A Tangible Display of God's Power
A Tangible Display Community • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Why this series?
“We are a community called to be a tangible display of God’s power in Christ Jesus to bring unity
and healing to all dimensions of human life.”
Series introduction...
Prayer guide....
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This morning we will read a number of Scripture passages as we go through the sermon.
First I want to share with you something that occurred to me, just yesterday as I was doing my devotions.
Epiphany = to make manifest..... to reveal....epiphany remembers the coming of the Magi, wise-men from the East, to Jesus.... These are the first non-Jews to come and worship Jesus.... fulfilling the prophet Isaiah.
2 See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you. 3 Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.
6 Herds of camels will cover your land, young camels of Midian and Ephah. And all from Sheba will come, bearing gold and incense and proclaiming the praise of the Lord.
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God in the birth of Jesus the Messiah into the world, made manifest his glorious presence, and just as was foretold, the nations came to His light.
“a tangible display community”...... “an epiphany community”
The first sermon that I ever preached was for the students and professor in my first year preaching class at Calvin Theological Seminary, in Grand Rapids, MI. I worked on that sermon for a long time. My text was from Colossians 1, where Paul speaks of Christ reconciling all things to himself. My dear wife willingly subjected herself to the pain of listening to the sermon as I practice preached the night before. She smiled gracefully. Knowing that my ego would easily bruise and I had no more time to start from scratch, she didn’t have the heart to tell me the truth.... but my prof sure did. “Andrew,” he said to me as he was about to hand me my grade, “consider your first sermon to be a tremendous learning opportunity.” “C-“ was my grade.
That first sermon did provide a lot of learning opportunities for me, many of which were how NOT to write a sermon! But a do remember one of the things my professor shared with me and with our class at the time. He said, when people listen to a sermon not only do they want the preacher to explain to me the text, they also want him to show me the text.... show me what the text looks like.... help me see it.
The pulpit in LaGrave Christian Reformed Church in GrandRapids has some words engraved on it that greet the preacher everytime he stands behind it. The engraved words say this: “Dear Preacher, We want to see Jesus.”
We don’t just want to hear about him..... we want to see him.
And that from very early in the Biblical story helps us understand the kind of people God was forming. God’s people we set apart to be “SHOW-ME-THE-TEXT” kind of people.....Show me the Word of God in the way you live. Show me Jesus in how you live day to day. Show me the power and presence of God in how you carry out your lives.
Very early in the Biblical story God calls one man and his household stop walking in the ways of false gods, and to walk in the ways of the Living, True God, Yahweh. God said to Abraham, “Leave your country, your people and you father’s household and go tho the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you....I will make your name great and you will be a blessing.... and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
The story continues in the Bible and we pick it up in our first text from Exodus 19. Several hundred year’s have gone by since God made that promise to Abraham and now his descendents have become very numerous. After being held in slavery by Pharoah in Egypt, a nation dominated by false gods, Yahweh, the God of Abraham did not forget His “show-me-God’s-blessing” people. Through Moses he delivered them from the gods of the Egyptians and led them into the wilderness. In the wilderness he taught them and centered them around His Torah. This Torah was much more than simply a set of laws to live by, Torah was Life..., Torah was God’s Word...., to keep Torah was to LIVE!
In the chapter before God’s Torah was shared with the people God told Moses what kind of people Israel was being set apart to be.
3 Then Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain and said, “This is what you are to say to the descendants of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel: 4 ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. 5 Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, 6 you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites.”
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The first things the text says about God’s people, is that they are His treasured possession. Most of us have possessions that are special to us. Maybe they are of great value because they are rare, or costly, or because they represent something dear to us. I have something in my study that is somewhat of a treasure to me.
[share / explain – oil lamp from Holy Land showcase....light.... possibly used in the days of Jesus....]
In a book written by one of our former pastors, Mike Goheen, he quotes an author who says this about God’s people in connection with our text from Exodus.
“they “are to be a people set apart, different from all other people by what they are and are becoming—a display people, a showcase to the world of how being in covenant with Yahweh changes a people.”[1]
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Israel is a treasured possession that God puts in prominent display in order to bring blessing to the nations.
A second thing our text says about who God’s people are, is that they are a “kingdom of priests”. Now we could say many things about priests, but three important things are this:
Priests represent God to the people,
Priests mediate God’s presence
Priests live out God’s law.
Now listen carefully... in the context of the declaration that ALL the EARTH is MINE.... God says.... Israel is to be the kind of people that represent God, and mediate the presence of God, and live out the law’s of God in the context of all the earth....
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In the same way that priest were to serve as a TANGIBLE display of God’s Presence in the midst of the Israelite people, so was Israel called to be a TANGIBLE display of God’s Presence in the midst of the nations.
The third way that God describes his people is that they are to be a “holy nation”. Again, many things could be said about what being a holy nation means, but let me simply mention two. Israel was to be a holy nation in the sense of living their lives different than the nations around them. They were to be holy....they were to live lives of purity, and truth, justice and righteousness... they were to live according to the rule of Yahweh, and not the rule of man. As a holy nation they were called to live holy lives.
