Romans 10:1-21 How Can They Hear

In our passage this morning, we see Paul’s heart for people, especially for the Jewish people who haven’t yet accepted Jesus as their Lord. Paul’s heart desire is for everyone to know Jesus and to accept him as their Lord and Saviour, especially his fellow Jews. Paul wants them to know and embrace the gospel, to embrace Jesus who’s the core of the gospel news. It’s like when we have family who’ve drifted away from Jesus, or maybe you’ve accepted Jesus but your family and loved ones haven’t yet; when that happens, your deepest desire is that they will come to know Jesus and follow him with you.

The Jews know God. They follow the Law and do all the sacrifice and ritual stuff, but it comes more out of a sense of fear and duty rather than love and relationship. They follow the Law to the letter, even tithing a tenth of their spices to the temple, yet they’re unable to see how the Law points to Jesus, how the Law teaches us about our relationship with God and our neighbours. The 70 years in exile in Babylon has made them focus intently on fulfilling the letter of the Law and they forgot that the reason they went into exile was because they forgot that the heart of the Law is to love God and their neighbour and protect the vulnerable among them. Jesus is the culmination of the Law, living it out completely in his life and relationship with God the Father. Jesus lives it out on the cross through complete obedience to God’s will and out of complete love for us. The Jews are looking to the Law, Paul calls them to look to Jesus.

Paul’s desire is that the Israelites will move from the righteousness that is by the law, focusing on rule keeping, and embrace the righteousness that is by faith which says… the word is near you; it is in your mouth and heart. The word here is Jesus, we learn that from the first chapter in John, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Jesus didn’t hate the Pharisees; he wanted them to see that their salvation wasn’t coming from following the rules, but that it comes through him. Jesus freaks out on them for tithing spices and every small thing they own, but that’s because they’ve forgotten the heart of God for the poor, oppressed, widow and orphan. Jesus wants, just as Paul does, for their faith to make it past their head and into their hearts and to transform their lives. When we share the Gospel news with others, we’re not just giving them knowledge, we’re inviting them into a relationship with Jesus.

We can do all the laws and rules and still not be saved from our sin. You can know that Jesus is Lord, that he died on the cross for our sin, and was raised from the dead to show sin and death are defeated, and still be far from God. The Jews know God, they know him really well since God has been with them and saved them many times in the past, but they’re not accepting and following Jesus. Satan knows God and still is far from God, and definitely is not a follower of Jesus.

Paul encourages us, saying, “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.” Jesus tells his disciples in John 14 that he is the way, the truth and the life and that no one comes to the Father except through him. Jesus goes on to say that if they really knew him, then they would know the Father as well. If you want to know God, Jesus is saying, you need to know him.

If Jesus is our Lord, then our allegiance and loyalty need to be given completely to him, our identity rooted completely in Jesus. Claiming Jesus as Lord is saying to the world that we’re not giving our allegiance to Caesar or anything else: Jesus is first! Richard Niell Donovan writes, “Rome considered Caesar to be Lord, and required its citizens and subjects to say, “Caesar is Lord.” To proclaim Jesus as Lord was to invite charges of disloyalty or treason, for which the penalty was death. It is likely that some of the Christians to whom Paul wrote this epistle knew Christians who had died for confessing that Jesus is Lord—and yet they continued their public proclamation—and so the church prospered, even as it was nurtured by the blood of the saints.” Claiming Jesus as Lord is not a light thing to claim. Paul says we need to believe that God raised Jesus from the dead, meaning that you’re trusting that Jesus really was sent from God and that he’s God’s only begotten son. This needs to be deep down faith, from the heart.

The hardest thing for the Jews was to move from following the Law to accepting Jesus as God’s son and as their Lord. It’s not much different today. There’s a surprising interest in spiritual and supernatural things, most people have a sense that there is more to the world than what we can experience through our senses. While many people will admit to a spiritual reality, our challenge is to help them see that Jesus is at the center of the spiritual realm and he calls us to follow him and accept him as the most important thing and person in our lives and hearts, to accept him as our Lord.

Paul asks, “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” I am often surprised by how little many people know about God and Jesus. We think everyone still knows the biblical stories of Christmas and Good Friday, but even those are being forgotten and this has been happening a while now. While at Redeemer University in the late 90s, an English professor, Deborah Bowen arrived after having taught at the University of Ottawa. She was surprised that half her students there didn’t know even the simple stories of the Bible. Jesus was a myth or a swear word, while Christmas was trees and gifts, and Easter was chocolate and bunnies.

