The Wonder of the Church

“And they devoted themselves the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”

We continue our series on the Book of Acts today. We discussed last week that Acts is the training manual for the church, the “Who We Are and How We Do It” book.

Acts describes the Church in action. So we find at the end of chapter two Peter has just preached this simple and powerful sermon on Jesus Christ the crucified one and risen Lord. The listeners are “cut to the heart” and ask “what should we do?” What’s the next step?

After repentance and baptism, the next step is community. It is the wonder of the church. Now I know that when the word “church” is mentioned to many people, the first word that comes to mind is not necessarily “wonder.” Unless it is along the lines of “I wonder when I will go next?”

But if you look at this early church in action, the word wonder truly fits.

This description of the church is just that, descriptive, but it is also prescriptive, meaning that this what the church should always look like. This is the Holy Spirit’s prescription, if you will, for the Church for all time, until Jesus comes again. In the words of Luke Timothy Johnson, it represents “continuing and consistent patterns of behavior.” So what is the prescription, what are the patterns of behavior of the church?

One “They were together and had all things in common.” Acts 2.44

This verse is a repeat of the first verse, “when the Day of Pentecost had come they were all together in one place,” of the chapter.

They were able to arrive at a common mind because they had a common purpose, which was really quite extraordinary, quite uncommon. They had the ultimate mission – it was from God! Because they had a mission they didn’t get bogged down in trivia like what color the carpet should be or other raging issues that occupy the church today.. That’s the irony - we squabble and lose sleep over stuff that doesn’t matter much. If we are going to disagree, let’s make it be a disagreement over something that is worthy of all of us.

I think we’ll find if we devote ourselves to oneness in the mission of the Kingdom, most of our disagreements simply fade away.

St. Cyprian once wrote of this common mind, “God is one, and Christ is one, and His Church is one; one is the faith, and one the people cemented together by harmony into the strong unity of a body.”


Love “And day by day, they attended temple together and ate together in each other’s homes, and they ate with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people.”

The people of God love each other. If you look at this verse alone, you could make a strong argument for this prescription:

Food = Love

Although the blessings of good food and hospitality are not to be discounted, I would suggest that there is more going on here than just tasty potluck.

Open lives are going on here. They shared their lives with one another. They shared their food, their homes, their worship, their possessions, their prayers, their time. Sometimes, oftentimes, familiarity makes the heart grow fonder. Love is born.

It wasn’t the food alone that made outside observers say, “Wow, those people of the Jesus Way are something special – look at their chicken!”
No, they “had favor with all the people” because of their loving relationships.

As Erwin McManus writes, “Influence travels through relationships.” The early church had influence on the people around them because of the quality of the relationships. Love resulted in witness. Luke is careful to record, and it’s not an accident that “the Lord added daily to their number those who were being saved.”



Jesus “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching (didache).”

The love the church experienced is found in the teaching of Jesus. The Greek word used here for teaching is translated more strictly, “doctrine.” Doctrine was and is a good thing for God’s people. We don’t become the church without it. Why? Because the truth of Jesus is both beautifully simple but wonderfully deep and complex.

It’s like when my friend, who is a pastor, was buckling his toddler son in the car seat one day, he asked the boy, “Do you know why you have to be buckled in this seat?”

His son answered, “because of Jesus?”

We must become thinking Christians well-versed in the rich and complex tradition of the living faith that has been believed “by all, always, everywhere.” We must become indoctrinated in the faith. That means setting patterns in your life of study, prayer, reflection. It means regularly thinking with other Christians in community.

Are you setting these patterns in your devotional life? Is there a pattern in your life of attending classes and group studies with other believers?

The more we learn of Jesus and the Way the more competent we become to live life as God wills and the more deeply we love and become one in community. We’re not here simply to express our opinions. And we are not here to take opinion polls and arrive at the lowest common denominator position. We are here to devote ourselves to the teaching of the apostles that will set us loose on our mission.

It’s like what Bishop Will Willimon said in support of alternatives to abortion and against the “sin of abortion”–
“Christians are those who are remarkably unconcerned about what eight out of ten Americans can swallow without choking. Christians are those who appeal to divine revelation. . .a truth we did not make up.”

We are called to think with the Church of the Ages. We are called to think with Jesus. We believe that Jesus is the Lord of Life, the Master Teacher, and school is still in session. We believe that anyone “who hears these words of (his) and does them is like a wise person who builds his house upon a rock.”

