"Speak, Lord, for Your Servant Listens"

1 Samuel 3:1-10
John 5:31-47

This remarkable story of the child, Samuel, who was to become the last judge and the first and most famous prophet of Israel, is a story of obedience. It is the story of a very faithful, Jewish family that humbly observed the sacraments and lived a life of charity.

Elkanah had two wives – Hannah and Peninnah. Hannah was barren; Peninnah was not. When the family went up to worship and sacrifice to the Lord at Shiloh, Elkanah would give portions of the meat to Peninnah and her children and a double portion to Hannah because, we are told in 1 Samuel 1, “…he loved her, and because the Lord had closed her womb.” We are told that Peninnah ridiculed Hannah. So, “In bitterness of soul, Hannah wept and prayed to the Lord.”

Eli, the priest, saw Hannah moving her mouth in prayer and thought she was drunk. Hannah corrected him by saying, “Not so, my lord. I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer; I was pouring out my soul to the Lord.” Eli then said, “Go in peace, and may the Lord grant you what you have asked of him.”

Shortly thereafter, Hannah became pregnant with Samuel.

Hannah did not go up to the annual sacrifice the next year. She told her husband, “After the boy is weaned, I will take him and present him before the Lord, and he will live there always.” Imagine, if you will, bearing a child of promise and giving him up to God. Only a mother could know the depth of such a sacrifice.

When she brought the boy to Eli, she said to him, “As surely as you live, my lord, I am the woman who stood here beside you praying to the Lord. I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him. So now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord.” “Elkanah and his family went back to Ramah, but Samuel ministered before the Lord under Eli the priest.”

There is a touching story of how Hannah, every year, brought a little robe to Samuel. Eli would pray over her, and Hannah would get pregnant again. She gave birth to three more sons and two daughters. As for Samuel, we are told that “…the boy Samuel continued to grow in stature and in favor with the Lord and with men.”

This story reminds us of the stories of both John the Baptist and Jesus. Elizabeth and Hannah were both barren, and God intervened. Samuel and John were both called by God to a very important mission in redemptive history. What was said about Samuel was also said about Jesus: “He grew in stature and in favor with the Lord and with men.”

We come to the story of one particular night in the life of Samuel.

We get the sense that Samuel was very faithful: “The boy Samuel ministered before the Lord under Eli.” Samuel is lying down in the temple of the Lord where the Ark of the Covenant was located. He hears, “Samuel; Samuel” and runs to Eli, thinking that Eli needs help.

That happens 3 times before Eli catches on. He instructs the boy to respond when he hears the voice again, with “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”

God is about to punish Eli for raising two wayward and rebellious sons who had prostituted the office of priest. They had rebelled against Eli and against God. Here was Samuel, shaming them by his obedience and faithfulness to their father.

Samuel took as Eli’s call what was the call of the Almighty. These are perhaps the kinds of mistakes that you and I make when we hear the still, small voice of God. It either gets drowned out by the noise around us, or we are quick to interpret God’s voice in the way that our minister, or our favorite televangelist interprets it. We often are so hungry for a new twist on the “Old, Old Story of Jesus and His love,” that we will purchase books like Left Behind for our doctrines – rather than dig into the Word of God.

God calls us by His word, and we leave it to the minister, rather than the Spirit, to interpret the call. The still small voice of the Spirit calls out to us, and there are few of us who can understand that God is calling. The witness of the Spirit on our hearts is often mistaken for foolishness, and we look to others to tell us what to do and where to go. This gets particularly dangerous when we follow the advice of those who do not believe in the Lordship of Christ.

The Psalmist says, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly or sits in the way of sinners, for His delight is in the law of the Lord, and in that law does he meditate day and night.”

The point is well taken. Those of us who would call ourselves God’s servants must carry inside a deep and longing desire to know the mind of God: “Speak, Lord, for your servant hears.”

God’s word, we are told, is a “lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.” God’s word is intended as a guide for the path to our lives. Paul tells Timothy, “Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman who needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” A lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path suggests that we are otherwise walking into the unknowns of life in the dark.