How can they know who Jesus is if no one has even told them, how can they believe in Jesus if no one has ever taken the time to talk to them about God and Jesus? This is Paul’s question concerning the Jews, how about our co-workers, fellow students and neighbours?  There’s an interest in spiritual things today, just check out how many tv shows deal with spiritual or supernatural topics. Whenever I talk to someone in our city about faith and Jesus, I’ve never had anyone tell me off or walk away. Most times there’s interest, even if they’re only being polite. But how will the people in our city hear about Jesus if we don’t talk about him; share how he makes a difference in our lives and how his way changes us.

The people in our lives need to hear of the peace that passes all understanding that Jesus gives us; to offer them the freedom to stop chasing after all the things that we’re told will make us more beautiful, smarter, wealthier, more popular, more whatever. They need to hear that they can find forgiveness for all the wrong stuff in their past, that they’ve been given gifts and skills to bring change into our community, that Jesus calls us to create a community where everyone’s treated with honour because they’re created in the image of God, that we’re challenged to help others flourish and develop the potential God has placed in them, to live in grace and hope rather than fear and oppression. They need to know that they are loved by Jesus, that they belong to him. So many people are searching for a place where they can belong, be accepted. If we don’t tell them about Jesus and how he’s able to transform their lives, who will?

In the end, we want the people in our city to know the same thing Paul wanted the Jews to know, found in Romans 8:38–39,  ^“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” May the Lord give you the words and courage needed to share Jesus and remember, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.” May your feet be beautiful this week and every week!

Matthew 28:16-20 Go and Make Disciples

 

Gospel means ‘Good News.” It’s the beginning of a new church year and our ministries are starting up again. Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be sending out the personal faith plans for you to pray over as you ask God where he’s leading you to serve or grow. This makes it a good time to go back to the basics of who we are, asking the questions, “Why has God placed us here, who is God calling us to be?”

Matthew ends his story of Jesus with Jesus returning to heaven after giving his followers this last command, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations.” All authority has been given to Jesus because on the cross he defeated the two great enemies of sin and death, now he’s returning to heaven and he’s putting his work, his plan for eternity into our hands, “go and make disciples of all nations.” Right away we hear the echoes from Abraham and God’s promise, “all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” We often connect this blessing to Jesus’ death on the cross, but I’ve always believed the blessing starts to happen right here in our day  to day lives, making the good news real; the command to go make disciples, to bring the Gospel news to the world and invite others to believe in Jesus, be baptized, and follow Jesus’ commands. These commands are summarized by Jesus, “Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbour as yourself.”

Jesus’ command to go and make disciples of all nations flows out of these commands to love God and our neighbour. This really hit me when I was talking with a good friend of mine, I’ll call him Bob. We played ball together in the summer and enjoyed hanging out during the rest of the year too. He didn’t really believe in God, though it was always surprising how often our conversations swung around to talking about Jesus. He couldn’t understand why Jesus was so important to me. He gave me the nickname Deacon on our ball team because I wouldn’t play in tournaments on Sundays. My sister Toni played on our team too and when she died in a car accident, we had a conversation about life and death. Bob said something that hit me hard, “I’m guessing that because I don’t believe in Jesus, that when we die, you’ll see Toni again, but I’m done for?”

That’s when it struck me, if I really cared about Bob, I’ve got to keep investing in him, keep inviting him to follow Jesus, to want nothing more than to walk through life together as brothers in Christ so that we can walk together after death as well. We don’t live in the same city anymore, but he still reaches out once in a while and he still asks about Jesus. Loving our neighbour means wanting to see them accept Jesus and join us in our walk following Jesus. Loving God means that we want everyone created in his image to claim that identity and accept Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. To do this, we need to share the Gospel with them, the good news of Jesus.

To make disciples, we need to be disciples. To be a disciple of Jesus is more than just believing the right things, it’s much more. Ray Vanderlaan uses a Jewish expression to describe a disciple, “Walking in the dust of the rabbi.” This comes from a common Jewish saying that shows the commitment involved in being a disciple. A student would choose a rabbi to follow and then follow that rabbi everywhere, intently studying everything about the rabbi with the goal of imitating the rabbi in everything, how he talked and what he taught, what he wore and how he wore it, how he eat and what he ate, literally everything, so that when other people watched him, they would say, “We see the Rabbi when we see you.” To imitate the rabbi this deeply, you need to walk so closely behind in order to notice all these things, that you’re covered in the dust kicked up by his sandals. This helps us understand why the Apostle Paul encourages us to imitate him as he imitates Jesus, that’s what disciples do.

