Love Your Enemies

Introduction
We are working our way through Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Mount from Matthew chapters 5-7.  His words have been challenging.  Today, we will find they are even more challenging.  Today, Jesus commands His flowers, “Love your enemies.”

Matthew 5:43-44
⁴³ “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. ⁴⁴ But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! 

Throughout His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus shows He is the fulfilment of the Law.  In fact, He specifically said in Matthew 5:17, “I did not come to abolish the law…  No, I came to accomplish their purpose.”

The Old Testament Law is quite clear that we are to love our neighbors.  Leviticus 19:18 says, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  But nowhere in the Old Testament does it say to: “Hate your enemy.”  However, the Jews of Jesus day lived under tha hostile occupation of the Roman empire.  They had many enemies and they resented and resisted their Roman oppressors.  Many Jewish leaders therefore misinterpreted the Scriptures to say: “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.”

It’s human nature to love people who are good to you and hate your enemies, but God’s Holy Law in the Old Testament holds human nature in check.  We find several places where the Old Testament teaches people to do good to their enemies.  Such as 

Exodus 23:4-5 – ⁴ “If you come upon your enemy’s ox or donkey that has strayed away, take it back to its owner. ⁵ If you see that the donkey of someone who hates you has collapsed under its load, do not walk by. Instead, stop and help.

Proverbs 25:21 – If your enemies are hungry, give them food to eat.  If they are thirsty, give them water to drink.

So we see, Jesus upholds the spirit of God’s Law in the Old Testament while challenging the Jewish religious leaders misinterpretation of it.  Notice how the Old Testament teaches to do good to your enemies (and the emphasis is on doing good rather than on a loving feeling).

Matthew 5:44-45
⁴⁴ But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! ⁴⁵ In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. 

It’s troubling to think God gives sunlight and rain to both the evil and the good.  In other words, God gives the same good things to evil people that He gives to good people.  Why, if God were fair, wouldn’t He reserve good things for good people and give wicked people only the evil they deserve?

Perhaps that’s the kind of world you long for—a world where evil people are punished and good people get rewards.  Is that what you want?

I can understand that.  However, the problem is we would all be punished and none of us would get a reward because none of us is good.  We have all acted like enemies of God.  Listen to what Romans 3:10-12 says:  “No one is righteous—not even one.  No one is truly wise; no one is seeking God.  All have turned away; all have become useless.  No one does good, not a single one.”  And Romans 3:23 sums it up: “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.”

What that means is every one of us is evil.  We have all been enemies of God who “actively opposed or were hostile to God.”  Rather than obeying God, we chased our own selfish ambitions.  Rather than surrender to God’s will, we wanted to do things our way. In sinful pride, we boasted “God is on our side.” But in fact, we were trying to use God’s for our own selfish purposes.

If God truly punished His enemies and only gave good to those who deserved it, everyone one of us would be living in Hell and there would be no one left for God to reward—no one except Jesus.

But as it is, God has given “his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.”  I am thankful.  Aren’t you?

Matthew 5:46-47
⁴⁶ If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that?  Even corrupt tax collectors do that much.  ⁴⁷ If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else?  Even pagans do that. 

Jesus calls His disciples to be different than worldly people.  If you only ever love people who love you and are good to you, then you are no better than a worldly pagan.  A pagan—in biblical terms—is a heathen, an ungodly person, anyone who doesn’t worship the one true and living God of the Bible.  If you only love people who love you and are good to you, then you are no different than the ungodly, immoral, corrupt enemies of God all over this world.
Jesus wants us to be different.  Jesus wants us to be like Him.  Jesus wants us to love our enemies.

A·ga·pe
Now, it’s important to clear up what it means to love—according to Jesus.  We often have immature notions about love.  Biblical love is not a warm, fuzzy feeling of affection. Jesus isn’t telling us to find pleasure in our enemies or their bad behavior.  The love Jesus commands us to give is a specific kind of love.  The Greek word Jesus uses is Agape, which is the “sacrificial love of God”.  Agape is not a feeling; it is a verb.  In other words, it’s a love you give.  Agape is to love someone sacrificially, expecting nothing in return.  It's the way God loved us when He sent His one and only Son to die for us on the cross—not because we deserved it, but because God loves us sacrificially.

Agape love is what Jesus did when He allowed His hands and feet to be nailed to the cross, because Jesus knew His death would make our salvation possible.  So, when Jesus says, “Love your enemies…” He isn’t telling us to have warm fuzzy feelings.  Jesus wants His followers to love their enemies sacrificially, expecting nothing in return.

