[This will be our final sermon of the year at Pilgrims. During the Christmas break, our students will go to their hometowns, or to Kyiv to protest, or to the mountains with friends. We're going to talk about reading the Bible and why that is important. This sermon will be co-preached with Pastor Volodya Prokip - so you'll only get to read my introduction. The rest is hands on Bible searching tips, and encouragement to read the Bible by Rev Prokip.]
A good friend gave me a book in Ukrainian for my birthday last year. I sat down to read it, and I really intended to read it all. It was a good gift - a book by a good author that my friend had enjoyed. I read the first sentence. I got out my dictionary and looked up all three words that I didn't know. I wrote my new vocabulary words in the margins. I read the second sentence. I only needed to look up two words. I read the first sentence and the second sentence together. I read the third sentence and looked up all four words that I didn't know. By this time, I had forgotten what the first two sentences were about. I made it through the first two paragraphs before I gave up. I was so frustrated.
I told Ananastasiya Krachkovska-Lyubis about my failed attempt at reading a book in Ukrainian, and she told me that I should just keep reading. She encouraged me to just keep reading past the words I didn't understand and to find the larger meaning in the context - and I was sure that she was crazy. But, about a week later, I was on vacation in Kyiv and I found a trashy-romance novel lying around my friend's apartment. I asked my friend if it was good - and she said that it was trash, but really fun trash. I started to read it, and I read right through every word that I didn't understand. And I kept reading, and I felt so lost and so inadequate - but after a few pages, I got into a rhythm and I realized that I was understanding the plot perfectly fine. I read the whole way through the book, and for a Ukrainian, it might have been boring and cliche - but for me, reading it in my second language - it was the most interesting book I'd ever read. With each plot twist, I became more engaged. By the last 30 pages, I was just so excited that I was actually reading a book. There were still words I didn't understand, but they didn't matter - somehow, they just didn't matter! I finished the book, and came from my reading nook into my friend's living room and announced to the whole group gathered that I had read a whole book in Ukrainian. My friends all laughed with me, as I proudly held up this trashy romance novel with such pride. It was a beautifully awkward moment, and one that still brings joy to my heart.
---
It's easy to begin reading the Bible and to quickly get bogged down in the details. The first time I vowed to read the whole Bible, I started in Genesis and had a great time reading amazing stories from the first two books of the Bible - and then I hit Leviticus. What a shock to hit the book of Leviticus and realize how shockingly boring the Bible can be. I kept notes, I drew diagrams and charts. I tried to understand - but, for many, many chapters in a row, there's just not a take away lesson from the book of Leviticus. It's a book of rules, and, quite frankly, rules that just don't apply to us anymore. I made it most of the way through Numbers before giving up.
This wasn't my last attempt to read the whole Bible - and it wasn't my last failed attempt either.
We can either read the Bible as a textbook or a reference book - something given to keep us within the lines of a box - or we can read the Bible as a love letter from God meant to set us free. I believe with all of my heart that this Holy Book is the most wonderful story every told, that it is the true story of God's great love for you, and that reading this book for yourself will change your life every time.
Every time I read something from the Bible, I find something that I didn't remember from before. I read the sermon on the mount over and over again, maybe more than a thousand times I've read the beginning of that sermon - and it still feels like I notice something new each time.
Tonight we are going to talk about the mechanics of the Bible. We're going to look at how the Bible is put together, how to find things in the Bible, and why we should all be reading the Bible more than we do.
Enjoy.
Thursday, December 19, 2013
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
What we get wrong V
[Ukraine is in great turmoil. Things are moving very quickly and people are often scared and tense. We have vowed to continue worshiping and we are beginning to think about how we can best serve the student-protesters. This is an interesting environment in which to think and talk about prayer. Prayer is hard sometimes, or sometimes it is all we have or sometimes it is both at the same time.]
Let's talk honestly about prayer for a bit. Prayer doesn't always come naturally or easily. Sometimes prayer is difficult. Many people have a hard time praying out loud, or at all.
For some people, prayer comes very easily.
