Call to Worship; Ephesians 2: 11-22

¹¹ Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands)— ¹² remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. ¹³ But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

¹⁴ For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, ¹⁵ by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, ¹⁶ and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. ¹⁷ He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. ¹⁸ For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

¹⁹ Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, ²⁰ built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. ²¹ In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. ²² And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

Invitation, Praises, and Prayer Concerns; Father of Heaven, and Universe beyond, Lord today we humbly thank you for our very being, and invite you into our hearts. Lord thankyou for all of your untold blessings, and please forgive us of our manifold transgressions of missing the mark you have set. Please fortify us to better praise, glorify and magnify your hole precious name.

Amen!

Message Reading; Matthew 15:1-9

15 Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, ² “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”

³ Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? ⁴ For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’ ⁵ But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is ‘devoted to God,’ ⁶ they are not to ‘honor their father or mother’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. ⁷ You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:

⁸ “‘These people honor me with their lips,
    but their hearts are far from me.
⁹ They worship me in vain;
    their teachings are merely human rules.

Message; “Fumbling, Stumbling,and Piddling Around”

As implied in this week’s message title; “Fumblin, Stumblin,and Piddlin Around”. Well, that’s Me! Not bragging, but really!… If I’m not paying attention, and I go off on my own natural inclination, doing the stuff that just comes naturally, “it don’t take long” for me to devolve and revert into a me that’s not so edified, in fact down right petrified like wood. Dead wood. Just kindling for the fire.

Yes, “Fumbling, Stumbling,and Piddling Around” are symptoms of larger concerns that can cause distance between us with the Lord, and God’s family. With fumbling for me usually being a result of my just not keeping my eye on the ball, what is important in life, and piddling around being what I do when I am dithering and just going in circles, again usually due to my not paying attention to the important stuff in my Life.

The important items for me in life are:

• My relationship with the Lord
  • Prayer
    • Listening to Him
    • Following Him
    • Sharing Him
  • Scripture study
    • Listening to Him
    • Living Him
    • Serving Him
  • Following through with What God is telling me

***Understanding that the above prepare me for:

• My relationships with other people
  • And repeating what I am trying to do with God
    • Serving God through other people
• Personal growth in all the above and in knowing myself better
  • Which helps in the prevention of my fumbling and piddling around.

Notice that we have not talked about stumbling. I have buried stumbling in between fumbling and piddling around, because like real life, stumbling in our faith life seems to come out of nowhere and cause real tangible harm in our Faithwalks. The other two can be the cause of our struggles or just a doorway into stumbling, but stumbling often takes on a life of its own.

So, I thought today might be a good time to look at some of the things that exists out there that we all struggle with, and how many of us stumble over in our common Faithwalks in the Lord. It’s a big field of study, looking at the things in life that cause us to stumble in our Faithwalk. Today we will only be touching one rock that makes for a mountain, a beginning of a life of discovery.

It seems that today’s Message Reading with Jesus instructing the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law in the Gospel of Mathew is a great place to start. Beginning with Matthew 15:1-9

 Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked,² “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”

³ Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?⁴ For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’⁵ But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is ‘devoted to God,’⁶ they are not to ‘honor their father or mother’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition.⁷ You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:

⁸ “‘These people honor me with their lips,but their hearts are far from me.⁹ They worship me in vain;their teachings are merely human rules.

To clarify what the Lord is talking about, the topic being referenced by the Lord is “Corban”. This was a Pharisee tradition that held that a child did not have to honor his parents (support them financially), if he declared his wealth to God’s Temple. In other words, a man-made rule or tradition by the Pharisees was negating (canceling out) the Fifth Commandment of God. Read Exodus 20:12;

 “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

Notice God is not hedging, not providing a Pharisee loophole. The language is plain. Jesus is saying that people are breaking God’s law by following the Pharisee’s man-made tradition and these so-called; teachers of the law are ok with it.

Now the Pharisees had another a man-made tradition / rule / law, of washing hands for religious purity before eating. This rule had nothing to do with hygiene and everything to do with man-made sham holiness. They were offended that the disciples of the Lord, the Lord, God Himself were not giving the Pharisees their deference to tradition.

Our Lord caps the conversation by using God’s own words through Isaiah 29:13;

¹³ The Lord says:

“These people come near to me with their mouthand honor me with their lips,but their hearts are far from me.Their worship of meis based on merely human rules they have been taught.

Sound familiar? It should. Humanity with the help of the Devil have been pulling this stuff from the beginning.

What causes so many of us to stumble is when other people or we ourselves create hurdles for others and ourselves to overcome just to be considered faithful disciples. And if you think I have anyone specifically in mind besides me the chief obstacle creator of my own universe, think again. We all do this on autopilot without even realizing what we are doing sometimes.

