BELIEVE- chapter 1 “God” Reinbeck UMC 8/29/16

BELIEVE- chapter 1 “God”

Reinbeck UMC

8/29/16

 (First slide is introductory video)

I am very excited to begin this series of messages and studies called “BELIEVE.” There are three parts to the series.

 Over the winter, we will have a 10- week series called “ACT” and we will ask the question “What should we do?”

 A year from now we will have a  10 week series called “BE” in which we will ask the question “what are we becoming?”

 Today we will start the 10-week series we call THINK--- in other words “what do we believe?”

Therefore, I ask you this morning--- what do you believe about God? Use one word (that no one else has used) to describe God…<<< >>>

You might think we would start with “Does God exist?” We could, but that is not where the Bible starts. The Bible starts with the presupposition that God is: “In the Beginning God…”

 That is a good place for us to start because the vast majority of Americans believe in A GOD: 89% according to pew research.  Worldwide only 2-8% of the population self-identifies as atheist.  The vast majority of people believe in A GOD. The question is, "what god? “

The first commandment doesn’t deny the existence of other gods, but commands us not to put any of them before the one true God: “You shall have no other gods before me”

If you look around there are a whole pantheon of gods from Baal to Bacchus, from Allah to Zeus. There are an estimated 4200 religions in the world, so I guess we have concocted 4200 options. God says, “Okay.” but there are none like me. “You shall have no other gods before me”

I don’t really think our problem is other religious. Our problem is much closer to home. Our biggest problem today is the gods that we fashion ourselves right here in our lives. Just as the Israelites had their golden calf, we set up all kinds of gods from material things to mother earth, from fame to friends, from the games we play and watch to the careers we chose… the most important thing in our lives is our god. People worship all kinds of gods out there.

Some say if you want to know who someone’s god is, look at their check book or credit cards statement… where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. I say if you want to identify someone’s god, look at his or her calendar. How do they choose to spend their time? In our culture, I would say that we have more “I” worshippers than anything. I want this, I believe that, I deserve more, I, I, I, it is that “I infection” I talked about a few weeks ago.

Look at how you spent your money and your time and ask yourself what in your life gets priority? That is your god, and you have to ask yourself which god you will serve? The scripture from Joshua today asks us that question.

I encourage you to buy a copy of BELIEVE for just $5. Read it at home and bring it with you each week. I will be referring to it. So if you picked up your copy, turn to page 18 right now.

Joshua says “I am about to die, (which he does on page 20) but remember what God has done bringing you to this place.” Then he remembers salvation history starting with Abraham, then Egypt, then the exodus, then the wondering in the wilderness for 40 years, and finally the conquering of the Promised Land. In the bold print on page 20, he comes to the heart of the passage. He says in effect, “we have come to a fork in the road and you have to choose one way or another.” You can’t have it both ways, you can’t take both roads, you can’t continue to be double minded, you can’t continue the way you are. Either you are with God, or you are against God.

He gives them the choice saying, “If serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living.”

 Notice, joshua leves them the option. “Chose this day whom you will serve”

•           The God of your ancestors?

•           The gods from egypt?

•           The gods of the Amorites?

•           The gods of all the stuff you own... or want to own.

•           The god of soccer, or football, or whatever your grandkisds are playing this week?

•           The god of your Job?

•           The god of your calendar and to do list?

•           The god of power, prestige, and popularity?

•           The God of your own need to be needed?

•           The God of your own wishes and wants?

•           Or the God of the Bible?

You chose whicever  god you will

It is fascinating to me that God gives freedom of choice. If I were God… which is always a dangerous thing to say… but if I were God, I wouldn’t give you a choice! However, God gives you the choice – if you want to go your way, okay! You chose whicever  god you will

 “But as for me,” Joshua says, “as for me and my house we will serve the LORD.”

 How about you? Whom will you serve? To what god will you give your life? To what deity will you bow down? What power will you serve? Which god will you serve?

I’ll tell you, as for me… I will serve the Lord, the God of the Bible.

I believe in the God of the Bible.

           

 Who is this God, though? We don’t get to know a new neighbor or friend overnight. And God is no different. It really takes a lifetime to know God, if even then. But what do we know about this God in whom we believe?