It’s nearly impossible to live like this.  But Jesus is the perfect fulfillment of God’s law.  Jesus loved perfectly.  He even loved His enemies—even when they:
Twisted God’s words for their own evil schemes,
Told lies about Jesus and His Disciples,
When they spat curses at Him and beat Him and mocked Him,
And even when they cruelly drove nails through His hands and feet and displayed Him on a cross to die while all His enemies watched and gloated.

Rather than cursing them or getting revenge, Jesus prayed and said:  “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”  Jesus’ prayer wasn’t just for those standing at the foot of the cross.  He was also praying for you and me. Remember, in one way or another, we have all been enemies of God.  Every time we were dishonest, or were angry, or lusted in our heart, or were unfaithful, or sinned in any way, we were responsible for driving the nails through Jesus’ hands and feet.   It was our sin that put Christ on the cross.

But rather than seeking revenge or punishment, Jesus loved His enemies—us.  He perfectly represented the will of His Father in heaven.  And Jesus challenges us to do the same.

Matthew 5:48
⁴⁸ But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.

We were created in the image of God.  We are to follow in the footsteps of Christ—to represent God, just as Jesus represented Him to us.  Just as Christ loved us, we are to love everyone else—even our enemies.  We are to be perfect, even as our Father in heaven is perfect.

But how can we possibly be perfect?  No one is perfect. That is true.  Humanly speaking, it si impossible, but with God all things are possible.

One of the distinctive teachings of Methodism is the belief in Christian perfection.  John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, taught Christians should strive to be perfect in love.  And Wesley taught that Christians—with the help of the Holy Spirit—can grow, over the course of a lifetime, to become perfect in love.

Methodists believe Christians cannot make the excuse, “Oh, we’re only human.  We’re not perfect.”  It is true, that we will make many mistakes—even after we decide to follow Jesus—because indeed, “We are only human.”  However, there is one way we can be perfect (with the help of God’s Holy Spirit).  The Holy Spirit can help us grow to a place where everything we do is motivated by love.  And so, with God’s help, if we cooperate, we can be perfect in love—even as our Father in heaven is perfect.  But we cannot do this on our own.  We need God’s help.

Conclusion
God will help you if we seek Him with all your heart.  You must first surrender to God through Jesus Christ.  You must recognize you are helpless to save yourself.  Nor can you stop sinning simply by shear willpower.  You need God to save you.  So you must repent and beg God for mercy.  Jesus will save you , but you must trust Jesus to save you.  And you must stop trying to do things your own way and let Jesus be Lord.

Then, you must follow Christ as a Disciple.  Jesus said if anyone wants to be His disciple, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily.  A cross is a symbol of suffering and self-denial.  Furthermore, you must cooperate with the Holy Spirit.  The same Spirit of God who created the universe comes to live inside you when you become a Christian.  That Holy Spirit can enable you to do anything the Spirit wants you to do, but you have to go along with the Spirit and do what He says.  And then, the Holy Spirit of God will enable you to truly love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself.  And the same Spirit will also enable you to love your enemies.

Don't Fall Away

Introduction
Do you ever stop to review all God has done for you?  I have lived long enough now that it is quite easy to forget all the wonderful things Jesus has done for me.  It's not that I'm not grateful.  It's that there is just so much my brain is not big enough to consciously contain it all--unless I intentionally sit down and try to recall it.  As I do, I think of how Jesus saved me from a broken, abusive home and from poverty.  I remember how Jesus led me to the woman who would become my wife.  I recall how Jesus inspired me and my wife to get a college education, even though it was very difficult and we didn't have a lot of financial support from our families.  Then, Jesus called me to leave a promising career in engineering to enter the ministry, which was another great unknown and tremendously difficult.  Furthermore, Jesus somehow gave us the wisdom and energy to raise 3 brilliant kids, despite moving around from place to place and living on very little income.  I could go on and on about God's blessings to me and my family.  

How about you? What has God done for you? Some of you have survived strokes, heart attacks, and other devastating injuries.  I know someone who conquered cancer and gone on to be very active in my church.  Others have overcome, with God's help, substance abuse or other terribly difficult problems.  Some of survived losing a child or a spouse or someone else you love deeply, picked yourself back up after a divorce, or coped with mental illness.  We’ve all made it through COVID (so far); do you remember when the world shut down?  Here we are.  We are still alive and living, with God's help!  Let us give thanks for God is good!

