Sermon: Living a Three Dimensional Life; Part 3 Height

This week I want to finish up the sermon series living a Three-dimensional life with the third and final dimension, height. Height as you would imagine is a metaphor with things higher, with God and this makes height the most important dimension. However, wee must remember that God loves balance and so we must not neglect the other two dimensions for the third. In fact, if we really look at it then by living fully in the relationship with ourselves and with others around us then we are well on our way in the height dimension. But before we can understand how to have a full relationship with God we must first understand the nature of God in other words we must have some idea on what God is like.

A little 4 year old girl was once hard at study in her drawings with a crayon. Her mother asked her, "Sally, what are you doing which requires such concentration?" Sally said, "I am drawing a picture of God." Her mother smiled and said gently, "Sally, no one knows what God looks like." Sally responded, "Well, they will when I get through!"

One of the great fascinations in all of human existence is what is God like? We have many ideas; most of them revolve around an old man, with a big white beard, in flowing robes, sitting on a big beautiful throne. We wonder things about God. Some people would say that God created the universe and now simply sits back and watches things happen and has no hand, good or bad, in the course of human events. Others would say the complete opposite that God has his hand in everything and the entire world is a battleground between God and his arch-rival Satan and we are just players in a cosmic game of chess. We read a couple of weeks ago that humans were created in the image of God and so we must have some idea of what God is like, but one could and some do spend their entire lives trying figure out this mystery. However, the reality of the situation is that it doesn’t really matter what God looks like, if it matters to you then we need to have a long talk. But this morning let’s look at an event that might shed some light on the nature of God in a way that might increase our relationship with God.

The event comes in Exodus 3 when Moses encounters the burning bush. Moses is having a conversation with God and God appoints Moses to a very important task, to go to Egypt and free God’s people from slavery. Moses is naturally apprehensive at the prospect and one of his protests was that if he goes down there and tells the people that he was sent by God and that God talked to him then they would expect him to know God’s name, so Moses asks God what his name is and God response, “I am who I am” or in the KJV “I am that I am”. This is a very interesting response. All the other deities in the other world religions have names, the Greeks had Zeus, the Canaanites had Baal, the Hindus of today have Vishnu and others, but the God of the Jews and the God of Christians name is “I am”. Why? “I am” is the basic affirmation of existence. So, God was reassuring Moses and God’s people that of his existence. Another important aspect is that “I am” is a verb not a noun. God’s name denotes action. Names are by definition nouns. We remember from school, nouns are persons, places, and things. God is by his name and by his very nature a God of action, a God of purpose. God is active in the world and is active in our lives and the truth is he has been and will always be there because God is constant. “I am” has no time reference. That is “I am” is constant in time. God does not say “I was” or “I will be” but “I am”, it is constant.

We cannot describe ourselves as I am, we can say “I am because of my past” or “I am because of my parents”, or at the very least we have to say “I am because of God, because we are created by God” and so only God can say simply “I am”. God is constant, that same now as he was at the beginning of time and will be the same at the end of the world as we know it. So if God remains constant then we must the variable in our relationship with God. In mathematical equations, there is a constant and there is a variable and the outcome of the equations is dependant on the variable. And our relationship with God is dependant on us.

That brings us to our scripture lesson from Luke 20 and 21. Jesus is speaking to a group of people and says to beware of the scribes because they love to draw attention to themselves. They love to be greeted with honor and have the best place at the table, but behind the scenes they are doing some pretty rotten stuff. Then Jesus sees a widow offering only a few copper coins and says that she has given more than any of these. How do these two stories fit in with the height dimension? They do because our relationship with God is dependant on our where hearts lie.

The scribes outwardly seemed very pious; they kept the Jewish laws down to the letter. They said eloquent prayers and offered large sums of money in the offering plate. On the surface they seemed as though they had a good relationship with God, but it only takes a moment to look a little deeper and see that this is untrue. The scribes’ heart is not in the right place. They are pious not for God but for their own reputations. The rich people placed large sums of money with great announcement into the offering. They did so to demonstrate their great wealth not for the glory of God. They may have done good things; praying, fasting, almsgiving, keeping the laws, but they were doing them for the wrong reasons.

