Calvary United Methodist Church February 14, 2016 HOMEWARD BOUND Rev. Dr. S. Ronald Parks Children s Sermon: Luke 15:20-24 God has freely given to each of us and we joyously receive it in every moment of our lives. We welcome the children to the front of this worship space to give thanks to God for His precious gifts. Good morning, everybody! How are you doing? Last week I talked to you about a friend of mine and Fender s. His name is Mickey. Mickey lives in a house right across the street from the church. Mickey and Fender got to know each other over the last year or so. They are good buds. But something happened about five weeks ago and we began to wonder where Mickey was. So it turns out somebody checked in the newspaper and Mickey is list, which means that Mickey s mom doesn t know where he is. I ve talked to Mickey s mom a number of times over the last couple of weeks.
And it sort of occurred to me as we were thinking about not only Mickey but about the story we read last week, lost is something that we ve all experienced, right? We ve all be lost. We mentioned this last week. We ve been lost in stores. We ve been lost in the neighborhood. We ve been lost. Every time typically we get separated from the people around us who care for us. When we re lost, we don t know where we are, that s why we have to ask directions. When we re lost, we don t know where we are going, which is often times why we are so confused, because we are not sure where the road will lead us. And when we re lost, we don t know how to get home. Part of the story that we read last week talks about a son who was lost, and I want to kind of just review that from last week. Some of you may not have been here and some of you may have forgotten the story as least as far as we covered it to date. A man had two sons. The younger one decided to leave the family farm in search of adventure. So he took all he had and traveled to a distant country. Once there, he spent it all having fun. And then a severe famine swept across the region. Do you remember what a famine is? We talked about this last week. Look at the ground there; could anything grow out of that ground? No! A famine is when the ground dries up and there is no food that anybody has to eat. And because this young man had nothing, he decided maybe he needed to get a job and the only job he could find was feeding pigs. He was so hungry that he decided it would be okay to eat their food. That s how hungry he was. And then he realized when he was eating the pig s food what he had lost when he left home. And he decided to go home to see if his father still loved him even though he was lost.
Well, there s a second part of that story. That s the son s part of the story. This is the part of the story that talks about the father: Days turned into weeks. Weeks became months. Every day, the father would look out across the land hoping that his son would come home. He worried and he prayed and he loved his lost son. All the father could do was wait and hope. And then, on day, a miracle happened. Can you guess what it was? (He came home.) Let s see. The son came home? Off in the distance, the father saw his son coming home. Love took control. He dropped everything and ran to meet the young man. He lifted him up off the ground as he hugged and kissed him. Do you have people in your family who pick you up and hug and kiss you? It s pretty cool, isn t it? Nobody has done that to me in like six or seven weeks. The son immediately started to apologize: I was lost. I m not fit to be part of your family. I don t deserve to come home. Unfortunately the father wasn t listening to any of that. He was busy giving orders to his servants. Bring my best robe and sandals, he said. Put the family ring back on his finger. Because it s party time. I was afraid my son was dead. But now he s alive. I see him. He s home. He s here with us. He was lost. But now he s found. Do you guys remember that from a song somewhere? When the lost son came home, Love took control of everything. And it pushed every other emotion right out the door. And that s what love does.
When love takes control, we hold. We hold on to each other. We hold each other when we re afraid; we hold each other when we are hurting. We hold each other when we are uncertain and we hold each other when we feel loved. When love takes control, we heal each other. We do what we can to put each other s lives back together and to make sure that we re whole again. Sometimes the healing is to put a band aid on or to put some kind of ointment on. Sometimes the healing is just to remind you how important you are and how loved you are. When love takes control, we help. Who do we help? Just the people that are near us or the people that are like us or the people that we know by name? No, no, no. When love takes control, we help anybody. (Everybody!) You want to preach? Go ahead, take the rest. You are right! When love takes control we help everyone. And when love takes control, we hope. We hope that everything we do will have an important impact in the lives of somebody else. And sometimes it does and they let us know and sometimes it doesn t seem to make any difference whatsoever, but we keep doing it anyway because when love takes control, we hope. And finally, when love takes control, Home is anywhere our heart is, anywhere the love is is where we are at home. And that s what this whole building is about. This building is not anybody s house, but it s everybody s home. That s because this is where the love is God is and this is where we are, because the biggest and best love that we have ever known is the love that rests in God s heart.
That s why God is our home. So God is always with us. We want everyone to be at home in God s love. Not just us, who are here on a regular basis, but everybody should know God s love. That s why we welcome everybody into God s house. Here s a question for you. Think about this: If Mickey came home tomorrow, would his mom still love him? (Yes.) Yes, of course she would, because love always has room. Now, Mickey has not come home yet. And we pray and hope that Mickey has found another home. But I want you to meet somebody. This is Alaska. Mickey s mom went to the vet this week because she has five other cats that she has rescued. Mickey was number six. And when she go to the vet, in a little kennel in the vet s office was this cat named Alaska. Now, Alaska apparently because it got really cold this week, had gotten up in the engine of a car that had just been dropped off at Pep Boys out on Route 22. And Alaska s hands, his paws and his face were burned because the engine was so hot. So Mickey s mom, seeing Alaska and recognizing that Alaska doesn t have a home said to the vet, Would it be okay if I took Alaska home with me?
