The Wicked Flee Though No One Pursues

 Read Proverbs 28

Here’s one that speaks of the attributes of living God’s way or in the everything else.

The wicked flee though no one pursues,

    but the righteous are as bold as a lion.

If you know that you are not living right, you are always looking over your shoulder.  Somebody is going to catch you sometimes.  You feel like you are always on the run. 

You know that you have it coming, but you don’t know when justice will arrive and pounce on you.  You are always on the run.

Our movies romanticize outlaws.  They are always on the run.  There is a mystery about them.  Their love affairs are breathtaking and then they are over as the outlaw is always being pursued.

In reality, the outlaw is just scared.  He is always scared.  He is always on the run even if nobody is chasing him.  He knows that he will be caught someday, but for now, he runs.

The person striving to live rightly has no such fears.  They make mistakes and seek forgiveness but do not run away in fear. They face life head-on.  Courage is their constant companion.

I love the picture of the bicycle rider going uphill as fast as he can.  There is a bear chasing him.  The caption reads, “Somedays, you find your motivation.  Somedays, your motivation finds you.”

People use fear as a motivator all the time.  Governments use it.  Corporations use it. Anyone that wants to manipulate people has used it at some point.  Some are better at using fear to manipulate than others, but it happens all the time.

Now consider the person who manipulates himself out of fear.  He knows he is not living right and he knows that it will catch up with him someday, but every day he must be on the run. It doesn’t matter if someone is after him or not.  He knows someone should be.

Solutions lie in confession, forgiveness, and true repentance, but the easier choice is just to keep running. It’s not the better choice.  It’s just easier to stay with the fear you know.

The wicked flee though no one pursues,

    but the righteous are as bold as a lion.

Those who seek to live God’s way sleep at night, don’t have to look over their shoulders, and if a fight comes their way, they have God-given courage to stand their ground.

Shakespeare and later Hemmingway said something along these lines.

The coward dies a thousand deaths.  A brave man dies but once.

Even Solomon proffered a solution for the wicked who are fleeing.

Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper,

    but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy.

Instead of living your life on the run, confess.  Seek the mercy of the Lord and live.  Your mistakes do not have to direct your life.  Even the wicked can confess and seek God’s mercy.

Chances are that few who have committed their lives to the everything else in this world will muster the courage to repent and be saved, but love and mercy are qualities that humankind has always known in God.

Why try to hide your sins and be on the run for all of your life knowing full well that nothing is hidden from God?

God sees the heart!  The only solution to wickedness is complete repentance.  Everything else is just a futile attempt to postpone the inevitable.  All will account to God.

It’s better from all perspectives to live God’s way and stay out of the everything else.

The wicked flee though no one pursues,

    but the righteous are as bold as a lion.

Just do it.  Live God’s way.

Amen.

Matthew 10 - Part 5

 

Read Matthew 10

Here is the thing.  You don’t need to go head to head with the devil right now, but you don’t need to fear him either.  He can only do so much.

Everything will come into the light.  Everything will be revealed in God’s time.  Don’t worry if it looks like evil men have bested you.  God, goodness, and righteousness prevail.  God wins and that means you win.

What the Lord has told you and taught you and invested in you is what you are to present to the world.  It doesn’t matter if you heard the Lord in a still, small voice or in class on a mountainside, or in a quiet moment with just the two of you enjoying the creation under the stars.

What you have received from the Lord you are to proclaim to the world.  Satan may afflict your flesh but he has no authority to drag you to the pits of hell.  God alone decides life and death, heaven and hell, blessings or torment.

Sin may degrade your life, but confessing your sin liberates you from bondage.  God is faithful and just to forgive.  If you don’t confess, the powers of darkness will try to leverage your guilt against you.

And don’t think that God thinks you insignificant.  He keeps up with the sparrows—common birds that are everywhere.  The birds were not after thoughts.  They were created before you were.  They are a vital part of creation and you are much more important to God than the birds.

If you must fear, then fear the Lord.  He numbers the hairs on your head.  Some of us have made his job much easier as of late, but this is not about hair.  It’s about how important you are to God.

