Calvary United Methodist Church February 26, 2017 There and Then. Here and Now. Rev. Dr. S. Ronald Parks Children s Sermon: John 14:1-6 God has blessed us with gifts at every age and station in life. We welcome the children to the front of this worship space that we may say thank you to the One who gives us all good things. Good morning! Good to see everybody this morning. How are you doing? Good. Where are we right now? You are in church, that s exactly right. We are at a place called Calvary and what is this place? You already mentioned the name church, but what really is the church? Well, a church is a couple of things. It is a house of faith. In other words, this is the place that the people who follow Jesus who are a part of this church family, this is where they come to celebrate their faith but it s also a church home. For those of us who have been here for a period of time, this kind of feels like home. So you came from one home to a different kind of home. How far away from your house are you right now? Do you know in miles how far away you are from home. Any guesses? Well, let me ask you this: how long does it take you to get here? Wow! Ok. Let me ask you this: could you find your way home from here if you had to? You could. You sitting next to whoever is driving the car, you could tell them exactly where to turn to get you back home. You could do that? That s pretty good stuff, right? Yeah, that s pretty amazing. And I bet if I asked you, you could tell me what your address is, right? Because that s important stuff. You need to know that. Well, not only do you and I as people need to know that, but I want to show you a little news clip about a dog named Max. Max had a challenge, probably more difficult than you or I will ever face. So take a look at this little news item:
(VIDEO) That s a pretty amazing story, right? Because, the place where the car accident occurred which scared Max and caused him to run away was called Sterling, CT. And it s about 45 miles from Coventry, CT, where Max and his owner live. Now that s about the distance between here And a place called Gettysburg. Do you know where Gettysburg is? It s about 45 miles away. Now, here s the question, and no one seems to be able to answer this question: how did he find his way home?
Well, the dog experts suggest that dogs memories are both detailed and they re sense oriented. He remembered where he had been. And that enabled him to find his way back home. In other words, somehow he was abler to go backwards in time and retrace his steps to get him back to where he came from. Home was where he was from and he knew where he wanted to go, he just had to figure out how to get there. And that s the same with you and me, right. You and I know how to get home because home is where we are from and if you have been coming to church from the same house that you ve lived in, let s say for weeks or months or days, it s not surprising that you would know how to get back home, because you ve watched the trip both directions and you remember how to get there. But how would you find your way to a place that you ve never been. For example, I asked you if you knew where Gettysburg was. How would you get to Gettysburg if you ve never been there or you didn t know how to go? And not only that, not only a place like Gettysburg here on this earth, but how would we get to a place like God s home in heaven?
This is a question that Jesus disciples asked him and they knew him better than anybody. They asked him the question: How can we know the way to God s house? And that little exchange occurred on the last night that Jesus spent with his disciples. And that story is found in John 14, versus 1-6. Jesus told his friends, because he knew he was going to be leaving them soon: there s nothing to be afraid of. Trust me. My Father s house is big enough for all His children. I m on my way to get your room ready. At home do you have a room? Yeah, it s a place where all your stuff is. It s probably the place where you sleep. It s the place where, when you are mad you go and you shut the door, right? Right? You ve got your own place. And in God s house, every one of us has our own place. That s pretty cool, right? When everything is ready, Jesus said, I ll be right here. You and I will walk home together. In fact, you already know the way to God s house. Now, here s the thing. Thomas, thinking what all the other disciples were thinking, he said it out loud: Master, we don t know where you are going. How can you expect us to know the way home? And what Jesus says next is one of the most significant things in all of the Bible: Jesus said, I am the Way home. I am the Truth about your place in God s house, and I live the Life that God has given me to give to others, to give to you. If you know me, you know my Father, you know God. You have seen Him in me. That s a really important thing for us to remember, because even though we ve never been to that house in heaven, and we ve never met anyone else that s been there either Here s how we know how to get to God s house.
