6.6.08--Undeserving and Unfathomable Love

**I have the weekend off from preaching this week, so I thought that I would treat those few people who read my blog to a sermon from the past. This is a sermon that I preached to FUMC New Braunfels while working there as the youth director. I hope you enjoy!**

I really lucked out, because I get the opportunity here to speak on my favorite Scripture text! Now, I do have to admit, as I’m sure the youth are telling their parents and everyone around them right now, that pretty much every time that I preach I say that something or other is my favorite thing… be it Scripture, story, song, whatever… But this truly is my favorite Scripture passage, and later you’ll find out why.

Enough senseless talking, though. Let’s jump into the text.

I’m going to focus on Romans 5:1-8 today. We’ll start by breaking up the text into two different parts. The first section is Romans 5:1-5. Let’s re-read it. 

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith in into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering leads to perseverance, perseverance leads to character, and character leads to hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.

I heard a story on KLOVE the other day that I want to share with ya’ll. The story is about a young Muslim man named Hajib who, after speaking with a Christian missionary, converted to Christianity and gave his life to Christ. Excited about his new-found faith, Hajib ran from the clandestine home of the missionary to his town about 5 miles away. Upon arriving at the town square, he began to tell any and everyone he could about Jesus and about how his life was changed because of this talk with the missionary. The people were enraged at his audacity in speaking out against Mohammed and their religion. They were so upset that a group of women attacked him and beat him within an inch of his life, leaving him for dead. His family came to him, picked him up, and took him home to heal. When he was able to get up and move around again, he left his house and went back to the center of his town and began again to share the Gospel to any and everyone who passed by him. Again, a group of angry women attacked him and again left him for dead. And again, his family came to pick him up and take him home to recover. When he was well enough, he went out for a third time to proclaim the name of Jesus. This time, the group of women came to him weeping and asked him why he kept coming back to them over and over, knowing that they were just going to attack him. His answer was simple. He said, “I have learned an amazing truth about Jesus the Christ, and I know that everyone will want to hear about it. I obviously wasn’t sharing him the right way, so I decided to try again and again until you came to know and love Him like I do.”

Even through suffering, Hajib persevered, and because of that, his village came to know Christ. This is the story I think of when I read the first few verse of Romans 5. Because of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we are able to persevere through many different hardships and are better off because of it!

I just got through doing a translation and in-depth exegetical analysis of the book of Romans, and upon compiling my first draft, I sent it to my mom to proof read for me. She’s a high school English teacher and she has edited my papers for grammar and spelling mistakes since I started writing, so I didn’t hesitate in sending this 150+ page translation and exegesis to her to read through and proof read. She started by reading my translation of the Epistle to get in the right mindset for what she was doing. When she reached this section of Romans 5, she called me crying, saying that everything it says is true, and that she was so greatly encouraged by it that she finally felt hopeful about things.

You see, my mom has been in and out of the hospital multiple times this past year and a half. She has been battling some health problems that don’t seem to want to leave her alone. So far, she has had three different surgical procedures, had her appendix and left ovary removed, and is about to undergo a hysterectomy. This in and of itself would probably still be bearable for my mom. She’s a pretty strong person. But at the same time that all of this has happened, my dad, who is a tech-sergeant in the Air Force, has been away more than he’s been home. Most of his assignments are to places like South Carolina and Florida where he took part in a couple training exercises, but he has also served a 6 month tour in Iraq and is heading overseas to Afghanistan in the fall. The stress level at home has been through the roof.

When my mom read the first 5 verses of Romans 5, though, she saw exactly what it was that Paul was talking about and was able to look back and see Christ’s work and presence in her life even in the midst of sorrow and pain. She now has these five verses written all over her house and classroom so that she can always be reminded of how God is still present in a very real and very loving way.