Jesus words both describe and transform reality. To paraphrase Donald Miller, “Reality is like fine wine. It will not appeal to children.”

We are called to grow up in our understanding of Jesus, to “no longer be children” in our faith, “tossed back and forth” by mere opinion.


The prescription of the early church is unity, love, and teaching in Jesus. Are these patterns found here? Is love found here?

“God’s love, God’s voice and presence, would instill our souls with such affirmation we would need nothing more and would cause us to love other people so much we would be willing to die for them. Perhaps this what the apostles stumbled upon.” Donald Miller

Acts – The Church on the Move

Today we begin a series on the Book of Acts. Acts is the account of the new Church on the move. Acts might be subtitled, “Who We Are and How We Do It.” As such it really is the training manual for the church today.

We are the Church on the Move. We are a FORCE TO BE RECKONED WITH.

This evening I have my first practice with my Pee Wee Pirates baseball team. Even though I coached this team last year, some of the kids are new. But without having met them I can already tell you one thing about them – none of them wants to sit the bench. And I know for darned sure their parents don’t want them to sit the bench.

In the Church of Jesus Christ there are no benchwarmers either.

The Book of Acts begins with this:

“In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. After his suffering he presented himself alive to them during forty days and teaching them about the Kingdom of God.” Acts 1.1-3

So there is this period between the Resurrection and the Ascension of Jesus in which he spends this 40 days giving what we might think of as a graduate level course in the Kingdom. We can assume it was an intense period of time. If you’re one of the eleven you are spending your time with the first person to rise from dead. How could that not be intense?!!!!

Their world had changed. Everything had changed when Jesus rose from the dead, they saw him, they touched his scars. You just can’t go back to fishing or gardening anymore.
Jesus gave them a how to course on Kingdom preaching and Kingdom living.

“As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” John 20.21

“I will build my church. . .I will give you the keys of the kingdom.” Matthew 16.18-19

You know the feeling you got when mom or dad gave you the keys to the car for the first time and said go ahead and take it for a spin? Jesus gives the apostles the keys to the Kingdom! There’s a lot more at stake.

And remember, you had to be taught and instructed in how to drive a car. And maybe you went and sat in a classroom, read from a book, sat at a simulator – all good stuff – but at some point you had to get behind the wheel of an actual car if you were ever going to really learn to drive. So it was with the apostles. So it is with us.

The Kingdom of God contains world-changing beliefs and ideas – but it’s not only ideas. It’s the presence and power of a person, this humble carpenter, this cosmic Lord.

“But Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples, raised his voice and spoke to the crowd. . .” Acts 2.14

Here’s Peter. When last we saw him he was being asked the embarrassing question, “Peter, do you love me?” It was embarrassing to Peter because Jesus was asking him this. It touched the wound in Peter’s soul, the jumble of emotions that was the shame of his denial and cowardice, the devotion he felt, and the desire to be faithful once again.
Peter easily could have went back to the fishing business, or at least, take a less prominent role in the ministry.

But Peter stood up. This may have surprised some people who knew him. Not because he hadn’t always been a bit bold, brash, or reckless; but because he was standing up to speak – putting words together intelligently was never his strong suit.

I bet his wife was surprised. Yeah, Peter was married. They had a home in Capernaum. Jesus had been there; even stayed there. Mrs. Peter had seen how taken her husband was with this Rabbi. But never before had she witnessed her husband quite like this, bold yet humble, simple yet eloquent. Maybe at first, for a second she thought, “Oh no, what’s he doing!” But as she listened and watched her husband, I’m sure she thought, “Oh yes, my man.”

I think all of us are a little afraid of doing what Peter did. We want to talk about our faith in Jesus with others, but we’re afraid we’ll come across sounding arrogant or judgmental or preachy. We’re afraid we’ll sound like all the religious people we’ve ever met and not liked.

There is a newspaper cartoon that depicts a man standing before, who else, Peter at the heavenly gates. Peter asks the man, “Why should I let you in?”

“I witnessed to the Gospel all my life,” says the man.

“Yeah,” replies Peter, “but you forgot the part about not being a jerk about it.”

There is a book out now by David Kinnaman called, unchristian, what a new generation really thinks about Christianiity. Kinnaman, who is president of the Barna Group, has published the results of three years of polling to determine what outsiders really think about American Christianity. The research indicates six attitudes that outsiders attribute to Christians: hypocritical, too focused on conversions, anti-homosexual, sheltered, too political, and judgmental. These are perceptions people have of Christians. It’s open to debate how accurate they are or how much they reflect simply a disagreement with the truth claims of Christians. But to me, the best way to answer these perceptions is this:

Be different. Be like Jesus. Be like Peter, for that matter.

