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My Precious!!!! – A Sermon on Exodus 19:2-8 with help from LOTR
My Precious!
(People)
Exodus 19:2-8
† I.H.S. †
May the grace of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ convince you how passionately God desires you to be part of His life!
- Gollum’s Passion
In the books and movies based on J.R.R. Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings, there is an odd character named Gollum. Some people find him disgusting and pathetic, and others pity him.
All of his life has been spent guarding or chasing after a ring, a treasure he calls his “precious” When it is lost and found by others, he will do anything to get back this ring, this treasure whose value is beyond the value he places on his own life.
As Frodo the Hobbit tosses the ring into the volcano, Gollum is so intent on getting his precious back, he dives after it…. His passion so strong that even death can’t stop it.
Now Gollum’s obsession with the ring was not healthy, it was about gaining power. God the Father’s obsession is healthy; it is the passion which He chases His people with is just as strong…
Even to the point of His Son’s embracing death, if it means His precious will be His, again.
One perverted passion, one Holy passion, both seeking to make a treasure their own….
- The Set up – look at these two
In the Old Testament reading from Exodus this morning, Moses climbs Mount Sinai to talk with God…. And is given a message to share with the sin-plagued people of God who await him at the base of the mountain.
They are a people in the midst of change, having left the burden and slavery of Egypt, dwelling in the presence of God, but not yet in a place they could call home. They haven’t even been given what we call the 10 commandments yet, nor have they sinned in a way that resulted in a generation of wandering in the wilderness…
Yet they are God’s people… trying to learn what that means…. Just as we are this morning. We need to hear the message that He gave them for ourselves, and come to embrace Him as He embraces us…or….
- Response #1 The Egyptian Route
God plays it pretty hard to start the message,
‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians.”
Not long before, the Egyptians had suffered through the ten plagues because their King was stubborn. They chased after the Israeli’s, unable to learn to listen to God.
And like Gollum, they perished, drowned not in a volcano, but in the Red Sea. Neither way sounds all that fun, but sin eats us up that way. It creates a hunger, and obsession that is not quenchable until it destroys us.
God has to let us know the consequences of our actions, and even more, the cost of walking away from Him. It is what the Egyptians did… and were drowned because of it.
That is the power of sin, but the option is incredible…
- Response 2 – your flight is boarding
The second group God describes – is the people of God…
You know how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.
God promised Abraham that he would save his descendants in Egypt, and He did, carrying them away to Sinai where He met with them. That is where they are at, well aware of the miracles, for they witnessed the Sea dividing, they saw these miracles happen before them, much as we see it when someone is saved as God baptizes them, or strengthens them as He gives them the body and blood of Christ at the altar.
He has saved us from so much – as he did the people of Israel. But He brought us into His presence, revealing that we dwell in His presence.
Everything we are, and everything we do has to be based on this incredible truth. We are His, that we dwell in His presence.
We need to be reminded of this, at least I do, for life. That is the point of the rest of the message
5 Now if you will obey me and keep my covenant, you will be my own special treasure from among all the peoples on earth; for all the earth belongs to me. 6 And you will be my kingdom of priests, my holy nation
That phrase, “my own special treasure” is also translated as my peculiar possession. Peculiar in the sense of very different, very special. Or as I simply prefer it—precious.
Both peculiar and precious seem like olde words. Words that aren’t used all that much anymore…. And since the Lord of the Rings, people look at you a little strange when you call something “precious!”
But that is the relationship we have with God, this idea that out of all creation, God treasures us more than anything.
And He proved it by heading to the cross in the same way Gollum dove off the precipice after the ring.
Setting aside the shame – but for the joy set before Him, Hebrews tells us – Jesus endured the cross.
But there is a difference…
Alleluia! Jesus is risen!
And therefore, we are risen indeed.
- Give this message to the people!
We are God the Father’s peculiar, precious treasure.
This is what Israel struggled to understand in the desert. They couldn’t understand a God who desired to be their God, to be present and active in their lives.
They couldn’t see a God who would embrace agony because He treasured us. Who would do everything in His power to rescue us, and bring us out of where we were… to be with Him.
God told Moses, “this is the message you must give to the people of Israel”
Moses told them it all about God making them His people–then…and they responded with great joy…and the promise to live in this relationship.
We have an advantage over them. We have the cross and knowing what happened there. Our relationship is based on so much more!
It is based on the Jesus who died, and rose… and having risen, walks with us today. AMEN!
So now I’ve told you—what are you going to do?
