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That I may know how to…
That I May Know How..
Isaiah 50:4–10
† In His Name †
May the gifts of God’s love, mercy and peace truly sustain you when you are weary!
The purpose of being taught –
There is one phrase in our Old Testament reading that I would like to focus on this morning, and I have to admit – it is quite convenient for a day when we dedicate our staff for the new year, and we have some of our children sing.
It is the first verse of our Old Testament, there on page 5.
“The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary.”
I think if we as parents, could look ahead to see our children grown, and ready to retire from their careers, if this is a phrase that described their lives, we would be proud, and quite joyful.
If beyond what the world that counts as success, we knew they learned how to care for others; if they learned how to help others endure in life; if they learned how to care for others; how to love, then we would consider that we’ve done our job as parents and teachers and as a church well!
Think about It this way, if our children grew up to be the next Bill Gates, or Steven Spielberg, or even Tom Brady, would it be worth it, if the cost was their alienating themselves from their families; if they had no their friends and they ended up rich and famous, and alone. Would we be as satisfied and content as if they spent their life helping those who couldn’t help themselves?
We have a challenge, in this God-given task of raising children, as parents. We also have a challenge, those as the people of this church and school, to come alongside parents to support and assist and encourage them in “training up” their children.
It is a God-given task, which in order to succeed, requires that we need to trust and rely on God. For we have too accomplish in the midst of a world that would encourage them to aim for success, to look out for number one, to have it all, even though they cannot take it “all” with them.
When God teaches – we..
When Isaiah credits God for giving him the voice that speaks the words of comfort, he is crediting God for that which has trained him to be able to do so. You see, the word there for taught is used for vocational training not just academic teaching. He provides on the job training, not just schooling. Or to use our preschool’s language – God gives both an academic and developmental learning experience!
The next verse talks of how that training takes place – as God gets us to listen, to hear Him. In Isaiah that is a constant topic, as repeatedly the people of God are described as those who don’t listen, who don’t see that which God says and shows them in life. If only they did, they would not rebel, they would not get themselves into trouble, they would know peace, and their lives would not seem so broken.
In many ways, that is reflected in society today, where self-centeredness and the need for immediate gratification has made our world so dark, so narcissistic, so full of anxiety, and so little hope. We are unwilling to learn why, or why there are consequences to actions, we just take them, and the consequences be… well you know what I mean.
A great example is seen in how Isaiah talks about being able to deal with opposition, with insults, with those that would distract us from what we’ve been trained to do. In Isaiah’s day, that kind of opposition was very physical in the way it mocked and worked against those who would serve others. Today it is more subtle, more sophisticated, but the world no more understands those who try to live a life that lovingly serves others, and call them to a life that is lived hearing God.
There is a great temptation, to defend ourselves, to engage in foolish verbal fights and arguments! And often we are tempted to hit back when insulted, or when people judge us as fools, or condemn us for being “irrelevant” or out of touch. It is interesting, no its critical that we understand that it is God’s grace – His gift that enables us to have the strength to endure that adversity, as we bring the message that gives comfort and strength to those who are weary.
Learn to trust and rely on God
The message of course, is the same message that causes us to endure hardship, mockery and ever condemnation. For we learn, through experience, on the job, that it is God’s judgment we need to be concerned about, not that of others. For when we bow to the pressure of others, we become distracted. When we let the pressure and condemnation of the world affect us, we compromise, and eventually lose that faith which undergirds our message.
But when we listen to God, we find out there is no disgrace, no shame, for in His love and mercy, He has forgiven our sin and errors. It is He that vindicates us, that will judge us in the end, and He has promised that those who trust in Him, those He’s roused and who listen and trust Him, to remove all that would cause guilt. That is why we don’t have to fight – as St Paul says,
34 Who, then, will condemn them? Not Christ Jesus, who died, or rather, who was raised to life and is at the right side of God, pleading with him for us! Romans 8:31(TEV)
What happens if, in the midst of the learning, we find that we have defended ourselves, that we have treated others wrongly? If we have confidence in God, if we have learned to rely on His strength, we know what we can do, we can go back to that person, and make it right, we can apologize for our error.
Why? Because Jesus is our Model
When I started this message, I mentioned that if we want our children and the next generation to grow up well, to be the kind of people we are proud of, then the challenge is in our being the kind of people that model the faith and trust in God which develops us into such people. That we are described in those words of Isaiah as well as they are. Remember that line?
