Free to love

Text: 1 John 3:16-24

Focus: Loving others

Function: To help people be free in the New Commandment

Form: Bible Study

Intro: First, I want to thank God for the way I was raised.

Although my tradition was more closely related to American Evangelical Christianity than it ours here which more closely relates to Historic NT Christianity, I was taught, like most of the Brethren, that we are called to be radical disciples of Jesus.

That, I believe, is great.

My Church was part of a holiness movement. Holiness movements were modern forms of the Pietist movement that informed early Brethren and the Puritans.

I heard some great holiness sermons during my day.

And in one sense, it was great preaching.

The movement was/is biblical.

James 1: ²⁷Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

Holiness movements concerned themselves with the second part of that verse, “Keeping oneself unstained by the world” as their marching orders.

We didn't allow the women to cut their hair, the women were covered in one way or another, the men didn't leave the top buttons of their collars open. No tobacco. No alcohol of any form. No movies. No dancing, even for a little while, no fellowship meals at church. I'll explain that one later for anyone interested.

And it made for great preaching.

A friend of mine pastored a Nazarene Church downtown Detroit and one Sunday come forward during the altar call to confess a -what I would call very big- indiscretion that he committed just the week before.

The pastor talked to him about it later asking how he could have done such a thing with another woman and he said: “but preacher, last Sunday you didn't mention it as a sin, so I thought we were okay for a week.”

I don't know if that preacher was kidding. When he told the story, it didn't sound like it.

Within this holiness movement, there is a lot of doubt about one's motives.

We were raised in a particular holiness tradition that indicated that if we died with unconfessed sin in our hearts, there could be no salvation.

I believe it was wrong, but this whole church was built on this doctrine and again, it made for great preaching.

There was so much to preach about!

There are so many ways that healthy, normal things can be taken out of balance in such a way as to provoke a form of idolatry or dependency, and that was sin.

We believed that in the power of the Holy Spirit, Christians can and should live sin free lives and if they commit a sin, and it can be as small as a white lie to help someone's feelings, or even enjoying secular employment more than going to Church, we were sinners.

So, I grew up thinking that I was indeed a miserable sinner who was really lucky to have such a church to point it out to me. I was told that they were faithful to the Word.

So image the doubt and shame I carried when I was first a pastor and I constantly read this verse 1 Corinthians 11: ¹follow me as I follow Christ.

I imagined that the man who wrote that verse was such a perfect, sinless saint to be able to make that claim.

In my imperfection, and my awareness of it, every time I read that verse, I realized that since I was not yet perfect, I could not make that claim.

It lead me to a sort of spiritual competition with others. As long as I was more dedicated, more holy, more pure, more pristine, more innocent and more whatever than all the members of my church, I could make that claim.

But it isn't a competition. No. It is a journey. And we are not proving who is the most righteous by our actions and calling out those who do not measure up. No. We are partners who enable and encourage each other to be more like Christ.

Now there are two ways to react to this problem of moral purity.

One is, we can throw it out altogether and say that there is no such thing as immoral actions. I mean that. We can say immoral actions are merely evil actions. But actions that are not evil, ones that don't harm others, ones that make us feel better, ones that we enjoy are all okay as long as no one is harmed in the practice of it.

We can say that. And for the most part I do believe that sin is best defined as evil. It is defined as injustice. It is defined as greed. It is defined as bitterness and unforgiveness but it, as the scripture states, has nothing to do with the things that we put into our bodies. As Colossians 2:20-23 states.

Or, we can also strive for moral purity along with our taking care of widows and orphans in their distress.

You see, I believe that the emphasis only on the modern description of what moral purity meant, and the ignoring of the taking care of the widows and orphans in their distress became such a huge call to this holiness movement because it gave them the right to be greedy and to not be concerned with the plight of the poor since they were so involved, so energetic, about holiness.

And the problem is that in so doing, we neglect the weightier matters of the law.

It ignores the passionate teachings of Jesus, the prophets and even the apostles.

This passage sets me free from that false standard of good Christianity.

Vs. 19 “This then, is how we know that we are serving the truth...”

