8-10. She noticed that the prophet Elisha frequented her neighborhood and because there weren't any Holiday Inns at the time, she used her wealth to build a room in her house specifically devoted to the prophet’s use.  She received the prophet’s reward: namely the gift of a child. God blessed her with a son after years of barrenness.  And when her son fell ill and died, God also blessed her by reviving the boy and bringing her son back from the dead.

This story points to our experience with Jesus. We too can receive the ‘prophet’ – Jesus Christ – in to our home, our heart,  and our reward is to receive a Son – and then also to receive him back from death –presaging our own resurrection life in Christ. But we can also ‘receive the prophet’ by recognizing him in other people – any other people, not just the prophet or righteous people.

One of my heroes of the faith, St. Benedict of Nursia, thought long and hard about receiving people and he wrote some very specific instructions to his followers about how to live it out. Listen to this passage from the Rule of Benedict (RB) chapter 53: On the Reception of Guests…

 “Let all guests who arrive be received like Christ, 
for He is going to say, "I came as a guest, and you received Me"
Benedict also bases his instruction on another passage from Matthew (Matt. 25:35 – 40), that contains a very similar idea to our reading today: "For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me...Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.

Based on these verses, Benedict writes that: “In the salutation of all guests, whether arriving or departing, let all humility be shown. Let the head be bowed or the whole body prostrated on the ground in adoration of Christ, who indeed is received in their persons.”(RB ch53)

Jesus is to be recognized in the person of the guest at the door – especially the poor guest. Benedict again: “In the reception of the poor, and of pilgrims, the greatest care and solicitude should be shown, because it is especially in them that Christ is received…”! 

Can you imagine hearing a knock on your door and opening up to see a bedraggled and suspicious looking person standing there? – And then   bowing down in adoration of Christ standing there at the door?!

If you’re like me, your first instinct would likely be to call the police instead!

Incarnational Reality
Anglican writer Esther deWaal comments on this aspect Benedict’s version of Hospitality:

“The Rule presents no abstract or remote theological treatise on God and his mysteries. Instead it is pervaded with the idea of sacramental encounter with Christ in the circumstances of everyday life and in material things, but most particularly in people. (Seeking God, the Way of St. Benedict by Esther deWaal, pg. 115)

Remember, a sacrament is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual reality – and a sure and certain means of grace. What we see outwardly is a sign of a deeper spiritual reality – in this case, the basic reality that Christ took on human flesh and dwelt among us. To receive a guest, then, is to practice the reality of the Incarnation, the Presence of Christ in our everyday life – even in the person who doesn’t look much like Christ.
 
There is an echo here of Mary and Joseph seeking lodging in Bethlehem. As we open our door to the stranger, we are making room for Jesus at the ‘inn’.  See what I mean about exciting and scary at the same time?

Some Provocative Definitions of Hospitality
So, having considered a brief theology of Hospitality, let’s think about some other definitions, or aspects of Hospitality:

Joan Chittister is a Benedictine nun and a noted commenter on the Rule of Benedict. Here are a couple of her thoughts about the nature of Hospitality.
[slide] “Hospitality is the willingness to be interrupted and inconvenienced so that others can get on with their lives as well…[it] is an act of the recklessly generous heart (Joan Chittister, Wisdom Distilled from the Daily, pg. 131,132)

A recklessly generous heart! What would it be like to live that out?

Perhaps we have a Biblical example in Abraham and Sarah, who entertained angels in their tent and received the message that they would be parents of Isaac, the son of Promise. (Gen. 18). 

Another example would be Mary, who received the angel Gabriel’s message that she would become the mother of Jesus with the hospitable words, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38)

This is how you receive Jesus - with a recklessly generous and open heart!
Here’s an example of an open and generous reception:

In May of 2000, the Russian Orthodox Holy Cross Hermitage moved from St. Louis to Wayne, WV. Cindy and I read about this in the newspaper, and one Sunday evening when we were taking a drive out in the country, we decided to try to find the monastery. We couldn’t remember where it was, so we went to the local Wal-Mart and asked at the service desk if they knew where we could find the Hermitage. “Oh, yeah”, said the lady at the desk. “Those guys come in here all the time!” And she promptly told us how to find the monks.

