It Is What It Is!

The Inexorableness of God!

Deo Habilis!

Sermon for Sunday June 1, 2008

1.  Good Morning.  Let’s Pray.  O Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing to You O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer.  Amen.

2.  Opening Comments:  Well it’s the 9^th Sunday of Ordinary (Green) time and this morning I believe that God wants to remind us that He is God and we are not and that the best possible choice we could make is to discover what God wants us to do and then to do it regardless of the cost – regardless of the consequences – regardless of whether it makes sense to us or not at the time!

Now, I think it’s probably safe to assume that y’all sort of believe that!  After all we call ourselves Christians don’t we?  This sort of means that we believe and follow a god.  But the reality – what all too often plays itself out in our lives – falls far short of what we would expect. 

This is the “Integrity Gap” in most of our lives.  Outsiders call it “Christian hypocrisy.”   Our Children and spouses see it and are scandalized and saddened by it.  God sees it and is saddened by it.  Satan and the demons see it and are made glad by it – for it’s the fruit of their efforts coupled with the weaknesses of our fallen natures.

Have you taken a good look at yourself lately and taken special note of those areas in your life which lack integrity?  And have you determined to work on those areas by the grace of God to purge them and in so doing to become free!

This morning our Lord wants to challenge and encourage you and me to greater efforts to this end.  But He’s not going to stop at that He’s going to give us a way to do it. 

So let’s see what He wants to say to us shall we?

3. Focus on Scripture:  We’ll be focusing on the Gospel reading but let me briefly reflect on how the other readings touch on this central message to us.

The Old Testament reading is from the Book of Deuteronomy and in this reading we hear Moses giving his parting comments before he dies and the children of Israel pass into the Promised Land.

We hear these words, “Take these words of mine into your heart and soul.  Bind them at your wrist as a sign, and let them be a pendant on your forehead.” And then he said, “I set before you . . . a blessing and a curse,” and then he went on to detail the blessing and curse.

I believe that the thrust of this passage is that God wants us to take His words to us to heart.  Indeed to the very core of our souls! 

In other words, He wants us to accept and do what He says.  Not just to hear and forget!

His words are either a blessing or a curse but they simply cannot be ignored.

Let me say that again, “His words are either a blessing or a curse but they cannot be ignored!”

Oh, you and I can live as if there were no God or that if there is a God, His words to us are just “suggestions” – we can take them or leave them.

This is not what we’re hearing this morning.

God’s words to us are either - Blessings or Curses!  He is ignored to one’s peril!

4.  The Psalm.  Psalm 31 reminds us that God and God alone is our strong foundation.  In other words, we’re to stand on the firm ground of His being.  All hope is to be found in Him. 

There is not hope, no safety, no refuge, no guidance, no courage – outside of God!

When we look for hope, safety, refuge, guidance, and even encouragement outside of God we are engaged on a fool’s errand for what we’ll find is false hope, danger, exposure, fear and false guidance!

5.  In our Second Reading in the Book of Romans chapter 3 we read that justification if to be found only in the grace of God – not in our own justifications – our own fabrications – our own self lies!  Any justification that we could think of pales in the presence of Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross.  This act is the only justification for our very existence.  We are justified on the basis of Jesus’ love!

Nothing that you and I have done or will ever do – no matter how magnificent it is will justify our existence – our actions!  Anything outside of what Jesus did on our behalf is as dirty rags!  Nothing justifies but Jesus Christ!

So let’s stop any of our justifications!  If you have developed a habit of justifying your overeating, your fits of anger, your lateness to meetings, your moodiness or whatever other poor behaviors – stop them.  They are vapid – they are just wind!  They hold no justifying power at all.  They are excuses for bad behavior – stop them now!

6.  And finally let’s look at our Gospel reading for today.  Matthew chapter 7 verses 21 – 27.

Before we begin I need to let you know that these verses are the conclusion of a very very sublime sermon given by Jesus.  This sermon is known as the Sermon on the Mount and is perhaps the most sublime section of the entire Bible.

