Always Be Ready

Always Be Ready

Sermon for Sunday April 27, 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: Today is the final Sunday of the Easter Season. Next Sunday is Ascension Sunday and the following Sunday is what? Can anyone tell me what follows Ascension Sunday? Yes, it’s Pentecost Sunday – on May 11.

I must confess that I was tempted to tackle the First Reading where we see some early Christian disciples receiving the infilling of the Holy Spirit when the Apostles Peter and John laid hands on them. I could have closed the sermon by inviting y’all to come forward to invite the Lord to fill us once again to overflowing with His Holy Spirit. But it’s not Pentecost and the focus is not yet fully on the Holy Spirit. For that reason I thought this idea was perhaps a little premature.

I then thought about focusing on the Gospel lesson and in I is my life’s verse – John 14:21:

Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.”

This is such a magnificent promise but after prayer I was not receiving any confirmation and so finally I turned to our Second Reading from the Peter’s first letter chapter 3 verses 15 to 18 and our Lord made is quite clear that this was to be our focus for this morning.

3. Focus on 1Peter 3:15-18: Let me read this reading for you once again but this time from Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase “The Message:”

15.Through thick and thin, keep your hearts at attention, in adoration before Christ, your Master. Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you’re living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy. 16 Keep a clear conscience before God so that when people throw mud at you, none of it will stick. They’ll end up realizing that they’re the ones who need a bath. 17 It’s better to suffer for doing good, if that’s what God wants, than to be punished for doing bad. 18 That’s what Christ did definitively: suffered because of others’ sins, the Righteous One for the unrighteous ones. He went through it all—was put to death and then made alive—to bring us to God.

In these 4 short verses Peter is telling us how we should live out our Christian witness in the world around us.

In the preceding 2 Sundays we’ve focused on what it means to be shepherded by the Good Shepherd Jesus Christ but this morning the focus falls front and center upon you and me – how do we “carry ourselves” as Christians?

What behavior does God want from us?

Let me ask us a few framing questions:

· What should a Christian look like in this world?

· Now I suppose I’m assuming here that a person who is a Christian can be identified as a Christian? Who was it who asked the question “If you were being tried for being a Christian would there be enough evidence to convict you?” Here’s another question:

· Are we all supposed to look the same as Christians?

· Are there characteristic “marks” of Christians – that are visible to the outside world?

· If I were to ask you to give me the top say 2 or 3 cardinal characteristic of Christians – characteristics that are noticeable to the world – what would they be?

St. Peter obviously thought he knew. Let’s see what he thought they were?

Look with me please at verse 15:

Keep your hearts at attention in adoration before Christ!

Wow! What does that mean?

The King James version puts it this way:

But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts . . .

The Greek word being translated here by “sanctify” means “to dedicate to the service of God.”

So we’re being told to dedicate ourselves to the Lord.

What does “dedication” look like in a human being? Peterson obviously thinks it means – to be fully attentive to God! Hmmmmmm . . .

Would someone say about you that you were “attentive or dedicated” to God?

What does it mean to be attentive or dedicated to God? What does it look like?

It’s defined as:

wholeheartedly devoted or committed to a goal, cause, or job

2. intended only for one purpose: designed to carry out only one task, or set aside for a specific purpose

‘

So a dedicated person is single focused? Are you and I single focused or are we all too often distracted!

I think God is calling us back into focus! A dedicated focus!

4. Not only dedicated and attentive but also:

But we’re not only to be dedicated – wholeheartedly attentive to God - but we’re to be adoring or worshipful!

You see the idea of “sanctified” carries not only an attentiveness but, most importantly, a worshipful or adoring posture. Peterson used the word “adoration.”

So Peter is reminding us to carry ourselves before the world with an attentive and worshipful posture or a “worshipful attentiveness.”

What does that look like on you and me?

How do you live that out?

Let’s say you were to take this exhortation to heart and decided to do it – regardless of the cost – what would it look like on you?

Let me put it this way – how different would it be from what you look like today. How different would you have to become to “live this reality out” right here and right now?

Let me give you an example that occurred in my life on Friday!

I bought a bag of cement for the weekend when I was planning on repairing some rockwork on the side of our house.