We all can do good things, but for the wrong reasons. The true measure of the good we do is not in the amount but in where our hearts are. That is the key to living fully in the height dimension. Have you ever known anyone who came to church dressed to the nines, prayed loudly and sang loudly so everyone could hear them, when the plate got passed around they pulled out a money clip with a big wad and laid it in there in a way that everyone could see and have you ever seen a person who might have come to church in a t-shirt of overalls, they sang proudly and with love and joy, but not so loudly as to be heard over the congregation, they discreetly put their money in the offering plate, it might not have been much but it was a lot to them, of these two people who has the better relationship with God, who lives fully in the height dimension. It’s not about what words you use when you pray or if those words of beautifully placed together; it’s about being humble to God. It’s not about how much you give or if its cash or check, but it’s about if you give happily or begrudgingly. It’s not about how eloquently you preach the Word, but whose glory you seek.

Our hearts have to be in the right place and the right place is firmly yet humbly at the feet of God. Everything we do should not be about what is in it for us but about serving and glorifying God. So many times in this day and age, we ask what’s in it for us, is that in my job description, what will I get out of it, instead it should be I do this because I want thy will on earth as it is in heaven. I give money to the poor not to show off, but because what I do to the least of these I do to God. That is how we live fully in the height dimension; our hearts have to be focused on the glory of God not the glory of ourselves. But do you know something, God is such a good God that when we glorify him, then he turns around and blesses us for it, when we glorify Him then He turns right around and glorifies us. That’s something to say Amen about.

We have talked about the Body of Christ, unified together, taking our strengths and weaknesses and working together for a common goal, and I am here to tell you this morning that common goal is to bring glory to God. And when to body of Christ finally and completely unites together toward the glorification of God then God will pour out a blessing unlike we have ever known and that day thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

We have established a relationship with ourselves and see ourselves as children of God and embrace our strengths weaknesses. We have to establish a relationship with other people, uniting as the Body of Christ, and our hearts must be in the right place and we must have a full relationship with God. That is living a three dimensional life and that is what God wants for each and every one of us. So I ask you. Where is your heart today? When you come to church or to Bible study, whose glory are you seeking? God is constant and he is in the same place he has always been and it is us that have moved. God wants you to return to him and to live fully in all three dimensions. It is up to us to do it. God gives us the keys but we have to unlock the door and take the step.

Sermon: Living a Three Dimensional Life; Part 2 Width

Last week, I began a three part sermon series on Living a Three-Dimensional Life. I described the dimensions as length, which is the relationship we have with ourselves; width, the relationship with have with our fellow human beings, which is our focus today; and finally height, our relationship with God. Last Sunday we began by talking about the living fully in the length dimension. I think this was a good starting point because we must first and foremost have a good relationship with ourselves and we must be confident in our strengths and weaknesses before we can venture out into the world. Now that we have covered the starting point we can move into the second dimension, width.

The width dimension is the relationship we have with other people. Unless we live in the woods or in Antarctica, we are going to run into and interact with other people. We are part of a planet full of people, at the time this sermon was written on Friday there were 6,529,721,270 people living on planet Earth and it is growing, that means more people are being born than are dying, in fact by this time next year the US Census predicts that Earth will top 6.6 billionBy 2050, the US Census predicts, that the world’s population will exceed 9 billion. . So, if you don’t have a good relationship with other people you’re going have some serious problems. Therefore, learning how to interact with each other, or people skills will be imperative to living a happy, abundant life, and that is how God wants us to live.

Have any of your ever heard of a movie called, Six Degrees of Separation? The basic premise in that movie is that every person on Earth is separated by no more that six other people. In other words, I know someone, that knows someone x5 that knows President Bush, or George Clooney, or Oprah Winfrey, or Osama Bin Laden. I don’t know if all that is true but I DO know that we are all connected somehow. I have found this to be very true, especially here a Rehobeth and Liberty. I told my mom the other day that I needed to get a white board and mark all the connections that people have in these two churches. I would probably dry up my magic marker. I told someone the other day not to say anything bad about anyone else because everyone around here knows everyone else and those phone lines will stay hot as the summer asphalt. But the connections are not just on a local scale. I bet if we sat down and thought about with between just the few of us in this room this morning we could name someone we knew in every state in the union. We have connections all over the country. But it doesn’t stop there. Think about your routine this morning. You slept on a pillow made in Indonesia or Taiwan, you turned on a faucet to wash your face that was made in Mexico, your turned your TV on that was made in Japan, your drank your coffee that was grown and picked by someone in Columbia or Madagascar, or you drank some tea that was grown in India, you put on some clothes made in China, and you drove your car here with parts from all over the place. My point is that however, much we may think or wish that we were isolated; we cannot help but to be connected to other people all over the world.