Peter is so large in the early church because he really has become this Rock, this leader that can lead the church into action. He is humble, with the kind of humility that can only come through falling and rising again. He is brave – he fears nothing that this world can do to him. He is loving – he loves others and he loves God, and that love shines brightly. He is godly – truly here is a man who lives for God.

Is it any wonder that in the New Testament there are many lists of the disciples and apostles – on every one of them, Peter’s name appears first, always.

Peter stood up. And by God, Peter preached. He preached that Jesus suffered and was crucified. He preached that this same Jesus rose again and is Lord of all. Peter preached and had the audacity to believe that God would win hearts and minds. And God did.

“they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what should we do?’”

The Gospel is powerful. The Gospel is true. The Gospel is Good News for everybody, even everybody you know.

Now, in light of this Gospel, fresh from news of the Resurrection, will we just sit around and be bored, or are we gonna get moving and speak up and show up? You didn’t come here to just sit around.

We are Church on the Move. We are a FORCE TO BE RECKONED WITH!

Finish Well

Last month we talked about the importance of passing on the faith to the next generations. We quoted Psalm 71,

“O God, from my youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds.
So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to all the generations to come.” Psalm 71.17-18


I want to talk about finishing well from a biblical perspective. What does the Bible say about aging as opposed to what our culture says about it.

John Ortberg offers this formula for Age:

Age = Experience + Deterioration

There is an ambivalence, to say the least, about aging in our culture. I hear it from my elders often, usually with a smile, but always with sincerity, “Let me give a bit of advice, Rich,” they say, “don’t get old.”

And I understand why they say that. Deterioration is no fun. I have experienced a little bit myself, and I know there is a lot more on the way. And our feelings about aging are linked to the constant messages our culture says about it – what are they ? - we’re against it. Our culture worships youth.

Have you seen the commercials out about hair coloring for men? They’re funny because they have these retired athletes, Keith Hernandez, Emmit Smith, Walt Frazier, offering this hair coloring to take away the gray and, “GET BACK IN THE GAME!” The game is, I guess, being able to attract the attention of younger women. But it’s laughable because those athletes don’t look much like their playing days, I don’t care how black they die their hair.

But the Bible is pro-aging. The Bible teaches us to revere the aged.
Leviticus 19.32:

“You shall rise before the aged, and defer to the old; and you shall fear your God.”

Leviticus 27.1-2, 7 talks about when you make a votive offering to God, for a male age 26-60, you should pay fifty shekels of silver. But if the person is sixty or older, then they only have to pay fifteen shekels. Which means that this the first instance of what we now know as the “Senior Discount.” It came right from the Bible.

The Bible teaches us to honor the aged. But it also raises a question – how do you age well?

In Ecclesiastes 12 we have a great description of what happens to us as we age:

“Remember your creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come, and the years draw near when you will say, ‘I have no pleasure in them’; before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return with rain;”

How can you tell if you are aging or not? Let’s try a little experiment – everyone stand up. . . If you made a noise as you stood, then you are aging. Kids don’t make noises when they stand. Okay sit.

Ecclesiastes 12.3 “in the day when the guards of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent,” You know you are aging because you shrink and you’re not as strong.

“and the grinders cease working because they are few. . .” What are the grinders? Teeth.

“and those who look through the windows see dimly. . .” the eyes get weak.

“and one rises up at the sound of the birds. . .” You can’t sleep. The slightest noise wakens you. Aging people ask each other “How’d you sleep last night?” Kids don’t ask each other that question. They don’t care. We aging people care about sleep.
We just can’t get it as easily anymore.

“when one is afraid of height and terrors on the road; the almond tree blossoms,” white hair.

“the grasshopper drags itself along . . .” there’s no hop in that boys body anymore, he drags along.

“desire fails.” Enough said about that.

“because all must go to their eternal home, and the mourners will go about the streets; before the silver cord is snapped . . .and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.”

That describes the physical process well. But the Bible has more to say than this. The difference in despair or hope is what we put our trust in. According to the Bible aging is not about comfort, security, pleasure, or even avoiding pain.