My first mistake was to do it with my clerics on. Can you imagine what happened? Yes, it split and when I picked it up it broke completely and the cement cascaded down onto my pants, my shoes and all over the ground.

Do you know how much mess a bag of cement can make especially on clerics?

Grey powder everywhere! Now a few rather “explicit” words issued almost inaudibly through my clenched teeth and then I put the half empty bag and everything else I had into the car and drove home. s which wasn’t that easy and then I packed a shovel and garbage bag into my car and went back to “Home Depot” to clean up my mess. I shoveled the cement into the garbage bag and returned home where I put the garbage into the garbage can together with the rest of the discarded cement.

Then I sat back and reflected on what had happened?

No that’s what I should have done but instead I tackled the rest of the day grumpy over the fact that I had wasted so much time!

This lasted about 2 hours and then the Lord got my attention and I cooled my jets – I finally took a deep breath and prayed and remembered who I was and whose I was and what I was really all about.

Now I think most of us can relate to this – Am I right?

How many of us forget regularly who we are and react to negative events in our lives with less than Christian charity?

Would it be fair to say – most of us? Yes – do you think St. Peter knew this also and that’s what this exhortation is all about?

Yes, I think he and those around him struggled to act like the Christian they were and these verses are reminders and exhortations to all of us to work at “living out of Christian commitment” in ways that will show the world that being a Christian makes us different!

Now if you were looking at me during those busy distracted hours you would not have been very impressed by my Christian witness and I must confess that my sense of our Lord’s Presence was not front and center but rather peripheral – quite peripheral!

But God’s Word given to us this morning by St. Peter exhorts us “Through thick and thin of it all, to keep our hearts at attention, in adoration before Christ, our Master.”

What else are we to do? The rest of verse 15 goes:

Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you’re living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy.

Now that’s very hard for most of us isn’t it? Is it? How hard do you find it to tell someone else about your belief in Jesus Christ?

Before we go there let me ask y’all – who was asked this last week why you’re a Christian or even why you’re so nice – so kind – so gracious – so committed to God?

How “public” if your faith – your belief in Jesus Christ? Could you imagine carrying a Bible into Appleby’s with you?

· Could you imagine praying in the employee cafeteria – publically?

· Could you imagine asking a colleague how they were doing spiritually?

· Is this asking too much?

What does it mean to “be ready to tell anyone who asks why you’re living the way you are?

Think about that? If someone were to ask you that question what would be your answer?

OK let’s turn to verse 16 through 18:

16 Keep a clear conscience before God so that when people throw mud at you, none of it will stick. They’ll end up realizing that they’re the ones who need a bath. 17 It’s better to suffer for doing good, if that’s what God wants, than to be punished for doing bad. 18 That’s what Christ did definitively: suffered because of others’ sins, the Righteous One for the unrighteous ones. He went through it all—was put to death and then made alive—to bring us to God.

Now what does that look like?

How do you and I live before the world with a clear conscience? So that when people throw mud at us – none of it will stick?

There’s a very wonderful truth hiding here for anyone to pick up who wants it.

This wonderful truth is contained in the words: “It is what it is.”

If you are what you are – if your word is your bond. If what I see in you is what I get! And what I see is a man or woman of God – then no matter what garbage – what accusations - I throw at you – it won’t stick!

Now this doesn’t mean that you don’t sin but rather it means that when you sin you go before the Lord and confess it so that if someone accuses you of it – you admit it and explain that God has forgiven you so that it’s no longer stuck to you! The sting of sin is not hovering over you!

You can thank the accuser and invite them to pray that it won’t happen again in your life!

Now that’s the humility of a “free conscience.”

You are what you are – no matter what I say or anyone else says – you are what you are!

You see this is our goal isn’t it – to be completely what we say we are – obedient followers of Jesus Christ

AH! Finally we get to my life’s verse – Jn 14:21:

Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.”

This is the key isn’t it – can you see it? Yes, as we attentively remain absolutely dedicated to our Lord we will seek wholeheartedly to enflesh our love for Him through our obedience to His leading in our life and as we do this – He will reveal Himself to us – He will show himself in His resurrected Presence to us! And when this happens we will recommit ourselves to Him and so the majestic cycle will go on and on! Such is the life of a consecrated – fully attentive and dedicated Christian!

Amen and Amen! Let’s pray for this shall we . . .