We say the Lor'd Prayer all the time. It is part of our culture to repeat it together. It is good to remember these beautiful words. But, we must listen carefully to Jesus in these verses. Jesus asks those listening not to use fancy words - he gives us this prayer as a model of simplicity. Jesus doesn't want our empty words. If this prayer is meaningless to us, we should stop praying it until we get the meaning.
The Lord's prayer is an opening and a closing and six requests
For God's
name
reign
will
For our
bread
debts
deliverance/enemies
It's really simple and beautiful. It shows that God and God's role in our lives is more important than us and our desires. It lifts up the greatness and glory of God and asks only for our most basic needs and the needs of those around us.
When I was a pastor in the states - everywhere that I went I was asked to pray. I was asked to pray at funerals and church services like I would expect, but also at sporting events and barbecues. At every meal I ate with friends from church, I was asked to pray for it.
And this was funny to me, because I'm not good at prayer.
It seems that my mother is always at the business of prayer. I remember as a child, I would be running around the church while mom was practicing the pipe organ - and I would come up behind her and say,
"mom, mom, mom, mom, mummy, mummy, mummy, mom, mom, mother, mom" and she would quietly say, "not now, Michael, I'm praying" It wasn't that a massive pipe organ was flying under her control and each pipe was blasting loud music and she couldn't hear me - it was that in the depth of her soul, she was quite and still. When life was hard, she would kneel at the altar at the front of our church and sob in prayer. When we were poor as could be, she would cook enough food for me and Rebecca and say a prayer of thanksgiving to God that rang out so perfectly, even when there wasn't enough for her to eat as well. Mom would pray for us at night, and I always knew I was safe.
One day we were at the church searching for something - and we had been searching for hours - and mom said, "alright, Lord" and reached her hand into the same closet I had searched for over an hour, and pulled out exactly what we had been looking for! We always teased her that if we ever needed anything, we would ask her to pray for it - because apparently God listens to her more than God listens to us. And still to this day, when I'm in trouble, I always call my mom first and ask her to pray.
I didn't inherit this from my mom.
Prayer is a struggle for me. I forget to pray sometimes when I know that I should, and sometimes - when things are really difficult - I don't want to pray and I really have to struggle to get even basic words out.
I have some times when prayer is easier, but usually prayer is hard. For a long time, I thought that I needed to have the right words and to say things in the right way. This made prayer much too hard.
Now, when I pray, I sit and have a conversation with God. I think this is what Jesus asks us to do. I'm honest with Jesus, I share my anger and my frustration. I share when I'm thankful, but not as often as I should.
These last few weeks, we've talked about different ways that Jesus wants us to share our faith. We are salt and light and we shouldn't put ourselves under a jar. A lot of these have been very external, but with prayer - with prayer Jesus asks us to do the opposite. He asks us NOT to use prayer as an external evidence of our faith. Jesus reminds us that prayer is about helping us to connect with God.
I asked one of the women from the little church I served if she would pray one day, and she looked down at her hands and she said, "Oh, Michael, I can't do any nice prayers like you..."
And I remember all the pastors who ever served and they all had such nice prayers. A few even wrote their prayers before the service to make sure that they were perfect. And, honestly, when you have to pray in public a lot, you get better at making the words sound nicer
But, you don't get better at prayer:
"Prayer is largely just being silent: holding the tension instead of even talking it through, offering the moment instead of fixing it by words and ideas, loving reality as it is instead of understanding it fully. Prayer is commonly a willingness to say “I don’t know.” We must not push the river, we must just trust that we are already in the river, and God is the certain flow and current." - Richard Rohr
This is a beautiful image of prayer. When you pray, you are in a river trusting God to do the rest.
We have much to pray about here. Sometimes there is so much going on around us and we feel so helpless and sometimes it is even hard to pray.
Did you know that couples in love, when they sit near to each other, that their heartbeats and breathing become synchronized. When strangers sit side by side, this doesn't happen - but when a couple is in love, just being together brings their pulse and breathing together.
There is nothing so wonderful as feeling the pulse of a loved one while holding their hand or in an embrace.
This is how I understand prayer. When we pray, we sit next to the God that we love. We have a conversation and we say what we need to say - and God can take our harshest criticism, so don't hold back ... God doesn't want you to lie! - but at the same time, our heartbeat matches up to God's. Our heart beats in the same way that God's does. Our heart breaks for what breaks God's heart. We see things in God's way - slowly but surely. It takes time, but the longer we sit by God's side and talk with God, the more our hearts line up.
