7 Symbols

7 Symbols                                                                              7.19.26

5^th sermon in Praise the Lord with Symbols Series

Genesis 4:1-7, Psalm 50, Luke 3:21-22

Ask for A company whose logo best fits its message/product

A seal allows an ambassador or representative to act on behalf of the One who has sent.  The Scripture proclaims, we are ambassadors of Christ:  we have been sent by God to bring a message, and that announcement is not our own doing, it is done on behalf of the King.

Employees in successful companies understand and implement the message found in a company logo.  Ambassadors act on behalf of presidents and leaders and kings.  Christians need to understand our role in announcing the King’s message.  We speak because we have been commanded by God to go and tell the gospel.  That reason is sufficient.  Many Christians and churches have forgotten the authority of the Lord.   We belong to God.

The Presbyterian Church, for all its struggle and decline, has an important seal, which accurately speaks to what the King has called us to do as a church.   All that we are is rooted in God’s initiation of grace and good news.  The top image is that of the descending dove of peace that came at Christ’s baptism.  The word of God in the form of an open Bible is the next part of the seal, with the next two lines coming together to speak to three different priorities:  the baptismal font, the Lord’s Table, and the pulpit.  The seal includes all things that ambassadors do:  they bring the new business of the king, they share meal and they listen.  Christians show their allegiance to our God by receiving the gifts of baptism, table fellowship, and commit to listening to God and announcing his Word.  The two fires on the seal recall the burning bush and the fire of Pentecost, both speaking to God’s presence.  Finally, if you imagine, or possibly squint, the overall shape takes on the figure of a human, reaching out with a message.  This seal reminds all believers of what our job is.  It speaks to how we represent the King of kings. 

When Jesus was being baptized, God spoke out of heaven:  This is my Son, whom I love, listen to him!  As Christians and as the church, this is our job, to see God’s gift of Jesus, to see the ultimate expression of God’s love, and listen.  This pleases God!

This summer, we have considered symbols that give their praise to the Lord:  bread and wine, sanctuary space, letters that speak to Jesus name and flags.  Today we bring forth the seal of the denomination.  At the end of this sermon, we’ll come back to the seal.

But first, let’s turn our attention to Psalm 50.  Reading this Psalm this week in preparation for today, it struck me that there is an important message here for Stockton Presbyterian.  God is God and he doesn’t need you (us, me)!

Didn’t expect that, huh?  But before you file out, this is a liberating perspective for us to unpack.  The Psalm is very similar to the story of Cain and Abel.  God speaks to those he has accepted, and then to the wicked.  It is to those who are consecrated that God offers some thoughts about who he is (consecrated means set apart for God’s service, and that is not a term for professional ministers, it is a term for believers)    

God is God.  He is your God, our God.  That doesn’t mean we own God, it means that we have been invited into a relationship with this God.  This God says some startling things in the Psalm, which I summarize with four statements:

 I don’t need you.

I own everything.

I don’t need to tell you anything.

I am not like you.

Now, if we pay more attention to the sin crouching at our door that is ready to devour us, we can turn each of these statements into an unintended message, and so deceive ourselves.  But God’s Spirit, dwelling in our hearts through faith, can deliver the true meaning of these statements.

 I don’t need you.  While at first our hearts might sink, it is liberating.  Pride goes before the fall.  We often think of ourselves in more important ways than we ought.  God can do anything.  He doesn’t need a bull from our stall or a goat from our pens.  He doesn’t need our sacrifices.  Really, he doesn’t need us in order to accomplish any of his purposes.

‘I don’t need you’ becomes, ‘but I love you’.  It is a totally different type of relationship.  God is, whether we are aware or not.  But in great kindness, we can be aware.  God has invited us into covenant, into relationship.  It is his love, not any neediness, that calls out to us.

God also declares “I own everything”.  “Every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills.  I know every bird in the mountains, and the creatures of the field are mine”.   This isn’t a petulant child speaking, it is the Creator.  All resources, all life in fact, comes from God. 