Martin Marty reports that in Ancient Rome and Greece the average life span was . . .20yrs. Fast-forward 1,000 years to medieval Europe – average lifespan was about 33. In the U.S. today it’s 77. So for most of human history most people didn’t make it to be as old as most of us. In fact, its estimated that ¼ to 1/3 of every human being to hit age 60 in history are alive today. That’s amazing. So it is so important that we learn how to age well. Here are three important things to strive for:

How do we age well?

1) Need whole-hearted faith - we must completely trust God that he is with us now and that we can go confidently toward the future because God is already there waiting for us – The Resurrected Lord has gone ahead to prepare the way!

The story of when Moses sends the twelve spies into Canaan to spy out the land is a compelling one. Moses needs to know if they can enter in or are the inhabitants too strong for them. Caleb and Joshua alone of the spies say, “The Canaanites are strong but we can take them. We can do it – God is with us. The other ten spies said, “No way. We gotta leave.”

You know how many of those spies eventually made it to the promised land? Caleb and Joshua. The rest died. Researchers tell us the power of faith and hope and positive thinking. Martin Seligman has done studies that suggest 90 percent of the most optimistic people are still alive at age 85 while only 30 percent of pessimistic people make it to 85. Studies suggest a positive attitude can add a decade to your life. How many of you are happy about that news?

How do you grow old well? “Allow everything else to fall away until those around you only see love.”

2) We need a challenge. For Christmas the boys got this video game called, “Brain Age.” The game challenges you with mental exercises with the belief that our brains stay young and sharp when they are regularly stimulated and challenged. The game says you can lower your brain age through practice and exercise. The game measures your “brain age” when you log on. The first time I did this it told me I had a brain age of an 89 yr old. So I knew that I had some work to do. Our brain cells are dying everyday, in fact, some die even before we’re born. So we’re getting dumber before we can even get started.

One researcher says “the brain needs new challenges to stay a healthy functioning organ.” The brain doesn’t need the same thing, but new things, and certainly not comfort, ease, and security.

Caleb was forty years old when they spied out the land and decided to turn away. They wandered another forty-five years in wilderness before they entered in. So at 85 years old Caleb looks at the coveted hill country of Canaan, the most difficult to take mind you, and says, hey, I’m still strong, let’s go take that hill. He was ready for a challenge. Great men and women live this out.

3) We need community. Isolation adds to the process of physical and spiritual deterioration. Again, studies show that isolation results in an earlier death. Look at Caleb and Joshua. They are only two of not only the twelve spies, but that whole generation of Israel to live that long. Joshua got to be the new Moses. Caleb didn’t. He could have sulked and withdrawn from community affairs. Remember, all his peers and friends had died. He had to seek out and develop new friends. He mentored younger ones in the ways of God and the history of the people. He was a living treasure.

My grandparents were instrumental in my young faith. I don’t know that I would be a Christian without Truman and Marian. They weren’t perfect but they always showed me love and I will always owe them a debt. They aged well.

Let trust us God whole-heartedly, take up new challenges, and stay in community together.

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

There are signs around that the season has changed. The crocuses, colt’s foot, and daffodils tell us that it’s Spring time. But I know what my thermometer says too. It disagrees. Maybe the crocuses are lying or maybe they’re just confused.

It’s like the time I couldn’t sleep one night. It was almost midnight, and I tossed and turned until I got up and decided to go down the block to this convenience store. It had a sign that said, “Open 24 hours.” I walk up to the door and there’s a guy locking up. I said to him, why are locking the door? He said, “We’re closing.”

I said, “But your sign says ‘Open 24 hours.” He says, “Not in a row.”

I went to the gym the other day. I went into the locker room to change; opened by bag and found my sneakers. But there was a problem. The sneakers didn’t match. One was from my old pair, the other from my new pair. What’s more, the two in hand were both for the right foot. My choice was wear my black patent leather dress shoes for my workout, or wear these oddball sneakers.

The key to getting away with something, as many of you know, is act like you know what you’re doing, that all is well, nothing’s up. I also tried a little experiment –let’s see who notices. Nobody noticed. Or if they did, they didn’t say anything to me, which in a way, is insulting, you know? What sort of person doesn’t tell another that they have mismatched shoes on?

People don’t pay attention. Believe it or not, people don’t pay attention to the meaning of this day. What’s Easter about? Of course you know. But there are plenty who don’t.

We come to celebrate Jesus victory over death. We come to celebrate eternal life in him.
We’re going to live forever!

In fact, let’s turn to our neighbor right now and say,

“I’m going to live forever. . .”

“So far, so good.”

Of course we know that our bodies will probably give out. They’ll die. But we are declaring that there is more life, in fact real life, after the grave.

“Whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3.16

Now, this living forever stuff sounds like a good plan. It’s a good ride. Everyone should get on that train. But we know that there is some pain involved. There was a sacrifice to be made. You only get to the empty tomb through the Cross.

The cross is not an attractive place to be. Not if you or yours are the ones going to be nailed there. The cross has a way of scattering people, even disciples; even a man named “Rock.” I’m talking about Peter.

Peter went back to fishing. He went back because he thought he was a failure as a disciple. Peter had been the first to pledge his undying support for Jesus. “Though all others fall away Lord, I will follow you to the end! I will die for you.”

The problem with saying you will die for someone is, you can only do it once, and it usually happens toward the end of your life. Jesus wants people who will live for him.

Peter came to understand this the hard way. He was humiliated by his own spineless behavior. He felt unworthy and disqualified, He felt good for nothing. So he hid himself in his old life of fishing.

Sin and failure separate us from our true calling. Why? Because sin separates us from God. Sin makes us want to hide from God. The Lord walked in the Garden, in the cool of the afternoon, and called out “Son, daughter, where are you?’

But while Peter was hiding, God was looking for him. In Mark’s Gospel the angel tells the women to go tell the good news that Jesus has risen,

“Go tell his disciples and make sure you tell Peter that He has gone on to Galilee and is expecting you.” (my paraphrase, Mark 16.7)

The Lord Jesus walked in the cool dawn of athat first Easter morning, conqueror of Death, Lord of Life, Master of Everything. And foremost in his mind was this question,

“Peter, my brother, where art thou?”

Jesus loved Peter. Though Satan demanded to have the cowardly denier, Jesus refused. When Jesus asked Peter three times “Do you love me?” it was as if Jesus was emphasizing three times over how much he loved Peter.

It’s like G.K. Chesterton said of the classic fable, Beauty and the Beast, “Unlovely things must be deeply loved before they become lovable.”

Peter became the Rock when he finally realized how much he was loved. The Cross and the empty Tomb were signs of this love. Jesus finally got his attention.
I’m wondering, does the Lord have your attention? Have you considered what’s been done show you how much you are loved? Are you living for Christ today?

In his first letter to the churches, the Apostle Peter, leader of the church, is thinking of a rock when he quotes this Old Testament scripture:


“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious,
And he who believes in him will not be put to shame.” 1 Peter 1.6

Here Comes the King

Today we celebrate Jesus entry into Jerusalem – his triumphal entry as we call it. And it was an entry with huge crowds of people shouting in excitement. Like any great crowd, some of them knew exactly the reason for their excitement, and many others were there merely to see what the hubbub was about. People love a parade.

Jerusalem was no stranger to parades and official processions. The Romans had been doing this for years. The Roman procession would form outside the city, where the general and his troops would mass. As they rode through the city gates the trumpeters would blast their horns. Floats representing their captured cities and military conquests would follow. Then would come wagons and wagons of plunder followed by seventy white oxen, the victims to be sacrificed on this occasion. Then the general, bedecked in purple toga and golden crown, would step forth to the city temple and offer sacrifice to Jupiter, Juno, or Minerva. And the Jews would pretend to care, pretend to praise as inwardly they resented and despised their heathen masters.

So here comes this man from Galilee called Jesus. Some called him a prophet - high praise indeed for someone riding in on a donkey. There was no band of trumpets blowing, no purple robes of royalty. There were no floats commemorating past triumphs, no wagons of booty.

But there was excitement and it was real. It was sincere. The Jews of Jerusalem were flocking in droves to the city gates.

“The whole city was abuzz with the question, ‘Who is this?””

Those who thought they knew shouted out praise “Hosanna, hosanna to the Son of David!”

We only know this word because it was shouted on this day a couple thousand years ago. There is really no exact rendering of the word in English. The closest we can come would be, “Lord, save us!”

But more accurately, it is a feeling more than a meaning. St. Augustine says it is an emotional cry. “Oh, what a great thing!” Oh can mean many things in our language. But in this case oh can only express the feeling of one who is amazed.

Here’s how the Hebrew might sound in our vernacular - AAAAAAHHHHHH, or. . .

WHOOOOOO-HOOOOO

The Jews were amazed because many of them believed they were witnessing royalty, and royalty of a kind their people had waited a thousand years for.



Are we amazed today? What are our expectations of this man from Galilee? Do we respond with hearfelt praise, an emotional cry, or are we just part of the crowd that came out of curiosity, that wants to wait and see before they commit?