Peter is a perfect example. When Jesus is foretelling His future imminent death (crucifixion for our sakes), Peter decides its time for some man-made, Peter decided and mandated unfolding of history. The Lord’s response is recorded in Matthew 16:23;

²³ Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

Peter is showing the side of humanity that we all struggle with ourselves, then to the point of becoming a stumbling block for other people, even for the Lord! So many times, in life, the things I thought were smart or right in my head, floundered on the abyss when I spoke about them out loud. Many times, because I was trying to out holy the Lord Himself with ideas like:

• If skipping a meal for a good cause is good, fasting a week and then bragging about it is even better!
• Forcing the hardship, I am placing on myself on other people, then making it mandatory to be holy.
• Judging others based on the bogus standards I have created in my head. Things like;
  • Dress and appearance
  • Prayer format and style
  • Lifestyle

All things, I don’t need to waist precious time on when there are so many things, we can be working on together for everyone’s edification, and God’ praise, magnification, and glorification.

But when I begin to create rules, and dogma that work as a roadblock between God and me, and then other people, His creation, woe is me! Tenfold! Something that may have started out as a great idea, can go south in a heartbeat when I am driving the Bus instead of the Lord.

This is when I need to pay heed to Paul’s instruction from his letter to the church in Rome. Paul was addressing the infighting that was taking place in the church at the time, so he unloaded his thoughts in Romans 14:10-13;

¹⁰ You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat.¹¹ It is written:

“‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord,‘every knee will bow before me;every tongue will acknowledge God.’”

¹² So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.

¹³ Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister.

The last sentence says it all for me, and definitely an area that I must focus working on if I really mean it about this thing, I call a Faithwalk with you and our Lord! So; Instead, I will make up my mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister,That prevents someone from getting closer to God.

And we can do this without being co-dependent, or enabling bad behavior in other people. In other words, my saying no sometimes to someone’s bad behavior is that person’s own stumbling over the Lord’s outline, guidance, and direction for our lives.

In fact, in life there is the stumbling that happens due to our missing the mark, which is bad and to be avoided, and then there is the stumbling that people do when it is over the direction and command of the Lord and God’s divine plan, which is a sad fact in life. Because it leads us into rebellion with Him, since we are picking the world’s ideals over His Grace.

Paul also spoke of this when instructing the Church in Corinth the difference between the wisdom of this world, and the wisdom which is our guidance from God. Quoting from 1 Corinthians 1:21-25;

²¹ For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. ²² Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, ²³ but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, ²⁴ but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵ For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

More than few have stumbled over the fact that God would go to the ends of the earth to renew a relationship with all of humanity. And He wants one with you today as well! Not based on the “Fumbling, Stumbling,and Piddling Around” you, but the you who is open to Him, willing to listen and share with Him, and willing to accept that the offer is available to all the people in your life. Even those you don’t; understand, get along with, or like.

In fact, we might be talking more about your stumbling and challenges than other people at this point. That’s for you and God to decide, not me. Thankfully, at the end of the day, its God that does the judging, and more importantly the saving. In spite of my; “Fumbling, Stumbling,and Piddling Around” challenges that I’m working on with Him who can heal me.

I need to keep this in mind when I get so caught up in the differences that exists in all of God’s peoples. It reminds me of Today’s Call to Worship from Ephesians 2: 11-22. Especially at the end beginning at verse 19, when Paul capstones how we all have been invited to God’s party writing;

¹⁹ Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household,²⁰ built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.²¹ In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.

Here comes my favorite part: …

 ²² And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

When we are open to His Holy Spirit, God can and will build us together. Different unique one-of-a-kind people who can become His dwelling place! And instead of; “Fumbling, Stumbling,and Piddling Around”, we are thriving together instead of searching for reasons to exclude others and ourselves by creating man made stuff that counters God made grace.

My hope and prayer for you this week, you get a chance to appreciate all that the Lord is doing in your life, and as you search yourselves, that you love the person you find, as you aim to work on the “Fumbling, Stumbling,and Piddling Around” person we all can be at times.

Amen!

Benediction; Based on 23 Psalm;

¹ May the Lord be your shepherd, and you not want.
²     May He make you lie down in green pastures,
lead you beside still waters,
³     May He restore your soul.
May He guide you on paths of righteousness
    for his name’s sake.
⁴ Even though you walk
    through the deepest, darkest valley,
May you fear no evil,
    for He is with you;
His rod and your staff,
    may they comfort you.

⁵ May He prepare a table before you
    in the presence of your enemies.
You anoint your head with oil;
    your cup overflows.
⁶ Surely your goodness and love will follow you
    all the days of your life,
and may you will dwell in the house of the Lord
    forever. Amen!