This is the last blog in our series about conquering your fears. Through faith in Christ we can overcome our fears because God fights for us and we are not alone.  God is with us and the heroes of the Bible and even our loved ones who’ve died and gone to heaven cheer us on when we have faith in Christ.

We’ve been studying how the Israelites had to conquer their fears in order to enter the Promised Land.  The Israelites started out as slaves in Egypt.  God sent 10 plagues to force the Egyptians to let the Israelites go free.  Unfortunately, the Israelites were too afraid to enter the Pormised Land, so they were stuck wandering in the wilderness for forty years until Moses and all the original generation died (except for Joshua and Caleb).  Then Joshua became the new leader who led a new generation to conquer Jericho and the rest of Canaan.  

Now, as we come to our story for today, Joshua is an old man.  God has done all the major fighting for Israel.  Most of the unbelievers have been driven out of Canaan.  A few remain as a test of Israel’s faithfulness—to see if they will complete the work of driving out all the worshipers of false gods (or if they will be unfaithful to Yahweh, the God of Israel).  And now, Joshua is coming to the end of his life and he has some parting advice for his people. 

Joshua 23:6-13
⁶ “So be very careful to follow everything Moses wrote in the Book of Instruction. Do not deviate from it, turning either to the right or to the left. ⁷ Make sure you do not associate with the other people still remaining in the land. Do not even mention the names of their gods, much less swear by them or serve them or worship them. ⁸ Rather, cling tightly to the Lord your God as you have done until now.

⁹ “For the Lord has driven out great and powerful nations for you, and no one has yet been able to defeat you. ¹⁰ Each one of you will put to flight a thousand of the enemy, for the Lord your God fights for you, just as he has promised. ¹¹ So be very careful to love the Lord your God.

12 “But if you turn away from him and cling to the customs of the survivors of these nations remaining among you, and if you intermarry with them, ¹³ then know for certain that the Lord your God will no longer drive them out of your land. Instead, they will be a snare and a trap to you, a whip for your backs and thorny brambles in your eyes, and you will vanish from this good land the Lord your God has given you.

Joshua’s 4 Pieces of Advice
Joshua gives the Israelites four pieces of advice:  1.     Be Obedient.  2.     Be Faithful.  3.     Continue the Mission.  And 4.     Love the Lord your God.

 

Be Obedient

God wanted the Israelites to be obedient.  It’s important to point out that God’s grace came before His call to obedience.  In Exodus 1, the Israelites were slaves in Egypt.  Then God does amazing, miraculous things to deliver the Israelites:

He sent ten plagues on the Egyptians to force them to let the Israelites go.  Then God parting the Red Sea so Israel could cross the sea safely on dry ground.  Next God fed the Hebrews in the wilderness with mana from heaven and quail for meat and water in the desert.  

Now notice, all this happens before God gives Israel the Law.  Exodus chapters 1-19 is all about what God does for the Israelites.  It is not until Exodus 20 that God gives Israel the ten commandments and the rest of the Law.  You see, God’s grace and deliverance precedes the requirements He gives, even in the Old Testament.

 

The same is true for you.  God’s grace pursues you, woos you, encourages you, and invites you before you even spend a single second thinking about Him.  Then, when you realize you need God and you turn from your sin and turn to God through Jesus, God saves you and adopts you as His very own child.  Now, you are part of His family forever.  It is only after God has done all this that you don't deserve that God asks you to be faithful and obedient and act as a member of His royal family.

 

Be Faithful

God enabled Joshua and the Israelites to drive out the unbelieving Canaanites from the Holy Land, because the Canaanites had rejected the One True God for generations (for at least 400 years).  So now, God gave the land to the Israelites.  They were to be God’s royal priesthood who would represent God to the whole world.  They were to help all the nations return to God.  They had a special purpose. 

A few Canaanite settlements remained in the land.  They were there to test Israel’s faithfulness.  Would Israel be faithful to God?  Would they become bored with their devotion to God and become intrigued by the exotic foreign gods of the Canaanites who remained in the land?  Would they decide to hedge their bets?  (You know, let’s worship the God of Israel so He will be good to us, but let’s also worship the gods of the Canaanites just in case?)  God wanted Israel to be faithful to Him alone.