First of all, we know where it is we re going. We don t know exactly where we re going to go today, but we know that when our journey is complete, we are going to God s house. That s the destination of all of our lives. We all end up in the same glorious place and there is a place for us there. And we know the road that will take us there. We don t know everything that is going to happen every day, so we don t exactly know where our travels are going to take us, but we know the road that ends there. And the road is this: to love God and others that s the direction. That s what it is that puts us on the path and that takes us home. We know who is leading us home. You see, a lot of time we think of ourselves as being pretty much on our own, but if we think about Jesus as the one who leads us through each day, we think of him as the Good Shepherd of the flock. That he s always with us, that he s always interested in enfolding us in his care and love. And we know who is walking with us all the way home.
That s what this place is. This is the place where all the people walking together along the way of Christ, they come together and they form the body of Christ in this time and in this place. And we know who is waiting for us when the journey is complete, right? We will live in Christ s love forever. Now, there are still a lot of questions that we all have, but we know that each new day is a chance to take another step forward on the road home As we walk with Him, And we walk with one another, right? Just follow the footprints of loving God and loving others,
And follow the one who made them. I found a really cool reminder to what it means to follow in the footprints of Jesus. Pull the light down if you would just for a second. This is the coolest thing ever. Take a look at this. This is a foot and it flashes two colors. What s better than that? But I only have one. No, I m just kidding. I got one for everybody, right? And we want to remember a really, really old line from an old show that used to go around in the United States way back in the 1800s, Feets don t fail me now! Right? We got lots of room to go; we have lots of road to travel. Let s follow in the footsteps of the one who went before us. Thanks for sharing in our time this morning.
Sermon: 2 Peter 3:8-13 (VIDEO) That U-Tube clip which is only a couple of minutes long is taken from a much larger sermon by Billy Graham. It was preached on November 4 of 1986 and it s called Timeless Truth. Graham has preached a lot about heaven over the years and has answered many questions that people have put to him, because a lot of us have a lot of questions about something that seems so far off, so amazing, so unlike anything that we ve ever seen. And so in 2012 this little book was compiled by Graham and by his associates. It s called The Heaven Answer Book. And as soon as worship is over today, it can be found in our church library because I bought a copy to leave behind for you. I ve already had a chance to look at it and there are some interesting thoughts about some interesting questions. For example: is heaven a literal place, simply a state of mind or is it a kind of a dream? Can we be assured that heaven will make us perfect? What happens when we die? How do we know our souls won t be trapped in our bodies after we are dead? Does God forbid cremation? All sorts of things that Graham over the years has addressed in a variety of setting and sermons are pulled together in answer to some people who have asked questions on the website that his organization maintains. So, there are answers here, at least the answers that Billy Graham would give. But that stills leaves us with the question: So what is it? What does it mean? What difference does it make? You see, heaven is for all of us one of those things that we talk about as Christians, but it s a piece of jargon, it s a piece of idea that s very much connected to what this place is, to church, to our discipleship, to Christianity.
In ancient Greek and Hebrew the word for heaven has two meanings. The first is an astronomical meaning: Heaven means sky or cosmos. In the beginning, God creates heavens and the earth, that place where when you look up at night, you see the arch of the Milky Way, that s the heaven that God creates: the heavens and the earth. It s a very physical thing. It s matter. It s what it is that the universe is made of. But then the second meaning of those words, in both Greek and Hebrew, is more theologically based. It has nothing to do with sky and stars and earth. It has to do with God and residence. Heaven literally means the place where God lives, God s dwelling place, God s residence, God s home. And because of that, this idea of heaven, both the astronomical idea and the theological idea, both the idea of stars and sky and heavens and the idea that heaven is God s home, it leads us to two main types of answers to the question: what is heaven? And they are both connected and they are both important, but one of them may be more meaningful to you than the other is. For a lot of our tradition, a lot of time throughout the history of the church, heaven has meant an eternal and a distant location. Graham, in that little clip, used the phrase: it s a place, a place where things are perfect. It is somehow a location, something that you could go to. And eternal and distant location to be sure, but it is not here. God lives there, in that place, wherever that place may be. And joy and peace will be ours if and when we leave from this place and wind up in that place, wherever that place may be. And there s always that if and when piece to this understanding, because if heaven is a place that we have to go to, then we all know those traditions about the pearly gates and the book of life and the judgement that connects to it, if and when we get there, if we are allowed in and at that point in time when our lives end and we have literally no place else to go. Not only does that talk about heaven as the thing after our lives, but it also defines our lives here and now.