And guess what? Alaska now has a home. It s a home where he will be loved and cared for because that s what love does. The biggest and best love we ve ever known is the love in God s heart; And when we love, that s the love that comes through us. Now, everybody who came into the sanctuary this morning got one of these. Did you bring yours up? (No.) Ok. Come up and grab one. We are going to do something which demonstrates how important it is not only to have love, but to share love. So I want you to grab one of these and then I am going to have you turn and face the congregation, stand up if you would. Now, things do not take a whole lot of training to use, but a little bit of instruction is helpful. Can you show me your pointer finger? Ok. See the loop in this thing right here? You put the loop around the tip of your pointer finger. Got that? By the way, you guys should be practicing this. You ll be doing this next. You put the loop around the tip of your finger and then you pull the heart back. Now, I watched an adult do this this morning and the adult had a couple of problems because they let go of the wrong end. If you let go of the loop, it goes right back into your face. If you let go of the heart it really flies. So, here s what I want you to do. Letting go of the heart piece, not the loop, I want you to share love with me. Go ahead! Cut it loose! (Laughter). Now, you guys watched them do it and you laughed at them. Let s see how much better you do because I am going to have, at the right time, I want you to share your love. Here s what you can do. The people on
this side and that side, you can shoot it in toward the center. The people that are in the center, you can either shoot it straight up in the air or you can fire them this direction. They are made of foam and don t eat them. Someone said Oh, it s marshmallow. No, they are not to be eaten. They are to be shared. So, at the right time and what s the right time? It s when we get to the right point of this particular song which we ve already sung before. So we are going to sing and at the right time you are going to let it rip, right? Here we go: Jesus loves me, this I know. Fills my heart so I will grow. Gives me gifts to share with all. Gives me faith to hear his call. (not yet) Yes, Jesus loves me. (Are you ready?) Yes, Jesus loves me. (It s almost time) Yes, Jesus loves me. It s time to let it go! It s not an Easter egg hunt! Now, here s the thing. Some of you might have been reluctant to fire them because you wanted to make sure you got it back. Here s another way we are going to share God s love. If there are some laying on the floor around you, you are going to scoop them up and you are going to make sure you find somebody who doesn t have one because it s not enough just to let it fly, we want to share it in person too. That s why it s important not only to have one for yourself, because you are loved, but to share one with others. So if you have extras, make sure that nobody leaves without one. How you do that, I m leaving that up to you. Thanks for share in our time this morning. You may be seated.
Message: Philippians 2 (selected) (Video) Do you know Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior? It s one of those questions most of the time we dread being asked. At least I do. Because the answer is both easy and complicated. The answer is yes, I do know Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior. But what does that mean? Here are some words that should be a little bit more familiar to you; words that will help us remember who he is: Why should we tarry when Jesus is pleading, pleading for you and for me? Why should we linger and heed not his mercies, mercies for you and for me? Come home. Come home. You who are weary come home. Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling. Calling, o sinner, come home.
Those words were written 136 years ago by Will Thompson and he first envisioned that song, Softly and Tenderly, Jesus is Calling as a lullaby to be sung to children. Why? Because even children can understand what it means to come home. And Thompson believed that message of salvation should be so simple that a child should be able to understand it. It s exactly that sensibility which prompted Dwight L. Moody, perhaps the greatest preacher of the 20 th century to use that particular lullaby as an invitation or an altar call that he would issue at the end of his worship service. And there were often thousands and thousands of people in attendance. The invitation was to be saved, to give one s life to Christ, to recognize Christ as one s savior. Moody believe that that message, like Thompson, should be simple enough for a person to has never heard of Jesus Christ to understand what it is that God is offering. And Moody appreciated, as did Thompson the scriptural passages which give rise to that image of being with Christ as going home. And it comes from John 14. It happens around the table of the Lord s Supper, which Jesus celebrates with his disciples for the last time on Maundy Thursday. And this is part of what he said to them as he was preparing to leave them: Don t let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. There are many rooms in my Father s house. And I m going on ahead to prepare a place for you. When everything is ready, I ll be with you as you make your way home. But Thomas, you know the famous doubter; Thomas spoke up and said Master, we don t know where you re going. How can we know the way home? And Jesus answered with these lines that we all know. He said, I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. If you want to live in my Father s house, walk with me. Salvation, according to Thompson and according to Moody and according to Jesus, is the journey home, the journey home to be with God.