“The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary.”
How do we find the strength for this? How do we come to be able to sustain those, with a word, when they are weary – even if it is those who mock and attack us?
The key is realizing that while this passage encourages us, it is not about us, but about the one we are courage to imitate, to live like. It’s about Jesus.
For He, when beaten and scorned didn’t fight back. But instead trusted in the Father. He sustained the weary with the “word”, He gave it all and then some, and listened to God the Father and never once rebelled.
Why? To sustain us, to bring light into our dark lives, to give us hope.
Even at the cost of His life. St Paul said it well…
“5:8 But God has shown us how much he loves us—it was while we were still sinners that Christ died for us! 9 By his blood we are now put right with God; how much more, then, will we be saved by him from God’s anger! 10 We were God’s enemies, but he made us his friends through the death of his Son. Now that we are God’s friends, how much more will we be saved by Christ’s life! 11 But that is not all; we rejoice because of what God has done through our Lord Jesus Christ, who has now made us God’s friends.
Romans 5:8-11 (TEV)
It is in Christ, united with Him in our baptism, looking to His love and mercy demonstrated in our lives every day, and every time we approach this altar, that we see our example- even as the children will see our example.
He gave it all – he didn’t despite who hated Him, He listened to the Father and learned to love, He shared His life, and eternity, even though the cost was huge personally.
It is Jesus that Isaiah’s prophecy is about – the Jesus of whom Paul said, imitate me as I imitate Jesus Christ…. May we learn to do so, may we allow ourselves to be trained, so that we can say to these children, and many more – imitate us, as we imitate our Lord, our Savior, our Friend, Jesus.
As we do, as we experience His mercy and grace, we will find that a peace comes over us, the peace of God our Father, a peace unexplainable, in which our hearts and minds are guarded, in Christ Jesus. AMEN!
The Breakfast Club Sermon
If a Man’s Home is His castle
God’s People are His Temple!
Eph 2:11-22
† In Jesus Name †
May we realize that God has brought the gospel of peace to those who were far off, and to those who have been near, and in so doing, has made us into the place where the Father, Son and Holy Spirit dwell!
Looking in from the outside
The most powerful memory from my high school back east was of a morning in a hallway, where I first realized how much I lived my life on the edge.
We all arrived early, some on the bus, some dropped off, some just because. There was my best friend John, a gymnast he was heading to the weight rooms. Bill – the star athlete, president of the class, and he was heading to Mrs. Johnson’s Algebra II class. Mike, well, Mike had interactions with various pharmacology, and was heading for an area we called the “hash block.” Another friend was heading to band practice, and another to autoshop – which was his second home. I think that of the 15 kids that hung out for 20 minutes, that of them every major clique in the school had representation. We hung out there…
every morning, for nearly two years…
It was one cold February morning, whenI realized I lived on the edge. As I was watching my friends, talking to some, I came to the conclusion that I lived on the edge.
Not the edge of danger, life filled with danger type edge.
But the edge of all their cliques, not really one of the brains, though we were in the same classes, not one of the jocks, though I ran and played with them, though I was a musician, the band geeks were a marching band – and you can’t carry your baby grand down main street. I knew the druggies and gearheads through my brother. I knew them all, yet, wasn’t part of their groups.
I was on the edge. Maybe some of you know what I mean, or maybe you wanted to be in one group – but found yourself in another – shut out from where you wanted to be – an outsider, and maybe you tried to force your way in. Maybe you still are trying to find that group to which you belong.
Paul’s description – painful but accurate?
In Paul’s epistle this morning, he is writing to those God has gathered together and made one in the city of Ephesus. In verse 11, he brings up the pains of their pasts – he reminds them that they were once on the edge, outside, not part of the group.
He reminds them that they were call names by those who thought they were cool. The phrases Paul writes, one after another, pounded in reminders of the feelings of being excluded, of the pain of realizing that life seemed somehow empty, and there were not part of the group that had it made. Basically, because you weren’t part of the family, because you didn’t know God, you were without hope.
