Sunday, April 15, 2018

"I Am a Child of God” Reinbeck United Methodist Church April 15th 2017

I Am a Child of God”
Reinbeck United Methodist Church
April 15th 2017

Let me play a game with you. I'm going to ask you a question and you can't give me the same answer twice. Who are you?..(Repeat)
When we start asking who we are, there a lot of different ways we can answer that question. We can talk about roles that we fulfill: rolls like husband, father, child, parent, employee, employer and many more. But who would we be if there were no other people around?
In the US we identify people by their jobs.  I am a preacher. You are a farmer, or a teacher, or retired, or a student, or a golfer, or an athlete.  But we are so much more than our jobs and what happens when we retire?
We can also talk about who we are on the Outside. I'm a redhead; you’re a blonde, tall, short, thin, or overweight. But we are not just the flesh in which we live.
What about who we are on the inside? I'm happy, I'm sad, I'm busy, I am bored, I am satisfied, or unsatisfied, and much more. But our feelings change with our circumstances so they can’t really define who we are either.
So who are we? I mean really, who are we at the core of our being?  Who are we when we are by ourselves? Who are we when we are not doing something? Who are we deep inside? Who are we beyond our feelings?  Who are you when you wake up in the dark of the night and it is just you and the darkness?
 Maybe we are too close to the question.  Maybe we need to ask someone smarter than ourselves.  Who better to answer the one who shaped the first person out of the dust of the earth and breathed life into him?   Who better than the God who first dreamed up the creature we call human.
 We read John’s answer today, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”  Before anything else, after everything else, in the depths of your being when everything else is stripped away, you are a child of God. As John says, “And that is what we are!” Children of God.
Even before we are someone’s earthly child, we are God’s child.
And it makes sense because I do see something of a family resemblance… not in the way we look, or the way we talk, but in the way we love.  Being created us in God’s image does not have anything to do with our roles, our Jobs, out outsides, or our feelings.   Being created in God’s image means, just like God, we all have a unique need and capacity for love. God created people to love and be loved.  That is the image in which we are created.   The image of love. We are created in the image of the God who created people to love, and in turn, love God back. (Genesis 1:27)
 God says, “I know everything about you” (Psalm 139:1)
God offers us more than your earthly father ever could (Matthew 7:11)
God is the perfect father (Matthew 5:48)
God is our always loving, all knowing, generous to a fault, perfect father… that makes us what?... his children.  We are children of God… that is what we are.

A beggar lived near the king’s palace. One day he saw a proclamation posted outside the palace gate. The king was giving a great dinner. Anyone dressed in royal garments is welcome.
The beggar went on his way. He looked at the rags he was wearing and sighed. Slowly an idea crept into his mind. He made his way back to the palace. He approached the guard at the gate. "Please sir, I would like to speak to the king."
"Wait here," the guard replied.
In a few minutes, he was brought before the king. "What do you want?" the king asked. "Yes, your majesty. I want so much to attend the banquet, but I have no royal robes to wear. Please sir, if I may be so bold, may I have one of your old garments so that I, too, may come to the banquet?"
The beggar was trembling in fear of what the king might do. "You have been wise in coming to me," the king said. He called to his son, the young prince. "Take this man to your room and array him in some of your clothes."
The prince did as he was told and soon the beggar was standing before a mirror, clothed in garments that he had never dared to even hope for. "You are now eligible to attend the king’s banquet tomorrow night," said the prince. "But even more important, you will never need any other clothes. These garments will last forever."
The beggar dropped to his knees. "Oh, thank you," he cried. But as he started to leave, he looked back at his pile of dirty rags on the floor. He hesitated. What if the prince was wrong? What if he would need his old clothes again? Quickly he gathered them up.
The banquet was far greater than he had ever imagined, but he couldn’t enjoy himself, as he should. He had made a small bundle of his old rags and it kept falling off his lap. The food was passed quickly and the beggar missed some of the greatest delicacies.
Time proved that the prince was right. No one came to ask for the royal clothes. Still, the poor beggar was doubtful, clinging on to his old rags. As time passed people seemed to forget the royal robes he was wearing. They saw only the little bundle of filthy rags that he clung to wherever he went. They even spoke of him as the old man with the rags.
Years later as he lay dying, the king visited him. The beggar saw the sad look on the king’s face when he looked at the small bundle of rags by the bed. Suddenly the beggar remembered the prince’s words and he realized that his bundle of rags had cost him a lifetime of joy. He cried bitterly at his foolishness to hold on to those old rags.

We are children of God, 1 John declares. We are children of God. adopted into God’s household, clothed with God’s finest,  promised that there is so much more to come… but how many of us are still hanging on to old rags? How many of us are holding on to images of ourselves that have nothing to do with being a child of God. Are you holding onto a pile of old rags say I'm fat, I'm ugly, I'm not smart, I'm a victim, I'm not lovable, I'm not forgivable? Are you holding onto a pile of old rags just in case this child of God thing doesn't work out? John writes it, and I am telling you once and for all that you are absolutely for sure a child of God. Nothing can change that. No one can take that away. We can never lose it. You are a child of God. You really are, so why are you still hanging on to the rags of your old self that prevent you from being the child that You were created to be? Let’s talk about how to let them go.

