Lifelong Learning

In a former career I started off as a baker.  I baked bread. Lots and lots of bread.  I trained others how to bake bread.  I took pride in my bread because my bread rose the highest. By bread had to most consistency. My bread looked and tasted the best. 

Did I ever tell you I am a terrible cook?  I made a dish 5 years ago that was so bad my family still brings it up.

Do you know the difference between cooking and baking? In cooking you have to know flavor, and consistency. You have to know how to make food taste and feel right.  In baking you have to follow the directions precisely. 

Now I know good cooks who are terrible bakers. People who don’t attend to the details may have a hard time with baking.

I’m sure that many of you are good cooks as well as good bakers. I’m sure that some of you are no good at either. But we don’t all need to be, do we? I was set on a path of food service when I was living in Big Rapids trying to pay my way through college.  Back then I thought I was going to be a journalist when I grew up. The twists and turns of life happened and I ended up as a restaurant owner. 

Are you familiar with Proverbs 22:6? Train children in the way they should go; when they grow old, they won’t depart from it.

Well, being a restaurant owner was NOT the way I should go and I thought I would never be able to depart from it.

But my friend Mike loved that work. He also opened a restaurant. Then he opened another.  And he is very happy in his life.  Before opening his own restaurant he was an employee of mine.  For a couple of years we worked side-by-side learning from each other and growing together. It looked a little like a worldly form of discipleship.

 For the last 4 weeks, actually over the last several months we have been talking about discipleship.  And I have heard that some of you are getting a little weary of it.  “We’ve got it! ‘Stages, blah, blah, blah’” okay so you understand.  That’s good. If you come to church consistently I understand that it was probably a little redundant. But this is so important that those that only come once and while should hear it. It was worth being a little redundant. 

Discipleship, in a nutshell is the process of becoming more Christ like.  Or to put it the way John the Baptist did “He [Jesus] must increase and I must decrease.” 

In the gospel lesson today Jesus is in the background baptizing and we are hearing from John the Baptist. John the Baptist was preaching and baptizing before Jesus began his public ministry.  If John were of a mindset that was about his own fame and notoriety he had reason to be upset about Jesus coming. People who were listening to John were now flocking to Jesus. John’s reaction to this was a great example and lesson to us.

He teaches us at least three things:

1.       Others serving is not a threat to you

a.       The groom is the one who is getting married. The friend of the groom stands close by and, when he hears him, is overjoyed at the groom’s voice. Therefore, my joy is now complete. 

2.       You should Know your call and live it

a.       “No one can receive anything unless it is given from heaven. You yourselves can testify that I said that I’m not the Christ but that I’m the one sent before him. 

3.       In everything, Point to Christ

a.       ³⁰ He must increase and I must decrease. ³¹ The one who comes from above is above all things. The one who is from the earth belongs to the earth and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all things. 

Christ is ever present. Christ is calling us to come to him and lean on and trust in him. Next week, next, year, in ten years Jesus will still be calling this congregation to faithfulness. The thing we do today will become that thing we did back then and God will call us into something new.  That doesn’t mean that the things we are doing today are wrong, but it’s about being faithful to our call in the here and now. 

St. Paul UMC has a long history of faithful people of God listening for his voice.  It would be a mistake to think that God only moved through the congregation sometime in the past was done with us. God did not make a mistake in calling leaders who brought His church to where it is.  But God will continue to call men and women and young people to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world through St. Paul UMC.

So, how is it with you today?  How is God calling you to live today?  It may not be the same call you had 5, 10 or 50 years ago, but when you keep you face pointed toward Christ he will lead you in the way you should go. 

God's Thunderous Love

Luke 9 “⁵¹ As the time approached when Jesus was to be taken up into heaven, he determined to go to Jerusalem. ⁵² He sent messengers on ahead of him. Along the way, they entered a Samaritan village to prepare for his arrival, ⁵³ but the Samaritan villagers refused to welcome him because he was determined to go to Jerusalem. ⁵⁴ When the disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to consume them?” ⁵⁵ But Jesus turned and spoke sternly to them, ⁵⁶ and they went on to another village.”

Last night I woke up to the sound of the wind.  It came up so suddenly that it was surprising. I listened for a while and it didn’t seem to subside.  In fact I fell back asleep before it did.  I woke this morning to find a warning of severe weather for our area on my phone for our area.  I watched he radar and yep, about 2:30 last night a storm rolled through.

I find the weather interesting in that though there are things we can do to prepare for what is coming there is nothing we can do to change what is coming.

It is a force that is greater than our ability to affect it. 

God’s love is like that.

God loves you and there isn’t a thing you can do about it.

My nephew was in Michigan over the course of this past week. He lives in San Diego. He’s 28 years old and I just met him for the first time. He’s 28 and he saw his grandma, my mother-in-law for the first time. He is her first grandchild. She has loved him since the day he was born but was never able to be face to face with him until this week. It was a tearful first meeting and a tearful goodbye when they left. She loves him and there’s not a thing that he can do about it.