It is not the length of our prayers or the words that we pray that make our prayers valuable. The Pagans felt like they had to say everything and explain their side of the situation so that their gods would take their side. Jesus asks us not to do this. God is already on our side. God already knows the situation much better than we ever will. Don't be afraid to tell God everything, but don't think that you're giving God any new information.
In some Christian circles some people talk about praying in a specific way and they say that this way is a "stronger" way to pray than praying in some other way - and we might all like to know some secret way to pray that will totally make our prayer better - people write books all the time with some secret prayer or some secret way to pray ... but this is nonsense. The thing that matters in our prayers is the One to whom we are praying.
Jesus asks us, for our part, not to focus on our words, but to focus on our sincerity.
Think of the way that a child talks to a parent. Not the way that we talk to our parents - the way that it can be awkward or hard, but think about the way you talked to your parents as a child. The way that you could say anything and ask anything and everything was right. When we pray, we must be sincere with God.
Over the years, I've learned that the only wrong way to pray is to not pray. When we choose to hold onto our problems and our challenges and our praise - we get lost. When we try to find the answers in ourselves, we find that we don't have the answers.
When we pray, we give everything over to God. We are going to break up into our small groups now and talk about prayer and then we will end in prayer. It's just us and God tonight. When Jesus talked about going into a separate room to pray, Jesus was talking to people who lived in one room houses. Jesus meant that we should never show off our prayers. We should never boast about our prayers. Tonight, I want to challenge each of you to pray out loud in your small group. Even if you don't have beautiful words. Even if you don't like the way your voice sounds. Even if you're not as good a Christian as you think everyone else it. If you don't know what to say, You can just say "Hi God. Thank you."
Let's talk honestly about prayer for a bit. Prayer doesn't always come naturally or easily. Sometimes prayer is difficult. Many people have a hard time praying out loud, or at all.
For some people, prayer comes very easily.
We say the Lor'd Prayer all the time. It is part of our culture to repeat it together. It is good to remember these beautiful words. But, we must listen carefully to Jesus in these verses. Jesus asks those listening not to use fancy words - he gives us this prayer as a model of simplicity. Jesus doesn't want our empty words. If this prayer is meaningless to us, we should stop praying it until we get the meaning.
The Lord's prayer is an opening and a closing and six requests
For God's
name
reign
will
For our
bread
debts
deliverance/enemies
It's really simple and beautiful. It shows that God and God's role in our lives is more important than us and our desires. It lifts up the greatness and glory of God and asks only for our most basic needs and the needs of those around us.
When I was a pastor in the states - everywhere that I went I was asked to pray. I was asked to pray at funerals and church services like I would expect, but also at sporting events and barbecues. At every meal I ate with friends from church, I was asked to pray for it.
And this was funny to me, because I'm not good at prayer.
It seems that my mother is always at the business of prayer. I remember as a child, I would be running around the church while mom was practicing the pipe organ - and I would come up behind her and say,
"mom, mom, mom, mom, mummy, mummy, mummy, mom, mom, mother, mom" and she would quietly say, "not now, Michael, I'm praying" It wasn't that a massive pipe organ was flying under her control and each pipe was blasting loud music and she couldn't hear me - it was that in the depth of her soul, she was quite and still. When life was hard, she would kneel at the altar at the front of our church and sob in prayer. When we were poor as could be, she would cook enough food for me and Rebecca and say a prayer of thanksgiving to God that rang out so perfectly, even when there wasn't enough for her to eat as well. Mom would pray for us at night, and I always knew I was safe.
One day we were at the church searching for something - and we had been searching for hours - and mom said, "alright, Lord" and reached her hand into the same closet I had searched for over an hour, and pulled out exactly what we had been looking for! We always teased her that if we ever needed anything, we would ask her to pray for it - because apparently God listens to her more than God listens to us. And still to this day, when I'm in trouble, I always call my mom first and ask her to pray.
I didn't inherit this from my mom.