We live in a culture that increasingly ups the ante for power and riches and spectacle. The homes many of us live in today would literally have been “fit for a king” in years gone by. To our grandparent’s generation, our homes are mansions. We count on upward mobility as our birthright. That’s what makes a recent report so alarming – that our kids today may be the first generation in this country who have a lower standard of living than their parents. It is a shocking announcement because it goes against what we’ve come to believe we deserve. Upward mobility is our birthright.

After all,we are the generation that found a way to pay money for water. Imagine one day French executives are sitting around a boardroom table and brainstorming how to break in big-time to the American market. What do we have that we could make the Americans want to have? Voila! exclaims a junior executive, “Water!”

The others think he has gone mad. “What? America doesn’t have water?”

“Yes, they have water,” he explains, “But they don’t have French water!” And so Perrier bottled water was born. And we buy bottled water, not, as it has been shown, because its more pure, but because it makes us feel like the trajectory of our lives is pointing up.

In the way a compass always points north, the instinctual human needle always points up. But even if we could count on our lives to always improve in this world, it begs the question – so what? What if we gain the world? What does the world really deliver? Bottled water?


Listen to what the Apostle Paul says in Philippians 2:

“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus; who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped. . .”

With our commitment to upward mobility we must be graspers and clutchers, constantly insisting on me and mine. But Jesus, fully God, divine partner, decides to voluntarily relax his grip on the divine privileges. With all the heavenly angels declaring, “Worthy is the Lamb. The whole world is full of his glory!” Jesus says, “I give this up. I’ll take a demotion if in so doing I can please the Father and serve the people whom I love.”

So down the ladder he goes. Watch him go.

Followers of Jesus understand this. The only direction in this world for us is . . .Down.

I was reminded the other day of the story in Acts when Peter and John are coming into Jerusalem to go to the Temple to pray and at the gate called Beautiful there is a man who begged. He was lame from birth and he had people carry him every day to the gate so that he could beg money from the people going to the Temple to give. The beggar sees Peter and John and asks them for money.

They say, money, we don’t have any money. What about us made you think we have money! We don’t have money. But what we do have we will give you. “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk.”

And the man rose, and he didn’t walk, he jumped for joy and danced for all to see.

Christians are downwardly mobile, just like their king. And just like their king, they believe that God will provide what is needed.

Do you know why we have that piece of land out back there now? Because a couple men from our church were either really smart, really bold, really faithful, or just didn’t know any better - I can’t decide which. But, in a nutshell, they went to Mr. Campbell and basically said, “Give us that ground. The Lord has need of it.”

And to his immense credit, Mr. Campbell said you’re right. The Lord does have need of it for his purposes in this community.

Christians are crazy enough to believe that “The Lord has need of it” is really the only credentials and currency we need in this world.

When Jesus rode into Jerusalem, he came not to raise an army or raise taxes. He came out of pity and love. He came to rule minds and win hearts.

And make no mistake, not just branches and cloaks, but hearts were laid on that Jerusalem road for that King on a donkey.

What will your response be to the coming King? What will you do when the command comes in your life – the Lord has need of it?

Be Rich Toward God

Luke 12.13-21


“One’s life does not consist in the abundance of your possessions.”

Absolutely. Can everybody say “Amen.” Okay, now what I would like to do, what I would like to do, is give you an assignment for next week. Call a moving company, call U-haul, rent whatever trucks you need and haul your possessions in here for next Sunday. We’ve got a lot of room here. We can line up everything on the floors and the pews. It really shouldn’t be that difficult., you know, since our lives really aren’t about the abundance of our possessions. That would be an interesting scene wouldn’t it?

We may need to get a bigger building.

That was this man’s dilemma in Jesus’ parable. He didn’t know what to do with all the stuff he had. He needed a bigger building. Here’s an interesting sidenote: to be a Jewish man in those days was to be a member of a tight-knit and gregarious community. Usually, you had a wife and kids, parents, aunts and uncles, cousins, nephews and nieces, and friends and acquaintances. You had people all around you. You belonged. Your evening activity after a days work and a good meal was to go out to the village gates and talk with your friends over the events of the day and the doings of your families. You had plenty of counselors and opinions.

So when this man needed counsel, when he had this big decision in his life to build or not to build, who did he talk to?

No one. Himself. Because he had no one else to talk to. If he had a family, he was so far removed emotionally and spiritually that it didn’t occur to him to have that conversation. If he had friends, well. . .let’s face it, he didn’t have friends.