You matter to God.  Proclaiming his word matters to the world.

Realize that he trusted you to take his message into the world.  The 12 went first before Jesus was crucified, buried, and resurrected.  We go now, but the instructions not to fear the enemy still hold.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.  Fools despise wisdom, and instruction, and disciple.  If we have any fear at all, let it be the fear of the Lord for such fear sets us on God’s path.

Sometimes we think, if people only knew…

Understand that God knows.  Nothing is hidden from God.  God sees the heart.  One day, everything hidden will be revealed.  While we look at the world and so desire that so many injustices would be exposed, we are cautioned to confess what we have hidden now.

If we have something against our brother, reconcile before making your offering to God.

If we hate another person, make peace before seeking God’s justice.

If we are seeking justice from others in this world, make sure that we don’t have a lumberyard in our own eyes.

Live as if everything you did was done in broad daylight.

Speak the words given you by God boldly for all to hear.

Trust that God will deal with the wicked in his time and their deeds will be exposed.  Live to bring glory to God not to be excited in the day of reckoning for the wicked.  Their day will come.  Trust God.  Bring glory to God. 

The fact that others may be getting away with sinful things is no excuse for us to not do what we know to do.

Do as the psalmists did.  Cry out to God over injustice while affirming that the Lord of the earth will do right.  Affirm your trust in him.

Be faithful to God in everything.  Never deny him.  He intercedes for you with the Father.  Never give him a reason not to. 

Profess Jesus is Lord to all.  Never miss an occasion.  Never deny him, even by omission.

You may sin and sin some more and some more, but never forsake your Savior.  Never deny him.  Confess your human weakness, but never discount the power of the blood of Jesus or the intensity of God’s love that we know in our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Live as if everything you do and have done will be exposed.  You don’t need to boast in your good deeds.  You must not think your sin is hidden.  God sees what you do.  He sees what others do.  He sees the heart.

Trust that everything evil done in secret is not hidden from God.  Those who are against him and who may oppress us or persecute us will be dealt with by God.  That’s not our burden.

Confess your sin.

Trust that the Lord will do right and don’t retreat to our own understanding.  Trust in the Lord.

Amen.

 

Light - Dark - Truth - Lies

Read 1 John 1

Light and darkness—a contrast that we don’t know as well as we once did.  How many places can you go where there is absolutely no light.  There is always some ambient light it seems.  It may be some plant or rock that absorbs light energy in the day and has something of a glow at night. 

It might be that night light in the hallway that never gets turned off.  It could be some luminous strips designed to guide you safely out of a building or for some other function when the power fails.

If you wake up in the middle of the night, you can probably see well enough to get to the bathroom because it’s not totally dark.  Coming from light into darkness leaves you blind for a while until your eyes adjust.

But with John the apostle, his words intend a stark contrast.  There is light and there is darkness.  Light permeates darkness.  Darkness cannot permeate the light.  And so, John reminds his readers that the Light came into the world.  God incarnate was known to him and others and they testify to his life.

But if they or we continue in darkness, we do not have fellowship with God or each other.  We can’t claim to be people of the light and live in darkness.  We can’t claim to know God but live as a friend of the world. 

If our words say one thing and our life says another, we lie. The truth is not in us.  We want to be people of God but we become liars.  Our lives are full of dissonance.

But if we walk—if we live—in the light, and John would bring analogy into this metaphor saying as he is in the light, then we have fellowship with one another.  The blood of Jesus has made that atoning sacrifice for us and we get to enjoy this thing called fellowship. 

John doesn’t use the word here, but we must repent.  We first must turn away from the darkness of the world.  We must leave behind the old ways, old thinking, and outside-in motivators.  Do you remember Psalm 15 where we talked about the truth that comes from the heart?

Living in the light is an inside-out process. 

Think of David who cried out to the Lord in psalm to create in him a clean heart.  David wanted to live in the light, to walk in the Lord’s ways not because he was a great rule-follower but because God had made him clean once again.

David needed and knew he needed what the blood of goats and bulls could not give him.

Do we not know this experience?  Do we not know this thing that John called walking in the light?  I am not asking if you have been sin-free since you professed Jesus as Lord.  I am asking do you know what it is to walk in the light?

