SERMON FOR SEPTEMBER 16 & 19, 2004 A
Exodus 3:1-10 &
You
have heard the Gospel, haven’t you!?
If I asked you to tell me the Gospel, you would know what to
say—right? We are saved by God’s
grace through faith in Christ Jesus.
But you have also heard
Look at the reading from Ephesians: [read
aloud]. See what I mean? To read that Scripture, at least at one
level, is to hear that, spiritually speaking, once God does His part—and gives
us the gifts He has for us—the ball is in our court. It seems like the rest depends on
us. God gives and then
we give.
But, lately, I have begun to consider:
Something bothers me about that.
Something is wrong with the idea that God gives us something and we give
God something. So, this evening, I’d
like to consider that for a few minutes with you.
Let’s think: What does God give us? Physical life, the created world, other
people, food, clothing, shelter; rebirth and entry into the kingdom of His
beloved; mercy and forgiveness for all our wrongdoing; an infinite number of
“second chances” to “get it right”; meaningful work; purpose in life; joy;
hope, love, . . . I could go on and on . . ..
And what does He ask of us in
return? That we give thanks—right?! That seems reasonable. But we don’t give thanks; we return
thanks, because we don’t own anything out of which we can give.
But then there’s the second thing
God asks of us. And that’s where I
think our picture of giving and receiving gets mixed up. Look again at our Exodus reading: [talk it
through].
It’s interesting that the text notes
that Moses is shepherding a flock that doesn’t belong to him.
Moses begins to quibble. Three times in the story he raises objections
to doing what God asks. His resistance
gradually gets stronger until in chapter 4, verse 13: “O Lord, please send
someone else to do it.”
Moses encounters the living God of the
universe—the
creator who so commands the creation that a bush can be burning but not burn
up—and he acts like he could, and has a right to, resist doing what God wants
him to do! Moses acts like he is
being asked to give up something that was his
personal property. Moses seems
to think that God is trying to take something He has no right to.
But let us be clear, Moses: We never
hand over to God something that he doesn’t already own.
Picture a young child who carefully
collects the allowance given to him by dad and mom, carries the pennies to the
store grasped in chubby hands, carefully selects a present, wads it up in
wrapping paper, and presents it to them as a very special gift. And how do the parents respond? Do they acknowledge the actual monetary value
of the gift or the practicality of it—do they say, “Well, this is
pathetic! We give you money and you
pretend like you are giving us something!
Who’s kidding whom!?” NO! Of course not! The good parents, like our good God, tenderly
and lovingly accept the present, unwrap it, and make over it, as if it were
solid gold, dug from the earth with the child’s sweat and tears—even though the
parents gave birth to the child, gave the child the money, and probably even
drove the child to the store!
And we are just like that child. In fact, we have nothing to give God except our rebellion. God has given us the choice. We are free to say: “No,
I don’t want to pay my debt of gratitude to you, God. I don’t choose to be associated with
you. I’m not going to return thanks to
you by living a life that pleases and glorifies you. No, I won’t acknowledge that I’m your
creation, your own child, your servant to command as you please. I’m a self-made person—that’s what I choose
to believe. My life is my own, and I’ll
do with it as I please.”
What must God think of such a
response?! Think what he could have said
to Moses:
“If it hadn’t been for me, Moses, you
would have been dead many times over. I
didn’t have to protect you in that basket your mother put you in, I didn’t have
to have the princess of Egypt find and raise you as her own, I didn’t have to
let you get away with murder, I didn’t have to give you a good wife and a
wealthy father-in-law who would give you a job.
And how here you are...”
But God doesn’t say any of that. He just tells Moses to take off his shoes. Did you notice that? Think of being in the desert (the name of the
mountain, Horeb, means “desert” or
“desolation”)—the blazing hot desert—and being told to take off your
shoes.
God doesn’t remind Moses of all that
Moses owes God. God just says, “Take off
your shoes.” As if to say, “Take
off what you think protects you, what you have strapped on yourself to shields
you from harm, take off what seems to allow you to keep going in your own
strength—and you’ll see WHO I AM.”
“You are standing, Moses, before God
the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, Who
has given you the very breath of life. I am not asking you to do something for me. I
am giving you the privilege of leading hundreds of thousands of my
people into a freedom they have never known.
I am giving you supernatural powers and a voice that will command water
to flow out of solid rock. I am giving
you my Word, my Law, my guidance, my protection. Moses, you are standing on holy ground. Take off your shoes.”
Reverence, awe, wonder—that
is worship.
And worship before the LIVING GOD is
the only true basis for serving him.
Only when we realize WHO GOD IS can we truly serve him with a grateful
heart.
Worship makes the difference between
Christian service and secular “charity.”