Prayer is a struggle for me. I forget to pray sometimes when I know that I should, and sometimes - when things are really difficult - I don't want to pray and I really have to struggle to get even basic words out.
I have some times when prayer is easier, but usually prayer is hard. For a long time, I thought that I needed to have the right words and to say things in the right way. This made prayer much too hard.
Now, when I pray, I sit and have a conversation with God. I think this is what Jesus asks us to do. I'm honest with Jesus, I share my anger and my frustration. I share when I'm thankful, but not as often as I should.
These last few weeks, we've talked about different ways that Jesus wants us to share our faith. We are salt and light and we shouldn't put ourselves under a jar. A lot of these have been very external, but with prayer - with prayer Jesus asks us to do the opposite. He asks us NOT to use prayer as an external evidence of our faith. Jesus reminds us that prayer is about helping us to connect with God.
I asked one of the women from the little church I served if she would pray one day, and she looked down at her hands and she said, "Oh, Michael, I can't do any nice prayers like you..."
And I remember all the pastors who ever served and they all had such nice prayers. A few even wrote their prayers before the service to make sure that they were perfect. And, honestly, when you have to pray in public a lot, you get better at making the words sound nicer
But, you don't get better at prayer:
"Prayer is largely just being silent: holding the tension instead of even talking it through, offering the moment instead of fixing it by words and ideas, loving reality as it is instead of understanding it fully. Prayer is commonly a willingness to say “I don’t know.” We must not push the river, we must just trust that we are already in the river, and God is the certain flow and current." - Richard Rohr
This is a beautiful image of prayer. When you pray, you are in a river trusting God to do the rest.
We have much to pray about here. Sometimes there is so much going on around us and we feel so helpless and sometimes it is even hard to pray.
Did you know that couples in love, when they sit near to each other, that their heartbeats and breathing become synchronized. When strangers sit side by side, this doesn't happen - but when a couple is in love, just being together brings their pulse and breathing together.
There is nothing so wonderful as feeling the pulse of a loved one while holding their hand or in an embrace.
This is how I understand prayer. When we pray, we sit next to the God that we love. We have a conversation and we say what we need to say - and God can take our harshest criticism, so don't hold back ... God doesn't want you to lie! - but at the same time, our heartbeat matches up to God's. Our heart beats in the same way that God's does. Our heart breaks for what breaks God's heart. We see things in God's way - slowly but surely. It takes time, but the longer we sit by God's side and talk with God, the more our hearts line up.
It is not the length of our prayers or the words that we pray that make our prayers valuable. The Pagans felt like they had to say everything and explain their side of the situation so that their gods would take their side. Jesus asks us not to do this. God is already on our side. God already knows the situation much better than we ever will. Don't be afraid to tell God everything, but don't think that you're giving God any new information.
In some Christian circles some people talk about praying in a specific way and they say that this way is a "stronger" way to pray than praying in some other way - and we might all like to know some secret way to pray that will totally make our prayer better - people write books all the time with some secret prayer or some secret way to pray ... but this is nonsense. The thing that matters in our prayers is the One to whom we are praying.
Jesus asks us, for our part, not to focus on our words, but to focus on our sincerity.
Think of the way that a child talks to a parent. Not the way that we talk to our parents - the way that it can be awkward or hard, but think about the way you talked to your parents as a child. The way that you could say anything and ask anything and everything was right. When we pray, we must be sincere with God.
Over the years, I've learned that the only wrong way to pray is to not pray. When we choose to hold onto our problems and our challenges and our praise - we get lost. When we try to find the answers in ourselves, we find that we don't have the answers.
When we pray, we give everything over to God. We are going to break up into our small groups now and talk about prayer and then we will end in prayer. It's just us and God tonight. When Jesus talked about going into a separate room to pray, Jesus was talking to people who lived in one room houses. Jesus meant that we should never show off our prayers. We should never boast about our prayers. Tonight, I want to challenge each of you to pray out loud in your small group. Even if you don't have beautiful words. Even if you don't like the way your voice sounds. Even if you're not as good a Christian as you think everyone else it. If you don't know what to say, You can just say "Hi God. Thank you."