Second, as a holy nation they were to be a people set apart for sacred service. The word “holy” has that sense of being “set-apart” in it..... God’s people were never set apart in the sense of being cut-off from the world, rather, they were set apart for the sacred service of displaying God’s Presence, and his Power, and his Laws in all the earth so that all the earth might be blessed.
Israel is to be a “show-me-the-presence-of-God” kind of people.... they are called to be a “TANGIBLE DISPLAY” of God’s presence, of his power, of his LIFE-GIVING rule over all creation.
As we reflect on our congregation’s Mission and Priorities over these next several weeks we are inviting God’s Spirit to impress on our congregation a strong desire to be the kind of people, who MANIFEST the LIFE of God in our families, our communities, our neighbourhoods, and in whatever corners of the world that the Lord connects us with.
As the Biblical story continues we find how Israel repeatedly fails to live out it’s calling as God’s showcase people. They follow false God’s, they serve their own ends, they give up on God. And yet God does not give up on them. He works often in spite of them towards a Day when the Promised Servant of the Lord, the Son of Man, the Messiah will come and secure a decisive victory for God’s people over everything that prevented them from living into their Divine calling.
Jesus Christ came into the world as the True Israelite, for he completely and perfectly lived into the calling that Israel did not. As God incarnate, completely God and completely man, Jesus entered into our history to tangibly display the presence and power of God and his life-giving rule over all creation.
As he began his earthy ministry Matthew writes:
12 When Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, he withdrew to Galilee. 13 Leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum, which was by the lake in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali—14 to fulfill what was said through the prophet Isaiah: 15 “Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles— 16 the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.” 17 From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
23 Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. 24 News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed; and he healed them. 25 Large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan followed him.
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Jesus ushered in a Tangible Display of God’s renewing power to bring unity and healing to all aspects of human life.....
....Jews and Gentiles follow him, Masters and slaves submit to him, the poor are fed, the sick are healed, the naked are clothed, forgiveness is extended and received, wrongs are righted, the stormy waves of the sea are calmed, the dead are given new life.... the Kingdom is at Hand.... a tangible display of God’s power....
And throughout the book of Acts we find that the early church, now filled with the SPIRIT of Jesus, carries out the very same calling that JESUS ushered in and made possible.....
32 All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. 33 With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all 34 that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales 35 and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.
12 The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon’s Colonnade. 13 No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people. 14 Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number. 15 As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by. 16 Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by impure spirits, and all of them were healed.
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God calls us to be SHOW ME THE TEXT kind of people.... a Tangible Display people.... LIVING LETTERS people....
“We are a community called to be a tangible display of God’s power in Christ Jesus to bring unity
and healing to all dimensions of human life.”
The Word of God says, that “when Peter saw Jesus walking on the water, Peter got out of the boat... and began to walk....”
In the early 1990s, gang violence erupted in Boyle Heights, a section of East Los Angeles. Eight gangs were in conflict in the parish around the Dolores Mission Catholic Church. Killings and injuries happened daily. A group of women who met for prayer read together the story of Jesus walking on water …. Then one of the mothers, electrified by the text, began to identify the parallels between the Jesus story and her own ….
That night, seventy women began … a procession from one barrio to another. They brought food, guitars, and love. As they ate chips and salsa and drank Cokes with gang members, [they began to sing traditional songs together]. The gangs were disoriented, baffled; the war zones were silent.
Each night the mothers walked. By nonviolently intruding and intervening, they "broke the rules of war." The old script of retaliation and escalating violence was challenged and changed. It is no accident that the women christened their nighttime journeys "love walks."
As the relationships between the women and the gang members grew, the kids told their stories. Anguish over lack of jobs; anger at police brutality; rage over the hopelessness of poverty. Together they developed a tortilla factory, a bakery, a child-care center, a job-training program, a class on conflict-resolution techniques, a school for further learning, a neighborhood group to monitor and report police misbehavior, and more.
And it began with the challenge "Get out of the boat" and "walk on water."[3]
19 And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.
Share story of us most recently helping an Iranian refugee family of Mehdi, Maryam, and Adrina....collecting more than enough household goods so that other families could be blessed.
Last week Sunday in our ebulletin one of our deacons Kia wrote: I saw firsthand how our God can abundantly bless beyond what I could ask or think." - Kia N.
The Bible says in John 16,
I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 24 Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.
[share story of Les and Shirley]
May we increasingly be a community that lives into its calling to be a TANGIBLE DISPLAY of God’s power in Christ Jesus to bring unity and healing to all aspects of human life.....
May we see broken marriages being healed,
May we see alcoholics being set free,
May we see a community that searches out the least and the lost, the lonely, and the despairing....
“We are a community called to be a tangible display of God’s power in Christ Jesus to bring unity
and healing to all dimensions of human life.”