Please - read the book first

Lord of the Ring fans have been waiting for this a long time.  But do yourself a favor... if you haven't read The Hobbit yet, do so before you see the movie.  Otherwise, your imagination will be hijacked by the images from the film.  Let your mind do the work first before putting your grey matter in neutral in front of the screen.

From the Wall Street Journal online:

'The Hobbit': Lights, Camera, Action — Finally

Bilbo Baggins's journey through treacherous lands swarming with goblins and orcs, deadly wargs and giant spiders, shapeshifters and sorcerers has begun filming, at long last: "The Hobbit" movie kicked off shooting in Wellington, New Zealand, today.

Working on a Sermon

I'm going to be preaching this sermon at the Pastor's School at Sojourn Community Church for part of my studies.  If all goes well, I'll preach it at church on a Sunday morning in a few weeks (keep it quiet, though, I don't want everyone to read it and then think they can stay home).

Titus 3:4-7 God Our Savior

Introduction

In October 2008 Richard Garriott, the video game developer nicknamed “Lord British” after one of his characters, became the first ever second generation astronaut.  For a measly 30 million bucks he secured a place on the Russian space team set to rendezvous with the International Space Station, and so following his father into space.  While in the heavens he held up a placard with a message encrypted in a fictional language created for one of his games.  Devoted gamers decoded the message and found it to be a quote from Soviet rocket scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky – “Earth is the cradle of humanity but mankind will not be in the cradle forever.”

So we have the story of a son following his father from Earth to the heavens and sending back the message that humanity will one day leave Earth under our own power.

In our text today we have the story of a Father in heaven who sent his Son to Earth to accomplish something for us beyond our own abilities that brings about a real change in the destiny of individual people.

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

~ Titus 3:4-7

There are three questions we need to ask of this passage to help us grasp what is going on.  What happened?  Why did it happen?  How did it happen?

What happened?  He saved us.  Why did it happen?  His own mercy.  How did it happen?  He poured out.

He Saved Us

All the action in this passage is performed by God.  In fact, all three persons of the Trinity are at work and, though in different roles, all three are in perfect harmony to reach the desired result.  But the main focus of this entire passage revolves around a simple three word sentence – “he saved us”.  God our Savior, God the Father, took the initiative in our rescue, made the necessary arrangements in the unfolding of time and fulfilled what was needed to make sure we did not stay on the road to destruction we were on.  He saved us.

Think about this for a second.  The God of the universe, whose throne is in heaven, who wears outer space like a windbreaker and who rests his feet on the earth got “hands-on” involved in making a way for us to escape the bad end waiting for us.

Why would God do this for us?  Why did it happen?

His Own Mercy

He was not prompted by your good efforts, or mine.  This is clear and this is key.  I can’t sneak in my own contribution by  somehow earning God’s favor by doing good.  I end up a hypocrite.  I am in need of salvation because my own supposedly good efforts can never make up for the bad I do in trying to be my own savior.  Being religious just doesn’t work.  Yet, neither does rejecting religion.  If I’m too weak to be my own savior, surely I am in no position to be my own judge.  I can neither achieve my own right standing before God nor dismiss the goodness he requires.

God our Father is prompted to save us because of his own nature of goodness and loving kindness which he directs toward us.  He is full of mercy – his divine power acting on behalf of our human weakness.  Rescuing us is in harmony with who God is.  He does not come to our aid unwillingly or begrudgingly.  He is God our Savior.

He saved us, prompted by his own mercy.  What took place?  How did this happen? 

He Poured Out

The rebirth and renewal we experience are given through the Holy Spirit.  We are born again, not a physical birth, but a spiritual birth into the kind of spiritual life God wants for us.  We are born into a new life within God’s kingdom, a kingdom governed by his nature, and we are washed and renewed and given a new ability to live life within that kingdom.  But at what cost?

God is merciful, but God is also just.  He cannot abandon his own holy nature.  His saving us did not come without cost.  The goodness we could not achieve or dismiss he provides and the punishment we earned he inflicts – but on Jesus, not on us.

God pours out the new life of the Spirit on us because he first poured out Jesus’ blood for us.  A great exchange took place on the cross.  Jesus received death so that we could have life.  God the Father was merciless toward his Son so that he could be merciful toward us.  The Son of the Father, full of mercy and goodness and kindness toward us, like his Father, is Jesus Christ our Savior.

Believe in God

We have a new destiny because God saved us, a new life with God, real life, eternal life.  What happened?  He saved us.  Why did it happen? By his own mercy.  How did it happen?  He poured out the blood of his Son for us so that he could pour out his Spirit on us and make us new.