Wednesday, December 04, 2013
What we get wrong IV
[It continues to be a challenging time for our students. The protesters are out in full force, parliament failed to gather enough votes to oust the current administration, and many are disillusioned. The foreign press are skewing the facts, it is rumored that as many as 10 protesters might have been killed and their bodies confiscated, and tensions are high. Please pray for our students and for a just and peaceful resolution.
Worship is a form of protest. When we worship, we protest the values of this world. We show that although we have different political ideas, our God is one and we can come together to God. When we worship, we show where our priorities are - and that our priorities are higher than the world's.We will continue to have worship throughout the revolution. Life continues, and worship is much too important to ignore.]
Matthew 5:27-37
Sex, Lies, and Love
Arranged marriages are still common in some cultures. In India, the newspapers are filled with classified - but instead of people writing for themselves, their parents write for them. For us this is strange, perhaps, but your parents almost always want what is best for you.
In the days of the Old Testament, marriages were generally arranged. Marriage was big business. It becomes hard to read parts of the Old Testament, when you understand that the rules and restrictions about women and their behaviour were written to keep women valuable.
You earned money so that your sons would inherit large fortunes and land, but women didn't (generally) inherit these things. Other things gave a woman value - her beauty, her virginity, and her social connections. So as families arraigned marriages, it would make sense that everyone would try and marry a step up in the world. If you are rich, you want your sons to marry beautiful and virtuous women. If you are poor, you hope that your daughter will be a valuable commodity.
Marriage was a business contract between families.
Love is part of it. Throughout the Old Testament, as we read the stories of great Biblical couples, we see that they loved each other. But, when you see the way that couples came together - it becomes strange. When a woman was procured for her husband, it was common for her to be brought to him with a veil covering her face - and for them to marry on the first meeting. This is what happened with Isaac and Rebekah.
In the book of Ruth, we see the story of a crafty mother-in-law helping her daughter-in-law marry up a station or two than she deserved.
Jacob loved Rachel - and his uncle was the one who would give her away in marriage. His uncle Laban knew that he had leverage. Jacob loved Rachel and would do anything to be with her. Laban made Jacob work for seven years to earn Rachel ... and on the wedding night, he tricked a drunk Jacob into marrying a veiled woman who was actually Rachel's sister Leah. So Jacob worked another seven years to earn Rachel.
Marriage was a business contract.
And so divorce was serious business. Divorce meant more than a couple splitting up - it was the tearing apart of a family. It was business, and it could be a disaster.
The Old Testament laws dictated the value of a woman in this business deal, but they also stipulated how a divorce should work and under what circumstances.
And it is easy for us to read these few short lines about divorce and understand that God is against divorce and move on.
But we have to stop and think about how radical Jesus' words were.
Jesus radically redefined marriage.
Because all of this is about moving away from the law and into love and grace.
And so, under the old system - if you divorced you had broken the law.
Under the new system, you have broken love.
If you have broken the law there are penalties and financial problems - but to break love, it destroys the people involved. Jesus is against divorce not because of the financial implications - he's against it because love is primary. Love is above all of our possessions.
In these verses, we move from covenant to relationship. This is vital.
A covenant is a promise. It is a contract.
If you have a marriage covenant - you promise to stay together. You have a contract that outlines the financial obligations.
But a relationship is so much more than that, right? If you have a contract - there is obligation. In a relationship, it is a choice.
If you get married, every day you will make the choice to stay in love with your spouse. Every day. Some days you will hate him or her and you will be disgusted by him or her. Every day you must choose to love them.
In the Old Testament, people lived by the covenant. There were rules, and they tried to live within those rules so that they didn't break covenant. Because of what Jesus has done for us on the cross, now we live in Relationship with God. This is huge and we can't miss this.
---
When Jesus talks about lust, he draws the lines between living within the rule of "you shall not commit adultery" and living within relationship. Because, if the rule says not to commit adultery ... well, what does that mean? Does that just mean that "If I'm married, I can't have sex with someone else? It isn't cheating if it's just a kiss. Oral sex doesn't count as real sex. Is it really cheating if our eyes are closed?"
It's easy to justify our sin.
Sinning is fun.
Let me say that again, because it's probably not something you hear your pastor say very often. Sinning is fun. The Bible tells us this, Proverbs 9:17 says, "Stolen water is sweet and bread eaten in secret is delicious."