I think that we all have a taste of it.  It’s good but still we struggle.  Still we sin.

We say that we sin, to which I say good.  I’m not saying sin is good.  I am saying that we know we sin and we confess that we have sinned.  That’s the good part.  We don’t fake it.  We have sinned.  We confess.

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.  If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.

The truth is not in us.  We have been talking about truth for several weeks but when we claim that we have not sinned, the truth is not in us.

We have been made right with God.  We live in the light and yet we let darkness in where darkness can’t come.  We have dissonance that can only be resolved by confession.

We know that we are to live in the light as he is in the light and yet, we let the world creep in.  So, what do we do?  We confess.

Do we upset God when we confess to him time and again?  Do we wear out his patience?  What?  This guy again!  Didn’t we just go through this?

I think God would be upset with us if we stopped confessing, if we stopping trying to live in the light, if we gave in to the darkness.

We know that we fall short and we know that God is faithful and just to forgive.  His faithfulness continues through all generations.  His faithfulness continues.

It’s as if he knew that he made us from dust and blew spirit into us to make as a living soul, that we are a unique creature among all creatures, made in his image but subject to human frailty, much of which comes from having this thing not labeled in the Bible, but that we come to call free will.

God knew that we would need forgiveness.  Our sin is no surprise to him. 

We need to understand that this dark world is still trying to find its way where it doesn’t belong.  In him there is no darkness, but we still wrestle with living up to the righteousness that we have been given. 

So, today, I challenge you to self-examination and confession.  That’s not exactly accurate.  I challenge you to examination by the Holy Spirit and God’s holy Word—both are within you—and to confession.  Self-examination is subject our own biases and there is a whole bunch of that going around these days.

Let the Holy Spirit and God’s word do their work.

I challenge you to understand the power of confession.  God will push back the darkness.  God will purify us.  We can walk in fellowship with one another once again.

The battle of God over everything that opposes him—wickedness is won.  God wins!  God has won.  We wrestle with darkness and falsehood and when we lose a skirmish, we must understand that God has already won the battle for us.

We are called to confess so we can get back to living in fellowship with one another.

For those who seek him, for those who profess Jesus is Lord, God is not going to run out of light or out of grace; so let’s confess our sins and receive the purifying power of God’s love.

Let’s confess and walk in the light.

I could stop right there, say amen, and we could go eat.  But I want to challenge you a little more.  Do not be afraid to be a light in the darkness.  Do not be afraid to be people of love in a world of indifference.  Do not be afraid to stand in stark contrast to a dark world. 

Do not be afraid to share the good news in a world that doesn’t want to hear it.  Be so bold as to invade a godless world with light and with love.

We are to let our light shine in the darkness.  We don’t hide it and we don’t let it go out.  When we confess, our light is still shining.  Do not be afraid to confess.  God is faithful and just to forgive.  Our light which comes from living in his light keeps shining.

Do you know what the penumbra is?  It’s that partially dark and partially light area around a shadow.  Seldom is there a perfect distinction between light and shadow.  You might call it a gray area.

Why is this important?  We are talking light and darkness.  If our light does not shine in the darkness, we won’t have this penumbra.  If we do not live in the light, how can we witness to those in the darkness?

Most of our ministry reaches those in this area.  They are not consumed by evil but do not seek good.  They live in a state of apathy or are ambivalent about just about everything.  This is our mission field, but to work this field, we must walk in the light.  We must let our light shine in the darkness. 

Paul noted that he became all things to all people so that some might be saved.  The toughest word in this sentence for me is “some.”  That some might be saved.

We might not reach everyone, but some might be saved.  I don’t think that we reach very many if we don’t walk in the light, confess when we stray, live in fellowship, and let our light shine before humanity.

I conclude with John’s words as he prefaced what God’s Spirit had inspired him to say what we have discussed this morning.

We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.  We write this to make our joy complete

Let us live in the light, enjoy fellowship with each other, trust in God’s faithfulness as we confess, and know joy even in the midst of a dark world.

Amen.