Because the Word of God has been abused and misused, it is often feared by Christians. Instead of being a lamp and a light, it has become a stumblingblock to faith. It has become a legal document instead of the revelation of God. We pick and choose verses that declare things to be sins that are not in our particular bag of sins.

Meanwhile, the Bible lays there with the indictment, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God,” or “All men are liars, and the truth is not in them,” or, “All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”

We focus on the words of God rather than the Word of God. The Word of God is the revelation of God in Christ Jesus. It is not a list of sins that are more evil than any of the sins that you and I commit with impunity. You can condemn abortionists and homosexuals if you wish, but how about pride, or lust, or hate, or anger or love of money? The list goes on and on, hitting us much closer than do the sins of abortion and homosexuality.

The answer to all this is to be guided, not by the words of God but by the Word of God: “Speak, Lord, for your servant hears.” To focus on the words is to focus on the writer. To focus on the Word is to focus on God. God did not dictate the Scriptures. He breathed to the writers the objective truth, and they put that truth in their own words.

Fast-forward a thousand years from Samuel to the time of Jesus, and you have a condition where the rules of religion had again become far more important than the spirit of religion.

You will recall the Sadducees coming to Jesus with a theological question, “Whose wife would a woman be in Heaven who had been married to seven husbands who had died?” What is especially relevant about this is that the Sadducees did not believe in the Resurrection of the dead, so for them there was no Heaven. They pose this question to trap Jesus about a technicality.

He told them that they were in error because they did not know the Scriptures. There is no marriage in the next life, so the question is irrelevant. When we think about this, we have to admit that all theological errors that have been adopted by the Church of Jesus Christ have flowed from the same fountain – ignorance of the word of God.

A lawyer approached Jesus and asked, “Master, what is the greatest commandment?” Jesus referred him to the Bible for the answer. When Jesus was tempted by Satan in the desert, He answered every temptation with the words, “It is written.” What we get from this is that Jesus made the Scriptures His constant rule and guide. Can any of us do less?

There are some who insist that the Spirit is their guide. If that be so, Jesus, who had the fullness of the Spirit, did not need to refer to the written word. But He always did.

It is the duty of every believer who consciously follows Christ to search the Scriptures. John 5:39 says in the King James, “Search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life, and they are they that testify of me.” The NIV says it this way: “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”

Jesus is talking here to the unbelieving Jews who had condemned Him for healing a man on the Sabbath. They had become so engrossed in the prohibition against work on the Sabbath that they missed the point of the healing. They scoured the Scriptures to find a formula for eternal life, but the path to eternal life was in the subject of the Scriptures – Jesus the Christ. They missed it altogether.

Today, we have those who scour the Scriptures for moral precepts and laws and miss the point of the Scripture – regeneration by the HS of those who are in Christ Jesus. The fountain of God’s revelation of Himself to mankind was our fall in Adam and our new birth in Christ. If we search the Scriptures as we ought to do, we will not see them as a list of sins, but we will see in them the fall of Adam and our redemption in Christ.

All the threats, promises, laws and doctrines contained in the Scriptures, and all the rites, ceremonies and sacrifices under the Jewish law, assume our fallen nature in Adam and point us to a Mediator.

Had mankind continued in the state of innocence in which we were created, there would have been no need for any physical revelation of God because the law of God was so deeply written on our hearts. But having eaten the forbidden fruit, Adam incurred the displeasure of God and lost his divine image.

We have been eating the forbidden fruit every since – the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. And because of this inherited trait, it was necessary that God physically declare Himself in the person and work of Jesus.

One of the great fallacies of human thinking, even among Christians, is the inherent goodness of man. If we are good, from where do those corruptions come that rise daily in our hearts? We could not have been created as corrupt beings because goodness could make nothing but what is like Himself – holy, just and good. We simply rebelled against God.

Despite the fact that we are trying desperately to escape these disorders of our nature, we find ourselves unwilling to admit that we are depraved and in need of grace. That is why we strive so to appear to others quite different than we really are.

Searching the Scriptures is not a pastime. It is a necessity because the Bible is the grand charter of our salvation – the revelation of the covenant made by God with mankind in Christ Jesus and a light to guide us into the way of peace. We are obliged to read and study them.