“So he said to himself – this is what I will do: I will build bigger storage houses. I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have enough for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’”


There is an article in yesterday’s paper about a new book of theology and spiritual truth that I want to recommend to you. I haven’t read it but it sounds very promising. In the very title of the book is expressed a deep theological truth.

The title of the book is Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat? The theme of the book is expressed by its author Peter Walsh, who says, “Many people have filled their homes with stuff and are now looking at the stuff they own and realizing it’s not delivering on the happiness they had expected it would.”

Walsh specializes in clutter intervention. He goes to people’s homes and like any good leader, “Defines the reality.” He gets folks to see their clutter for what it is – the clutter is controlling their lives. And gets them to begin to take physical control over their space.

Again Walsh says that once they remove some of it and open up space in their homes, “What flows back into that space is a sense of calm and peace. . .they’re able to focus far more clearly on their relationships, their spiritual lives, their work.”

I’m wondering how many of us would admit that our stuff is out of our control?

One indirect way to answer this question might be to think about that yearly local intervention that we call the Duncansville Spring Fling. This is the weekend ( not a day, because that’s not long enough, we need a weekend to do this) that we haul stuff out of our homes onto our front yards, sidewalks and streets. We “fling” it out there to our neighbors and community and hope that some of it might stick to someone else. There is stuff and people everywhere along the streets of fair Duncansville that weekend. It’s a flea market orgy.

And remember, this is only the stuff we really don’t want anymore. It’s our junk. It’s just us skimming off the top of our piles.

“No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and wealth.” Luke 16.13

I wonder, who do we love and who do we hate?

Here’s a more direct way to answer the question of whether “stuff” is a problem for us – get out your car keys. Get them out right now, please. And pass them to the person in the pew in front of you. How does that feel?

Maybe that’s too easy. Let’s try something else. Get our your wallets and your purses. Pass them to the person next to you, unless you are married or related to them and you know for a fact that they are less generous than you are. Pass your wallet then, to someone else.

How would it be if we took the offering right now? Would you be okay with that? Or are we kidding ourselves?

The rich man in the parable is kidding himself. He tells his soul that he is at ease, he has enough. What a joke. He makes a list of things to do – eat, drink, be merry. But he leaves one thing off of his list – remember not to die. That’s the most important one. It’s the hardest one to do of course. And what does God say about him – he doesn’t call him evil or bad. God chooses one word to summarize this wealthy, busy, respectable, successful man’s life – fool.

The man is a fool because he never learned what the object of life is. Jesus makes the point quite clearly:

“So it is with everyone who stores up treasures for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

Being rich toward God means growing a soul that is increasingly healthy and good.

Being rich toward God means loving and enjoying the people around you.

Being rich toward God means learning about your gifts and passions and doing good work to help improve the world.

Being rich toward God means becoming generous with your stuff.

Being rich toward God means making that which is temporary become the servant of that which is eternal.


Let’s think for a moment about what in our lives is temporary and what is eternal?
What can we take with us into eternity and what must we leave behind? Put a red sticker on everything that is temporary. We can start with those car keys and those wallets I asked you to pass over. You won’t be needing those. You won’t need the cars those keys go to, you won’t need the garage they are parked in, you won’t need the house that’s attached to the garage – put a red tag on all those. All those clothes in your closet, your ipod, your tv, your computer – those are red tag. The treadmill, the barbeque, the boat, the atv, bike, the checkbook, the 401k, the stock options - those are all red tags too.

Let’s a put green tag on everything in your life that is eternal. Put them on your family. Put them on your friends. Put one on your boss at work. Put one on your teacher. Put one on the kid that works behind the counter. Put one on the person you most dislike in the world. Don’t forget to put one on yourself.

What will make us rich in the eyes of God? All the eternal people we help bring there. That’s what God loves, that’s what heaven wants. Our stuff, it can stay here. Give it to the Spring Fling.

