Sermon on 2 Corinthians 6:1-13

This sermon was preached at Mill Creek United Presbyterian Church on Sunday, June 21st, 2015.

2 Corinthians 6:1-13 Audio

One day, Jesus and his disciples were sailing in a boat across the sea of Galilee. Suddenly, as they were sailing, a great windstorm arose and waves began crashing against them and water from the waves began filling the boat. As the disciples hurried back and forth to empty the water and steady the boat from capsizing, Jesus lay asleep on a cushion in the stern. The disciples rushed to him, screaming over the thunderous sounds of the surrounding storm, “Teacher! Do you not care that we are perishing?”

This week, our country was hit by a wave from the exponentially building storm of injustice. A young white man walked into a historical black church and sat down at their Bible study. After they had been together for an hour, this man pulled out a gun and killed nine innocent people from this Bible study. After he was captured, he admitted that his goal was to start a race war in the United States. As this storm rages across our country, black Americans are calling out, “Do you not care that we are perishing?”

After the disciples called on Jesus, he calmed the storm by commanding the winds to cease and the waves to settle. He asks the disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?”

I believe he asks us today, “Have you still no faith?” If we have faith, then we believe when he prays that we may be one even as he and the Father are one. Faith is what unites us as one in him. And if we are to stand in faith, we must also stand as one with our brothers and sisters in Christ. We not only stand with Christians under persecution across the world, but also our neighbors in this country who suffer under the fires of hate. If we have faith, then we must step into that faith as the Body of Christ, his presence in this world, and calm the storm of racial injustice by demanding there be no more and standing beside those who suffer. Let our prayers be for reconciliation and love, that our love will overcome the hate of others, be they ISIS fighters, racial supremacists, oppressive governments, or any other manner of hate in the world. Let our prayers go up in faith and our actions reflect that faith by standing as one, not only in Spirit, but side-by-side here and now, working together to bring unity and reconciliation to our one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.

Paul writes in his second letter to the Corinthians, “working together with him [that is, Jesus], then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says, 'in a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.'”

If we receive the grace of God, we need to also see that grace manifest in our lives. “Behold, now is the favorable time,” Paul writes, “behold, now is the day of salvation. We put no obstacle in anyone's way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry.”

Because now is the favorable time and the day of salvation, we must live into that truth and not take it in vain. When we act in the world, we should act in faith that God has come to be our help. If he has come to be our help, he has also come to help those around us. And as Paul wrote just before this passage, “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.”

So, this ministry has been passed on to us, and is only made possible through his grace which he has given us in Christ. We are his ministers of reconciliation. How can we reconcile others to God if we don't speak the Good News to them? How can we be reconciled with our neighbors if we don't stand by them? We have been reconciled with God. God has forgiven all of our sin through the Cross of Christ. We have new life in him through his resurrection. Now, as we read in the letter to the Romans, “neither life nor death, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” And if we want it to be that “no fault may be found in our ministry” as Paul wrote, we must, like Paul, “put no obstacle in anyone's way.” We can let nothing keep others from hearing our message of the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Not race nor ethnicity, nor income nor school district, nor where they work nor where they spend their nights, nor anything in all of our social statuses should keep them from knowing that love. As Jesus came down from his high place in heaven to be one with us, we should also go out to those different from ourselves and be one with them by the one Spirit who unites us in Christ.

Paul continues in his letter to the Corinthians, “but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way.”

A major part of how we are to act in response to things such as the tragic shooting from this past week is how we view ourselves. Who are we as Christians? What is our goal? Paul commends himself and his fellow ministers as servants of God. When we call on Jesus as Lord, we are calling on him to rule over our lives. We are giving our wills, our wants, and our goals, all over to him. What we want becomes secondary to what he wants for us. And through his prayer in the John's Gospel account, we know that his desire for us is to be one as he is one with his Father in heaven. To know how to be ministers of God's love in the world, we must know the way of the servant of God. In the following part of this passage, Paul outlines three main “ways” of servanthood.

First, he writes, they commend themselves “by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger.”

I call this first part “the Way of Trouble.” Paul outlines things we would mostly associate with trouble, but uses them as ways of commending himself to the Corinthians. What he is saying here, is “See the things we went through for your sake!” It's basically the equivalent of your mother yelling, “All those dirty diapers I changed, all your rides to sports practices and school dances, all the dinners I made and paid for.” It's an appeal to what they've gone through for the work of the Gospel to show their honesty and genuineness in sharing it with the Corinthians. Paul and his fellow ministers are willing to walk this way of trouble if it means they are serving God in the process.

What does it mean for us today to walk this way of trouble? What does it look like for us to deal with hardships and calamities? What are the beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, and hunger that today's ministers go through for the gospel? Being a minister of the Gospel means walking this way of trouble for those who are in that trouble. It means walking beside them and on their behalf. When we look around us, to our neighbors who are being either mistreated or pushed aside in society, will we stand alongside them, or turn the other way? Are we willing to walk this way of trouble for others and for the gospel?

The next thing Paul writes is that they commend themselves “by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love.”

This, I call “the Way of Goodness.” That is, the way of outward acts which show the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit, we see in the letter to the Galatians is “love, joy peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” By abiding in the Spirit of God, our outward acts begin to take on these qualities. These outward acts of goodness don't do anything for us in terms of our salvation. We aren't saved by them. But as the Holy Spirit moves through us and we see these qualities becoming more present in who we are, they help to witness to the transforming love of Jesus. By the transforming power he shows in our own lives, we are witnesses to the transforming power he can have in the lives of those around us.

Included in this is genuine love. Genuine love is the love that comes from God. It is love that doesn't ask of others, and doesn't hold up a standard to be received. The genuine love of God is available to all, no matter what. When the families of the victims of the shooting this week went to the shooter's hearing, they took turns, one-by-one, speaking forgiveness over him, and even asking him to receive the love of God in Jesus Christ. The greatest witness we have is our love. It is a love that comes from God and doesn't love as the world loves. It can't be taken away, even if it's refused. Even as the soldiers around Jesus spat in his face and nailed him to a cross, he cried out to God, “Forgive them! For they know not what they do.” And even as these families faced this killer, they said to him, “I forgive you,” and called him to repentance so that he could also receive the forgiveness of God.

The third way Paul writes the ministers commend themselves to the Corinthians is “by truthful speech, and the power of God; with weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise.”