There’s one final question that you may be asking, “How can this happen to me?”  We’ve already seen that it’s not because of our own efforts.  In fact, we get it by giving up on our own efforts.  The very next verse after our text tells us…The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works…  Believing in God, trusting in his goodness, relying on his favor, accepting at face value that…he saved us.  That’s how we get it.

Give Ear To My Words, O LORD

Give ear to my words, O Lord; consider my groaning.

Give attention to the sound of my cry,

My King and my God, for to you do I pray.

O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice;

In the morning I direct my prayer to you and watch.

~ Psalm 5:1-3

Thank you, O Lord, for hearing us,

Thank you for hearing us

Whenever we cry out to you.

Through your great mercy,

Shown to us through our Savior,

Jesus Christ,

We can come before you today.

We can bow down and worship you

Because of his sacrifice.

Lead us in your right paths, O God,

And show us the best way to go.

May everyone who looks to you for help

Find joy and protection in your Son.

We are blessed when we belong to him.

And in his name we pray,

Amen.

Hearing from God

I use to collect Sci-Fi and Fantasy paperbacks.  At my zenith I probably had 300 volumes representing an investment of at least a thousand dollars and countless hours of poking through used book stores.  My favorite way to spend a Saturday afternoon was to visit a half dozen dusty repositories and scour the shelves looking for a missing volume or perhaps a favorite in better condition than I currently had.

Old books have a certain smell, not moldy or mildewy, but the smell of aged paper, fading ink and adventure.

I spent years gathering all the individual volumes of my favorite sets like Tarzan and Conan the Barbarian.  I would read my favorites at least once a year, visiting them like friends whom I drop in on from time to time, sharing old memories.  Until I walked into my study one day and saw the bowed, double stacked shelves as a mirror of my life.  I saw the money and time commitment in buying and consuming them. I saw the intellectual fodder I fed into my mind with them.  I saw the golden Nebuchadnerian hue they had attained for me.

Not a voice, but in my spirit, it was as if the Lord asked "Why are you so willing to spend yourself on these, but not on my Word?"  This struck me, this convicted me and this changed me.

I packed them up the next day and sold them.  Ninety bucks for the whole lot.  I took the money and purchased some books to help me read and understand the Bible.  I can trace the origin of my calling to preach and teach God's Word to that day.

I still occasionally read Sci-Fi and Fantasy, though I mainly go in for history and the classics now when I'm looking for leisure reading.  I still look through used book stores for fun.  But I feed my soul with the Word of Life.

Haiku in Triplet

Shadows lengthen now

The sun sits upon the hills

Night falls suddenly

Caught fast, in the dark

Helpless creatures seek safety

Death waits, but how long?

The moon falls from sight

The shadows slowly recede

Daybreak holds promise

Deja Vu all over again

On the news show Fox and Friends Monday morning, host Gretchen Carlson interviewed psychotherapist Brian Weiss, M.D., author of Many Lives, Many Masters, about his practice of past-life therapy.  According to the good doctor, people can suffer both emotional and physical pain in this life as a carry-over from trauma experienced in a past life.  Weiss gives two examples of this phenomenon.  If someone has a fear of heights, perhaps he was thrown from a castle wall in the sixteenth century or maybe his chronic neck pain comes from being hung in the thirteenth century.  Whatever the past-life event, a few sessions on the couch and, miraculously, one can be cured of the lingering ills.

Also, according to Weiss, as many as one quarter to one third of Americans believe in reincarnation, a low figure compared to other nations.  In predominantly Catholic countries up to one half of the population accepts reincarnation as true because, as the doctor diagnoses, reincarnation was an accepted Catholic belief until done away with by the meddling Romans in the fifth century in favor of death and immediate judgment, which are so necessary to subjucating people.

I don't know.  I might have been poisoned in a past-life... cause right now I feel like throwing up.

The Collect

A Collect is a short prayer that gathers or "collects" the prayers of the congregation and asks God for one thing only.  Found only in the Western liturgies, the Collect arises from the Gospel or Epistle reading for the day.

A Collect (written by me) from Ephesians 2:19-22

God our Father, who has made us to be members of  your household, grant that we be joined together in all devotion and holiness so as to be a fit dwelling place for your Spirit, through Jesus Christ the cornerstone.  Amen.


A Collect usually has five components

1.  The Address - the invocation to the Father
2.  The Acknowledgement - the grounds or reason for the petition
3.  The Petition - concerns the basic needs of the believers
4.  The Aspiration - the higher purpose behind the petition
5.  The Pleading - an appeal to Christ as our mediator

(1) God our Father, (2) who has made us to be members of  your household, (3) grant that we be joined together in all devotion and holiness (4) so as to be a fit dwelling place for your Spirit, (5) through Jesus Christ the cornerstone.  Amen.