Whose You Are

Luke 3:15-17, 21, 22

You are my son; with you I am well pleased. 

YOU are my family.  YOU bring me joy just by being you.  We all need to know that we are loved. We need to know that we are accepted. We need to know that we belong somewhere, and whether we admit it or not, we all desire affirmation. 

You are my son; with you I am well pleased. 

God loves you.   God’s love for you is perfect.

Savannah and I at a Cross Country meet last Fall.

The perfect love of God is also filtered through the imperfect people around you.  And the love of God that flows through you also travels an imperfect vessel.  Who among us has not failed someone with the best of intentions? 

One time my dad was saying how some of his work colleague’s children were getting into a lot of trouble and how lucky he was that I didn’t screw up like that.  I took that as “You are my son; with you I am well pleased.”  That’s one of the things we have to do for each other. We have to listen for the voice of God behind the flawed human words and actions and hope others do the same for us.

God loves you and God’s love is perfect.   

In one of the letters written to the early Christian Community it says “Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.” 1 John 3:15.  If you hate, you have no eternal life in you.  That’s because when you hate, the Grace of God, the love of God is not flowing through you.  Think about it.  When you decide you hate someone, or decide that they are your enemy or you say to yourself “I just don’t like them”, nothing they do will be able to please you.

“Oh look at her, eating those crackers like she owns the place.” 

Think for a moment on the mistakes you have made in your life.  Think about the words you have used were hurtful.  And yet the Heavenly father says, “You are my child, with you I am well pleased.”

You might be thinking, “Now hold on God said that about Jesus, not me.”

He said it about Jesus so he could say it about you!

1 John 3:1 How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

God loves you and God’s love is perfect!

The fullness of God is glimpsed in today’s text.  Jesus of Nazareth the incarnation of God-God in the Flesh came to the Jordan to be baptized by John.  The Holy Spirit the very power of God came down and rested on him and the Words of the Heavenly Father affirmed it all.  You are my son; with you I am well pleased.”  All three: Father, Son and Holy Spirit are present and in accord.  It’s a relationship.  It is unconditional love and unity. 

It was that unconditional love and unity that was extended to us when Jesus offered himself as an eternal sacrifice for us. 

Yes it was the Father who said to Jesus, “You are my son. With you I am well pleased.” But by spiritually joining with Jesus we join also in the Fathers pleasure. 

In his earthly life Jesus extended the invitation into this family of God.  His flawed and imperfect followers didn’t fully understand.

 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 

You are invited to be part of that family of God.  We all are!  God loves you and God’s love is perfect!

This Cross that we have at the front of the sanctuary, most of you know that it is made from wood from a part of this building and is now repurposed to Glorify God in a new way.  This cross or the one that is around your neck is a symbol of the lengths that God has gone through to show you love.  Just for a moment I want you to look at the cross.  I want you to look at it in a new light.  As you look at the cross I want you to see it as a lens.  The cross is a lens that God looks through to see us.  God sees us everywhere and at all times of course.  He sees all of our flaw and failures.  He sees wars and greed.  But when he sees us through the lens of the cross, when he sees us in light of Jesus he only sees the righteousness of his son in whom God is pleased.  When we join ourselves to Jesus we are made right with God.

"This is his name whereby he shall be called, The Lord our righteousness." Jer. 23:6

2 Corinthians 5:21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

If the cross on the wall is a lens through which God sees us, it must also be a lens for us to see God and indeed it is.    If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

Jesus and the Father are one.  When we know Jesus we know the Father and are blessed with the Holy Spirit. 

God loves you and God’s love is perfect.

God has gone to great lengths to show you his love.

God became human to relate directly to us.  Jesus started his ministry be being baptized not because he needed to be washed of sin but to relate to the people he was serving. 

I had a discussion recently about the necessity of baptism for salvation.  The answer that always comes up is that the thief on the cross that Jesus promised paradise was not baptized.  No ritual was needed only the unconditional perfect love of God. But to be baptized is to participate in an act that God has poured out his love publically to his son. What a wonderful thing.  When was the last time you said with a warm heart “I am baptized”? It’s a statement of identity.  It’s a statement of the power and the love of God to overcome the darkness of this world.

So how is it with you today?  Is the perfect love of God flowing through you? I want to challenge you to look inside.  Where ever you find resentment, fear, anger or hatred let the perfect love of God dissolve it so that you may have eternal life. 

Hold On!

I wish is had a blood pressure cuff this past week. I was at home with the family. We had the television on. And a political ad came on. I couldn't believe it. The election was over. Aside from being a wast of money because they aired the commercial at the wrong time it was a waste of my time because, like most people I got pretty sick and tired of those ads and I didn't want to hear one more word about it. I started going into a tirade and wasn't a couple of sentences into it when I noticed the commercial started moving in fast motion. I hadn't realized until that moment that the program we were watching was recorded from the week before and now my loving wife was kindly fast forwarding it to spare me the pain of watching one more moment of it.