The Monks of Holy Cross Hermitage, Wayne, WV.

When we got there, we gingerly knocked at the door of the double-wide trailer that served as the kitchen and dining hall, and the Abbot, Fr. Seraphim, greeted us warmly, told us that they were having ice cream sundaes, and promptly invited us in to have some! I don’t think I've ever had such a warm or incongruous welcome in my life.

As Joan Chittister observes: “Honor, courtesy and love are the hallmarks …for hospitality of the heart (RB 52 Chittister, Wisdom from the Daily, (WDD)pg. 127).

This practice of hospitality requires us”…to pour ourselves out for the other, to give ourselves away, to provide the staples of life, both material and spiritual for one another. (Chittister, WDD pg. 123).

Just by way of contrast, though, here’s a story about what it looks like when the practice of Incarnational hospitality fails:

Kathleen Norris is a Presbyterian lay woman and a Benedictine oblate, or associate member, who has spent much time with the monks of Blue Cloud Abbey in North Dakota. She relates how one time, a friend of hers went to a Benedictine monastery for a retreat and was at the visitor center asking one of the monks some questions. The monk was short with her and finally said to her, in an exasperated tone, “I don’t have time for this; we’re trying to run a monastery here!”

He had missed the point completely. Receiving guests is absolutely fundamental to running a monastery. Even as Benedict himself matter-of-factly states: “A monastery is never without guests RB 53).

Fortunately the monk came back the next day and apologized profusely to the woman. He had finally gotten the message, even if somewhat late.

 As we see from this example, if we are open to receiving Christ in every person, this may cause inconvenience. John L’Heureux (‘loh-row’) expresses this challenge in his poem,
“The Trouble with Epiphanies”:

Christ came into my room
And stood there
And I was bored to death.
I had work to do.
I wouldn’t have minded If he’d been [handicapped] or something –
I do well with [the handicapped]
 – but he just stood there, all face,
And with that [darned] guitar.
I didn’t ask him to sit down:
He’d have stayed all day.
(Let’s be honest. You can be crucified just so often;
Then you’ve had it. I mean you’re useless;
no good To God, let alone to anybody else. )
 So I said to him after a while –
Well, what’s up? What do you want?
And he laughed, stupid,
Said he was just passing by
And thought he’d say hello.
Great, I said, hello.
So he left.
And I was so [… ]mad
I couldn’t even listen to the radio…
I went
And got some coffee.
The trouble with Christ is he always comes at the wrong time!
 (In Monk Habits for Everyday People, by Dennis Okholm, pgs 87, 88 )

Yes, indeed, He always shows up at the ‘wrong’ time. But the Scripture tells us that ‘in the fullness of time’ God sent forth His Son …(Gal. 4:4,5)
and ‘at the right time’ Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom. 5:6). God’s timing is always just right, even when it seems wrong to us and we can’t control it!  I saw a great poster the other day, shared by a friend on Facebook. There’s a wonderful, tranquil picture of a person sitting on the beach, with the caption: 
 “Relax, nothing is under control! “

To be a people who truly welcome Christ in others, we must realize we are not in control – not of our lives, our homes, our calendars, or our deaths. Therefore, we should relax and entrust ourselves to the tender mercies of God, put up our Christ-detecting radar and await His visitation.

But here’s where it gets scary. If Christ comes to my door one at a time, I’ll be inconvenienced...or worse!  And what if he comes by the trainload? – and keeps on coming day after day, train after train? 

If I am too welcoming, I may become overwhelmed. Benedict recognized this and provided for a ‘Guestmaster’ to regulate the interactions of monks and guests to preserve the order and stability of the monastery and not allow it to be overrun with the demands of guests. Hospitality and good order can and must coincide. 