Unfortunately, Joshua 23:12 has been used to say God forbids intermarriage between different races or nations because it says, "if you turn away from him and cling to the customs of the survivors of these nations remaining among you, and if you intermarry with them, then know for certain that the Lord your God will no longer drive them out of your land."  God doesn't have a problem with intermarriage between people of different races.  It is intermarriage between believers and unbelievers that God discourages.  We know this is true because the clues are right there in the Scripture.  Caleb was the only other Israelite (besides Joshua) who left Egypt who was also honored to enter the Promised Land.  Caleb was not an ethnic Israelite. He was a Kenizzite (which were a Canaanites), yet Caleb married and had descendents who were accepted as Israelites who received allotments in the Holy Land.  Furthermore, Rahab was a Canaanite from Jericho. God saved her when she converted and worshiped the God of the Israelites.  Rehab married an Israelite named Salmon.  She became the great great grandmother mother of King David and one of the direct ancestors of Jesus. Rahab, a Canaanite prostitute, is listed in the New Testament as one of the great heroes of the Christian faith (Hebrews 11:31).  Intermarriage of different races wasn't the problem. Marrying people who worshipped false gods was the problem.  The person you marry is the person who has the greatest influence in your life.  Therefore, we should chose someone who shares our most important core values, which should be our devotion to God through Christ.

In this life, there are many things that will entice you away from God.  Be very, very careful that you remain faithful to God.  He is the only one worthy of your worship.  He must be the first priority of your life.  Do not turn away from Him for riches, for family, for power, for influence, for nation, for politics, for entertainment, for anything.

 

Continue the Mission

God chose the Israelites for a purpose.  He blessed them so that they could be a blessing.  God had already done the hard work of driving out most of the Canaanites.  All that was left was to mop up the few remaining groups.  This was certainly doable for the Israelites who now had a majority and who occupied the fortified cities of Canaan.  Unfortunately, they lost their focus on being the royal priests of God.  They turned their attention to their own personal pursuits—their families, income, and pleasure.  They forgot the mission of God.  Before long, this led to complacency and unfaithfulness.

 

Christians have a mission too.  We are to go into all the world and make disciples of Christ.  We are to teach people about the love and salvation of Christ and invite people to follow Him as Lord.  We are to baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.  When we get distracted, we worry about all the other things in life.  The main mission of Christ becomes an after thought or no thought at all.  Our lives are about what makes us happy and soon we don’t even care about God at all, except that maybe He can be useful to give us what we want or help keep us from losing what we love.  Where are we then?  We've become like the Canaanites.  We are right back where we started—full of fear, feeling lost and alone.  

We must stay focused on the mission of God or we get lost once and consumed by our selfishness, fear, and depravity.

 

Love the Lord Your God

Joshua told the Israelites to love the Lord their God.  Jesus said the same thing.  He said the most important commandment was to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your strength.  And the second was like it:  Love your neighbor as yourself.  

Love is powerful.  Fear of punishment only goes so far.  It’s an immature and incomplete way of living.  God doesn’t want us to obey Him out of fear.  He wants us to obey because of love.  

 

How is it with your friends, your children, your spouse?  Do you want them to be faithful only because they’re afraid of what will happen or how you will react if they betray you?  No!  We want the people we love to be kind and faithful because they love us. Right?

God is the same way.  God has already loved you with the greatest love of all.  Romans 5:8 – “God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.”  God wants us to be obedient and faithful—not out of fear, but—out of love.  When you love someone, you try to the best of your ability to do what they want.  Most importantly, you do what they need (even if it's not what they want).  That's love.  

What Christ asks of us is not so difficult.  It is an easy burden to bear and one He helps us carry.  It is love.  Love God with all you are love your neighbor as you love yourself.  Is that so hard?  We are not asked to take up a sword and drive out Canaanite armies.  In America, thanks be to God, we are not even in danger of being tortured or killed for our faith as many other Christians are around the world. So can’t we be obedient and faithful and love?

Closing
As I close, I want to invite you to decide who you will follow.  Have you ever decided to follow Jesus as a Christian? If not, please do that today.  Ask God to forgive you for the ways you've turned your back on Him up until today.  Now make a commitment to follow Christ and ask Jesus to help you keep your commitment.  From this day on, seek to be obedient and faithful to God through Christ.  

Perhaps you are already a Christian.  Maybe you even became a Christian a long time ago.  Have you been faithful or have you drifted from the faith or from your commitment? If so, please chose to recommit your life to Jesus today.  God will forgive you for getting off track.  He will help you to make a fresh start if you ask Him.  So ask Him today.