This, I call “The Way of Blamelessness.” Paul and his fellow ministers show themselves to be truthful, not telling lies or giving false witness. They do not manipulate or mislead. The ministers of God speak the truth in the power of God. The power of God is a power that can overcome all evil and hatred with love and goodwill. We overcome attempts to divide us through violence by coming together in unity and peace. While the world around us carries weapons of destruction and death, we carry in our hands the weapons of righteousness; the Word of God and the shield of faith. Rather than hate, we love. Rather than destroy, we build up. Rather than fear, we stand firm in our faith, knowing that we have a hope beyond this world.

Through honor and dishonor, whether the world around us acknowledges us or not, we are to love one another. Through slander and praise, when others would speak wrongfully of us, we don't give into them, but lean on the love of God. Even the praise of this world is nothing, because no matter how good the world thinks we are, if we don't have favor with God it is meaningless. We should seek the honor and praise of him who is above all things. And he desires that we be one and care for one another as brothers and sisters. Not for ourselves, but for his sake, do we reach out to others in love. If we love God first and foremost, our love for our neighbor should be an outpouring of that same love.

Paul writes, “we are treated as imposters, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.”

Again, whatever might be said about us has no bearing on who we really are. There will always be those who misrepresent us, whether they do so intentionally or not, and we have no power over that. So, our concern shouldn't be for what others think of us, but for how we follow the way of the servant of God. Though we may be called imposters, we can stay true to God's mission of reconciliation. Our call isn't to convince others that we are good people. We are called to love God and love one another through his love. Our concern should be on following God's mission and not on what others might think of us. We should “seek first the Kingdom of God,” Jesus says, “and his righteousness.” We shouldn't worry about the cares of this world.

Paul concludes in our passage today, “We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians; our heart is wide open. You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections. In return (I speak as to children) widen your hearts also.”

Let's not be restricted by our cares for this world. Paul calls on the Corinthians as a father to his children, to open their hearts to his ministry. I think that today, our Christian brothers and sisters in South Carolina, in Ferguson, and in Baltimore also open themselves to us. They commend themselves through hardships and beatings and riots. They commend themselves by the Holy Spirit which unites us to them, and by genuine love. They commend themselves by the power of God shown in their forgiveness and by the Word. We are called to be reconciled to God, and through our reconciliation to him, to be reconciled to one another. How can we be reconciled if we don't stand together? How can we be brothers and sisters if we don't sit together? How can we be one as Jesus and the Father are one if we don't worship together?

The way of the servant of God is a way of trouble, of goodness, and of blamelessness. In this world we will know trouble, but Jesus has overcome the world. So, we can face that trouble the world offers with joy, knowing that our God came down to take our troubles upon himself. Likewise, we should take on the troubles of those around us as servants of God, followers of his good character.

Our brothers and sisters have opened themselves to us. We can turn an act meant for hate to be a foundation of unity and love in Christ. Though the actions of this past week were done to cause a rift, both in our country and in our Church, our response can be the beginning of greater fellowship with one another. Let's be reconciled to God. And through that, let's take the steps to reconcile with one another; to end the cycle of hate in this country and across the world. Let's have faith that Jesus has the power to calm this storm. And let's have faith that power will show itself through love.

Sermon on 2 Corinthians 3:12-18

This sermon was preached at Mill Creek United Presbyterian Church on Sunday, May 31st, 2015.

2 Corinthians 3:12-18 Audio

Today is Trinity Sunday. This is the day in the Church Year that we celebrate the Godhead, three in one, Father, Son, and Spirit. The holy mystery of the Trinity, three persons yet one God, is one that has caused many questions throughout the centuries. The main councils in the early church debated the very issues of how we are to understand the Godhead. All we can say is that God is one being in three persons, separate yet united, unique yet the same. For the brightest of us to understand this great mystery is like the average elementary math student attempting to understand advanced calculus.

More simply, if I am a child who has only recently learned to add and subtract, I have no understanding of how to identify the circumference of a circle. But if my math teacher were to show me that the circumference of a circle with the diameter of 4 is 12.56, even though I don't understand my teacher's explanation, I trust that my teacher is correct. I don't trust my teacher because I spent my time picking apart every bit of my teacher's explanation, but because this is the same teacher who taught me addition and subtraction. I trust my teacher because I was taught by my teacher. Since my teacher has proven trustworthy in simply the simple truths revealed to me, then I know I can trust my teacher in the more difficult truths.

Last week, I spoke about how Jesus revealed the fullness of God's glory in himself. That the law of the Old Testament was fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ, very God of very God, who died as a payment for sin and rose again to bring us life. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory.”

God has revealed his great love for us by coming to us in the flesh and taking our place on the cross. If he has revealed himself in this way, and if we trust him in that revelation, then we are called also to trust him in the deeper things he reveals to us. Paul continues in his letter to the Corinthians, “Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end.”

Moses covered his face because the glory of the Law meant death for the people because the people could not keep the Law. But we no longer need to turn away from God's glory because the glory he has revealed in the Spirit is one that does not bring death, but brings new life for those who believe. The Law brought condemnation for sin. The Spirit brings freedom by grace through faith. Our boldness comes from this freedom. Moses could not be bold with the Law because he knew that the glory of the Law would mean death for those who see it. But if we have been revealed the greater glory of life through the Spirit, we are bold because it means life to all who receive it.

Moses had to hide the glory revealed to him to spare the lives of the people. We now share openly the glory revealed to us because it is a glory that saves. When Paul says we can be bold in a way that Moses could not, it means we can now share openly with others what has been revealed to us. “But their minds were hardened,” Paul continues about the people of Israel, “for to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts.”

Paul is calling the Church to be a source of truth to those who are still under the old covenant. Paul writes that “when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.” He writes a similar thought in his letter to the Romans, “how then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?” We have been given this great gift of glory. Jesus reveals God's true character in himself and he wants the whole world to see it. The deeper we grow in the knowledge of God the deeper the call on our lives to bring others with us.

If we are to go deeper into the knowledge of God, we must see that Christ is the source of all truth. It is the Spirit of Truth that reveals him to us. We need to trust that he loves us. We need to put our faith in him to guide us into life. He has shown that he is trustworthy in his death and resurrection. Because we know that he loves us and the full extent of his love, that he would even die for us, we can trust him in all other things. If we are not seeking truth through Christ, we are also searching with veiled faces. We must turn to Christ in all matters of life. When we seek after Jesus first, all other things come into perspective.