God’s Plan in the Spotlight! A sermon on Ephesians 3:1-12
Epiphany – In the Spotlight
Ephesians 3:1-12
† In Jesus Name †
May the grace and mercy of God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ enable you to live out the plan brought to life in Christ’s coming – that we are to live boldly and confidently in God’s presence!
- The Plan… Hidden
This week was the anniversary of the birth of one of the great Christian philosophers of the last century. J.R.R. Tolkien is probably best known as the writer behind “the Hobbit” and “the Lord of the Rings.” But one of the things we should rejoice about from his life was his impact on a fellow writer and philosopher.
Eric Metaxas tells us how Tolkein joined Jesus on Jesus’ mission one night on a walk with his friend Jack. He didn’t beat the gospel into him, in fact, he only alluded to Jesus in one question, about whether all the myths could have some source in an event that was real, that once God did invade reality. (https://stream.org/j-r-r-tolkien-helped-lead-c-s-lewis-faith/)
His friend Jack, the angry, arrogant agnostic who disliked any discussion bordering the religious, was only nicknamed Jack. His given name was Clive Staples Lewis – one of the best-known Christian writers of the last century.
Joining Jesus, in this case, was simply a matter of shining a light in Lewis’s life, and letting the Holy Spirit work illuminate the plan that God had for Lewis, the same exact plan He has for each one of us, from the prophets and the wise man that adored Jesus at His birth, to you and I today.
It is simply a plan of illuminating God’s plan in their life, revealing His love, and His work in their lives.
This is what Epiphany is all about – putting God’s plan in the spotlight – for all to see. That is what the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus, that we saw this morning, this wonderful plan, with a wonderful result.
- The Plan Revealed
Both Tolkien and Lewis talked about writing a lot, and you see a similar style in them. The main characters are always aided by a more mysterious and powerful character. In Tolkien, it is Gandalf, a servant of a Deity never quite revealed. With Lewis, the guide was Aslan, who was also the destination.
But in the journeys, as in many good stories, the plan that these guides had was not fully revealed to those making the journey. That keeps a reader, or moviegoer interested, as the plan is revealed step by step. For those on the journey, it is a bit frustrating.
I want to know where I am going, how I am going to get there, how much earlier I have to plan to leave, so I actually leave on time and leave enough time for a bathroom stop or five on the journey.
During the Old Testament, the journey wasn’t always well known, they wandered for years, and they still didn’t understand the tabernacle or the Temple and what they pointed to, in fact, many today still don’t understand. Paul knew…. And he talks about the plan,
Both Gentiles and Jews who believe the Good News share equally in the riches inherited by God’s children. Both are part of the same body, and both enjoy the promise of blessings because they belong to Christ Jesus.
- The Plan Explained
You see the plan for the journey there. The plan includes who is on the journey, and how the journey is accomplished
The ones on it are those who believe the good news, what we call the gospel. It doesn’t matter whether we are Gentile or Jewish, what matters is that we believe, that we depend on the Good News. – the news that God loves us enough that Jesus would die for us.
And the way the journey happens is simple – we receive all these blessings because we belong to Jesus. That in our baptism, we are united to Him, we are made one with Him, in His death, and in His resurrection. This is the incredible mystery we confess when we sing the Memorial Acclimation – that because He died, was buried and rose, we, who were dead in our sin, rise with Him! And when He returns, for us, we will be with the Father forever!
How do we say it around here? Alleluia! He is risen indeed! (He is risen! Alleluia) and therefore, (We are risen indeed! Alleluia!)
His plan, it has been since the beginning, that our salvation would occur as we are intimately tied to Christ’s death and resurrection, as we are intimately united to Him!
- The Result of the Plan
The plan doesn’t end with the journey though, like our salvation, our being saved. Whatever epic, whether Narnia, The Lord of the Rings, or even Star Wars, the destination is arrived at, in a place where peace finally reigns. They got the idea from scripture of course, and their novels are based in a hope truly seen in scripture.
Oddly enough, they all arrive at the place where they started, with the difference being the peace that is known, finally. That is why I call the destination, “our perfect home” Paul will describe the plan’s destination this way:
11 This was his eternal plan, which he carried out through Christ Jesus our Lord.
12 Because of Christ and our faith in him, we can now come boldly and confidently into God’s presence.
We have a hint of that home now, for as we presently dwell in Christ’s presence, and He in us, we have the shadows cast by this reality to comfort us. For we dwell with Him now, and yet, we are still on the journey to the point where we see His return. To the point where we boldly enter the presence of God our Father, confident because of the work of Jesus that we belong there. AMEN!
