Week Of: September 13, 2009
Title: The Healing Community
Series: Ministry of Worship – Part 19
Scripture: Psalm 103: 1-5
1. In the Psalm we read a few moments ago, the Psalmist starts off by praising God. It is a fitting beginning to any worship experience to praise God so I imagine that this particular psalm has been used in countless worship experiences sense its conception.
2. He writes: “Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.”
3. He names those benefits for which he praises God in the following verses. They are forgiveness, redemption, love, compassion, energy, life and forbearance, just to name a few. But there is one such benefit that I would like to focus on this morning—healing.
4. Healing is something that most people today consider to be the sole expertise of the medical profession. And indeed, if get we are sick we should call our doctors or go to the hospital as soon as possible.
5. I woke up one morning a couple of years ago with a sharp pain in my side. It felt like someone was sticking a rusty butcher knife in my side and twisting it. I laid in bed for a few minutes flopping around like fish thrown out of water just trying to get comfortable—and I couldn’t. So finally I told Sharon to call the rescue squad and within a few minutes they were there. Of course, when they got there they told me it was a… kidney stone.
6. They wanted to know if I wanted them to take me to the hospital or not. Well, listen…99 out of 100 times if you’re that sick, call ambulance and go with them! But, I made a mistake riding in the ambulance that morning because they knew that it was kidney stone and they were not in a hurry. It felt like we were going…5 or 10 miles per hour to the Lebanon Hospital. I was never so glad to see a doctor or a hospital!
7. The Jewish people in ancient world had physicians and had some medicines, but they did not obviously have anything like we do for medical care. In fact, do you know where people would go when they got ill? To their local priest or Rabbi. The Rabbi would then anoint them with oil (which was called the best of all medicines) and pray over them.
8. Jesus himself was a healer and healed the sick and lame where ever he went. The early church itself was a healing community. The writer of James writes: “Is anyone of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. Is anyone of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up” (James 5:13-16).
1Clement was a little letter written around the turn of the 1St century. It never made into our Christian cannon but still gives us reliable information about the practice of healing. The writer of the little epistle reminds his readers to “Heal the sick; raise up the weak; cheer the faint-hearted.” The church has always been about carrying on a ministry of healing. Our church carries on a ministry of healing through prayer.
9. But healing means more than just physical healing alone. In the New Testament, the word for healing is “sozo,” the Greek word from which we get our word salvation. The word healing expresses a desire for wholeness and completeness. There are many people who may be physically all right but spiritually they are really sick. They are sin sick and they are in desperate need of healing.
10. Christ cares for all of our needs. He wants to see us completely whole. He wants us to be spiritually, emotionally, and physically complete.
11. Tell me, of these three areas of our lives: physical, emotional and spiritual, which one is the primary and the most important need of our life? That’s debatable, isn’t it…the world evidently sees the physical and emotional the most important because, in most cases, it ignores the spiritual. The world is obsessed with the physical part of life, with the materialism, with the sensuality, with pride and power that goes along with what everyone believes it means to be successful.
12. Of course, they are obsessed with what means ‘to be successful’ until they lose what they take for granted with their health and peace of mind, then it’s “Katie, bar the door” because life isn’t what they want it to be. And by the way, if you were told that you had to lose either your physical health or your mental health (peace of mind and well being) which one would you choose to lose? Well, I’ve seen people suffer both ways and it is not pretty either way. To be honest, one effects the other. However, if I had too chose to keep one, I would want my peace of mind. You can make through most anything if you have a peace of mind, but take away peace of mind and well being then life is not worth the living.
13. For that reason, the church has always said that the spiritual is the most important of all the human needs that need to be met. If there is a bedrock of stability in a human being’s existence, it is the spiritual.
14. The spiritual is the ability to give and receive love on the personal and on the cosmic level. It is the ability to feel connected to myself, to my fellow human beings, and to my God and Creator. It is the bedrock of all of our needs and without it you and I will find no healing.
15. We might be a specimen of perfect physical heath, but if we’re messed up spiritually everything about us will eventually be out of whack. So get the spiritual taken care of first and then work on the rest and see how it goes.