Peace and Trust

Read Isaiah 26:1-7

This is a psalm contained in the prophecy of Isaiah. We are considering the peace of God’s people and will draw upon Isaiah’s words, but first, consider the story in the psalm.

It is the story of God’s Chosen People.  They know that one day Jerusalem will be unassailable.  This will not be due to higher and thicker walls, but that the walls and parapets are not made of stone but of salvation.

It is a place where only the righteous may enter.  It stands in contrast to the wicked world which the Lord will lay low.  This city is anchored on the Rock which is the Lord.

Those who dwell in this city long for the ways of the Lord and live in his peace.

Those who know the Lord do not fear judgment but the wicked never seem to learn even when grace is extended to them.

The Lord’s zeal brings peace to those who seek him and destruction to those who resist grace and love wickedness.

God’s people know that their accomplishments came at the hand of the Lord. 

God’s people know that they have veered from God’s path.  They confess.

God’s people know that they were blessed to be a blessing; yet, they failed.

God’s people know that there will be a time of judgment that will come upon the earth that they must endure for a time for sin will be judged.

God’s people did not understand that while Isaiah did speak of the restoration of Jerusalem that followed the Babylonian Captivity that was about to befall them; he spoke also of a time in which we live today and the age to come.

Did you catch the part where God’s people knew they were blessed to be a blessing and they performed dismally at this?  These are the children of Abraham.  These people took pride in the fact that they were sons of Abraham; yet they missed the part about being blessed to be a blessing.

But they acknowledged that they blew it.  Despite this, these are people who know peace.

You will keep in perfect peace

    those whose minds are steadfast,

    because they trust in you.

Trust in the Lord forever,

    for the Lord, the Lord himself, is the Rock eternal.

As we have navigated this year seeking the Lord’s direction on love, and love and action, and love and peace, I have proffered to you that trust in the Lord is action.  Today, I put before you that trust in the Lord brings us peace.

Look at the children of Israel.  They were God’s own people.  They were indeed sons of Abraham.  God gave them their identity.  He gave them the law.  He promised and delivered a land just for them. 

God gave his people a chance to do right by him or to make a mess of things.  Most of the time it was the latter.

When God’s people had taken possession of the land promised to them by God and Joshua was nearing the end of his days as leader of this chosen people, he put a challenge before all the people.

He said that they could follow any of the false gods that they knew in Egypt or in the lands they had just conquered, or they could follow the one true God.  It should not have been a difficult question.  These people saw enemy after enemy flee from the armies of God’s Chosen People.  They knew their victories came at the hand of the Lord.

Joshua challenged them further saying that for him and his household, they would serve the Lord.  It’s like, ok guys, here is the correct answer.

Of course, they all replied, “Far be it from us to forsake the Lord to serve other gods!”  Their testimony as to what the Lord had done followed so they were not just mimicking Joshua; however, Joshua challenged them again even though they gave the right answer.

Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the Lord. He is a holy God; he is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins. If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you, after he has been good to you.”

 But the people said to Joshua, “No! We will serve the Lord.”

Joshua was right.  They couldn’t do it.  The people turned away from the one true God time and time again.  In Isaiah’s time, judgment would come upon God’s own people at the hands of the Babylonians, and other neighbors to the north.

Joshua was right that God would not forgive their rebellion and their sins.  God would condemn sin and rebellion and exact the death penalty for what his people had done.  That price was paid in his own blood.  That price was paid by the blood of Jesus.

Judgment of sin took place on a hill called Golgotha some two millennia ago.  But God’s people were not condemned. God’s people were the beneficiaries of what we call grace—unmerited forgiveness from God.  Sin was not overlooked by God.  It was judged and the penalty—the death penalty—exacted.  By his stripes we are healed.  By his blood we are forgiven.

That grace has been extended to us and to the world.  It is the greatest gift since the creation itself and many of you rejoice in it.  We have received the salvation of the Lord.

But have we received his peace?  Do we live in his peace? 

We are not so different from God’s Chosen People.  We know the Lord.  We know his ways.  We know what to do.  We know that we often miss the mark.  We do things that we knew not to do.  We do things that are governed by our own understanding and not the way of the Lord.