That is an huge claim. It gets even bigger when our claim of “the truth” is different from the claims of “the truth” given by the world's other religions.

But God does not give us these verse to compare ourselves with others.

I thank God, we all do, we thank God for the saints whose Christian sacrificial lives have shown us how to be Christians.

We are all grateful for those whom we followed who followed Christ.

This verse is not given to compare ourselves with others at all.

It is given to compare ourselves with Jesus, on a personal level.

Does our conscience convict, or condemn us?

It is a personal question.

And the answer is not in the way we feel about it.

The answer is not in a false dichotomy of what is and isn't morally pure, that changes with the culture, it always has and always will.

Nope, the answer is in this questions that we all have to ask ourselves. Do we love our neighbor as ourself?

Look. I believe that he is saying that compared to God, compared to Jesus, we all have room for improvement. There is always something for us to be working on.

There is always something for the preacher to be encouraging, enabling and helping his or her congregation see through passion, the word, stories and life experiences.

Always more to be done.

But there is no room for shame.

We can overcome negative spiritual notions through one discipline.

And it isn't a list of things that we do not do.

The discipline that proves the reality of our faith before God, Jesus, the Angels and the whole world is this: Vs 18 from today's text: My children, our love should not be just words and talk; it must be true love, which shows itself in action.

At the end of 2 Corinthians brother Paul also tells us this: “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith.”

The answer, both times, is not if we can recite the right prayer, gave the right amount, attended worship the required amount of times, dressed the right way, nope. The answer is this: “when we have doubts, do we have experiences of love and charity that prove us to be lovers in deed as well as in words?

When we walk in love, we walk with God. Period.

I didn't figure this out until about 7 years ago.

As we do good for others, not as we don't do the things that others do, but as we do the good, we are able to say, “Follow me as I follow Christ.”

Before that, I was bound by the fear that I did not measure up.

But that isn't what God expects, wants or desires.

God wants us to love others.

And as we do that, we do God's will.

We are not bound to fear, but free to give, love and help others.

Join me.

Heavenly Security

Text: Psalm 4

Focus: Peace (security) for believers

Function: To help believers rest in the power of God.

Form: Story telling

Intro: A few weeks ago, I was watching a TV drama that's a political show, I think it is designed to give a positive view of the Front-Running Democratic Presidential Candidate for 2016.

In the drama, there is a professor of religion at a Washington DC university who is the perennial good guy.

And, as a teacher of religion, he has been talking the last few weeks about the concept of warfare espoused by Augustine called “just war.”

In my opinion, governments may be able to exercise what is called a a “justifiable defense,” but to me, the concept of just war is a contradiction in terms.

Now, I have a son who is a police officer. He has been charged, as the Bible says, with the use of deadly force as an agent of God.

It is an awesome responsibility. We trust peace officers to protect the entire population.

I pray hard for him that he will use his authority with God-fearing equity.

He is a good man. He is different from me. He has always been different.

To him, most issues are black and white. To me, everything is a situation. He is able to make quick, life changing judgments.

If he catches a drunk driver that has no previous record, he is more likely to drive him or her home than arrest them. That is, provided they are respectful.

And right now, he is questioning everything about his career choice.

He has enforced the law and has made some enemies.

And the few officers and police departments that are indeed racist are giving him a bad name.

He tells me, Dad, there is just such a lack of respect for the Police these days that I don't know if I can continue.

But, I have seen the terribly destructive effects that Crystal Meth and Crack Cocaine can have on a life, a family and a community.

A Heroin addict I was working with introduced me to a young mother. She had been a beautiful girl, but her addiction to Crystal Meth had rotted all her teeth and left her face pock-marked.

The saddest part of it for her was that her baby's father was her drug dealer.

She was arrested and he wasn't.

He gained custody of her child since he himself had not been arrested and was smart enough to not use the product he was making.

And he was an evil man. In order for her to see her daughter, she had to come to his house and party with him by giving both herself to him and to his drug.

Because she consequently could not pass her drug test, she could not gain custody back.