Now, that may sound a little simplistic to all you theological aficionados out there and you may be wondering, well, gee, that s probably not exactly what the United Methodist Church has to say about salvation and you would be right. The United Methodist Church like many Christian traditions throughout the centuries has come to a whole bunch of different ways of understanding the importance of Christ in the life of all believers. And they have come up with a variety of different schemes or different images to use to talk about what Christ has done. The words of the current discipline share this in terms of how significant the idea of salvation is and what exactly it includes: We hold in common with all Christians a faith in the mystery (uh-oh, mystery) the mystery of salvation in and through Jesus Christ. Because God truly loves us in spite of our sin, God judges us, summons us to repentance, pardons us Receives us by that grace given to us in Jesus Christ, and gives us hope of life eternal. See, I knew you knew it was more complicated than going home. Salvation from that point of view is God s gift to us. It s something God does on our behalf. It s something we don t initiate and that we can t cause to happen. It s what God does for us in Christ. Wesley preached a ton of times on salvation. This is just one instance and it talks about how important it is that God has acted first so that we may be saved through our faith.
Salvation is not a blessing which lies on the other side of death. It isn t something in the other world. It is not something at a distance: it is a present thing; a blessing which, through the grace of God, we are now in possession of. God has given it and we have it. The meaning is clear. It s in the past tense. You have been saved. Salvation is God s work from the first dawn of grace to its glorious consummation. Let me just back up a second and look at that last sentence. Salvation is God s work from the first dawn of grace to its glorious consummation. We spent a lot of time last week talking about grace, about the four phases of it. Here s a little review because the quiz will be immediately following the offering: Prevenient grace are the gifts that we have been given, the gifts we receive, long before we ever know and believe in Christ as a Savior. These are the gifts that awaken us to the glory of God and to the awe of creation and to the different aspects of life and all the blessing that are ours.
But then there is something very specific that happens in Christ. That cross up there in that stained glass window: that is the symbol of God s justifying grace, the gift of forgiveness that God hands to us and the faith that it engenders in us that we can reach out and receive it. Prevenient grace awakens us to God. Accepting or justifying grace lets us receive the gift of forgiveness. And from that point of view, salvation is God acting to bring us home. It is God sending His son into the world, so that whoever believes in him may not perish but have life everlasting. It s all on God. But there s more to it than that. Salvation is also not only what God does for us, it s God s gift working and moving through us and Wesley was huge on this aspect of salvation. That it s not just a gift that we passively receive. It is a gift that once received comes alive in us. In the sermon Salvation by Faith, Wesley outlines how salvation is more than just something God does in and through Christ to bring us home. It involves us. As we are born again by grace and the Spirit, we are brought to new life. Like an infant, we receive the milk of the word and grow in maturity. As God makes his home in us, we move stepping from grace to grace to grace until we become perfect; fully reflecting the love of Christ.
We are not saved by the works that we do, but by the grace that is working within us. This grace is never ours, therefore we never take credit. It belongs always to God. So, there was that prevenient grace and the justifying grace, that s what God does. Then there s this sanctifying grace: the gifts that equip and enable us to take step after step after step, grace upon grace upon grace, to advance in our discipleship, to move forward on our journey toward perfection, perfection in perfectly reflecting Christ. We advance by this grace and God is working within us. And then there s that final grace, that glorifying grace: gifts that glorify God s reign in heave and that proclaim our herald the arrival of the Kingdom on earth. It is that grace that moves within us salvation is more than just what God does for us. Salvation is God living at home in us, and what that means to our life and how it changes us. Salvation is one part of what God does for us.