But despite the dangers, what are the Rewards of Hospitality?
Kathleen Norris writes that “Benedictines often tell me they receive so much from their guests that they could never repay it, and many guests feel the same way about the hospitality they receive" (Norris, Amazing Grace, pg. 266).

Opening ourselves to others often provides a unique experience that enriches our lives and leaves us feeling blessed and challenged.

Dennis Okholm, a protestant College professor, tells of spending a week at a Benedictine monastery with a group of six of his students. At one point, the students were invited to participate in giving their reflections on the readings at the evening Mass – in itself a gracious act of hospitality.

At the end of the week, the Abbot said to the assembled community, “We need to thank these students for coming to us. By their presence in our midst they have challenged us to examine ourselves to see whether or not we live the life we profess.” (Monk Habits for Everyday People, pg. 83, Dennis Okholm).

So, there are two questions to ask in our practice of receiving the guest:
1) Did we see Christ in them?
2) Did they see Christ in Us?

The ‘gift’ of the stranger – the ‘reward of the prophet’ may be the challenge to examine ourselves: Do we live the life we profess?

This applies not only in our private lives, but in our corporate practice as a worshiping and fellowshiping community.

The metaphor of family is important to us as Christians, but often this same way of thinking about ourselves as the Church is oriented towards the nuclear family; those who are single or widowed or without a spouse may not feel as if we are truly welcoming to their needs. The visitor may or may not feel welcome. Therefore, we as the church need to seriously think about how we receive people of all situations in life.

This is not easy for us, because we tend to create a comfortable nest and to gravitate towards those like ourselves. When the stranger, the person unlike us, enters our midst it challenges us to see past the outward appearance, to see Christ, and make Him welcome. This always requires us to look beyond the outward appearance to our common humanity and to remind ourselves that we are made in His image and when we welcome the Other, we welcome Him.

Let me also make a suggestion about Receiving Christ in Communion.
As you hold out your hands to receive the bread, make a cradle to receive the newborn Christ. Think too about what Theodore of Mopsuestia said. Writing in 350 AD, in Homily XV, Theodore wrote, '...do not approach with hands extended and fingers open wide. Rather make of your left hand a throne, for your right as it is about to receive your King, and receive the Body of Christ in the fold of your hand, responding, 'Amen.'  


 So - - -  receive Christ the King, your Savior, come to you as a child in the manger, as you partake of the bread of heaven. Welcome him with a hospitable and open heart as he comes to you in worship, but also as he will visit you tomorrow and every day in the form of other people –and obtain the reward of the prophet: Salvation, peace, and openness to change and growth in scary – but exciting encounters with the Risen Christ. AMEN.












Monday, June 16, 2014

Happy Birthday Church!

A sermon presented to St. Timothy Lutheran Church, Pentecost Sunday, June 8, 2014, and based on   Acts 2:1-21, Jn. 7: 37-39

The Holy Gospel of our Lord according to John:7: 37-39
On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
The Gospel of our Lord…
Grace to you and peace from God, our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Well, we have a Birthday to Celebrate…Sing with me…
Happy Birthday…Dear Church...Happy Birthday to You! 

Yes, indeed, today is the day we celebrate the Birthday of the Church – the day when the Church was born and the day when the Holy Spirit was officially given to the Church. It is a Feast Day of the Church, a day of true Celebration!

But to many in the World, this is not such a happy day. Many secular folks look askance at the Church. They see it as a man-made institution, begun by people who perpetrated a huge fraud on the world because they were driven by the desire to deceive people, to control them and to separate them from their money by any devious means necessary.
They cite the recent theft of $600,000 –one Sunday’s collections - from Joel Osteen’s Church in Houston and are shocked by the annual budget that this represents.

