This weekend is one of those most sacred secular weekends on our National Calander. Not only is our Country’s birthday this Tuesday, but the anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg happened on the 1st thru the 3rd of July 1863. 160 years ago today the battle of Little Roundtop on the Union left, Culps Hill on the right, and the fact that today the second day of the battle, the Union just barely hung on from being overwhelmed on both ends of the fighting.
If you looked at the three days battle field, it is shaped like a fish hook containing ridges and hills and fields, with both sides North and South, just pounding the life out of each other like a family brawl gone amuck, with 50K casualties.
This time for me always reflects those words that Lincoln would speak in his Gettysburg Address months later on November 19, 1863. At the dedication of the Cemetery. Lincoln would say that there should be a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth!
But what does that have to do with you and I being Owned by God, and free for Righteousness? I think every generation of Christians has a decision to make. Are they (or are we the people of the here and now), going to boldly go out into the world and bring light into the dark, illuminate the truth from lies, and free people from the slavery of sin, selfishness, and evil? Physically and spiritually!
Those people (of all colors, denominations, and backgrounds) who marched into battle 160 years ago were the product of a people who knew their Bible. Many had like Abraham Lincoln learned to read by reading the Bible and would have been certain that the words that Larry Cook read in today’s Call to Worship, reflected their very being, and understanding of God. Reading again from Isaiah 45: 5-8;
5 I am the Lord, and there is no other;
apart from me there is no God.
I will strengthen you,
though you have not acknowledged me,
6 so that from the rising of the sun
to the place of its setting
people may know there is none besides me.
I am the Lord, and there is no other.
7 I form the light and create darkness,
I bring prosperity and create disaster;
I, the Lord, do all these things.
8 “You heavens above, rain down my righteousness;
let the clouds shower it down.
Let the earth open wide,
let salvation spring up,
let righteousness flourish with it;
I, the Lord, have created it.
One may wonder how a people (We Americans) who founded the United States on the Bible, could be on opposite sides of the Civil War and both claim the words of Isaiah, of God as their own. To me it proves that we need each other in this faithwalk of ours that we call life. That indeed we anchor each other in society, and in this Church. It is because we had people differing in their ideas about God’s blessings, freedom, in God’s creation and love for all of His creation, that we as a country began to right a huge wrong called slavery, with a “new birth of freedom”.
The Christian call for Abolition in this country, was just one more iteration of our God sending His family generation after generation (you and me today), out into the world to share God’s truth, and more importantly His love for all mankind. We prove this when we are engaged in the world through prayer, serving the community by service, and acting in our neighborhoods with the faith, hope, and love that comes from God’s goodwill.
And it all began with Christ sending out the Disciples in the Gospel. Revisiting today’s Message Reading we have our Lord giving out final instructions and encouragement as the disciples begin a process that we continue to this day in our own ministries. Reading again from Matthew 10: 40-42;
40 “Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. 41 Whoever welcomes a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. 42 And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.”
This would be the beginning of a way of life for all of God’s people. For each of you have a ministry in our incredible God. From the common foot soldier to the lavish lawyer, each a potential calling in God. From those brave young of our Nations history that have given their last full measure, to the shoulders of the Saints of God’s Church in our past, upon which we stand and build upon with God… We share in a mighty cloud of witness.
The fact that we would be able to follow the examples of those before us, and share God’s love with other people today, refreshes the soul, and gives me hope! For like the Apostle Paul, we get to be God’s servants in the world right now… This is how Paul instructed the Church in Corinth to think about him and those that served God with him. Reading from
1 Corinthians 4: 1-3;
1 This, then, is how you ought to regard us: as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the mysteries God has revealed. 2 Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. 3 I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself.
As if it were a shock for any of us that has read our Bible especially Paul’s epistles (or letters of instruction and encouragement), that Paul was not in the least worried about being loved by, or how he was judged by the flesh of the world. Paul’s concern was and is how God judges his actions, and indeed if Paul is hitting the mark that the Lord has set for him and his ministry for the one and only true God. Now that’s a foot soldier (or evangelist) for the Lord!
Paul would have wanted God’s reassurance before anything a human could provide, as Paul had known what it was to miss the mark in serving our God in his early life. And how painful the memory of that time of his youth would have been for Paul.
In fact, Paul recounts his life, his salvation, and his calling from the Lord,… to King Herod Agrippa while in chains. This is retold by Luke’s writing in the book of Acts of the Apostles. Reading from Acts 26: 8-18;
8 Why should any of you consider it incredible that God raises the dead?
9 “I too was convinced that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth. 10 And that is just what I did in Jerusalem. On the authority of the chief priests I put many of the Lord’s people in prison, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. 11 Many a time I went from one synagogue to another to have them punished, and I tried to force them to blaspheme.