The difference with being a disciple of Jesus is that he calls us. Jesus starts the relationship, calling us to follow him, to obey his commands, to be his disciples and we respond. He’s our rabbi, teaching us and modelling life to us. We’re called to walk in the dust of Jesus so that we can learn, see and experience who Jesus is so we can imitate him and go make disciples for Jesus. When Jesus is getting ready to leave, Jesus tells them in John 14:12, “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” Jesus sends his Spirit at Pentecost to make its home in us to guide us and remind us of everything Jesus has spoken. We have been given the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus. We’re called to learn it and to live it out in our lives. 1 Peter 3:15 tells us, “But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.”

The reason for the hope we have is Jesus, he’s the good news, the center of the gospel. But the gospel news tells us why life is the way it is and it begins already in creation. God created everything good and very good, creating us in his own image. But humanity chose themselves over God, choosing to sin rather than obey God and now we all have a sinful nature and repeatedly sin against God and others. God is righteous and just and he must carry out the punishment set for sin, namely death. No matter how many good works we do, they can never make up for our sin. Thankfully, God is also merciful and loving and so he provides a substitute to take our punishment in our place. This is Jesus, God’s only beloved son, who is completely human and God, meaning that as a human he can take our punishment and as God he can bear the weight our sin on the cross. Now comes the amazing news, Jesus died for our sin, but he was raised from the dead to show us that he has complexly defeated sin and death, meaning we’ll also be raised from the dead.

Jesus invites us to new life through repentance and conversion, offering forgiveness and the gift of eternal life. We receive these gifts through the Holy Spirit. Our old lives are washed away and we invited to embrace our new lives focused on following Jesus and living for him. The Holy Spirit gives us the ability to do good works to show our gratitude to God and praise him with how we are living our lives. This also gives us reassurance that our faith is real by the fruit it produces. Going back to our passage this morning, we’re equipped to win others over the Jesus, to make disciples.

Getting back to my friend Bob, making a disciple is about showing how Jesus gives me peace even after my sister died. It’s about listening to his questions, learning about his dreams and hopes, along with his fears and disappointments and how Jesus offers a solid foundation for understanding the wrong and evil in the world and points a way forward to creating healthy community. It’s acknowledging that we get hurt by others and the power of forgiveness and how we can experience forgiveness from Jesus for the garbage in our own lives and hearts. Giving an answer for the hope that we have needs to be rooted in regular life and the day to day hopes and struggles we all live with and how Jesus has lived it and shows us the way forward. Our lives shape us so we can share the good news with others, so we can walk with them through their stuff and help them see Jesus’ presence.

We can choose to see the sin and evil around us or we can choose to see how Jesus is transforming us and using us to reveal his kingdom of hope. We can choose to see the sinner or we can choose to see the image of God that the person was created in. We can choose to see the need for punishment, or we can choose to see the power of grace. We can choose to focus on the hurt done to us or we can choose to focus on how Jesus can use that very hurt to make us more grace full. We can choose to see the narrative of the world or the Gospel. I choose to see the Gospel at work all around me. The Gospel helps us see our world through the eyes of Jesus and his sacrifice and this gives us the words and motive to go and make disciples, to fill our community with the hope that comes in becoming a disciple of Jesus, inviting those is our lives to join us in following Jesus.

Ezekiel 47:1-12 The River Flowing from the Temple

 

This vision of Ezekiel is one of my favourite passages in the book, right behind the Star Wars scene in chapter one and the valley of dry bones in chapter 37. It’s a favourite because I love and appreciate the image of a rushing river of life-giving water tumbling down the mountainside and bringing life wherever it flows. It’s an image of what Jesus offers the world.

Ezekiel is called to speak God’s word to the people during the Babylonian exile. This particular vision comes at an especially dark time for the exiles; it’s after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem; God’s special home in Israel. The people have lost their sense of security and hope. Even though they hadn’t been following God for a while now, even though, as Ezekiel shares in previous chapters, the people had done some really disturbing and vile things in the temple, the destruction of God’s temple in Jerusalem is a clear sign that God’s not present there anymore in his land. God has left his building.