Until that time, if and when we get to go, life is a trial to be endured. It s a testing ground, and a challenge to be overcome. We have to work diligently at being good enough to have our name written in the book of life. The problem is, and Graham points this out in his book, that you and I will never be good enough to earn our way in, and so Christ has already opened the gates for us. And as Jesus tells his disciples on the last night of his earthly life: I am going there now and I m going to prepare a place for you. And when that place is finished, you and I will walk together. You see, it s still that idea that heaven is somehow distant from us. It s out there. But there is another way of looking at heaven, one that perhaps is a bit more existential, fancy word for connecting to my life, but one which allows us to experience heaven now. If heaven is where God lives, then heaven is a vibrant presence and a graceful relationship between ourselves and the One who made us and the One who redeems us and the One who sustains us, right? God lives here, not only there in some distant far off future time, but God lives in the presence of those who have made God s home in their hearts. God lives here. And joy and peace is ours now, not if and when we get in, but because God has already gotten in. Joy and peace is ours because God already lives here. That s a joy that we can experience now. That s a peace that passes our understanding, not because it is bigger than our imagination can grasp, but because we don t understand how such joy finds its way into our hearts. And you and I as disciples, we are getting ready to know the perfection not only of God s love here, but of that perfect destination, that place where every tear shall be wiped away and every eye shall be dried and mourning and suffering and pain and death shall be no more.
That s the perfection of that heaven out there, but there is still the perfection of God s love living in us. We are preparing for perfection there and then, but as disciples, here and now. And as we approach the season of Lent, it is important to hold those two ideas together. It is not only out there at some time when and then, it is here in our hearts now. 2 Peter 3 shares these ideas about not only the nature of God, but the nature of God s living in us: Time, it matters to us, doesn t it? And it seems like the longer we live, the more it matters, because we recognize that the number of days ahead of us are fewer than the days behind us. At least, if you are sixty, that s what you are thinking. Now, I m only middle aged if I live to be 120. I m on the downhill slide. Time, yeah, it matters. God, however, is timeless. God is eternal. All the things that I sweat and fret about, God is not concerned with that. God is concerned with my anxiety, but time, that s not a problem for God. To the Lord, one day is like a thousand years. To Him, a thousand years, they are just like a day. The Lord isn t slow to act or late in fulfilling his promise to us, his promises to always be with us, his promises to lift us to joy and celebration in every moment of life, no matter what the circumstances are. It s not that God is avoiding us. God is waiting.
The delay is for us. He s patiently waiting for us to get ready. So don t wait until tomorrow! This life doesn t go on forever. Can I get an Amen? (Amen.) Yeah. The end of our days is coming. It s unpredictable. You don t know when and how and in what circumstance, and thank God for that, right? You think you have enough to worry about now. Imagine what your life would be if somehow you knew what God knows. So live a holy life every day. In other words, live like this was the last day you had and that you knew it was a gift from God and that you knew God had intended for you to do one last thing today. What is it that you ve been waiting to do in order to make things right and prepare? Think about that. What would a holy life look like today if you knew this is the last chance you had? Work diligently to do God will as you wait for a new heaven and a new earth. That s that promise of that heaven, that eternal and distant thing there and then, when and if. His house is now and shall be our home. We re already there. We re already living in God s love and God s love is living in us, but imperfectly and that s what this discipleship thing is all about. That s what this church is for.