They spent the last two days here in Ludington with us. We took them out to the break water to see the lighthouse.  The waves were high enough that there were several places where we were getting wet from the spray when they crashed into the wall. I was a little on guard because Eli was having way too much fun running around while all I was seeing was the dangerous churning cold Lake Michigan water.  My experience tells me that there are forces of nature that can easily be too much for us to handle.

When I think of God and what God does I start with psalm 23 “he leads me beside still waters, he restores my soul.” Those times when my spirit is at peace I am indeed thankful. When I walk through the valleys of life the promise of God is that he will be with us. For that I am thankful.

God gives us what we need to get through this life. But God has more for us than just getting through doesn’t he?

God has a thunderous love that cannot be stopped.  We cannot convince God to stop loving us. We cannot stop the wind or the thunder or the waves but God so loved the world that he gave his only son who could. 

Jesus can calm the storms of life. When Jesus came and taught his disciples what it means to follow him did he let them stay where the waters were calm? Did he make life easy for them? Or did he challenge them to grow; to go and do. When the people needed food Jesus told the disciples to feed them.

When Peter wanted to do the impossible Jesus invited him to step out of the boat. When Jesus was leaving the work of the Kingdom to his disciples he did say go and rest in the pasture he said go and make disciples. Why?  Because he loves us with an unstoppable love. 

I don’t think Jesus was interested in starting and growing a new religion. Jesus was interested in going to great lengths to demonstrate God’s unstoppable love.

When Jesus said that he would have to suffer. Peter protested.

To this Jesus said “Get behind me Satan.” Because Peter lost sight, or didn’t understand the lengths Jesus was willing to go to demonstrate the unstoppable love of God.

Jesus mission was unstoppable.  He came because God loved the world and wanted to save it. To be a part of that mission is a powerful thing. It feels good and right even though it may not be easy or comfortable at times.

In the scripture lesson today James and John whom Jesus nicknamed “Sons of Thunder” in a different portion of scripture were with Jesus as he was headed to Jerusalem to face great suffering. They were going through Samaria, a land that was a rival to the Jews of that day. They did not support or appreciate religious pilgrims traveling through their land on their way to Jerusalem. So when James and John went to make preparations for Jesus in a Samaritan village it was not surprising that they were not met with warm hospitality.

James and John were the sons of thunder for a reason. It probably wasn’t because they were timid. They were likely very confident fellows to begin with then add on the fact that they are now following a very powerful and convincing man who happens to be the son of god.  

These sons of thunder with all their confidence were rejected by people in the Samaritan village. How dare they?

“Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to consume them?”

They misunderstood, or perhaps they forgot that God didn’t send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him.

When we isolate ourselves, we miss out on the cross check of ideas that prevents extreme and unhealthy thinking.

James and John were probably by nature bold and aggressive guys. It was a sort of natural reaction for them to say what they said. But it took the intentional teaching and mentoring by Jesus to bring them into an appropriate understanding of God’s will.

We don’t know if they came to that understanding at that moment or they just learned that they ought not to say things like that in front of Jesus. Either way it was learning and a growth moment for the brothers called “sons of Thunder.” These sons of thunder, Jesus called to be his disciples.  He knew their temperaments. He knew their personalities. He knew their weaknesses but he knew that he could use them and he can use anyone because he can and does love anyone and everyone.

Last week we talked about recognizing that the same spirit is in you is also in me when we are in the family of God through Jesus Christ. And with all of our earthly wisdom and the wisdom God has granted us individually, it still is only a fraction of the wisdom that God grants when we are gathered together sharing our spiritual gifts.  

When we place our trust in Jesus and believe that he is the son of God. God doesn't love us anymore because he already loved us enough to die for us.  But when we do believe and trust we start to remove the barriers that are in our lives that prevent us from fully experiencing God’s love. That process of removing barriers will inevitably make us more and more Christ-like in our nature.

I knew my nephews great grandmother.  She died in 1999. She is an example for me of how much Christ can shape a life. She demonstrated the fruit of the sprit not though effort but by being transformed by Christ’s presence her whole life. It is unfortunate that my nephew was never able to meet her. Her direct influence will never be felt.  But there are others that will love him and there are many that he can share that love with. This is the mission of Jesus, to share the love of God as far and as wide as possible.

Letting God’s thunderous love in to transform you is your path of discipleship.

So how is it with you today? Will you seek out and allow the transformation into Christ-likeness into your life.

Answering the Summons

Matthew 4:18-22

This is the first Sunday in September and we shift into a new series.  This is the third series on our core values we have talked about family, stewardship and now we will over the next few weeks talk about discipleship.  Discipleship is at the very center and the very core of what we are about. Jesus said in his great commission at the end of Matthew, “Go and make disciples of all nations…” we are to go and make disciples. The thing is, to make disciples we must first be disciples. Right?