God is Great. God is Good.

Introduction
When I was a kid, we would all sit around the table and eat dinner together.  We took turns saying a blessing before each meal.  So even as a young kid, I would often say the prayer.  Most often, it was the simple prayer we had memorized: “God is great.  God is good.  Let us thank Him for our food.  By His hands, we all are fed.  Give us Lord our daily bread. Amen.”

Preview Of Our VBS
That prayer so many learned as children will be the theme of Vacation Bible School here at Pleasant Grove this week.
We will pretend we’re having a Food Truck Party
and each day we will consider a statement from the old, traditional meal blessing.
Monday is “God is Great” – Ex. 18 – God sends Manna and Quail for the Hebrews…
Tuesday is “God is Good” – 1 Kings 17 – Elijah and the Widow of Zarephath
Wednesday is “Let us thank Him for our food” – Daniel 1 – Daniel and the exiles’ special diet
Thursday is “By His hands we all are fed. Give us Lord our daily bread – Matthew 14 – Jesus Feeding the 5,000

Today, I want to talk about the Elijah story.  If you read 1 Kings chapter 16, it tells a long list of kings of Israel and it says each king was a bad king.  The last king mentioned is King Ahab and it says Ahab was the worst one of all.  King Ahab led Israel to worship false god’s and even allowed child sacrifice.
Therefore, in 1 Kings 17, it tells how God punished Israel, but it also shows how God provided for Elijah and a widow and her son.

1 Kings 17:1-16
¹ Now Elijah, who was from Tishbe in Gilead, told King Ahab, “As surely as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives—the God I serve—there will be no dew or rain during the next few years until I give the word!”

² Then the Lord said to Elijah, ³ “Go to the east and hide by Kerith Brook, near where it enters the Jordan River. ⁴ Drink from the brook and eat what the ravens bring you, for I have commanded them to bring you food.”

⁵ So Elijah did as the Lord told him and camped beside Kerith Brook, east of the Jordan. ⁶ The ravens brought him bread and meat each morning and evening, and he drank from the brook. ⁷ But after a while the brook dried up, for there was no rainfall anywhere in the land.

⁸ Then the Lord said to Elijah, ⁹ “Go and live in the village of Zarephath, near the city of Sidon. I have instructed a widow there to feed you.”  [Zarephath was not an Israelite town. They were pagan Phoenicians who worshiped Baal and other false god's.]

¹⁰ So he went to Zarephath. As he arrived at the gates of the village, he saw a widow gathering sticks, and he asked her, “Would you please bring me a little water in a cup?” ¹¹ As she was going to get it, he called to her, “Bring me a bite of bread, too.”

¹² But she said, “I swear by the Lord your God that I don’t have a single piece of bread in the house. And I have only a handful of flour left in the jar and a little cooking oil in the bottom of the jug. I was just gathering a few sticks to cook this last meal, and then my son and I will die.”  [Notice the widow swear by Elijah's god.  She recognizes he is a foreigner and she swears by his god, not her own.]

¹³ But Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid! Go ahead and do just what you’ve said, but make a little bread for me first. Then use what’s left to prepare a meal for yourself and your son. ¹⁴ For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: There will always be flour and olive oil left in your containers until the time when the Lord sends rain and the crops grow again!”

¹⁵ So she did as Elijah said, and she and Elijah and her family continued to eat for many days. ¹⁶ There was always enough flour and olive oil left in the containers, just as the Lord had promised through Elijah.

Drought and Famine
We need rain.  I haven’t had a drop of rain on my garden in three weeks.  In Elijah’s day, it hadn’t rained in 3.5 years!  Now, ancient Israel was well adapted to long periods without rain.  The ancients would dig huge cisterns in the bedrock of the land and channel rainwater into them.  Some of those cisterns are up to an acre in size--they can hold a lot of water.  And one good rain can fill up their cisterns and provide water for a long time--both for drinking and irrigation.  I've been to Israel and have seen some of those ancient cisterns.  They're quite impressive and they helped the ancient Israelites deal with the sporadic rain that is a normal part of their climate.

However, even with these cisterns, a really long drought could be deadly.  In Luke 4, Jesus said the Elijah's drought lasted three and a half years.  Let's consider how that would effect the people of ancient Israel.

The ancients had to grow all the food they ate.  If they couldn't grow enough, they went without.  So it was important to have a good harvest and to store up the surplus to get them through to the next harvest.