She became a victim of human trafficking and he made even more money by selling her body.

If I were to call anyone evil, it might be him.

She was trapped in a haze of drugs, sex and addiction just to see her daughter.

Praise God that I was able to find a Catholic Social Service agency that provided the legal help to get her free. Sadly, the consequence was a six month stay in foster care for her child.

My son is working to protect this woman and feels terrible about the way his profession is appreciated by the local community.

War, drugs, prostitution, human trafficking, all of these things are signs of human evil. All of these are signs that we need a savior. All of these are signs that the world needs the Church to pick up the mission of Jesus and work toward health, healing and freedom for everyone.

What shocks me is that my son works in Lancaster, Co, Pennsylvania.

While I pastored there, one of my parishioners called it the “most righteous county in all of America.”

But my son actually busted an Amish Cocaine smuggling ring. Amish.

They called is the most righteous county because all over the county, one will see warehouses owned by different religious organizations where food and other sundries are collected to be distributed all over the world.

The school superintendent was concerned because there are over 100 different language groups represented in the Ephrata school district because of the refugee resettling going on by all the churches.

Great good, and in the middle of it, great evil. Destructive forces. That is his context.

He is despondent about his calling.

I think he needs a good dose of today's scripture.

Good versus evil. Right there. Right here. I watch that show that justifies a military that has arbitrary power to enforce the good of one nation and call it justifiable.

I see the destruction that drugs and racism has caused in our cities and at times, one can give up hope.

But when I look at verse 3, “the Lord knows how to keep the Godly for Himself” I find hope.

Just who are the godly?

Well, that is debatable, maybe even in this room.

Maybe the best definition is “everyone who hates and resists evil.”

Maybe it can be described in the Lord's prayer: “Deliver me from Evil.”

There is a lot of interpreting done by translators.

And a good case can be made in the Lord's prayer for “Deliver me from Satan.”

Not a great case, but a good case.

The way the Greek article is not used in the passage indicates that Jesus is telling us to pray that we might not be trapped by the force of evil that exists in this world.

Whether we personify it is the Devil, or we personify it as the choice to do wrong, the possibility to choose the wrong value in every situation leads me to pray the Lord's prayer with a silent “one” for “Evil One” whenever I am publicly praying it. When I pray it privately, I always pray “evil one.”

Evil does exist. And we live in contrast to it. We live in contrast to it with God.

David is appealing to Good.

David is appealing to the God who does Good.

David is appealing to the God who does not have evil in God's existence.

David is appealing to the God who personifies the opposite of evil.

In this Psalm, David is asking some big questions of God.

And David is reminding God of God's love and fairness.

I admit I don't understand why God answers some of my prayers with a yes and others with a no.

I don't know why.

But when I read this Psalm, I am reminded that God still loves the good. And that God has still called me to love the good as well.

God has called us to love the good without giving up on doing good.

Last night I had the privilege of hearing a panel with Cliff Kindy, a professor of Islam at a US university, another professor, I am not sure, but both men were passionate with heavy accents. They spoke about Boko Haram and the power they have to make converts.

We heard them say many things, maybe the most important is that although they are Muslims, they are not practicing Islam.

They appeal to the young who want to adventure Jihad and the appeal happens because their pre-frontal lobes are not yet developed.

They appeal to the victims of raging poverty in Nigeria who are kept in poverty because of an extremely corrupt government. They did express some hope for the new regime.

But they called us to peace. They called us to walk in peace with them.

They begged forgiveness for the violence done in the name of Islam.

They asked us to help them forgive the bad name these Jihadists give them.

It made me think of some of the crazy things I hear proclaimed against undocumented aliens, people with different gender identities, the poor, Muslims, people of other races and others who are not part of the ruling race, gender and religion in the US by those who claim Christ.

And they said this: All of this is political power that uses religion to exercise its violence.

And that makes sense to us, except government corruption seems to be the primary business of the wealthier Nigerians.

Not all of our politicians are corrupt. As a matter of fact, most of them are sincere, I pray.

It was almost like they were saying “we are having a problem with some rebellious kids, be patient with us, help us forgive and bring them back to the fold.