 In Matthew chapter 18, Jesus says “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” Being humble means not trusting in our own ways, our own powers, our own abilities, but humbling ourselves to completely trust God’s ways.
I think of a child shouting. “Catch me, Daddy. Catch me.” with total confidence that dad will not fail them. That is trust. I think of the child who asks Dad to come in and check for monsters under the under the bed. One only chooses someone they trust for such an important job. I think of a child who trusts their dad so much they think their dad can do anything.
Three boys were boasting about how fast their fathers were. The first one said, “My Dad’s so fast he can shoot an arrow and run and catch it before it hits the target”. The second one said, “Well, my Dad works on high-rise buildings. He’s so fast he can drop a brick off the veranda of the tenth story and run down and catch it before it hits the ground.” “So what!” said the third boy, “My Dad works for the government and he’s so fast that he finishes work at 4:00pm, but gets home by 2:30pm”.
If we are to become like little children we have to totally trust in God, God’s kingdom and God’s grace. We have to trust that God will never abandon us. We have to trust that God will never fail us. We have to trust that God's love for us will never fade. Can you give up the rags of trusting in yourselves, your money, your own intelligence, and your own abilities and place your trust completely in God?

The second thing we have to do in order to live as children of God is to give in to transformation.  We have to give up control of who we are becoming. This passage from 1st John says, “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” We are God’s children and, and God isn’t finished with us yet.  What we shall be has not been revealed. We are a work in progress.  But how many of us are holding on to the rags of who we were before God?  How many of us are holding on the tattered rags that remind us of who we once were? How many of us are holding on to parts of who we were, unwilling to give up control so we can become the person God wants us to be.
I know that when John says “what we will be has not yet been made known.” he's talking a bigger picture when Christ returns, but the kingdom starts today and the transformation starts today. “Be renewed by the transformation of your mind.”   “You are new creatures.” Behold I have made all things new!” We can't even imagine what we will be, but if we really believe that God isn’t done with us yet, we have to give up control and allow God to do God’s thing.  We have plans and dreams, and we should. But then we have to learn to pray, “Not my will but thine.” The truth is that our control is an illusion. So being a child of God means letting go of the old rags of being in control. We have to be open to change open to the nudging, leadings, and sometimes this kick on the seat of the pants from God that sends us a different direction, maybe even a direction we don't want to go. As works in progress, we are clearly not our own masters. Can you give up the rags of being in control and place your future in God’s hands.  

We have to release our old rags so we can trust completely on God, and so we can be made into what God wants us to be.
 Finally becoming a child of God means that we have to accept that we are loved no matter what. Many of us walk around with bad self-images. We say to ourselves I'm fat, I'm ugly, I'm stupid, I'm a failure, nothing ever goes right for me, you name it we all have our own negative self-talk. Personally, it's that I'm never good enough, or a fear that people are going to find out that I'm not good enough.
Whatever your negative self-talk is, God's answer is I love you anyway. God's answer to our negative self-talk is always “but I love you anyway.”  We say I'm fat. God says I love you anyway. We say I'm not as smart as other people. God says I love you anyway. We say I'm not good enough. God says I love you anyway.
We have to come to grips with the fact that nothing we are or aren't, nothing we can be or can't be, nothing we have done or haven't done, is ever going to keep God from loving us. Romans 8:38 and 39. I am convinced that nothing, nothing, nothing can separate us from the love of God our Heavenly parent. Paul says “neither life nor death nor angels nor principalities nor things present nor things to come, neither heights nor depths nor anything else in all of creation will separate us from God’s love.” I have to add even if we think we are unattractive, even if we think we have no friends, even if we think no one could possibly love us, even if we think we could never be good enough, even if we think we are total failures, even if we think that we have no value at all…God loves us anyway.  … None of that and nothing else in creation can stop God from loving us as God's children. Bottom line is God loves you and there is nothing you can do to stop that.

Today I want to call you to let go of you rags so you can trust God, give up your control and accept God’s love.

You are holding a rag today. What does that rag represent? Does it represent trouble trusting God? Does it represent needing to be in control?  Does it represent believing that you can’t be loved for some reason? Maybe it's something else that keeps you from being a child of God.
 If you are to live a full life as a child of God you have to give up those rags. Don't let them ruin your life or steal your joy like the man in the story I told. Don't get to your deathbed and wish that you had let go of those rags that you thought you needed but really didn't and realize that they kept you from living as a child of God. I'm asking you to give up those rags today.  No, let me say that again, Jesus is asking you to give up those rags today. Take a risk, leave those rags behind, and be the child of God you were created to be.

I've asked Jim to play some music for us and while he's playing I invite you to come up and lay your rag on the cross. Give those rags to Jesus. Let go of whatever it is that is holding you back from the joy of being God’s child. Then on your way back to your seat, without disturbing those who are still inline bringing their rags to the front, as you return to your seats you can share the Peace of Christ with one another I encourage you to use the words “you are a child of God” and to reply “and so are you.”

2 comments:

  1. Pastor Bailey is a hard act to follow. He is one of a kind! However, your sermons are interesting. It will be interesting to see what changes come to us at Carroll Iowa.

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    1. Anonymous,

      I know I have some big shoes to f!ill in Carroll. I love preaching and worship leadership though, so I am impressed that someone is interested enough to check me out!! That tells me that we may have some of the same passions and we may get along great! I can't wait to meet you. (whoever you are :) ) When I go back and read them I am always struck by the observation that since I deliver without a text the texts seem "stiffer" than the delivery. Unfortunately we do not use video here yet. That will be a bonus when I get there.

      Isn't it great that we can get to know each other on the internet, you get to know me by by sermon blog and I get to know you by your website!!

      Terry

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