Drought Year 1
Let's assume the Israelites under King Ahab had a good harvest the year before Elijah's drought.  So they've got some food in storage from last year when the drought begins.  In the first year of the drought, they will have little to know harvest.  However, they still have some food stored from last year.  They could make those stores last longer by reducing their reduce daily rations.  When times are tough, you tighten your belt.

Drought Year 2
After a second year of drought, there would again be no harvest.  Plus, the remaining food stores would start to runs out. People might be able to barter and trade with neighbors and foreign countries to get get somethings to help them survive, but it would not be pretty.  No one is eating well.  They are in survival mode.  People are getting weaker and are more susceptible to other illnesses.  The elderly and infirm are most susceptible of all.  People are certainly starting to die.

Drought Year 3
There is no harvest again this year.  There are only scraps of food left.  WHat people are eating are the dregs of their food stores.  This is food that is rotting, full of bugs and worms and mold.  It's not even fit for animals to eat, bit people are eating because it's all they have left, otherwise they will starve.  No one in neighboring towns and villages has any food left to trade either..  Everyone is starving and surviving on tiny rations.  Bread is worth more than gold.  What little water is left in the wells and cisterns is dirty and contaminated.  People have to drink this disgusting water and they are suffering from water born diseases and parasites.  Many die from these illnesses alone.  others are dying of starvation.

After 3.5 Years of Drought
At this point, everyone is about to eat their last meal and dying of starvation.  That's where we find the widow of Zarephath when Elijah finds come to her town.  However, the Bible tells us God took care of the Elijah & the widow who lived in Zarephath with her son.

The widow has a surprising amount of faith and compassion.  Even though I'm sure no one in Zarephath had much water to spare at this point, the widow doesn't argue with Elijah when he asks for some water.  I don't many people who would have been so kind to a man who was a stranger and a foreigner.  Yet, she's on the way to get Elijah that cup of water when he makes a truly absurd request:  "Can I get  a piece of bread too?"  It is at this point the widow tells Elijah she doesn't have any food to spare.

Now this widow and her son were not Israelites.  They were not “The Chosen People” (by Old Testament standards).  They were Gentiles, foreigners, outsiders.  Some in Israel at the time would have said God despised this widow and her son. Ironically, many in the town of Zarephath would have said the same thing about Elijah--he was a foreigner who didn't worship their gods.  He was not worthy to receive any compassion from the people of Zarephath; he was despised by their gods.

However, the One true God of the Bible, Yahweh, doesn’t think the way people think.  God loves all people--even those who reject Him.  God sent Elijah to be a save this foreign widow and her son and to take care of Elijah at the same time.  And while the so called “Chosen People” people in Israel were turning their back on God, worshipping idols, and sacrificing children, God had compassion on a foreigner, a gentile, because she had enough faith and compassion to give her last cup of water and piece of bread to a stranger no one else cared about.

In the New Testament, Jesus mentioned this story of the widow of Zarephath in a homecoming sermon Jesus preached in Nazareth in Luke 4.  Jesus pointed out that God loves everyone—even foreigners and social outcasts that religious people look down on.  Furthermore, Jesus taught again and again that God’s real “Chosen People” are not defined by a religion, or race, or where they or their ancestors were born.  God’s chosen people are people who choose to rely on God for every blessing while living faithfully for Him.

We have to be careful not to look down on or reject anyone.  We must love the sinner, even if we hate the sin.  This is what we do for ourselves, isn't it?  No one truly hates themselves.  I may hate the things I do sometimes.  I may say, "Why did I do or say that? I hate that I did or said that!"  But at the same time, I don't hate myself.  I love myself.  We must be sure to extend the same grace we give ourselves to others.  We may hate their bad words or bad behavior, but we must love them because they are made in the image of God and are sacred to God.  All human life is sacred.  So we must love all people--even sinners; we love the sinners and hate their sin.  This is how Jesus loves us all.  It is how he was able to eat with sinners and tax collectors and prostitutes and all kids of immoral people, but also call each of these sinners to repentance and to transform them into new creations more able to glorify God with their words and actions.

God’s Chosen People
God’s chosen people live by a simple creed expressed surprisingly well in the simple meal blessing many learned as kids.