If sinning wasn't fun, we wouldn't do it.
Sinning is fun, but ... it's not more fun than relationship with God.
In these verses, Jesus clearly outlines that we cannot live within the contract and earn our way into heaven. It's not good enough to try and keep just inside of the lines. If the Bible says not to commit adultery, and we try and push it just as far as we can without it being a sin - we have already sinned.
If you want to earn your salvation, you better be willing to cut off your hands and pluck out your eyes.
But Jesus offers us relationship instead of covenant. Jesus offers us the chance to live within God's glory in relationship with Christ.
And relationship is a daily choice. Every day we must choose to love God. We must choose to walk in our own way or to walk in the way of God. Every day.
Friends, this is the one thing that I will say specifically about sex before marriage. The Bible teaches us not to do it, but I know that many people today ignore that. If you didn't wait, your sins are forgiven. If you love the person you are with, wait. If your boyfriend/girlfriend is willing to sin against God with you today, he or she might also be willing to sin against God with someone else tomorrow.
A relationship is about love and trust and respect.
But in a true and good relationship, how do you punish your partner when he or she disobeys you?
You don't. That's not a relationship. That's a covenant.
We aren't trying to earn our salvation by being good. We aren't trying to prove our love to God by being good. We are good because we understand that God loves us either way. Wether we sin mightily or feed every orphan in India, God loves us just the same.
There is nothing we can do to change the love that God has for us. You can't be so bad that God will stop loving you, and you can't be so God that God will love you more - because God already loves you completely.
This is the Good News that we have to offer. God loves you. You didn't earn it. You don't deserve it. But God loves you anyway.
I am a sinner. I am ashamed and embarrased of my sins. And some days I choose my sin over my God. Sinning is fun. But every time I make that choice, in the end, I realize that God loves me anyway - and that God's love is so much greater than my sin. Our sins tear us apart and break us down. God's love recreates us and builds us up.
When Jesus talks about oaths, he tears down the idea that we have anything to offer. Everything that we have is Gods. We can't swear by our heads because our heads belong to God. We have one oath to make. And that oath is made daily. It is the oath to be in relationship with Christ. We must make it every day.
Worship is a form of protest. When we worship, we protest the values of this world. We show that although we have different political ideas, our God is one and we can come together to God. When we worship, we show where our priorities are - and that our priorities are higher than the world's.We will continue to have worship throughout the revolution. Life continues, and worship is much too important to ignore.]
Matthew 5:27-37
Sex, Lies, and Love
Arranged marriages are still common in some cultures. In India, the newspapers are filled with classified - but instead of people writing for themselves, their parents write for them. For us this is strange, perhaps, but your parents almost always want what is best for you.
In the days of the Old Testament, marriages were generally arranged. Marriage was big business. It becomes hard to read parts of the Old Testament, when you understand that the rules and restrictions about women and their behaviour were written to keep women valuable.
You earned money so that your sons would inherit large fortunes and land, but women didn't (generally) inherit these things. Other things gave a woman value - her beauty, her virginity, and her social connections. So as families arraigned marriages, it would make sense that everyone would try and marry a step up in the world. If you are rich, you want your sons to marry beautiful and virtuous women. If you are poor, you hope that your daughter will be a valuable commodity.
Marriage was a business contract between families.
Love is part of it. Throughout the Old Testament, as we read the stories of great Biblical couples, we see that they loved each other. But, when you see the way that couples came together - it becomes strange. When a woman was procured for her husband, it was common for her to be brought to him with a veil covering her face - and for them to marry on the first meeting. This is what happened with Isaac and Rebekah.
In the book of Ruth, we see the story of a crafty mother-in-law helping her daughter-in-law marry up a station or two than she deserved.
Jacob loved Rachel - and his uncle was the one who would give her away in marriage. His uncle Laban knew that he had leverage. Jacob loved Rachel and would do anything to be with her. Laban made Jacob work for seven years to earn Rachel ... and on the wedding night, he tricked a drunk Jacob into marrying a veiled woman who was actually Rachel's sister Leah. So Jacob worked another seven years to earn Rachel.