I think this message is one that is very much so applicable in all of our lives. We’ve all gone through hard times. We have all dealt with suffering, and we’ve all seen difficult situations that we’ve had to pull through. And just as the saying goes, “what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.” That might be a harsh truth, but it is a strong truth. If life were a walk in the park, we wouldn’t be the people that we are today. I wish that for all of us life could be one fun party after another, and I know that there are many people in the world who spend their entire lives and everything that they have on reaching that next high in life. The truth of it is, though, that no matter how much we love those mountain-top experiences, it is in the valleys of life, in the dirt of suffering, that we grow the most.

Now let’s jump into the second half of the Scripture:

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrated and demonstrates still His own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

This is the part of the Scripture that is my favorite. In fact, this Scripture is so important to me that I had it tattooed onto my arm. How amazing is this? While we were still sinners, Christ died for us!

I must admit, though, that as much as I love these three verses and as often as I have read them, it was not until this past semester that I began to truly understand what it was saying, especially the seventh verse. When I began working on my studies in Romans in January, I knew that this was going to be one of those verses that I would struggle with a little more than others. You see, I did not know what it was saying! Verse seven says, Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. Why would someone dare to die for a good man, yet only rarely die for a righteous man? What is the difference? Knowing my problem with this verse, I looked forward to see what I would find when I translated it from the original Greek. What I found confused me even more, partly because I was looking at Greek words. I found that because of the way that the Greek sentence was worded, the verse could also be translated as, Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for the sake of good someone might dare to die. Now, this I understood. For one man, even a good man, it was not a common thing for people to lay down their lives. But for the good of everyone, some might just give up their life. This makes the next verse make sense too! God showed His love by doing just this! Jesus died for the sake of the good of the people.

I felt a little bit better about things then. I understood what it was saying now. The story doesn’t end there, though. You see, as part of the work that I did in Romans, I had the opportunity to interview some amazing and Godly people who knew their Bible better than I ever will. One of these interviews was with one of my professors Texas Lutheran. He is a Romans scholar, and I was greatly looking forward to some clarification on a few things, including this verse to which I had unearthed a new way of translating. When I presented my version to Dr. Russell for his thoughts, he urged me to re-think it and look at it again in the original context. So together we poured over this verse and the following verse, trying to make sense of it. Through this study, I realized that I was wrong in changing the translation. What Paul is saying in this section is not that for the good of humanity someone might give his/her life. What he is saying that it is a very rare occasion for someone to lay down their life for a righteous person. People value their lives to the point that even for a deserving person, it is a rare occurrence that someone would sacrifice their life for another. That being said, it does happen. For a good person, someone might just dare to die. Maybe. But God showed His love by sending Jesus to die for us when we were completely undeserving, something that no human would do for another who didn’t deserve it.

I have a wonderful friend named Bethany. Bethany is a wonderful girl who loves God more than anything or anyone else and is following His call that He placed on her heart to do missions ministry. Bethany has a legacy of mission work in her past. Her parents were missionaries in China. They worked there for almost ten years undercover, knowing that if the wrong people found out where they were, they would be dead. When Bethany was a few months old, a good friend of her parents who was there in China with them was found and arrested, his execution harsh and public. When this happened, Bethany’s parents fled China and came back to Texas, settling down and finding work in my hometown, Burnet. Bethany grew up in Burnet because her parents did not want her to grow up around the terrors that they faced in China. As she was growing up, though, Bethany felt a strong call to ministry, specifically missions work. Her parents greatly discouraged this, though, because they were terrified at what would happen if something were to go wrong over there. They knew that life, had lived that life, and didn’t want her to live that life.

Bethany stuck with it, though and is now overseas at a place that cannot be named doing work that she could literally be arrested and killed for doing. When her parents saw her determination, they- albeit grudgingly –began to support her whole-heartedly.

She’s doing God’s work. So why is it that her parents were so upset? The answer is simple. They felt that they were losing their daughter to undeserving people who would most likely kill her.

I tell this story to you because I think that it, in a microcosm of a way, parallels what Paul is talking about in these three verses. You see, just as in this story, there are two sacrifices that are evident in this Romans text. The first is the amazing sacrifice made by Bethany. The second is the even more amazing sacrifice made by Bethany’s parents. In the same way, Paul speaks here of two sacrifices that were made: The amazing sacrifice of Christ, God the Son, and the even more amazing sacrifice of God the Father.