They cite recent scandals of sexual abuse by ministers of the church. They hearken back to the Crusades as prima facie evidence of the Church’s malfeasance, and they criticize hypocrisy by members of the church – all in an attempt to get us to shut up and go away.
In short, it’s not the greatest time in the world to be associated with the Church.
This is no big surprise, Biblically speaking. Jesus told us that in this world, we WOULD have tribulations (Jn. 16:33). He warned us that we would ….”be dragged before governors and kings for [his]sake, to bear witness before them…” (Matthew 10:18,19; Luke 21:14).
And indeed, such witnessing has been going on in various places around the world as long as the Church has been in existence.
And at the current time, In Sudan, a young Christian mother, Meriam Ibrihim, faces the sentence of death, merely for BEING a Christian.
 In Ireland recently, a Christian pastor criticized Islam during a sermon and is now being called out by the Authorities for the ‘crime’ of propagating Hate Speech. 
 We, in America, have been blessed with relative peace in regard to the Authorities because our founding fathers wrote into our Constitution the twin ideas of Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Speech. But as of this week, Colorado officially became a Police State when a Christian baker was court-ordered to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple and give his staff comprehensive ‘re-education’ about the State’s anti-discrimination laws.  
( I understand he has no intention of obeying this Orwellian directive and that his shop is now doing quite well baking only brownies and cookies! )

We’re seeing the rise of hostility towards the church and increasing calls for Church men and women to shut up, go away or be prosecuted as hate-mongering, homophobic bigots.
 Like I said, “Happy Birthday, Church!”
Well, things do look bad in some ways for us as the Church – but my purpose today is not to lament how awful things are, but to encourage us as the Church to understand who we are, why we exist and to spur us on to works of love and Good works in the Name of our Precious Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ.
Our Identity and Mission:
In a prior message, I suggested that we all face two basic problems. We must answer two basic questions about ourselves:
1) Who am I? And, 2) What should I do?
Let’s ask these basic questions about ourselves as the Church, and remind ourselves of our Identity and then think about How we should Act in the world.

As a way of beginning, let’s think back over the last couple of weeks of our Sunday worship services. Last week, we had a very joyful occasion. What was it again? … Right! A Baptism!  Kathleen Bonar was baptized into the family of God right here in our sanctuary!
And during Pastor Rafe’s introduction, he cited Genesis 1:1,2: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters….”
This verse was referenced because Baptism, in which a person is born into the family of God, by the Spirit of God, mirrors the Creation of the world. God the Father spoke the world into existence by his Word, the Logos, Jesus Christ (Jn1:1ff), through the agency of His Spirit - literally, his ‘Breath” (Latin: Spiritu - breath). All things that were created came into being through this cooperation of the Trinity.
When it came to the creation of mankind…”the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and … breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” (Genesis 2:7)
This living creature was created in the Image of God (Genesis 1:27)  bearing the likeness of God in respect to the ability to make real moral decisions for good or ill, the capacity to love freely, and the ability to be like God, ‘creating’ things (though admittedly not from nothing).
It’s like the story of the scientists who got together and decided that man had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one scientist to go and tell Him that they were done with Him.
The scientist walked up to God and said, "God, we've decided that we no longer need you. We're to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don't you just go on and get lost."
God listened very patiently and kindly to the man and after the scientist was done talking, God said, "Very well, how about this, let's say we have a man making contest." To which the scientist replied, "OK, great!"
But God added, "Now, we're going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam."
The scientist said, "Sure, no problem"… and bent down to grab himself a handful of dirt.
God just looked at him and said, "No, no, no. You go get your own dirt!"
Our Identity:

