Monday, May 23, 2016

May 21-23, 2016 Pastor Timothy J. Spaude Text: Numbers 6:22-27 THREE IN ONE GOD/THREE IN ONE BLESSING!



TRINITY SUNDAY

May 21-23, 2016
Pastor Timothy J. Spaude
Text: Numbers 6:22-27

THREE IN ONE GOD/THREE IN ONE BLESSING!
1.     A Blessing of Protection.
2.     A Blessing of Graciousness.
3.     A Blessing of Peace.

Numbers 6:22-27 (NIV) The LORD said to Moses, 23“Tell Aaron and his sons, ‘This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them: 24“‘“The LORD bless you and keep you; 25the LORD make his face shine upon you   and be gracious to you; 26the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace.”’ 27“So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.”


          It might be hard to see from the inside, but you can easily see it from the outside. Our sanctuary has a three in one roof. It’s true. Three separate roofs make up the one roof over our worship space. What a blessing it is to have it! It keeps the rain off of us and the sun when it’s hot in summer. It keeps the heat in when it is cool in winter. And can you imagine what might have happened if we had no roof when those geese were up there. I did a little roofing back in my college days but I really don’t know how to build a roof, certainly not one of these dimensions. But it doesn’t matter what I understand about roof making. I’m still blessed by having one. So are you. In a similar way we don’t’ have to figure out all the ins and outs of how God can be three separate persons but only one God to be blessed by Him. It’s enough to be blessed. Let’s rejoice in that truth today as we look a little more closely at some words we get to hear a lot. The three in one blessing!
          Now the Triune God is hard to understand. But you know what’s really hard to understand? The fact that this God continues to bless sinners. Let’s consider the context of the three in one blessing. God originally put it in place right after He had led the people of Israel out of their slavery in Egypt. Do you remember how the people acted toward God? As soon as they encountered the admittedly difficult predicament of being caught between the impassable Red Sea and the pursuing Egyptian army they turned on God really cursing Him for freeing them from slavery. You know the rest of the story how God miraculously dried up the Red Sea so they could pass through safely only to have the walls of water come crashing down on the pursuing Egyptian army drowning them in one fell swoop. Then you know how God had Moses go up on Mt. Sinai to get the Ten Commandments. During that time the people of Israel threw a party for themselves, made the Golden Calf and gave it credit for saving them instead of God. Later they grumbled and complained again and again and again. That’s the thanks God gets. It would be very understandable if God had wiped them off the face of the planet or at the very least walked away and left them to themselves. And yet when it comes time to prescribe the worship life for His people God wants to bless them. Amazing!
God is still amazing because we really are no different. In spite of God’s goodness to us and all the times He has come to our rescue and made seemingly impossible problems work out when the next one comes there we are again, wringing our hands, maybe even mad at God. Grumbling. Complaining. How many times hasn’t it happened that when some success has come our way, on the inside if not out loud, we have taken the credit for it, setting ourselves up as the Golden Calf. God still wants to bless us. He is amazing. And so is His blessing. Let’s look at what it contains.
The LORD said to Moses, 23“Tell Aaron and his sons, ‘This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them: 24“‘“The LORD bless you and keep you.” The first part of the blessing is a blessing of protection. God does want the best for His people. That’s what the word bless means, to have good things happen. He also wants us protected from harm. That’s what the word “keep” means here. Guarded or protected. Maybe some of you young and old have some kind of a treasure box at home, somewhere special where you keep special things. Maybe your collections or things that have special meaning, maybe your valuables. If God had a treasure box do you know what you would find in it? You. His people. You are God’s treasure. Hold on to that when something you consider bad happens to you. Remember then that just as you can’t understand the nature of the Triune God you aren’t going to be able to correctly judge His actions or allowances. Anything that you consider to be bad that He allows to happen He already has in place a plan to work for your good. Our 3 in 1 God wants you blessed with a blessing of protection.
He also wants you blessed with a blessing of graciousness. The prescribed blessing goes on. ”The LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you.” God says He wants his face to shine on us. Have you ever stopped to consider what that means? The opposite of a shining face would be a darkened face. Let me show you one. Now you can see what God means. If it was His will to look on us with a darkened face it would be because He was angry over our sins. Now He has a right to do that because we do sin. Yet that’s not what He wants to do. He wants to have His face shine on us. That means He’s smiling at us. It’s called being gracious. Have you ever been at a very formal occasion like a dinner where a serious social blunder occurred? Maybe a glass was tipped over or a burp slipped out. A gracious host would cover over that mistake, not bring it to everyone’s attention. God is gracious to us. Each day we sin against Him. Unlike many people who seem to delight in pointing out that failings of others God covers over them with the blood of His Son Jesus. He makes them go away. And His graciousness continues. He gives us gift after gift after gift. Our 3 in 1 God gives us a blessing of graciousness.
And He concludes with a blessing of peace. ”The LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace.” Similar to have His face shine on us is having the Lord turn His face toward us. It’s another word picture by which the Lord assures us of His love. The opposite of turning His face toward us would be to have Him turn His face away from us. We would call that turning His back on us. Instead God’s blessing indicates that He always welcomes us and wants to see us. He’s telling us that we have direct access to Him in prayer. And He wants us to have peace. You’ve heard this Hebrew word before. It’s shalom. It describes the peace that goes beyond all understanding. It’s not the absence of strife or problems in our earthly life but the certainty that God will take care of things. This peace flows from the peace won by Jesus. Since we know that our sins have been removed and God does not hold them against us we can count on His help in every trouble. We get God’s peace even when there are terrorist attacks and political strife. We have God’s peace through loss of job of loss of life. God wants us to have a blessing of peace. It’s part of  the three in one blessing from the three in one God.
For the life of me, I can’t figure why someone wouldn’t want that blessing every week. As God finished his instructions on what was to happen when God’s people worshipped Him each week He said, “So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.”
 They, the priests, pastors, will put my name on them and I will bless them! God has bound Himself to bless those who receive this blessing. Who would want to give that up? We know who wants us to give that up. The Devil. Summer’s coming! Will you be receiving God’s blessing or giving it up? The blessing part is up to God. Receiving it? Well that’s up to you. Amen.