There isn’t enough ink in the world… there aren’t enough books in the library... and there aren’t enough hours in the human life to explain fully who God is, but one word might come close: TRINITY. 

The word trinity is not used in the Bible, but it refers to the 3-fold nature of God: Father, Son, and Holy spirit. God is one and the same time God is three. Three in one and one in three.

It is hard to get our heads around the trinity and people have made a lot of theological messes over the years.

The first mistake is called modalism.  Modalism says that first there was the Father. Then the Father went away and God came as the son. And when the Son ascended into heaven God came as the Holy spirit. But the three modes did not exist at the same time.   Modalism, however contradicts scripture, which says that the Word (the son) was with God (the Father) from the very beginning. “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” If God was Father, then son, and now Holy spirit, to whom was Jesus praying when he prayed, “our Father who art in heaven,” or “Father forgive them for they know not what they do. “ NO, MODALISM DOES NOT WORK.

The second MISTAKE is called subordinationism. Subordinationism says that God the Father is the one great God and there are two other inferior divinities. If you’ve ever thought that God the Father is the “main” God then you have been guilty of subordinationism. This idea surfaced to explain how God could keep himself protected from suffering and death. And yet, Scripture tells us that Jesus, “made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!  Jesus also tells us “if you see me you have seen the Father”  and “I will be with you always.”  No, subordinationism doesn’t’ work.

Finally, folks have tried tritheism, or three Gods. Tritheism holds that the Father, Son, and Spirit are three distinct Gods that make up together the object of the Christian faith. But this flies in the face of the Shema, one of Judaism’s most important prayers Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.

No, trinity, or the triunity of God is unlike modalism, or subordinationism or tritheism.

So what does the trinity teach us about God?

 The Triunity of God means, among other things, that God is:

•           out there,

•           right there and

•           in here all at the same time. (The big word for that is omnipresence)

God is at one and the same moment:

•           the transcendent creator of the universe,

•           the immanent personal savior who said, “I have called you friends,’

and the mysterious indwelling spark of God that dwells in each of us, lighting fires above the disciples’ heads on the first Pentecost, strangely warming the heart of John Wesley, and gently purifying my heart making me into the person God wants me to be.

Triunity: Out there… right there... In here.

 The other lesson the Trinity teaches us that this Father, son, and Holy spirit are in perfect, intimate, divine relationship with one another. When we say that God is trinity, we are saying that the God is a God of relationship. … Relationship between Father and Son, between Father and Spirit and between Spirit and Son.

•           God said, “Let us make people in our own image” Us? Our? Yes, God is a triune God in relationship.

•           Jesus says in John 14, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? “Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? “ God in relationship.

•           Jesus Says both, “I will leave you a comforter” and “I will be with you to the end of the age.” God is a God of relationship.

To say god is trinity is to say that the God is is way ouyt there, Right there, and in here, ... the God whose very essence is relationship, desperately wants to be in relationship with you. That is why God throughout the Bible went through extreme lengths to be in covenant, or relationship with his people. God is a God who wants to be in relationship. “Love the Lord your God  And God calls us into relatinship with one another ‘and love your neighbor as yourself. . Relationship. With God and with eachother. 

That is, I think, the heart of  what it means to declare “I BELIEVE THE GOD OF THE BIBLE IS THE ONLY TRUE GOD, FATHER, Son AND HOLY SPIRIT.”

 Let me offer you a challenge and an encouragement

First, the challenge… decide this day whom you will serve! What or whom will be your God?

Second let me encourage you that saying “I believe the God of the Bible is the only true God, Father, Son and Holy spirit.” Really does make a difference in your life. Besides knowing where you are going when this life is over,

•           You know with assurance, that when the darkness of life consumes you, you personally know the God who said let there be light!

•           . When the storms of this life attack you, you personally know the God calms the storms.

•           . When fear consumes you, you personally know the God who is the comforter, who says fear not, I am with you.

•           When you are weak, you personally know the God who is greater than all the powers of life and death, the God who raised Jesus From the grave loves you and wants more than anything your love in return.

 If you will now… please declare with me…

Say together…

I BELIEVE THE GOD OF THE BIBLE IS THE ONLY TRUE GOD, FATHER, SON, AND HOLY SPIRIT.

May the love of God, and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the fellowship of the Holy spirit be with you all. 