*Please let me interrupt Paul to say; that’s how sick Paul was… Trying to get people to blaspheme, is a true sign that one is getting pretty warped in the head. If you are ever considering the ends justifying the means, perhaps you have already missed God’s mark! And you need a time out, much like Saul will receive, when he gets his new name Paul.
It is important to remember that in our sick society of today, when someone says they are sincere, all too often that is code word for they must be correct. Paul was just as sincere as he was incorrect in his faithwalk, which will now be reflected upon by Paul. On to the rest of verse 11;
I was so obsessed with persecuting them that I even hunted them down in foreign cities.
12 “On one of these journeys I was going to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. 13 About noon, King Agrippa, as I was on the road, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and my companions. 14 We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’
**Interrupting again to say; The goads were a sharp stick used to prod the livestock (sheep) in a desired direction set by the shepherd. Our kicking against the goads would be our rebelling against the Lord’s desire for us to lead our lives in a certain direction (towards and with Him). One can get an idea of what it must feel like to kick against a sharp stick. Just as fighting God can be very painful indeed, especially in terms of our eternity. Verse 15;
15 “Then I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’
“ ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ the Lord replied. 16 ‘Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen and will see of me.
***This is why Paul calls himself a slave in Christ! Verse 17;
17 I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them 18 to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’
Perhaps that is the perfect illustration of how well-meaning people can miss the mark set by our God. As Paul was zealous for God, he was misdirected in his faithwalk in the Lord, so are people in our own lives. Sometimes in our own church, family, friends, or society at large, we have differing ideas in which we need each other for gentle, humble, and loving correction and edification.
Our forefathers of the Civil war battled the inner demons of our sinful nature within themselves, every bit as dramatic as the battle royals that were taking place across our land back then. It’s plain out painful to right the wrongs in life, and the longer it takes to address those wrongs the more painful the medicine, as witnessed by our country back then, or you and me observing today’s challenges.
Many of us are serving on a battlefield in this hospital of a Church right now, and we as the Body of Christ stand ready to assist in the work of redemption and righteousness that is at hand.
Indeed, where Paul had Jesus Christ to intervene directly in his life, today has God’s Spirit, His Word, and His Church, the Body of Christ to help us in our faith family issues of discernment and our way ahead as a congregation. That indeed is the beauty of the Body of Christ, blending and molding all of us different people together into this family in God. Where when I am week, you are strong, and when you are week, someone else is strong.
Additionally, we have Paul’s instruction of just how we are to think of ourselves when working on those hard to answer questions that the Church often faces in the day-to-day life of the Church. Here again picking up where we left off earlier in today’s prelude, is Romans 6: 19-23;
19 I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness.
*Please let me interrupt to say; When I think of myself as a slave to righteousness, or a servant of the Lord, I am reminded to strive to remain humble in my efforts to serve God. By doing so, I make a concerted effort to not use terms like “I told you so, or look at what I can do, or flag words that only instigate aggression but correct little.
Instead of one upping another, I am looking for reasons to find common agreement, without watering down God’s word or missing the Mark set by Him in our lives, and then if I need to address an issue, God’s Holy Spirit aids us in humbly helping each other in private, while building in public.
Instead of correcting people right out of God’s house (as has so often been the case in the past in so many Churches), we seek to edify and build up God’s home and His holy family, and preempting some of the church warfare that can too often can look like our nation’s civil war I spoke of earlier. On to verse 20 where Paul will talk about how unproductive our old lives have been when we acted on our own without the benefit of the Lord’s guidance and grace of His righteousness…;
20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21 What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.
**Interrupting Paul again to say; We see all around us the fruit of God’s Holy Spirit when we follow God and receive His blessings, instead of projecting our own selfishness that in the past we were slaves to.
As a people of God, I would stress that there is no end of what we can and will achieve in and with our God as the vanguard of our activities. From praying for God’s deliverance and His will be done in the years of drought climate-wise in our state, and morals wise in our society, to the feeding and reassuring of those in need in our community, demonstrating for all; our goodwill, our faith, our God is marching on!
Finally, Paul’s enduring words from God are summed up in verse 23;
23 For the wages of sin is death, … but the gift of God… is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
God bless you my beautiful and beloved family,
Amen!
Benediction; Peter 4:7-10,
7 The end of all things is near. Therefore… be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray. 8 Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. 9 Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. 10 Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.
And Numbers 6:24-26
24 “‘The Lord bless you
and keep you;
25 the Lord make his face shine on you
and be gracious to you;
26 the Lord turn his face toward you
and give you peace.”’
Amen!