We re getting ready for perfection, not just the perfection that happens when the last date on the tombstone is carved, The perfection that happens not just there and then, but here and now. This is a place of preparation and we re getting ready because we re getting serious. Lent is a reminder that this journey of ours, this discipleship thing of ours, is something that requires effort. It s not a hobby, it s not a curiosity. This is not a show and by the way, it always amazes me how many people think of church like going to the movies. If I show up and the show is good, I m okay paying for it. But if I m not there, hey, why should I pay? I didn t get to see the show. Seriously? That s the way we look at being part of this body of Christ on a weekly basis? We think that if we re not here somehow this place doesn t exist? This place exists because we are serious, so if you are serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of your face. Look up and be alert to what is going on. See things from Christ s perspective. This old life where we are caring only about ourselves, where we are looking to invest only in our own futures, this life is dead. Your new life is with Christ in God.
So, let s get serious about that. Let s spend more than an hour a week thinking, praying, studying, listening to the voice of God. Because this, this is a time of rest. The work happens outside this place. So let s get real. Getting ready means getting real; getting real honest; getting real introspective; getting not only really serious but getting to the point where we really see ourselves for who we are. It s who you are and the way you live, that what counts before God. Your life and worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. Jesus says: I m the Way, the what? The Truth and the Life. That s the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are real and simple and honestly themselves before Him. God is Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their authentic spirits, their true selves, in honesty and adoration. Let s get real. What is it that we care about? Who do we adore? Who are we serving? What God are we worshiping? Let s ask ourselves these questions and as we do so, lets get righteous about it. Getting ready is getting righteous. Knowing what the right thing to do is and committing to working diligently at doing it.
I have been crucified with Christ, Paul says. My ego myself it s no longer at the center of my existence. It doesn t matter how I appear to you or what you think of me. Man, if you could get that tattooed on your forehead, what a difference it would make in your life. To walk up to other people and say, You know, it doesn t matter what you think of me or how I appear to you, I m living in Christ. I m not trying to impress God, but Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not mine, but it s lived by faith in the Son of God. He loved me. He gave himself for me. He lives in me. Now, after receiving those precious gifts, I m not going to ignore them. Let righteousness rule. You see there s a little bit of a twist there because we re not going to get righteous, we are going to let the righteousness of Christ rule in us. There is no righteousness in me. But I m going to let the Christ who lives in me, that eternal home, that heaven in my heart, that s what s going to rule and I m going to get ready because I m going to get busy. William James referred to the life of discipleship as a strenuous life. It strains. It taxes us. It s something that we have to work at and strive for. Can you say to yourself you understand the strenuous life of a disciple? Are you working at it? Love makes up for practically anything. Therefore be quick to give a meal to the hungry and a bed to the homeless. And do it all with joy.
Be generous with all the different things God gave you. Enjoy the opportunity to pass your blessings around so that everyone gets in on it. If kind words help, speak them. If gracious action is required, do it. That way, God s bright presence will be evident in everything. People will see heaven in you and Christ who lives in your heart will get all the credit as the one whose power and presence is at work in you. Do all the good you can, come on, you know it, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can. Let s get busy here, folks. There is so much that we re not doing, so many ways that we re going through the motions. You see, we re getting ready for perfection. Not just some perfection off in the distance, in eternity, not just out there and then whenever that is, but here and now.
And starting on Ash Wednesday, as we think about ourselves walking through the wilderness with Christ May we remember that His house is now and shall be, now and then, our home. And thanks be to God for a home not made with hands, but eternal in this heaven and in that. Let us present our tithes and offerings. Benediction: And the victory is God s grace made perfect in us, made perfect through us, made perfect for those around us. Let them see heaven in us. And let us celebrate the victory then and there, but importantly enough, here and now. Thanks be to God and remember repent and believe. The Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven, it s here. Amen.