There are those in our day who look to the Bible for signs and wonders and the timetables of God – outward evidences to prove divine revelation. Has not God revealed Himself to us already and enough? Yet they require a sign, and there shall be no more signs given except the person and work of Jesus the Christ.

There are those in our day who are so busy pulling apart the Bible as a roadmap to the future that they lose sight of the Word. The religious right wants to replace the Constitution of the US with the Bible; the non-religious left wants to adhere to the Sermon on the Mount without the risen Lord – to replace regeneration with a code of conduct. It’s all the same thing with both.

Jesus tells these unbelievers who are fully versed in the Scriptures that they have missed the message. It is the forest and the trees analogy. They know the Scriptures, but they do not have the love of God.

Jesus has come as the fulfillment of the Scriptures, but they do not accept Him. “Yet,” he tells them, “if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him. How can you believe if you accept praise from one another yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God?”

That’s a good question, isn’t it? Politics is about false praise on both the right and the left. Those on the right are praising each other because they are sinless – they don’t have abortions or are not homosexuals, supposedly. Those on the left are praising each other because they believe in humanity rather than God. And both use the Scriptures in vain.

There are a few ways that we can rise above the words of God to the Word of God.

First, we need to read Scripture with the end in view for which it was written – to show the way of salvation by Jesus. All Scripture points to Jesus. If it points to a moral code or a lesson in history, it is being read but not understood.

Secondly, Scripture should be read with a child-like humility. Remember that God hides the things of the Kingdom from the wise and the prudent in their own eyes and reveals them only to those who are as little children – who think they know nothing, who hunger and thirst after righteousness and who humbly desire to be fed by the Word.

Compare that with the Christian Right who are so confident in their interpretation of Scripture that they are willing to risk your life and liberty on that interpretation.

Third, the Scriptures should be read with a desire to put into practice what you learn about God. Jesus spoke in parables to confuse those who had no desire to learn and less to put what they read into practice.

Fourth, whatever was written in the Word of God was written in a cultural context. Put yourself, as best you can, into the culture of the writer, understanding that the Word is timeless in that it was written for our learning as well. What Jesus said about fallen man being restored belongs to those to whom he was speaking and to those who would follow until the last of the elect are safely home.

Read the Scriptures by praying first that God the HS would reveal Jesus to you through the reading. Understand that what you read was written by inspiration but that you, as a believer, may also become an inspired reader. The HS is the connection between writer and reader.

Fifth, read the Scriptures, not as words, but as life itself. Just as the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night went before the Israelites, so does the Word of God go before the believer.

Finally, as you read, learn to pray that God’s Spirit will guide you into all truth

A few weeks ago, we considered a passage from 1 Peter that said that we are to be ready, when asked, to give account for the hope that is within us, and we are to do that with respect and humility.

The hope that is within us is fed by the inspired Word of God that points to salvation in Jesus Christ. How can we give account if we have no grasp of Scripture?

Reason for the Hope Within

Micah 6:1-8
1 Peter 3:8-17

There are two things that ought to strike home to us from these readings on this Resurrection Sunday. The first is the question posed and answered by the Prophet Micah: “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

The second thing that ought to strike home to us is the instruction that the Apostle Peter gives us: “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect…”

Whether you live under the Old Covenant or the new (and believe me; there are a lot of Old Testament Christians), you are required to act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. That is the answer to life’s riddle – to the question that we ask from the beginning of our consciousness to the end of our lives, “What does God want me to do.”

Once we know what we are to do, the question becomes, “How am I to do it?” We are told simply to be ready – to be ready to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.

We are to be in a state of readiness – to be awake to the opportunity to act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly and be ready to give an answer, whenever anyone asks us, for the hope that we have.

That seems simple enough, doesn’t it? We are not commanded to go out and buttonhole every person we see and ask, “Brother, are you saved?” We are to live as people of justice and mercy. We are to walk as people who are humbly walking with God. And we are to be ready to give an answer, not to a select person or two, but to everyone who asks us to give the reason for the hope that we have.

What that tells me is that hope is not something hidden inside. Hope is something that becomes transparent to those with whom we deal on a daily basis. Hope is something that sticks out on the Christian because it affects our demeanor, even though we may at times feel like something that got thrown out with the garbage.