Marriage was a business contract.
And so divorce was serious business. Divorce meant more than a couple splitting up - it was the tearing apart of a family. It was business, and it could be a disaster.
The Old Testament laws dictated the value of a woman in this business deal, but they also stipulated how a divorce should work and under what circumstances.
And it is easy for us to read these few short lines about divorce and understand that God is against divorce and move on.
But we have to stop and think about how radical Jesus' words were.
Jesus radically redefined marriage.
Because all of this is about moving away from the law and into love and grace.
And so, under the old system - if you divorced you had broken the law.
Under the new system, you have broken love.
If you have broken the law there are penalties and financial problems - but to break love, it destroys the people involved. Jesus is against divorce not because of the financial implications - he's against it because love is primary. Love is above all of our possessions.
In these verses, we move from covenant to relationship. This is vital.
A covenant is a promise. It is a contract.
If you have a marriage covenant - you promise to stay together. You have a contract that outlines the financial obligations.
But a relationship is so much more than that, right? If you have a contract - there is obligation. In a relationship, it is a choice.
If you get married, every day you will make the choice to stay in love with your spouse. Every day. Some days you will hate him or her and you will be disgusted by him or her. Every day you must choose to love them.
In the Old Testament, people lived by the covenant. There were rules, and they tried to live within those rules so that they didn't break covenant. Because of what Jesus has done for us on the cross, now we live in Relationship with God. This is huge and we can't miss this.
---
When Jesus talks about lust, he draws the lines between living within the rule of "you shall not commit adultery" and living within relationship. Because, if the rule says not to commit adultery ... well, what does that mean? Does that just mean that "If I'm married, I can't have sex with someone else? It isn't cheating if it's just a kiss. Oral sex doesn't count as real sex. Is it really cheating if our eyes are closed?"
It's easy to justify our sin.
Sinning is fun.
Let me say that again, because it's probably not something you hear your pastor say very often. Sinning is fun. The Bible tells us this, Proverbs 9:17 says, "Stolen water is sweet and bread eaten in secret is delicious."
If sinning wasn't fun, we wouldn't do it.
Sinning is fun, but ... it's not more fun than relationship with God.
In these verses, Jesus clearly outlines that we cannot live within the contract and earn our way into heaven. It's not good enough to try and keep just inside of the lines. If the Bible says not to commit adultery, and we try and push it just as far as we can without it being a sin - we have already sinned.
If you want to earn your salvation, you better be willing to cut off your hands and pluck out your eyes.
But Jesus offers us relationship instead of covenant. Jesus offers us the chance to live within God's glory in relationship with Christ.
And relationship is a daily choice. Every day we must choose to love God. We must choose to walk in our own way or to walk in the way of God. Every day.
Friends, this is the one thing that I will say specifically about sex before marriage. The Bible teaches us not to do it, but I know that many people today ignore that. If you didn't wait, your sins are forgiven. If you love the person you are with, wait. If your boyfriend/girlfriend is willing to sin against God with you today, he or she might also be willing to sin against God with someone else tomorrow.
A relationship is about love and trust and respect.
But in a true and good relationship, how do you punish your partner when he or she disobeys you?
You don't. That's not a relationship. That's a covenant.
We aren't trying to earn our salvation by being good. We aren't trying to prove our love to God by being good. We are good because we understand that God loves us either way. Wether we sin mightily or feed every orphan in India, God loves us just the same.
There is nothing we can do to change the love that God has for us. You can't be so bad that God will stop loving you, and you can't be so God that God will love you more - because God already loves you completely.
This is the Good News that we have to offer. God loves you. You didn't earn it. You don't deserve it. But God loves you anyway.
I am a sinner. I am ashamed and embarrased of my sins. And some days I choose my sin over my God. Sinning is fun. But every time I make that choice, in the end, I realize that God loves me anyway - and that God's love is so much greater than my sin. Our sins tear us apart and break us down. God's love recreates us and builds us up.
When Jesus talks about oaths, he tears down the idea that we have anything to offer. Everything that we have is Gods. We can't swear by our heads because our heads belong to God. We have one oath to make. And that oath is made daily. It is the oath to be in relationship with Christ. We must make it every day.
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