Our inheritance is a relationship with God - by Pastor Dave The Gospel from the sixth chapter of Luke: Glory to you O God. 20 Then he looked up at his disciples and said: Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. 21 Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. 22 Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you [d] on account of the Son of Man. 23 Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets. 24 But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. 25 Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. 26 Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets. Love for Enemies 27 But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29 If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. 30 Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away 1
your goods, do not ask for them again. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you. The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to You O Christ. My focus today is on the Epistle lesson and that phrase "in Christ we have also obtained an inheritance" As Paul describes to the Christians in Ephesus and to us, he spoke about their riches of the glorious inheritance among the saints. Now inheritance is a word that I find it with people has two sides to it. It is one of those words with two poles to it. Now on the one hand there are some very positive things about inheritance, right. I mean you can associate that with the riches and treasures, special things handed down from the generation before. Inheritance can have a very positive meaning. But all you have to do is read dear Abby in the newspaper and you find that inheritance is also can have a very negative term as people clamor in fights in the family's rarely sometimes can get very nasty about inheritances and inheritances can be that which are rich and give up something extra to folks in life and on the other hand inheritances can be wasted can bring other kinds of things in families like the vision and fights or in some people's case they cab gets spoiled by the inheritance that they receive. So inheritance is an interesting word and so, you know does, is it really good news that we get an inheritance. Of course it is, but, you know, sometimes some of those other things. What is our inheritance? What is the good news of the inheritance that Paul was talking about. The inheritance, of course, is our salvation history. The inheritance that has been handed down to us is the good news that God made us in the beginning for relationship with Him. That 2
in the beginning we were made in a purpose that is linked to the divine. God wanted us in relationship. He created us in a positive and wonderful way so that we might have communion with Him. Of course then the brokenness our sin steps in. We rebel against God. We look for our own gods. We try to create ourselves as our own gods and we stray in sin, but the good news is that God still loves his creation. He could have destroyed it all in the flood, but no, He set up to preserve and still give a future. We have a God who recognizes our brokenness and our sin, but, on the other hand, who always holds out a future to us - the rainbow in the sky, the symbol of God's continued love for his creation. And then He sat and gave us indeed the ancients. He gave us Moses and he gave us a Abraham and he gave us all of those folks to help steer us and bring us closer to Him. To overcome some of the things that happen when we sin, he gave us the laws and the rules, the 10 commandments, the things that would be guide points for us to live through life. That's our inheritance. That's part of what we celebrate. That s what Paul says is the good stuff that we have received. And finally, when all of that still wasn't enough, God gives his only son to die for us - to experience the fullness of our brokenness; and in spite of it and through it, to work out our salvation so that once and for all for those who believe they can be linked in an eternal relationship with God. That is the inheritance that we have received. Now we live each day with the certainty that because of this inheritance, a certainty that we have a relationship with God and that nothing in all of creation Paul says in Romans eight will separate us from the love of God in Christ 3
Jesus. What a wonderful inheritance! It makes you wonder why aren't more people wanting this inheritance? Well, for one thing, we're living in a culture that does not want to recognize the need for a greater power. We live in a culture that is pretty much determined to do its own thing, you know, get what you can, and I got rights, you know? We have, we live, in a culture very different from what some of us grew up with. That culture has shifted so we have this treasure, but we have a lot of people out there who don't know that they made the treasure. They don't know about that treasure. There are many who are struggling and they don't even know what they're struggling about. Some of them struggle with their own self worth. Some of them struggle with a sense of shame. Some with a sense brokenness. Some with a sense of loneliness. And yet, here we are, you and I, holding a remarkable inheritance - a wonderful, remarkable treasure of good news that has been handed down to us from the saints of all, from the folks in our lives. When I think of saints, I think of my Aunt Idy, who would love to sit and talk about God with us children. She just would share how God had been with her in the roughest times in her life. How god was her friend and helped her. As a little child the impression of that was so rich, so wonderful, for me that I knew that there was a God who cared out there. That was an inheritance passed along to me. There was the inheritance of my grandparents who taught me that God loves all people and that God gave his son for all people that there might be life. And that taught me something about community and living with others. There was Simando, my Sunday school teacher for many years, who passed along 4
the inheritance that even though there is brokenness in the world, God calls us and empowers us to do justice and goodness. I think of those people and the gifts that they gave me and now I want to share them with my children. I want to share them with others. When we wonder why the culture has changed, part of the reason is that we've stopped seeing what we have as a rich inheritance to be shared. And we somehow assume that they will all know about it. Yet the message of the Gospel, the best gift we can receive at anytime and anyplace, is that which was always meant to share. Evangelical, you know, means messengers. It's to share and so we have a rich inheritance that we are called to share as we minister to others. To show them, to demonstrate, and to become those folks who pass along the inheritance that others might find the Joy and the peace, the forgiveness and the grace that is Jesus Christ, our Lord. In his Name, Amen. 5