It is always a helpful exercise in our prayers to name what makes us anxious and then consider God in light of that anxiety.  Is God surprised?  Does God not have any money?  Is God overcome by obstacles?  Does God not have forgiveness for us, seventy times seven?  Has the Spirit not planted all the spiritual gifts necessary for a congregation’s work within us?  He owns the cattle on a thousand hills.  Does your problem extend wider or farther than that?   “I own everything” becomes, “my grace is sufficient for you”

The third idea for in the psalm is “I don’t have to tell you anything”.  If God were hungry, would he consult with us?  Would he seek our approval?  Would he need our signature?  No, he would eat.  All the world is his.   Yet, “I don’t have to tell you anything” becomes “but I do have something to tell you”.  God has spoken in the Scripture and in Jesus Christ.  I don’t have to tell you anything becomes, “but I do want to tell you something”.  How delightful is this!  God has chosen to say something to us, not because he needs to, but because he wants to. 

The fourth idea is “I am not like you”.  The Psalm declares:  Do I eat the flesh of bulls?  God is Holy.  We are in the image of God.  God is not in the image of people.  This is comforting because we have seen what humans can do apart from God.  The results are not good.  Because God is different, not like us, we can have salvation, we can have hope, we can have wisdom and help, grace and kindness and strength from above.

In Psalm 50, the result of God differentiating himself from all people is a command to those who are in covenant:

Verse 14-15 read:  Sacrifice thank offerings to God, fulfill your vows to the Most High, and call upon him in the day of trouble, I will deliver you, and you will honor me.  What a good way forward!

--sacrifice your thank offerings.  Our words, our actions, our gifts, all of it, can be done out of gratitude.  The command is to offer to God.

--fulfill your vows.  Do what you’ve said you will do.

--call upon God in the day of trouble and he will deliver you.

 A quick side note:   I had a little anxiety this week, and I was thinking about this Psalm.  In reading it, I realized that this anxiety was not from God, but created and nurtured by me.  I started to name my anxiety thinking of the Psalm’s phrase “in the day of trouble call upon God” when I realized that my anxiety wasn’t actually a day of trouble.  And so I started praying for those who were actually in trouble. My prayers went to others throughout the world who are suffering and in difficult situations. 

The Psalm next moves to God’s words to the wicked.  My suggestion is to not be in a place where these words apply to you.  If you are heading that way, stop, and go a different direction. The possibility to stop and go a different direction is as old as Cain and Abel.  We don’t know why God accepted Abel’s offering and not Cain’s.  But the clue is in God’s word to Cain:  If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?

The New Testament makes 5 mentions of Cain and Abel.  Two mentions are in the Gospels, when Abel is listed as the first to be martyred for his faith.  Hebrews says “By faith, Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did.  By faith he was commended as a righteous person, when God spoke well of his offerings.  And by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead.”   I John includes these words:  “We should love one another.  Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother.  And why did he murder him?  Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous.  Do not be surprised if the world hates you.”  Hebrews 12 writes that we have come “to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” 

To do what is right is the opportunity before us.  Yes, you can choose the sin crouching at your door, but that simply will lead to death.  And you don’t really want death.  How can we know what is right?  The seal speaks to us:  we are ambassadors with the gospel message.  We can tell the world, with God’s authority, that there is salvation.  Jesus is the way, the truth, the life.  No one comes to the Father except through him.  Trust in God and trust in Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior.  The seal speaks to that great message that has come down from heaven through Jesus.  We have the Word of God.  We have a baptism that claims us and a table where we meet with Jesus and a pulpit that reminds us of truth.  We have the presence of God in the story of the burning bush and the presence of the Holy Spirit that came to believers that day at Pentecost.  We too reach out to the world with a tangible, compassionate message of truth from the King.  We don’t ask for obedience to the ambassador.  We demand obedience to the King.

When we offer sacrifice and fulfill our vows and call upon God.  God reminds us of these good words at the end of Psalm 50:  The One who sacrifices thank offerings honors me, and he prepares the way so that I may show him the salvation of God.  Our offerings aren’t really needed by God, author of all life and resource.  We benefit.  Offering opens our hearts to see God’s saving work.  But most of all, and most important, God is honored.

We don’t ask for obedience to the ambassador.  We demand obedience to the King.  Remember who you represent.

To Be Determined: A Sermon on Heaven

To Be Determined                                                                 7/12/15

Revelation 21-22:6, John 14:1-14

Ask the congregation:   Where have you seen heaven on earth?