I need to wear my glasses all the time. Without them, I wouldn't be able to see much at all. I can make out blurry images and guess at what things are based on color and general shape. But, I cannot navigate through my life without having my glasses on at all times. The same principle is true with Jesus. We should go through our lives—how we make our decisions, how we act toward others, how we respond to trials and joys—with Jesus in the forefront at all times. Our minds should be set on Jesus. We can't reveal his glory without him acting through us. “Now the Lord is the Spirit,” Paul writes, “and where the Spirit of the Lord Is, there is freedom.”

The Spirit frees us from worries and allows us to trust in something greater than us. Not just something, but someone. If we put our faith in Jesus, the Holy Spirit will be with us and act for us. He doesn't do this because we have proven ourselves worthy. He doesn't do this because we have filled out any requirements. The Holy Spirit fills us and guides us because he loves us and he wants us to love others like he loves. When Isaiah appeared before the throne of the Lord, he cried out, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of Hosts!” And an angel of the Lord touched a burning coal to his mouth, saying, “behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”

Like Isaiah, we have unclean lips and dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. But the Holy Spirit cleanses us of our sin. The fire of the Spirit in the Word of God, the Good News of Jesus on our lips, takes away our guilt. This cleansing is what frees us to be able to do the works of God. We are agents of God's will. We have been given the freedom to share the Good News of Jesus with others and not have to show any merit of our own to do so. When Jesus met a Samaritan woman at a well during his travels, he asked her to give him some water to drink. As it turned out, this woman was an outcast from her people because she had had five husbands and was living with a man that wasn't her husband. When this woman found out who Jesus was, she ran into the town and told all of the people, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did.” This sinful woman ran through the streets using her sin as a witness to who Jesus is. It was no longer her sin that identified her, but the man who knew her sin and loved her anyway.

When we accept that we are sinners and receive God's forgiveness, we are accepting a call to witness. We are accepting the call to show God's forgiveness to others by revealing his forgiveness to us. The woman could announce her sin to the entire city because she knew the one who could take away sin. Isaiah was ashamed of his sin, and God empowered him by taking away his guilt and making him a prophet. Our strongest weapon in the mission field is the story of God's grace toward us. He has taken away our guilt and washed away our sin. In fact, the more sinful you were before Jesus came into your life, the stronger your witness is for his sake. His power is made perfect in our weakness.

The freedom of the Spirit is the freedom to be weak. The freedom of the Spirit is the freedom to know that though we can never earn God's love, we are loved by him. It is the freedom to approach God even in our sin and know that he will always welcome us. Without this freedom, our spiritual growth is impossible. We trust in God to do what we can't. We trust in God to make us his own. We trust in God to remain faithful when we lose faith, and to give us the faith we need to follow him more fully. Because of the freedom that comes from the Spirit, Paul writes, “we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”

If you accept Jesus as your Lord and savior, ask and the Holy Spirit will come to you. The Spirit will dwell within you and your sins will no longer be counted against you. It is in this freedom from guilt that we are able to then be transformed into his image. God receives us as his own and gives us his Spirit to make us his children.

A few years ago, I was with my extended family. My uncle, my dad, my cousin, and I, were all standing together and talking. At one point, my sister came over, laughing and pointed out that we were all swaying back and forth in sync with one another. We noticed it as well, and realized that this was a strange habit picked up in our family. My uncle and dad said our grandfather used to do the same thing, and eventually, my cousin and I picked it up as we got older. We had been passing down a very odd family trait without our even realizing it. My dad never took me aside and told me, “Now, son. Whenever you're standing still for an extended time, you need to start swaying back and forth like this.” I also never stood alone in my room practicing swaying back and forth to imitate the way my dad did this. By being with him and having a relationship with him, his habits naturally influenced me. I picked up this little family quirk just like the rest of our family, simply by being with one another.

When we allow ourselves to dwell in the presence of God, we are naturally influenced by his character. When we meditate on the Scriptures, spend time in prayer, and worship with his people, we are being transformed even when we don't realize it. When we turn to Jesus, we don't do it just to practice being better people. We do it to see him. To spend time with him. To have a relationship with him. As we grow closer to Jesus, we become more like Jesus. We don't become more like Jesus because we work hard at it every day. We become more like Jesus because when we spend time with him, we are transformed into his image by his Spirit dwelling in us. There are times when we do have to work at being more forgiving or more patient, but the real change happens when we simply dwell in his presence.

The thing about children is that even if they rebel, they necessarily carry the image of their parents. I have many friends with children of all different ages. And in each one, I can see their likeness. I can see a mother's eyes, a father's nose, even a grandmother's smile. Children don't have a choice in bearing the image of their parents. But they can either highlight that image or cover it over. In Jesus, our veils are torn and that image is now visible. We can see him and he can see us. We can see him in each other, and grow to be more like him every day. The first step to doing this is trusting in him. We need to allow him to transform us for the better. And we need to trust that his image is better than any other image in this world.

I opened this morning by talking about the image of God in the Trinity. This is the image that we are to replicate as Christians. We, as the Church, are eternally united as one, none greater than the other, yet each of us individually are of infinite worth. Together, we reflect the eternal love found in God. His love isn't for us alone. As the Father sends the Son, so he sends us into the world. As the Spirit overtook Mary to make Jesus incarnate, God of God, yet fully man, so he fills us with his Spirit to be his Body and his ministers in the world. As he loves us, we are to love others. And we don't do this because we are qualified. We do this because of his transforming love. We remain united in Christ even when we split off into a hundred thousand denominations. The bond of the Spirit can't be broken by human failings. And just as he unites us with one another, he also unites us with himself. We are united with him no matter how terribly we fail at following him. Our faith isn't built on our ability to be like Jesus. Our faith is built on his ability to love us even when we don't deserve it.

This truth is something that we will always struggle to understand: That God loves us no matter what. And he'll keep loving us, even if we turn our backs on him. He has proven his love for us on the cross. He has proven his transforming power in the resurrection. Now we can trust that he will continue to transform us into his image even if we don't understand how it works. We can trust that he unites us even when we think our disagreements are too big to overlook. We can trust that God will use us to share him with the world, even when we don't think we can. God has called you to be his ministers in the world because he will be working through you. You don't need to go to seminary to love your neighbor. You don't need to be ordained as a minister to pray for one another. These are the things that God has called us to do. If we trust in him rather than measuring ourselves against others, he will do great things through us. If we act out of faith in his promise rather than faith in our abilities, he will surprise us.