16. Ok preacher, so if Jesus wants us to be physically, emotionally, and spiritual whole, how come there is so much sickness and death? Well, to begin with…there never will be a time on this side of eternity that people won’t suffer and die. Medical science is wonderful and people are living longer today than any other time since Methuselah, but there is still appointed a time for us to die. We can wail, rant, and rave all we want but sooner or later this old body gives out and dies.
17. But listen… this is not a cop out, while there are times of genuine healing, and praise God there are many times and ways of finding relief from human suffering, it is only when we die that we will experience our complete healing—body, mind, and soul. When we are absent from this body and present with the Lord then we will understand what it means to be completely healed and whole. It is a healing that will last throughout eternity.
18. But until then, everything will be done in part. The only thing that you must do here is to make sure the spiritual healing starts while we are in this diseased and decaying body….
19. I wonder, is there anyone who would be brave enough and Biblical enough to walk down front and ask the church to pray for them in some manner for healing. Asking God’s will be done…
Week Of: September 20, 2009
Title: Is Your God Too Small
Series: Systematic Theology – Part 1
Scripture: Psalm 139:1-18; Job 38-42
1. As most of you know, most people in the world are not atheist. In fact, in our country 94-96 percent of Americans are not atheists.
2. But the question is not do you believe in a god (most people do), but what kind of a god do you believe in and how does it affect your life?
3. In fact, the question I would like you to consider this morning: “Is your God too small?”
4. Not that God is too small (because God is so infinitely Great) but is our own personal understanding of God too small? I dare say that all of us have a very tiny, tiny understanding and appreciation of God compared to what we should have.
5. As good and as enlightened a man as Job was, he had to be instructed in how big God was compared to his understanding of God.
6. If you will turn to the Book of Job, chapters 38-42, and follow along with me as I read selected verses in these particular chapters.
Job 38:4-8 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Who marked off its dimensions?
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone…?
Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb?”
Job 38:16 “Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep?”
Job 38:22 “Have you entered the storehouse of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail…?”
Job 38:31-38 “Can you bind the beautiful Pleiades?
Can you loose the cords of Orion?
Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear with its cubs?
Do you know the laws of the heavens?
Can you set up God’s dominion over the earth?
Can you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water?
Do you send the lightning bolts on their way?
Do they report to you…?
Who endowed the heart with wisdom or gave understanding to the mind?
Who has the wisdom to count the clouds?
Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens when the dust becomes hard
and the clods of earth stick together?”
Job 39:1-2 “Do you know when the mountain lions give birth?
Do you watch when the doe bears her fawn?
Do you count the months till they bear?
Do you know the time they give birth?”
Job 39:19 “Do you give the horse his strength or clothe his neck with a flowing mane?”
Job 39:26 “Does the hawk take flight by your wisdom and spread his wings toward the south?”
Job 39:27 “Does the eagle soar at your command and build his nest on high?”
Job 40:8-14 “Would you discredit my justice?
Would you condemn me to justify yourself?
Do you have an arm like God’s, and can your voice thunder like his?
Then adorn yourself with glory and splendor, and clothe yourself in honor and majesty.
Unleash the fury of your wrath, look at every proud man and bring him low,
look at every proud man and humble him, crush the wicket where they stand.
Bury them all in the dust together; shroud their faces in the grave.
Then I myself will admit to you that your own right hand can save you.”
Job 41:11 “Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me.”
7. I really wish that Job was alive today, and knowing what we know about our universe, I wonder how the Holy Spirit would have inspired him to write.
8. Might he say if he were writing today:
n “Who can understand the complexity of my universe?
n Who can understand the nature of what you call a black hole?
n Did you watch the sun in the sky being born?
n Did you set the solar system in motion?
n Where you around at the creation of the universe?
n Where you the one who created the Human genetic code?
n Do you understand the complexity of life and death?
n Can you comprehend the vastness of the universe?
n Did you set time and space into motion?
n Are you Alpha and Omega?
n Are you the one who is guiding all of creation?
n Are you the one that all goodness diffuses into my created reality?
n Are you the source of love, truth, and justice?
n Were you the one who was willing to die for the sins of this little world?
n Will every created thing one day answer to you?”
9. To which Job answered, “My understanding of you is too small.” Job 42:3, “Surely I spoke of things that I did not understand, things too wonderful and good for me to know.”