Today’s sermon is about heaven.  It is a one week break from our Summer Sermon Series Praise the Lord with Symbols.  I had a nice conversation with one of you and this topic was on your mind.  Heaven is our future because of the grace of the Lord.  So, in the leisurely pace of summer, and also in an ever increasing hopeless world, let us place our minds square before the reason for our hope.  The Bible says, “everyone who has in them the hope of Christ’s coming, purifies themselves, just as they are pure”  (I John 3:3)

Today’s sermon is about what the Bible says about heaven.  You need to throw away the medieval images of individuals on their own clouds playing their own harp.  This is not our destiny according to Scripture.

There are four main things we will explore today:

1.     an overview of Heaven from Genesis 1—Revelation 19.

2.     The consummation of human history:  the judgment (Revelation 20)

3.     The New Heavens and New Earth, as described in Revelation 21-22

4.     The call before us from heaven

 An Overview of Heaven

Our overview of heaven will take us through the Creation Story, Jewish understanding of the afterlife, the first advent of Christ, and the call upon our lives to follow Jesus.

The Creation Story

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.  One of the basic principles of heaven is that it is a part of God’s creation.  God is.  God is eternal.  That which is made is not eternal.  Yet humankind has a special place in the creation.  God said “let us make man in our image, in our likeness”.  Male and female are created, and humankind was made in the image of God.  “God blessed them and said to them, ‘be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it.  Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”  Christian theologians find fascination that God said “let us”, and see the idea of community deeply embedded in the creation and human story.  God’s plan, from the beginning, is for humans to reflect the image of God, to be in community, and to be caretakers of the earth. 

Jewish Understanding of the Afterlife

Over the generations, Jewish hope looks to the coming of the promised Messiah.  The Messiah will be sent from God to overcome all the wrong in the world, and rule with justice.  This Messiah will make Jerusalem his capital.  By Roman times, this Messiah has strong political overtones, helping conquer the most powerful earthly expression of kingdom.

Heaven is referenced over a hundred times in the Hebrew Scripture.  It is the place where God dwells (with the Temple being the space that the nation can experience the presence of the Lord).

Hebrew Scriptures also affirm the idea of resurrection.  Resurrection was a common idea throughout religion and history: an old, core foundation of the story of life.

The First Advent of Christ

Jesus comes from God to be and do the will of God the Father.  Jesus lives perfectly, full of grace and truth.  He is the way, the truth and the life.  He rejects the will of the crowds to become a political leader, shocking some who had become convinced that the Messiah would have to overthrow the power of Rome.  Jesus dies on the cross as our Savior.  He rises from the dead by the power of God.  His resurrection becomes our prototype.  Humans are not made immortal.  But through the power of resurrection, they will one day put on immortality.  Our future is secured because of the work of Jesus Christ.  We can live forever, not because of something within us, but because of the work of Jesus Christ.  Humans have perpetuated sin, and we need reconciliation with God. We cannot enter the presence of a holy God without the righteousness and holiness of our Savior.  This is accomplished through Jesus Christ.

The Call to Follow Jesus

As Christ’s followers, our lives take on his story.  We are called to become like him, which includes dying to ourselves, and having God’s Spirit live within us.  We are to let Christ’s power be displayed in our words and actions.  We are to do God’s will, not our own.  As his followers, we find fellowship (togetherness) with other believers.  We find community for the journey of life.  Our bodies will also one day rise from the dead, and enter everlasting life.

You might be saying:  I know these things.  I’ve heard this before, but what does it have to do with Heaven?  The truth is:  if heaven is for real, and what Scripture says about it is true:  it will be forever.  Our earthly lives are but a blink, a snap of the fingers, here and gone.  Yet, whatever the span is, is enough time to shape our lives for what will really last.  God’s plan is for us to live forever.  Will we accept that plan?   I hope that decision for you is not To Be Determined.

The second main thing I want to say today is about the Consummation of Human History:  the Judgment. 

The Scripture gives evidence that those who die before Christ’s second return experience two images:  Paradise and rest.  But both images are temporal.  After all, Revelation speaks about a New heaven.  It seems to replace the current version.  History and creation will be transformed by the power of God, not by our own power or goodness, and certainly not by our own evolution.

Immediately before our morning reading about heaven is Revelation 20, which speaks of the final judgment.  At that final judgment, the dead will be raised, and join the living to stand before the presence of God.  They will give account of their lives.  You and I will give account of our lives.  Scripture speaks of three main entities that will be judged:  every moral creature, cosmic forces, and the creation itself.