Hope is the missing ingredient in a world chasing after self-esteem. If you have hope, your esteem is centered in whose you are rather than who you are. Your focus in life is less on building yourself up and more on pressing forward toward the prize – moving ahead at all cost; staying the course, if you will.

If you have hope, the things of this earth become, as the chorus goes, “Strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.” If you have hope, you are able to function above your circumstances, no matter what suffering you may be enduring at the moment.

The Apostle Paul tells us, “We rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produced perseverance, perseverance character, and character hope.” He is not saying here that we get real happy or giddy when we suffer. He is saying that the Christian has a very real sense that, even in the midst of suffering, God is working things out for our good.

You may have no idea what a unique thing that is in the world today. It is so unique, in fact, that it speaks to everyone with whom we come in contact. That’s why, every once in awhile, somebody may ask us, “What is it that you have that is different?” We are to be ready to give an answer to that question, for God is, at that moment, preparing a heart to receive Him.

I have shared with you about the first time that happened to me. I was in my first year at the University of Maine, a struggling engineering student, tired and sometimes cross and sometimes discouraged. Way into one night when I was staying overnight with a friend to go fishing in the morning, he asked me out of the blue, “You have something different. Whatever it is, I want it.”

What a surprise that was! Whatever I had, even I didn’t want it, and here was somebody asking me to share it with him. Before the night was over, he knelt down beside his bed and asked Jesus to come into his life.

All too often, we become passive about our faith. We consider it something private and personal and tucked away somewhere out of sight. But it shows because the HS within us shines through that veneer that we think is the same as everyone else’s.

It is natural to want to live out our faith in solitude. We want to be liked – even loved. We want to be good neighbors and friends. We want to live and let live. But the words that come through to us from the God of both the Old and New Testaments are action words – live; walk; be ready. If we stand in that state of living, the witness of Jesus Christ will shine through to others, not as a goody-two-shoes, but as a person who has been given something special. We may well hear the question, “What is it you have that is so different?”

This is the end of Holy Week. Last Friday evening, we had a wonderful service here at the church and were able to share Franz Joseph Haydn’s Seven Last Words of Christ with a number of folks who had never been in this church before. I began with the words, “Welcome to our little church in the woods. We are pleased that you are able to share with us this evening as we give voice to the hope that is within us.”

“What is it that you people have that is different?” That is the question that the person on the street wants answered. They will see that difference in our desire to act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with our God. What this church is about, then, is learning to be ready to give an answer for the hope that is in us by practicing justice, mercy and walking humbly with God in the presence of each other.

I don’t know whether or not that kind of living will fill these pews. What I do know, however, is that it will fill our hearts and bring peace to the world around us. If every Christian would stand in readiness, the peace that the church seeks through passing laws to make us look more holy than we are would spread through this nation like wildfire.

The problem is that we would rather live with one foot in the world and the other in the Kingdom of God, whenever it suits our fancy. We would prefer that our expressions of praise and worship be on our terms in our timing rather than to be ready on God’s terms and in God’s timing.

We are living in a day, however, when the only hope for America is the breaking in of the Kingdom of God through a community of believers who are ready and willing 24/7.

I shared with those of you who were here Friday evening the remarkable story of Len Bias, the last great hope for the Boston Celtics. What is remarkable about this story has little to do with Len Bias or the Boston Celtics and everything to do with his Mom, Lonise Bias.

When Lonise Bias walked into the hospital on June 19, 1986, she had no idea that her son, Len, was on life support. She had been told that he had taken sick. Len died of a drug-induced coma.

This Maryland family had been celebrating the incredibly good fortune of the signing of Len Bias just 2 days previously. He was touted to be the next Michael Jordan – the dream of millions of black families in America. Who would believe that at the very apex of this young man’s life, the floor would fall from underneath them.

Lonise went into deep grief – pleading with God to take her life. Gradually, she began thinking about the purpose of the life of a Christian and realized that she had settled into a comfort zone in pursuit of the Great American Dream instead of the Kingdom of God. The way she describes it is God hitting her over the head with a two-by-four to get going with her life. She turned this great personal tragedy into a mission to help others.