In the darkest moments of the exile, Ezekiel offers a vision of hope and renewal; a vision of restoration and God’s return. Ezekiel sees a rebuilt temple on the mountain of God. Ezekiel has just spent the past 6 chapters describing this new temple, a temple even grander than Solomon’s magnificent temple. This is a temple truly worthy of God. From the temple, Ezekiel sees a trickle of water flowing. It begins as a small trickle, but as Ezekiel follows a man we first meet in chapter 40 whose appearance is like bronze. He’s shown Ezekiel the rebuilt temple and in chapter 43, the return of the glory of God to the temple, echoing back to when the Spirit of God filled the temple after Solomon dedicated it to God. Now the man leads Ezekiel around the temple, following the flow of water.

It may start as a trickle, but it’s amazing how quickly it grows! The man measures it every 450 meters. After the first 450 meters, the water is ankle deep, then it’s knee-deep, then waist deep and finally it’s so deep you have to swim because it’s too deep to cross. In 1800 meters, the flow of water has changed from a trickle to a rushing river, all on its own, there’s no water feeding into it at all. The only source of this river is the temple, the temple filled with God’s glory again. This is a magnificent river, a mighty river, even compared to the rivers of Babylon where the exiles now lived, the rivers where the exiles are finding it hard to sing the songs of God.

Water is life, needed for so many things, just think of how much water you use every day for drinking, cooking, cleaning with, for gardens and crops and livestock. Without water there is no life. This is why scientists are looking so hard for possible sources of water on the moon and Mars as they consider the possibility of living on the moon or other planets. Without water, humans will never be able to live there. Israel learned the importance of water during their 40 years of wandering through the wilderness before they claimed the Promised Land and it shaped their way of looking at life.

In John 5, Jesus is in Jerusalem at a pool called Bethesda. John writes, “Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.” Other manuscripts added that the disabled people were waiting for an angel of the Lord who would come occasionally to stir the waters and the first one in the pool would be healed. For these people, the water in the pool offered new life; a restored and renewed life if they could get into the water first. Jesus approaches the man who’s been an invalid for 38 years and asks him, “Do you want to get well?” That’s a fascinating question considering the man has been by the pool waiting for an opportunity to be healed. The man explains that he has no one to help him get into the water when it’s stirred, but he doesn’t sound as if he’s thinking that Jesus might heal him, or that Jesus can heal him.

Jesus knows the hopes, the dreams, the fears, the hopelessness that are in the man’s heart, but also in our own hearts. How many of you are living with plans that have never turned out, with failed hopes and relationships, brokenness? Jesus knows each one. How many of you have lived out the western dream of a wonderful family, a great life with no real worries, successful in everything you do, and yet you find yourself wondering if that’s all there is, wondering why there empty places inside you and you’re wondering what might truly make your life and soul whole? Jesus knows those places in your heart too.

Jesus tells the man, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man is cured; he picks up his mat and walks away! He’s cured without getting in the water or even being sprinkled with water. The man’s cured by the living water that flows from Jesus, as he shared with the Samaritan woman he met at a well earlier. Jesus’ living water brings new life, healing and hope: physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Jesus’ living water can restore relationships and heal souls. You don’t have to be first to get healed; even if you’re late at getting to Jesus, you can still find hope and healing in Jesus. This is what Ezekiel’s vision is pointing to.

The water flowing from the temple brings life. Trees line the river drinking deep from the river’s life-giving water, providing shade for people, a place to rest and build homes for birds and other wildlife, food for people and animals. The river flows into the Arabah, a dry wilderness area, where it enters the Dead Sea. As it flows through the wilderness, it transforms the wilderness into a lush fertile vibrant landscape, echoing back to the Garden of Eden. The fresh water from the temple, as it flows into the Dead Sea, transforms the dead salty water into fresh water and swarms of living creatures live wherever the river flows and large numbers of fish make their home now in the Dead Sea and fisherman are able to cast their nets and they’re full, making it possible to feed themselves, their families and communities.

Swamps and saltwater marshes are left as they support a variety of life as provides much of the salt that Israel needed to preserve their food. Growing up by rivers, my brothers and I loved to search for crayfish, minnows, frogs, tadpoles, small fish, snakes and all the amazing creatures that live by rivers and streams. When you know where to look, it’s amazing how much life is supported by rivers. Have you ever explored with your parents and grandparents a river’s edge? What kind of living things did you find?