And the second part is what God does through us. And that s the journey. It s God s gift given for us though Christ and God s gifts through the Spirit working through us. And that process of salvation is not finished in you or in me or in creation until everyone is at home in God. Paul shares these words with the people at Philippi. It talks about how important our part is in salvation: Has the love of Christ made any difference in your life? And God s people said (Yes). Oh! Does living in a community of the Spirit change who you are? (Yes) You know, I m about to turn the lights out and go home. If you don t answer enthusiastically yes or amen to those statements, then God s got more work to do as he does in all of us. If that s true, if God changes who we are and being together changes who we see ourselves being, let that love and spirit bring us together in unity. Let it make us one. Let us think together with the mind of Christ. Let us share our gifts with the heart of Christ, right? Care for each other as he cares for us. When you put others first, you let him take the lead on the journey home. It s God who is at work within you. His grace will enable you to want, first of all, and secondly to work for the things that really matter. His grace will lead you home. If salvation is God s work from the first dawn of grace to its glorious consummation,
So what then is our part in the work of salvation? What are we supposed to do after we answer Yes, Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior? What then? Well, it s pretty clear. We commit to growing in grace. We understand that God s grace is constantly poured out before us and within us. We understand that the gifts God continues to give us, we have only just begun to open, just begun to understand how they may be employed in us. We must no longer be children who are tossed about by the winds of opinion or deceived by the persuasive words of so-called experts. We must grow in grace in every way; into the likeness of Christ. He has brought us together to be one body formed of many different parts. And each of us mature, as each part matures, it contributes to the growth of the body. Not just the body gathered here, but the living presence of Christ all around the world, a body which comes to maturity in love. That, Brothers and Sisters, is what we commit to. We commit to growing in grace. And we commit to knowing in faith. One of the things that Moody did as he preached his sermons was to invite people to what was called the anxious bench. The anxious bench was a really long and uncomfortable pew much different than the one you are currently sitting on, on which people were invited to allow the fear of God to become real as Moody would preach about hell and fire and brimstone. He wanted people to come to know Christ by faith. You and I, we re past that point. We already understand the grace of God, but we commit ourselves to knowing Him more and more deeply, more intimately, more
personally. We want to grow in our understanding. That s why we pray. That s why we study. That s why we worship together. That s why we re the church. Because only in the living of faith do we come to know God more clearly. Everything has limits, Paul said. Our knowledge is incomplete, but there will come a time when everything will be completely revealed. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; and when I grew up, I outgrew my childish ideas. In this moment, we see things through the fog of our ignorance. But soon we ll see Christ just as clearly as he sees us; face to face. Have you met Christ face to face? I have. I ve met Christ face to face in this place, in Community General Hospital, at the Neighborhood Center, in the food bank, in the choir room downstairs, in the youth room, in the daycare. I see Christ all over the place. I want to know him more personally, more intimately. I want my knowledge to be deeper, so I m looking for him in the faces of all those around me, and I see him there. I don t know him perfectly, and neither do you, but there are moments when he is as clear to me as you are sitting there right now. That s what we grow in. We commit to knowing with faith what we believe. We commit to showing others in the hope that what we know we can share with them. You cannot transfer salvation, but you can love, you can give someone what God has given to you in a loving and redemptive way and ask and invite them to understand that the reason you are doing this is because of Christ who showed us what it means to live, not just live in this world, but live eternally, for all time, in line with God s design and purpose. You ve been chosen by God for this new life. Show who you belong to by wearing the gifts of his grace on every part of your being and in every act of your living.
Proudly wear the clothing of compassion and kindness, humility, meekness, patience. Forgive as quickly and as completely as the Master forgives you. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts and let hope bind you into one body. Do everything in the name of Jesus and in all things be thankful. We want to show the hope that is our hope, that our lives can be something more than allowing us to be machines for the making and spending of money. That s not why we are here. And like the younger son who goes off to a distant country and blows everything he has on comfort and convenience, these are the temptations that are always available to us. We want to have the hope of the world to show to others. And we commit to going from this place in love. If you look at your watch, you will realize we are going to be going out of here very shortly. How will you go out? You know we had these little foam hearts shooting around? I was serious when I said how many of you don t have a heart in your possession right now because you shot it? Go ahead, put your hands up. And if you look on the floor and under the seats you are going to find hearts so that you ll probably have three or four in your hand. Now, I m leaving it up to you to find these people that don t have any. That s what this church is about. God is leaving it up to us to go out there and find people who don t have that love in their hearts, who don t know it by experiencing it and who don t know it in terms of sharing it. Go and train everyone you meet in this way of life, Jesus says, marking them by baptism in the threefold name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Here s how we can be sure we re doing things God s way: we keep his commandments. Our actions should completely reflect our words.
The one who keeps God s word is the person in whom we see God s mature love. This is the only way to be sure we re in God. Anyone who claims to be at home in God ought to live the same kind of life Jesus lived. This is the light of love that now shines in you! And it s God s work from the first dawn of grace, from the first instant when you drew that first breath of life to the glorious consummation of your life at some point in the future when you see Christ face to face. If that s what God s work is all about, we understand that we have a part in the work of salvation and it is to always Grow in grace, to always be challenging and pushing the gifts that God has given us, to know more and more with daily study, with discussion, with conversation, with stretching our minds and trying to understand what it is that God is saying to us. We want to show that hope to the world, so that they may know that life is not hopeless, it is not pointless, it s not meaningless and it s not for you. Life is not for me and it s not for you. It s for others. You and I are entrusted with the task of making sure that God s love is shared through us, with others.
And that s why we go in love. We go in love and we know the way home. Christ has shown us. Let us present our tithes and offerings. Benediction: Don t want to stop, do you? Of course not, because if salvation is God s work from the first dawn of grace to its glorious consummation, then we ve got work to do. We have the work of salvation and that work is always about: Growing in grace, about knowing God better through our faith, about showing the world the true hope that leads us forward and about going forth in the spirit of love, because we know The way home. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. And we go in his love. Thanks be to God. Amen.