Sermon - 2018-03-04
Today within our texts, I am reminded that God does not always show up the way we expect him to be within our lives. For many of us, we think of God as someone who will bless us. But then when God does not give us what we ask for, then we get upset or wondering what we have done wrong. However, God is not a genie for us to make a wish on. God is someone who controls many parts of our lives but also allows us to experience our own decisions and the consequences of our choices. There are times that we are blessed in extraordinary ways that we are aware of but there are other times that we are blessed and no idea of the blessing that we have received.
Take, for example, the Old Testament shares with the giving of the Ten Commandments. We hear what the commandments are but do we have any idea WHY? God gave the Ten Commandments to the people?? When we study this scripture it is often for the Ten Commandments and what they mean for us today but we often do not take the time to realize what they meant for the people that received it. Remember, the Hebrew people were living their lives in slavery. For generations, they were the servants who did the labor or what they were told. They longed for freedom, they longed to be their own people and no longer under the oppressor that was Egypt. So for many, they view the gift of freedom that God gave to the people as THE blessing that was given. However, there are truly several blessings that took place within the story.
Yet it was not only the freedom that God blessed them with but now gave to them how it is they should be keeping an honest and true relationship with God and one another. Basically, how to be a community of God in the world. The Hebrew people truly needed this, for generations they had been told how to live but not by a people who worshipped God. So the people who were longing for freedom but truly needed guidance. They needed to understand where they were going wrong in this world and how they needed God in their lives. They needed to understand their role of the relationship between God and themselves. But also that they needed God in their relationship between one another in the community. They needed God to tell them what to do. To limit their vision so that they would actually live a life that was full of LIFE and a freedom that would not be weighed down by the false lies that would drag them back into a slavery of another kind.
When we still apply these Ten Commandments, never treat them as a checklist of things that you are supposed to do within your life. That they are tasks to accomplish and then you are done. For they were created for you, to have them as a focus every single day of your life. For it, not the great events that you do within your life that make a difference but the small acts of kindness, love and mercy that show the people around to the God whom you are serving and loving every single day.
Yet, Jesus doesn’t come into our lives to give us freedom and run amok as we so choose. Jesus does not set us free from the Ten Commandments but even showed the people what it means. For while Jesus was on the Earth, we hear about today in our Gospel, that Jesus formed a whip and drove out all the animals and overturned the tables that were in the Holy Temple. Why would Jesus do this? Jesus was destroying the ways that the people were taking the Temple of God and turning it into a place to make money for themselves but also to steal from those who were traveling to worship God at this holy time.
Jesus was filled with passion and anger at the way people were living out their lives in the Holy Temple of God and showing to others that God would let them treat one another so poorly. Stealing from the very people who are supposed to be called brothers and sisters, ignoring their problems and their heart for God but taking advantage and treating them and God’s House as a place to steal.
I draw you into both of these accounts because I do not want you as God’s people to feel that you understand God so well that you stop learning and growing closer to God. For when that happens, you are no longer worshipping God but have made yourself into a god. Along with that, we need to be open to the many ways God is calling us to live. When we ask for freedom, God may bring us guidance to full life. When we ask for a savior, God may overturn our very lives themselves.
Yet when you speak to God, know that God is listening. But for you, when God acts, be prepared for God to answer but not in the way that you are EXPECTING God to answer. For that is one of the worst things that is happening in our lives, we are not listening to God but want things to be happening in our own way and not be challenged by the way God is calling us to be every single day of our lives.
Take, for example, the Old Testament shares with the giving of the Ten Commandments. We hear what the commandments are but do we have any idea WHY? God gave the Ten Commandments to the people?? When we study this scripture it is often for the Ten Commandments and what they mean for us today but we often do not take the time to realize what they meant for the people that received it. Remember, the Hebrew people were living their lives in slavery. For generations, they were the servants who did the labor or what they were told. They longed for freedom, they longed to be their own people and no longer under the oppressor that was Egypt. So for many, they view the gift of freedom that God gave to the people as THE blessing that was given. However, there are truly several blessings that took place within the story.
Yet it was not only the freedom that God blessed them with but now gave to them how it is they should be keeping an honest and true relationship with God and one another. Basically, how to be a community of God in the world. The Hebrew people truly needed this, for generations they had been told how to live but not by a people who worshipped God. So the people who were longing for freedom but truly needed guidance. They needed to understand where they were going wrong in this world and how they needed God in their lives. They needed to understand their role of the relationship between God and themselves. But also that they needed God in their relationship between one another in the community. They needed God to tell them what to do. To limit their vision so that they would actually live a life that was full of LIFE and a freedom that would not be weighed down by the false lies that would drag them back into a slavery of another kind.
When we still apply these Ten Commandments, never treat them as a checklist of things that you are supposed to do within your life. That they are tasks to accomplish and then you are done. For they were created for you, to have them as a focus every single day of your life. For it, not the great events that you do within your life that make a difference but the small acts of kindness, love and mercy that show the people around to the God whom you are serving and loving every single day.
Yet, Jesus doesn’t come into our lives to give us freedom and run amok as we so choose. Jesus does not set us free from the Ten Commandments but even showed the people what it means. For while Jesus was on the Earth, we hear about today in our Gospel, that Jesus formed a whip and drove out all the animals and overturned the tables that were in the Holy Temple. Why would Jesus do this? Jesus was destroying the ways that the people were taking the Temple of God and turning it into a place to make money for themselves but also to steal from those who were traveling to worship God at this holy time.
Jesus was filled with passion and anger at the way people were living out their lives in the Holy Temple of God and showing to others that God would let them treat one another so poorly. Stealing from the very people who are supposed to be called brothers and sisters, ignoring their problems and their heart for God but taking advantage and treating them and God’s House as a place to steal.
I draw you into both of these accounts because I do not want you as God’s people to feel that you understand God so well that you stop learning and growing closer to God. For when that happens, you are no longer worshipping God but have made yourself into a god. Along with that, we need to be open to the many ways God is calling us to live. When we ask for freedom, God may bring us guidance to full life. When we ask for a savior, God may overturn our very lives themselves.
Yet when you speak to God, know that God is listening. But for you, when God acts, be prepared for God to answer but not in the way that you are EXPECTING God to answer. For that is one of the worst things that is happening in our lives, we are not listening to God but want things to be happening in our own way and not be challenged by the way God is calling us to be every single day of our lives.
Comments
Post a Comment