10. Theologians down through the centuries have spoken about the incomprehensibility of God. Meaning that a true understanding of God is so awesome, so grand, so beyond our abilities to understand that we cannot even began to comprehend the essence, the true nature of the living God.
11. Now don’t worry or certainly don’t despair, because of all the things that God is—(and that is beyond our understanding) He is still personal. He is still love and that love can be known in part. If not so, we would not be here today. If not, I would not be reminding myself and encouraging you to allow your understanding and appreciation of the nature and being of God to grow.
12. But we must confess that God can be known in part—he can never be known in full, because we can never fully comprehend Him. If so, our God would be too small.
13. Because the word “comprehend” comes from a Latin word to grasp. Much like a monkey’s tail can grasp a hold of a limb.
14. Think with me a moment, our “eyesight” cannot grasp or see the totality of this pulpit from just one angle. We can see the front and maybe the side, but not the other two sides, especially the opposite of the one we are facing.
15. Another way that we might put this concept is that we cannot see the forest for the trees. We cannot see the vastness of the Amazon rainforest because of that one tree that we are standing directly in front of.
16. So in one sense, our understanding of God will always be incomplete—because of the sheer vastness of who and what we are trying to grasp.
17. Yet our soul literally pants for a greater understanding of God…The Psalmist writes: “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul thirst for God, for the living God” (Psalm 42:1). So we pray, we think, we study, we talk, we share, we grow in our understanding of God. And He blesses us and enriches our lives; and the knowledge of Him makes life worth living.
18. But we must understand that understanding is always short of grasping God, and just like Job, there times that we surely are speaking of things that we don’t understand.
Week Of: September 27, 2009 (St. Paul/Castlewood High Football Teams Sunday) Title: Is Your God Too Small
Series: Systematic Theology - Part 2
Scripture: Job 42:1-6
Review points 1 – 10 from September 20, 2009 sermon. Continuing on from there…
1. “My understanding of you is much too small.” Job 42:3, “Surely I spoke of things that I did not understand, things too wonderful and good for me to know.”
2. In other words, who am I to criticize God? And that’s true; we are really small and God is really great.
3. This might help you to consider how great that God is compared to us. Suppose that I had a tiny grain of sand between my fingers and I would say that this tiny grain of sand would be me or you and the moon would be God.
4. But this doesn’t even start to compare us to an infinite God. Suppose that the moon itself is a tiny speck of sand compared to the next sphere that it is a part of. Suppose that the next sphere is like a tiny speck of sand in the next sphere and so on and so on. You are still not getting close to what an infinite God is like to a finite human being.
5. So whenever someone refers to God as being the man upstairs—I just think, “Please, how can your thinking of God be so small?” Because God is more, vastly more that a man that lives upstairs.
6. Another thing… when someone as small as we are curses a God that they cannot begin to comprehend I don’t understand that either. Sometimes these same people will call religious people stupid for believing an infinite God, but even I, a dumb old Baptist preacher as I am, is at least smart enough to know that I should try to worship a God like this, instead of cursing Him.
7. You see, I really think that most people ignore God because they don’t understand Him—their understanding of God is too small or, if their understanding of God is big, it is just too hazy and unfocused.
Examples of too small means that God just doesn’t deserve our respect—someone like the grand ole man upstairs, or maybe the divine policeman. By that I mean, to some people, God is just someone out to spoil their fun—much like many people think of policemen or some authority that makes them behave.
8. Or a divine neighborhood bully who is just out to make our lives as miserable as He can, and then send us to hell.
9. And then, even Christians sometimes have an inadequate understanding of God. A lot of TV and radio preachers make God out to be a divine God in the box. Meaning that we’ve got Him all figured out and all we have to do is pull Him out of the box like a magician would pull a rabbit out of the hat.
10. And sometimes people have an idea of God that is big but it is just too unfocused. By this I mean to them God is so big and impersonal that He doesn’t really involve Himself with puny affairs.
11. Most scholars believe that Thomas Jefferson was a Deitus—a person that believed that a god created our world and then just went off and let it sink or swim on its own.
12. What is God like? Personal, deeply relational. And therefore loving…