Last Friday morning, it was my privilege to hear Lonise Bias speak at the Christian Leadership Good Friday breakfast at the Sable Oaks in So. Portland. This woman had lost her son, and her message to audiences all over the world has been, “But for God…But for God.”

On December 4, 1990, her only other son, Jay, was murdered in a drive-by shooting at a local mall. Now, Lonise was angry. Once again, God turned the circumstances into opportunity. The invitations began pouring in, and she has devoted the last 10 years to traveling and lecturing about hope in Christ. She has learned what is expected of her – to be ready to give an answer to everyone who asks her to give the reason for the hope that she has. “But for God…But for God.” Amen?

But what is that hope?

This is Easter Sunday morning. It is Resurrection morning. We already know that Resurrection follows suffering – that weeping may come in the night, but joy comes in the morning. We asked, on Friday evening, why it is called Good Friday. If you look at it from the standpoint of those without hope, what is good about it? It is “good” because of the words of Jesus from the cross, “It is finished.” God’s redemptive plan for His people is now complete – finished.

We have learned from redemptive history that there is no Resurrection without a cross. We have learned from our personal experience that something needs to be put to death if we are to live in the hope of the Resurrection. Lonise Bias learned through her own suffering that hope comes at a cost – the cost of all that was important to her.

Gone were the hopes of a black family rising up from their circumstances. Gone was the hope of great pride in a rising career. Gone was the hope of carrying on the family name.

In its place, Lonise Bias found real hope and has shared that hope with tens of thousands of young people who are drifting aimlessly through this life on alcohol and drugs. Her message is one that every one of us should take to heart. The only possible cure to the downward drift of a hopeless youth is the Church of Jesus Christ. There alone, hope is available.

The problem, of course, is that the church is seeking hope in the American Dream rather than in the Resurrection. It stands with one foot in the world and the other timidly in the Kingdom. And like with Lonise Bias, the church will need a strike from God to get it up and moving.

The hope of the believer in Jesus Christ is the consummation of the Kingdom of God. John the Baptist came wearing camel’s skin and eating locusts and wild honey, crying, “Repent for the Kingdom is at hand.” Jesus came, preaching and teaching, “Repent for the Kingdom is at hand.” Easter Sunday morning is a celebration of the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God through the suffering and death of His only Son.

We who have taken the moderate route in our lives and in our witness have missed much of the miracles of grace that God has available to those who live in the hope. As a result of our heads being buried in the sand, the Church of Jesus Christ has taken a right turn to recreate America into God’s Kingdom.

You will find me taking an increasing interest in matters of international policy. At the end of April, I will be speaking at a conference in Chicago on the dangers of Christian Zionism, a movement among Evangelicals to influence our government to hold to the 1967 borders of Israel on the grounds that that is the land that was promised by God to Abraham. It is estimated that as many as 30M Evangelicals hold to that belief, including some in high places in our government.

As I have prepared for this conference, I began to think a lot about the hope that we as believers have. Simply put, despite the 60M Left Behind books that have been sold, our hope is not in the so-called Rapture. Our hope is in the Lord of the Rapture. Our hope is not in the so-called Millennium Reign. Our hope is in the Lord of the Millennium Reign. Our hope is not in America. Our hope is in another kingdom – the Kingdom of God that is from everlasting to everlasting.

Peter writes about a way of life that rides above the noise of this earth. It is a life that is built on acting justly, loving mercy and walking humbly with our God. Nobody should know better than this former loose cannon, Peter, what the benefits of that life might be. It is a lifestyle we have an opportunity to practice here in the church so we can export it to our families, our neighborhoods and our jobs. Here are the characteristics of that lifestyle:

1. We are to live in harmony with one another…
2. We are to be sympathetic with one another…
3. We are to love one another as brothers…
4. We are to be compassionate and humble…

He tells us in v. 9 that not only are we expected to practice this kind of lifestyle with each other, but we were called to this lifestyle so that we might inherit a blessing. The prescription is almost a no-brainer:

“Whoever would love life, and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech” (makes sense, doesn’t it?).