So the verses we’re going to be focusing on this morning are the culmination of this sublime sermon.

In preparing for this sermon I sat down and reread chapters 5 through 7 of the Gospel of Matthew so that I could have a deeper understanding of the context for these closing remarks in Chapter 7.

Let me give y’all a very truncated summary of the preceding 2 plus chapters so that you can, as I did, get the full impact of what Jesus is calling forth from us at the end of chapter 7.

The key passages are in chapter 5 and are known as the Beatitudes.  Listen to them once again for Jesus refers to them as the Rock of our faith:

Matt. 5:1

          Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2 and he began to teach them, saying:

Matt. 5:3

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,

              for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Matt. 5:4

Blessed are those who mourn,

              for they will be comforted.

Matt. 5:5

Blessed are the meek,

              for they will inherit the earth.

Matt. 5:6

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,

              for they will be filled.

Matt. 5:7

Blessed are the merciful,

              for they will be shown mercy.

Matt. 5:8

Blessed are the pure in heart,

              for they will see God.

Matt. 5:9

Blessed are the peacemakers,

              for they will be called sons of God.

Matt. 5:10

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,

              for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Matt. 5:11

“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.12Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Jesus goes on the challenge us to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world!

He then adds clarity to the Old Testament commandments – like Matt 5:21 “You have heard that it was said to the men of old, ‘You shall not kill; and whoever kills shall be liable to judgment.’  22. But I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment!”

He went on, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’  But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

And so Jesus took the law and brought them to a much higher level whose standard was not only righteousness but love!

Yes, love was the new standard for all behavior!  He tells us a few verses later “You shall love your enemies!”

One of my favorite passages is found in these chapters –

Matt. 6:28

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

And just a few verses later we are told, Matt 7:1 “Judge not, that you be not judged.  2. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.”

Wow – this is scary and radical stuff to me and I’m sure to those first listeners!

Believe it or not we even have the Golden Rule given in these chapters – “So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them;” – Matt 7:12.

5.  Focus now on the Gospel reading:  And finally we come to today’s readings and as already noted this reading forms the conclusion of Jesus’ great Sermon on the Mount.

What Jesus has been saying in the Sermon is not setting aside the Law of Moses but reinterpreting it for His disciples so that they – and the Church, will become the “salt of the earth” and “light of the world” (Matt. 5:13-16).

Listen once again to these words from Scripture but this time I will be reading from Eugene Peterson’s translation entitled “The Message.”  Here we go:

Matt. 7:21

“Knowing the correct password—saying ‘Master, Master,’ for instance—isn’t going to get you anywhere with me. What is required is serious obedience—doing what my Father wills.  22 I can see it now—at the Final Judgment thousands strutting up to me and saying, ‘Master, we preached the Message, we bashed the demons, our God-sponsored projects had everyone talking.’23 And do you know what I am going to say? ‘You missed the boat. All you did was use me to make yourselves important. You don’t impress me one bit. You’re out of here.’

Matt. 7:24

“These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on. If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock.  25 Rain poured down, the river flooded, a tornado hit—but nothing moved that house. It was fixed to the rock.

Matt. 7:26

“But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don’t work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach.  27 When a storm rolled in and the waves came up, it collapsed like a house of cards.”

What we hear in these words is a challenge to embrace the values that Jesus sets forth throughout the Sermon – insisting upon forgiveness, non-retaliation, love of enemies, and so forth – is to embrace a very vulnerable way of life as far as the standards of the world are concerned.

In some sense, it would seem that Jesus is asking to build our house on a very shaky foundation indeed, Jesus, in the parable insists that taking His words to heart and living them out in deed, rather than simply crying “Lord, Lord,” is to build on the kind of firm, rocky ground that any sensible architect would choose.

Let’s pray . . .