He asked for our forgiveness. And then he gave statistics of violence in Afghan committed against the population by UN forces.

It sounded as bad as Vietnam got at the end.

He didn't accuse. He just reminded us that their forgiveness of us is a lot as well.

The terror of the girls in Chibok. Most of them are still alive and are being used as an human shield to protect Boko Haram's camps, some have been given away to men of power in the movement, but many, if not most, are still alive.

The discussion, hearing the evil could have been depressing. But I was so much filled with hope.

You see, what I get from this Psalm is this: “Don't give up hope!”

God loves the good.

God still loves the good.

And I wish you could have heard the one Muslim get going. He could have been a Baptist preacher.

He refused to let this dismay him.

This started because Christians and Muslims started working together and Boko Haram excluded themselves from the table.

They retaliated, but the, 300 girls are held hostage, 10-15,000 have died, 180,000 people have been displaced. Only 1 in 5 churches survive and the people are desperate.

But they didn't give up hope.

As this Muslim leader started going, his voice raised, his tenor quickened and with joy he proclaimed that this will be a day that redefines Islam as a the religion of peace that it is.

I loved the way he defended the peaceable nature of his faith. Let me read this direct quote, I was typing fast! He said: “1,5 billion people practice Islam. And the vast majority practice the peaceable kind... ...Therefore we have an “Open Letter to Isis” (and he said Boko Haram and Isis are interchangeable in his mind) “that points out the way they use just a few verses out of context to justify violence in direct contradiction with the Spirit and the whole of the teaching of the Koran.”

And then he said something else, and it goes back to my introductory statement about the propagation of the idea of a “just war.” The TV show felt like propaganda for a war on Isis that is actually led by the Democrats. Heaven forbid!! But he said this: “Christians as well as proponents of every major religion have used the same device, verses out of context that contradict the Spirit and intent of the faith.”

His defense of Islam is certainly different that what I have heard on TV. I thanked God for it.

Even though nations posture in war and violence, God still loves the good and God still loves every single person, every single one, every race, every religion, every culture, every gender, every class, everyone the same.

I find that to be Heavenly Security.

The Bathwater

Text: John 20:19-29

Focus: Power of God

Function: To help people embrace their relationship with the Holy Spirit.

Form:

Intro: I want to be a little tongue in cheek this morning and give you the Phil Reynolds Abridged version of Church history since Constantine.

Constantine was the Roman Emperor who claimed to be converted to Christ.

Rumor has it that Constantine, when he was baptized, held his right arm out of the water because he did not want to surrender his sword hand to Jesus.

And in one sense, at least to me, that was the fall of the Church.

Up until that time the Church experienced phenomenal growth in spite of the fact that Christians were persecuted to death.

Many would wander why, when death was a very real option if one surrendered one's life to Christ.

Well, I suppose some sort of psychological study could be made about the same kind of death wish, or adventure, however one may describe it, related to teenagers joining ISIS.

Or. And this is much more relevant to me. Or, the Holy Spirit called people to Christ.

The early Church was amazing!

At first, they were so dedicated to the teachings of Jesus, to Jesus' generous grace and mercy, that they lived in Community, sharing everything, so that they could be more effective.

And although those first 300 years were filled with persecution, they were also filled with tremendous power: Power from God.

They took the teachings of Jesus serious enough to be the main welfare system for wherever they went in the Roman Empire.

The Holy Spirit was at work in them. And the Holy Spirit was working to call them to live sacrificial lives. Or at least, to love everyone else as much as they loved themselves.

The sincerity of their commitment, powered by the Holy Spirit, drew others to Christ.

The faith was real to outsiders because Christians lived it, even though sometimes it cost them everything.

There was no disconnect between the teachings of Jesus and the way the early Christians lived their lives.

And then, when Constantine was converted, the Church became the State Religion. Apparently, politicians and other power hungry people, joined the Church for political, or convenience reasons and the faith was sort of diluted.

Ironically, what the Church was praying for: official recognition, sort of became the worse thing that could happen.