We are connected economically, as we have just seen and we are all connected politically, although most of us do not have much to say in that department, except on Election Day. We are connected in many ways but one way that we should all strive to connect with each other is the way that it seems few of us are connected and that is in love. Christ taught his disciples how to deal with situations, he taught them to interact in love and that is the key to living a fully in the width dimension.

Love is the most important emotion we have as humans. I have preached several sermons on the topic of love and I do so because I truly believe that love is the only thing that will solve the world’s problems. I am not going to speak politically because I don’t feel that it is appropriate to do so behind the pulpit but I do feel that love is the key that God gives humans in order to work out problems. I am not saying that love itself solves the problems, that is not by just simply by loving someone do we solve conflict, and that is not what Jesus taught, but love gives us the tools that we need in order to solve conflict.

Paul gives a description of solving problems with love or what he calls a “more excellent way”. Paul describes love as patient, kind, not boastful, arrogant, or rude, it does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful, it rejoices in truth not in lies or deceit. This is the formula to solve the conflicts there are in the world as well as the conflicts we have in our own lives. Patience, kindness, humbleness, not to insist on our own way, gentleness, and honesty, these aspects of love are the keys to solving conflict. Many people want to preach that Jesus wanted us to roll over at the first sign of conflict but this is not what he was talking about when he said love your enemy. He meant to use these keys of love in your conflict management and if you do solutions will always come.

Last week we talked about balance and how God’s intention is for the world to live in balance. There is a lot on hate in the world right now. All we have to do is flip on the news to find that out. The antidote to hate is love. So as much hate there is in the world we must counter act that with love and do not return hate with hate. Gandhi said once that “An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind” we have to stop retaliating and start solving conflict with the keys of love. Love is the only thing that will save the world from annihilation. We should have love in everything we do. Paul said that even the most intelligent preacher or teacher, even the most brilliant scientist, or the most insightful politician is nothing absolutely nothing without love. Love is the thing that holds the world together and as we have heard in sermons past, God is love and so therefore God connects all human life that he created special.

God’s will is for all of humanity to work together as one. He created us all differently with different strengths and weaknesses, but when we join together and work together then our different strengths are united and there is nothing that cannot be done.

The width dimension is vital to our survival as humans and to our happiness as individuals and the key to living fully in the width dimension is living in love. There are a lot of people out there, streets and stores are getting more crowded and the heat makes everyone grumpy. However, we have to remember that we are the ambassadors of Christ and if anyone should live fully with the keys of love it is us and if we love everyone, even those who hate us, maybe someday a difference can be made.

Legend has it that a wealthy merchant traveling through the Mediterranean world looking Paul, encountered Timothy, who arranged a visit. Paul was, at the time, a prisoner in Rome. Stepping inside the cell, the merchant was surprised to find a rather old man, physically frail, but whose serenity and magnetism challenged the visitor. They talked for hours. Finally the merchant left with Paul’s blessing. Outside the prison, the concerned man inquired, "What is the secret of this man’s power? I have never seen anything like it before."
"Did you not guess?" replied Timothy. "Paul is in love."
The merchant looked bewildered. "In love?"
"Yes," the missionary answered, "Paul is in love with Jesus Christ the merchant looked even more bewildered. "Is that all?"
Smiling, Timothy replied, "Sir, that is everything."

It is everything and Christ is the source for the kind of love that can move mountains, the kind of love that can save marriages, the kind of love that can stop war, and the kind of love that is the salvation of humanity. We cannot love like Paul wants us to love without Christ, without Christ’s teachings and without Christ in our hearts. Jesus loved so much he gave freely of himself. He loved so much that he was beaten and humiliated, and crucified for us, all of us. He never was a pushover and he never was a wimp, but he used love as a weapon to conquer hate and conquer evil. We have to same opportunity every day to combat hatred with love and it is love that will be victorious. Living in love means to live fully in the width dimension, it is not easy, in fact it is harder than anything but the rewards far outweigh the sacrifice.