From a biblical perspective, every human has one life, which is followed by our standing before God.  We are responsible for all of the life given to us, and in a post-resurrection world, we are responsible for how we have responded to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Have we joined in making Jesus known as Lord and Savior?  We will be rewarded according to our works.  The Bible clearly says that it is faith in Christ, not our works, that allows us to live forever.  The Judgment is about giving account of what we’ve done for the glory of God, and our works validating our belief.  We will be rewarded according to our deeds.  This is good news for all of us:  every word, every deed, can give God glory.  This is good news for all of us:  we can make our whole life about giving glory to God.  By putting God first now, we judge ourselves through our attempts to live a holy and pleasing life before God, so that God’s pronouncement, which will be clear and decisive, speaks to what we’ve already built for him.

In researching the final judgment, I want to offer a few thoughts from Stanley Grenz in his thorough and insightful book Theology for the Community of God. 

1.     The creation needs to be judged because decay exists, and this was not God’s intent for the creation.  The creation longs to be liberated, according to Paul in Romans 8, and God’s judgment will liberate the creation (pg. 816)

2.     Humans need judgment.  We were created for community, and we have divided ourselves from God, neighbor and earth.  Judgment will ultimately rescue us from ourselves, and bring us back to God’s true will for us. 

3.     All humankind will be judged by their conformity to the will of God.  (820)  The judgment “will indicate the extent to which our individual histories reflect and incorporate the meaning of God’s history”.

4.     Hell is not the place where all the rebels get to hang out and party.  What a cosmic deception straight from the devil.  Hell is isolation.  It is the absence of community.  Originally reserved for the devil and his minions, people who choose hell choose everything that they weren’t created for:  death, not life, isolation, not community, distance, not closeness.

5.     “Judgment is the Spirit’s radical perfecting of the community we now share” (845).  There is a sense in which we experience heaven on earth.  There is strong biblical evidence that we will know each other, and enjoy each other in the life to come, in a never-ending existence.  But to get there from here, we have to go through judgment.  Judgment is God’s decisive act against all sin and wrongdoing, so that goodness and life return to their place as the norm.

What I’ve shared so far is necessary to help us think of heaven.  Heaven is the presence of God in its fullest expression.  After human history, with its breakthrough by Jesus Christ, and after the consummation of history in the final judgment, we then see the new reality:  the true and full expression of everlasting life.  In an interesting use of words, we see the New Heaven and the New earth “for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away”.

You heard Revelation read.  This particular chapter is the culmination of John’s vision, but also is the ending of Holy Scripture, with only a brief epilogue following these delightful words.

Our third goal today is to offer a few observations from the new heavens and the new earth.

·       Heaven is “seen” by John.  It isn’t just spiritual.  It isn’t just mental.  It exists.

·       The absence of the sea in the new heavens seems to imply that all which separates will not be part of that great day.

·       Heaven comes to earth.  God dwells on earth with his people.   Most people miss this.

·       The future is brilliant—literally.  We won’t need natural light.

·       Heaven is built upon human history:  The 12 tribes and Apostles are given special place on that day.

·       The most valued elements of earth are but things used for walls and streets and entry ways.  We walk on the gold, histories most sought after element.

·       Nations still exist in this vision, only, existing for their true intent of blessing others and God.

·       Heaven has the river, trees, fruits, leaves.  Creation isn’t something to be forgotten.  It is good and will endure because God made it.

·       There is the perfect balance of city and creation in the vision

·       There will be no more curse.  A quick side note:  I’ve heard from several people over the years about how, or why, would we want to live forever.  What will we do?  No more curse.  Think of all that you love, or will come to love, without any of the effects of sin. 

·       God’s presence will rule.

·       God’s servants will reign forever.  There is work to be done on that great day, freed from the power of sin, we will then do what God wants done.

The final part of today’s sermon is The call before us from heaven.

Revelation invites us to thirst for God, now.  We are called to overcome evil, now.  We are to move away from all that leads to the second death, the death of the spirit, now.  In doing so, we see little glimpses and have brief moments of heaven on earth.  We come to taste and feel and see the real future.  Paul writes:  Now we see dimly, then we shall see face to face.

In closing, a quote from G.C. Berkouwer, from his book The Return of Christ

“The new earth is never a strange and futuristic fantasy, but a mystery that penetrates into this existence and will make itself manifest there, where steadfast love and faithfulness meet, where peace and righteousness kiss each other, and where the lines that seem blurred to us now will come clearly into focus.”

In other words, To be determined, but with early results in, the future looks, and is, good!