Believers then were the same as believers now. They were people who lived, loved, cared and suffered just like people do now. Suffering is never easy. When Christianity was the official religion and persecution stopped, Christianity became easier.

I wonder if it was too easy. They got a break, but they lost the edge they had.

Maybe a little bit of comfort goes a long way.

I am not saying that there is anything wrong with being comfortable. Not at all. Comfort is a blessing from God.

But what happened is that people lost the “living for the good of others” mentality and started living more for themselves.

Again, it may just be a blessing.

But maybe the worst thing that happened was that social welfare, which was being done primarily by the church stopped being funded by the sacrificial living of Christians. Welfare had been done by the Church, and the church did it well. But All of a sudden, social welfare became the ministry of the Government instead of the Church.

I am not going to get into the current politics of that except to say that it has proven difficult to bring it back exclusively to the Church. We have tried for 1700 years.

In my abridged history of the Church, that was the first big event in Church history.

The second was the Reformation.

Throughout the history of the Church, there has always been a faithful remnant.

The Holy Spirit has always been active in the Church.

And in spite of the Church's downfall when what appears to be an insincere Emperor was “converted,” throughout history, men, women, children and the aged have found comfort and peace in the Church, the body of Christ.

But, at the same time, there appeared to be official corruption in the institution.

And the Reformation was started by sincere Catholics who never intended to cause a split. They were merely asking questions.

But because people are hot-headed and defensive, it became a split instead of a reconciliation.

We had already split around the 3^rd Century into the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Church.

But now, the Roman Catholic Church split into the Roman Catholics and the Protestants.

I regret the name: “Protestant.”

It means, those who protest.

And it is sad that where the body of Christ was promised a reputation for its love, over half of it is now known as the group that protests.

I think of that name for us: Protesters. Wow. Protest has been good, but it should be reserved for evil.

Now we name a branch of Christianity for the opposite of acts of love. And we often wonder why the world outside quite listening.

But, that just helps us remember that we still need an healing, a reconciliation. That is why I believe in Ecumenicism.

And at the Reformation, one big huge thing changed.

The Protestants, in order to throw off the burden of Roman Catholicism started changing everything.

And one of the things that we went to far with was the confessional.

And that brings us back to today's scripture.

“Receive the Holy Spirit, those whose sins forgive will be forgiven, those whose sins you retain will be retained.”

Think about it. That is a huge responsibility.

And, it could be used in the wrong way.

It could be used to control people by fear. It could be used to justify a system that strayed from Jesus' teaching.

Or, it could, and should be used, to impart grace to everyone.

“ I Forgive you.” Say it with me: “I forgive you.”

Those might be the most powerful words heard in Christianity.

We need 60,000 cookies for the Kairos weekend. During the Kairos weekend, Saturday evening, each of the Residents are given 2 extra dozen cookies to give to a resident of the prison that they need to forgive.

A true story is told of one such prisoner, a little guy what was a member of the Aryan Brotherhood in a prison.

He was picked on. So he joined this Neo-Nazi group in order to have someone to watch his back.

One night, he got a prison tat (tattoo) from a man who disagreed with his decision to become Aryan.

He was supposed to put some sort of Aryan symbol on the back of his neck. Instead, he inked the symbol of one of the black gangs on his neck, It was a sad joke.

The man wanted revenge. He and the tattoo artist were both on a Kairos weekend together. The little man, bravely brought a shiv, the prison term for makeshift knife in order to murder the man who played the joke on him.

He was going to use shiv to murder the other. But instead of offering him cold steel to his neck, he handed the cookies to him and threw away the shiv.

Another inmate, who was sitting at my son's table two years ago had written his mother's name on a piece of paper.

It was a list of the people who harmed us. It was a list of those we choose to forgive.

He had not seen or heard from his mother in 16 years. On Saturday night, he forgave his mother.

On Sunday morning, out of the blue, his mother came to the prison to visit him.

This is a miracle of timing.

She planned the trip a week before. He would not have received her.

But he forgave and God knew he would. And so, to prove the power of forgiveness, God started working the miracle of his mother's visit a week before.