On the surface they look alike: Anyone can serve at Rainbow Table; you
don’t have to be a Christian to send money to “Feed the Children.”
But the world’s moral ideals depend
on human strength alone. The world’s
“virtues” are self-conscious and self-serving.
People who have not accepted God’s love and forgiveness, people who are
not followers of Christ, people who do not worship God, do “good” works because
they want to “be good”—to somehow earn a sense of self-satisfaction, self-justification,
maybe even self-righteousness—in their own eyes and the eyes of
others.
But
we serve God because we know what sinners we are. Because when we say, “We have sinned against
you in thought, word, and deed,” God says, “I forgive you and I love you
anyway.” So, doing what God asks us is
not an effort; it’s a response of thanksgiving for the undeserved gift of mercy
and love.
And God doesn’t stop there. God doesn’t give us only
his forgiveness; He gives us even the motivation, the willingness, and the
power to serve. He never
stops giving. Jesus says, “Without me, you can do nothing.”
A songwriter named Andre Crouch summed up what I’m trying to say in these words:
“How can I say thanks for the things you have done for me,
things so deserved yet you give to prove your love to me?
The voices of a million angels could not express my gratitude.
All that I am and ever hope to do, I owe it all to you.
To God be the glory, to God be the glory, to God be the glory,
for the things He has done:
With His love he has saved me,
with His power He has raised me.
To God be the glory for the things He has done
Just let me live my life; let it be pleasing, Lord, to thee,
and
if I gain any praise, let it go to
To God be the glory, for the things He has done.”
Amen.
A
How are we the gift??
The gift is in the flesh—the gift is
sacrifice—the gift is suffering
“Because we cannot see Christ we cannot
express our love to him; but our neighbors we can always see, and we can do for
them what, if we saw him, we would like to do for Christ.” (when did we see
you…?)
“It is not just hunger for bread or the
need of the naked for clothes or of the homeless for a house made of
bricks. Even the rich are hungry for
love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having sometime to call their
own.”
“Only in heaven will we see how much we
owe to the poor for helping us to love God better because of them.”
“And so in Christ it was proved that
the greatest gift is love: because suffering was how he paid for [our] sin.”
“Our work is only the expression of the
love we have for God. We have to pour
our love on someone, and the people are the means of expressing our love for
God.”
Romans 12:1-2: our bodies a living
sacrifice, our reasonable service
“It’s the thought that counts”—yes, it
is!
“Be the living expression of God’s
kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile,
kindness in your warm greetings. In the
slums we are the light of God’s kindness to the poor. To children, to the poor, to all who suffer
and are lonely, give always a happy smile.
Give them not only your care, but also your heart.”
“Government agencies accomplish many
things in the field of assistance. We
must offer something: Christ’s love.”
“To show great love for God and our
neighbor we need not do great things. It
is how much love we pout in the doing that makes our offering Something
Beautiful for God.”
“Let us not be satisfied with just
giving money; money is not enough, for money one can get. The poor need our hands to serve them, they need our hearts to love them. The religion of Christ is love, the spreading
of love.”
“The trouble is that rich people,
well-to-do people, very often don’t really know who the poor are; and that is
why we can forgive them, for knowledge only can lead to love, and love to
service. And so, if they are not touched
by the poor, it’s because they do not know them.”
“‘I want to be for others the love of
God, as you have been to me.’”
To give “undivided love,” we must put
our human desires in their proper place: behind our love for God (Mother
Teresa’s vows of chastity, poverty, obedience, service)
“Pierce my ear”
“True holiness consists in doing God’s
will with a smile.”
We are the incarnate Body of Christ
“Do not wait for leaders; do it alone,
person to person.”
“If sometimes …poor people have had to
die of starvation, it is not because God didn’t care for them, but because you
and I didn’t give, were not instruments in the hands of God, to give them that
bread, to give them that clothing; because we did not recognize him, when once
more Christ cam ein distressing disguise—in the hungry man, in the lonely man,
in the homeless child, and seeking for shelter.”
Feeding of 5000 is truly a miracle if
what Christ did was to inspire even a few of those people to let go of a little
of what they are holding on to and give it to others who have nothing in their
hands.
What the world needs now is not more
ideas or more words—what the world needs now is love, incarnate love, living
love—the love of Christ made real and effective through our hands, our feet, our loving touch.
“We ourselves feel that what we are
doing is just a drop in the ocean. But
if that drop w[ere] not in the ocean, … the ocean
would be less because of that missing drop.
…To get to love the person we must come in close contact with him. If we wait till we get the numbers, then we
will be lost in the numbers.”
Time
Energy
“Talents”—abilities, passions,
interests, skills, capacities
Prayer about
being called to ventures of which we cannot see the end.
The one who serves is the greatest
(Luke).