God’s giving Israel hope here. In chapter 43, God’s glory returned to the temple after he had left in order to go with his people into exile. While Israel felt that God had left them, God has not abandoned them. He allows his temple to be destroyed because the temple had become a place where vile things happened and it had become an idol to the people, a place to place their pride in, while ignoring God whose home it was. Instead God went with his people into exile; there is no place they can go where God is not with them; this is the reassurance, the hope God offers his people through Ezekiel. It points to the cross and Jesus’ death when the curtain to the Holy of Holy was torn open so that the Holy Spirit could pour into the world as living water, bringing new life and hope and healing.

What river are you drinking out of, resting beside, swimming in? You have a choice. There are different streams to drink out as you move through life. For a long time, I drank from the streams of philosophy and art. I thirsted for knowledge and ways of understanding the world around me and I found great joy in abstract thought. The arts have always filled my soul as you learn so much about people’s souls and beliefs through the art they create, they often helped me connect to ideas and experiences bigger than me, which is what I looked for. But in the end, they just left me thirstier; they satisfied me for a time, but there has to be more than abstract knowledge, the experience of other’s the creative gifts pointed to something greater and more meaningful.

That’s when Jesus’ offer of living water that will always satisfy began to make sense. Reading through the gospels gave me a deeper understanding of people and myself as I studied who Jesus expected me to be. As I studied who Jesus was, I gained a glimpse of heaven, of a world and universe way bigger than I am, of something I can be part of that is worth dedicating my life to, a way of living that can make a difference in small and big ways, no matter where I’m living or who I’m with, a way of life that nourishes and fills me with life, a life you can have as well by accepting Jesus as your Lord and Saviour and drinking from his living water.

 

2 Kings 5:1-19 Washing in the River

 

This is one of those odd stories in the Bible. It’s all about a powerful enemy commander who shows up in Israel to be healed of a devastating disease and gets healed even though there’s plenty of sick Israelites who don’t get healed. It begins with an Israelite slave girl who encourages her mistress to tell her husband to go to Israel to be healed even though she’s a slave. She cares for her master, an enemy of Israel. She’s practicing loving your enemy way before Jesus ever comes to tell us to do that.

This is a story of an enemy commander who decides to take a chance on the God and prophet of a small weaker nation; to listen to a prophet whose own king doesn’t respect him, because Elisha has no respect for him. King Joram is one of those kings who’s all about himself and doesn’t obey God; sacrificing to golden calves in Bethel and choosing his own priests so his people won’t go to the temple in Jerusalem to worship God. Elisha has little time for him, but now you understand why Joram panics when Naaman shows up at his court asking to be healed from leprosy, “Am I God? Can I kill and bring back to life? Why does this fellow send someone to me to be cured of his leprosy?” Joram’s not God and he doesn’t bother to turn to God to find out why this is happening, he just has a hissy fit instead.

Did you catch at the start of this story something that should have raised your eyebrows in surprise? “Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded, because through him the Lord had given victory to Aram.” God is working through Naaman while giving Israel a victory over Moab in spite of King Joram. It seems God is more involved outside of Israel than in Israel through slave girls and foreign army commanders. It echoes forward to Jesus being unable to work miracles in his own hometown in Matthew 13 because they wouldn’t believe.

Naaman shows up at the King Joram’s palace with a generous gift and a difficult request from the king of Aram, “The letter that he took to the king of Israel read: “With this letter I am sending my servant Naaman to you so that you may cure him of his leprosy.” King Joram doesn’t care about Naaman, he’s only concerned about his own neck, “See how he, the king of Aram, is trying to pick a quarrel with me?” In his mind’s eye, he can see Naaman’s army marching towards Jerusalem already, ready to tear down their walls and take them all into slavery.

The prophet Elisha hears about what’s going on and sends a message, “Why have you torn your robes? Have the man come to me and he will know that there is a prophet in Israel.” There’s a bit of a dig here at the king who has surrounded himself with prophets who tickle his ears with messages he wants to hear rather than the words of God. But when you’re scared, you’ll do anything to send the threat away and so Joram sends Naaman to Elisha. Now Elisha doesn’t treat Naaman with a whole lot more respect than he treats Joram, “Elisha sends a messenger to Naaman, “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.”

Wow! Naaman’s ticked. Instead of being treated with respect and honour, Elisha doesn’t even bother coming to the door to greet him, sending his servant with a message to wash himself in the Jordan River 7 times. Naaman looks at the Jordan River, a small muddy river compared to the majestic rivers from where he lives. How can washing himself in such a miserable river heal him from leprosy? What nonsense! He’s ready to pack up his camels and head home. Why bother with a prophet from a weak miserable country when there are better doctors and magicians at home; he just has to find them.