We who are saved from sin and death cheat ourselves out of the Lord’s peace when we continue to do things our own way.

There is a big step in faith between believe and trust.

Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved!  I believe that Jesus is God’s son.  I believe that he walked on this earth and lived as a man—enduring human trials.  I believe that he died and by his blood my sins were forgiven. 

I believe that God raised Jesus from the dead.  I believe that Jesus is at the right hand of the Father in heaven.

I believe that Jesus did not leave us as orphans here on earth, that his Spirit—God’s own Spirit—was given to us when we professed Jesus is Lord.

I believe that God’s own Spirit is alive within me, but, I’m not ready to trust him yet.

There is a big step in faith between believe and trust.

And while we live between believe and trust, we miss out on a lot of peace.  Things still get to us.  The imperfection of the day frustrates us.  When our vision of how things should be or should go are not met, peace is elusive.

Speedbumps become mountains.  Weather becomes climate.  Seconds become hours.  Little things become trials. 

Perspective and proportion give way to hyperbole and drama.  The sky is falling!

You will keep in perfect peace

    those whose minds are steadfast,

    because they trust in you.

Trust in the Lord forever,

    for the Lord, the Lord himself, is the Rock eternal.

The sky may indeed be falling, but for those who trust in the Lord; they will have peace.  Our circumstances will not steal our peace.

The wanderings of God’s Chosen People and our own meanderings into our own understanding attest to this.  We don’t always do the right things, but we trust God and his word.

If we confess, he is faithful and just to forgive.  Do we believe this, or do we trust in this?  I hope that your answer is yes and yes. 

I believe that God forgives.  Whew!  At least I am not going to hell.

I trust that God forgives. Hallelujah!  I can get right back into my race of faith!  I do this without having to make a stop at anxiety.  I can put my love into action and have peace.

I love Proverbs 3:5-6.  I would challenge you to find a sermon where I couldn’t work that Proverb into context.  Don’t spend too much time on that quest.  It will not produce any fruit.  It is sort of the king of trust within the scriptures and fits in just about anywhere.

But the message of trust goes far beyond that single quip of wisdom as the text for today’s message attests. Let’s understand more about belief and trust.

Belief brings us to salvation. Trust kicks off discipleship.

Belief brings us from death to life.  Trust puts the abundance into life.

Belief seems like the finish line to some.  Trust tells us we just left the starting blocks.

Belief brings affirmation.  Trust leads us to action.

Belief brings us joy.  Trust brings us to fulfillment.

Belief brings assurance.  Trust brings us to peace.

We must believe in Jesus, but we don’t enjoy the fruit that is waiting for us until we trust fully in the Lord.

This is not semantics.  This is not a minor difference in similar terms.  This is life and living.  How many people do you know who are alive but not living?

How often do you miss out on God’s peace?

How often do we know God can do something and we trust that God will do something?

There is nothing wrong with believing.  We need to believe in Jesus and cast out all doubts that the enemy throws our way.  We need to believe in Jesus and resist the old self that tells us to hedge our bets.

Then, we need to trust God and live trusting God and receive the peace that comes from trusting God.

Trust in the Lord forever,

    for the Lord, the Lord himself, is the Rock eternal.

Believe, trust, and live in the perfect peace of the Lord!

Amen!

It's VBS Sunday, and time to talk about the Assurance of Pardon

Read 1 John 1

VBS…  Wow!  It’s a week like no other in the year.  We pack in Bible verse, prayers, stories from scripture that come alive in the telling, great snacks and games, and just good fun make up what for many might just be the best week of the year.

And, of course, there is the pool party.

And then there is the Sunday after Bible school.  I am thankful that the VBS leaders could wake up this morning.  There is tired and there is VBS tired.  Some are already taking kids to camp.  Things really happen around here.

I am also thankful that there are some here this morning that are usually not in attendance.  I know that most of you came to see your kids, but I want to let you know something.  God is love and God loves you.

If you have read very little of the Bible, I am going to give you some insight into things that you probably already suspected.