“He who would love life and see good days must turn from evil and do good; he must seek peace and pursue it” (makes sense, doesn’t it?).

“For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”

“Who is going to harm you if you do good?”

“Do not fear what they (the earthbound) fear; do not be frightened.” If we lived by that rule alone, we would have folks asking us to give them reason for the hope that is within us. For the Scriptures tell us that what casts out fear is perfect love. People are drawn to unconditional love, are they not?

We have a prescription for living – acting justly; loving mercy and walking humbly with God. Next, we have a mandate to be ready to answer everyone who wants to know how we hang together when the going gets tough. Finally, we are told that whenever we share our hope with anyone, we are to do it with reverence and respect – respect for the beliefs of others; respect for the unbelief of others; respect for their humanity and their searching.

Lonise Bias is a remarkable woman. She is remarkable because she was called to minister when every bone of her body screamed in rebellion against God. But Lonise Bias would be the first to tell you that she was just like you and me – bumping along in the middle of the road. And she would end that statement with, “But for God…But for God!”

Easter morning! Resurrection Day! The in-breaking of the Kingdom! The risen Lord – the reason for the hope that is within us. Live that life, and others will want to know how. Guaranteed!

"Do Not Forget!"

April 1, 2007

Deuteronomy 8:11-20
Mark 11:1-11

Today is Palm Sunday. Today also is April Fools Day. There was no such thing as April Fools Day at the time of Jesus, but the people who celebrated His triumphant entry into Jerusalem certainly thought they had been fooled. It was just a few days later that these same people were calling for His crucifixion.

That is the paradox on which rests the message of the Kingdom of God – that it is never what we expect it to be nor what we want it to be.

With the coming of Jesus, the long-awaited Kingdom had arrived. All this preparation for His entry that involved borrowing a donkey’s colt was to accomplish two things. One was that this was exactly what had been prophesied by Zechariah – that their king would arrive on a donkey’s colt. The reason for the enthusiasm of the crowd was that they recognized this as a fulfillment of prophecy with which they were very familiar.

The second thing that was to be accomplished was to demonstrate the nature of this Kingdom. A king comes in a chariot, does he not? If not, he rides into the city on a stallion – a trained, spirited horse – and he has on a full set of armor. To ride in on a donkey is to insult the regal nature of a king. To ride in on an unbroken donkey’s colt could only have been accomplished through some divine act of taming the colt.

The crowds, having heard of Jesus’ ministry, were waiting for Him to come to Jerusalem for Passover. When they saw Him arrive in fulfillment of prophecy, they were overjoyed:

Hozanna!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father, David!
Hosanna in the highest!

This next Friday evening, we will be sharing together the Seven Last Words of Christ as composed by Franz Joseph Heyden. The first of these phrases is, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Jesus is speaking of these same people who, a few days earlier, had been spreading their cloaks and palm branches and dancing in the streets. They did not know what they were doing at the crucifixion, and it stands to reason that they did not know what they were doing at the Triumphant Entry.

The reason for the cluelessness on both occasions was that they did not understand the nature of Kingdom of God.

Things have not changed much, have they? Two thousand years later and the Christian community still does not understand the Kingdom of God. In fact, the doctrine of the Kingdom of God is one of the most underpreached doctrines of our day because it is not understood. There is something very difficult about a kingdom that comes and then appears to go away.

This creates an enormous problem for modern Christians and for the Church of Jesus Christ. The problem is this: If you don’t understand the Kingdom, you don’t understand Jesus. For the Kingdom and Jesus are so interconnected that they are nearly interchangeable terms. If Jesus is away, as many consider Him to be, then the Kingdom also is away. If the Kingdom is away, we are left to create some kind of Heaven on earth in our own images.

We do that by deciding who is good and who is evil and campaigning to wipe out evil in the world by wiping out evil people. The moment that happens, we lose sight of Jesus, the donkey’s colt and what it means to follow. To live in the Kingdom of God requires that we follow the King to His crucifixion as well as to His grand entrance. Because whether grand entrance or crucifixion, it is Jesus who is king; not us.