God is great. We believe God is all powerful.  He is great enough to do anything.  He made the world.  He can control it.  He can do whatever He wants.  Now an all powerful God who is malevolent could be a ver scary, very dangerous and appalling thing.  But thankfully…

God is good.  God is not just all powerful.  He’s also a good God who does the right thing.  He cares for people—not just the good looking, strong people everybody likes. No.  God even cares for the weak, the lost, the foreigner, the outcast.  He cares for the widow who’s starving to death with her only son--even when she lives in a foreign land that worship's idols and false gods.  God cares for the orphan everyone has abandoned. So…

Let us thank Him for our food.  God’s chosen people depend on God and are thankful for every blessing He gives.  We believe, and are eternally grateful, that God provides for us.  We recognize that we rise or fall by the grace of God, not by our own efforts and abilities.  Rather…

By His hands, we all are fed.  Some people in this world think they deserve good things.  They think they deserve to be rewarded because they work hard, or live right, or they’re better than other people.  They believe they deserve a higher standard of living than the rest of the world.  They may even go so far as to believe God owes them.  After all, they think, they have earned their blessings.  However, God’s people realize they aren’t fed by their own hands.  Nope.  It is “By His hands, we all are fed.”  And so they humbly ask…

Give us, Lord, our daily bread.  God’s people realize we are completely and utterly dependent upon the Lord.  The very bread we eat is a gift from God.  God’s people willing submit to God and wish to enjoy only the blessings He provides and will decline any blessings that don’t come from God’s hand. 

When the world says, “You deserve to enjoy this or that pleasure.  Why not indulge yourself?”  God’s people say, “I don’t deserve anything.  But God is good and takes care of me anyway.  And I will only enjoy the blessings God gives me and I will abstain from anything God does not allow.”

When the world says, “Your crazy!  Why would you hold to such old-fashioned ideas?”  I will say:

God is great.  God is good.  
I will trust Jesus.  Am I understood?
I turn my back on worldly gain. 
This world won’t last.  Let me explain.
You think wealth, and pleasure are great. 
It all turns to dust at Heaven’s eternal gate.
You can’t take it with you, not a thing whatsoever. 
I have something that lasts forever.
I live for Jesus, because He died for me. 
Heaven’s my Kingdom. And Jesus is my King.

I invite you to chose Jesus today.
Choose to rely on Christ for every blessing
and live faithfully for Him every day.
He will take care of you
And you will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Amen.

Creation: Day 2 - Sky

Introduction

The world we live in is breathtaking and complex.  The artistic genius of it points to Something/Someone higher, greater, more wonderful than we can even imagine.  Who is this Creator who set the world in motion?  What does the story of creation in Genesis tell us about the Creator’s character?

Long before science existed, people were already asking questions about how the world began.  We want to know where we came from.  We want to know Who made us.  We want to know why we are here.  Genesis was written to speak to the mysterious longings within our hearts to know the Truth about God.  The creation story reveals the character of God and the life He offers us.  If you want to know God and why we are here, you can find out by studying the story of creation in Genesis.

Genesis 1:6-8

6 Then God said, “Let there be a space between the waters,

to separate the waters of the heavens from the waters of the earth.” 7 And that is what happened. God made this space to separate the waters of the earth from the waters of the heavens. 8 God called the space “sky.”

And evening passed and morning came, marking the second day. On the second day, God created the sky. At the time Genesis was written, people observed the world around them and tried to understand. They looked up into the blue sky and it reminded them of a vast ocean of water. *Yet, they could clearly see that the air above them was invisible. So it seemed there was an empty space between the blue “water” above and the water and land upon which we stand here on earth.

How would you describe the sky if you had never been told a scientific description of it?  Suppose you had no way of going up into the sky or into space to look around and measure what you found.  How would you explain this mysterious existence of earth below and blue sky above?

Children are inquisitive.  They want to understand the world around them—even before their minds are capable of grasping it.  Parents often struggle to answer their questions.  One day a 5-year-old boy asked his father if a stick was alive.  “No.  This stick is not alive.”  “But it comes from a tree.  Is a tree alive?” Asked the son.  “Yes, a tree is alive.”  “Then why isn’t this stick alive?”  How would you answer this child’s question in a way that they could understand?  Even more challenging: how would you explain the same thing to a dog or a cat?

How difficult it must be for an infinitely intelligent Creator God to explain the intricate details of His creation to people whose thinking is so limited.  This was especially true thousands of years ago when Genesis was written.  So God used words that made sense to ancient people.  He describes the sky or atmosphere as a “space” between the waters of the sky and the earth below. 