Sermon: Living a Three Dimensional Life; Part 1 Length

A mechanic was removing a cylinder head from the motor of a Harley-Davidson when he spotted a well-known heart surgeon in his shop. The surgeon was there waiting for the service manager to come take a look at his bike.

The mechanic shouted across the garage, "Hey, Doc, can I ask you question?"

The surgeon, a bit surprised, walked over to the mechanic working on the motorcycle. The mechanic straightened up, wiped his hands on a rag and asked, "So Doc, look at this engine. I open its heart, take valves out, fix 'em, put 'em back in, and when I finish, it works just like new."

"Yes, so what's your question?" the doc asks.

"Well, how come I get such a small salary and you get the really big bucks, when you and I are doing basically the same work?"

The surgeon paused, smiled and leaned over, and whispered to the mechanic, "Try doing it with the engine running."

Today I want to start a three part sermon series about living a complete three dimensional life. If you have ever built an addition to your house or even painted a room you are familiar with the idea of length, width, and height. These are concepts that we learn early in elementary math and they are at least one mathematical concept that we use almost every. For the next few weeks I want to take these mathematical concepts and apply them in a different way. I want to talk about we must be equal in all aspects of our life in order to live an abundant life, which is the kind of life the God wants us to live.

In Revelation 21:16, John the Revelator describes the new city of Jerusalem that is going to come after we are called home to Jesus. This city is equal in length, width, and height because God likes things to be equal, he likes balance, and so we should be equal in length, width, and height in our lives. The metaphor of length, width, and height needs to be explained before I continue. The length of our lives is our relationship with ourselves, how we see ourselves and how we feel about ourselves. Width refers to our relationship with other people or “our neighbors” as Jesus puts it. Finally, height is our relationship with God and how our spiritual connection is maintained and strengthened. Each of these dimensions in our lives must be addressed and sustained in order to live an abundant life. If one dimension is overloaded or neglected their will be an adverse affect on our lives. So we must maintain a balance in order to live as God intended.

Today, I want to focus on the length of our lives. That is the relationship we have with ourselves. Some psychiatrists call this self-esteem or our self-image. Many times we as Christians have been taught to focus all our attention on helping other people and as a result we forget to take care of ourselves. Not that helping those who are less fortunate is a bad thing, but we also must be aware of our own needs. If we neglect this part our lives it could cause depression, suicidal tendencies, and other mental problems. Many people do not have positive self-images and either ignore them or they put them on the back-burner by busying themselves in their work or in their hobbies, or in their family. Ignoring or neglecting these things can be potentially dangerous.

On the opposite side of the spectrum there are those who spend their entire time and attention on themselves. We call them narcissists, egotists, selfish, and self-centered. These are the people who are so focused on their own self-interest that they ignore the other two dimensions in their lives. They tend to have poor relationships with family and friends and also have poor relationships with God. This demonstrates the need for balance in the length of our lives.

There are certain things we can do to help the length in our lives. First is to accept the fact that we are all created special by God. Genesis 1 and 2 state specifically that we are created in the image of God. This makes us unique among 1-2 million different species of animals on Earth. Humans were created special by God and we are cared for specifically by God. Jesus told his disciples that God cares the sparrows and that we are worth much more than sparrows. God even knows the numbers of the hairs on our heads. For some of us, those numbers are fewer than others, but the point is that we are highly valued; we are precious in the eyes of God, even though we are not perfect.

God created us not as a group but as individuals. As individuals we have individual gifts and limitations and in order to be in full length we must fully understand our God given gifts and limitations. We are all given special and unique talents. Some of us are good at public speaking, preaching, counseling, being a pastor, others are good at math. My roommate at UAH graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and he would bring in homework that would blow my mind. I couldn’t do thermodynamic physics and he isn’t good at speaking to a crowd. He can tear down an engine and put it back again. I can change the oil and change a flat but that’s about it. There are things we are good at and things that we are not so good at. The way to lead a happy life and to be strong in length is to accept our strengths and our weaknesses and to be happy in those strengths and weaknesses. Don’t try to be a Ferrari when you are a Chevy, because I will tell you something, a Chevy can do a lot of things that a Ferrari can’t do. We must be willing to accept ourselves as the person that God made in his own image with the special gifts and limitations.