So here is our Identity: We are created by God, in His image, through the agency of the Holy Spirit, for His own pleasure – using His own Rules! … Anybody who doesn’t like it has to get their own dirt!
The Church was born in the same way God created Human beings – God sent His Spirit upon human beings, and they became a Living Being– the Church, the very Body of Christ here on earth.
Now, two Sundays ago, Pastor Rafe also reminded us of what Luther’s Short Catechism says about the work of the Holy Spirit. There was a brief acronym. See if you can remember it.
C alls
G athers
E nlightens
S anctifies
P reservers (Keeps)
Here’s what the Small Catechisim actually says about the Spirit. Let’s read it together.
"I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Ghost has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith; even as He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith; in which Christian Church He forgives daily and richly all sins to me and all believers, and at the last day will raise up me and all the dead, and will give to me and to all believers in Christ everlasting life. This is most certainly true."
Now, embedded in this statement about the work of the Holy Spirit are some things for us, as the Church, to do in order to fulfill the mandate that Jesus gave his disciples before he left. Namely:
… Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:18-20)
In other words, we are to Evangelize, to administer the Sacraments and to preach and teach the Word of God, making disciples, not just converts.
We do this on the basis of the Authority of the Risen Christ. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me,” says Jesus to his disciples, just before sending them out (Mt. 28:18).
He also comforts them with the statement “… behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Mt.28:20). How is He with us always – through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit – that same Spirit that calls us to Himself, gathers us together as the Church, enlightens us in the Truth of the Gospel, sets us apart and makes us progressively more like him through Sanctification, and keeps us in His love, preserving us for Himself until the day of His return or our going home to him through death.
So the role of the Church is to be the hands, feet and mouth of Christ in the world, spreading the Good News and then tending those who come to Christ and become his Church – the ‘called out’ ones.
To the Church is given the authority to proclaim forgiveness of sins, and to administer the Sacraments of Baptism and Communion. Those who say they can be Good Christians without going to church miss these two vital, life-giving ministries, which according to Dr. Luther, are the primary means by which the Spirit works to convey the Grace of God.
When we understand that the work of the Spirit comes to us through the ministry of the Church, this prevents us from going off into a kind of extreme individualism, in which I myself can claim that virtually anything is the ‘Work of the Spirit.’ 
But, you might say, doesn’t the Spirit give individual believers gifts?
Yes, indeed. First Corinthians 12: 8-11: “For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.  All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.”
Why are these gifts given? Verse 8 of the same chapter says:  To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”
This common good includes empowerment witness and the gift of various ministries for the edification or building up of the body of Christ, the Church. Ephesisans 4: 11- puts it this way:
And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love." (ESV)
And here, when the Scripture speaks of the body being held together by every joint, we can remind ourselves that our joints are held together by ligaments – strong bands of fiber that connect muscle to bone.
Now the root of the word ligament is the Latin LIGARE – ‘to bind fast” - which also happens to be the same root for the word ReLIGion!
Those who say they are ‘spritual’ but not ‘religious’ don’t realize that it is the Spirit Himself that gives the gifts, that ‘binds fast’ every joint, so that the body can be built up in Love!
To insist that you can be spiritual without being religious is to be a bag of flesh with no ligaments to hold you together. Sort of like this blobfish:


The plain fact is that there can be no true spirituality without spiritual practice – Religion -  to express it!
To summarize then, we as Christians understand our Identity:
We are Spirit-breathed People made in God’s Image. And we understand our Mission: We are to Make Disciples – by BEING the Church in the World.
And just as we cannot save ourselves without God’s Spirit breathing life into us, neither can we fulfill our ministry as the Church without the empowerment and assistance of the Spirit. Therefore, we cry out to God’s Spirit to come and help us - to fill us – or direct us. (Eph. 5:18)
I’m going to ask the worship team to come now and lead us in a song by Mark Foreman that is really a prayer -  A prayer that the Holy Spirit come and exercise His ministry among us.
The chorus asks the Spirit to :
‘Give your gifts’ and ‘Edify Your Church’
‘Bring your Truth’ and ‘Glorify Our Lord’
“Come be our Guide’ -  “Point the Way” and
Walk Beside.
This song outlines very simply in a few words what it just took me many words to explain.
Let’s sing this as our Prayer Response to God’s Word. AMEN.

 

 

 

 

 

Believe!

A sermon delivered to St. Timothy Lutheran Church Charleston, WV April 27, 2014 Based on John 20:19-31

"On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came.  So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them,“Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”  Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Thomas answered him,“My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

The Purpose of This Book

  Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (ESV)


I believe it will snow today…
I believe you’re right!
I believe in the Mountaineers – or the Thundering Herd
I believe in the American Dream...


I believe in God...
 