I often wonder why it’s so hard for us to follow God’s commands, especially the smaller ones. The big ones usually aren’t so hard, especially if we’re following the letter of the law; it’s the so-called smaller stuff that often gets us. We don’t murder other people, but will speak cruelly of others and then justify it by saying that we’re only speaking truth. Facebook is a harsh place to be on, and even followers of Jesus often don’t show much grace or love there. We don’t commit adultery, but pornography is rampant in our society and the church has as much problem with it as non-followers of Jesus. Jesus calls us to forgive but many will only forgive once the other person admits they’re wrong, but Jesus calls for deeper forgiveness. We’re all sinners who push the boundaries of every command that Jesus gives us, right to their limits, justifying it each time, believing that they don’t really apply to us.

We easily obey big commands, but make our own rules for the smaller things. This is why Jesus came, because we’re rebellious at heart, it’s in our nature ever since the fall. Jesus comes and obeys God in everything, right onto the cross and into the grave in order to make us right with God again. Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to make its home in our hearts to begin the process of changing our rebellious hearts into hearts shaped by obedience. This is obedience that flows out of love: Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commands.” Obedience in small things is what shapes our hearts and souls, helps us become more like Christ, shaping our character.

It’s a good thing for Naaman that God placed a few wise servants in his life, “Naaman’s servants went to him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!” Naaman listens to them. He goes into the Jordan river and washes himself 7 times, comes out of the water, and discovers that he’s healed. I love how the writer puts it, “his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy.” I love the symbolism here! This is “born again” imagery, new life, restoration language all pointing to what God has done to and for Naaman. This echoes forward to Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus and Jesus telling him, “You must be born again.” Nicodemus thinks of something like Naaman, Jesus is pointing to our hearts.

This is why baptism is such a powerful and beautiful sacrament. It points us to new life, to being washed clean through Jesus, to being restored into the family of God. In a time when there are so many voices clamouring for our time and attention telling us that we’re most important, that we can create our own truth and rules, Jesus cuts through all the noise; calling us to turn our eyes, ears and hearts to him and he will wash us clean, fill us with his new life, he will renew us and heal our hearts, souls and minds. Obedience leads to healing and new life!

If the noise coming from our news channels, podcasts, and social media platforms are making you anxious, tired, and afraid; calling you to trust your will instead of Jesus’ will, Jesus offers you the Holy Spirit who whispers hope into your soul, helps you see God at work all around you, shows you how Jesus is working in you to restore your soul and help you obey his commands. A young lady I had the privilege of baptizing in a previous church wept while the water poured over her head and down her face. She told me she could feel the hurt and her old life being washed away; she could feel the new life beginning to grow within her as the water poured over her. Her heart wants nothing more than to obey Jesus because of how he has saved her from death.

Jesus loves us and gives us commandments to shape who we are so that our lives are filled with peace and contentment and we can flourish as the people God has created us to be. He gives us the Holy Spirit and the Bible to guide us in how to live well with God and each other. We know right and wrong, helping us to be a blessing wherever God places us. King Joram didn’t obey God and as a result, Israel experienced tough times because God allowed the consequences of their disobedience full rein. Obedience to Jesus doesn’t stop us from experiencing hard times, but it does make a difference in how we experience them; with hope and strength that comes from the presence of the Holy Spirit and the blessings of God as we seek to do his will, no matter the call.

 

 

Joshua 3 Crossing the Jordan River

 

As a young adult, I remember being told that I need to discover who I am and what my purpose in life is so that my life will have meaning. I was drifting through life and enjoyed taking things as they came. I had no long-term plans, my plans stretched no further then getting to the weekend so I could play hockey or hang out with friends. Air Cadets and the naval reserve taught me some self discipline, but also encouraged my tendency to drift through life. I was content with who I was. Yet over the years I’ve met many people, even older people, who are still seeking and searching for who they are, what their truth is. This is all about a search for identity, for who they are.