Monday, May 2, 2016

April 30, May 1-2, 2016 Pastor Timothy J. Spaude Text: 2 Kings 6:15-17 “LORD, OPEN OUR EYES!



EASTER 6
April 30, May 1-2, 2016
Pastor Timothy J. Spaude
Text: 2 Kings 6:15-17

“LORD, OPEN OUR EYES!
1.     To see the real enemy.
2.     To see Your real protection.

2 Kings 6:15-17 (NIV1984) When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. “Oh, my lord, what shall we do?” the servant asked. 16“Don’t be afraid,” the prophet answered. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” 17And Elisha prayed, “O LORD, open his eyes so he may see.” Then the LORD opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.”

          Some of you may be familiar with the name Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He was a Lutheran pastor in Germany during the time of Adolph Hitler and the Nazis. He spoke against the Nazi government was imprisoned and executed just two weeks before U.S soldiers liberated the prison camp he was in. Bonhoeffer is famous for writing a book called the Cost of Discipleship in which he spoke out against what he called cheap grace. Now obviously grace is free. It’s God’s goodness which flows from His love freely given to undeserving sinners. From my quick perusal it appears Bonhoeffer was frustrated with how he saw members of the visible Christian church living and so he described cheap grace as “any grace that justifies sin along with the sinner, grace that preaches forgiveness without requiring repentance and grace that comes with no expectations of discipleship or cross.” Without totally agreeing with him because grace is just that, grace, what I think he was really reacting to was the way sinners cheapen God’s grace when they use it as an excuse to keep sinning instead of motivation to fight sin, or to stop calling sin what it is, or use grace as an excuse for lazy Christian living instead of zealous Christin living.
          That makes me wonder if we could also talk about a cheap Easter. No, I don’t mean saving your pork perks to get a cheap Easter ham, which is good. I mean when we Christians don’t allow the message of  Easter to permeate our everyday living. Jesus lives! He is risen indeed. Joy is ours. We have the right to be the happiest people on the planet. There is no such thing as hopeless. Those are facts that nothing can change. But when we live as though Jesus were still dead, have no joy and no confidence are we cheapening Easter? There are some things only God can do. One of those is enabling us to see things as they really are. Let’s keep that thought in mind as we look at an event that happened way before the first Easter in Old Testament Israel where the Lord had to open some eyes as well.
          These were not shining times for the people of God. The 12 tribe kingdom of Israel God had established had been broken in two for almost 100 years now. The northern kingdom of Israel had suffered under the reign of wicked King Ahab and wickeder Queen Jezebel. Now they were dead. So after suffering attacks from within the nation, now God’s people were being attacked by neighboring nations including Aram or Syria. Elijah the prophet had been taken to heaven and his successor Elisha was God’s spokesman. Whenever the king of Aram planned an ambush to destroy Israel’s army, God, through Elisha, warned the king of Israel. As you can imagine the king of Aram thought he had a spy in his camp. But his men, probably remembering how their general Naaman had been cured of leprosy told him, “No! There is a prophet of God named Elisha. He’s telling them where they are.” So the  king of Aram sent soldiers to capture Elisha.