How many of you here are parents?

Ok. How many of you parents would have no problem sacrificing everything you have, even your own life, for your children?

I know that my parents would, without thinking twice, give their lives for my siblings or me. I’m sure that there isn’t a soul in this congregation that would have any hesitations about giving his/her life for another.

Now I’m going to ask a question much harder to answer. I don’t want to you answer this out loud or anything. Just think about it and answer it for yourself. Would you be able to offer your child’s life for another’s? You know what, let’s make it a little bit harder. Would you be able to sacrifice your child for someone whom you love but who had rejected and turned away from your love?

Now, I don’t have a child and don’t really want one anytime soon, but if I was asked to give the life of a loved one as ransom for someone else, I wouldn’t do it. I don’t care if this person was the next president or whether they were just some bum on the street. I would not do it. My own life, maybe, but not a loved one’s.

This is exactly what God did for us, though! He gave all that He had, His most prized possession, His very own Son for us!

Very rarely will someone die for a righteous person, but for a good person, someone might jut dare to die. But God demonstrated and demonstrates still His love to us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

We weren’t worth it. We were completely undeserving. Christ still died for us because He loved us that much! Even more so, though, God sacrificed His one and only Son because He loved us that much! There’s a reason that John 3:16 is so popular. It, like this section of Romans, is a banner that we as broken and sinful sinners can rally behind.

So what do we do with this love? We can’t simply hold it to ourselves. Christ died for us all, and we have to let everyone know it! Paul speaks of this very thing in Romans 10:14-15: How, then, can they call on the One they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the One of Whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring the Good News!”

Christ is calling us to share the knowledge of God’s undeserving and unfathomable love with all. How else will they come to truly know Christ? So go and share God’s love, a love that didn’t come when it was convenient, but came when it was needed the most.

Let us pray!

3.20.11--Emmanuel, The God Suffering with Us (Sermon on Psalm 88)

I’m taking a class right now on African tribal religions and the impact that Christian missionary work had upon them. So far, this is one of the most interesting subjects that I’ve had the opportunity to study at Princeton. Our work has focused on one specific area of Africa and one specific people: the Ibo people of western Nigeria. We’ve been reading both historical fiction novels written by a descendant of an Ibo family as well as different academic articles and studies that try to explain why Christianity spread so quickly and so powerfully through these people and their tribes.

One of the most interesting things that I have learned so far in this class is that the Judeo-Christian God is the only deity from any area of the world that would allow suffering to happen to it’s people as a way to bring growth. A person’s hardship might not have been seen as a curse from God, but a gift from God that would bring about a blessing in the end. Now, this is not always the case in the Old and New Testaments. Sometimes we read about God unleashing his wrath upon the Israelites for turning against Him, or how God afflicted an entire nation with sores because they stole the Ark of the Covenant. These are hard stories to swallow a lot of the time, and they are stories we are not even able to begin to understand. That is all right, though. Sometimes, we are called to simply sit with these stories; hold them close to us and pray that God will some day help us understand them. There are other times in the Old and New Testaments, though, where we read that God hardens Pharaoh’s heart so that His glory might be known, or Jesus might say to His disciples that a man’s blindness was not due to a sin committed, but so that the glory of God might be known in the healing of his blindness. God is seemingly allowing hardship to happen out of love, not out of anger.

This does not happen with any other god of any other culture or people. In fact, most cultures and societies—like the Ibo people about whom I’m learning—will desert or banish a deity for bringing hardship upon a people. The job of the god is to protect and uplift a people, not allow suffering to happen. So why would our God be any different? Why have people continued to worship God even after He allows suffering to grip hold of the people? Why have the Jewish people continued to worship YHWH even after an event so terrible as the Holocaust?

The answer is simple, yet great in depth: because our God suffers with us. From as early as Adam all the way through to today, God has desired to walk with us through life and experience life alongside of His creation. In Exodus 3, we hear about a God who sees the misery of His people, who hears their cries of torment, and feels their sufferings. The psalmists expound on the wondrousness of a God who knows them completely and who walks with them in life. And in Matthew, we learn His name: Emmanuel. God with us. God who walks beside us. God who rejoices among us. God who suffers alongside us. Emmanuel.

