Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Notes
Transcript
Measurements
Measurements
Each of our students are about to undergo another academic year, there will be an endless task of assessment. Personalities will be quizzed, aptitudes will be gleaned, skills will be tested and knowledge will be questioned.
This goes for all of us. Each moment there is an examination of who you are and an endless appraisal of your gifts. Credit Scores are calculated, home prices are valued, Stock markets played, friends and relatives read into your comments, invitations, and our inability to communicate or include.
How do you assess or evaluate your salvation or faith?
In the scriptures there was seemingly a clear cut means of assessing one’s devotion to God. As Isaiah understands it:
And the Lord will make himself known to the Egyptians, and the Egyptians will know the Lord in that day and worship with sacrifice and offering, and they will make vows to the Lord and perform them.
Note this passage is about gentiles, foreigners, non members of the faith committing acts of faithfulness.
In general, the easiest way to determine whether someone was a follower of YHWH, of God, was to see what they did and said. At that point it was a quick and seemingly accurate assessment.
Yes, it’s quick but it is not actually all that accurate. Look at our Old Testament lesson:
And the Lord said: “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men,
Jesus quotes this passage when he speaks to the pharisees saying:
And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “ ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me;
The hypocrisy is not in their act but in their heart.
Herein lies the challenge of all assessment, one can only assess what can be measured. Additionally, part of education is treating the whole person NOT JUST THEIR SKILLS or things that can be quantified.
Consider how we are to love the Lord:
And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’
How do you assess or build love?
We have tests for strength and mental gymnastics but how does one measure a soul and its affections?
I’ve been collecting hymn titles, greatest hits as it were, and someone asked me recently why we’re doing this. Its because the singing of hymns in our community grants depth and affection to our souls. Scripture commands us to sing for a reason.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
You’ve all been in the room when the harmony comes alive and is somehow more than its parts.
I recently heard of a woman that I used to commune that recently died. When she died she was at home and the daughter recounted to me that they were all gathered in vigil around her. They had memorized and learned this verse of Now Thank we All our God, they sang it to her as she died:
895 Now Thank We All Our God
Oh, may this bounteous God
Through all our life be near us,
With ever joyful hearts
And blessèd peace to cheer us
And keep us in His grace
And guide us when perplexed
And free us from all ills
In this world and the next!
Students, church, I pray that over the next lifetime you learn WONDERFUL, and astounding things. You should be the most enthusiastic learners because learning in this life reveals something about our God. This is what we should learn.
It was the great astronomer Johannes Kepler that said “I am merely thinking God’s thoughts after Him.”
In the church we learn to educate and live with the whole person, the whole self is dedicated to the task of life.
And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.
Mind, Body, and Soul in harmony grow together to serve our God.
This is the core of Mark 7 - Growing beyond the assessment of others instead growing like Jesus who was fully man and fully God. Who gives your right standing before God the father.
The Christian life is more than answering a question correctly or correct living. It is trusting that God has already made you acceptable and then pursuing He would have you do.
There are things in our lives of faith and learning beyond what we can account for -things of the soul.
Students, we are going to give you a small and simple gift. It’s a ruler with all 66 books of the bible on it.
It’s only 6” and will work great for underlining things you don’t understand or saving your place in a book. Those 66 books of the Old and New Testament will gently lay there against your textbooks and math homework.
I want you physically see through this ruler that God’s Word stands forever and is over all things.
Let this be a reminder that there is always more to the picture. God can and does work all things for His good, which is actually your good.
Look at Isaiah 29:18.
In that day the deaf shall hear the words of a book, and out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind shall see.
Friends, God can and does work miracles- the greatest of which is sending us His Son so that the world may know the greatest mystery of all: Man cannot reach God so God came to be with man. That our hearts may have rest.
How do you measure your faith? Look to Jesus and what He did. That’s it, look to the object of your salvation.
These passages should encourage us all to learn to see a much bigger picture than what is immediately visible presently or thinkable in our minds. In any situation, God’s possibilities are greater than ours. We trust that even the insolent will repent, the blind will see, the deaf will hear, the poor will be rich, and the dead will rise.
It was that last point that was on my mind these last few days:
We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death.
On Friday I got up at 2, drove to the Tri-Cities and picked up my roommate from College - a man named Matt as well. We drove another 8 hours to Pocatello, attended the funeral of the father of two of our former roommates, at a church meal, stacked chairs slept in a cheap hotel and drove back 10 hours.
20 hours in the car why? Because we love those brothers and they love us. There is a profound truth here in the communion of saints. It cannot be measured by windshield time or chair stacking.
I’d like to invite all the students to come up here
This year and your whole life- spend it learning and revealing the glory of God. Make the best of a challenging year. Bleed everything you can out of this life because our God bled for you.
To live like Christ is the full measure of life and love. Amen.