          That’s where we join the story. “When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. “Oh, my lord, what shall we do?” the servant asked. 16“Don’t be afraid,” the prophet answered. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” Elisha’s servant was scared. Who could blame him? An army with horses and chariots was surrounding their city. They were facing a strong enemy. But Elisha’s servant didn’t see the real enemy, did he? Look again at Elisha’s response. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” Now we know from what’s coming that the “Those who are with us” are God’s angels. Who then are the “those who are with them?” The them is the army with chariots and horses. The “those” are the opposites of God’s angels, the demons. The Devil. This is the real enemy. He was behind the attacks against God’s people just like he had been behind Ahab and Jezebel.
          Brothers and sisters, times come in our lives when we wake up and look around and we find we are facing enemies. We see a society that keeps rejecting God’s rights and wrongs and seems to blame us Christians for what God says. We see the drug dealers who are trying to lure our kids into a lifetime heroin addiction. We see a family member who keeps saying those hurtful words. And it’s true that those in the world who love sin and hate God are enemies. But Lord, open our eyes. The real enemy is the Devil and demons with him whose ultimate and eternal existence is Hell, the fire God prepared for them. As God had the Apostle Paul remind us in Ephesians 6, “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” LORD open our eyes to see the real enemy.
          And open our eyes to see your real protection. “And Elisha prayed, “O LORD, open his eyes so he may see.” Then the LORD opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.” Elisha prayed for the LORD to open his servant’s eyes and when he did the servant saw the truth, the angel armies of the Lord. There was nothing to be afraid of. God had it under control.
          God has it under control. These attacks on Old Testament Israel were not just happening because the Devil and the demons like to see people hurt and killed. These were attacks against Jesus, even though He had not yet come into the world. Just as the Devil tried to use people to kill Jesus right after He was born and before He went to the cross the Devil was trying to kill Jesus by getting rid of His ancestors. But it didn’t work. God is always about the salvation of souls. He will not be denied. As Elisha’s servant saw those who are with us are more than those who are with them.
          That’s God’s real protection. If He chose He could open our eyes to see the angel armies. While there are enemies to God and His people today, enemies with skin on, and we can and should take the appropriate steps to keep our kids safe from predators and drug dealers or to speak up as US citizens against advancing immorality God’s real protection is Himself and the angel armies thwarting the plans and plots of the evil one. Fear is not our master. Doom and gloom not our destiny. Jesus is our master and heaven is our home. And absolutely nothing happens in our lives that is not under God’s control. Nothing happens that He will not also work for the good of people like us who love Him and have been called according to His purpose. Lord, open our eyes. We don’t want to live lives like Elisha’s servant wringing his hands whining “What are we going to do?” Rather we want to live lives like Elisha with a light smile saying, “Let’s see what God will do, with us or without us!” Lord, open our eyes!
          Open our eyes so we aren’t guilty of having a cheap Easter, you know where Christians cheapen Easter by acting as though Jesus is dead and the Devil won instead of  Him. Think of the message of Easter. Joy. Confidence. Comfort. When we live our lives letting Easter truth permeate our existence we will be the happiest people on the planet. Oh we may fail in that from time to time. But we don’t have to and we don’t want to. We don’t want to because we heard Jesus in His letter to the church at Laodicea say that lukewarm Christians are distasteful to Him. We heard Him tell His disciples there is no reason for our hearts to be troubled nor be afraid. Jesus lives! And because He lives those who are with us will always be more than those who are with them. God give us strength to believe it and live it outside these walls. Amen.