And what is more, Emmanuel, God with us, suffers every kind of torment that we might suffer. He spends time alone in the wilderness, he is tempted by sin and pride, he is beaten, yelled at, and abused. And then he dies on a cross, one of the more horrible forms of death that humanity has ever beheld. And while on that cross, he experiences the suffering of feeling totally alone and completely abandoned. God with us, Jesus Christ, feels what it is like to be abandoned by God Himself. And so He cries out, “Eloi! Eloi, lama sabachthami!” My God! My God, why have You forsaken me? Emmanuel, God with us, Jesus Christ, knows our sufferings intimately because He suffered through them Himself and suffers through them with us.

I remember the first time that I truly began to grasp the enormity of this. The first time that my dad was deployed overseas for the war was the summer before my junior year of high school. I was at a two-week summer camp at TLU, where I would later complete my undergraduate work. Dad was supposed to leave on the last day of camp, so I was planning on returning home a couple daya early to see him off. The day before I was supposed to leave for home, Dad showed up on campus at dinnertime with a bag of ribs and two large sweet teas. We found a picnic table outside and ate dinner together, and as we finished up, Dad told me that he wanted me to stay at camp and enjoy my last couple days with my new friends. He said that all I’d be doing otherwise is riding in the car with him and driving away since they were leaving from a closed airport. He told me to stay here where I would be having fun and could be around happy people. I tried to tell him that I didn’t want to stay, that I wanted to be with him and the family, but he said that this was best and that he wanted me there at TLU.

I remember thinking that I was completely alone the next few days. I didn’t want to do anything or be around anybody as I sat there thinking about my dad and wondering if I’d ever see him again. He was going to war. People die in war. My dad could die! I was scared, I was lost, and I was alone.

Dad of course made it home no problem. The fool even came home a month early, and surprised my mom and us kids. I will never forget the day that he walked into my physics class, still wearing his dress uniform, and told my teacher that he needed to borrow me for a little bit. I didn’t even wait for a reply before grabbing all of my things and running to the door. The hug that we then shared held in it six months of fear, worry, and anxiety. It took away all of those feelings, leaving me feeling relieved and comforted.

When Dad told me he wanted me to stay at camp instead of coming to the airport to see him off, I felt alone and abandoned. I felt like he did not want me there, and I felt like I had been cast aside. When I saw him there in that school hallway, though, I realized that he probably felt just as alone and tormented because he had asked me to stay at camp and not send him off. I bet he wondered to himself if he had missed out on an opportunity to see his son one last time. I bet he wondered the entire time if he had made the right choice, or if he should have let me come with him.

Our Scripture lesson today is a psalm that I read over and over again while Dad was deployed. It is one that I read with tears in my eyes, and one that I read with anger in my heart. I felt like God had let this happen to me, God had allowed my dad to be taken away, and God had lowered me into this pit of despair. I have realized since, though, that this psalm only shows one side of the story. It only shows the pain, suffering, and torment that the person is fighting. It does not show the pain, suffering, and torment with which God is dealing. But, like I had to learn that my dad went through just as much as I did in his decision to make me stay at camp, we have to learn that God sees our pain, hears our cries, and shares in our sufferings.

Especially during this time of Lent, I hope that you can remember that our God is Emmanuel, God with us. Our God is a God that walks with us, rejoices when we rejoice, and suffers when we suffer. We are not alone in our sufferings. God is with us. You are not alone in your suffering. God is with you.

Let us pray.

3.13.11--The Sons and Daughters of Korah (Sermon on Psalm 84)

When my family and I lived on Air Force bases, I was always known as Wes’ son. My dad was involved in so much, both in and outside of work, that everyone knew him or knew of him. Everywhere we went, it was always Wes Cain and his family. Then, when we moved back to Burnet, where my mom’s family has lived for years, things changed. We became known as Mary Bird’s family. This drove my dad crazy, not because he had to be the center of attention or anything of the sort, but because we were not by our actual names anymore. We were identified by Mom’s maiden name, not by our family name. People would stop me in the store and ask if I was Mary Bird’s son, and I’d usually answer that I was Wes and Mary Cain’s son, just to be a little insolent.