This passage is speaking of real spiritual power.

If we forgive on earth, it will happen in heaven.

This is real. I have seen it time and time again. To many times has reconciliation happened after I have unconditionally offered forgiveness for it to be a coincidence.

God will indeed work.

God proved it to me, my son, this man, his mother and everyone else in that room.

This is real power.

So the title of the Sermon: “The Bathwater.”

It comes from the idiom: “Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.” In other words, don't go to far in our cleaning house.

We Protestants, while rejecting what might have been abuse by a religious system, while rejecting the power of an institutional Church, while rejecting the authority of the Pope, threw out the idea of confession because it might seem to “Roman Catholic.”

But look at the passage.

It is commanded here.

And I understand the idea of a confessing to a Priest.

Last week I mentioned how nothing that is not general among all of Christianity can happen on the Kairos weekend. In other words, no baptizing, no communion, no laying on of hands, no speaking in tongues, no praying to saints or Mary. Except for the fact that the team washes each other's feet during our team meeting, there is only one other thing that happens that is not denominationally specific.

We do confession. We constantly identify the ordained clergy to the men so that if they have sins they need to get off their chest, they can.

And since we are ordained, we cannot be compelled to testify against the men in the future.

I have heard a lot of stuff. Heavy stuff.

But I thank God that we embrace the Roman Catholic concept of confession. It is indeed biblical.

And, I understand the use of by Priests. They are trained to keep quiet. They are trained to respond with grace that benefits the sinner. And, they aren't gossips.

So, I submit that the baby might have been thrown out with the bathwater.

But in our text, there is more.

We have two stories in today's text about belief.

The second one is about Thomas and his doubt unless he sees physical evidence.

I suppose Thomas' faith is a great story for the modern man who needs objective proof to believe in the Divine. I rejoice that God was more interested in Thomas' salvation that chiding him for unbelief and the God who wants everyone to be saved went the extra mile and gave him the proof.

I rejoice in that.

But the lesson is “blessed are those who believe and have not seen.”

This again is a tie back to the Holy Spirit.

I want to replace those words with “blessed are those who listen to the Holy Spirit and let the Holy Spirit create faith in Jesus.

And that ties into the bath water theme.

The theme of not throwing out the baby with the bathwater does not only apply to confession, but to the work and power of the Holy Spirit.

At my conservative Bible College, while studying the book of Acts, the first verse we memorized was Acts 1:8. (Quote it)

It came up in my devotions this week.

Power. Real power. Real spiritual power.

Not for the sake of validating me, my faith, my choices, my life, especially over others, but so that Jesus might be shown to an hurting and dying world.

We are witnesses. Just like the first Church. And the Power of the Holy Spirit will always continue to strengthen our message and create faith in Christ.

The Proof of God's Love

Easter Sunday

Text: Isaiah 25:6-9

Focus: The Resurrection

Function: The resurrection is proof of God's love.

Form: GOK

Intro:

I choose this scripture for Easter Sunday because Mt. Zion represents the People of God.

And on the mountain, God, apparently through God's People, presents a banquet for all the peoples of the world.

We, the Church, present a banquet, as the text says, a feast of the richest food and the finest wine.

The best and the finest.

God's people give to the world the best and the finest.

And, God's people give it to the world for free.

One of my children is sort of estranged, or was estranged, from me because of politics.

I don't blame the child.

At times in my life, I have been what might be known as a hard preacher.

I remember in 2000, I preached revival services at 3 different Brethren Congregations and one Methodist one.

And if there is one thing a preacher, or any leader, or any person out to remember is that we should be very careful believing the praise that people say about us.

I had a reputation for not providing a clear call for coming to Christ.

And because I was so dogmatic, my child has become dogmatic as well.

So this week, I was truly blessed when this child called me to talk about the sermon heard last Sunday.

The text was Jesus clearing the temple of those who turned religion into a marketing concept.

They were taking advantage of people who came to celebrate and had to buy worship supplies. They had to exchange the Roman coin for Jewish coin in order to pay the temple tax. And the exchange rate was high. They had to buy the sacrificial animals, again at a higher price.