Joshua and the people of Israel are sitting on the eastern bank of the river Jordan. They can see the Promised Land across the water, just waiting for them to enter it. They’ve been nomads wandering through the wilderness for the past 40 years, wanting to cross the river, but being stopped from crossing by God because they had decided not to trust him because the people living there seemed too powerful. They’ve always been God’s people, but their circumstances change according to how they trust or don’t trust God. 40 years before they were slaves rescued by God from Egypt’s power and oppression. In the 40 years of wandering they changed from people who saw themselves as slaves to a people who are now battle-hardened warriors who have grown in their relationship with God. Once they settle into the land, they will be God’s people with an address, a people with the resources to create a society based on God’s guidance and presence and an opportunity to grow even closer to God.

God gives Joshua instructions on how to enter the Promised Land. The warriors will not go first, the ark and priests will lead the way after everyone has consecrated themselves, made themselves ready to be in God’s presence, ready to be used by God. It’s not the rituals that are so important, but it’s that the rituals of consecrating yourself makes you more aware of God’s presence, makes you more aware of who you are. These rituals can often be an important part of growing deeper in our relationship with Jesus as we reflect on who Jesus is, who we are and what following Jesus as we follow his command on our lives. Once the Israelites enter the river, the priests and ark remain in the river until all God’s people have crossed. God wants every man, woman and child to see the ark and the priests standing in the center of the river as a reminder that this is all about God, not about them or Joshua or their own power and strength. God wants them to see themselves as his people. He is protecting them and providing for them in every way. This is who they are because this is who God is.

They’re God’s people and he leads them; gives them a way to live that will help them flourish and grow as individuals and as a people and become who God has created them to be. God is with them, he’s among them as Joshua says, “Joshua says to the Israelites, “Come here and listen to the words of the Lord your God. This is how you will know that the living God is among you and that he will certainly drive out before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites and Jebusites. See, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth will go into the Jordan ahead of you. Now then, choose twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one from each tribe. And as soon as the priests who carry the ark of the Lord—the Lord of all the earth—set foot in the Jordan, its waters flowing downstream will be cut off and stand up in a heap.”

As the people walk by the ark, they’re reminded that they’re God’s people. What a source of strength and hope. This is who they are. The reason they’re going into the Promised Land is to live out the call God first gave to Abraham, “The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” Israel is who they are because God has chosen them to be a blessing and show the nations who God is and what God’s kingdom looks like.

Identity is important, we need to know who we are and what we believe. Paul uses the picture of a storm at sea to show us the importance of knowing who we are, an image that’s rooted in Jesus, Ephesians 4:11–15, “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.” This is why we installed elders and deacons this morning as well, to guide, teach and equip us for works of service and so we can be built up, growing in our relationship with God.

It’s the same for us today, our identity never changes: we belong to Jesus because he has claimed us as his own, and our purpose is to be a blessing and reveal God to the world. We do this by trusting God and who he’s calling us to be as his people. This is one of the most important parts of being an elder or deacon: to remind you who you are in Jesus and to reflect with you on how God is working in your life and who God is calling you to be. Leaders in the church are equipped to lead us into a closer walk with Jesus and to help us lead others into a relationship with Jesus. Each change in Israel’s situation helps them grow deeper into their identity as God’s people; each struggle, each change in your life situation, each joy and win, help you grow deeper in your identity as a follower of Jesus who loves God with everything you are and lets love shape all your relationships with those around you. It’s not always going to be easy, but God is with you through all the struggles, just as he is the one who drove out the Canaanites, Hittites and other “ites”, he is with you as you fight your own enemies, whether physical, emotional or spiritual.

Jesus died and was resurrected from the grave so you can grow your relationship with God deeper as he washed all your sin away through his sacrifice on the cross and gave you the gift of the Holy Spirit to guide you to God and who God created you to be.  Jesus stands in the center of the river of our sin and brokenness and he holds it back so we can cross over to our father on dry ground, to enter into a new and deeper relationship with God. We’re called to repent and believe and give our lives over to Jesus, to gratefully offer our lives to God’s work so that others can be won over to Jesus.

There is a call to obedience here, a reminder that the people are to trust God, “Come here and listen to the words of the Lord your God. This is how you will know that the living God is among you… See, the ark of the covenant of the Lord will go into the Jordan ahead of you.” We no longer have the ark of the covenant as God’s sign among us, we have been given the Holy Spirit, we too are called to listen to the worlds of God as we find them in the Bible, we are called to follow the leaders God has put in place, our elders and deacons, trusting that God is using them to lead and guide us into deeper relationship with God so  that we may be a blessing wherever we are, revealing God through our faith and obedience to him. This helps us to grow deeper in our identity as followers of Jesus, as children of God.