Cure for a big head Psalm 29 August 7, 2016 RUMC

Cure for a big head

Psalm 29

August 7, 2016 RUMC

 Do you remember Sherris telling about Yertle the Turtle last week?

He’s the little turtle that thought he was so important that he made all the other turtles stack themselves up so he could see more and therefore rule more.

"All mine!" Yertle cried.  "Oh, the things I now rule!

I'm the king of a cow! And I'm the king of a mule!

I'm the king of a house! And, what's more, beyond that

I'm the king of a blueberry bush and a cat!

I'm Yertle the Turtle! Oh, marvelous me!

For I am the ruler of all that I see!"

 I’m pretty sure I have met Yertle. And so have you.

I’ve met him in the pews. I’ve met him in the news.

I’ve meet him in the park and once I met him in the dark.

I met Yertle at a meeting one night. I met him on the road as he sped out of sight.

I have seen him running in the election, thinking he (or she) is the king of perfection.

 He says “I'm Yertle the Turtle! Oh, marvelous me!”

There’s a little of Yertle in everyone I see.

I’ve met him a here I’ve met him  there.

I meet him everywhere.

I see him so often… oh can it be?

That there is a little bit of Yertle the Turtle even in me?

I know, that was kind of lame, but you can’t argue with the message.

Yertle the Turtle seems to be everywhere. and if we are honest, we have to admit that there is even a little Yertle in each of us. At least occasionally, we all fall to the sin of pride. 

 There are some dramatic stories of human pride.

In the mid-50s a US Air force plane was flying over Alaska when they entered an unusually fierce snowstorm. The navigator contacted an air base only to be told that he had veered several hundred miles off course. The navigator refused to believe that he could be wrong so they kept going.  Soon the plane ran low on fuel had to make an emergency landing. All six crewmen froze to death on the Alaskan tundra.

In the summer of 1986, two ferries collided in the Black Sea off the coast of Russia. Hundreds of passengers died as they were hurled into the icy waters below. We might assume it was a navigation error, or faulty equipment. The truth is both captains were aware of the impending collision, but both were too proud to be the one to veer off their course.

There are also more ordinary stories of pride. A young woman asked for an appointment with her pastor. She started by saying, "Pastor, I have become aware of a sin in my life which I cannot control. Every time I am at church I begin to look around at the other women, and I realize that I am the prettiest one in the whole congregation. None of the others can compare with my beauty. What can I do about this sin?"

The pastor replied, "Mary, that's not a sin, why that's just a mistake!"

Call it a sin. Call it a mistake. Call it whatever you like; having a big head, pride, arrogance, self-importance, conceit, egotism, self-centeredness, or even pomposity. It is a universal human problem. Even the person with low self-esteem is arrogant enough to think that no one else could possibly be as worthless as him or her.

There is a good reason that “I” is in the center of pride. Pride is a preoccupation with self.

Pride is behind the first sin in the Garden of Eden.

Pride is behind the fiasco at the tower of Babel.

Pride is behind Israel’s demand for a king.

Pride is behind David’s tryst with Bathsheba.

Pride is behind the sins against which the prophets preached.

Pride is behind Herod’s pursuit of the child Jesus.

The disciples fought pride.

Jesus preached against pride.

The rich young ruler was tripped up by pride.

The man alongside the road had to swallow his pride when the Good Samaritan stopped to help.

The disciples argued about who was the most important.

Jesus was the living antithesis of pride when he knelt to wash the disciple’s feet.

Finally it was the pride of the Jewish leaders and Roman politicians that hung Jesus on the cross.

Today we have national pride, democratic pride, republican pride, gay pride, school pride, team pride, black pride, blue pride, even religious pride, and you name it pride… Pride is at the center of our culture. That is why we are so divided, so violent, so harried, so conflicted, and so sick as a culture because collectively we have an “I” infection. What’s more our heads are so big that many people can’t even fit through the church door.

If we were writing psalm 29 it would sound like this

Praise me, everyone,

      praise my glory and strength.

Praise the glory of my name;

    worship me in holy splendor.

My voice is over the waters;

    I am greater than the thunder,

   I am, greater than the mighty waters.

I am powerful;

I am  full of majesty.

Maybe you would not write it quite like that, but you know I am right.