By the way, there is a subtle reminder to humble those who think they are in the right group. Paul says, “who were proud of their circumcision, even though it affected only their bodies and not their hearts” I would realize much later, that those who made a big deal about being in this clique or that one, were the ones most insecure in those connections, who weren’t sure they belonged. Same thing in regards to our faith – those who compare themselves as far better than those outside of the faith, are the ones who need to find confidence in God’s work, rather than their own, to take it from being just an outwardly projected image, to seeing the image of Christ in them.
Returning to those of us former outsiders to whom Paul writes. It still seems strange to me, that there are those of us, who are comfortable in living on the edge. It is as if we desire to be part of the group, yet can’t bring ourselves to risk the rejection, as we may have, once or twice in life.
Will they accept me, both the good and the bad? If this is true with the cliques of our youth, it may be true of our adulthood. I hate to say it – but sometimes those fears have been proven, as people become part of a church, and struggle with the fact that sometimes we are more comfortable with each other, than the stranger who just walked in. How many in this world, are just looking for a group to belong to, a place where they are no longer the outsiders, living on the edge.
We’ve been re-created – a new people.
There are reason behind Paul bringing up these memories. First, we need to remember how incredible our Lord is, and how mind-blowing what He has done for us is.
You see the hard memory of the past is to be compared to where we are now, in the present. I want to re-read these words with you.
13 But now you have been united with Christ Jesus. Once you were far away from God, but now you have been brought near to him through the blood of Christ. 14 For Christ himself has brought peace to us.
You’ve been united with Christ! You aren’t going to get anymore “in” than that. The one whom all exists for and you are close, He has brought you near to the Father – close and loved. Hear some more
19 So now you Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens along with all of God’s holy people. You are members of God’s family. 20
You belong! Not just as the newbee, the one on probation – you are members of the family! You have been brought with Christ – and God is the One who called you and I into this incredible relationship, – one more – verse 21!
22 Through him you Gentiles are also being made part of this dwelling where God lives by his Spirit.
In comparing where we were – on the edge, on the outside looking in, without hope, to being an integral part of the people of God, a active and needed part of the body, we have been given hope, as the prophet Jeremiah tells a broken people who found themselves outside and on the edge. He said,
“This is God’s word on the subject…., “29:11 I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for. “
Jeremiah 29:10- 11 (MSG)
And in Christ, that hope is not some far off and barely possible thing, but as the word used to mean – that which we have 100% confidence in, it is our expectation, because God has given us His Holy Spirit as a guarantee of this.
Look whose here…
I said that there were a number of reasons Paul would bring up our painful pasts, the feelings of not even having been abandoned, the feelings of not belonging in the first place.
It is to keep us humble, to help us from becoming, now that we are the people of God, like those who were proud of a circumcision that was only physical, that wasn’t the cutting away of the crap around our hearts, the sin and effcts of sin that can change us, and make us cold.
A number of times Paul helps us with this as well, as he explains that God is pulling all people into Christ, and therefore into His presence. Hear His words
14 For Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us.
15b He made peace between Jews and Gentiles by creating in himself one new people from the two groups. 16 Together as one body, Christ reconciled both groups to God by means of his death on the cross, and our hostility toward each other was put to death.
17 He brought this Good News of peace to you Gentiles who were far away from him, and peace to the Jews who were near. 18 Now all of us can come to the Father through the same Holy Spirit because of what Christ has done for us.
Together, we are the people of Christ – He has brought us all into Him, and joined us to Himself, that He can bring us into the presence of the Father. The second reason to cause us to remember we were outside, is to explain how much we have all become one.
The sermon has a long title. If a Man’s Home is His castle God’s People are His Temple! God’s home isn’t created out of wood and stone, His temple isn’t one built of human hands. It is a house, a lineage, a people, that He Himself as called together, united, together, joined together,
Made one.
20 Together, we are his house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And the cornerstone is Christ Jesus himself. 21 We are carefully joined together in him, becoming a holy temple for the Lord.
One of the things I realized as I grew older, was that as one who lived on the edge, I was part of those groups – all of them. They weren’t so different than I am, and that each of us, is being called to be part of a bigger group, a real family, where burdens are shared together as we give them to God. For what defines us, what makes us who we are, is not our personas that we show to the public, not our gifts and abilities and differences and things we have in common, It is Christ, who has made us His.
We see a glimpse of it here, at this altar, as we will feast together, with our Lord, with our Savior, the One who made us His people, the one who calls us together in a life that knows peace.
AMEN?