Be transformed. Not by trying harder, but by giving yourselves over to God. By spending time with him. Jesus said the greatest commandment is this, “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” We can't follow any other commandment, or be his witnesses in the world, without it. If we trust him, then we must also trust that what he said is true. The greatest thing we are called to do is first to love God. By giving us his Spirit, he has provided a way for us to do that. We can do it without shame and without guilt. Even if it's hard to believe at times, all of our sins have been wiped away. They no longer hold any power over us. So now we are free to approach God confidently. By doing so, we will be changed. We will be transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.

Sermon on 2 Corinthians 3:7-11

This sermon was preached at Mill Creek United Presbyterian Church on Sunday, May 24th, 2015.

2 Corinthians 3:7-11 Audio

At Trinity, I help to manage the international house, where students from other parts of the world stay during their studies at the seminary. I've done this for the last two years, and mostly I've had students from the continent of Africa staying with me in the house. Even in the years before this, I've had a good relationship with the students coming from overseas. Each year at the end of the Fall semester, when the temperature drops to the mid-forties, the same thing happens. The heavy winter coats are brought out, as the African students are exposed to the coldest temperatures they had yet experienced in their lives. One of my friends in particular asked me just this past year, “so this is Pittsburgh winter?” And I gently warned him that there was worse to come.

When the semester ended, and the temperatures drop to the low thirties or twenties, again, he asked me, “so, now this is the winter you were talking about.” Again, I told him that there is still a colder winter to come.

Paul writes in his second letter to the Corinthians, “Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses' face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory?”

When we read the Old Testament, we are getting a glimpse of what life looked like before Jesus Christ was revealed to us in his fullness. Since the Fall of Adam and Eve, God has slowly been moving his people toward the fullness of his glory. His glory is the beauty and magnificence of who he has revealed himself to be. He did this first through the Law of Moses. The thing is, we and the people of Israel are not able to comprehend the glory of God-- how great God is. Like my African friends, who needed to bundle up in large winter coats for what we would consider cool autumn weather, Moses had to cover his face with a veil to protect the people from the great glory that was revealed when God gave him the Law on Mount Sinai. Yet even that glory was only a taste of the fullness to be revealed in Jesus Christ.

This morning I want to talk to you about the glory that of the Law of God as it has been revealed to us in the Old and New Testament Scriptures. It is because of the Law that the character of God is made known to us. It is through the Law that we are able to understand not only his holiness and righteousness, but our own sin and brokenness.

First, let's talk about how the Law of God reveals his character to us.

When we talk about God's Law, there's another word that often comes up in conversation. It's an old Hebrew word from which we get the word Law. Many of you, I'm sure, know it: Torah. The word Torah has many different ways of being translated. The most common is “law,” but it can also be understood to mean “instruction,” or “teaching.” There isn't really a suitable single word in English to get the full meaning of Torah, but a helpful way of understanding it is as an “instruction of the faith.” What I mean by this is that Torah is not just a list of “dos and do nots,” as the English word “Law” might imply. Instead, Torah is intended to be a teaching of who God is and who we are meant to be as creations in God's image. It's a passing down of family tradition, only this family is the family of God, whom he has chosen to be his own.

When I was a kid, my grandmother used to make a special Chinese pastry she called a “sausalo” at every family gathering, which were meat filled pockets of soft, buttered dough. After she died, one of the things that our whole family wanted to be sure to do was to continue making these special pastries in her honor. But because she had died rather suddenly, we weren't able to get the instructions for her sausalo pastries. We decided to see if we could find the recipe online. We tried for a very long time, but no matter how we spelled the word, there was no evidence of a Chinese pastry called “sausalos.” We eventually gave up, and had to do without her pastries for a couple of years. But, one day, my dad was out at a Chinese shop and saw the small meat-filled pastries sitting in the window. He looked up at the sign to finally find out what they were called, and there was very simple, descriptive title hand written over them, “Sausage Rolls.”

My grandmother never learned much English. Even though she had been saying the simple phrase “sausage rolls” this whole time, none of us could understand her. She was speaking a different language, and we never took the time to sit down and let her guide us in the instruction of how to understand what she was saying and how to properly prepare these small pastries.

God is on a different level than my grandmother. He's on a different level than all of us. His “language,” so to speak, is different than our own. Even when he speaks to us in our own language, we still have trouble understanding. Jesus says, “If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” God's holiness is greater than our understanding, so he reveals himself through his Torah. The Torah is God's way of speaking through earthly things to reveal his heavenly character. He declares “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.” His first commandment is a lesson in who he is, what he has done, and a hint at what he will ultimately do. Our God is a god who frees the slave and demands that he alone be the object of our worship.

Through the ten commandments and the rest of Scripture, we see that God desires absolute perfection because he is absolutely perfect. He will not settle for any less. Jesus says that not only should you not murder, but “everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.” God's perfect character is one that does not hold on to his anger, but is full of steadfast love. His standard, the standard he holds up to all of his people, is that we also should not remain angry with those who do us wrong. Do not steal, do not lust, do not envy. Do not boast of your own deeds. Always do to others as you would have them do to you. Love your enemies and bless those who persecute you. Lay down your life.

Whoever does not live up to this standard is unfit for life in God's eternal Kingdom and is liable to judgment. The Torah of God reveals to us that we are deserving of death because we cannot live up to his perfect standard to which he holds his people accountable. He holds his people accountable to this standard because this is the standard that he follows in his own character. God is the perfectly good and perfectly righteous creator of the universe. He wants to bring his creation back to perfection, and to do that he has to get rid of everything that falls short of perfection. When we look at the Law, the Torah of God, we see God's perfect character. We see a God who loves the poor and needy, who sets captives free, who is faithful even to his unfaithful people. And when we see this perfect God, we realize that we are anything but the perfect people he desires us to be.

Because God has given the Torah, there is no longer any excuse to live apart from the standard that he sets. No one can plead ignorance to this standard, and even as the letter to the Romans bears witness, “when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts.” The law has been revealed to all people to show God's standard for those he calls his own.

Anyone who fails to live up to that standard is unworthy of being in the presence of God. So, the very thing which reveals the perfect beauty of holiness and righteousness in God is the same thing that condemns us before him. When we know who God is, we know who we are. When we see that God is good, we see that we are not. In God's perfection is revealed our imperfection. Or, more accurately, our wickedness and perversion. We twist everything for selfish gain. We not only worship other gods but seek to become gods. Because we know that we cannot live up to God's Law, we create our own Law so that we can live unto ourselves. We determine our own standard of good because that is the only way we can ever be considered good in our own efforts.