I have some questions for you to ponder. I don’t want you to answer just think about them. How many of you are “Americans”? I suspect most of you. When did you decide to be an American? I suspect that most of you have been Americans all your life.  What is an American?  A native of the continents and islands of North and South America.  But that isn’t what people mean when they say they are “Americans” is it? Think about what that word means to you. What are the best qualities of what it means to be an “American?” For you, what are the defining characteristics of an American? Think about that for a minute…

Even if we all agree that we are talking about citizens of this nation as defined by the borders of the United States of America, we are talking about a very diverse group of people.  It is impossible to choose characteristics of an American outside the legal definition for citizenship.

Now think about this, what makes a great American?

I’m guessing some faces or names of people in American history came to mind.  We may not all agree on that lists but they have characteristics that make them great.  These are the characteristics that we want to develop in ourselves.

How many of you are Christians? I suspect that since we are in a Christian worship service that most of you are.  But I don’t take that for granted! There have been at times and I have been one of these people that come to a church well before they have faith in Jesus Christ just to see what this is all about.  There are people that come to worship because they are brought by a family member.  There are some who come because they have heard they can find help for the problem that they are having.

Story: “I’m just looking for a friend.”

For those of you who are Christian, when did you decide to be a Christian?  Many people have been Christians all their lives, participate in the Christian community and rest assured of their eternal salvation.  Romans 10:9 says “Because of you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

What is a Christian? A Christian is someone who follows Jesus.  Jesus had some particular ideas about what it meant to “believe” in him. I have found no evidence that Jesus taught that believing in him was just about a feeling you have. From what I understand, believing in Jesus is an inner conviction, a trust that connects me to him as the source of life and, as a result, compels me into action.

Peter was with his brother Andrew when Jesus called him. He left his nets.  He decided to leave his net and follow Jesus.  Much is made of this moment but that wasn’t even close to the hardest thing that Peter would have to face in his walk with Jesus.

Jesus decided to follow Jesus but he still needed to be “discipled.” He needed to learn; he needed to grow; he needed to serve; he needed to spend time in Jesus’ presence so that he could be transformed in to the man that Jesus needed him to be. He was constantly surrounded by the other disciples learning, serving and growing alongside each other.

<Peter’s time with Jesus>

                Great confession then comes Jesus rebuke.

                Attempt to be like his master and walk on water, then the failure.

                His words of loyalty, then his betrayal.

                Started as a fisherman turned disciple then returned to fish after Jesus’ death

                Preached the first Christian sermon brought others into the family of God.

Imagine now if Peter had that encounter with Jesus alongside the sea and Peter gave his heart to Jesus with heartfelt emotion, felt assured that he would go to heaven someday when he died and never actually followed Jesus.  All that experience between that day at the sea and the day of Pentecost when he brought thousands into relationship with God is what formed Peter into the great apostle he is.

 I asked you earlier to think about great Americans. Now I want you to think about someone you know who really lived out their Christian walk.  Someone that was a really good example of what it means to follow Christ. What are those characteristics that they have? How did they come to be such a good example?  I can think of a few really good examples.  The thing is, the people I am thinking of had some pretty big flaws.  They weren’t perfect but they let Christ in and they let Christ transform their lives.

Jesus has called each one of us to something better.

Many of you have decided to follow Christ. You have met him at the lakeshore and he has called you name. We are more than just the people who have decided. We are meant to be a people who are disicpled.  It’s not just a decision and a warm feeling. It is a decision that leads to a transformed life.

This month we will be talking about discipleship. The discipleship team has very diligently and intentionally developed a process for people who decide to participate, for spiritual growth and maturity.

No matter where you are on you path you can benefit from this process. In fact it is not intended to be a temporary program but rather the way we will function as a church from this point forward.  Over the next few weeks we will explain fully the process that we have developed. In summary it is a process of intentional discernment of your needs and your growth edges and pairing you with a mature brother or sister in the faith to encourage you and guide you into deeper relationship with Jesus Christ through worship, service and education, all with the support of a small group of believers to encourage you along the way. In short we want the decided to be the discipled. 

It’s the great spiritual Journey. It’s the path of Peter. We follow Jesus, imitate Jesus and when we boldly fail we are picked up by Jesus and supported by our fellow travelers.  

If you are interested in this process, a process which does we need to have a conversation.  I am not going to put out a sign-up sheet.  This is much deeper than that.  Please see me after worship.

Like I said we are all going to move from being the decided for Christ to the discipled by Christ. 

But first things first.  To be discipled we must first decide right?

So I want to invite you today to drop the barriers you have built up to Christ having authority in your life.  Perhaps you do not yet believe, perhaps you cannot remember a time when you did not believe.

Wherever you are in your life; whatever your circumstance, no matter what you have done, Jesus is standing in this place with us inviting you to follow him.  

God who created and sustained the earth set aside a people to be his people.  From those he chose to become one of them, Jesus of Nazareth, God in the flesh walking among us healing, feeding and teaching us what God is like.  Jesus died for our sin; defeated death and lives forever. Through Jesus we have eternal life.

We are standing at our nets. There is a long journey of growth ahead of us. We don’t have to understand everything right now but trust in our lord to show us the way.  Let today be that day.