The Hebrew word is translated “firmament” in KJV.  This gives the impression that the sky is firm to hold up the blue expanse that we see above us.  God named the sky Shamaym, “heaven.”  The word means lofty—the home of God. God beckons us to reach for higher ideals. God created within each of us a desire to reach for something higher.  We could not even imagine God if it were not so.  One cannot help but look up at the sky and wonder about it.  We lay in the grass on a pretty summer day and stare up at the mysterious clouds above.  What are they made of?  What do they feel like?  They look like giant cotton balls floating in the sky.  It was not until the 1903 that man successfully built an airplane and soared through the sky.  However, people have watched birds soaring among the clouds since the very beginning, and we have longed to be up there with them.  It took thousands of years of longing, stretching, reaching before humanity was able to achieve our dream of flight.  If we never had the ambition to fly through the magnificent sky, we would never have achieved flight. We don’t just long for a higher altitude. God created us to yearn for higher ideals.  If we were just another one of the animals, we might only care about the basics that all animals need to survive—food, water, shelter, reproduction.  Yet the human spirit longs for higher ideals.  We value faith, hope, and love.  Our greatest joys in life come when we realize these; our greatest sorrows are when they are missing. Faith and Hope are two higher ideals God gives us. “Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.” (Hebrews 11:1)  Having faith gives you a distinct advantage.  If Orville and Wilbur Wright never had faith that flight was possible, they never would have risked the dangers of flight or the ridicule of those who did not believe it was possible.  The greater rewards in life are rarely within plain sight.  Faith enables you to push yourself beyond the limits of what is immediately visible.  Faith also empowers you to trust others.  Trust is the bond that enables people to work together—as husband and wife, as parents and children, as co-workers, as soldiers in an army, or as a church full of people who can count on each other.  Without trust, we must do everything on our own power—which is very limited.  But when we can trust others, we can work together as a group and accomplish so much more. Ultimately, faith allows us to trust the Creator.  Just because a person believes God created the world does not ensure they trust God.  Many people do NOT trust God.  We see the same mistrust played out in many religions—including biblical Judaism—where sacrifices were made to appease the gods.  Such religious practices reveal a deep mistrust of divine power.  Yet God turns this whole religious practice of sacrifice upside down through Jesus Christ.  Instead of people making a sacrifice for God, God—in Christ—sacrifices Himself for us.  God has done everything possible to show He is trustworthy.  Now it is our choice whether we will take hold of the higher ideals of faith and hope.  Do you have faith in God? Do you have hope? Love is the highest ideal for which God beckons us to reach. 1 Corinthians 13:13 says, “Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.”  We were created for love. There are 21 definitions for the word love on Dictionary.com.  However, the Greek word 1 Corinthians uses is “Agape,” which is “self-giving love, expressed freely without calculation of cost or gain to the giver or merit on the part of the receiver.”  The clearest demonstration of love is found in the life of Jesus Christ.  By all accounts, Jesus was an extraordinary man.  A man who can heal the blind and walk on water could have gained anything he wanted—power, wealth, prestige.  However, Jesus refused to seek anything for himself.  Instead, he gave up even the basic things most people desire—a way to make a living, a wife, children—and he dedicated his life to helping others.  We have seen a few exceptional people, like Mother Theresa, who lived a life of sacrificial love, but Jesus went even further.  Jesus showed us the greatest love of all when he laid down his life for the world. Jesus didn’t just die for his friends.  He sacrificed his life for people he’d never met—people like you and me.  He died for people most might overlook—the outcast, the forgotten, the neglected.  He died for people most might find despicable—those who have cheated, abused, murdered.  Jesus even died for those who drove the nails through his feet and hands into the cross.  He said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34) When Jesus died on the cross, he demonstrated the highest form of love.  We admire his self-sacrificing love.  Somehow, it speaks to our hearts.  We know it is good.  We know it is right.  It awakens a longing within us to reach for this kind of higher love—even when it seems out of reach.  However, just as early people must have thought flight was out of reach, we hope that—with God’s help—we might one day love like Jesus.  The Truth is, we can love like Jesus.  With man it is impossible, but all things are possible with God.  And God beckons us to reach, to stretch, to grow toward love. Closing Whenever you look up at the fluffy white clouds that float high above us in God’s beautiful sky, remember to reach for the higher virtues in life: faith, hope, and love. Pray and ask God to help you. And then, keep reaching for the highest ideals in life.