But this is what God's Torah reveals about us: That we are murderous adulterers seeking to be our own gods through slander and envy. But what it reveals about God is that he is abounding in mercy and steadfast love. God has “no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.” God has revealed himself in his Torah. But he proves himself to us by coming to us as one of us. The character that he revealed himself to have in the Torah is the character of a God that would do anything to be with those he loves. This is a God that would come to us and lay down his life for us in the person of Jesus Christ.

In Philippians we read that Christ, “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

And in Colossians, Paul writes, “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”

Jesus died on the cross because we were unable to meet God's standard. God wants us to know him, so he revealed himself knowing that doing so would also condemn us before him. He revealed himself to us knowing that doing so would bring upon us the judgment for sin. But the fullness of who he has revealed himself to be in the person of Jesus Christ, is a God who takes that punishment upon himself for our sake. Because we are unable to live up to his standard, he died for us on the cross. It's one thing to point to the Law and say that God is love because he has said so. It is an entirely other thing to be able to point to the cross and say this is how he loves. But his love doesn't end there. The cross is the end of the ministry of death through the Law, but the resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the beginning of the ministry of the Spirit.

In the Western Church, this Sunday is the Sunday of Pentecost. Fifty days after Jesus rose from the dead, he sent the promised Holy Spirit to fill his people and be his presence among them. Because he has died so that he would “reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven,” then this ministry of the Spirit is intended for the whole world. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

Paul writes in Colossians, “For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory.” When we believe in Jesus Christ, we are no longer under the condemnation that comes from the Torah of God. We are under a new Law, a new Torah, which brings life. We now enter into the ministry of righteousness. This ministry doesn't count our own sin against us, but the righteousness of Jesus Christ in his sacrifice. In Romans we read “For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be filled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

We want to do it on our own. We want to be good. But we can't change the standard of what is good. We can only lie about what is good and meet a new standard of our own creation, or we can accept that we are not good. But through him, we can receive the merits of goodness that aren't our own. In him, we can pursue the standard of God without condemnation. We no longer live according to the flesh and what we do, but by the Spirit and what he has done. And he has shown that when we can't meet the standard of good, he still loves us and even lays his life down for us. So we can move forward with confidence that we have in him the righteousness of God by the power of his Spirit.

“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.”

He has set us free from the slavery of sin, and now we have the freedom to worship him as the one true God. We see that we don't need to set our own standards to be good, but by turning to him, we are considered righteous apart from our own actions. And we can turn to him knowing that he has already proven his love by coming to us in the flesh and offering himself as a perfect sacrifice for sin. We don't need to be our own gods. In fact, he shows that he is more God than we can ever be. And when we believe in his promise of life through his Spirit, he makes us children of God by adoption through that same Spirit which brings us the ministry of righteousness. If you have the Spirit of God, you are a child of God, and you are bound to inherit his eternal kingdom with Christ.

This was revealed to us first in the Torah. Like my friends in heavy coats, those who only know the Torah only get a taste of the beauty and majesty and all-surpassing love of God. But the fullness of God was revealed in Jesus Christ. Suddenly, that old glory revealed in the Law has become nothing compared to the glory of God revealed in Jesus Christ and in the Holy Spirit who saves us from condemnation. The veil which kept us from God has now been torn, and we are welcome into his presence. We no longer rely on our own ability to meet his standard. By his Spirit, we have the righteousness of Christ. Not only can we worship him as God, but we can call on him as Father because he has made us his own. And he loves us, even to the end that he would lay down his life for us.

Sermon on 2 Peter 3:8-18

This sermon was preached at Prince of Peace Church on the weekend of December 6th, 2014.

There was a man named Adam, who lived in a garden in a place called Eden. He had a wife named Eve, and together they were the most loved creation of God. God loved them so much because he created them in his own image. God gave all kinds of trees and plants for Adam and Eve to eat. He gave them peace with all of the animals, and put them in charge of caring for his garden. God would come and walk with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day. They had a relationship with God, and knew him intimately. But one day, they broke God's one rule. “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden,” God had said, “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” When Adam and Eve were disobedient to God and ate of that one tree, the first thing they felt was shame. And from that shame came fear when God came down to visit those he loved. Because their shame made them afraid, they hid themselves from God.

What I find interesting about this story is that they weren't afraid of God because they were afraid of punishment. Adam says to God, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” They were afraid of God because they were ashamed. They recognized about themselves what God already knew, that they weren't worthy to stand in his presence. They were exposed. They realized their nakedness and did all that they could to cover their nakedness from the eyes of God.

When Peter wrote to the Christians in the first century, he said, “the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.”

This is a fearsome image. The God who created the universe and all that is in it will pour out his wrath on the heavens and burn away all of the heavenly bodies with a roar. When I lived in Florida, every year, we would have a season where hurricanes would threaten up the coast. In 1992, Hurricane Andrew hit the east coast with deadly force, causing 25 billion dollars worth of damage in the state alone. Around 1.2 million people were evacuated from their homes to escape the storm. The day of the Lord will be like a storm, coming without warning, like a hurricane of fire, burning and exposing the whole earth.

We cannot respond to such an event with anything but fear and apprehension. And our first response to fear is to hide. But there will be nowhere to hide from God, because the whole earth and all the works done on it will be exposed. He will not come as he did to Adam and Eve, walking in the cool of the day. Neither will he come as he did in his incarnation, as a baby in a manger. God will come to us in the fullness of his being. He will come to judge both the living and the dead for their sin. Peter's description of that coming Day forces his readers to come face to face with the reality of the power of God. He wants to be sure that we pay attention when he gives the warning, that “since all of these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn.”

The fear that Peter's descriptions instill is the same fear that captured Adam and Eve when they sinned in the garden. The fear of God is rooted in our shame. Our shame comes from knowing that we have failed to meet the standard set for us. We have a standard of holiness and godliness against which we have all sinned and fallen short. In our shame we try to hide our shortcomings from God and those around us. We hide because we don't want others to see our deeds. We know that our deeds are evil. We know our greed, our anger, our jealousy; and do everything we can to keep those things hidden. Even greater than the fear of fire and destruction, seeing the heavenly bodies burn away and dissolve, is the fear of being exposed. The fear of standing before God with everything we have done in the open for all to see.

“And this is the judgment,” we read in the John's Gospel, “the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out by God.”