But that identity just would not leave us. Even in our church, where Dad was lay leader and we were all so active, we were always “Mary Bird’s family.” It was how people recognized us. It was how we were tied into their memory and how they placed us in the community. How were you known growing up? Was there a certain type of identity by which everyone placed you? How are you known now? Has that identifying trait changed over the years? Have you grown into your own identity that has out-shined your older one? Or have you found that you have grown into an identity you have had all these years?

Our Scripture reading today is a psalm that was written by a group of people who stepped into a previous identity, grounding themselves in the stories of the past, the stories of their people. This is a psalm written by the “Sons of Korah.” Now, we do not know much about this group. I searched commentary after commentary to see if I could glean some knowledge of who they were or when they lived. I had no luck, though. The only way that we have to identify them is through the name they adopted for their group. It is a name that shares so much of who these people were, even if we cannot find any other information on them.

Now do any of you know who Korah is, or why it is so important that they have taken the title as a child of this person? With a name like Korah, I imagine that this person is a war hero or something; a master warrior who helped deliver his people from captivity. Or maybe one of the great prophets of old, someone who was so in tune with God that people likened him to Moses. Let’s look at Korah’s story in Scripture. Turn with me in your Bibles to Numbers 16. We’re going to read verses 1-11 and then jump ahead a little and read verses 19-33.

Korah was not the kind of person that I was expecting. He was a rebel, someone who “became insolent” and led a group of 250 Levites against Moses and Aaron, the two people that God had appointed to lead the Israelites. God had set these Levites, including Aaron, aside for a special purpose. They were the priests of the people of God. They worked in the Tabernacle, the place of worship, God’s dwelling place among the Israelites. Korah did not like that Moses and Aaron were running the show. Pride got the better of him and he sparked a rebellion. He tried in this way to wrench the leadership of the Israelite peoples out of Moses and Aaron’s hands. As punishment for rising up against God, God opens up the ground under the tents of Korah, and he along with his entire household are swallowed up, never to be seen again.

So what does it mean, then, to be a son or daughter of Korah? It does not mean that these people are the descendants of the man, for his entire family died that night, completely cutting off his bloodline. No, these people were not related to Korah in any way. Instead, they were a group of people who saw themselves falling prey to the same sin that gripped Korah—pride. To be a son or daughter of Korah, then, is to be one who realizes one’s sin and then repents of it. It is to be one who humbles him- or herself before God and others. It is to be one who accepts the burden of one’s actions and owns up to one’s past wrongdoings. To be a son or daughter of Korah is to recognize that you have allowed pride to infest your life and to fall before the Almighty and beg forgiveness for your sins.

Now, what does this have to do with Psalm 84, today’s Scripture lesson? What does it mean for us if the Sons of Korah wrote and sang this psalm? If you would, turn back in your Bibles to Psalm 84. Let’s take a closer look at verse 10: “Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.”

The Psalmist is humbling himself, taking up his rightful place as a servant of the Lord. No longer will he dwell in Korah’s tents, in his father’s tents, and aspire to take more than God gives him; he will serve as the Levites were called to serve: as priests in the Tabernacle, God’s holy house.

This psalm and the identification as a son of Korah was generated after the writer spent some intentional time looking at himself and his sins. After this time of introspection, he is able to truly own up to himself and own up to his God. Friends, this is what the time of Lent is truly about: coming to better know yourself and your God. Owning up to yourself, presenting yourself broken and sinful before God and exposing your hidden self and hidden sins to the world.

And here is the amazing thing: like this psalmist, we receive grace before our God and are loved and accepted just as we are. With all of our brokenness and sins laid bare, God wraps us in a big hug and whispers words of love and comfort into our hearts.