I was surfing the radio the other day while driving, and I came upon a Christian radio station that had a woman talk show host. She went to great lengths to explain how the good people have been redeemed by the sacrifice of Christ and how the evil people are those who have rejected Christ. She protracted that to her push for us to invade Iran which, incidentally, seems to be a passion among the Christian Right at this time.

The rationale was that the leadership in Iran was evil, but the people of Iran want liberation. So, we should respond to this by invading Iran and liberating the people. In that way, we can bring Christ to Iran and stamp out evil at the same time.

She added a lot of talk about wimps who want to negotiate and appease rather than nipping the problem in the bud. There was an air of militarism in the attitude of this talk show host, laced with scripture verses and talk of getting “them” before they get “us.” It all sounded reasonable because that is the way we think as individuals and as a nation. But the Savior calls us to a different way of thinking:

You have heard it said, ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you, ‘Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other cheek as well. If someone forces you to go a mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you; love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes the sun to rise on the evil and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

That is not something we want to hear, is it? What we want to hear is, “Kill them before they kill us!” But killing them before they kill us is not the voice of courage. It is the voice of fear and cowardice. The voice of courage ought to be the Church on its knees, asking God to give us the faith to believe that in our weakness is His strength. The voice of courage ought to be trusting the power of non-violence even when we are quaking in our boots.

I am talking here about the Church of Jesus Christ – not the government of the United States. The government of the United States has no claim on the Sermon on the Mount and will do what it will do. But the minute the Church of Jesus Christ stands up and condemns others thousands of miles away as evil and needing to be wiped out before they kill us, it has lost its witness to a world gone mad.

The passage from Deuteronomy is written for the benefit of God’s people. God lays down a condition to His blessing. Notice that the blessing of the community of God’s people is always conditional.

Moses begins by insisting that they not forget God: “Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God.” The people of Israel were to observe the laws and decrees, not because their salvation depended on those laws and decrees, but because through them they would always keep the presence of God personally and nationally; real and close. Moses goes on to tell them why this observance is critical to remembering:

‘Otherwise,” he says, “when you eat and are satisfied; when you build fine houses and settle down; when your herds and flocks grow large and your sliver and gold increase and are multiplied, then your heart will become proud, and you will forget the Lord your God…”

This should hit us where we live, shouldn’t it? There seems to be a characteristic of human nature that Moses is sharing here. You will recall that temple worship or synagogue worship failed to keep these folks from forgetting God, just as church attendance is not guaranteed to keep us from forgetting God. It is something deep and personal that is required to turn ritual and the sacraments into remembrance. Going through the motions doesn’t cut it. If we are going to remember the Lord our God, His commands have to cut deep and personal – we have to appropriate them to ourselves personally.

What has happened down through history is that the Church has been to quick to forget the Lord our God. Remembering God is not entertaining. It is convicting, and it requires of us that we take a look at ourselves. Remembering the Lord our God can only be done under the knowledge of our weakness and sin. We remember because we stand in awe of His mercy and grace toward us, an awe that comes from recognition of our need.

When you see the church majoring in the minors, you know that it has forgotten the Lord its God. When you see the church begin to focus on the sin of others, it has forgotten God. When you see the church referring to itself as “good” and to others as “evil,” it has forgotten the Lord. When you see the church begin to build monuments in the public square and carve commandments over the courthouse portico, it has forgotten the Lord its God. When you see the church saying, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” it has tired of waiting for God and has decided to take matters into its own hands.

At that point, the church has lost its power in advancing the Kingdom of God because it has become wedded to the kingdoms of this world.

“You may say to yourself, ‘My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.’ But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today. If you ever forget the Lord your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed.”

That’s a pretty grim reality, is it not? If we apply this principle to ourselves as a church, which is the closest government to that of Israel that we Christians have today, forgetting God and basking in the success of our ministry is presuming on the blessings that God has given to us. For that, our success and our witness will be destroyed. They will be destroyed because they no longer reflect the power and glory of God. They reflect our own power and glory. Like the church at Laodicea, we will be spewed out of God’s mouth because we are lukewarm.

When Jesus stepped onto the stage of human history, He began with these words, “The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe.” But nothing dramatic seemed to have been taking place. We read that and decide that this Kingdom business must be something for the future. A single Roman centurion with his sword hanging from his belt struck more fear in the hearts of the average Jewish citizen than did this Jesus. Where is the evidence of its coming, they asked themselves.