Peter calls us to live lives of holiness and godliness, already knowing it is a standard we are unable to uphold on our own. What we don't want to take away from his message is that we need to meet that standard if we are to survive the Day of the Lord. If it were possible, Jesus wouldn't have died on the Cross to redeem us. We wouldn't need his forgiveness of our sins. No, we are unable to meet this standard. That is where our fear is grounded. We hide from God because we know that we can't meet his standards of perfection. To try overcoming our fears by our efforts of meeting this standard on our own would only drive us deeper into the darkness of shame. The more we try, the more we realize just how far we fall short of that standard. It would place us under the unbearable pressure of unreachable perfection. It would trap us in the mire of guilt and force us into disbelief. Pure moralism, that is, seeking our value through what we do right or wrong, is what caused the shame of Adam and Eve after their first sin in the garden. It causes us to measure ourselves against those around us instead of valuing them as love-infused and image-bearing creations of God.

We do not strive for the standards of holiness and godliness because we find our value in them. We do not strive for the standards of holiness and godliness because attaining those things will make us feel complete. We do not strive for the standards of holiness and godliness to prove ourselves worthy of God. We strive for these things because they reveal the character and prove the love of God.

God's character is seen in his response to our inability to meet his standard of perfection. The way he responds to our inability shows the perfect union of his justice and mercy. Were God only just, then we would all need to pay the full penalty of our own sin. There would be no hope for salvation, because our salvation would be dependent on our ability to stand perfect and blameless before God. Were God only merciful, then there would be no cure for sin. Our fallen world would continue in its path to destruction. No penalty would ever be dealt for the injustices of humanity against one another. Instead, God does the unthinkable. To fully satisfy his justice, and fully reveal his mercy, God came to us as one of us. He came to us, Jesus Christ, born of the virgin Mary. He fulfilled his own law, meeting the standard of holiness and godliness we never could. He then offered his own perfect and divine life to pay the penalty of our sin. Because of this, our sins are not only forgiven, but their penalty is paid in full.

Now that the penalty for sin has been paid, we can pursue his standard of holiness and godliness freely and without fear. But we still run into the same problem. Even if we are forgiven for our failures, we are still unable to meet his standard. God still calls us to holiness and godliness. But we have proven time and again that these are unattainable by our own efforts. This is why we must remember that he not only died to paid the penalty for our sins, but that he rose again from the grave. The only way to live a holy and godly life is to be holy and godly. The only one who fulfills this requirement is God himself. Jesus rose again from the grave through the gift of new life that is in him. This same life, by the Holy Spirit, is then given to those who put their faith in his sacrifice. We can pursue holiness and godliness because God is not only with us, but in us and through us. His grace is sufficient for us. As he revealed to Paul, his grace is made perfect in weakness. So, Paul declared to the Corinthians, “I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

That which drew us to fear is now our source of power. Our weaknesses and shortcomings were our shame. But when we recognize our weakness, God gives us grace. When a child is first attempting to walk, its mother will reach out a hand to help. If the child stubbornly refuses the mother's hand, then it will continue to struggle. The child will not even be able to stand on its own. To walk, the child must submit to the mother's power and take her hand. The child must stop struggling and allow its mother to take control and lift it to its feet. This is the mother's power revealed in the weakness of her child.

When we stubbornly refuse God's grace, we run from his presence out of shame. Our situation is no different than that of Adam and Eve. We are also hiding from God. If the child gives in to its shame of being unable to stand, it will never learn to walk. The child needs to accept its weaknesses and accept the mother's offer to help. We hide because we rightly recognize that we are unworthy to stand in God's presence. We hide because we know that we can never live up to the standard set before us. We hide because we are afraid of the consequences of not living up to that standard. But because the God who holds us to that standard is the same God who died for us, we can trust when he offers his Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth. We can trust that if we acknowledge our weakness, he will not condemn us, but give us his grace.

Let's remember the words of John's Gospel, that “whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out by God.” It is not we who work, but Christ in us. And we wait patiently until the completion of that work he has called us to do. We step into the light and bear witness that it is God who has redeemed us. It is not by my own efforts that I stand before you. It is not by my own will that I share this Good News. It is the grace of God, revealed to me as it was to Peter and Paul and all of the saints. It's the same grace that is offered to you.

Let's not forget that while we face a fearsome Day that will come like a thief, it is not a day we need to fear if we put our trust in Jesus Christ. If we admit to our weakness and our inability to meet God's standard, then we wait on and even hasten the coming of that Day. We look for it with longing because on that Day all that we have worked for will be completed. Only it is not we who work, but God in us. If we trust in his work, we will find ourselves growing into the full stature of Christ; mature in faith and prepared for his eternal kingdom. Until that Day, we must continue to trust in God to work in us. We must maintain faith in his strong hand to guide us and build us up in holiness and godliness. We do this by turning to him in our weakness so that his power may rest upon us.

If there is one thing I can ask you to remember it's this: that you do not need to be ashamed because of your sin. Instead, come and receive God's grace which washes away all sin. As we receive his Sacrament at his Table, we do so in humility. We receive him knowing that we are not worthy even to gather up the crumbs from under his table. He also knows this. We aren't revealing anything new to God when we confess our sins. We are just accepting the reality of who we are and who he is. We are sinners. He is the redeemer. He is the sanctifier. And he is Savior.

Homily on Luke 14:25-35

This homily was preached at the morning prayer service at the Trinity School for Ministry Chapel on Tuesday, November 11, 2014.

Luke 14:25-35 Audio

When I first came to seminary, I knew I was facing a daunting task. I came knowing I wanted to follow Jesus, but didn't have a clear vision as to what that following might look like. During my first semester, I was working part-time 25 hours a week on top of four classes, and I came very close to giving up completely at times. Now, three years later, I find myself still working toward the degree I was originally going to finish this past May. At times, I've questioned my decision to come to seminary, and even now I have further decisions to make about my future—where I'll go and what I'll be doing. It's at this point that I really resonate with the Apostle Paul when he says, “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Jesus Christ.”

In some ways, it's actually more difficult for me to press on toward my goal now that I'm in my final semester. When I first began, everything was new, I had no idea what was ahead of me and the mystery and excitement of it all kept me going. Now, I have a pretty firm grasp on what's going on around here. And while taking two classes with Phil Harrold can feel like facing 20,000 soldiers with only 10,000, I'm just slowly pressing on toward my goal and each paper is getting harder to find the motivation to write. And this pressing on is what eats away at me more than anything else.

It's like when you have to heal after an injury. Now, I've made a few trips to the ER in my life. I've dislocated both kneecaps, had a mild concussion, and gotten two teeth knocked out, among other things. The worst part of the experience isn't the moment those terrible things happen. The pain is big and sudden and definitely not something I want to go through again. But the worst part comes after you leave the emergency room. It's having to go through the healing process. It's dealing with the constant struggle of having to press on toward your goal, with some part of you knowing that you will never be fully healed in this life time. I still deal with issues from those injuries I've gotten, dating back to high school.