A moment of pause would have done me well. A moment of reflection and patience before speaking would have saved me some grief. Fortunately, only my family was around to see this embarrassing display. With out saying a word; with out a gesture or a glance' with the quick action of the remote control my wife said “hold on!”

That's a multipurpose phrase, “Hold on”

“Hold on” can mean to pause as my wife's actions suggested. Its what you say when you are wanting to catch up to someone, getting them to wait. Its what you say when you are challenging someone on an idea. You ever done that? It seems to happen more around election season. Someone is passionate about a subject and they are going on and on and at some point they cross a line that you cannot agree with so you stop them with a “hold on.” I wonder what the criteria is, for some people when forming their political opinions. It ought to be be based on the great commandments of God but I am convinced that's not always the case. What is the line that some one crosses that causes you to say, “Now hold on!”? It's interesting to look inside and investigate where our biases come from.

Jesus gave the disciples a “hold on” in the scripture today.

Jesus and his disciples were walking out of the temple and they were awestruck by the immensity of the place. And Jesus told them not to be so impressed because all this is temporary. Well scripture has Jesus saying, “ Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left on another. All well be torn down.”

These guys were small town fishermen and they were with Jesus in Jerusalem, in the temple which was at that time one of the wonders of the world. And Jesus was saying that this marvel was temporary. Ti must have seemed unbelievable.

This week in history 25 years ago, in 1987 I was a small town boy getting ready to play in the state championship football game in the Pontiac Silver-dome. We came out of that tunnel for a short practice onto that field that two nearly years before Barry Sanders ever did. My coach, taking a cue from the movie The Hoosiers, pulled out a tape measure and measured a yard and, yep, it was a regular ole yard, 36 inches. And now The Silver-dome goes unused.

This is a temporary world with temporary things and temporary problems. Jesus disciples wanted to know when the destruction of the temple would happen. They wanted dates. They wanted a time line. They wanted a heads up or a warning. But Jesus gave them a “hold on.” There will be people who will try to use events to try to claim to be the Christ but don't you listen to them. Jesus in his loving care didn't address their question directly but warned them about the dangers of their way of thinking. We ought not be looking for signs of the end but instead we should be staying true to what God commands us.

Hold on and also mean brace yourself. There is rough road ahead. Its like when I get last second directions in the car to make a turn. I tell the kids, “Hold on!”

Do you other parents instinctively put your hand in front of your child in the passenger seat to protect them? We do that I a lot of ways not just in the car. We try to keep those we love safe in a world that is dangerous and full of things we cannot control.

When we face difficulties, sometimes the only thing we can do is hold on, to minimize the loss or the damage. That feeling of being out of control is not one that we desire. This is a dangerous world. We can marvel at a sunset over Lake Michigan and say that God is good but then we also have to look at the devastation that Hurricane Sandy has wrought and hold on to the same understanding of God. God is still good. There are some who say that this storm or that storm is a judgment by God about this or that action of a people. That doesn't make much sense to me. Does that mean that we northern Michiganders get punished with dangerous blizzards every January and February for our sins? Only to be rewarded with heaven on earth every summer and fall? No its just a dangerous world we live in. Bad things happen. During the good times we rest in God and During the rough times we hold on and rest in God. Jesus said that there wold be wars and rumors of wars. Jesus said that there would be earth quakes and famines. Hasn't this happened many many times in the past 2000 years? Hasn't there been many predictions of the end of time that have come and gone? Has that been spiritually profitable to anyone? The current one that is getting attention is the end of the Mayan calendar. I know its frustrating when you get to the end of the calendar you are using and have to buy a new one, especially when it's been carved out of stone and is centuries old but time marches on and we have something eternal to hold on to.

That's another way to use the phrase “Hold on”. Keep secure what is true and valuable. Hold on to my grandmothers frog that was her door stop for all the years of my life. But even as solid and as permanent as it seems it is temporary so I don't hold to tightly. Hold on to what is eternal. Hold on to what is true: God loves you unconditionally; God took the initiative in saving you the tangle of hell you have created for yourself; Jesus is God in human form and came to give you life; Life in Jesus means life in eternity.

So, how is it with you today? Hold on! Pause and asses your situation. Hold on! It could get rough, but God is there. Hold on! Hold on to what is true and eternal.

On Kinney Down

Jay getting his glasses adjusted AGAIN. The staff at the optometrist know us well. 

Some notes from the Kindergarten Sunday School class for me.  What a delight!

This is the entrance where I get my hair cut.  I now have a barber.  Thought I have
been gong her for over a year now, I finally can call her "my barber" because there is now
that familiarity means little needs to be said.  Its a Zen-like understanding.