Jesus was angry that they turned this holy act into unfair profit.

Funny thing. Everyone was commanded to come to Jerusalem to worship.

God anticipated the problem of supplies. And God told the people to travel light, that is without the sacrificial animals. And when they got to Jerusalem, find a family to share the sacrificial animal. The guest was to buy the beer and wine for the party. It's right there in Deuteronomy 14.

But instead, it had become a money making altercation that stymied the whole idea of community sharing and worship.

Here is what impressed my child. Here is what God spoke to my child through the passage: Jesus said “My house shall be an house of prayer for ALL Nations.”

ALL NATIONS.

That is what God lead my child to focus on.

What my child heard the Holy Spirit say to them was that God's house is for everyone.

The child felt convicted that somehow we close it up to just those who are like us.

As my child contemplated those words, all week long, the Holy Spirit was showing my child just how much God cares for the entire world.

And, my child got it all right in a scholarly way.

The Child asked if “all nations” actually meant every genealogical sub group.

The Greek word translated for “all nations” is the same root word that we get genes, or tribes, or families from.

It definitely picks up this idea from Isaiah 25 of the incredibly huge inclusive nature of God's salvation.

Generous grace is implied by Jesus and this passage.

It is not only the Hope that the wrong in this world will not only be set to the right, but it is a banquet for everyone.

Everyone.

When I trusted in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Something wonderful happened to me.

God saved me!

God restored me to God's own self!

God healed and forgave me.

And God proved it by both the cross and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

So look again at verse 7: Here is more of the promise. ⁷Here he will suddenly remove the cloud of sorrow that has been hanging over all the nations.

I love the call of the Church.

We are called to provide this banquet to the world.

I want to call it “the banquet of grace.”

In love feast we focus on it with one of the scriptures. 2 Corinthians 5:17-21

Christ, the one who knew no sin became sin for us.

It is a mystery.

The mystery of the Atonement.

I like to call it better: The mystery of reconciliation.

Because the call to reconcile the world to Christ and each other, or to each other and Christ is proclaimed in the passage

A being. A person. And entity complete with a corporal body became a concept, a thing when God became sin.

He became sin.

He became brokenness.

He became failure.

He became evil.

He became wickedness.

He became greed.

He became war.

He became betrayal.

He became theft.

He became loss.

He became every single thing that keeps us from, and robs us from peace.

And all of that was killed on the cross.

History has pictured God in several different positions.

One of them being ANGRY GOD.

Regardless of our view of God, both angry and loving, angry only, or loving only, one thing is clear to me.

The sin problem, the wrath problem and all of that was satisfied on the cross.

So, I go back to the text and God's great big plan to bring the entire world together for a banquet.

For a banquet provided by God's people, the Church, the body of Christ.

God suddenly removed the cloud of sorrow that hangs over human history.

One day, all will be pit to the right.

Every injustice will be forgiven.

Every injustice will be vindicated.

But, as I believe, not in wrath, but in love.

I am glad that God is able to love my enemies.

Because of God can love them, then God can love me.

And here we are, inviting the world, inviting a broken, bruised, hurting, violent, sinful and sometimes even evil world to a feast given by the Grace of God, through God's people to this place of suffering.

Sorrow and death are eventually destroyed.

And do we need proof?

Yes!

The proof is in the resurrection. No matter how hard, no matter how evil, no matter how difficult life has become for everyone. God has prepared a feast for them and it is proven by the power of the resurrection.

Through this concept, people from all walks of life have come together in order to serve others.

We are the hosts of this great banquet.

Jesus didn't just die and rise again to save us for eternity.

Nope, Jesus died and rose again to create this community of believers who live by a different standard.

He created this community of believers to live as Easter People.

We are the people who no matter what refuse to give up hope that someday, God will make everything right again.

And He proved it by the resurrection.

He proved it by the community created by the Resurrection story.

He brought hope back to the hopeless.

This isn't just proof of God the Supernatural being.

This is proof, the God whose name synonymous with love.