Pressing on can be difficult. It could be dealing with sickness, being consistently overworked, or just barely covering the bills every month. At some point it just becomes tiresome and you want to throw your hands in the air and yell out, “I give up! I'm done!” I remember going to rehab after my knee injuries and just thinking to myself, “I can't believe I have to do this.” I was putting all of this work in just so I could be normal again.

The reason I share this with you is because in order to understand what it means to follow Jesus, we need to understand what it means to be broken. When we follow Jesus, we do so because we need him to heal us. But we aren't suddenly healed of every sin and infirmity in our lives the moment we decide to follow him. What does happen, is Jesus promises that he will be with us throughout the healing process. In fact, he is the healing process, and without him there is no healing. But healing requires rehab, and the same frustrations that come with trying to walk when you used to run is what we're dealing with when it comes following Jesus—only we actually haven't ever known what it's like to truly run.

There's a funny thing about Jesus' parable on the cost of following him. In both the case of the builder and the king, they are unable to meet the cost it would take to either finish the tower or face the oncoming army. It then sounds like Jesus is saying “if you can't afford to follow me, then turn away! It's not worth being embarrassed when you'll have to go back home.” But before this parable is the parable of the great banquet, where the man invited all the “poor and crippled and blind and lame.” None of those who were invited could ever pay this man back for the great feast he had set before them.

When we read about the cost of discipleship, we shouldn't despair when we find we can't pay the cost, but rejoice because the cost has already been paid and turn to the one who invites us to his feast with praise. Jesus is saying to us, “You're right. You cannot pay the cost. You cannot complete the tower. You will fail against the oncoming army. Either be a fool and attempt to take on that which you cannot overcome, or give up everything and follow me. Then I will overcome those things for you.”

Jesus affirms that “in the world you will have tribulation.” Those tribulations can take every ounce of energy we have and drain us until we give in and walk away. “But take heart,” he says, “I have overcome the world.”

Following Jesus is difficult. And those frustrations of everyday life can sap us of our energy until we are just working to get by. We are living a perfect analogy of that by our decision to come to seminary. We've decided to follow his call by coming here, setting aside our lives for the two or three or seven years it will take to get our degrees. We must count the cost of what that means for us. We must realize the change in the trajectory of our lives that decision initiates. And as we inevitably reach those weeks where we feel overwhelmed by our work, by our being away from home, by our slowly losing the memory of life outside of Ambridge, we need to remember to turn to God for our help through these trials.

So, as I prepare to finish my time in seminary, I say to you like the apostle Paul to Timothy, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me” a Trinity School for Ministry diploma.

Don't be discouraged. Most of all don't turn to your own strength when you experience hardships and tribulation. Turn to Jesus and let him heal you. I know it's frustrating and difficult. I know it's overwhelming and sometimes you just want to run away. But God is faithful. And he is good. You can turn to him for your strength.

Homily on Psalm 116

This homily was preached in the Morning Prayer service at the Trinity School for Ministry Chapel on Thursday, September 25, 2014.

Psalm 116 Homily Audio

Why do you love God? Why did you choose to devote your life to him? As seminarians, it's important that we ask this question of ourselves continually. Why do I love God? It's very easy to forget why we are here and what we are doing here. In the midst of our studies and conversations, we can find that we have fallen in love with the idea and the topic of God, but are slowly forgetting our love for God himself. Likewise, we can be overcome by doubts and questions, forgetting that his love is never in question. So, the answer to why we are here depends on our answer to that question: Why do I love God?

In Psalm 116, the psalmist begins, “I love the LORD because he has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy.” However much we learn about God, it all rests on this point: that God sent his only Son to die on a cross for our sins. Everything we can ever know about him is encompassed in the incarnation, crucifixion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The vastness of his knowledge and depth of his mystery are only magnified by the fact that he came to dwell among us and took our sins upon himself so that we might live in him. If God is so far beyond our understanding that we cannot hope to grasp even a whisper of his truth by our own efforts, how then can he love us enough and desire to be with us enough that he would take on flesh and the full penalty of sin on our behalf?

The perfect being, above all thought and imagination, which we call God, is beyond what we can fathom. He is above all human reason and is himself the fullness of truth which no human life can comprehend in all its years. But it all still comes back to the fact that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” The more we think about that fact, the more it exceeds our understanding. We continue our studies not because we have moved beyond the basics of the Gospel, but because we are still seeking to understand the fullness of this truth: that “God so loved the world.”

We shouldn't think too highly of ourselves because we know big words and can name important people. All of what we do here is still only for the sake of looking deeper into what has already “been proclaimed in all creation under heaven.” After all of our studies and all of our training; after the years of hard work for our degrees and accolades, the only answer we have to give to those struggling in our midst, we learned in Sunday school: Jesus. That's the root of why we're here.

“The LORD preserves the simple;” the psalmist writes, “when I was brought low, he saved me. Return, O my soul, to your rest; for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.”

The genius of the Gospel is that it is so accessible that the most simple person can understand it, but it is so complex that the greatest thinkers can spend a lifetime examining it. It's simplicity preserves God's people by grace through faith. It's complexity reveals the fullness of God in all truth. In this tension, we must remember to rest our souls in the God who has dealt bountifully with us. When we become overwhelmed by doubts and confusion, as inevitably happens the deeper we go into the study of God, we must remember the truth of who God is and what he has done.

Our psalmist writes, “for you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling.”

What we know is that God is true—not as a theory or a proposition—but as one who loves us. So we can say with the psalmist, “I believed, even when I spoke: 'I am greatly afflicted'; I said in my alarm, 'All mankind are liars.'”

We cannot trust in our own wisdom but must turn to the knowledge of God in Christ. There, we see the fullness of his being and his love. He has chosen to reveal himself to us in this way. What other reason do we have to be here? What other reason is worth the time, money, or effort that we put into our ministries? It's not only the study of God or the shepherding of his people. It's falling in love with him day by day, more and more inching closer to an understanding of that love, only to find that with each step, we are able to see that his love goes so much deeper. And we have an opportunity here to share in that love with those around us. We can “lift up the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the LORD,” and “pay [our] vows to the LORD in the presence of all his people.” Let's rejoice together in his love and seek his love more fully in our studies and in our lives.

Sermon on 1 Kings 3:5-12

This sermon was preached at Camp San Joaquin in the Sequoia National Forest, CA on Sunday, July 27th, 2014.