This leads to the third and final way to live a full length life and that is to always have a positive frame of mind. We remember that old saying about the glass being half full or half empty and it is true that the way we look at life affects the way we feel. If we think the world is out to get us then you will see every little thing that goes wrong, but if we maintain a positive attitude then we life brings its trials and tribulations we can work through them much better. We can look at problems as obstacles set in our way by God or by the Devil or by some other unseen force or we can see problems as new challenges that will teach us lessons that will help us in the future. When we keep a positive attitude then we walk with a quicker step and with a smile on our face. And why shouldn’t we be positive, we are children of God, blessed by his grace every day of our lives. We are the blood bought children of God and that is the reason we should always have a positive outlook on things.

It does not happen overnight and even when we achieve this positive, abundant life it takes work to maintain it. We have to work to take things in stride. That is something I especially have to work on. I tend to see the negative in every situation. I tend to see only what can go wrong instead of what can go right. I have to work to keep a positive attitude. We have to use positive words. We have to say “can” instead of “cannot”, we have to say “God is in control and he only wants what’s best for me” instead of “Why does God do this to me?” or “God is punishing me”. When we use positive words and positive then we begin to see our attitudes change and we begin to see the length dimension in our lives become strong.

God wants us to live an abundant life and to live a life of balance. We should not ignore the relationship with ourselves and also we should be obsessed with ourselves either. We should recognize that we are specially created by God and we are created with gifts and limitations. When we embrace all these things and when we think positive thoughts and speak positive words then the length dimension becomes strong and we then can focus on the other dimensions in our lives.

Jesus Take The Wheel: Sermon Mark 5:21-43

Jesus take the wheel. Take it from my hands. Cause I can't do this all on my own. I’m letting go. So give me one more chance. To save me from this road I'm on. Jesus take the wheel.

This is the chorus from a popular song by country singer and American Idol Carrie Underwood. The song, if you are not familiar with it, is about young girl who has taken some bad roads and made some bad mistakes. She is coming home for Christmas and hits a patch of ice and with her baby in the car with her she begins to slide and in an act of desperations she cries out “Jesus take the wheel”. The young girl in the song has reached a breaking point, just as the two people in our story this morning. Jairus and the woman had reached come to a turning point, a moment of truth and in that moment they are changed forever.

We all come to these moments ourselves. Some of us face these moments on a regular basis. Sometimes it is an illness that has struck us or a loved one. Many people deal with addictions or have to suffer through the affects of the addiction of others. Whatever it might be, there is a moment when all hope seems to hang on a thread, when happiness and all that is good in our lives seems to fade almost to black and it that moment all hope seems to be gone. The two people in the story reached that point.

The woman, let’s call her Jane, has been suffering from blood hemorrhages for twelve years. Many scholars thing that when Mark says hemorrhages, or issue of blood in the KJV, he is referring to menstrual blood. If this is the case then she has been ritually unclean for twelve years. That means she could not touch anyone or anything without that person or thing becoming unclean. She could not have social contact with friends or family and the fact that Mark does not mention friends or family could lead one to believe that she had already been abandoned by her family and left to fend for herself. Jane was anemic and in constant pain, to the point where she could barely walk. She had lost what money she had to doctor after doctor after doctor and they did nothing to improve her situation, in fact she was worse that when she started. Can we place ourselves in her shoes? What happens when the doctor says the tumor is malignant? What do you do when the arthritis makes even the simplest of jobs, the same jobs you used to do with ease twenty years ago? You might feel like Jane did after you have gone from specialist to specialist, a cardiovascular surgeon, cardiologist, a gastrointestinal expert, a gynecologist and still nothing can be done to cure your sickness. You might feel like Jane if you have lived in constant pain every waking hour. You might have reached that moment.

Jane had heard about this Jesus guy going around healing people and she thought he might be the one to heal her, but he would never come by here and she had not strength to go and find him. Jane was lying in a growing pool of blood; she was resting because her energy was always gone. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him, there was a large crown pressing in on him. Jane knew that touching this important man would make him unclean and she would be risking her life but what kind of life was this. She took her last but of energy and slipped behind the crowd and she thought maybe if I just touch his clothes then I can be healed. The moment had come and she reached out her hand.