At the trial of Jesus, Pontius Pilate asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus replied, “My kingdom is not of this world…For this I was born, and for this I came into the world.” Jesus was born and came into the world to announce God’s kingdom. How is it that the church today speaks little of that Kingdom?

Iy is because we cannot seem to see behind and beyond the troubles of this world. The signs of power are strangely absent from this Kingdom. So we decide that it is somehow out of the realm of present reality. If the Kingdom is outside our reality, then how can we proclaim Jesus as King of kings and Lord of lords? A Church that has lost sight of the Kingdom cannot hold forth the King and turn, instead, to the arm of flesh.

The Prophet Isaiah said, “All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way…” Israel forgot God because they decided to live outside His control. So it has become with spiritual Israel – the Church of Jesus Christ. We call Him our “Lord and Savior,” but it is fair to ask, “Who really is in control of my life?”

I read this week an illustration of the Kingdom of God that was quite riveting. The church is called a sanctuary because it is here that the Lord God may be found in the midst of His people. It is a sanctuary from the outside world, if only for a few moments a week.

When we look outside this sanctuary, all we see are challenges to our belief in God’s sovereign power. We see Iraq out of control. We see car bombs and kids blowing themselves us in the market. We see fear of losing control over our kids’ education. We see a secular state stripping, one by one, the reminders of God from the public square. It is scary.

On the other hand, never before have Americans had more freedom. Our lives are so full of options and temptations that it is hard to choose. While there are many poor people, there are also many rich people whose money brings them economic freedom.

As we look back into our lives from the safety of this sanctuary, we have decisions to make, the most critical of which is whether or not we will acknowledge the Kingdom of God as the real country in which we live. The Bible refers to the believer as a sojourner, a wayfarer, a stranger and alien to the world in which we live. Jesus is so radical as to say that if we love our father or mother more than Him, we are not worthy of Him.

And yet, this Kingdom is one that seems to use no force to get its way.

Directly from this triumphant entry into Jerusalem, Jesus goes into the Temple and throws over the tables of the moneychangers. Does that not show a distinct disregard for civil law? “You shall not make my Father’s house a den of thieves.” Jesus is reacting against the perversions of state infecting the church!

Jesus did not use political force to get the job done. He speaks to the will, not to the arm of flesh. He desires that we be empowered to say “No” or “Yes” without coercion. To His disciples He said, “Come, follow me.” No reward was offered; no promise of eternal life was extended to them. “Come, follow me” - an act on the will.

There are those today who profess Jesus as Lord who want to change the laws to force people to obey the moral code. That is not the way of Jesus. So we have to ask ourselves how we can possibly respond to Jesus, our King, when He does not force us to do anything. And yet, it matters how we respond and if we obey: “You are my friends if you do what I command.”

The commands of Jesus are not difficult. In fact, they are very simple commands. If we obeyed them, we would be happy people. He gently pleads with us to trust Him and to live our lives trusting Him, even while we are free to obey or not to obey.

The world seems to go on in a predictable manner. I was thinking last week about how precarious are those things about America that we take for granted. There seems to be a growing spirit of unease – an almost revolutionary spirit. Every once in awhile, we see how fragile even the greatest power on earth can be. We saw it when Stalin’s statue was toppled after a short 70 years of communism. We saw it when Saddam Hussein’s statue was pulled down in Baghdad.

What we forget, in our preoccupation with our own safety and security is that Jesus towers over the wreck of time. His Kingdom is from everlasting to everlasting. This is such a bedrock principle of the Christian faith that even the existence of Osama bin Laden ought not to be very important to our security.

The way that Jesus deals with us is not to boss us around, as some in the church should like to do. He shows us the way and invites us to walk in it. He shows us the truth and says, “Trust me that this is true.” This simple process of becoming kingdom kids begins to show itself in the hearts of all who accept Him, whether they be rich, poor, educated, non-educated, Muslim or Christian, Jew or Greek, male or female.

What matters more than life itself, apparently, are the words, “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.”