So are you ready to accept the title of a son or daughter of Korah? Are you ready to expose your sinful self, your broken self, to God and lay it all at His feet? Are you ready to be amazed at the grace and love that falls upon you at the very moment that this happens? I hope so. And I pray that God changes your identity again during this season of Lent from a son or daughter of Korah, a broken, sinful identity, to a son or daughter of God, a whole, grace-filled identity.

Let us pray.

3.6.11--Joining in the Symphony

I love music. I was one of those babies that could sing before I could talk and was dancing not long after entering this world. Growing up, I was always singing along with something: either the radio, or my walkman, or even just the song was that was stuck in my head. I didn’t ever really need to hear music to sing a long, music was pretty much perpetually playing over and over in my head. As Jess will probably attest, this has not changed at all as I’ve grown older.

Even now, as I’m sure y’all have come to realize, I love to sing, and I love to sing loud. Especially when the songs are praises to God, I sing out, and I sing strong. As I’m sure you’ve also come to realize, this does not always mean that I sound good while singing. I am just about tone-deaf, I sing a little through my nose, and I still do not really know what “pitch” is. Luckily for me, Holy Scripture does not say sing pretty. Instead, as our Scripture today attests, we are called to make a joyful noise unto the Lord. A loud and joyful noise, not necessarily a pretty one. God hears our praises and is please by them, no matter the musical quality. My brother once made the comment that if God is pleased by my singing, God must be extremely tone-deaf. But that’s okay. That does not stop me from singing loud and singing proud for my God.

This has always been the case, but I have not always been as comfortable with it as I am now. During services at FUMC Burnet, as I was growing up, people used to turn around and look at me when I sang in worship. I hated it. I felt like a spectacle, when all I was trying to  do was sing to my Lord. So, I moved seats, and moved my family with me. Our “designated pew” went from being the back row to the front row. I figured this way, the people behind me could stare all they wanted but I did not have to see them. My worship could continue uninterrupted.

But you know, I have always wanted to be able to do more than just sing along in worship. I have always wanted to make the music that accompanied peoples’ worship, to engage in some way in the leading of worship. So I started working up different songs on my saxophone during the breaks in HS band. At first, I stuck to Christmas songs because they are easy, catchy, and everyone knows them. Yeah, I was that kid in high school that would play Christmas songs in October. Then, to the excitement of everyone in band with me, I moved on to other hymns and praise songs that people knew.

Here’s the problem with the saxophone, though: You have to keep it in tune. And since we all know that I do not have an ear for tune or pitch, it is probably not the ideal instrument with which for me to be leading worship. I have tried guitar and piano, and even though I love them both I just did not have the time or patience to devote to learning them. So I was stuck with singing, to many peoples’ detriment.

Then, in college, I was introduced to the djembe. I fell in love instantly. The simplicity of this drum paired with its dynamic uses drew me in. I bought my own as soon as I was able and I jumped at every chance that I could to play with any and everyone in worship. I had found my instrument to play my part in the song of life.

The Psalms are full of calls to take up instruments and raise your voice in praise to God. The final handful especially are replete with this language, urging everyone to respond to God through whatever musical and worshipful means available: cymbal, gong, horn, clapping, lyre, flute, harp, drum, voices… they’re all here. We are called to raise up praise to God on these and more, as if we were putting on a show for the Audience of One.

But God is more than just an audience in this. He is the Director as well. Did you know that over a third of the Psalms are dedicated to the “Director of Music?” the psalmist understood our lives as symphonies devoted to God: musical numbers counted off by the beat of the Almighty’s heart; melodies developed to carry His love and grace up into the air; harmonies to fill the space of eternity with a message of His mercy. We are the musicians; God is the Director.

So what part do you play in this cosmic song? Do you help carry the melody like a flute, producing beautifully crafted phrases that brighten even the darkest day? Are part of the harmony, adding complexity and depth to the song? Or are you part of the rhythm, pushing the tune forward and causing everyone to clap their hands and tap their heels?

I pray that we might all take up our instruments in the symphony of life, and I pray that our praises will bring a smile to our Director of Music, our Audience of One.