Wind, Water, Life


“My family is messed up,” is a statement I have heard more than a few times. If you have ever had it admit that, maybe you do so with not a little embarassement, anger, even a sort of twisted pride, as in, “you think you had it bad, you should have seen what it was like in my house growing up. . .” that sort of thing. Here’s one of my stories:

When I was getting ready to start college at UPJ, my mom and dad drove me out to Johnstown. My sister was starting her master’s program at Pitt-Oakland, and my parents were driving her out there after they dropped me off. The car was jam packed with our stuff. Everything was fine until we hit Cresson mountain. Then funny things started to happen with our old Chrysler. It started emitting smoke through the air vents inside the car. Then smoke started coming out from under the front hood. Soon flames appeared. Dad pulled over and we bailed out. I need to say this for you to understand - we were not the most resourceful people. And we definitely didn’t plan for emergencies like this with say, extra cash on hand. My parents didn’t own a credit card. We did have a weed eater in the trunk of the car that my mom insisted on us taking out of the car with us for fear something would happen to it. We managed to get a tow truck and convinced the driver to let us ride illegally in the back of our car as he towed us into Altoona. For a while we literally just walked up and down Pleasant Valley Blvd, passing the time, carrying our weed eater. My sister, who was more easily embarrassed than I, complained loudly. She refused to walk with us at one point, as if by separating her walk from ours by twenty yards, no one would identify her with us. Strangers wouldn’t know she belonged to this family. I think it’s safe to say we were all miserable. This went on until my dad got us a room at the Econolodge for a few hours. Again, I don’t how this happened since we had no cash and no credit card.

Have you ever wanted a new family? I wanted one that day.

In hindsight I know my parents were doing their best. Parents want to protect their children. Parents want a better life for their kids.

The story is told of a married couple, both ninety years old, been married for seventy years, who went to a lawyer to get a divorce. The lawyer asked them, “You have been married for seventy years, why get a divorce now?”

They answered, “We wanted to wait until our children had died.”

If you’re a parent, you know there is a certain logic to this.


Jesus met this woman at a well in Samaria. She probably didn’t plan on getting in a deep conversation with this Jewish man on this particular day. She certainly didn’t plan on revealing the deep secrets of her family life to him.

At one point, Jesus says to her, “Go get your husband.”

“I have no husband, right now. Although I have had five,” the woman confesses.

If there’s one thing I know, it’s that families don’t like to advertise their secrets and their flaws. This was a moment of great vulnerability and truth for this woman. There was something about Jesus that made it safe for her to reveal herself to him.

There is no mention of children here, but I think it’s safe to assume she had children to at least a couple of her past husbands. Can you imagine the web of relationships in her life as a mother, stepmother, grandmother, and friend?

I come from a family in which my parents stayed married to each other until the day my father died. They loved their kids. But I’ve hinted at the flaws in my family. Can you imagine the dysfunction and problems going on in this Samaritan woman’s family?

And yet, I’m sure she still wanted the best for her kids and for herself. She wanted to love and to be loved. The hope for a good life had not died in her. You might say she was hungering and thirsting after it.

Jesus said to her, “Those who drink of the water I give them will never be thirsty. . .it will become in them a spring gushing up to eternal life.”

Is it any wonder that these words found a receptive audience in this woman. She wanted a new family. She wanted the best for them.

Who doesn’t? One of the most important days of my life was the birth of my sons. The day they were born I gave them to God. I said, “God I don’t care whether they become successful or wealthy or whatever. I just want my sons to have a heart for you.”

There is nothing more important to me. I want to pass on to them the living faith that was given to me. I want them to love Jesus and know they are loved by him.

In fact, the Bible declares the vital importance of giving our kids faith.

“Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; his greatness is unsearchable.
One generation shall laud your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts.” Psalm 145.3-4

“O God, from my youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds. So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to all generations to come.” Psalm 71.17-18

One generation is to declare God’s goodness to the next. We’re going to talk more next week about how this is done. For now, it is enough to know that God expects this of us.

Jesus offers life like water to thirsty people, thirsty families. Baptism is the chief sign of this new life of Jesus in the life of the believer. The water is the sign of the Spirit breathing and blowing new life in us.

The first century Jews practiced baptism for people who needed spiritual and ceremonial cleansing. When a Gentile, for example, decided to become a Jew, he and all his family were baptized and all the males were circumcised. Baptism was necessary because during their life in the Gentile world they had picked up all manner of defilement. They had to be cleansed before they could begin their new lives as members of the people of God. They were baptized. Their defilements were washed away in the waters of baptism.

When John the Baptist baptized Jews, the sting was sharp and clear – all need forgiveness before a holy God at the coming of Messiah.

Messiah has come. One generation declares the Good News to the next generation. The good news is Jesus comes to us still. Jesus comes to messed up, dysfunctional families.
Like to the woman at the well, Jesus still offers to fill us to overflowing with his life-giving water.

If you have not experienced his life, maybe today is that day.
Maybe your prayer this morning should be, “Sir, give me this water.”