You could be like Jairus; it might not be you who is sick but a child or a spouse. It is not you lying on that bed but still feel as helpless. I cannot imagine the pain and agony of sitting there helpless while a child is dying on a hospital bed. Jairus was a powerful man, a man of God, a leader of the local synagogue and yet he could do nothing. He could not find a physician to come and heal her. Jairus also had heard about this Jesus and he wasn’t sure about this guy from Nazareth. He had heard rumors about this Jesus guy saying things like he was the son of God and he was healing on the Sabbath. Some one had told him that Jesus was not too far away and he might be able to persuade him to come and take a look at his daughter. Jairus took the chance, the risk to his reputation and went to see this man. He had persuaded Jesus to follow him to his home but along the way Jesus was distracted by some old woman and along the way to his house his servants came with the worst news. He was too late, his daughter was dead. Jairus’ moment had come.

Both Jane and Jairus had a choice to make, because the moment of truth is also a moment of choice, faith or fear, trust or despair, Jesus or self. What choice would you make? It does seem like and easy answer sitting behind a pulpit or in a church pew, but things get much more complicate when it is you bleeding for no reason or you child gasping to the last breaths of life. In those moments the choice might be a little more difficult to make and sometimes the choice is not simply just a choice but it requires an action. Jane and Jairus had to make the first move. Jane reached out her hand and touched Jesus and Jairus had to keep going when the all hope had been lost.

Sometimes you are the one who has to make the move. Jesus only spontaneously healed people a few times in the New Testament. Most of the time people came to Jesus. They had to make the move of faith to Jesus. In both of these cases, there was a movement to Jesus at the moment of choice. Jane reached out her hand and touched Jesus’ cloak, Jairus had to seek out Jesus and even after he was told that his daughter was dead, he continued on with Jesus after Jesus reassured his faith. We also must make the movement of faith at the moment of choice. We are the ones who must cry out to Jesus. We must forgive a long standing grudge to demonstrate a movement of faith. It does not take a great act of faith. Remember, a few weeks ago we talked about seeds and we talked about how the smallest of seeds, the mustard seed, grows to the largest of plants. So a small movement of faith, a cry, a hand reaching out, can result in a life altering change from Jesus. We talk about how David placed a 100% of his faith in God when he faced Goliath, but sometimes a small act of faith can result in gigantic changes. God is such a good God that a small act of faith combined with the abundance of God’s grace can result in a giant slaying change in our lives.

Also, we cannot allow fear to prevent us from making that act of faith. I have said many times and I will say again because it is important that fear and faith are enemies. We cannot allow the fears of making the movement of faith prevent us from making that movement. We cannot fear the reaction of Jesus or the reaction of others around us. Jane was considered unclean, as I said before, because she was bleeding, not only was she unclean but anyone and anything she touched was considered unclean. If she touched someone purposely she could have been beaten or stoned to death, especially if that person was of high stature, like Jesus. Jairus risked his reputation as a leader of the synagogue by asking this new guy to come to his house. Both of these people were taking a big risk but by taking that risk and making that movement of faith they received a big reward.

We too might feel like we are too far gone to receive help. We think that our sickness is too advanced and has been happening for too long and there is nothing that can be done. We have done some pretty bad stuff in the past and we are far too ashamed to call on the name of Jesus and even if we did wee are too dirty to be cleansed. We have been trapped in sickness and depression too long to be freed. I say to you this morning that is completely, totally, and unequivocally false. There is no sickness that Jesus can’t sure. There is no addiction that Jesus can’t break. There is no soul that is too dirty to be cleansed by Christ. Jesus is waiting, calling, begging us to make that movement of faith because there comes a moment, a moment where we do not know where to turn. We must hang on to that thread of hope. We must hold on to that mustard seed of faith. There comes a moment and just around the corner if we have faith enough to see is Jesus.

I started with a song lyric and I will finish with one, this one comes from a contemporary Christian band Third Day. There is hope for the helpless, Rest for the weary, Love for the broken heart, There is grace and forgiveness, Mercy and healing, He'll meet you wherever you are, Cry out to Jesus, Cry out to Jesus.