We use the word ‘believe’ in many different ways, some of them casual and offhand, some of them more thoughtful and considered.

Thomas was adamant that he would not believe that Jesus had been resurrected unless he saw the Lord in the flesh and touched Jesus with his own hands. When Jesus actually did appear to Thomas, he urged Thomas to BELIEVE - to touch his wounds, abandon his unbelief, and Believe.

After seeing and touching for himself, Thomas did believe.We call him Doubting Thomas – but he DID believe. To me, he seems very contemporary – a man of our own time - one who thinks very much like we do today. He was discriminating about his beliefs, an independent thinker who refused to go along with the crowd, and someone who, once convinced, held on to his beliefs tenaciously. So I propose a new nick-name. Instead of 'Doubting Thomas', I think we should call him 'Hard-Core Thomas'!

And instead of having Talk like as Pirate Day, we could have Talk like a Thomas Day: Aaaragh!

I think we should be more like Thomas, - but how specifically ? Let's answer that by asking some questions about Thomas' belief:

What was the Content of his belief?

When Jesus appeared to him, Thomas quite sensibly fell to his knees and proclaimed his faith by exclaiming, “My Lord and My God!” He believed something about Jesus specifically.Notice that he did not say about Jesus, “My personal higher power and one way among many to God” … NO! Thomas confessed that Jesus was “My LORD and my GOD”!

Why did Thomas believe at that moment? ... Because he was having a Crisis! Reality (in the person of Jesus) was confronting him with something he couldn't avoid – and he had to make a decision! He had to go one way or the other.

On What was his decision based? ... Personal experience. The Experience he demanded to have – seeing Jesus in the flesh!

In that brief interaction, we are blessed to have an affirmation of the reasonableness of our faith in Christ. It's a faith in something REAL – something based in physical evidence, something that Thomas could FEEL and SEE!

But notice also that Jesus took Thomas to task for his refusal to accept the True Testimony of those who had already seen and touched. “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”says Jesus.
 
It's clear that Jesus expects us to believe on the basis of the reliable, true testimony of those who have gone before us. And that friends, is the entire reason John wrote his Gospel: '...these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God...

We don't have access to the pre-acsended Christ the same way Thomas did, so we have to believe on the basis of his and others' witness – the same way eye-witness evidence is given in court. And we say again: Their testimony is reliable and true!

Why believe? ...So that you might feel good about yourself, increase your self-esteem, or have a bumper-sticker slogan to put on your car? No! ...John urges us to believe SO THAT: “by believing you may have life in his name.” LIFE! That's why we believe!

Believing also has other consequences – When Thomas declared his belief in Jesus as God Incarnate, he also accepted Jesus as his Lord, the One to whom he bent his knee in service, the One he vowed to follow unto death. His belief was clear and it led to clear-cut action. Today, however, those who profess belief in Christ are sometimes not as clear about their belief and its consequences as we might expect.

In an article entitled “The Beliefs that Impact Everyday Life” (Christian Counseling Today Vol. 16, No. 3.), apologist Josh McDowell writes about the “Third Millennium Teens” study done by the Barna Research Group, which reveals some startling information. Among the group of teens surveyed, religious beliefs and spirituality were found to be very important.

70% surveyed attended some church youth group and
80% claimed to be Christians.

The Vast majority [of this group] (80%) believes that God created the universe and 84% believe that God is personally involved in people’s lives.

Yet in spit of these orthodox views:
63% also believe that Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, Jews, and all other people pray to the same god, even though they use different names for their god!

87% believe Jesus was a real person who came to earth and
78% believe He was born to a virgin;
Yet... nearly half (46%) believe He committed sins,
Over half (51%) say He died but did not rise from the dead!

48% of teenagers today believe that it doesn’t matter what religious faith you associate with because they all believe the same principles and truth;

58% believe that all religious faiths teach equally valid truth.
67% suspect that there is ‘no way to tell which religion is true”!