First, all of this—creation—is no accident.  The Apostle Paul told his readers to look at the evidence of creation itself and know that there is a Creator.  We know this to be true.  We know one true God and we know him best by his Son, whom today we call Jesus.

We know that God created us as the best part of everything.  He even made us in his own likeness, in his own image.

On top of that, he let us make our own choices.  That part didn’t seem to work out too well for us much of the time for we often made bad choices. Not all the time, sometimes we made very bad choices—terrible choices.  This is what we need to understand.  God loved us then and loves us now and will love us tomorrow and love us forever.

That does not mean that there are no consequences for our bad choices.  It means that God will never stop loving us.

A lot of people think, that If I am as good as the next person, I can go to heaven.  They may think that, but it is not in God’s word.  That’s not what he told us and as he is God, it might be good to know what he told us.  He is, after all, the Creator of Heaven and Earth.

God knows that we can never be perfect without him.  He allows us to try.  And even though we know inside that we can’t be right with God all on our own, we still try to live the way we want and hope—no wish—that everything works out for the best.

Anybody here ever been short on money and when it came to your bills you just wished for the best.  You knew that you should make a budget and stick to it, but you just wished for the best.  If you are not careful, the water and electric get cut off while you wish for the best.

A lot of people look at life the same way.  I’ll just hope for the best.  If there is a heaven, surely they will let me in.  If there is a hell, oh well, I should have lots of friends there.  We will take over the place.

Let me tell you this morning that there is a heaven and there is a hell and God desires that no one go to hell.  He desires that all come to know him and the abundant life that he has in store for us now and forever.  That is the desire of God’s heart.

But he lets us make our own decisions.  Except for one.  God decided that he would make us right with him.  He would do the one thing that we could never do on our own.  He shed his own blood to take away our sin.

I’m not going to cover how God’s people used to make sacrifices for their sins.  They did.  They were temporary and they could not truly make us right with God.

But God did.  By the blood of Jesus—a divine sacrifice—we are in good standing with God.  Jesus paid it all.  We are saved.  We are reconciled to God.  We are ransomed.  We are rescued.  We are his!

And we should live the rest of our lives in grateful response to God.  We should live exactly as we were made to live—as holy and righteous people.

But we don’t.  We still fall short, but we never fall out of God’s grace.  Grace is undeserved forgiveness.  It’s unmerited forgiveness from God.

While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  Humankind was not getting better.  We were anchored to our sin; yet, God himself made the sacrifice for us so that we could live forever enjoying the God who made us.

But we still fall short, and so we come to the memory verse for this year’s VBS.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

Life still has struggles, and trials, and things that come out of left field that we make a mess of, and yet, God loves us.  We do not lose our right-standing with him.

We cannot undo what Jesus has done!  We can live being ungrateful for what he has done, but the blood of Jesus is more powerful than your worst sin.  Jesus paid it all!  He set us free from sin and we will know eternal life with our loving God.

But we still mess stuff up again and again.  So, what are we to do?

Confess!  Confess to God what you have done.  Let him know that you know you missed the mark.  He already knows.  This lifts the burden from you. 

God wants you to get back to living a full life.  He tells us to give him these burdens that we try to carry on our own.   He has paid the price for our sin and he wants us to live to the full.  He wants us to live an abundant life.

If you know Jesus as Lord and have sinned, confess.  It is just that simple.

The promise—the assurance—that we have is that he will forgive us.  He will forgive us.  There is no deliberation over the matter.  He will forgive us.

Now that’s cool beans.  God’s love is so great that he forgives us time and time again.  Once you have professed Jesus as Lord, you need not worry about any sin that you commit.  God has given us his assurance of pardon.

That doesn’t mean that we run amuck.  It means that we do our best to please our Heavenly Father, but when we falter, we confess and get back to doing the best we can.

His forgiveness is promised to us.  His pardon is assured.

If you do not live with this assurance because you have not yet received the gift of life abundant and life eternal through Jesus Christ, do not hesitate to make that decision today.

You will still have trials and temptations and problems, but you will be forgiven and will be in good standing with God.

Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved!

Do not hesitate to know the forgiveness of God, the peace of the Lord, and his assurance of pardon.

Amen.