The point of the 29th Psalm is to put us in our place.

Do you feel small when you look up at the stars or when you stand at the ocean? That is what the Psalm is trying to do.

Do you feel powerless as you watch a thunderstorm sweep through, or see the devastation of the tornado? That is what the psalm is trying to do.

Are you humbled by the miracles of birth and death? That is what the Psalm is trying to do.

 Ascribe means to give credit. So it means Give credit to God… Give credit where credit is due… not to ourselves!

Give credit to the Lord, O heavenly beings,

    Give credit to the Lord’s glory and strength.

Give credit to the Lord and God’s glorious name;

    worship the Lord in holy splendor.

We can’t worship if we are focused on ourselves.

We can’t serve if we are only thinking of ourselves.

We can’t be a follower of Jesus if we are looking out for good old number one.

We can’t even love someone if we are thinking about what we can get from it.

We can’t be in ministry if we put our own egos before the needs of “the least of these.”

No one can pick up their cross and follow Jesus if they are preoccupied with themselves.

The Psalm uses a thunderstorm as the illustration.  We can all connect to thunderstorms. They are even more impressive when you see them moving toward you across the prairie or ocean, experience their power, and then watch them recede into the horizon.

•           The psalm describes the storm gathering over the waters, The voice of the Lord is over the waters.

•           moving across the mountains, The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon.

•           Ripping across the wilderness The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness.

•           and finally stripping the forest bare. The voice of the Lord causes the oaks to whirl, and strips the forest bare.

 And finally… Finally Calm…peace… quiet…tranquility you can almost imagine the rainbow.

But not because of what I do, or what you do.

Next to God, all the “I”’s in the world are powerless.

Next to God, all the egos in the world fade away.

Next to God, all the powers of this world are nothing

Next to God, all the self important people of this world prove to be not so important.

Next to God the politicians of this world are exposed.

Next to God, you and I stand in awe, and wonder, and humility.

 The only appropriate response to the powerful presence of God is to fall on our knees and humbly worship. “And in his temple all say glory.”

The only appropriate response to the powerful presence of God is to fall on our knees and humbly say, “Not me but you O God. Only you.”

The only appropriate response to the powerful presence of God is to fall on our knees and humbly say, “Here I am. Send me.”

That is why Jesus became impatient with excuses. Excuses come from our prideful “I’s” not our humble worship.

But I have a  family… Jesus says “"If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother …yes, even their own life--such a person cannot be my disciple.”

But I have plans "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God."

But I’m uncomfortable, “whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and for the gospel will save it.”

But I am afraid, “Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you.” 

But I like my possessions, “Go and sell all that you have and give the money to the poor.”

Jesus had no patience for I’m going to be out of town this weekend.

Jesus had no patience for I have plans with friends today.

Jess had no patience for I’ve done my part.

Jesus had no patience for soccer games, or favorite TV shows, or days off, or weekends away, or sleeping in, or I don’t like the preacher, or I don’t like the music, or the pews are hard, or someone said something to me, or any other excuse he must have heard.

Now, hear me correctly… all that stuff is fine… as long as it doesn’t become an excuse… as long as it doesn’t become a priority over God, as long as you know where your loyalty lies. As long as you have your priorities straight.  As long as you remember that God is God, and you are not. 

Every excuse starts with “BUT I…” or “SORRY I…” Every excuse is based on the prideful claim that we are in charge of our own lives, time, stuff, and happiness. Psalm 29 reminds us that we are not. And it calls us to humbly kneel before God and cry “GLORY. Glory.”

God was once approached by a scientist who said, “Listen God, we’ve decided we don’t need you anymore. These days we can clone people, transplant organs and do all sorts of things that used to be considered miraculous.”

God replied, “Don’t need me huh? How about we put your theory to the test. Why don’t we have a competition to see who can make a human being, say, a male human being . You use your equipment and I’ll use mine.”

The scientist agrees, “Fine” says the scientist as he bends down to scoop up a handful of dirt.”

“Whoa!” says God, shaking his head in disapproval. “Not so fast. I believe that’s mine. You get your own dirt.”

 Give credit to the Lord, O heavenly beings,

    Give credit to the Lord’s glory and strength.

Give credit to the Lord and God’s glorious name;

    worship the Lord in holy splendor.

AMEN