Religious Smorgasbord
McDowell comments that these teens are “putting together their own religious canon in a smorgasbord style, believing it is best to pick and choose from the various ideas, concepts of God, and religions around them and construct a tailor-made ‘faith’ that’s just right for them. That way, it will be theirs personally and will offend no one.” McDowell goes on to say that:
“….the majority of young people have been conditioned to believe that truth is not true for them until they choose to believe it. That’s why 81% claim that ‘all truth is relative to the individual and his/her circumstances.”

Remember, this is a description of teens who mostly identify themselves as Christians!

The study goes on to describe the practical effects of unbelief in teens’ lives. Young people who lack a basic biblical belief system are:

· 36% more likely to lie to a friend.
· 48% more likely to cheat on an exam
· 200% more likely to steal

· 200% more likely to physically hurt someone
· 300% more likely to use illegal drugs, and
· 600% more likely to attempt suicide

When the Bible says ‘The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), this is what it looks like. The pragmatic idea that ‘what works right now is right for now’ will eventually lead ... down a path of self-destruction” says McDowell. (Quoted in Christian Counseling Today Vol. 16, No. 3.)


And while this study described teenagers, it doesn’t take much imagination to extend this description out to adults. We see it all around us in the constant public scandals and swindles that come to light almost every day.

The conclusion is obvious and painful: Unbelief is measurably harmful to individuals and to society as a whole!

Those who do not believe suffer! AND ….
God Himself grieves over those who are being lead astray!

It's for this very reason He reaches out to us by sending His own dear Son, and by writing the Bible – not so that he can ruthlessly condemn people to hell, but that we might Believe – and by believing have LIFE!

But keep in mind that when Jesus says
Believe!, it is not a suggestion, it's a command. Failure to believe results in eventual hardening of the heart and death – eternal separation from God. As you are hearing this message, the angels are recording your receipt of it and you will be held accountable for your response to it!

But that is to focus on the negative. What I’d like to leave you with today with are The Triple A’s of Belief:


Assent
Accept
Apply


Intellectual Assent means agreeing with God or ‘confessing’ - ‘saying the same thing’ as God does about the Gospel message. Assent acknowledges the plausibility of Belief. But mere Assent doesn't save you. The Devil assents to the existence of God – but it certainly doesn't save him! Salvation depends on the second A,
 
Acceptance.
Acceptance goes beyond Assent and opens the door of the heart to Jesus, who stands knocking and waits for admission. (Revelation 3:20) Acceptance means placing my trust in Christ as a trustworthy Savior. It means saying the same thing that Thomas said, “My Lord and my God!”

Finally, Applying belief means taking the message I have heard and applying the principles to my life in concrete ways. The apostle James says, ‘Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works ‘(James 2:18). In other words, put your money where your mouth is. If you say you believe in Christ as your Lord and Savior, prove it by your actions.

Belief in God and Jesus Christ is very important. Believing is mentioned 84 times in the book of John alone. Listen to a few of the references from John Chapter Six:

John 6:35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.John 6:40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life...John 6:47 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.

Belief in Jesus Christ as Savior AND Lord is what makes you a Christian!
So having said all this, I'd like to extend an invitation.

If you have never believed in Christ, never placed your faith and trust in Him to be your Savior and Lord, now is the appointed day of Salvation.

If you have placed your faith in Christ as Savior, but have yet to follow him as LORD, now is the time to apply your faith, and follow your Lord with all your mind, heart, soul and strength.

I invite you to pray silently with me this prayer:
“God, I believe that you exist and that You reward those who diligently seek You. I believe that you sent Jesus Christ to live and die for me so that I shall not perish but have everlasting life with you. Please forgive me of all my sins. Cleanse me and renew a right spirit within me. Give me the joy of your salvation and send your Holy Spirit to live within me. Make me your disciple Lord. Change me and use me as you will – and all for your Glory, through Jesus Christ and in His name I pray.”

If you prayed that prayer with me, rejoice for your name is written in the Book of Life and all the angels in heaven are rejoicing over you right now! Please let me know of your assent and acceptance of Christ so that we might begin to help you apply your new belief in Christ.
AMEN.