1 Kings 3:5-12 Audio

Part of life, and growing up, is learning to distinguish between our needs and our wants. What we want isn't always what's best for us. What we need isn't always the most enjoyable thing. Our relationships with our parents, our friends, our selves, and God influence the hierarchy of desires and needs within us. Which relationships we hold in highest esteem will determine which wants we hold of greatest value. If I care the most about the relationship I have with my parents, my desires will be for things that please them. Mostly, that's, a good education, a high-paying job, and a stable lifestyle. If I care most about the relationship I have with my friends, my desires will be for things that please them. These can vary depending on the crowds you're involved in. Sometimes it can be dangerous like excessive drinking and vandalism. Other times it can be good, like the desire to be kind to everyone and going on adventures together. If the relationship I care most about is my relationship with my self, I will want things like fame and fortune as my greatest desires. All of these first three relationships—family, friends, and self—can be influences for good or bad in our lives, but don't answer our deepest needs. Today, I want us to think about the one relationship that can properly mold our desires and needs to be one and the same. The relationship we have with God, if it is the greatest influence on our lives, will give us desires that not only satisfy us externally and physically, but internally and spiritually.

If I were to ask you right now, “what is your greatest desire,” what would it be? Health? Love? Family? Money? Would it be for somebody else? Would it be for the whole world? God asked Solomon that very question. Our Scripture today says, “At Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night, and God said, 'Ask what I shall give you.'” Solomon's response to God depended on his relationship with God. It depended on him putting his relationship with God as higher than anything else. It was greater than his possessions, than his kingdom, and even greater than himself. In fact, Solomon shows that all of his other relationships are dependent on his relationship with God.

First, Solomon talks about his relationship with his father, David. Solomon says to God, “You have shown great and steadfast love to your servant David my father, because he walked before you in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart toward you. And you have kept for him this great and steadfast love and have given him a son to sit on his throne this day.”

Solomon sees that his father was a man who walked “in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart toward God.” He recognizes his father's greatest virtue: that he had a relationship with God. For the parents here, remember that how you lead your life will have an influence on your children. The way you show your own values and desires will influences the desires of your children. If parents show a love of money, the children will value money. If a parent shows a love for certain sports teams, the children will value those sports teams. If a parent shows a love for their spouse, the children will value marital love. If the parents show a love for God, the children will value a relationship with God. Solomon was influenced by his father's relationship with God. So he desired a relationship with God.

Solomon then moves on to himself. He continues his prayer, “And now, O LORD my God, you have made your servant king in place of David my father, although I am but a little child. I do not know how to go out or come in.”

Solomon recognizes his place with God. He knows that God is in charge of his life and God has established his throne. He calls himself a little child, recognizing who he is in the sight of God. He has no experience of ruling a kingdom and knows that he needs guidance to do so. His relationship with God is what determines his understanding of himself. He understands that God is the authority in his life. Only by God's guidance can he find the right path.

This path is the path not only for himself, but for those around him. He prays to God, “And your servant is in the midst of your people whom you have chosen, a great people, too many to be numbered or counted for multitude. Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this your great people?”

His relationship with others, and how he acts toward them, is governed by his relationship with God. He knows that his people and the rule he has over them, are a gift from God. His relationship with them is dependent on his relationship with God. If he does not follow God's guidance, he will not be able to act rightly among the people.

We are not rulers of kingdoms, but the relationships we have are defined by God in the very same way as Solomon. All life comes from God. All true love comes from God. If we don't recognize God in our relationships, that is the first step to ruin. Our values are skewed when we begin to put our relationships with others above our relationship with God. If God is not at the center of our relationships, then he will also not be at the center of our desires.

Because Solomon defined his relationships with his father, with himself, and with his people by his relationship with God, he answered God's question rightly. God told Solomon, “Ask what I shall give you.” And after recognizing God's sovereignty in his relationships, Solomon replied, “Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil.”

Understanding our needs comes from understanding our relationship with God. What relationships we invest ourselves in will inevitably shape our desires. Only by investing in the relationship that fulfills our needs can we conform our needs with our desires. In Psalm 119, the psalmist shows himself to be an example of this. He prays to God, “my eyes have failed from watching for your salvation and for your righteous promise.” Though he claims, “I have done what is just and right,” he pleads to God, “turn to me in mercy, as you always do to those who love your name.”

Following God and understanding our relationship with God means knowing our need for his mercy and love. The psalmist writes, “Deal with your servant according to your loving-kindness, and teach me your statutes.” The psalmist keeps his eyes to God and everything else in his life follows from this. Defining our desires by our relationship with God reveals his love and mercy in our lives. The more we focus on him, the more we see our need for him and his faithfulness in fulfilling his righteous promise to us.

We see in Paul's letter to the Romans that when we realize our needs, that is when we will receive grace. “The Spirit helps us in our weakness,” he writes, “for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.”

If we don't recognize our weakness, our needs will not be met. God is there to provide for us. He is there to lead us. He is there to strengthen us. But if we don't turn to him, he won't force us to follow him. By acknowledging our need for God, we open ourselves up to his provision. When we try to do things on our own, we are not open to receiving what he has to offer. But the moment we realize we can't answer our real needs on our own, he is there to provide.

Solomon knew what was right to ask because he knew what was truly valuable. He also knew that only God could give him what he needed. He could not govern God's people without God giving him the wisdom to do so. He could not lead without God providing the way.

Like Solomon, each of us needs to recognize God at the center of all of our relationships. We need to see that he is the only one who can fill our real needs. “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” Solomon did not ask for long life or riches or the lives of his enemies. He knows that the proper thing to ask of God is the wisdom to live right by his teachings.

As Paul writes in his epistle, “If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.”

We have an advocate. God gives every good gift. His ultimate gift is redemption in his Son, Jesus Christ, who died for our sins and rose for our redemption. By giving his Son, he shows that he will give everything else we need. If we turn to him, we know that we are justified in death. If we trust in him, we know that we will receive the promise of new life. When the world perishes, we can trust that what we have in God will last to eternity. By faith in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit seals us as his own forever. No other relationship in life can provide this salvation for us. No other person or thing can fulfill our needs. No worldly treasure will last for an eternity.

By abiding in God and in his love through Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit we can attain the forgiveness for sins and the salvation of our souls. If we trust in him above our own power, our needs will be met. If we place our relationship with him above our relationships with all others, he will turn to us in mercy. If we love God more than we love the world, we will enter into his eternal kingdom.